Timber Payments

The Jewell School District in Clatsop County plans to “bet the farm” to overturn a habitat conservation plan that threatens the district’s timber funding.

For decades, corporate timber benefited from tax cuts that devastated local budgets. Lawmakers want change and have filed dozens of bills, making this one of Oregon’s most consequential sessions for forest policy.

Voters in Josephine County finally passed a public safety levy. Also, we continue our series of conversations about Portland's next police chief. And we talk to local author Blake Nelson.

The plans will govern how some Oregon forests are managed for the coming decades.

We travel to financially-troubled Josephine County — where sheriff's deputies patrol only 10 hours a day — to hear about life in a region with limited law enforcement.