By BEN WEST
Clackamas County Commissioner, Pos. 5
As a local leader in Clackamas, I am actively seeking innovative solutions to the pressing issues of homelessness, mental health, and substance use. These complex challenges require bold, creative approaches, but are also expensive. Sustainable timber policy may offer a significant opportunity for positive change.
Empowering the county without depending on faltering state leadership
Within Clackamas County are 94,085 acres of unique, federally managed lands known as the Oregon and California Railroad Revested Lands (O&C lands). Clackamas is one of 18 counties with these lands, which were last authorized in the 1937 O&C Act to be harvested at their greatest sustainable potential and to distribute 50% of timber receipts back to the counties as tax-equivalent payments.
Clackamas faces significant challenges, particularly in light of declining Secure Rural Schools (SRS) funding and state-level failures to effectively address the crises of homelessness and mental health. Increasing sustainable timber production on O&C lands presents a path to generating independent and predictable revenue for these counties and opening new funding pathways for community-driven priorities like our recovery-oriented care continuum. This self-reliant approach empowers Clackamas County to tackle these human crises without depending on the faltering leadership at the state level.
Currently, Clackamas is grappling with a severe crisis characterized by persistent homelessness and open-air drug use, with overdose rates climbing alarmingly. Meanwhile, behavioral health services are deteriorating rapidly throughout the state. Recently announced state budget cuts will eliminate 27 behavioral health positions by October, 2025. Clackamas has had some success because it wisely used its local Supportive Housing Services dollars and took a different policy approach than Multnomah County.
Solution to revenue for programs?
As a commissioner and a registered nurse, I have championed a recovery-first approach that prioritizes immediate treatment and comprehensive care over ineffective housing-first policies. Regrettably, the state has not been able to solve these problems, but restoring reasonable and sustainable timber harvests may be the solution to putting revenue back into county general funds and giving local governments the independence they need to deliver locally supported initiatives.
O&C lands can be a reliable source of funding to balance the unreliability of state assistance. Currently, Clackamas receives roughly $1 million annually from the federal subsidies called Secure Rural Schools (SRS) to offset the lack of timber receipts that could come from the O&C lands if they had stronger, more predictable management. Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden has championed SRS for 25 years, and while we are grateful for that advocacy, we need a long-term solution. Additionally, without a modern solution to how our forests are managed, we risk losing our greatest renewable resources to the annual trend of massive wildfires. However, timber harvests have fallen dramatically from 1.185 billion board feet in the 1980s to just 205 million under the current BLM plan. By increasing sustainable production through practices like selective thinning, Clackamas could enhance its share of statewide timber receipts, potentially injecting millions annually into its general fund.
Many possible benefits
I am constantly looking for ways to improve self-sustained funding models, preserve jobs, and serve people. Sustainable and thoughtful timber management promises long-term forest health, and could fund a treatment-first recovery continuum, while restoring fiscal autonomy. Modernizing how the O&C lands are managed presents a financial opportunity for counties to break from funding norms that have lacked creativity in recent years. Balance is possible. ◼︎
Ben West has been a Clackamas County Commissioner since 2023.