State hires toll staff … did Kotek mislead us?

By Taxpayers Association of Oregon
OregonWatchdog.com

The last word on tolling was Governor Tina Kotek calling for a two year pause on tolling due to problems with the project.  Kotek said there needed more time for the transportation panel to deal with issues of the tolling being too expensive for lower and middle class Oregonians and a second major problem of tolling diverting traffic to neighborhoods to avoid the toll.

A recent job notice that came across our desk shows that the state is proceeding with hiring tolling staff.

The question is, what happened to the pause?

What happened to answering the question on how much the tolls will cost and how people will afford them?

What happened to answering the question on how they plan to stop toll avoidance crowding people’s neighborhoods?

Does the public fully know how many tolls, where they will be and how much they will cost yet?

Where is the public vote or lawmaker vote on  these final solutions?

The most we look at Kotek’s pause, it seems less of a pause to fix the problem a d more of a w y to push tolling beyond the 2024 election.

— If you think people should have a right to vote on tolling, please sign the statewide petition here.