Lawmakers consider proposal to spend more on rest stops

NEAR WILSONVILLE, Ore. - It's no secret the state of Oregon has a huge budget headache but some lawmakers want to spend millions more on rest stops, doubling what's spent now.

A few years ago, the Baldock Rest Area between Wilsonville and Aurora along Interstate 5 had 126 reports of crime. People had been living in a back area of the rest stop, and some of them had been doing so for years.

The group that cleaned it up, Oregon Travel Experience (OTE), thinks it's worthy of more responsibility and a lot more money.

"It was very bad," said Madeline MacGregor, who works for the agency. "A Canby school bus was actually picking up children who lived (at the rest area)."

OTE took over nine rest areas from the Oregon Department of Transportation and worked with law enforcement and social services to find people places to live and cut the crime rate at Baldock in half in the first year.

Now some lawmakers want to let OTE run a lot more rest areas for more than $6 million.

"These structures have been around since the 1950s and 60s and there's been no improvements made except just enough to keep them going," MacGregor said.

Originally, the additional money OTE might get would come from the budget ODOT uses to maintain roads. But the head of ODOT rejected that idea.

Now the plan is to use new funding from fees when people use the state's new website that launches this summer to get driver and auto license documents.

Still, during a legislative committee meeting Tuesday the head of ODOT, Matthew Garrett, cautioned if funding projections don't come true, he doesn't want ODOT to be on the hook for the shortfall.

"I hope the ePortal conversation is healthy and moves forward, but I think it's prudent to be on the balls of our feet to address the potential threats to that funding source and the implications to the maintenance of the transportation system," he said.

It is not a done deal. The bill has to make it to the Senate floor and pass both chambers of the Legislature.

OTE would run 28 rest stops and ODOT would still run 13 rest stops. But OTE would use the additional money to fix all the structural problems that have been ignored for years.