McHaddad: Silence, Cities - a Dentist is Talking About the Gas Tax

I love budget season, and I am thankful for the State’s existing gas tax. Elgin is an important tourism hub where visitors from across the world stop for fuel on the final stretch of journeys into the Blue and Wallowa Mountains. These tourists contribute to the costs of maintaining roads through the State’s gas tax, which makes up a six-figure portion to Elgin’s Street Fund.

So why do I oppose the gas tax increase in Measure 120 that voters demanded to vote on in a referendum? In what world is more gas tax revenue bad for maintaining a rural municipal road system? Oregon State Representative Cyrus Javadi, a dentist from the north coast who left the Republican Party due to his support for the gas tax, believes that his dental work should outweigh my years of writing municipal budgets when reviewing this initiative’s fiscal impact:

Rural counties and cities get half of the money raised from Oregon’s gas tax. That’s money that we need to fix our roads and bridges.

I put up these signs today around Tillamook and Pacific City near spots where our roads are falling apart.

I encourage you to check them out. See where the problems are. Then decide if you think we should raise the gas tax by 6 cents to repair our roads.

I say Yes, and I think you should too.

Despite what Rep. Javadi would pretend, this increase is actually going to result in a net decrease in City gas tax revenues. The increase in revenue that I could propose in Elgin’s Street Fund would fail to balance a corresponding fuel expense increase for the City’s vehicle fleet across the 2026-2027 Budget. It will not go to road maintenance, as much as I would love to prioritize additional improvements alongside the $250,000 of street repairs that will occur later this year thanks to Oregon’s Small Cities Allotment grant. The proposed gas tax dovetails poorly with fuel increases caused by the military-industrial complex’s unjustified war in Iran. With regular gas at $4.84 at the Elgin Chevron yesterday, a $0.06 increase does not just increase a gallon to $4.90, it will likely jump past $5 due to the cost of delivering fuel should voters pass Measure 120.

I would never presume to walk into Rep. Javadi’s dental office and tell him how to fill a cavity. The honorable representative from the North Oregon Coast has never written a City budget, but he seems to believe that those of us who have must yield to his ignorance of municipal public finance. Hundreds of Elgin residents signed this gas tax petition because unlike Rep. Javadi, they understand that Oregon’s transportation budget could have been balanced by focusing on actual road repairs and cutting massive amounts of waste without a cent of tax increases. I encourage voters to listen to their community leaders and Vote NO on Measure 120 in May to kill the Governor’s gas tax – and I encourage Rep. Javadi to stick to dentistry.

Editor’s Note

Right Now Oregon, LLC President Alex McHaddad is the Treasurer of Young Republicans of Oregon, which endorsed Clatsop Health District Director Christian Honl’s campaign for House District 32, currently represented by Rep. Cyrus Javadi. Right Now Oregon, LLC has no editorial stance on the HD32 race and does not intend to endorse any candidate.