Thanks to all of you who gave me their vote of confidence by selecting me as AOC Second Vice President two years ago. A lot of you didn’t have the opportunity to vote for me then, because you weren’t in office yet. As you may probably have already heard, we’re welcoming one of the largest freshman classes of county commissioners in Oregon history. Because of that fact, I want to spend a couple of minutes talking about this organization— its culture, and its value to you.

There are 120 county commissioners and county judges in Oregon. When the New Year arrives, 31 of those will be people who weren’t in office at the beginning of this year.  We’re losing a combined 300 years of experience; by contrast, the 2014 election cycle saw 150 years of experience depart. That’s a lot of institutional memory that we’ve said goodbye to—and many trusted colleagues and friends.

But one of the wonderful things about this organization is that it is constantly self-renewing. I had the pleasure of getting to know several of the incoming class at this conference, and have been impressed with your energy, drive and willingness to plunge right in. The door is always open for any commissioner or judge who wants to get involved. I look forward to meeting more of you in the year ahead.

I want to pay tribute and thanks to one of my early AOC mentors, former Wallowa County Commissioner Ben Boswell. He was known for his ability to say a lot in very few words, and one of his most famous “Benisms” was, “If you’ve seen one county, you’ve seen one county.” Yes, frontier, rural and urban counties differ in many ways, but we share core services and a common mission to advocate for the citizens we all represent and help to build safer, healthier, and more economically vibrant communities. This organization has always done a great job of finding common ground so all thirty-six counties can speak as a single voice on our important common issues.

In 2007, Ben asked me to become chair of this Association’s Human Services Committee, and that set me on the path that has me here before you today. This organization welcomes your participation and will be stronger because of it. I want to encourage you all to learn about our policy steering committees and participate in those of interest to you. I want to encourage you to learn about the full range of member services AOC offers and take advantage of them. And to you freshmen, I want to encourage you to enroll in County College.

I was a graduate of the first County College class back in 2006. I can’t say enough about what a great, in-depth introduction County College provides to the broad sweep of county services.  You should also realize what a great opportunity it is to start building a network of commissioners, judges and other officials in counties around the state. We’re often dealing with similar problems. It’s nice to be able to pick up the phone or shoot off an email and find out how your sister counties are approaching it.

One of those challenges facing all of us, and one that I want to make a focus of my year as your president, is the growing crisis of mentally ill people in our county jails. It’s estimated that two million people are behind bars in this country because of mental illness. It’s not an effective use of public resources, it doesn’t make our communities safer, and it doesn’t help people get better. Last spring, the National Association of Counties, the Council of State Governments and the American Psychiatric Association launched the Stepping Up Initiative, designed to bring focus at the local level to this crisis. Nationally, more than 300 counties in 42 states, representing about 35 percent of the total US population have signed on to Stepping Up. Here in Oregon 11 counties have signed on; and I want to encourage every county to Step Up in the coming year.

Adopting the Stepping Up resolution, however, is only the first step; then you, as commissioners and judges need to use your power as conveners to bring people to the table from the criminal justice and public health systems to look at your present systems, see how they can be better integrated, and develop a plan to meet your service gaps. In the year ahead, AOC will be looking for a number of ways to support counties that are already part of this initiative as well as encouraging others to sign on.

We have a lot of challenges to work on in the coming year with our communities and our state and federal partners. AOC will be at the table in Salem doing everything we can to help craft a solution to our critical transportation funding shortfall. We’ll be there in Salem and Washington D.C. doing all we can to protect every one of the industries that are the economic drivers of our communities. We’ll be advocating for solutions to the housing crisis that has touched every corner of our state. We’ll be doing all of this and more, because we believe deeply in this special state that we all call home.

Contributed by: Bill Hall | AOC President, Lincoln County Commissioner