HAZEN URGES FEDERAL FUNDING FOR LOCAL PROJECTS IN D.C.

Clatsop County Board of Commissioners Chair Jeff Hazen urged support for various local projects and talked climate change and tsunamis with members of Congress and their aides during a three-day trip to Washington, D.C. last week.

Hazen met with staff members from the entire Oregon Congressional delegation with the exception of Rep. Greg Walden, and had brief but informative face-to-face exchanges with Sen. Jeff Merkeley and First District Rep. David Wu.

A key focus of the visit was pressing for support of several local projects in search of federal funding in the upcoming fiscal year. The projects include: planning for relocating public facilities in Clatsop County out of the tsunami inundation zone; Astoria Riverfront Trolley track repair; replacement of Avenue U bridge in Seaside; repairs to Port of Astoria’s East Mooring Basin causeway; and LEKTRO’s request for Defense Department funding for its aircraft tugs.

Hazen also urged attention for federal issues affecting Warrenton including changes to FEMA flood-mapping and the proposed transfer of federal dock facilities in Hammond to the City of Warrenton.

Hazen called all his meetings with Congressional staff productive.

“They all asked great questions,” he said.

Tsunami preparedness in particular “is on the forefront of everyone’s mind” as of the result of the 2004 Indian Ocean disaster and the recent quakes in Haiti and Chile, he said.

Hazen also joined two other county commissioners from Florida and Virginia at a meeting with an aide to Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry to discuss the new Climate Communities program. Launched in 2008, the national coalition of cities and counties promotes a bigger role for local governments in federal clean-energy initiatives ? a message the three county leaders made to Kerry’s staff, Hazen said.

At one point in his visit, Hazen stepped into a hearing room in the Capital Building for what turned out to be an awards presentation for a noted Korean human rights advocate, Lee Ae-ran, who fled North Korea in the 1990s and now works to help fellow defectors acclimate to life in South Korea. It was an especially meaningful event given his own visit to Korea in 2003, he said.

Hazen, who noted all the staff he met with “were very glad I came out,” said such face-to-face meetings are beneficial in promoting local interests, and added he would like to see the county make the Washington, D.C. trip a yearly event, and to include a delegation of other local community leaders.