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The decision by Speaker Hunt to cut the Junction City Mental Health Hospital is political, not practical. Hunt is punishing people in House District 14 because the Democratic Party appointee is being seriously challenged by Junction City Mayor Dwight Coon, a popular Republican. This has nothing to do with the merits of a mental health hospital and everything to do with election year politics.

It's politics in the worst sense! 

House District 14 is a district that has been hit hard by the Great Recession. It is bad enough that the only other state project, the West Eugene Parkway was killed by the Eugene City Council because Democratic supporters rejected the people's vote for it. Now they are using the flimsy excuse of needing community-based care as an excuse to kill a vital economic development project that really is a community-based mental health project.

We in West Eugene deserve better from leadership in Salem.

posted 2 years, 10 months ago
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