Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Hello, Oregonians, and welcome to Life and Legislation with Lucetta. If you've ever wanted to get to know your politicians personally or understand what it is they are actually doing, then you're in the right place. I'm your podcast host, Jessica Campbell.
[00:00:17] Speaker B: I'm your state representative for House District 24, Lucetta Elmer.
[00:00:21] Speaker A: This podcast is a place for you to get to know Representative Elmer both personally and professionally.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: We want Oregonians to feel connected with and educated politics. So we're so glad you've joined us on a fresh new podcast adventure as we cover all things about life and legislation.
[00:00:41] Speaker A: Hi, Oregonians, and welcome back to Life and Legislation with Lucetta. Lucetta, it's so good to see you and get to do these more often now that things are, well, theoretically calming down. But we might actually talk about that today, right when you think your schedule should be getting a little easier. Things keep popping up. But before we talk about what's going on currently this week in the Oregon Legislature, I wanted to rewind the tape back to before you got into politics because we've mentioned a few times on here that you and your family have several small businesses and that's something that obviously you care about, which led to maybe being interested in the political world and helping small businesses, helping people and just helping Oregon in general. So what are all of your small businesses? How did they start?
It's pretty amazing to see it grow with your family because now all of your kids are involved, even some of their spouses are involved. So let's hear what else you have in your life that is not about politics.
[00:01:44] Speaker B: I'm going to take you way, way back to the 90s when Denny was working for someone else, as was I, and we had just started our family and and he wasn't loving what he was doing professionally. And so on Sundays after church, we would go to the little, I think it was a grocery store, but it had a little coffee area. And he would get the Statesman or the Oregonian newspaper one of them and would just look through all of the want ads and find things like, oh, here's a business for sale or here's an opportunity. I would get a donut and I would eat that and just be his sidekick while he was looking and circling and dreaming. So listen to a lot of his thoughts during that time. And then in 98, it so happened that due to lots of things, he was laid off from his job and we had to really look at what was next. We had just had our second child. She wasn't even quite three Months old. So I was not working and it was sort of a wow, didn't see that coming time period. But I think it was great. It's what needed to happen because it pushed us into the new chapter that we now live, the entrepreneurship chapter. And so we started with a business that we still have called Land Use Resources.
In Denny's previous job, he had his real estate license, but it wasn't necessarily he. He wasn't dealing with residential real estate. He was dealing with more land use issues and rezoning and timber grounds management, things like that. And back in the late 90s, there just wasn't a lot of resources available to people, or at least readily available where they could understand how to maybe change zoning of their land if they wanted to build a second home or divide it and sell part of it or whatever. And he, because of his previous job and his real estate license, he, he had that knowledge. And so we started Land Use Resources and he shared his knowledge and helped people who wanted to do something with their land. And then came Craftmark, which we still have. And it has seen lots and lots of changes throughout the years. But Craftmark is a reclaimed lumber yard. So we salvage wood from old barns, buildings that are being torn down.
We have a lot of wood from the Chicago Sound Wall, which was a structure, wooden structure that went along their highway to divide the lanes and bring this wood into our yard, which is in McMinnville, in the industrial park and repurpose it, remill it, whatever, and then, or sometimes just wholesale. And that gets used to make things like stair treads or we bring in big beams and we add a texture to them or whatever the customer wants. And those beam packages are put into homes. And so Craftmark, we still have land use resources, we still have all the land use also is different.
Today we have got our real estate. It sort of represents our real estate company which in that company we have many RV parks and we have one right here in my district out towards Sheridan and we have a couple over in Central Oregon. We had one in Washington. We sold that. We have a long term housing sort of apartment style building in Toledo and some other rentals. But the fun businesses are on 3rd street in McMinnville and that would be the coffee shop, Union Block Coffee and the Hotel Douglas on Third, Boutique Lodging, which is a small boutique hotel. And both of those are right downtown.
[00:05:27] Speaker A: That is a lot to keep track of. There's a lot of fun in that and the entrepreneurship in that. But I'm also thinking of all of the paperwork and the logistics that you would have to keep straight and clearly there's no way you could do all of that yourself. Enter family help, right?
[00:05:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Family and not family. Yes, for sure. And in, in between the way back time machine of the 90s and current, there were other businesses along the way. I mean I had the pleasure of. We owned the McMinnville Grand Ballroom for a season, is now called the grand and we host Story Night there during the non summer months. We had Posy Land which is the local flower shop and others throughout the years. I think we've talked on here before about a little school that I had for a bit. But anyways, entrepreneurship has been something that has been so fun and challenging and all of the things. But along the way, I mean there's been a lot of hard work and we've immersed ourself into the businesses and for a while some of those businesses, you know, it was just me and I and obviously some of them we had employees. Currently we have I think maybe between 30 and 40 employees. But to do what you were alluding to, the hr, the, the payroll, the paperwork that is in house and we do employ our four children currently and some of their spouses even make up that 30 to 40 employee group.
And they are integral in the success of our business. And it is, it is a true pleasure and joy to be able to work with the family.
[00:07:08] Speaker A: It really is. I love even just going by the offices to visit because you walk in and you get greeted by dogs and now babies and it's just a whole family affair. And it, I don't know, it just, it feels so warm and inviting. And I think anybody who's connected with businesses, that's, that's what you want. You don't want that cold corporate feel. You want that small town family. We know each other, you can pop in and it's amazing. So I love all that you've done and been a part of. It's. It's really neat to be connected with it all. And I was going to ask you this a little bit later in the episode, but since you mentioned that you at one point owned the Grand Ballroom where we host Story Night, I wanted to make a quick connection here. Many people listening to this podcast might not know that you and I together do this separate outreach that's connected but a little different. It's not really political, but it is connected to you in that we're reaching women in the community by letting them share their life stories. That's what Story Night is. We Have a podcast. We do live events with that. But a question comes up a lot that does tie back to a political question and that has to do with money. People wonder all the time about donations.
I mean, I know this question covers all different topics, but just to give the example of Story night, eventually we want to turn that into a nonprofit. But at the moment, you are the one graciously providing this platform because you see a value in it and that it would make a difference and matter to the constituents in your House district. And women will ask when they attend these events, can I donate to this? This is incredible. And the answer is like, well, yes and no.
And eventually when it's a non profit, then hopefully the answer will just be a nice cle. Yes, but because right now it's through your platform, it's a little tricky. And I think a lot of people don't know what the money rules are in relation to state representatives and other politicians that there are certain times you can donate, certain times you can't. And there are rules about the amounts. There are all these ethical considerations as well. So maybe we could take a minute where you could explain all of that to all of us who are not well versed in the specifics of money in politics.
[00:09:28] Speaker B: Sure. Yes. So it is. I'll just make it simple. We legislators cannot accept donations when we are in session. There is no campaigning, there's no raising money when we're in session. This year is an odd number year. So in Oregon, during odd number years, we're in long session. That went from January through June.
I'm out of session now, so I can raise funds, I can have fundraisers, I can work on my campaign. All.
So like you said, story night falls under my political platform, even though it's not necessarily a political event by any means, but it's something that you and I have joined in to. We believe in it and we want to continue to grow it and give women a stage to share their stories and bring about connectivity within our community. And it's beautiful and it is growing and it's, you know, doing all the things that we had hopes and dreams for. But you're right, for the first six months of this year, you know, people couldn't donate to story night, so they can now. And you can donate online at my website, lucetta4oregon.com and it's my name, 4f O R oregon.com There's a donate button on there and that it's super simple and easy. That will close again. You want to go back into short session. And there are a few times throughout the year that if we are in a special session or something that I think it gets turned off. But anyways, going to my website is probably the quickest and easiest but for story night purposes we can even accept checks at story night now. But yeah, it is something that when we're in session we are not allowed to accept money. And I have had people that obviously didn't know that it's a bit tricky and have sent in a check or something and I have to promptly send that right back so that I'm not violating any ethic guidelines for those who do donate.
[00:11:27] Speaker A: I mean obviously story night's one little piece of something that you do. But what are the other things if somebody donates money to you? I mean I would imagine there's rules on, you know, obviously you can't or you shouldn't just be like hey, I'm gonna take all this money and take a family vacation or you know, go buy a new car. There are things that that money is for, correct?
[00:11:47] Speaker B: Yes, it is pretty broad but it's also very public, you know, and all of my receiving and spending of finances and anyone can see that online, it's very transparent. So I'm spending my money much like other legislators on campaigns obviously and all of all that that entails. So mailers, maybe TV ads, social media, things like that. But also you're paying for staff.
You pay sometimes if you are going on a tour or you're being asked to be a part of a legislative tour that isn't in my district. But it's a learning opportun opportunity, your campaign funds will pay for that. Anything that's branding the legislator, marketing, getting their name recognition out there, something like story night that you are promoting, you know, anything like that.
[00:12:44] Speaker A: I imagine a lot of people don't realize how public that information is.
And so if somebody was wanting to know hey, what are our local politicians spending their money on? Where would they go?
[00:12:55] Speaker B: Find that, that you can go to the stateoforegon.gov I believe is the address or a quick Google search and you'll find it. And you're able to look up any state elected official, whether it be the governor, the treasurer, the representatives, the senators and you can see all of the money they've received, you can see who they've received it from and you can see how they've spent it.
[00:13:22] Speaker A: It's probably a really good thing to have that level of transparency. It's so interesting. I think there's so much on the website that most of us don't know is there. I'm sure at some point we'll circle back to the topic of money. But for the last few moments of this episode, I wanted to just get an update on what's going on this week because you are in the interim long session is over. It seems like things would have calmed down a little bit, but even this podcast recording had to be rescheduled because a meeting got called for you. And so what. What is going on in Oregon this week?
[00:13:58] Speaker B: So the governor did call us into a special session and that, you know, I think we have chatted. We chatted maybe last week on our last podcast about how ending this long session, we definitely left a big topic on the table that was not finished. And that was all around the Oregon Department of Transportation's budget. And we did not the very, very large proposed bill.
So that has resulted in the governor saying that she's going to cut a bunch of jobs or lay off people.
And there's just been a lot of conversation around that topic. So yesterday we did get word that Governor Kotech is calling all of the lawmakers back into a special session, which she has the right to do at any time. And that date that she chose is Friday, August 29th.
I think that is a peculiar day since it's a Friday of Labor Day weekend. But that is the day that she chose. So we will back to Salem to discuss a proposed new bill around the same topic, trying to figure out how we can fund odot. The governor did say that she is going to lengthen out the time period before these layoffs go into effect. Originally it was July 31st and she's pushed it to September 15th.
So that gives us a little more time. Obviously, us going into a special session on August 29th is before that September 15th, looming deadline.
However, I do just want to reiterate that, you know, these layoffs, that that was her choice. They did not have to happen. There were other solutions. There's emergency board money that we could have used to make sure that these jobs stayed in place until we go back into our short session in January of 26. But that's where we are. We are looking at layoffs for our constituents and we are looking at a special session where we can try to figure out how to fund the ODOT budget. And then the other hot topic this week really affects my district as well. And that's coming from a state agency that's responsible for guiding land use planning and protecting farmland, forest, land, coastal areas. Just think of all the natural resource types type areas. It's called DLCD or the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development.
And they're going through some rulemaking right now that I just really, I'm trying to do a call to action to have people speak out about because it's just these proposed farm stand rules could really threaten agriculture livelihoods that I have here in my district. But obviously across the state.
So we're talking about family farms specifically. Think corn mazes or a petting zoo, a pumpkin patch. Those types of experiences are at the risk of banned or capped to where they could only operate for a few days a year or only see a certain amount of people coming out to experience those activities.
There's also they're looking at prepared food sales like cider donuts or fresh fruit shakes or something like that. And there's just confusion about rules around this. And so that definitely, if it doesn't get straightened out, it's just confusion headaches. You know, people obviously have lost revenue because they're not sure what's allowed, what's not allowed. But yeah, I mean, local communities such as House District 24 stand to lose their economic, their little economic hub in the agritourism area or cultural experiences, school field trips, if you know, most schools still go out and do pumpkin patch field trips and those types of things I think make Oregon very special.
So it's definitely something that we don't want to lose. It's a charming part of our rural life and we want to make sure that we're protecting that.
[00:17:55] Speaker A: Oh, I love pumpkin patch field trips. Well, Lucetta, thank you so much for taking time to give us a little update on this. I'm sure we'll get to catch up again next week and hear some more updates on what is going on. And thank you for the links of information. We know that Oregonians might want to know more about everything, whether we're talking about some of these bills that are on the table or how money works or anything else in the political world. So thank you for those links. We will get those in the episode notes. Thank you again so much for your time, Lucetta, and for all that you're doing for Oregon listeners. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. We hope you got to know Lucetta a little bit better and learned some more about what's going on in our state and that you come back and join us next time. For our next episode, Sam.
