When lawmakers can't agree on a thorny issue, they often simply create a task force. The theory goes that if you bring in fresh voices and give them time, they'll come up with a better plan that all sides can agree on. But the recommendations of several recent high-profile task forces have been completely ignored by the Oregon Legislature.
Salem Correspondent Chris Lehman begins this task force primer on a farm outside of Scappoose, Oregon:

Marie Gadotti scans her family's fields during a heavy rainstorm. She's on the lookout for her arch-nemeses: Geese. But she doesn't have to see them to know when they're there:

Marie Gadotti: “It just gets louder and louder and louder as the geese start landing. And then they go out there, and then they'll just be, this may sound kind of bizarre, but they're just chattering away, just out there honking along. And then all of a sudden it gets quiet and you're like, okay they're gone. And then they're not. They're now eating.”

Eating the Gadottis' wheat, peas and clover seed…causing thousands of dollars of damage in a matter of minutes. At certain times of year the family can't even leave town without arranging for back-up…a sort of geese police:

Marie Gadotti: “We went to a funeral at the end of October last year and I had to have four different people come in intervals during the day to keep the geese off our fields.”

Gadotti knew other Oregon farmers were also struggling with hungry geese, so she turned to the state legislature for help. She found a sympathetic ear with Democratic state Senator Betsy Johnson, no stranger to geese encounters herself from her days as a helicopter pilot. Johnson helped introduce a bill to create an 11-member Task Force on Geese Control.

Senator Betsy Johnson: “There were lots of jokes about it by some of my urban colleagues who I don't think understood just what economic damage this does to agriculturalists.”

Despite the snickers, only five lawmakers voted against the bill. The task force is set to begin work in December. Members will have about a year to craft recommendations for the 2011 Legislature. Whether those lawmakers follow any of those suggestions is an open question. The work of several recent high-profile task forces hit a brick wall in the Oregon Legislature. One task force recommended sweeping changes to the state's iconic bottle bill. Lawmakers took a pass on that one. A 30-member panel tasked with looking at ways to restructure Oregon's tax system produced an impressive 108-page report. It's chief recommendation got one hearing, then ended up on the legislative scrap-heap. Former lawmaker Lane Shetterly chaired that task force:

Lane Shetterly: “I think it was a success on all fronts except the handoff.”

Shetterly says he's served on so many task forces over the years he can't even remember what they were all about. In general, he thinks they're a good idea, but only under the right conditions:

Lane Shetterly: “Too often task forces get sent off into the woods and tend to get lost, and then nobody sends off a search party to find them.”

Some task forces have a higher batting average than others. Lawmakers passed several bills this year that grew out of panels on underage drinking, sexual assault and land use planning. One reason task forces are so popular is that they're cheap. The people selected to serve on them are generally volunteers. Senator Johnson says in the case of the geese task force, the idea is to build consensus for a proposal down the road that might end up costing more money:

Sen. Betsy Johnson: “I believe very much in the concept of incremental wins on big problems. I don't think that you have to hit a homerun at every at bat.”

Scappoose farmer Marie Gadotti had hoped for something more. But many of her ideas cost money. So, Gadotti says she's glad that for now, lawmakers are, on some level, taking the problem of geese seriously:

Marie Gadotti: “This isn't where we thought we were going to end up, but I think most of us out here in the ag community think that this task force actually is a good thing that came out of where we started.”

One closing thought. If lawmakers chuckled at the idea of a task force on geese, you have to wonder what they thought of this one. In 2007 lawmakers approved a plan to study air pollution around dairy farms. The name of panel? The Task Force on Dairy Air Quality. The group met seven times in 2008 and ultimately produced a 13-page report on the quality of Oregon's Dairy Air. I'm Chris Lehman in Salem.

Copyright 2009 OPB


Photo by Chris Lehman: “Geese live in cities, too. This parking lot in Salem is a frequent water fowl hang-out.”