As industrial development and out-of-state investment push assessed values higher around Boardman, multi-generational farm families say they're being taxed off land their grandparents homesteaded. Is the county doing enough to protect agricultural heritage?
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Add your commentMy family has farmed out here since 1952. Three generations. My grandfather broke this ground by hand and now I'm supposed to just hand it over because some data center from California decided Boardman was a good place to plug in servers? The county assessor's office doesn't even bother explaining how they arrive at these valuations. You just get a letter and your jaw drops. This isn't abstract policy to me. This is my life and my kids' inheritance.
To the person above me: you clearly have never watched your dad cry at a kitchen table trying to figure out how to keep 800 acres in the family. This isnt about money it is about identity and community and history. You cant put a spreadsheet on that.
I moved here from Portland about four years ago and even I can see something is deeply wrong. Drove past three abandoned farmhouses on 74 last spring that people told me were occupied by working families just five years ago. That's not progress. That's displacement with a tractor emoji slapped on it.
Honest question for the people defending this: name ONE longtime farm family in Morrow County that has actually benefited from the industrial boom. I'll wait.
used to live out by Irrigon before I moved to Pendleton. honest truth is this has been coming for 20 years, ever since the big feedlots and then the wind farms started changing what the land "looked like" to outside investors. nobody wanted to listen back then either. hope folks are listening now
The county absolutely has tools to help and they are absolutely not using them aggressively enough. Period. End of comment.
Fun fact that nobody seems to know: Morrow County actually has one of the lowest property tax rates in eastern Oregon overall. The PROBLEM is that assessed values are climbing faster than the rate adjustments can keep up with, especially near the industrial corridor. So the rate looks fine on paper but the bill at the end of the year is a gut punch. Those are two completely different conversations and local media keeps mixing them up and it drives me absolutely insane.
oregon actually has farmland deferral programs specifically for this, the EFZ and farm use special assessment stuff. if these families arent enrolled in those they need to talk to a land use attorney like yesterday. not saying the system is perfect but some of this is just not taking advantage of whats already on the books
Ok I gotta be the one to say it — these families are sitting on land worth millions of dollars. Nobody is forcing them to keep farming it. Sell, retire, let your kids go to college somewhere. I know that sounds cold but we act like farming is some sacred calling that taxpayers are supposed to subsidize forever. The market is the market.
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