OCVA's mission is to promote and protect citizen involvement in land-use issues.  If you're new to our site, we invite you to learn more about OCVA and our mission.

We currently have these top priorities:

• Preserving citizens' right to vote on annexations.
• Increasing the number of Oregonians having the ability to vote on annexations, known in these pages as "VoA."
• Continuing to work to ensure that annexation votes --such as ORS 195 annexations-- and city-initiated annexation actions --such as island annexations-- are fair.
• Ensuring that annexation ordinances are well-implemented and informative.
• Helping citizens control local growth by calling for SDCs to cover the full costs of growth.

Use the Issues and Initiatives link at the left for more information about these topics. And our resource page can help you join our efforts.

OCVA welcomes our newest member city -- Wheeler!

On March 11th, 2008 Wheeler, on the North Oregon Coast, became the latest OCVA member city, having just given themselves "the vote" by a huge margin.  As has typically been the case with voter annexation initiatives, the supporters had to fight off the local political power structure to get their point across.  And as is also typically the case, the citizens overwhelmingly voted YES.  Congratulations!

Are you thinking about putting a VoA charter change on the ballot in your town?  Read this guide to learn how!

Does your town already vote on annexations?  If so, the ordinances that dictate annexation procedures are the key to good annexation policy.  Learn the next step: creating a strong Implementing Ordinance.

In the 2007 Legislative session, OCVA fulfilled our prime directive: preserving our right to vote on annexations.  We also had a major success in annexation reform effort: restrictions on "island annexations" as codified in ORS-222.750.  And we had some success in addressing growth's impact on schools.  Read all about it in our September 2007 newsletter.

OCVA's history of ORS 195 has been revised to include the story of HB 2484, which codified the "double majority" interpretation of ORS 195 annexation votes.  Read "Hostile Takeover," our thrilling history of ORS 195 reform.

Our latest newsletter has news on annexation reform, an update on school funding, and much more.  Read the full newsletter here.  Highlights include:

• 2007 Legislative Wrap Up - Jerry Ritter
• Annexation reform 2007-style - success!
• Other annexation-related legislation
• Beaverton gets spanked ... again
• Some progress on addressing growth's impact on schools
• Message from the Chair - Richard Reid
• Annexation and referenda
• Open board positions
• Message from the Treasurer - Brian Beinlich
• North Plains VoA update

You may access previous newsletters in our Newsletter Archive.

• Subscribe to OCVA's E-mail alert list!
• Visit our resources page for links to other groups, research reports, articles, legislative scorecards, and more!
• If you have questions, items of interest, a link to share, or need help with annexation and growth issues, please contact us.

·This page last modified on 2011-10-24 12:47.