Who Will Decide To Renew (Or Not Renew) Oregon’s Film Incentive Program?

2012.  It’s a year that’s been on a lot of people’s minds of late. 

According to the Mayan calendar, 2012 is a year of great siginficance: depending on who’s interpretation you care to listen to, 2012 could mark a grand shift in global consciousness, a worldwide catastrophe… or just an excuse to flip the page to the next 394 year cycle.

People who work in Oregon’s film and TV industry know that January 1, 2012 has another meaning – that’s the date the Oregon Production Investment Fund is due to “sunset.”  Unless the Oregon Legislature renews the OPIF before that date, the chances of  big-budget productions like Twilight and Leverage coming to shoot in our state are low. We’ve pointed out repeatedly in our Saturday Film Incentive News Wrap-up posts that almost every state in the US has a film incentive program – if Oregon’s program isn’t renewed, we shouldn’t be surprised to find these out-of-state productions looking elsewhere for their needs.

We started this site asking a question: “What Can The Oregon Film Industry Expect From A New Governor?“  Over the the past four months, we’ve heard promising things from both Chris Dudley and John Kitzhaber.  Oregon’s governor, however, has a very small role in deciding whether the OPIF gets renewed - that duty lies not in the Governor’s mansion, but in the Oregon House and Senate.  

75 seats are open in this year’s election, which is a mere 55 days away (a special thank-you to KPTV’s Wayne Garcia for providing the number of open seats last night on Twitter).  The legislators elected on November 2nd (as well as those not running for re-election) will be charged with writing, debating, and passing every bill that affects Oregon’s budget – including the bill to renew the OPIF.  

Before the OPIF is renewed, 90 people -60 in the House of Representatives and 30 in the Senate - will decide if Oregon’s film and TV industry will continue to bring millions of dollars into the state’s economy, and thousands of jobs.  Where does your legislator stand on the OPIF’s renewal?  What do the legislative candidates you support plan to do when the OPIF comes up for a vote?

We need you to find out for us!   

• If you don’t know who your State Representative and Senator is, find him or her here.
• Contact both of them (you only have one of each.)  Ask him/ her whether s/he supports Oregon’s film industry, and what plans s/he has for the OPIF in the coming session.  Encourage him or her to tell all of us what position s/he takes on the Share Your Story page.
• This next one is a little harder… find out who’s running against your legislators in the upcoming election.  Look at the district numbers for your representative, and then google  running for “House district (your district number)” +Oregon and running for “Senate district (your district number)” +Oregon Be sure to put the House and Senate district numbers in quation marks, so Google looks for that exact phrase… and adding +Oregon at the end will tell Google to only give you results from Oregon.
• As before, contact your legislator’s oponents.  Ask him/ her whether s/he supports Oregon’s film industry, and what plans s/he has for the OPIF in the coming session.  Encourage him or her to tell all of us what position s/he takes on the Share Your Story page.
• Finally, let us know what you find out in the comments section below!

With just a little work on our parts, ladies and gentlemen, we can find out what to expect from the incoming legislature when January 1, 2012 roles around… and, hopefully, we’ll remind the legislature just how important the OPIF is to Oregon’s economy.

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