Court Opinion

ID: 9786071
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 23:46:30.01295+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:41.379818
License: Public Domain

ARMSTRONG, J.,
concurring.
I agree with the majority’s decision to affirm the Public Utility Commission (PUC) order that authorized Lincoln County to provide competitive telecommunication services. I disagree, however, with the reasoning that the majority uses to reach that decision. The effect of its decision is to resurrect an understanding of the legislative authority of local governments that the Supreme Court rejected in 1978. The majority errs in doing that.
The majority implicitly concludes that ORS 203.035,1 the statute on which the county relies for its *63authority to provide competitive telecommunication services, is ambiguous, because the majority relies on legislative history to determine the meaning of the statute. See 179 Or App at 49-53. We are not supposed to use legislative history in interpreting a statute without first concluding that the statute is ambiguous. PGE v. Bureau of Labor and Industries, 317 Or 606, 610-11, 859 P2d 1143 (1993). In order to conclude that a statute is ambiguous, we must identify at least two plausible interpretations of it, based on the statute’s text in context. The majority does not identify two plausible interpretations of ORS 203.035, so I question whether it should look to the legislative history of the statute to interpret it.
Assuming that the legislative history of ORS 203.035 bears on the interpretation of the statute, the majority misinterprets that history. The history establishes that the legislature sought to give counties that rely on statutes for their legislative authority the same authority to enact legislation that counties operating under home rule charters can have.2 Consistently with that goal, the legislature wrote ORS 203.035 to give statutory counties the broadest possible authority to enact legislation on any matter of county concern, so that it would not be necessary for them to return to *64the legislature to seek specific authority to legislate on a particular subject.
At the time that the legislature adopted the statute in 1973, the Supreme Court had interpreted the Oregon constitutional provisions on local home rule as allocating lawmaking power between the state and local governments. See State ex rel Heinig v. Milwaukie et al, 231 Or 473, 479-85, 373 P2d 680 (1962). Under that interpretation, local home rule governments were understood to have lawmaking authority on subjects that were more a matter of local concern than of state concern. See id. at 479-88. Legislators predictably spoke in terms of that interpretation when discussing the intended effect of the legislation that became ORS 203.035, which was to give statutory counties the same legislative authority as home rule counties.
Five years after the enactment of ORS 203.035, the Supreme Court in LaGrande / Astoria v. PERB, 281 Or 137, 576 P2d 1204, adhered to on rehearing 284 Or 173, 586 P2d 765 (1978), dramatically altered its interpretation of local home rule authority. Under the new, and current, interpretation of that authority, the constitutional provisions are not understood to allocate substantive policy-making authority between the state and local governments. That means that the lawmaking authority of local home rule governments does not depend on whether the subject of the local legislation is more a matter of local concern than of state concern. Id. at 145-57. That means, in turn, that home rule charters can give local governments considerably broader authority to enact legislation than previously believed, because that authority is not limited to subjects that are more a matter of local than state concern.
The majority essentially rejects that change in the law as applicable to counties that operate as statutory rather than as home rule counties. In its view, the legislature intended ORS 203.035 to give statutory counties the legislative authority that home rule counties were understood to have when it enacted the statute in 1973, rather than the authority that the Oregon Constitution actually gives home rule counties. Consequently, statutory counties operating under ORS 203.035 do not have legislative authority that is *65coextensive with the authority that is available to home rule counties.
I do not believe that that is what the legislature intended. It adopted ORS 203.035 to give statutory counties legislative authority that is equivalent to that available to home rule counties under Article VI, section 10, of the Oregon Constitution. The text of the statute does that. The statute should not be interpreted narrowly to codify the interpretation that applied in 1973 to the authority available to home rule counties under Article VI, section 10. That means that, contrary to the majority’s view, the legislative authority of statutory counties such as Lincoln County should be evaluated according to the current interpretation of Article VI, section 10, which means that the county’s authority does not depend on whether the provision of telecommunication services in Lincoln County is more important to the county than the state. Compare 179 Or App at 52-53.
I have little difficulty rejecting GTE’s arguments that ORS 203.035 does not give Lincoln County the authority to provide competitive telecommunication services. According to GTE, ORS 203.035 does not give counties authority to provide services other than those that counties have historically provided. In its view, the services historically provided by counties consist of “appraisal, tax collection, law enforcement, courthouses, records and roads.” If counties want to provide other services, they have to get specific authority from the legislature to do so. In summary, although counties may be concerned about the adequacy of services such as water, sewer, electricity, and telecommunications that are provided to their residents, ORS 203.035 does not give them the authority to address that concern by providing those services.
If GTE’s argument were correct, then it would mean (1) that ORS 203.035 implicitly distinguishes between the power of comities to regulate activities and their power to provide services or (2) that the statute grants counties very little power. The issue of domestic water service for county residents can help illustrate the point.
ORS 203.035 gives comities “all powers over matters of county concern that it is possible for them to have.” ORS *66203.035(2). It would appear that the cost and quality of domestic water provided to county residents would be a matter of concern to counties. If water cost and quality are matters of “county concern,” as that term is used in ORS 203.035, then counties presumably have the power to enact ordinances to regulate companies that provide domestic water service or to give the companies tax incentives to enable them to improve their water systems. According to GTE, however, counties historically have not provided water service to their residents, so ORS 203.035 does not give them the authority to provide that service. It follows, therefore, that there must be an implicit distinction in ORS 203.035 between the power of counties to regulate matters of county concern and their power to provide services regarding those matters.
Conversely, if the statute does not distinguish between the power to regulate and the power to provide services, then domestic water service cannot be a matter of county concern, because the inability of counties to provide domestic water services would imply a concomitant inability to regulate companies that do provide those services. That would mean that matters of county concern would have to be construed narrowly to cover only those matters that come within the historic range of activities undertaken by counties.
I reject both propositions. The legislature enacted ORS 203.035 to give counties that have not enacted home rule charters the ability to exercise all powers over matters of county concern that counties with home rule charters can exercise. By doing that, the legislature made it unnecessary for counties to seek specific authority from the legislature to address the concerns that they have.3 Although there are limits to the county concerns on which ORS 203.035 gives counties authority to act, I have no doubt that economic *67development and the availability and cost of high-speed telecommunication services are matters of county concern under the statute.
Because economic development and telecommunication services are matters of county concern, counties that are subject to ORS 203.035, such as Lincoln County, have all the power to address those matters that Oregon counties can have. Contrary to GTE’s view, that power includes the power to provide telecommunication services in competition with private businesses that provide the same services. Earlier in our history, private companies built toll roads to provide the means for people to move around the state,4 and nothing prevents them from doing that now. It may not be economically feasible for them to do that in competition with state and local governments, but there is no principle that makes road construction a governmental rather than a private activity. Similarly, there is no principle that makes the provision of telecommunication services a private rather than a governmental activity. I therefore reject GTE’s contention that counties lack authority under ORS 203.035 to provide telecommunication services in competition with private compames.5
GTE also argues that, if ORS 203.035 gives counties the authority to provide telecommunication services, then that authority does not extend beyond county boundaries. In its view, it cannot be a concern of counties to conduct activities beyond their borders. I reject that proposition as well.
Under ORS 203.035(1), a county may “exercise authority within the county over matters of county concern[.]” The effect of that language is to impose a geographic restriction on the exercise of coercive governmental power by counties. That means, for example, that counties cannot use the authority granted them by ORS 203.035 to impose taxes *68on property located outside their boundaries or to regulate activities that occur outside their boundaries.
That does not mean, however, that counties are restricted from using the authority granted them by ORS 203.035 to engage in activities beyond their boundaries. If the statute imposed such a restriction, then it would mean that a county could not send its employees outside the county to get training or to purchase supplies, it could not purchase advertising to tout its economic or scenic appeal to people outside the county, and it could not go outside the county to recruit employees. The statute does not impose such a restriction. Counties can use the authority granted them by ORS 203.035 to engage in activities beyond their boundaries if the activities involve a matter of county concern and are of a type in which anyone else might engage, such as purchasing goods and services, purchasing or selling property, etc. Cf. DeFazio v. WPPSS, 296 Or 550, 582-83, 679 P2d 1316 (1984) (discussion of extramural authority in context of municipal home rule).
The activities at issue in this case are of the latter type. Central Lincoln PUD (Central Lincoln) operates in Lincoln, Lane, and Douglas Counties. The telecommunication services that Lincoln County and its partners provide are furnished in Central Lincoln’s service area using Central Lincoln’s telecommunication network. I have already concluded that the county has authority under ORS 203.035 to operate that network, and the operation of the network is something in which anyone could have chosen to engage. I conclude, therefore, that Lincoln County is acting within its authority under ORS 203.035 to use Central Lincoln’s telecommunication network to provide competitive telecommunication services in Lincoln, Lane, and Douglas counties. It follows that the PUC did not err in issuing certificates of authority to permit Lincoln County and its partners to provide those services. I therefore concur in the majority’s decision to uphold the PUC order that granted those certificates.

 ORS 203.035 provides, as relevant:
*63“(1) Subject to subsection (3) of this section, the governing body or the electors of a county may by ordinance exercise authority within the county over matters of county concern, to the fullest extent allowed by Constitutions and laws of the United States and of this state, as fully as if each particular power comprised in that general authority were specifically listed in ORS 203.030 to 203.075.
“(2) The power granted by this section is in addition to other grants of powers to counties, shall not be construed to limit or qualify any such grant and shall be liberally construed, to the end that counties have all powers over matters of county concern that it is possible for them to have under the Constitutions and laws of the United States and of this state.”

 Article VI, section 10, of the Oregon Constitution gives counties the authority to adopt home rule charters. It provides, as relevant, that the
“Legislative Assembly shall provide by law a method whereby the legal voters of any county, by majority vote of such voters voting thereon at any legally called election, may adopt, amend, revise or repeal a county charter. A county charter may provide for the exercise by the county of authority over matters of county concern. * * * The initiative and referendum powers reserved to the people by this Constitution hereby are further reserved to the legal voters of every county relative to the adoption, amendment, revision or repeal of a county charter and to legislation passed by counties which have adopted such a charter * *

 See, e.g., Orval Etter, County Home Rule in Oregon Reaches Majority, 61 Or L Rev 3, 13-16 (1982). The enactment of ORS 203.035 ultimately led the 1981 Oregon Legislature to repeal a whole host of statutes that gave counties specific authority to do a variety of things, including the authority to grant and revoke dance hall licenses, to provide for the maintenance and employment of paupers, to build and maintain roads to public cemeteries, and to grant paid vacation and sick leave to county employees. See ORS 203.120 to ORS 203.125, ORS 203.130, ORS 203.140 (1979).

 See, e.g., Or Laws 1872, p 35 (act to aid Trask River Road Co. to enable it to complete a toll road from Tillamook County to the Willamette Valley).

 The authority granted to counties by ORS 203.035 is subject to state and federal law. See ORS 203.035. That means that state and federal law preempt any conflicting county ordinances enacted pursuant to ORS 203.035. GTE has not argued that Lincoln County’s decision to provide telecommunication services conflicts with any state or federal law, and I am not aware of any such conflict.