State Rep. Charlie Conrad outlines criminal‑justice, water and liability priorities for Junction City

State Representative Charlie Conrad gave a legislative update to the Junction City Council on May 14, outlining several measures that affect small cities in his House District 12. Conrad, who sits on committees covering behavioral health, emergency management and public safety finance, described short‑session rules and emphasized bipartisan progress.

Conrad said the Legislature reached a compromise on criminal‑justice policy that stops short of full decriminalization and instead creates an "unclassified misdemeanor" with a maximum penalty of 180 days. He described a new pre‑conviction ‘‘deflection’’ program in House Bill 4002 intended to steer people into treatment before conviction and a conditional‑discharge process if diversion fails. "You can think of deflection as a pre conviction diversion," Conrad said, adding that the district attorney will have authority in conditional‑discharge steps.

He also highlighted behavioral‑health funding tied to the policy change, saying the short session included money for shovel‑ready projects and cited $4,000,000 for Willamette Family to build a detox and treatment facility in the district. "We're able to bring some money at least into the district and into the county to be able to help on this back end," he said.

Conrad discussed the U.S. Supreme Court's Tyler v. Hennepin decision, which requires counties to return surplus proceeds from tax‑foreclosure sales to former property owners. He said the Department of Revenue convened a work group to design an administrative approach and to address how retroactive refunds for previously sold properties could be handled. "How do we make property owners whole, and what does that whole process look like?" he asked the council.

Finally, Conrad warned that the Legislature extended recreational immunity for one year amid a court ruling that had exposed local governments and private landowners to increased liability. He described that temporary fix as a stopgap and said the long session will need to resolve the broader liability issues for parks and recreation providers.

Conrad closed by inviting council members to raise local transportation and water‑infrastructure needs as the Legislature prepares for the coming long session.