Senator Ron Wyden held a town hall at the Rogue Community College campus in Grants Pass Sunday and he gave the floor to the citizens to discuss how to fix the funding woes in Josephine County that has crippled law enforcement in the area.

Citizens focused on the return of forestlands to the local government, how to preserve the environment while bolstering the economy and if cuts could be made anywhere in federal spending that could allocate more funds to rural counties.

Wyden said that in Washington he is concentrating on cutting unnecessary expenditures in the budget focusing specifically on the $600 billion earmarked for the military. He says that he believes he could eliminate waste in the military’s budget and have it still operate just as efficiently and effectively. The saved funds could then be allocated to law enforcement in counties suffering from the lack of O & C funding. “When I visited with Sheriff Winters, I made it clear to him that there are so many inefficiencies that I hope we could reduce some of that money and get it to those two good sheriffs that we got back there so we can concentrate on protecting people here at home,” Wyden said.

Other topics during the town hall included Wyden’s belief that southern Oregon should be funded to support biomass energy, farmers should be allowed to grow hemp and the fiscal cliff bill was not successful, but necessary, to save millions of Americans from facing an income tax hike.