As one of his last acts on the Southwest Washington Regional Transportation Council, Port of Vancouver Commissioner Jerry Oliver is pushing his colleagues to take a strong stance on Oregon’s idea to toll metro-area freeways beginning at the state line.

“I just felt somebody needed to stand up for the taxpayers and didn’t feel RTC was doing it,” he said.

Oliver brought forth two different but substantively similar letters to the November and December board of directors meetings. He urged his colleagues to sign and send them to the Oregon Transportation Commission on behalf of RTC.

But the board postponed any action until its January meeting, citing among other reasons the need to further discuss it with their own delegations. The RTC is the metropolitan planning organization for Clark County as well as the state-designated regional transportation planning organization for Clark, Skamania and Klickitat counties. It also represents the Washington portion of the Portland-Vancouver Transportation Management Area.

Its 14 rotating board members — who represent local governments, special purpose districts, government agencies — oversee the organization’s business affairs, adopt a regional transportation plan, select and program transportation grant funds and perform other duties.