Byline: JEFF WRIGHT The Register-Guard

Kim Landis is dumbfounded. Dennis Montgomery is disgusted. Tim Cullen is disappointed.

Disabled and mentally ill Oregonians, state troopers, senior citizens and others wrestled with a flood of emotions Wednesday as they came to terms with

Voters handily rejected the income tax increase proposal in Tuesday's special election. Now, the state must make $310 million in additional budget cuts - including many that will take effect Saturday.

Kim Landis, 44, lives in a green and white trailer outside Brownsville. Diagnosed in 1995 with scleroderma, a progressively debilitating auto-immune disorder, the former accounting clerk is in chronic pain and unable to work.

In recent weeks she allowed herself to believe that Measure 28 would pass, based on polls and news stories that hinted it might. So the defeat was a blow: "I literally fell apart," she said. "It's a catastrophic thing."

Landis said she has a monthly income of $982 from Social Security and a private insurance plan. But the cost of her prescriptions - currently covered by the Oregon Health Plan for low-income residents - runs about $1,000 a month, she said.

She's among the 100,000 Oregon Health Plan clients who will soon lose their prescription drug benefits for lack of state money.

Landis said she takes 11 medicines daily - for reasons ranging from pain relief to high blood pressure - and can't survive without them.

She said she's embarrassed to admit that she's applied with some manufacturers who provide free medicine to indigent people. "The remainder I'll just have to pay for," she said.

Landis finds it hard to believe that people could vote against Measure 28, she said.

"If I was working and I knew what was going to happen to people like me, I would have voted for it," she said. "Everyone says government can tighten its belt. Well, they did, and unfortunately it affects people. What do they expect us to do - stop our meds?"

Dennis Montgomery shares Landis' frustration. An Oregon State Police trooper who works and lives in Oakridge, Montgomery hoped to finish his career and retire there.

Instead, he's one of 13 troopers in Lane County - three in Oakridge and five each in Springfield and Florence - who will turn in their uniforms Friday. Their departures will reduce the number of remaining troopers in Lane County to 17.

"I thought I had made my last move," said Montgomery, a former Marine Corps officer and father of two girls. "But now I'm basically ready to get out of the state. I can't raise my family like this. I was trying to build a life here, and now I feel like I've had my teeth kicked in."

Montgomery, 51, said he's already taken job-related tests with the California and Washington state patrols and the Snohomish County sheriff's office north of Seattle.

That may put him one step ahead of Trooper Jamin Van Meter, who also stands to lose his job Friday. Van Meter, 26, grew up in Eugene and always wanted to be a state trooper. He's been too shell-shocked, he said, to look for other work.

"I've checked with some other agencies, but my heart's not in it," he said. "I don't know what I'm going to do. It still hasn't quite hit home yet."

Van Meter and his wife are living with her parents to save money while building their own home in Junction City. They expect to be first-time parents as early as today. Van Meter said he'd like his wife to be a stay-at-home mom, "but I don't know what my situation is going to be after the baby comes."

But despite all the uncertainty, Van Meter said he doesn't fault voters.

"I pay taxes, too, and it seems like they just want more money," he said of state government. "I'm not a budget expert, but it seems to me that they're possibly spending money on things that should be redirected to more crucial programs."

Patty Nadel, a therapist with Lane County Mental Health, believes she's working for one such crucial program. Most of her 50 clients will be touched by Measure 28's failure, she said, in terms of lost income, lost medical benefits or lost housing.

"It just adds to their feeling of despair and that nobody cares about them," she said. "Not only with Measure 28 and the state, but also with what's happening in the world and the preparation for war. All that together is really pretty powerful."

One of Nadel's clients, Tim Cullen, said he's trying to stay positive. Cullen has bipolar disorder - also known as manic depressive illness - and lives in west Eugene at the River Bend apartment complex with other mental health patients. He survives on food stamps and the $100 his mother sends him each month.

Cullen takes 29 psychotropic pills each day to cope with his illness, and may now have to start making co-payments on each. Without work, he's also at risk of losing his spot at River Bend when his lease expires in May.

Cullen's passion is baseball, and he hopes to reclaim his concessions job at Civic Stadium when the Eugene Emeralds baseball season gets under way this spring. "But that's four months away, so I've got to keep my wallet close to my vest," he said.

Cullen, 49, said he doesn't take Measure 28's defeat personally, but is deeply disappointed.

"They say you can grade each country by how well they take care of their youth, their elderly and their mentally ill, and we in the U.S. of A. do not get a very high grade," he said. "Right now, I'd say we're looking at a C-minus."

As for himself, "I'm just going to have to work harder to cover my bases and keep myself centered and not let this whole thing blow my ball game."

CAPTION(S):

With the defeat of Measure 28, Kim Landis of Brownsville will have to come up with about $1,000 a month to pay for medications to treat scleroderma and high blood pressure. Landis' income is less than $1,000 a month. "Nobody seems to care about us," she said. "Where are we supposed to go? What are we supposed to do?"