11 <br />Until 1997, former ORS 197.830(6) allowed motions to intervene to be filed <br />within "a reasonable time" after the petition for review was been filed. Or <br />Laws, 1997, ch. 187, § 1. App 8. In 1997, however, the legislature adopted HB <br />2502, which both imposed the 21-day deadline in current law, and specified that <br />"[f]ailure to comply with the deadline set forth in paragraph (a) of this <br />subsection shall result in denial of the motion to intervene." Id. 1,000 Friends <br />of Oregon supported the bill because its 21-day deadline precluded intervenors <br />from "wait[ing] for months in the background as an appeal proceeds, and then <br />gain party status at the last minute." App-1. In fact, 1,000 Friends staff attorney, <br />Christine Cook, specifically insisted that HB 2502 be amended to require <br />dismissal of late-filed motions to intervene so that the flexibility in LUBA's <br />rules (and particularly OAR 661-010-0005) did not swallow the new 21-day <br />deadline. App-4.2 The amendment was prepared by legislative counsel, and <br />2 "Some of the deadlines in the LUBA appeal are very flexibly enforced by the <br />Land Use , Board of Appeals because of state regulations which say that <br />technical violations of the rules essentially don't count. There's a good reason <br />for this. LUBA is designed to be a citizen-friendly forum at which parties can <br />be represented without attorneys and so it doesn't make sense to hold <br />everybody there to a very technical and precise standard. However, I am <br />concerned that there are cases in which even specific deadlines in the statute are <br />sometimes fudged over because of this and I think this one of those situations <br />where that might occur. I don't have anything in writing for a proposed <br />amendment. I apologize for that. But I think that if it is intended that that <br />flexibility not be applied in this case - if this is to be a hard and fast deadline - <br />just as it is a hard and fast deadline that a petitioner has to appeal within 21 days <br />- then it would be very simple to say in the legislation that failure to comply <br />with this deadline is not a technical violation but would preclude intervention <br />by the parties seeking to do so." <br />