After an eight-month pause, a state task force is back in business looking at Oregon's much-debated land-use planning laws and program.

But the panel, known as the "Big Look," will have nine months to hear what interest groups and the public think and to come up with recommendations for the 2009 Legislature.

A series of statewide meetings in late summer and early fall is likely to coincide with one of the hottest presidential campaigns in recent years.

"Maybe people will be burned out by fall on issues such as national security and the economy, and they'll welcome a look at something that relates to Oregon more directly," said John Fregonese, a Portland planning consultant and former Ashland planning director, who's helping the panel put together a public campaign.

Oregon's 1973 law and subsequent regulations have preserved most rural land for farming and forestry and confined most development within urban-growth boundaries. But the system has been the target of persistent and vocal criticism, and voters twice approved ballot measures requiring government to pay landowners when regulations resulted in reduced property values.

However, on Nov. 6, voters approved another ballot measure scaling back the development claims that landowners could make under a 2004 law allowing government to waive land-use regulations instead of pay landowners.

The 2005 Legislature created the task force in an attempt to resolve broader questions about the future of land use. Lawmakers in 2007 cut $400,000 from the task force, which suspended its public activity until after the Nov. 6 election on Measure 49, but the February session added back $426,006.

Friday was the task force's first meeting since the session ended.

"There is a tendency for all of us to wonder about what is going on behind the scenes and all the maneuvering," said Richard Whitman, the director of the state Department of Land Conservation and Development, which is doing the staff work for the task force. "But there is deep support for this effort."

Two groups normally at odds over land use, the watchdog group 1000 Friends of Oregon and the property-rights advocates Oregonians in Action, joined to support the funding request during the special session.

Nikki Whitty of Coos Bay, the task force's vice chairwoman, said there's not much time to get the job done.

"With all the help we have, and if we can get cities and counties to donate some of their time for video presentations over community television systems, we may end up with a better outreach program than we thought we were going to have in the beginning," said Whitty, a Coos County commissioner.

In addition to a series of meetings with interest groups, community leaders and the public, the task force plans 600,000 newspaper inserts, video and Internet presentations about the land-use program and proposals for change.

Nine months ago, the task force came to 11 conclusions about Oregon's program. But members spent several hours Friday to whittle down the number of key questions they want to pose to the public later this year.

"We have to talk about outcomes, not process," Fregonese said. "People want to know what will happen, not about how it happens."