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News
Briefs: WEP Revived | HIV
Testing Changes | Cross Pollination | Funding
Held Up | Floating Candles | Jakarta
Report | Braking Fast Track | Impasse
Reached | Corrections/Clarifications
News: Hospital
Choice -- Should Eugene recruit competition for Sacred Heart?
News: Twenty
Years Later -- They'll be dancing in the streets at MIUSA conference.
Happening
People: Mick Garvin, environmentalist and labor activist.
WEP
Revived
The West Eugene Parkway (WEP) keeps rising from the dead.
Last week, even proponents of the $88 million sprawl-inducing highway
seemed ready to bury it due to a lack of funding.
"There isn't the political will, A), around this table and,
B), probably in the community, to move forward with it," Councilor Pat Farr
said.
But this week, a council tie vote broken by the mayor resurrected
the project. The council will meet in a special session to decide whether to put
building the highway on the ballot. The session is scheduled for Sunday, Aug. 12
from 5-7 p.m. in the City Hall McNutt Room.
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Slant
Be a Duck!
-- The R-G last week (8/3) gave front-page attention
to pro-sprawl developers bashing the city's new waterway protection and urban design
regulations. But bigger issues are ignored. Why doesn't the paper ever talk to the
city's many neighborhood, planning the environmental advocates in these stories?
We have a legal and moral obligation to protect the Willamette River from pollutants
generated within our city. Natural waterways, the few we have left, are important
water purifiers and habitat providers, and should be seen as community assets rather
than impediments to development. We can build around them and include them in our
landscaping. Creeks and ponds add value to property. Be a Duck! Embrace the water!
-- Lane County Commission hearings begin this week on Eugene Sand
& Gravel's proposed 575-acre gravel mining site behind Lone Pine and Thistledown
Farms off River Road. The site is prime Class I and Class II farmland that would
be destroyed forever in exchange for a few decades of gravel that is available elsewhere.
And to claim this operation will have minimal impact on neighboring farmers is absurd.
Many gravel companies see fines for violations as just part of the cost of doing
business, and it's often the neighbors who get stuck monitoring and reporting violations.
Lone Pine and Thistledown are not anachronisms in agriculture -- they show us how
small, independent farmers can survive and thrive in the future.
Farmers need our support and protection, and if state laws don't
support community farms, the environment and livability over sand and gravel, they
need to be changed. How about a state initiative to stop the aggregate miners from
paving paradise and putting down a gravel pit?
-- Our City Council is looking at reviving the West Eugene Parkway
and sending it to the voters even though it makes no sense financially, environmentally
or even in terms of sound transportation planning. It only makes sense for those
who have a vested interest in west Eugene sprawl. And let's be clear about our definition
of "sprawl." It's not just something that happens in Veneta. It happens
within our city limits when we invest in the outskirts while abandoning downtown
and existing neighborhoods.
-- We go to press before Wednesday night's anticipated City Council
action on the siting of the new Sacred Heart Medical Center. We fear the council
will give a reluctant green light to Sacred Heart moving to the outskirts, and we
predict that future city planners will see this decision as the worst planning blunder
in Eugene since the Valley River Center. Meanwhile, we don't need to buy into PeaceHealth's
vision as the sole provider of Eugene's medical needs for the next 100 years. It's
time for people with a different vision to create accessible, affordable and unrestricted
medical care with a new hospital in the heart of the city.
-- The Gang of 9 is currently on vacation from its assaults on
progressive members of the City Council, but members vow to return in September with
Round II. Whatever gang leader John Musumeci comes up with, he won't have cartoonist
Steven DeCinzo on his team. The rascally California illustrator quit the project
in late July. He's not returning phone calls these days, but in a brief e-mail he
justified his cartoons saying, "The Gang did what they had to do." He also
justified lying about his involvement saying, "Here in local cafes, people will
come up to my table and ask me if I'm DeCinzo and I always deny it. I'm not a politician
or a priest. I owe them nothing. I owe you nothing. ... I am not the story here."
But will he talk someday? Sounds like he wants to when he also teases us, saying,
"I'm sitting on a powder keg of information." As Musumeci plans his Round
II of character assassinations, he should keep in mind that the "powder keg"
could easily blow up in his face and further discredit his cause.
SLANT includes short opinion pieces and rumor-chasing notes compiled
by the EW staff. Heard any good rumors lately? Contact Ted Taylor at 484-0519,
editor@eugeneweekly.com
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Rob Zako of Friends of Eugene says putting the highway on the ballot
will only waste time and money. "It's not the best use of public resources and
the council's time," he says.
The election will cost the city $70,000 to $90,000 and three months
of time better spent planning a workable solution to traffic problems in west Eugene,
according to Zako.
Even if the WEP advisory measure passes, "it puts us back
in the same position we were in a year ago," Zako says. At that time the Federal
Highway Administration said it could not legally fund the project's first phase unless
the city could come up with another $70 million for the entire project.
To find the $70 million, the city would have to de-fund more than
half of the other road projects planned in the Eugene-Springfield area over the next
20 years, Zako says. The city could also pass a $70 million tax measure for the project
or get an act of Congress to specially fund the WEP above and beyond the federal
road funding the area already expects to get. "It's very unlikely to find the
money to build all of it," Zako says.
Referring WEP to the voters "is just a delay. I don't believe
the West Eugene Parkway will ever be built."
If a WEP measure passes, voters will just be left frustrated with
the council, Zako says. Zako predicts the campaign for the freeway project will feature
"Gang of 9-type" attack adds that will divide the community. "It will
be a very bloody, negative campaign."
Councilor David Kelly says the key vote at the upcoming special
session will be how to word any measure put on the ballot.
-- AP
HIV
Testing Changes
Options for free and anonymous HIV testing in Lane County
will shift beginning Aug. 17, when Whitebird Clinic stops offering the service and
the HIV Alliance takes over the county-funded contract.
Whitebird has offered the service since the mid-1980s, serving
thousands of Lane County residents. This year, HIV Alliance bid for county and other
funds to take the testing program into the streets. They won the three-year, $10,000
contract, and will use the money along with funds from two charitable foundations
to offer tests out of the van they use as part of their Sana Needle Exchange Program
for injection drug users. Anonymous and confidential testing services conducted by
the county health department will continue to be available at HIV Alliance's office
(1966 Garden Way, near Villard) from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. every Monday.
Leslie Habetler, a spokeswoman for HIV Alliance, explained that
the group wanted to get testing out to where the people most at risk of HIV infection
live. The van takes HIV Alliance staffers to parts of Springfield, the Whiteaker,
El Centro and other locations for the needle exchange program, to get services more
directly to those who can use them. Winning the county HIV-testing contract will
allow the Alliance to expand those services to better reach homeless youth, people
of color, men who have sex with men (not all of whom consider themselves bisexual
or gay) and what Habetler calls "public sex environments."
"We are carrying out the same contract that Whitebird Clinic
had," she said. "It's just that (the county wants) more emphasis in this
contract to reach high-risk populations. -- We specialize in reaching high-risk populations
who tend to be disenfranchised and marginalized in the community." -- OI
Cross
Pollination
Oregon churches are supporting union label blueberry producers
this year, leading to a big jump in sales and success for a new model of fair labor
food production and marketing.
PCUN and Nature's Fountain Farms last week announced a 58 percent
increase from 1999 from sales of union label blueberries. Growers, farmworkers, consumers
and PCUN see the unionized farm as a success.
"It's just worked out well for us," says Yvonne Frost,
owner of Nature's Fountain Farm. "We had a crew this year with a lot of experience
and seniority. The union members created fresh market quality and the union-promoted
sales through the churches have allowed us to pay higher wages."
Marion Malcolm, sales coordinator in Eugene, says "People
in the religious community want to put their faith into action, and support a new
model of mutual respect in agriculture."
Sara Luz Cuesta, a ranch committee representative, says, "We
look forward to next year when we hope to renew the contract and have a longer working
season, now that the grower has planted more crops like strawberries, tomatoes and
green beans. Many workers have been here now for two or three seasons, and care about
their work. We also have a voice in the workplace, which is important to us."
Susan Dobkins, PCUN administrator, says: "The union is committed
to working with the farm in promoting blueberry sales through its supporter, religious,
and labor networks. It is working with folks in Salem, Eugene, Corvallis and Portland
to organize sales in churches and other groups. This effort gives people a product
that is healthy for them as well as produced under just conditions."
Nature's Fountain originally signed a contract with PCUN in 1998,
and renewed it in 2000 for two years. The contract guarantees paid breaks, $7.20
per hour minimum wage, overtime pay and seniority rights.
Funding Held Up
Community Television of Lane County still doesn't have its
funding from the city of Eugene. The contract -- for up to $7,500 in matching funds
for monies C-TV raises -- was supposedly a done deal a few weeks ago, approved by
the City Council and just waiting for a couple of signatures. But then the activist
television program "Cascadia Alive!" ran an Independence Day special that
brought the Secret Service to town to investigate concerns that the program contained
threats against the life of President George W. Bush (see news story 7/26).
That changed the universe, at least in terms of C-TV's contract.
Eugene Mayor Jim Torrey said he wanted new language in the contract that would include
some kind of sanctions against programs that violate laws; the city attorney is looking
at wording now.
Tom Cleveland, who chairs C-TV's board of directors, said the group
has taken no action yet.
"The board of directors of Community Television of Lane County
is reviewing the situation with the 'Cascadia Alive!' show," he said. "We
are also negotiating with the city on language to include in our contract as described
by Mayor Torrey in his recent comments." -- OI
Floating Candles
The most expansive Eugene annual observance of Hiroshima Week
concludes Thursday (Aug. 9) at Alton Baker Park with the floating of candles on the
park pond. The candle float, remembering those who died in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki
atomic bombings of 1945, will follow a potluck in the park picnic shelter at 6:30
pm, and commemoration activities that begin at 7:30.
Steve Johnson, longtime member of the UO Arms Control Forum, will
speak, contrasting the evening's aims for nuclear disarmament with the current trend
of the government to revive the arms race. Also present for the program of music
and cultural sharing will be Jane Novick, widow of Eugene peace activist, Aaron Novick,
and a representative of the UO Native American Student Union.
The weeklong activities began last week with a reading of the conversation
between Aaron Novick, a builder of the bomb in the Manhattan Project, and a scarred
survivor of the bombing of Nagasaki, Senji Yamaguchi.
Participation of Jane Novick is a reminder of the role she and
Aaron Novick played in 1969 as they led a citizens group in preventing EWEB from
building a nuclear power plant.
Sponsors of the events are Women's Action for New Directions, Oregon
PeaceWorks, Eugene PeaceWorks, UO Survival Center, Fellowship of Reconciliation,
Eugene Friends Meeting, UO Women's Center, Lane County Fair Trade Coalition, and
Military Tax Resistance of Lane County.
-- George Beres
Jakarta
Report
Recent UO grads Agatha Schmaedick and Chad Sullivan have arrived
safely in Indonesia and have "plunged into the crazy world of labor organizing
in the export processing zones around Jakarta."
The two are part of a team of four students (one from Columbia
University and one from UCLA) working for the United Students Against Sweatshops
(USAS). The team is coordinated and funded by USAS's research arm, the Collegiate
Apparel Research Initiative (CARI).
"Our primary goal is to help further labor solidarity between
the U.S. and Indonesia," says Schmaedick. They hope to form a permanent communication
network between workers, activists, and unions in Indonesia and the U.S., and identify
a worker-desired campaign that USAS could run with Indonesian partners. The group
also seeks to collect and publish stories and images "in ways that empower workers,
educate activists, and motivate people to action," and "get feedback from
workers, unions, and labor organizations about effecting change using the code of
conduct and independent monitoring model (i.e. the Workers Rights Consortium)."
They note that 30 percent of Oregon-based Nike's production takes
place in Indonesia, employing about 110,000 workers. Indonesia is second only to
China in terms of Nike employees.
"Although Nike is not our sole focus, we feel a special obligation
of bringing news back to our community about the way companies from our state are
impacting the world," says Schmaedick. "Indonesia is now part of Oregon's
backyard, indeed Phil Knight and Nike have made it so. If you are a student or ever
find yourself at the University of Nike (oops, we mean Oregon), you should know whose
sweat built the Knight Library, the Knight Law School, the UO track uniforms, and
so much more.
"If you are a worker, unionist, or activist you might be interested
to know what your counterparts are doing, the unique challenges they face, and the
struggles we all share. Indeed, opposing neo-liberal globalization means more than
showing up at demonstrations, we must build bridges of long-term solidarity with
our global allies.
"For all of us who live in the U.S., as consumers in the richest
country in the world, it is our responsibility to understand the conditions under
which our goods are produced and to demand that U.S. corporations pay their workers
a living wage."
Schmaedick and Sullivan plan to send periodic updates to EW
and are posting information and photos at www.behindthelabel.org They can also be
contacted directly at agchad@indo.net.id -- TJT
Braking Fast Track
More than 100 citizens rallied in front of U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden's
Eugene office Aug. 3 to voice their objection to the senator's support of Fast Track
and Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Fast Track would allow the White House
to bypass Congress in negotiating foreign trade agreements. The FTAA is seen as an
expansion of NAFTA.
The crowd chanted phrases such as "1-2-3-4 we don't want Fast
Track no more, 5-6-7-8 Ron Wyden represent your state," sang songs and listened
to speeches. Those talking included state Rep. Tony Corcoran and representatives
from the Lane County Labor Council, Democratic Party, Pacific Green Party, and Cascadia
Wildlands Project.
After the rally, Wyden's local legislative aide was given a petition
containing 500 signatures of citizens opposed to Fast Track and the FTAA. This was
in addition to 500 signatures that were submitted previously. The rally was sponsored
by the Lane County Fair Trade Coalition. To comment on Wyden's position, call (202)
224-5244 or (541) 431-0229.
Impasse
Reached
University workers at seven campuses statewide have reached
impasse with the Oregon University System (OUS) in contract negotiations. Bargaining
team members, local officers, and members delivered an impasse notice to the OUS
Chancellor's office at Susan Campbell Hall on the UO campus Aug. 6 following a "Parade
of Issues" rally. The impasse notice automatically kicks in a seven-day time
period in which both sides are required to submit final offers to a mediator.
According to UO Bargaining Team member James Jacobson: "The
Chancellor's office and the OUS won't bargain in good faith! We've been at the table
for four months and they've presented no proposals on economic issues. We are simply
asking for a cost of living wage adjustment and adequate health insurance coverage."
OUS officials say their hands are tied by a shortage of funding
for higher education and delays in getting final budget numbers from the state. --
TJT
Corrections/Clarifications
In our Aug. 2 story on the Hoedads reunion, the cover photo
of the Logrollers Crew was taken in March 1978 in Blue River. The inside photos of
the tree planter checking seedlings and the crew around the campfire were taken by
J. Malcolm Manness.
Back to Top
Hospital
Choice
Should Eugene recruit
competition for Sacred Heart?
By Alan
Pittman
With Sacred Heart CEO Alan Yordy threatening to abandon Eugene
and move the hospital to Springfield, citizens are saying it's time that Eugene start
or recruit another hospital.
"I think that would be a wonderful idea," says Tom Giesen
of Citizens for a Hospital in the Heart of Eugene. "There's a powerful argument
that we need two hospitals now."
Here are some of the key citizen arguments for bringing in another
hospital:
Competition. Replacing
Sacred Heart's Eugene monopoly with good-old American competition will make for lower
prices and better service, says Bill Smee. "Competition gives us broader choices
and helps keep the other guy honest."
"Competition makes each provider of healthcare sharper,"
agrees Giesen. "They work harder."
Although it's a non-profit organization, Sacred Heart has yielded
some of the highest revenue surpluses or "profits" of any hospital in the
state, according to state data.
Choice. As a Catholic
hospital, Sacred Heart refuses to provide abortion and some other reproductive health
services. Another hospital could fill that gap, says Smee and neighborhood leader
David Hinkley.
Safety. Two hospitals,
especially if one is located downtown, could provide much shorter ambulance response
times, says Hinkley. For stroke victims and other critical cases, minutes can mean
the difference between life and death.
Even some of Sacred Heart's biggest boosters acknowledge that Eugene
may need another hospital to shorten ambulance response times. "To address this
important issue, some have suggested that a community the size of Eugene could support
more than one hospital and thus more than one emergency department," wrote Sacred
Heart emergency department director Dr. Gary Young in a recent op-ed.
Also, if one hospital were isolated, damaged or inoperative due
to a flood, fire, earthquake or labor strike, the other could provide critical back-up,
Hinkley says.
Service. If
Sacred Heart leaves, Eugene will be one of the few, if only, communities of its size
in the nation that lack a hospital. Eugene is already unusual in having only one
hospital, Giesen says.
Statewide, there's about one hospital per 53,000 residents. Eugene
has one hospital for 139,000 people. In contrast, the Portland area is served by
10 hospitals.
As Eugene grows, the need for another hospital will only get bigger.
Sacred Heart's "100-year vision" for the community makes no mention of
competition. Assuming Eugene will still have only one hospital in 100 years is "an
absurd leap," says Rex Redmon, a downtown advocate with Friends of Eugene (FoE).
In 30 years at current growth rates, Eugene will double in population;
in 50 years it will be the size of Portland. In 100 years, the city will be home
to 1.4 million people.
Power. Having another
hospital will make Eugene less vulnerable to threats from Sacred Heart, citizens
say.
"Should the community allow itself to be bullied?" asks
Greg McLauchlan of FoE. If Sacred Heart is threatening to leave, "why shouldn't
the community be out there looking at health care options to make sure the community's
healthcare needs are met?"
Hospital competition would "remove this sort of imperial healthcare
where Sacred Heart feels they can dictate what they want to the City Council and
city," says Smee.
To bring in another hospital, Eugene would have several options,
citizens say.
The community could join together and raise money to start it's
own locally governed, non-profit hospital funded by donations and service fees. That's
what Springfield did in 1955 when McKenzie-Willamette was born, says hospital spokesperson
Rosie Pryor. "They did what they needed to do."
Eugene could also start its own municipal hospital "operated
by the government for the people," says Smee. Smee points out Sacred Heart is
run by an out-of-town Catholic hospital chain.
Multnomah County had such a hospital for 50 years until it merged
with OHSU. There may also be a chance to start a training hospital adjacent to the
UO. The UO ran OHSU in Portland until 1973, when it became independent.
A third option would be recruiting another non-profit or for-profit
hospital. Vancouver, Wash., recently landed an expansion of Portland's Legacy Emanuel
Hospital, Giesen points out. Kaiser Permanente is a for-profit hospital chain that
has expanded aggressively in other areas, he adds.
Citizens say that Sacred Heart's "arrogance" and lack
of commitment to the Eugene community make bringing in another hospital justified.
Redmon says a "good slice" of the hospital's patients and employees would
embrace a choice of another hospital downtown.
Back to Top
Twenty
Years Later
They'll be dancing in
the streets at MIUSA conference.
By Aria
Seligmann
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Transcendental
Talent
"Having a rights-bearing attitude and feeling proud of who
you are" is a crucial step in self-empowerment, says Susan Sygall. Taking center
stage is a move in that direction.
On Saturday, Aug. 18. Disability Culture night, co-sponsored by
Carol Horne, Alito Alessi and the UO Dance Department, will feature performances
by the Joint Forces Dance Company and Northwest Theatre of the Deaf in a celebration
of representational art. The evening was planned to coincide with the MIUSA conference
and is offered to the disabled and non-disabled community.
"Although 20 percent of the U.S population, or 54 million
people, have some kind of disability, only one half of one percent of all actors
in performing unions identify themselves as having a disability," says Horne,
whose background as founder of Little Apple Productions, which gave representation
to lesbian actors and feminist themes, is an advocate for representation of all minorities.
Disability awareness is a growing movement in theater and performing
arts. "Those with disabilities are probably the most silenced voice in the performing
arts," says Horne.
Groups such as Joint Forces Dance Company and Northwest Theatre
of the Deaf, who employ disabled performers, help break down barriers of prejudice
and allow people with disabilities to not only perform, but to be seen.
The Joint Forces work features Alito Alessi and Emory Blackwell
performing Wizard of Odds, a U.S. premiere dance piece that was commissioned
by the Artcap Festival of Bern, Switzerland. Alessi has been working with the founders
of that festival for several years. Originally composed music by Rich Glauber and
a narrative written and spoken B'jo Ashwell accompany the dance.
Alessi's life work, incorporating people with disabilities into
dance, is based on his belief that audiences will get a perspective on arts for all
people "that will really change their views about body and dance. You carry
around prejudice -- it's not a good feeling for the person who owns it," he
says.
In addition to Joint Forces, Patrick Fischer and Justin Coleman
of the Northwest Theatre of the Deaf have created a special work just for this event.
The performance takes place at Gerlinger Annex on the UO campus,
"the only performance space in Eugene that can hold as many wheelchairs as we're
anticipating," says Horne. The show is ASL interpreted with limited visual description
in English. $5. Kids free.-- AS
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This coming week, Mobility International USA celebrates 20 years of
serving the international disabled community. From Aug. 11-20, MIUSA will welcome
past exchange participants and representatives from national, state and local government
and granting foundations to Eugene to celebrate 20 years of empowering people with
disabilities around the world.
MIUSA was founded in 1981 by Susan Sygall and Barbara Williams.
Both were UO graduate students. Sygall had spent a year in Australia as an exchange
student under a Rotary scholarship when she realized that she was one of very few
disabled students studying abroad. She wondered why.
With Williams, she started MIUSA, the aim of which was twofold:
to enable more disabled students to travel abroad and to train agencies in how to
provide for that to occur. "We got our first 500 dollars from a Rotarian and
that was matched by the Eugene Downtown Rotary Club," says Sygall. MIUSA now
has a staff that fluctuates between 12 and 14 and a budget that's "much bigger,"
says Sygall.
The organization's framework continues to incorporate international
exchange, but has expanded to include development and leadership training, policy,
legislation, community organizing and working with the media.
Delegates from all over the U.S. travel to other countries to discuss
issues affecting people with disabilities, and people from other countries travel
here. "After 20 years, close to 2,000 alumni have gone on our programs,"
says Sygall.
Currently, MIUSA has branched into three departments, the first
being the international exchange component. The second, formed in 1995, is the National
Clearinghouse on Disability and Exchange (NCDE). It's sponsored by the Bureau of
Education and Cultural Affairs in the State Department.
NCDE's aim is to increase the numbers of people with disabilities
who study, work, research and volunteer abroad. The program offers technical assistance
to all international exchange programs so they can successfully recruit and include
people with disabilities in their programs.
The third and newest MIUSA arm is the international development
program. It was begun in 1995 as an outgrowth of the World Conference on Women in
Beijing. "We organized 250 women to be there and had an international symposium
on women with disabilities," says Sygall. In 1997, MIUSA followed up with the
Women's Institute in Leadership in Disability (WILD), which trained 30 women from
15 countries to become leaders.
"From that we learned that besides leadership, women had to
be financially empowered," says Sygall. MIUSA followed up with an international
symposium on microcredit for women with disabilities.
And now, 20 years after MIUSA began raising global awareness of
rights for people with disabilities, staff in the international development wing
have just finished a research report for the Agency for International Development
(AID) on how women and girls with disabilities are being included in U.S.-funded
projects.
This week, the universal reunion will bring MIUSA family members
from Malawi, Russia, Cambodia, Mexico, Zimbabwe and many other countries. Locally,
hundreds of homestay families from Eugene-Springfield who "opened their homes
and hearts to people" will be reunited with some of their friends, says Sygall.
"We're taking the time to celebrate and also to thank people
of this community. We're taking time to listen to alumni from here and other countries
and to have them help us create a blueprint of where we go in the next five to 10
years."
The conference culminates in a free community dance at 8 pm Saturday,
Aug. 18 at Broadway Plaza.
PUBLIC EVENTS
Wednesday, Aug. 15
MIUSA Retrospective Photo Exhibit Grand Opening. 11:30
am-12:30 pm, Hilyard Community Center.
Thursday, Aug. 16
Disability Culture Night, featuring Joint Forces Dance
Company and The Northwest Theatre of the Deaf. 8 pm Gerlinger Annex, UO. $5, kids
free.
Saturday, Aug. 18
--Waterfest 2001, presented by World Wheelchair
Sports, with kayaking, sailing, water skiing and fishing. 9 am-5 pm, Dexter Lake.
$45-50. 485-1860.
--Danceability Workshops with public presentation at 4 pm.
noon-4 pm, Gerlinger Annex, UO. Donation.
--MIUSA's 20th Anniversary Street Dance Sponsored by KLCC,
dance with people with disabilities from around the world. 8 pm, Broadway Plaza.
Free.
Back to Top
 
Mick Garvin
"I wouldn't trade my work for anything," says
forest worker Mick Garvin. "I like being off in the woods." Garvin grew
up in Gold Hill in southern Oregon, served in the Army, and dropped out of UC-Santa
Barbara in 1993. From home base in Eugene, he travels to remote areas of the Northwest,
where he works at saw-topping, wildlife-tree creation (three snags per acre), and
similar contracts for the Forest Service and other agencies. "I just spent a
week fighting a fire in the Warm Springs area," he reports. For the past 14
years, Garvin has been an environmental and labor activist. A former chair of the
Sierra Club's local Many Rivers Group, he also co-founded Cascadia Forest Defenders,
the group that erected a blockade to prevent logging at Warner Creek. "I'll
take credit for nagging people into building the wall and drawbridge," he admits.
Fellow activist James Johnston says "Mick is a spark plug for the forest defense
campaign. He has a Monty Python sensibility." Garvin constructed a 15-foot-tall
"siege tower" for the Seattle WTO protests. Intended as a "unassailable
podium," the tower was grounded when police slashed the tires.
-- Paul Neevel
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