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News
Briefs: Community Response
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Down | Torrey Threat
News:
Broadway Quandary-- Should we open up the last of the pedestrian
mall to traffic?
Happening
People: Maria Maldonando
COMMUNITY
RESPONSE
A group of concerned local people
have called for a public forum and vigil in observance of this week's
attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. The forum and
vigil will occur at 5:30 pm Thursday, Sept. 13 in the Park Blocks
at 8th & Oak.
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Slant
-- Many journalists find it amusingly ironic
that people within the profession are often lousy at interpersonal
communication. But that irony isn't so funny when it's all over
your work place.
Witness the flap at our favorite local daily
paper over e-mail. For the past year, the R-G management
has prohibited employees for using the company's system for
communication about union issues, even on their own time. The
National Labor Relations Board thinks that stinks (see EW
shorts, 9/13) and employees aren't too pleased with it either.
One staffer, who asked not to be named, pointed out that three
generations of R-G owners have made big profits off of
freedom of speech, but the one thing holding up a contract that's
already three years overdue is freedom of speech for union employees.
-- Speaking of the R-G, it appears their
editors read us more carefully than we read them. We mentioned
in Slant Aug. 30 that we haven't read much in the local daily's
biz pages about the newspaper's plans for a new office building
at Mill and 10th Avenue. R-G Business Editor Christian
Wihtol tells us the R-G did run a story and map Aug.
14. We were likely distracted by the huge color photo, next
to the story, of trendy lawn art in Chicago. What was missing
from the R-G's played-down article was any controversy,
and there's plenty. We hear the buildings to be leveled for
a parking lot contain stunning 1940s-style apartments and artist
studios designed by the late great architect John Lauren Reynolds.
Tons of gorgeous woodwork, fireplaces and tilework, including
showers with five shower heads. Can these downtown treasures
be saved?
-- Former Congressman Charlie Porter's campaign
to "Impeach the Supreme Court 5" has been likened to tilting
at windmills, but the Eugene Democrat was invited to pitch his
cause at a press conference in D.C. Tuesday afternoon, the same
day as the terrorist attacks. We haven't heard, but the big
event was likely canceled. Porter was going to share the podium
spotlight with Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., Vince Bugliosi and Demo
workhorses Bob Fertik and David Lytel. Go Charlie!
-- Is PeaceHealth's long-range planning for
a mega-hospital on solid ground? Will hospitals as we know them
become obsolete with advances in medicine, the proliferation
of sophisticated procedures in doctors' offices, and insurance
companies pushing out-patient care? Anyone care to speculate
on what medical care will look like in 20 years?
-- With PeaceHealth moving to Springfield in
2006, only homebirth infants will be born in Eugene after that.
Whoa! Will those rare Eugene babies become collector items?
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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Organizers say they hope the public forum will serve
as an opportunity for people "to discuss possible causes for and responses
to an historic and frightening event." The vigil will remember the
victims of the attack, as well as the victims of daily violence that
occurs throughout the world.
"Now is not the time to rely upon the corporate media
to define this situation. We need to think critically, examine the
roots of this situation, and respond as a community to this overwhelming
attack," says Kaya Sun, a member of the coordinating group of Thursday's
forum and vigil. "Fear should not dictate our behavior and push us
into emotional disarray"
"We must ask the questions that are not being addressed
-- why did these attacks happen? Is it coincidence that the largest
center of world economics and the largest center of military power
were the targets? No," says another organizer who wishes to remain
unidentified. "We need to ask why this happened -- and clearly
address the roots of the problem. We cannot allow the powers-that-be
to drag us into the abyss of violence upon violence," she adds. --
Lisa Igoe
AGREEMENT
NEAR
For the first time in two and a half
years, contract negotiations between the Eugene Newspaper Guild and
management at The Register-Guard are moving forward.
Both sides met with a federal mediator on Aug. 23
in Oakland, Calif., in what union members expected to be a completely
off-the-record session. But over the Labor Day weekend, R-G staffers
got a letter from Editor and Publisher Tony Baker saying the meeting
resulted in agreement on all issues but one: using company e-mail
for union business.
"Our position is that the company's e-mail system
not be used for union business," Baker wrote. "We believe the company's
current communications policy already addresses that limitation, but
the union disagrees and thus we've proposed adding this clarifying
language in the contract. That's the only change we've proposed regarding
how the e-mail system is utilized."
Guild President Suzi Prozanski saw the tone of Baker's
letter as "pretty conciliatory," except on the e-mail issue. "They
were implying, I think, that the Guild was holding everybody's raises
hostage to this silly little rights thing over e-mail -- which
we haven't used because they disciplined us for it a year ago, so
we've been living without it all this time," she said.
E-mail arose as an issue a year ago when management
slapped Prozanski for using it for union communications. On May 5,
2000, Prozanski got a letter of reprimand in her file for an e-mail
she sent from her desk during a break, and a warning two weeks later
for sending an e-mail from the Guild office to members in the R-G
office.
The union took the matter to the National Labor Relations
Board, which slapped the R-G back saying management's actions
constituted an unfair labor practice. "The communications policy is
unlawfully overbroad and therefore facially invalid" when applied
to union communications, the NLRB wrote in its opinion. Management
asked for a hearing on the matter, and will get it on Nov. 14.
The NLRB slapped the R-G again at the end of
August, saying its policy preventing some employees from wearing union
insignia -- such as green armbands -- on the job and prohibiting
pro-union signs in employees' personal vehicles also was an unfair
labor practice. That charge -- the 11th in just over a year --
also will be on the Nov. 14 agenda.
The good news is that an agreement seems near. The
Guild compromised on several issues, and R-G management won't
cut anyone's salaries as they had wanted to. Most employees will get
raises of 2.5 percent for each of the next four years, according to
Baker's letter. Prozanski says the Guild is holding off on hiring
a part-time union organizer because the sides seem so close to an
agreement. -- OI
BREAK
DOWN
Classified workers of the Oregon
University System (OUS) have voted overwhelmingly in favor of authorizing
the union to call a strike by a margin of 95.5 to 4.4 percent. The
voting took place throughout the day Sept. 6 and results were finalized
about 8 pm. At UO, the vote of those members attending the meeting
was reported at about 98 percent in favor of authorizing a strike.
The next mediation/bargaining meeting, and the last
chance for a settlement was to be in Eugene this week, Sept. 12, at
the Phoenix Inn on Franklin Avenue. News was not available at press
time on the outcome of that meeting.
"We can only hope that the chancellor and the presidents
of the seven university system campuses will come to their senses
the week of Sept. 10," said James Jacobson, UO office specialist and
SEIU/OPEU bargaining rep at the strike vote meeting. "They can prevent
an incredibly disruptive job site action at the campuses, just when
students are returning, simply by respecting their hard-working employees
and agreeing to the same fair wage increases and health care coverage
that was recently achieved by 17,000 other state employees."
TORREY
THREAT
Eugene mayor Jim Torrey has threatened
to sue anyone who says he's a member of the Gang of 9 and has personally
profited by PeaceHealth's decision to move to Springfield.
At a council meeting on Monday, Torrey said he had
been accused in an e-mail of Gang membership and profiting from the
land deal. "I'm prepared to bring legal action to prove that I didn't."
-- AP
Back to Top
Broadway
Quandary
Should
we open the last of the pedestrian malls to traffic?
By
Alan Pittman
Rob Hebding, 20, sits on a bench in the
middle of the Broadway pedestrian mall playing his guitar. The sun
dapples down through shade trees as he gently strums and sings.
Hebding says he likes the park-like street. "I'd rather
shop here than somewhere where you get hit by a car."
Tearing out the bench where he sits, cutting down
the trees and taking out the flower boxes and playground to reopen
the mall to cars will only hurt businesses by making the area less
attractive, he says. Businesses are still struggling after Willamette
Street was reopened, Hebding says. "I don't think it helped at all."
Many of the young people that hang out downtown may
consider the pedestrian mall a public living room, but many business
people, and a growing number of citizens, see the mall as the cause
of urban blight. Tear out the mall and put in a street with parking,
mall opponents have argued for years, and businesses will return to
empty storefronts -- and the young people who hang out and intimidate
shoppers will disappear. In the 1990s voters agreed and passed measures
to open Willamette and Olive streets to cars. Now, a measure to open
the last remaining stretch of the mall on Broadway from Oak to Charnelton
Street is on the ballot.
Representatives of Eugene's progressive community
disagree on the measure.
Friends of Eugene, the city's leading citizen group
supporting city planning in the public-interest, opposes the measure.
"While we support the revitalization of downtown,
we do not support this measure because it lacks good land use planning
and it doesn't protect the taxpayers' interest," says FOE board member
David Monk.
Monk faults the move to open the mall for not having
a street design or a plan to pay for the construction. Estimates of
the cost of opening the street range up to $5 million. "The money
could be better spent in encouraging the revitalization of that under-utilized
property," he says.
"I doubt that it's worth the money that it will cost,"
says City Councilor Betty Taylor, the lone council vote against opening
the mall. Taylor points out that opening Willamette hasn't reinvigorated
that street. "I don't think Willamette looks that good. It has empty
buildings and a big hole in the ground."
Since Willamette was opened, Prince Puckler's ice
cream has moved and Rosewaters deli has closed on the street. Developer
Ed Aster demolished the Woolworth's building months ago, but has yet
to build anything in its place. Aster has recently abandoned his plans
to build a "telecom hotel" on the lot.
Taylor says the city tore out the tall trees and park-like
area on Willamette and replaced it with a "pretty ugly" street. On
Broadway, she says, "I'd hate to sacrifice the trees and the playground."
Taylor and Monk say they'd like to see property owners
commit to paying for most of the work to re-open the street and to
investing in redeveloping the area before the city opens the street.
Most of the pedestrian mall buildings are now owned
by Spring Holdings, run by the local Woolley lumber family and the
local Connor family. Connor and Woolley have made no public commitment
to pay for any of the street opening or invest in any building improvements
if the street is punched through.
Taylor says the city should use its system of charging
for street improvements to bill Connor and Woolley for the work. The
city regularly bills adjacent homeowners for street paving projects.
"Why shouldn't they [Connor and Woolley] pay?" she asks.
Monk says the problem downtown isn't the lack of cars
on the pedestrian mall but competition from suburban sprawl subsidized
with city roads and other infrastructure. "The reason downtown is
struggling so much is that we allowed our retail base to move out
to Valley River Center."
"We have to stop subsidizing and encouraging sprawl,"
Taylor agrees.
Infusing Energy
Russ Brink,
director of the business group, Downtown Eugene Inc., says it's about
time Eugene opened the pedestrian mall to cars and bicycles. "Its
not functioning properly now and hasn't for a long time."
Brink says the eastern end of the Broadway mall with
Zenon restaurant and the western end with the New Frontier market
are doing well with opened streets. By opening the mall, the two prospering
areas will be linked and "that energy will kind of be infused into
the portions that are closed off."
Brink admits that Willamette hasn't done as well as
hoped after the street was opened. But he says the pedestrian mall
is a lot worse off than streets with traffic. "There are vacancies
throughout downtown, but there's no other concentration of vacancies
like Broadway."
Many proponents of opening the mall don't have great
expectations that it will be an instant success. "We shouldn't kid
ourselves that opening the mall is going to be a magic bullet," says
Greg McLauchlan, a Friends of Eugene member who supports opening the
mall but doesn't speak for the group. McLauchlan agrees that the real
problem, and solution, downtown is controlling the unregulated sprawl
that has sucked the life out of downtown. "We have been saturated
with Wal-Marts and Costcos," he says. "We keep shooting ourselves
in the foot."
"Opening other streets hasn't been the silver bullet,"
agrees downtown Councilor Bonny Bettman.
But Bettman, McLauchlan and some other progressives
support opening the street as worth a try because providing car access
may help the long troubled downtown. "It doesn't necessarily help,
but it may," says Councilor Gary Rayor, another re-opening supporter.
But Rayor says a reopened Broadway should be far more
pedestrian- and tree-friendly than the designs for the Olive and Willamette
reopenings. Rayor says he wants the street to be a one-way lane winding
through existing trees with a bike lane and wide sidewalks. That design
in the relatively narrow area would leave room for "only one or two
parking spaces on the whole thing," he says.
"It should be extremely pedestrian oriented and bike
oriented," say Rayor. "I'm disappointed in the other streets that
are open."
 
Maria Maldonado
For the past four years, nurse-practitioner
Maria Maldonado has served the medical needs of Lane County's low-income
Spanish-speaking population, dividing her time between Centro Latino-Americano,
White Bird Clinic, and PeaceHealth's Creswell Clinic. "I'm the primary
care provider for 3,000 people," she estimates. A native of Nicaragua,
Maldonado came north at age 12 for boarding school in California.
"My parents sent me to the States," she says. While in nursing school
at Southern University in Tennessee, she spent a summer in the college's
outreach mission to a rural area of her home country. "We had to diagnose
and treat multiple diseases," she recalls. "It was my first adventure
in the realm of nurse-practitioner." Maldonado taught nursing in Puerto
Rico, then earned a master's degree from Loma Linda University and
taught there for nearly 20 years. She completed nurse-practitioner
studies in 1996, and was hired by our local Latino Medical Access
Coalition a year later. "Maria is unique -- she's totally devoted
to her patients," says White Bird's Dr. Mike Weinstein. "She's here
every night until eight o'clock."
-- Paul Neevel
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