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News
Briefs: Hynix Giveaway | Policing
Reporters | Neighbors Organize | Probing
at the Guard | Morse Nominees | Candidates
Rated
Happening
People: Lorin Hawley.
HYNIX GIVEAWAY
The Eugene City Council voted in 10 minutes last week to
blow a huge hole in its budget to give Hynix a $2.2 million tax break.
"Eugene taxpayers can't afford this corporate giveaway,"
said Councilor Bonny Bettman, pointing to coming budget cuts. "Were losing firefighters,
we're losing police officers."
"It's outrageous that we're doing this," said Councilor
Betty Taylor, arguing the break will force cuts in city services. "We're giving
the people's money away. It's not ours."
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Slant
Is there a better way to attract business and create family wage
jobs in Eugene? Instead of appeasing Hynix with generous and undeserved giveaways,
we can levy full and equitable taxes on local big businesses and use some of that
revenue to bolster programs such as the city's small business loan fund. Loans are
not giveaways and they can make all the difference to small local companies that
are looking to expand.
A subcommittee of the Eugene Police Commission is
wrestling to draft a media access policy that makes everybody happy
(see news story this week). The committee has done some commendable work, but we're
still left with a police department that has a low level of credibility (among many
in the community) due to a history of oppressive tactics against peaceful protesters.
The trust may never return until Eugene has an independent police review board to
investigate complaints of excessive force and selective prosecution.
Meanwhile, a Boston federal court has ruled that amateur news gatherers
have the same rights as professionals on public access TV. An Associated Press story
of March 6 told of Patricia Demarest, a volunteer reporter/producer who ruffled feathers
in covering local town politics and got kicked off the air for being "too controversial."
The ACLU came to her rescue. Are there local implications? The new media policies
for Eugene's police recognize volunteer reporters, but even these new "liberal"
policies might be judged too restrictive if they are ever challenged in court.
More absurdities from the White House: Bush and Cheney
are seeking a military budget increase of $48 billion, which would
give the Pentagon $380 billion to play with. Lots of toys for overgrown boys. Look
for budget deficits for years to come, a raiding of Social Security surpluses, and
cuts in education and social services. All for some elusive sense of security. And
will excessive military spending have an impact on Oregon 3,000 miles away? You bet.
A lot of our state public services rely on federal dollars.
Sustainable economic health requires adding value: creating goods
and services that are useful and beneficial. When we spend billions on weapon systems,
we get no return on our investment, unlike spending on education, health, peaceful
research, diplomacy and foreign aid.
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Councilor Pat Farr argued local schools will get funding as part of
the deal with Hynix.
"We shouldn't be fooling ourselves that this is any major
salvation for the schools," said Councilor David Kelly. Kelly said 4-J schools
face an $8 million shortfall next year but will get only $300,000 a year for three
years under the Hynix tax break deal.
Councilor Gary Pape described the city's share of the lost revenue
to pay for the Hynix tax break as modest. "I hardly see this community paying
in $1.2 million as any sort of a corporate give away."
Councilors Bettman, Kelly, Taylor and Scott Meisner voted against
the tax break for Hynix. Councilors Farr, Pape, Gary Rayor, and Nancy Nathanson voted
for the tax break. Mayor Jim Torrey broke the tie in favor of giving the money to
Hynix. -- Alan Pittman
POLICING REPORTERS
On June 17, 2000, the Eugene police orderred the media
to stand far back from a street demonstration and prevented reporters from covering
a mass arrest where some protesters later complained excessive force was used.
The Eugene police claim they have the power to declare political
gatherings "unlawful assemblies" and order crowds, including the media
to disperse or be arrested. "The bottom line is if we're going to clear an area,
that's going to include the media," former Police Chief Jim Hill said last year.
Local media complained that the police should not block them from
covering protests. "It's in effect an ability to censor the coverage,"
Register-Guard editor Jim Godbold said last year in a meeting between media
representatives and police.
Two years after the June 17 incident, a subcommittee of the Eugene
Police Commission has proposed changes in police policy to address the issue. But
it's unclear whether the proposed new policies will make much of a difference.
The policy still allows the police to block the media from covering
a protest, although they must do so with an explicit order directed at reporters.
The new policy creates a new requirement that reporters display
large picture id's at events if they want to ask for permission to cross police lines.
Reporters create the ID's themselves. Police may revoke any media access privileges
for a reporter if they decide that the person "becomes a participant in the
event."
The proposed policy authorizes police to restrict the number of
reporters covering an event. Reporters are expected to decide who the members of
the "media pool" will be.
At a public comment session, several alternative media videographers
criticized the new policy for failing to prevent the police harassment, arrest and
censorship that they said police had directed against them in the past.
Tim Lewis, who has videotaped protests for the "Cascadia Alive!"
cable access show, said acting Police Chief Thad Buchanan was the officer in charge
on June 17th. In his experience, Lewis said, "The police typically get in your
face immediately to try and control things."
Subcommittee members who crafted the policy in consultation with
the police and city attorney defended the proposal. Councilor Bonny Bettman said
"we have to provide a certain amount of discretion" to the police in dealing
with the media and called the new policy a "vast improvement" over what
exists now.
The Police Commission (682-5852 for info) voted to delay a final
vote on the media policy until May, allowing time for more discussion and public
comment at their April meeting. -- Alan Pittman
NEIGHBORS
ORGANIZE
Residents in the River Loop/Beacon Drive area of north
Eugene are forming the Seacon Park Neighborhood Organization to lobby city and county
officials for sustainable development in the area.
The action follows the surprise clearcutting Feb. 11 of trees and
vegetation on a 9 1/2-acre private parcel in preparation for development. The site
is home to the Western pond turtle and other rare species, say the organizers.
"Developers will need to drastically infill to raise homes
above the flood mark," reads a statement from the group. "Infill will displace
water; new homes, streets and driveways will increase runoff; and degeneration of
the entire area will decrease water absorption."
The organization is seeking to protect the land through purchase
of the riparian corridor, preventing filling at the site, protecting the East Santa
Clara Waterway, and denying rezoning of the site.
For more information, contact the group at 461-3798.
PROBING
AT THE GUARD
A few weeks ago, reporters at The Register-Guard got
what was undoubtedly some happy news: an e-mail from Managing Editor Dave Baker saying
that, despite layoffs and money woes, the company will be making a new commitment
to investigative journalism.
"In the face of a lousy economy, it would be easy as a newsroom
to hunker down and wait for the good times to return," he wrote. "But I
think it would be dangerous to do that, and here's why: It's more important than
ever that readers and potential readers of the newspaper perceive The Register-Guard
as a growing, improving, dynamic and successful company. We need to constantly
be striving to produce a better product."
Investigative reporting is costly and time consuming, and therefore
often falls through the cracks at a newspaper.
"But the fact of the matter is we'll never be a player in
investigative journalism if we don't make a commitment," Baker wrote. That commitment
is to publish six investigative stories during the remainder of the year.
People long familiar with the R-G newsroom say reporters
have been clamoring for such backing for a long time. But one source who declined
to be named said the big question is follow through.
Retired R-G columnist Don Bishoff isn't as skeptical.
"I think they're probably serious, and I think it's a good
idea," he says. "I'm just sorry that they're coming to it so late. This
is something they should have been doing all along."
And Bishoff has a story idea to throw into the hopper: Investigate
why the R-G's publishing company is working so hard and paying so much to
bust the union there. (Bishoff once headed that union.)
"It's a little ironic that this newspaper that wants to do
investigative journalism has tried to bottle up the story of it's own anti-union
activities," he says. -- Orna Izakson
MORSE
NOMINEES
Eight people who have served government with integrity
and independence have been nominated for the 2002 Wayne Morse Integrity in Government
Award. The Wayne Morse Corporation Board of Eugene, sponsor of the award, subsequently
will cut the list to the three most deserving. Then a blue ribbon national committee
will make the choice of the recipient in mid-April.
Two Oregonians are among the nominees: former U.S. senator and
Gov. Mart Hatfield, and current Gov. John Kitzhaber. The only woman in the group
is Barbara Lee, U.S. representative from California (Berkeley). The other five, who
span the continent, are Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont, Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota,
Gov. George Ryan of Illinois, Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Rep. Dennis Kucinich
of Ohio.
A statement of Sen. Morse, who served Oregon in the U.S. Senate,
1945-1968, illustrates the basic critereon considered for nomination: "I will
exercise an independence of judgment based on the evidence of each issue. I will
weigh the views of my constituents and party, but cast my vote free of political
pressure and unmoved by threats of loss of political support."
Feingold, co-sponsor of the McCain-Feingold bill for campaign finance
reform, refused PAC money for his race for re-election to the Senate last fall. Lee
cast the lone vote against the initial resolution in support of the war against terrorism.
Jefford changed the balance of power in the Senate by switching from the Republican
to the Democratic Party. Kitzhaber is working to make Oregon's state budget sustainable
beyond the current biennium, even though he will be out of office at that time.
Kucinich's advocacy for a Department of Peace seeks not only to
make nonviolence an organizing principle of our society, but to make war archaic.
Ryan, a Republican, bucked his party's and his state's consensus to impose a moratorium
on executions in his state's penal system. Wellstone startled his Democratic Party
by being the only Senator running for reelection to vote against his party's 1996
welfare reform bill because of its insensitivity to the needs of the poor.
Hatfield was consistent during his 30 years in Congress showing
principled restraint regarding use of military force and appropriations while much
of his party and sometimes much of the nation was strongly inclined the other way.
CANDIDATES
RATED
The Oregon League of Conservation Voters announced March
15 its endorsement of both leading Democrat candidates for governor: Bev Stein
and Ted Kulongoski. Normally OLCV picks just one candidate, but the board decided
both were "outstanding leaders" and endorsed both. None of the four Republican
candidates applied for the endorsement.
"Cleaning up the Willamette River and preventing the loss
of our open spaces are serious challenges facing the state," says Jonathan Poisner,
executive director of OLCV, in a prepared statement. "Kulongoski and Stein will
best provide the leadership Oregon needs to ensure that we leave future generations
a clean and healthy environment."
"Oregon has endured four sessions of an anti-environment majority
in the Oregon Legislature. Gov. Kitzhaber was repeatedly forced to veto legislative
efforts to roll back safeguards for Oregon's land, air, and water. OLCV believes
it is critical that Kitzhaber's successor continues to make Oregon's environment
a top priority," he said. "OLCV is confident that Stein and Kulongoski
will have the skill to craft solutions to protect Oregon's environment and the courage
to wield the veto pen."
Kulongoski and Stein both hold a 98 percent average lifetime rating
on the OLCV Environmental Scorecard for the Legislature.
For more information visit www.olcv.org
Back to Top
 
Lorin Hawley
"I'm a hippie at heart," says self-employed technical
writer and amateur Afro-Cuban drummer Lorin Hawley, who left Apple Computer in 1997
after eight years. "Silicon Valley was like a yuppie theme park -- I felt like
a visiting anthropologist." Hawley moved to Eugene in '98, but didn't commit
to staying until he had secured health coverage through the Oregon Medical Insurance
Pool. In a 20-year struggle with major depression, he has worked with doctors to
develop a regimen of cognitive therapy and (expensive) medications that keeps him
functional and productive. In May of 2000, OMIP decided to deny his coverage. "I
could read the contract -- I knew they were wrong," says Hawley, who spent the
rest of the year filing appeals to no avail. "It was a nightmarish process."
Legislators and advocacy groups turned a deaf ear, so he located a lawyer willing
to sue the state. In January 2002, OMIP offered to settle for the amount of his med
bills -- the agency also explicitly extended coverage to mental-health prescriptions.
"As a result of Lorin's efforts, they are now covering people the way they should,"
observes his friend Candace Lapp.
-- Photo by Paul Neevel
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