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Insider
Baseball : Circular Logic: Buying a conclusion
from a collusionist.
Viewpoint:
Rigged Game: County staff still in cahoots with developers.
Letters:
EW readers sound off.
Circular
Logic
Buying
a conclusion from a collusionist.
I got "U-people'd" to death when I got back from
Special Session III, as in, "You people
up there in Salem ought to be ashamed of yourselves … You people
are idiots, coming up with that pathetic budget." Being the calm,
senately, thick-skinned paragon of Christian virtue that I am, I would
gently grab each critic by the throat and softly whisper: "I can't
take this anymore! Let me tell you what really happened! Honest, there
are actually two parties up there. Well actually there are three or
four." Ramble, ramble. I had to repeat this mantra so many times at
Art in the Vineyard last Friday that my hands ached, as did my heart.
If you're engaged in politics, you have to be a news
junkie; I've read The Oregonian and R-G religiously
(maybe that's a clumsy adverb for me) for the past 20 years. Back
in the late '80s and early '90s, my predecessor in the House, Sam
Dominy, used to regale his friends with nightmarish tales of the Legislature.
Unlike me, Sam actually got to serve in the majority for the first
of his three terms in 1989. But he moved to the minority, with Republican
Larry Campbell as speaker in 1991, and life changed in Salem. "How'd
we do up there?" Sam would ask after each session; so we'd describe
our perception from what we'd gleaned in the papers. Sam would always
bust up laughing, then tell us what really happened. Some things never
change.
Don't get me wrong, the R-G's David Steves
does an excellent job on the legislative beat. But one of The Oregonian
writers did a wrap-up feature, later picked up in the R-G,
on my colleague, Salem Democrat Peter Courtney — entitled "the
happy warrior" — that really fuzzed up the picture.
Courtney is quoted: "I was flat out desperate, I couldn't
sleep; the institution was tearing itself apart …. people expected
me to find a way to do this." He's then described "like a pitcher
summoned to mow down the final batters in a close ball game, Courtney
was tapped to help prevent a meltdown … an aggressive and cagey
negotiator …" What bunk! Is deal-making the end game in Salem?
When it is, bad things happen. Consider Courtney's deal:
Ç The first two days of session, he and Kate Brown
voted with the R's for the Enron-Ponzi shift of $260 million for K-12
and community colleges into the next biennium. As stupid an idea as
it was, why give away your final compromise as the opening gambit?
Ç By enacting the delay of Measure 88 (the federal
tax deduction increase) instead of referring it to the voters, he
left Sizemore wide open for more headlines in a drive to get signatures
for a referendum.
Ç By referring the clone of Measure 13 — stealing
$150 million in education endowment funds forever — to a September
election, he doomed it. The voters are going to stick it in our ear,
and rightfully so. So Courtney took the risk of schools being down
a mere $232 million next year!
Ç We never even got to vote on delaying the new $124
million "accelerated depreciation" corporate tax break.
Ç To cap it off, Courtney spent the last hours of
the session convincing everyone that this was the best deal we could
get. Unfortunately he even convinced our friends, school supporters
and unions that this was it. I was then asked to vote for the final
package after allies did a risk-benefit analysis and concluded we
had to fold. It was classical circular logic: buying a conclusion
from a collusionist.
Ç What did we get? $611 million in one-time spending
and a cumulative $650 million in cuts to programs. Even The Oregonian
editors described it as "a hodgepodge of measures to temporarily plug
a [budget shortfall] while doing next to nothing to give Oregon what
we really need: a stable, long-term alternative to a badly flawed
state revenue-raising system."
I felt queasy leaving Salem last week, thinking
that I should have never given in. And the response that I've gotten
from people at home reinforces my feeling that we should have held
out for better, even if it had resulted in a longer gridlock.
U-people aside, folks at home could tell the difference
between Republicans and Democrats and who was at fault for the gridlock.
As my friend, Springfield High School teacher James Mattiace, describes
it: "Come to Salem, where there are a lot of political jokes …
some even got elected."
Sen. Tony Corcoran of Cottage Grove represents portions
of Lane and Douglas counties in the newly-formed Senate District 4,
which now includes the UO area. He can be reached at corcoran.sen@state.or.us
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Rigged
Game
County
staff still in cahoots with developers.
Lane County's Land Management Division (LMD) has
failed to learn anything from the recent
case of Maxwell vs. Lane County or the Battle of Fire Road, as it
is commonly known. The LMD should have learned to put out sound, legal
land use decisions that do not conflict with Oregon land use law for
a start. County land use policy may not be less restrictive than state
law. It may be more restrictive.
Now we have two new Fire Road-class land use battles
brewing in Lane County as you read this. The Johnson case, near Veneta,
consists of an attempt to change 20-odd acres of F-2 land into four
Rural Residential 5-acre minimum lots. Part of the argument for this
is that it isn't practical to grow trees on the land. The Oregon Department
of Forestry disagrees. The LMD's own staff recommended against this
attempted re-zone but our county commissioners voted for it, three
to two. When challenged by a neighbor and LandWatch, the LMD promptly
recalled the application with a "voluntary remand."
Voluntary remands are only for the use of the LMD/developer
complex. They enable the complex to pack the official record of the
application with additional (frequently after-the-fact) information
that is supposed to justify the foregone conclusion of more building
sites in Lane County. LandWatch is not extended the courtesy of inserting
additional information into the record whenever it feels like it.
The really incredible part of this is that there is
no need for a voluntary remand if the complex is not challenged on
its land use decision. Land use law in Lane County is peculiar in
that anything the LMD/developer complex does is automatically legal
unless somebody wants to put up $3,000 to challenge it. It will continue
to be legal throughout Lane County's "process" in which hearings officials
— employees of the county — will hear the case and find
in their employer's favor. Should they err and find in favor of private
citizens challenging the case, the LMD will appeal their decision
along with the developer. This helps hearings officials to get their
mind right and reverse themselves. As long as you have hearings officials
on the county payroll, this is how it works.
I'm not making this up. I have personal experience
in the Battle of Fire Road. The LMD actually helped the developer
create an after-the-fact "intermediate lot line adjustment" on land
no longer owned by the developer, in an attempt to justify a "migrating
tax lot" that not only defied Oregon law in its creation, but county
land use policy as well. Following this logic, I should be able to
perform a "lot line adjustment" on your property. I had hoped that
Fire Road was an isolated incident but it is clearly the norm.
Then we have the fight at Yale Creek, up the McKenzie.
Basically we have new development attempted on top of old land use
decisions. Big, big money for the complex if they can pull it off
— legal bills and county fees for LandWatch either way.
As long as our LMD is fee-driven, we will have this
collusion with developers. LandWatch envisions an LMD that enforces
state land use law instead of viewing it as a theoretical exercise
in circumvention.
The LMD land use process is like one of those math
problems in school where you construct the equation to reflect a given
answer. The LMD/developer complex has gotten away with this for years
because most little people don't want to put up money to play a rigged
game. This is changing.
LandWatch is the new kid on the block. We realize
that if we ain't litigating, the LMD ain't listening. We work limited
income, dead-end jobs that we hate and we put our money where our
mouth is. When the complex succeeds in pushing a highly questionable
application through the system, the developer makes lots of money
and so does the LMD through resultant fees. One hand washes the other.
It costs LandWatch major bucks, win, lose or draw, and still we fight.
Fire Road was the high-water mark of bayonet expansionism
for the LMD/developer complex in rural Lane County. Our resource land
and quality of life is too important to be sold as a commodity for
the complex to make a lot of money. Our fight is evolving from a series
of overlapping riots into a full fledged front. Maybe you belong in
LandWatch Lane County.
Norm Maxwell is co-president of LandWatch Lane County,
e-mail hopsbran@aol.com. Other
articles by Maxwell can be found at http://westbynorthwest.org
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FARMING
OUT
For those of you who thought that organic
food production was now mainstream and that most farming practices
would soon be incorporating organic methods, it is time to think again.
Organic agriculture will likely be facing a new challenge from the
chemical industry in the form of a massive public relations campaign
to promote "high yield" farming. "High yield" sounds great, as do
the names of some of the so called "public interest groups" that industry
will be using to promote these "new" ideas.
Chemical industries involved in pesticide, herbicide
and biotech production will be promoting large scale farming as a
key to environmental sustainability, wildland and wildlife protection,
as well as benefitting public health in general. That's right, the
spin doctors will actually be telling us that huge corporate farms
are good for us and for the environment. It may sound strange to us
here in little ol' Eugene, but make no mistake — these industries
know that they haven't done too well in public relations. So, you
will see a massive PR campaign on the health benefits of using pesticides.
While it is unclear whether or not organic farming will be directly
attacked, the industry will be spending a lot of money to promote
pesticides as the only way to protect us from the hordes of insects
eating our food and carrying diseases. Low-yield organic methods will
probably be portrayed as too land intensive and therefore a threat
to wildland and wildlife in general.
Unfortunately, organic farming doesn't have a huge
bankroll nor is it even well organized enough to promote their side
of the debate, so this is likely to be a one-sided battle.
It is likely that many, many small farms across the
nation will be affected if the public is swayed by industry propaganda.
I hope that, like so many other assaults on our small farmers, they
will endure!
Jack Bates
Eugene
GETTING
WELL
It is the first giant step towards
furnishing health care for all Oregonians (and that includes all
Oregon children now denied health care administered disastrously by
HMOs or profit-making "insurance companies"). Now that the Health
Care for All Oregon initiative will appear on the November ballot,
the small army of volunteers who gathered tens of thousands of signatures
must get the message out to the voters to turn in their ballots by
Nov. 5.
We can be assured that health insurance companies
will expend some of the millions of dollars that they've collected
and fattened their corporate pocketbooks with to defeat this measure.
The people, however, can march in unison to see to it that affordable
health care — including prescription drugs, dental care and
alternative health care — is available without co-pays or exorbitant
insurance premiums.
This will be funded by a progressive payroll tax and
an income tax paid by Oregonians with incomes over 150 pecent of the
Federal poverty level. Those taxes are low and affordable, and they
are in addition to the funds now provided by federal, state and local
governments to the health care system. The income tax is a progressive
one, commencing at 150 percent of the Federal poverty level and a
maximum interest rate of 8 percent.
The funds created thereby would be put into a fund
not available for other state needs and would be administered by a
board, two members of which would be elected from each of the five
congressional districts along with an additional five members named
by the governor of the state; these additional members would include
individuals from consumer groups and alternative medical suppliers,
along with a business representative.
At long last, we can see to it that all Oregonians
receive the medical care to which they are entitled at affordable
costs.
Karl G. Sorg
Eugene
GOD
HELP US
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in
San Francisco has ruled that the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional.
It is amazing to me at this time in our current state of terror-focused
living, that as Americans, we need to be spending a very large amount
of taxpayer money to fight about, of all things, a belief in a higher
power to help us. If there isn't a God, what's the big deal? And if
there is a God, great — we can use all the help we can
get!
The world is getting so liberally correct, that is,
the goal must always be to please everyone at all times. It's to the
point that the world is getting so broad-minded, it's flat-headed.
Please! Don't we as Americans have more to truly deal with right now
than depleting the world of anyone's belief that a higher, spiritual
power exists to assist us?
Susan Gillis
Eugene
VISION
OF JUSTICE
Treat corrupt CEOs like arrested
drug dealers. Light, cushy, often-appealed prison terms are puny punishment
when a multi-millionaire CEO cooks the books, profits from insider
trading or buys politicians. Confiscating drug dealers' assets feeds
our ceaseless, ineffectual war on drugs. Confiscation might work better
on the crooked criminals in boardrooms and vice-presidential suites.
Their self-serving, immoral actions are no less perpetual or damaging.
Why not freeze and eventually confiscate indicted
CEO's assets, then return them to cheated investors, retirees and
employees? Those millions and billions might even help balance disproportionate
taxation of middle and low income individuals and families.
After Enron, WorldCom, Martha Stewart and Dennis Kozlowski,
will anyone be surprised if the stock market "adjusts" from lower
investor confidence? After the Bush appointment (er, election), is
anyone surprised by voter apathy when our "democracy" seems farcical?
Voting, even when counted, merely endorses the fat cats' already purchased
representatives of both parties.
If I had several hundred millions, I might make a
few campaign contributions for income and tax avoidance insurance.
Or as a drug dealer, I might make a few bribes to stay in business...
What's the real difference here? The CEO's bribes are mostly legal.
Once indicted for cooking books or insider trading, the CEO can afford
a better lawyer.
One day perhaps poor criminals will get enough money
to hire the best lawyers and CEOs will have to make do with overworked
public defenders. That would be one vision of justice.
Ethen Perkins
Eugene
ARE
YOU READY?
I was pleased to see that the EW
(6/27) finally gave some attention to my husband (governor candidate
Richard Alevizos). They missed a few salient points, though.
Richard represents the majority of Oregon (more so
than any Green candidate). He's bilingual, representing the Latino
population. He is a working class father-to-be who voted for medical
marijuana and is not affiliated with any party. Combine these groups
and you have the majority.
Like many Oregonians, he is sick and tired of living
in a "democracy" that isn't a true democracy. We need change. Hemp
could bring our government and the way we live to a new level. Hemp
would solve all of our environmental concerns. Legalizing hemp would
start the revolution we need to bring about environmental changes
in other ways. Legalizing hemp is the first step in saying …we,
not the government, are in control of our lives.
So many people complain about the way everything is.
But when someone comes along willing and ready to be a representative
of the change they so badly want, they find every excuse in the book
for why it can't work. People like my husband will just have to wait.
He will sit back and listen to the complaints about
how we really need change and know that this year could be it; all
these people really need to do is rally behind him and make it happen.
Anything is possible. The voices of change could have a voice this
year. Are they ready to make it happen?
Sara Alevizos
Eugene
CONFRONT
REALITY
Every day, I turn to page 2 of The Register-Guard,
and there is the same heading: "Confronting Terror." I wonder if we
should instead confront ignorance, poverty, hunger, rampant consumerism
and corporate greed. Then we might not find it necessary to confront
terror.
Timothy J. Boyden
Eugene
BE
A HERO
In Oregon everyday, firefighters save people's
lives, police save others from dangerous situations and doctors perform
difficult surgeries — all to save lives.
Heroes aren't only those with PhDs behind their names.
Someone once saved the life of my sister by donating a liver to her,
letting her live on to become an adult and to have a family.
That somebody was an anonymous, everyday hero.
By simply having "organ donor" put on your driver's
license in case your own life is accidentally taken, you can be a
hero. Many people all over the U.S. are in need of organs. The transplant
list is long, and not enough people choose to help. Death can be scary,
something many of us don't want to face. I am 16 and will face it
before my 35th birthday of I don't get a new liver.
Becoming a donor means you are willing to give someone
else a chance. And you'd be giving a gift that would let your memory
live forever. We often leave these things up to someone else, but
there aren't enough someone elses. If you want to be a hero and save
a life, please become an organ donor — not next week, not tomorrow,
but today.
Nobody deserves to die young. Please help one of the
thousands of people out there. It's not gross or ungodly — it's
heroic.
Jamie Thompson
Eugene
LABOR
& LOVE
I'd like to elaborate on some points made
by Michelle Law in her letter (6/20). The "righteous global society"
I was thinking of is not a "state" or a "homogenized global society."
It's more like a worldwide conversation, along the lines of a massive
Zapatista dialogue, or an effort to create what philosopher Jurgen
Habermas calls "public spheres." Here, public communication would
be dominated by decentralized democratic conversations, rather than
by advertising and commodity culture.
As far as my ignorance of division of labor, I do
know there's no use romanticizing hunter-gatherer utopias, which had
their own divisions of labor (hunter/gatherer/healer/chief). Dialectical
materialism helps explain how capitalism relies for its growth and
survival on ever-expanding divisions of labor, divisions that alienate
people from each other and the world around them. But the idea is
that some division of labor could work if labor was oriented toward
producing things people needed, rather than creating profit. And people
would not be locked into one job, but be free to rotate between different
positions.
We could work 15 hours a week and use the rest of
the time to fulfill our capacities for communication, art, love, music,
pleasure, etc.
John Groves
Eugene
ESPOUSING
SUVS
Why did you choose to print an article
discussing/promoting the use of SUVs and car culture? The June 27
EW contains a column titled "Treadmarks" with the article,
"German Off-Roading: Reluctant SUVs from BMW and, yes, Porsche" by
Jim Motavalli. Regardless of the political agendas of your publication,
the fact that any media is espousing the use of a 4.6 liter, V-8 engine
for "fun-filled trips to the supermarket, reaching 60 mph in just
6.5 seconds," is questionable. The advent of SUVs driving 60 mph within
moments of pulling out of the driveway would make it virtually insane
to live anywhere near a grocery store.
It seems ironic that the week after publishing a cover
story discussing the city's lack of action surrounding traffic congestion
on south Willamette Street and the danger of biking or walking in
the area that EW would print an article essentially promoting
the driving of an SUV. And I have to question what portion of your
readership you're targeting with this article. What good does it do
anyone to know about a vehicle that they can't ever afford to drive?
The last thing we need is to have people drooling over another unattainable
possession or worse yet, putting themselves into lifelong debt after
buying such a vehicle.
I have been distressed at various other times when
the entire back page of EW was covered by a car advertisement;
however, printing articles that are essentially car advertisements
in the guise of news is blatantly manipulative .
There are so many positive interests in the community
that deserve attention. Gardens are popping up at schools around Eugene
and Springfield. Every day new bikes and human powered modes of transportation
are invented, making car alternatives more accessible and convenient.
Why not write about the families around town who ride with a tandem
attached to a trailer, the whole family happily pedaling along in
a line. I've even seen them in the rain, now that deserves some publicity!
Sachi Ariel DeCou
Eugene
NO
STATE MILITIAS
While I really enjoy writing cynical
letters to the editor and trying to infuse wry humor into them, I
have decided that it is time to just face forward and speak plainly
about yet another misinformed article on the Second Amendment to the
U.S. Constitution. "Bearing Arms" (6/27), yet again, declares that
the Oregon National Guard is a "well regulated militia" with Major
General Alex Burgin at its head.
How can that be? General "Black Jack" Pershing of
WWI fame came back after a long stay in Imperial Germany to take over
and revise all state militia under the German "Staff of Command" system
by pushing and getting the "Anti-Militia Act 1901," banning the existence
of militias in the U.S., turning them into U.S. Army Reserve forces,
violating one of the most basic requirements of the Federal Constitution
— that the "standing army" is a training and weapons care-taking
force for the states' militias. "Militias" have been illegal since
1901. There are no state militias in the United States!
Oh, by the way, Germany has tossed two global disaster
World Wars using the same system, at a huge cost to the environment
and little children, in case you don't know. Germany collected the
privet guns first before they went into wholesale slaughter of the
children, and our military is deliberately made to be just like theirs,
despite the obvious felonious violation of the U.S. Constitutional
guarantees.
I can add, "How about you?" The citizen military was
always meant to control the federal military. It's time you pseudo-adults
grow up to that.
Daniel J. Moore
Springfield
LETTERS POLICY: We welcome letters on all topics and will
print as many as space allows. Please limit length to 250 words, and
submissions to once a month. E-mail to editor@eugeneweekly.com,
fax to 484-4044, or mail to 1251 Lincoln, Eugene 97401.
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