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NEWS
BRIEFS : McConnaughey Dies
| Schools Can't Wait | Mixed
Messages | Wendover Gets Wet |
News:
Fork in the Freeway Planners propose wetland and transit-friendly
alternative to WEP.
Happening
People: Beverlee Patton
MCCONNAUGHEY
DIES
Retired UO biology professor, author and
environmental activist Bayard Harlow McConnaughey died Saturday night,
Sept. 14 at Sacred Heart Medical Center after a long illness. A memorial
service is planned for 1 pm Saturday, Sept. 28 at the Unitarian Universalist
Church at 40th and Donald in Eugene.
 |
| BAYARD
HARLOW MCCONNAUGHEY. |
He is survived by his wife of 52 years, Evelyn, and
their children Becky, Ted, John, Bill and Diane, who will be arriving
in town during the next two weeks.
McConnaughey served in uniform in the Pacific during
World War II. "But I see the military approach as a danger to all
humanity," he said in an EW story April 29, 1999. During his
tenure at UO, he was known as an inspired teacher, and also waged
rhetorical war on ROTC for 20 years. "The administration hated him
for tying up faculty meetings," said colleague Jim Kezer. "When Bayard
took the floor, he would not give it up."
The McConnaugheys worked on campaigns that got the
Three Sisters Wilderness preserved in the '60s and every mile of the
Oregon coastline "adopted" in the '90s. They are founding members
of Citizens for Public Accountability and members of Friends of Eugene
and other organizations. Both have done research and testified on
countless land-use issues, and have been published nationwide by the
Audubon Society. One popular nature guide, Pacific Coast, is
still in print.
| SLANT
*Grumbles abound over Eugene Celebration organizers
agreeing with the city and UO to an 8 am parade. It's a ridiculous
starting time, of course, but then absurdity is a big part of
the Celebration heritage. Some grumps will stay home in protest,
but more cheerful types are responding with a campaign to wear
pajamas and fluffy slippers to the parade. And those of us who
sleep in the buff can just wear goosebumps. Hey, let's rise
and shine and make the most of it — catch a nap during
the Ducks' half-time.
*Most of us took delight this week in the first
significant rainfall in months, but homeless protesters camping
out at the Courthouse spent a miserable night in the rain, crammed
under tarps and in tiny, leaking tents. Many scattered shivering,
seeking shelter. Even with the good intentions of government
officials and the valiant dedication of non-profit organizations,
we continue to underserve Eugene's estimated 3,600 homeless
men, women and children. The answer is clearly not midnight
raids by riot police; and ignoring the problem only makes it
worse. Let's follow the example of other cities that have come
together to create safe shelter for those among us who have
fallen through the cracks of our social framework.
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
|
SCHOOLS
CAN'T WAIT
A coalition of community leaders, government
officials, educators and students say local schools can't wait for
the Legislature to resolve a statewide funding crisis that will have
a serious impact on Eugene schools. The group is initiating a November
ballot measure to raise property taxes citywide to fund critical school
programs.
The Yes for Schools campaign, inspired in part by
a Feb. 7 EW story on how other cities in Oregon have supported
local schools, is a response to an anticipated and unprecedented $11.5
million budget shortfall crisis in the 4-J School District this year.
"It is time for this community to put our kids before
politics," said Yes for Schools Campaign Co-Chair Betsy Boyd in a
press conference Sept. 18. "We simply cannot afford to wait for the
state legislators to work out their political squabbling while our
kids are left behind. The measure will buy us four short years of
finger-in-the-dike dollars to hold things together while the state,
whose responsibility this is, works on real solutions"
Measure 20-67 will be on the ballot on Nov. 5, with
ballots mailed out to Eugene residents Oct. 18.
"We have a limited time to make sure that voters recognize
the importance of funding our schools," said Boyd. "This is the only
mechanism we have to actually fund programs within the constraints
of Measure 5."
Measure 20-67 will provide a total of $31.5 million
for the next four years with 93 percent of those funds given to Eugene
and Bethel school districts to fund elementary music and physical
education, student activities and athletics, librarians, school nurses
and counselors.
The additional 7 percent of these funds will provide
youth services retained by the city. Funds will be raised through
a property tax of 86 cents per $1,000 of assessed home value, at an
average cost to a 4-J property owner of $137, or a Bethel property
owner of $94.
MIXED
MESSAGES
A U.S. Senate vote on President Bush's
fire-logging rider was expected this week and Gov. John Kitzhaber
has reportedly written a letter in opposition to the approach, saying
it violates the spirit of a bipartisan 10-year plan to reduce wildfires
and meet federal environmental laws. The plan was put together by
Western governors.
Sen. Ron Wyden also went on record this week opposing
Sen. Larry Craig's proposal to increase logging on 10 million acres
of federal forests in the name of reducing fire risks. Wyden called
it "overreaching," but he also offered support for excluding logging
projects from environmental review and doing way with citizen appeal
rights.
"This may have been an indication of his support for
a so-called 'thinning amendment' being floated by Sens. Bingaman and
Daschle which does way with citizen appeal rights and eliminates citizen
access to the courts in certain circumstances," says Doug Heiken of
the Oregon Natural Resources Council in Eugene. "This proposal is
still of great concern to conservation groups who feel that if fuel
reduction projects are done properly they will not be controversial
and will not be challenged or bogged down in bureaucratic process."
Heiken says the only reason to exempt logging from
environmental laws is to help the timber industry gain access to old-growth
trees in remote wilderness areas. "This will only lead to ecological
damage and social strife," he says.
WENDOVER
GETS WET
Neighbors in the Wendover Street area of
north Eugene are anticipating increased danger of flooding and erosion
this winter from land cleared for a proposed housing development.
Clearcutting and bulldozing on the property Feb. 11,
reportedly without permits, led to a protest at the site and complaints
about destruction of rare flora and fauna in the area. The lowlands
on the site off River Road include riparian habitat.
"The good news is the (Huling) family and city have
negotiated a 4-1/2 acre natural park," says Kevin Jones of the Seacon
Park Neighborhood Association. "The bad news is the development proposal
sites 19 new houses (13 exist on Wendover), removes nine of the 21
remaining trees, and doesn't begin to address the added water due
to hardscaping, compaction, and the lack of vegetation that would
flow to Wendover and points north."
"I don't think money should be the stumbling block
here" says Kate Perle, a Wendover resident and farmer/director of
Full Circle Community Farm, a non-profit farm and education center
with adjoining property. "The city is paying a fair and sizable price
for the park land, we and others are willing to pay a reasonable amount
for the remaining acreage."
The Eugene Peace Academy, a local charter school,
has reportedly shown interest in the land. — Ted Taylor
Back to Top
Fork
in the Freeway
Planners
propose wetland and transit-friendly alternative to WEP.
BY
ALAN PITTMAN
An award-winning Portland planning firm
has proposed a more wetland and transit friendly alternative to the
West Eugene Parkway.
The alternative would construct an exclusive busway
along the eastern half of the proposed WEP right of way connecting
a string of seven high-density, transit-oriented developments. Improvements
to the existing Roosevelt Boulevard and a new section of road to the
north would largely save threatened wetlands while serving car traffic.
"We're looking at comparable costs, maybe even less
costs," says George Crandall of Crandall Arambula PC.
Crandall and Arambula have won 25 awards for their
planning work with public agencies in Oregon and have been involved
in many of the projects that have made Portland and Oregon national
planning models. The WEP "represents an outdated approach that doesn't
adequately address today's needs," Crandall says.
The alternative plan confirms criticism of the WEP
by local environmentalists and good planning advocates, says Mary
O'Brien of Citizens for Public Accountability. "This shows it was
right," she says, "there is no need" for the wide highway through
wetlands.
Mark Wigg, the Oregon Department of Transportation's
WEP project manager, is non-committal about the alternative proposal.
Wigg says ODOT will analyze the alternative based on its goals of
"through movement of a certain number of vehicles per day."
In the WEP environmental impact statement (EIS), highway
planners call for increasing traffic through West Eugene by up to
17,000 cars per day to promote and accommodate an explosion of urban
sprawl in far west Eugene and in the Veneta area. Land speculators
hoping to cash in on that sprawl helped bankroll the record $120,000
campaign that won narrow voter approval of the WEP last fall.
Crandall Arambula conducted the study at the request
of O'Brien and others. But the firm declined to accept payment. "We
want to be completely independent," Crandall says.
"The study clearly shows that you cannot retrofit
communities, wetlands and endangered species around a massive piece
of concrete," says Rob Zako, a citizen transportation activist. "A
real solution for west Eugene doesn't require paving over wetlands
and habitat to build a new highway."
Crandall Arambula found that the WEP EIS "seriously
understates" the wetlands impact of the new highway. The EIS says
about 50 acres of rare wetlands will be destroyed. But the firm found
that including land surrounding the project, the WEP would affect
at least 600 wetland acres. "It would be difficult to mitigate that
impact" to the "wonderful" wetlands asset in Eugene, Crandall says,
calling for a new EIS.
The West Eugene Wetlands are one of "the last tiny
dots" of wetland habitat remaining in the Willamette Valley, says
O'Brien, pointing to a color-coded map. The valley was once one-third
wetlands, she says, but now 99.5 percent of that rare habitat has
been destroyed.
The firm's study faulted the WEP for failing to support
state and local goals for Bus Rapid Transit and efficient nodal development
in the area. Crandall also faulted planners for failing to consider
the impact of dumping large volumes of traffic from the WEP into downtown
Eugene and surrounding neighborhoods.
The BRT and node system currently proposed for west
Eugene is likely to fail because of likely business opposition to
creating exclusive busways on West 11th, and the fact that most of
the area is already consumed by car-oriented sprawl, according to
the study.
The alternative proposal would increase transit ridership
with dedicated busways that strengthen nodal development, according
to the firm. The proposed nodal area is largely vacant and would be
an easier place for creating dense new transit-oriented development.
The alternative BRT route would also serve the city's already proposed
Royal Avenue node, neighborhoods to the north and provide for an exclusive
busway to the airport, according to the firm.
This isn't the first time Crandall Arambula has studied
an alternative to a city freeway. ODOT once planned a Mt. Hood Freeway
on the west side of Portland, but the plans were changed in the face
of citizen opposition and the freeway money was instead spent on an
alternative that controlled sprawl and promoted transit. "That was
the beginning of the light rail system," Crandall says.
Back to Top
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Beverlee
Patton
In the early '60s, San Francisco
Bay Area native Beverlee Patton worked for civil rights, taught dance
at an Oakland high school, and won a fellowship to study in New York
with Alvin Ailey and other top dancers. She married a sculptor in
'64 and moved to the West Indies. "I've spent most of my adult life
out of the country," she says. "I've always been unusual as an African-American
abroad." Patton taught dance and raised three sons while living in
Grenada for six years, in India for seven, and back to California.
She worked for World College West and spent part of each year in Nepal.
When she moved to Eugene in 1992, Patton found work in the UO's Office
of International Education. "Study abroad opens eyes and minds," she
observes. In '96, she took a two-year leave to direct a Peace Corps
teacher-training project in Namibia. There she met couples, black
and white, who had maintained illegal friendships through years of
South African rule. Patton returned this summer with a tape recorder
to collect oral histories of the Apartheid era. "As an artist, I like
to tell stories," she says. "Stories touch hearts. For real race reconciliation,
we need to touch hearts."
— Paul Neevel
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