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viewpoint:
Closed Ranks Time to break up cozy relationships at the county.
Viewpoint:
Crucible of Democracy Our own little witch hunts.
Letters:
EW readers sound off.
Closed
Ranks
Time
to break up cozy relationships at the county.
Lane County's Land Management Division Task Force
is now meeting and will meet every Monday afternoon
from now until Christmas — and even longer if so required to
iron out the problems of funding and customer service.
Lane County paid $90,000 for a performance audit of
the LMD in 2001. I don't know the price tag of the similar LMD performance
audit of '93. Both independent audits listed as their very first recommendation
that the LMD needed to establish a coherent land use policy.
This is obvious in that our LMD needs to put out sound
legal land use decisions that conform with Oregon land use law so
that the LMD doesn't have to spend taxpayer dollars defending developers'
highly questionable development plans.
Lane County land use policy is perhaps unique in the
state of Oregon in that anything put forward by a developer with the
aid of the LMD is legal if not challenged. The LMD doesn't go out
of its way to inform affected citizens about what it is doing. It
costs up front $3,000 (just to start) for a dissatisfied citizen to
try to challenge a questionable action and the LMD and the developer
will close ranks and fight you as one.
The first step of the process is for the case to be
heard by a county hearings official. The HO is an employee of the
county. Should the HO mistakenly find in favor of the citizen, the
LMD has the privilege of appealing the HO's decision along with the
developer on the taxpayer's buck with a county staff lawyer.
There is no way of telling how much this costs us
in taxes but this is at least part of the reason that Lane County
is clamoring for more bonds and levies — to be funded by increased
property taxes on your home.
This process worked well for the LMD/developer complex
for many years. There was no organized opposition willing to put up
the dough to fight through the rigged county system in order to get
to Oregon's Court of Appeals where the complex has no influence.
LandWatch, Lane County has changed that by rising
up and taking on shaky LMD land use decisions with a shoestring budget
and a volunteer force. While the LMD and developers can make millions
of dollars through the successful execution of a zoning reduction
or other land use action, it costs LandWatch members out of pocket,
win or lose, to fight the same.
The LMD task force is composed of more than
a dozen people. Most of them are either Lane County employees or people
directly connected with development or real estate. Many are paid
to attend these meetings. I get to take time off from work to represent
Land Watch. We have two non-voting county commissioners on the panel.
Our Oct. 21 meeting was spent discussing where to
begin on the LMD overhaul. Some of the pro-development crowd voiced
the opinion that the main problem was streamlining the land use permit
system to get permits approved more quickly.
I pointed out that the county had spent a great deal
of our money for two performance audits that both listed as #1 making
Lane land use policies understandable, consistent and in keeping with
Oregon land use law. County policy may be more restrictive than state
law but not less so.
To my surprise, a prominent real estate seller remarked
that she had experienced legal complications in the past with buying
properties that had been created using county "lot line adjustments"
and agreed that there was an issue with county policy vs. state law.
It is my perception that many people on the
task force hope to continue business as usual. LandWatch's objective
is to bring our county in line with Oregon land use law. It is not
the LMD's duty to assist in the creation of an endless supply of ever
shrinking tax lots for developers.
Our main problem is that our LMD is entirely fee-based.
This puts the entire system under the control of those who pay the
biggest fees. Lane is (I think) the only county in Oregon that uses
this approach.
As LandWatch gathers strength and know-how, the LMD
is going to have to spend more and more of our money behind the scenes
to run interference for land use attempts that never should have seen
the light of day. Clearly it is the LMD's duty to put forth sound
legal land use decisions that don't have to be defended at taxpayers'
expense.
Everybody is welcome at the LMD task force. As a guest,
you have no voice but you certainly may write or e-mail your thoughts
to the public servants and the other members after each meeting. The
LMD task force convenes at 3:30 pm each Monday in the county commissioners'
conference room. Be there or be square.
Norm Maxwell of Lorane serves on the LMD task force
and is co-president, LandWatch, Lane County, hopsbran@aol.com
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Crucible
of Democracy
Our
own little witch hunts.
While I prepare lessons to teach Arthur Miller's The
Crucible in a high school English class, the U.S. has been preparing,
yet again, to make international war, and in other extents to make
war domestically against U.S. civil rights and liberties. Meanwhile,
1,500 local 20-somethings — including UO students — recently
ignited their own uncivil, uninhibited fiery tirade against west university
neighborhood enemy street signs, terrorist traffic planters, a satanic
golf cart and later against Oregon's infallible police forces. Or
so we've been repeatedly told.
These seemingly unrelated global and local events
will, I hope, comingle in our classroom next month during multiple
teaching-and-learning experiences concerning the Individual vs. the
Collective.
The Crucible dramatically recounts
actual people and events of Salem's infamous witch trials (1692).
What becomes evident to careful readers, however, is that not only
are the accused not witches (though many are convicted and
executed), but they are more so victims of others' myopia, power-trips,
jealousies and, literally, Puritan-ical values.
That Miller staged his play in 1953 is anything but
coincidental. The Crucible (i.e., a severe test or "trial by
fire") serves as both allegory and parable of Sen. Joseph McCarthy's
communist "witch-hunts" in the milieu of our ostensibly free-speaking,
free-praying, First Amendment-loving U.S. McCarthy(ism) was fully
authorized by the U.S. House on Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).
During this era, countless personal and professional lives were destroyed
by malicious rumors and false charges, HUAC's trumped-up nationally
televised accusations (motivated by political gains), and, underlying
these activities, Americans' collective ignorant and fear-based capitulation.
Thus, Miller understood that, although pre-colonial
territorial powers were eventually supplanted by less puritanical
constitutional checks and balances on such powers, "power" itself
remained dangerous — even deadly (e.g., institutionalized slavery,
female servitude and communist witch-hunts).
And so it has been through too much of history: Oppressors
ultimately fall to uprisings that halt the oppression; a détente
follows until new oppressive powers compel people to rise up again;
and so on. Sadly, oppression seldom, if ever, ceases before those
oppressive powers have destroyed reputations and lives.
Long after oppressions such as McCarthyism end, however,
accusations remain toxic weapons. For the accusation, borne in public
utterances, lingers in our consciousness as its own species of vile
magic. So when vengeful neighbors cry "witch," HUAC cries "communists,"
Bush and Co. cry "terrorists," and now police and media cry "student
rioters," well, the accusation itself is sufficient for us to keep
kindling and matchbooks ready.
Certainly, early European immigrants and Native Americans
practiced non-Protestant pagan rituals; leagues of disenfranchised
and hardworking and intellectual Americans promoted labor unions,
economic justice and gender equality; and still others observed beliefs
and practices foreign to, even disdainful of, American consumerism.
But that did not make pagans "violent satanists," nor leftists
"evil communists," nor, in our current wave of ignorance and fascism,
does it make Muslims "terrorists."
Can we likewise take this principle to heart at home?
If so, one example would be to reconsider hasty judgments against
west university neighborhood denizens who mistakenly found themselves
amid drunk and violent rioters.
The arrest, the accusation, the newspaper publication
of names — all these contribute to our presumption: "They're
witches! Burn 'em!" Indeed, let those who are responsible be
brought before justice. But let's not simplistically believe police
and media just because they wear badges or publish widely or are elected.
For those who rioted to get drunk and party and throw bottles at cops,
I doubt there'll be judicial fires as hot as those that sent a rock-throwing
protestor to seven years in prison. But that would be
"equal justice under law"! (Or, alternatively, a commuted sentence
for the protestor.)
In any case, not all who have been publicly accused
and condemned are witches; and not all self-righteous accusers are
well informed when making public accusations; and not all police are
bad, good — or infallible. Just human.
Bo Adan is a faculty researcher in the UO College
of Education. He is also teaching in Eugene 4J public schools to complete
the middle/secondary licensure degree program. He can be reached at
bojadan@oregon.uoregon.edu
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SEND
A MONKEY NEXT TIME
On Thursday, Oct. 17, at 7 am three
explosions woke my wife and I. We heard radios, large machinery, people
running outside our bedroom window, and a loud, distorted public address
system broadcasting that a house was to be searched under warrant
by the Eugene Police Department.
We opened the front door to find a swath of police
officers, a huge armored personnel carrier (i.e. tank), and several
men in camouflage lurking around the shrubbery with assault rifles.
My wife, an elementary teacher, asked if it was safe for her to leave
for work. The armed officers were sarcastic and evasive. "I just want
to make sure I'm not going to be shot leaving the house," she said,
gesturing toward the men with machine guns between she and her car.
"I haven't shot anyone in two weeks," remarked one officer, turning
toward us but not quite making eye contact. I held my tongue at this
armed man's insulting and intimidating demeanor toward my wife. Another
officer told me that it was "a police operation. Isn't that obvious?"
I had to go to the police department later that day
to get coherent and useful information about this case. There I was
told that it is common in other departments for the police to notify
residents when large armed interventions of this sort are taking place.
If the EPD wishes to conduct raids on local residents they should
warn those whose safety may be at risk.
I was told later that the officers had bashed in the
doors of three neighboring homes and one apartment. Officers found
two houses vacant. Couples in the other two dwellings were thrown
to the floor and at gunpoint while warrants were executed. One of
these couples was simply renting a house next door to the suspects.
The EPD's list of property seized by the officers shows that no marijuana
plants or guns were found.
With all of the resources spent on this raid, none
seem to have been spent on gathering information beforehand. The EPD
could have sent a monkey with a Polaroid camera the day before and
at least determined the suspect's correct address.
The EPD woke me up at 7 am on my day off with three
immense explosions, turned my neighborhood into a combat zone forcing
my innocent neighbors out of bed and holding them at gunpoint, insulted
my wife, spent a few hundred thousand of our tax dollars and seized
no guns or drugs. They did not inform residents that they were risking
their safety, nor did they provide information after the fact that
might assuage their children's fears. They did not provide themselves
with enough intelligence to execute their search safely or effectively.
Falsely assuming that our neighbors were armed, they recklessly pursued
a course of action that could have easily gotten out of control had
their assumptions been more on the mark.
I think that police are a good thing. I like to be
able to call them when crazy people break into my house and when dangerous
looking men threaten my wife. I am especially concerned, then, when
the police begin doing these things themselves.
Michael Roderick
Eugene
BIG
LIES
As a member of Temple Beth Israel for 18
years, I am used to the various lies about the Jewish people put forth
by the left and right of this community. Many of these lies are portrayed
in various opinion pieces in the Register-Guard, which I finally
canceled last week after 17 years because of such propaganda, and
in the EW, which also spreads lies through misinformed writers
with a political agenda.
The big lie, "Zionism is racism," is used by the left
wing, the right wing and Aryan Nation racists to promote hate against
the Jewish people and to destroy any hopes of a peace process in the
Middle East. Now, once again, Temple Beth Israel in Eugene is the
subject of a physical attack, just as it was with the shooting of
10 rounds of ammunition into our synagogue eight years ago.
In between, however, every member has been the target
of personal hate mail, postmarked from New York, and other insults
and intimidation tactics. Community access television in Eugene also
plays a proactive role in this town's hate of Jews. I have watched
in disbelief as one talk show host blamed "the Jewish Conspiracy and
Jewish money" on U.S. support for Israel. The Green party, which has
one Jewish host, reads articles blaming Israel for poisoning the water
— an absolute lie and propaganda tool against having a Jewish
State.
There are only about 13 million Jews left in the world,
and 98 percent believe in two things: Israel has a right to exist,
and the rest of the world, including Eugene, will continue to marginalize
the Jewish people in ways they never would with any other people on
the face of the earth.
Bob Kholos
Eugene
YOU
KNOW WHO
From Random House Webster's Unabridged
Dictionary, 2001:
War.mon.ger, n. a person who advocates, endorses,
or tries to precipitate war.
Now this wouldn't refer to anyobody we know in Washington,
would it?
Helmut Plant
Eugene
AH,
YOUTH
It appears to me that Luke Gonzales has
completed a short course on Freud without getting it. Is he kidding?
Young people riot because they are "miserable" and have too much "sexual
energy"?
What garbage! Most young people are enjoying sexual
freedom long before they come to college, but perhaps Luke was not
able to manage that. He did get one thing right however, we do need
better sex education in our schools.
As for the riots: You had a group of kids who were
drinking and doing other things, and it got out of hand as these things
oftentimes do. Someone starts it and some of the others follow along
without much thought. It is as simple as that.
Luke is doing what too many young people do these
days: looking for someone to blame for their own misbehaviors. Take
some responsibility for yourselves once in awhile, and stop trying
to blame your poor parents, the schools or society because you had
a lack of judgement.
And by the way Luke, most parents are authoritative
not authoritarian.
Laurie Hesseldahl,
college student
Lebanon
TRUE
COST
Alan Pittman's article "Slow Going" (10/17)
understated the costs of planned freeway boondoggles, recycling official
claims that the West Eugene Porkway would cost $88 million and the
I-5/Beltline interchange would cost $55 million.
The WEP's true costs exceed $150 million, including
the WEP/Beltline grade-separated interchange ($17 million), the WEP
extension along 126 to Veneta ($13.3 million, according to Lane County),
widening of feeder roads, and inflation.
These estimates do not include the WEP to I-105 connector,
since the "park" way would overload 6th and 7th Avenues, forcing additional
construction. In the 1970s, options for the WEP's predecessor included
a "6th/7th Freeway" and a bypass along the railroad tracks through
Whiteaker. These maps are posted at www.efn.org/~wepThis
extension will be a contentious issue in the Final Environmental Impact
Statement, due in Aug. 2003 (when the Federal Highway Administration
expects to approve WEP). ODOT's current cost for the I-5/Beltline
interchange "spaghetti bowl" exceeds $100 million.
The total TransPlan price tag, including widening
I-5 and I-105, push the budget into fiscal fantasy land. Lane County
voters rejected a gas tax increase by nearly 8 to 1 in May 2000.
These highways will eventually be canceled due to
legal violations and lack of funds, if oil wars do not force major
increases in gas prices. Instead, we should repair existing roads,
provide much better public transit, support local business and prohibit
more farm land, wetlands and forests from being paved over. Future
generations will need clean water and locally produced food, not additional
Wal-Marts and Southern California-style sprawl.
Mark Robinowitz
Eugene
SPOILED
BRATS
I have another (no doubt unpopular) response
to Luke Gonzales' commentary (10/17) concerning the root of the campus
area riots: The young people of this community who participated are
spoiled, privileged and ignorant.
It is true that Western culture in general lacks rituals
that enable our young people to see where they "fit" in society at
large. As a former high school English teacher, I can completely see
his point there. But, please!
As the child of "authoritarian" parents — a
legacy that I proudly carry on — the Golden Rules of my growing
up included: "Don't break anything you can't afford to replace;" "Keep
your hands to yourself;" and "If it's not yours, leave it alone."
I suggest that those poor, sexually frustrated rioters-without-a-political-cause
trot themselves down to the local adult shop, buy an appropriate vibrator
and cease and desist with destroying public property that folks who
ride the bus to work in the mornings have to pay for.
Despite the fact that my "authoritarian" mother graduated
high school at 16 with honors, she had to leave her
home in New Jersey to receive her college education in the South Carolina
of the 1940s. Northern segregation was the societal ill of her day,
and she did better herself despite the hand that was dealt
her. So, when I see youth or anyone throwing away an educational
opportunity that others can only dream about, it makes me sick. If
the simple life lesson "If it's not yours, leave it alone" is too
impossible to learn, perhaps those same rioting students should step
aside and get their heads together for a few years, thus affording
the truly deserving students who come to school to learn the
opportunity to study in peace.
Donella-Elizabeth Alston
Eugene
EPD-LITE
I recently made a visit to your wonderful
town of Eugene for a project I'm working on about homelessness and
traveling. I must say for the most part I was treated with kindness
and hospitality by everyone except the Eugene Police Department. I
don't mean to rag on the police just because they are police. I was
harassed daily by numerous police officers because I had spiky orange
hair, a big duffel bag and a rolled up sleeping bag — no other
reason. I understand that sometimes the homeless kids who hang out
around the courthouse can cause problems. Well, everyone can.
All I am saying is the police need to lighten up —
they aren't as unfortunate as the homeless.
Stephen Bell
Gresham
INSURANCE
POLICY
So, we are shocked and surprised that North
Korea not only violated the nuclear weapons treaty with us, but has
also proclaimed that it's withdrawing from it? They cite "national
security" concerns.
I wonder if this is like us withdrawing from the ABM
treaty with Russia because we find it antiquated and because our Missile
Defense Program should not be held hostage to this thirty year old
agreement. Or maybe it's like us "unsigning" and withdrawing from
our commitment to creation of an International Criminal Court because
we may be held to the same standards of international law as the rest
of the world. Or could it be like us not willing to sign on to Kyoto
agreement on reduction of "greenhouse" gases because it's not in our
"economic interest."
Or is it possible that our new global strategy, announced
last month, had anything to do with this? Specifically, the part that
warns any country in the world that we reserve the right to attack
anyone we deem to be a threat to our national security or that challenges
our "global military supremacy." This new policy clearly violates
our commitment to North Korea promising that the U.S. would never
use nuclear weapons against them.
Also, could it be that Koreans realize that the U.S.
only attacks countries without nuclear weapons (Granada, Panama, Sudan
Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, etc.), and that the best insurance policy
against American aggression is a functional nuclear arsenal? Hmm,
I wonder.
Pete Mandrapa
Eugene
KEEP
BREEDING
I was thinking today about how things have
become. It seems that mostly stupid people breed, therefore we have
mostly stupid people. If people were really smart, we'd all be trying
to help everyone else out, everyone else in the world, that is, and
not so concerned about waving colorful flags. If people were really
smart, we would not be walking around blindly as token consumers.
We'd protest more often, especially about our current role as human
beings.
But like I said, mostly stupid people breed.
James Franssen
Eugene
CLEAN
RIVERS
I am writing on behalf of my generation,
the students 18 to 24, who have the lowest voting percentage in U.S.
history. There are many key issues globally, nationally and locally
that need our attention. As an example, a key local issue is the state
of the Willamette River. In 1971, thanks to the tenacious efforts
of then governor Tom McCall, the Willamette became one of the cleanest
rivers in the nation. It is now one of the most polluted rivers west
of the Mississippi. Loosely enforced regulations are in place that
could keep the popular trend of dumping nearly 5 million tons of toxic
chemicals into our river per year. We need both of the gubernatorial
candidates in this election to pledge to enforce the regulations on
the disposal of waste into the Willamette River. I want my fellow
students and all other voters to vote this fall and make sure that
when they do, they take into consideration the sewer-like condition
of the Willamette. They must demand that the candidate they vote for
take a strong stance on cleaning up our Willamette River.
Drew Wyant
Eugene
BARKLEY'S
BETTER
A couple of years ago during the election,
people (at least where I'm from in the Bible Belt) were making a big
deal out the character issue. Bill Clinton was chastised because he
had consensual oral pleasure. People said we needed a leader of moral
character — our children needed a role model.
So in comes W. I saw two 5-year-olds throwing punches
in Monroe Park the other day. I couldn't stop them. After all, look
at their role model. A wimpy, ignorant, uneducated, myopic warmonger
who can't pronounce simple words or put together simple sentences.
He is teaching our children that violence, indeed murder, is an acceptable
response to tragedy and adversity.
As a parent and patriot, I find this unacceptable.
W. is the terrorist. His cabinet is a refined Anglo version of the
al-Qaeda network. His message is Hitleresque.
W. is no role model. I'd rather my children worship
Charles Barkley.
William Porter
Eugene
THE
COST OF CARING
As the political dialogue is hijacked to
narrowly focus on taxation and terrorism this election season, the
electorate is inadvertently taxing and terrorizing even more than
our education system. Human services are beyond the crisis stage in
this land of child poverty and substance abuse.
As the media virtually ignores funding cutbacks for
mental illness, elderly care, counseling services, the arts, health
needs, and so many more essential services for those who desperately
need them, what little humanity we have left is called into question.
The interests of those who can afford to buy media
messages are trampling the common sense approach of serving vulnerable
citizens. Rarely reported studies show that prevention is cost effective
4 to 7 times over when serving at-risk people and families. It saves
prison costs, other crime costs, health care costs and other social
services costs by simply providing help to people with needs.
Disabled, poor and drug-addicted people are not bad
people. They along with the uneducated, children with behavior problems,
and domestic violence clients will help themselves with proper intervention
that they have not been previously afforded. As service provider cuts
are being ignored and long-term Measure 11 inmates are finally being
released with few prospects and little assistance, the question arises:
Is the rising cost of caring so little about each other really worth
it?
Mike Meyer
Eugene
SEX
AD QUANDARY
Regarding recent letters decrying EW
for the "sexually explicit" advertising on the back pages: There are
arguments in favor of EW consistently publishing these ads,
namely that editorial censorship is no trivial matter.
Sure, there are a lot of reasons to despise the sex
industry. A lot of us would like to see the ads disappear, along with
the businesses they represent. But these businesses find it profitable
to seek advertising space in the EW and hence the conundrum:
Should EW reject the ads on the basis that they offend some
readers? Is it a good and just idea to employ censorship to appease
the socio-political ideology of an audience sector? Should we force
the editor of a newspaper to make judgments about what is or is not
morally and socially acceptable for us to see?
Remember, just because a newspaper runs an ad (or
an article) doesn't mean the entire editorial staff agrees with it,
and it certainly doesn't mean all of the readers have to like it.
This is all part of the process of disseminating and absorbing information.
We must individually be critical and selective while eschewing the
notion that we are wise enough to flex this power over others without
repercussions.
The debate over what constitutes acceptable freedom
of speech tends to lose its intellectuality and rationality as soon
as it is applied to the subject that really bugs us — whatever
that may be. In this case it is the perceived exploitation of women.
The sex industry is thriving, but it is not the EW's role to
provide us with a false sense of comfort by shielding this fact from
our eyes. In these troubled times, the last thing we need to do is
to promote an escapist fantasy: If I can't see the ads, the industry
doesn't exist.
We need to approach the issue from an angle other
than censorship. I can assure you of one thing: Creating an artificial
personal utopia by demanding that everyone get in line with your idea
of acceptable reading material will never lead to a more open, healthy
and meaningful community or society.
Kylie Belachaikovsky
Eugene
LETTERS POLICY: We welcome letters on all topics and
will print as many as space allows. Please limit length to 250 words,
keep submissions to once a month, and include your address and phone
number. E-mail to editor@eugeneweekly.com,
fax to 484-4044, or mail to 1251 Lincoln, Eugene 97401.
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