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Honey,
I Shrunk the Students! When you think of intellectuals influencing the course of human affairs, you think of physics or economics or baseball. You don't think of political theory, because you don't think of political theory as having an intellectual underpinning. For example, most Oregonians think the Legislature stinks: putrescent partisan pinheads flailing incompetently while Salem sinks. Hah! We outsmarted ya'll this week. While all the adults out there are worried about school budgets and social services, we've decided on a unique strategy. First, we passed a House bill that restricts Certificate of Initial Mastery subjects to math, English and science. We eliminated art, and more importantly, social studies, as core courses for a CIM. Students won't have to study government or civics anymore! Great. Next, we passed another brilliant brainfart — HB 2894, the Legislature's answer to the school funding crisis. Talk about bringing the mountain to Mohammed! Under current law, if a district operates for less than 175 days — 34 had to this year — those schools fall out of compliance with state standards and risk losing money. This bill simply allows Oregon schools and school districts to operate with shortened school years without penalty in perpetuity. Golly, why didn't we try this earlier? Finally, to save money on the Oregon Health Plan, a work group suggested that we could resume coverage for the 100,000 Oregonians we threw out of the plan by just eliminating hospitalization coverage. Brilliant! That way the cost for the most severely ill can be shifted to everyone else who has health insurance. Tell me we're not doing our job. The next thing you know, our leaders will tell us all to go home while they figure out the budget. What? Randy Miller and Kate Brown already suggested that? They said they can think better with everyone gone; and besides, the devil's hands make idle workstations — or something like that. What will we think of next? I know: Let's pass a law requiring that any cattle sold at an auction have to be actually ambulatory. Oops, sorry, we actually did that last week. Now you know why it's important not to teach civics or history to the next generation of Oregonians. Separation of Powers Ferrioli has become, for better or worse, the poster child for Oregon's east/west debate: namely, that valley folks ignore the rest of the state, or try to impose their political will on easterners and southerners through land use laws and environmental regulation. One grumpy supreme, the Hon. Mick Gillette, shows up for the hearing. He doesn't like the resolution, having been raised in Milton-Freewater and educated in the Willamette Valley. A consummate wordsmith with a steel-trap mind, Mick gives a scathing analysis of the flaws in the resolution. He exposes the first two sentences as non-sequitors, and says a third sentence misrepresents the history of Supreme Court districts in our 1857 Constitution. Mick explains how the original judges were circuit riders on horseback, and when they met together in Salem, they were the Supreme Court; times changed. Most of us on the committee knew that Ferrioli and Gillette had both crossed the Cascades during their lives, going in opposite directions. Gillette argues that while the Legislature is regionally diverse, the language they come up with is a compromise. The supremes then simply read the language and interpret the intent; nothing more, nothing less. Ferrioli argues that we need the change because of a Willamette Valley political bias and "judicial activism." When asked for an example of such "judicial activism" on the part of the Supreme Court, Teddy was at a loss; but the Crime Victims United lobbyist insists that the Armada decision was a clear illustration. I ask Hizzoner if he can defend himself against that allegation. Mick replies: "Mr. Doell has a right to his opinion, no matter how wrong it is." Court adjourned. Sen. Tony Corcoran of Cottage Grove represents portions of Lane and Douglas counties in Senate District 4, which includes the UO area. He can be reached at sen.tonycorcoran@state.or.us
Choking
on 5 This week I remembered how, as a child, I had tried to "stay within the lines" when I colored with crayons. I was particularly proud of myself one afternoon: I was supposed to be taking a nap, but instead, I was coloring in a drawing of a monkey, on the sly. (My childhood rebellions were not spectacular.) Even though the room's shades had been pulled down to dim the room, I was staying within the lines. However, in post-"nap" bright light, I found to my horror that I had colored the monkey purple, instead of brown. That memory returned last week as I was coloring within lines traced from three maps of Eugene — one 25 years old; the second 11 years old; the third 2003. The first map was fragile: It had been painstakingly hand-drawn in color on parchment. It was Eugene's first survey of its areas that still contained remnants of native plant communities, such as oak savannah, cedar stands, or wetland prairie; and still could support native salmon, butterflies, frogs, or other Oregon originals. I traced these lines onto mylar placed over the 2003 map of such sites. Then I copied lines of such sites that been considered for conservation practices under Oregon's "Goal 5" in 1992. Goal 5 requires each Oregon city and county to identify areas of natural heritage within its boundaries, and to develop measures that will insure their continuance. Other goals include regularly designating 20 years' worth of land on which to construct new houses and industrial facilities. Eugene has readily complied with these goals. We have choked, however, on meeting Goal 5: It means sharing with other species. Back at the map, I colored red the natural areas that were lost in Eugene between 1978 and 1992 to human commerce and developments; and orange the areas that were lost between 1992 and 2003. There was lots of coloring to do, because during Eugene's 25-year process of not deciding on any form of care for most of the identified sites, they have shrunk to 9 percent of Eugene. I longed for the simpler horror of coloring a monkey purple. Later in the week, on another matter of losing ground, I wrote e-mails to each Oregon senator. I was asking them to oppose HB 3013, a gravel mining industry bill that would grease the skids for more destruction of our best, remaining farm soil for gravel. The average piece of food on a U.S. plate travels 1,200 miles. Cannibalizing the last of our local, sediment-rich farm soil for river-side gravel to build more roads seems particularly insane, given that more than enough gravel can be gotten from plentiful upland basalt sites. Then there was the matter of writing comments to Lane Council of Governments, opposing some of their proposed amendments to the Metro Plan. For instance, one would drop current language about caring for multiple forest values (e.g., wildlife habitat, clean water, open space) for those forests immediately outside Eugene's urban growth boundary. The proposed new language would state that the highest value of these boundary forests is "harvest" — i.e., logging. Another would drop all time requirements for considering conservation practices on sites identified within Eugene or Springfield as containing wildlife habitat. Sometimes despair waits close by for me: We humans seem so unwilling to be plain citizens, rather than relentless liquidators, of Earth's communities. But then this morning, I walked on the newly completed portion of the Amazon bike trail that passes through the West Eugene Wetlands. The wetlands, still free of a roaring, elevated, five-lane West Eugene Highway, spread out in the distance for what is surely the most open, expansive landscape in all of Eugene. Red-winged blackbirds were singing; turkey vultures were strutting around an inviting breakfast of smelly, dead fish; and native flowers and grasses were blooming in bands, each species thriving in a differently colored level above receded wetlands water. How can I despair when a red-winged blackbird sings, all purpose and will, in lands that others before me conserved for the benefit of all? I can only be grateful that there are birds and citizens who know that much depends on standing up publicly for more than one's own "rights" to destroy. Mary O'Brien has worked as a public interest scientist for the past 22 years. She can be reached at mob@efn.org
Foul
Ball This week a group of executives representing Major League Baseball will visit Portland to determine whether the Rose City would be a good site for a major league team. Let's hope that the MLB executives focus on the scenery and overlook the fact that 25 percent of Oregon's professional athletes faced criminal charges in 2003. (We don't call 'em the Jail Blazers for nothing.) While I would welcome a new baseball team in Oregon, I'm less thrilled about the suggestion that the Legislature should pay to build a baseball stadium in Portland. Anyone who thinks we should spend our scarce tax revenue on a new stadium must have his cap on too tight. What's wrong with state-funded baseball in Oregon? STRIKE ONE: We need the money for more important purposes, especially education. Oregon currently has the shortest school year of any state in the nation. It would be unconscionable to divert more money from the education budget in order to build luxury boxes for rich lawyers and doctors in Portland. What an irony: With further cuts to education funding, the school year would end just as the new ballpark would open each year. I guess some of the school kids could sit in the cheap seats. It's like mandatory hooky. STRIKE TWO: Let's be honest about the entertainment value of baseball. From a spectator's standpoint, the sport ranks somewhere between pro bowling and shuffleboard on the boredom scale. Rosanne Barr put it best: "I like tobacco-spitting and crotch-scratching as much as the next person, but I get tired of watching it after three and a half hours." Even if you enjoy baseball, there's no guarantee that the new Portland team would be any good. They could be as bad as the Montreal Expos in the 1990s. Oh wait, they are the Montreal Expos. Remember why the Expos are for sale. Their games were so unbearable that the Montreal fans stopped showing up at the ballpark. STRIKE THREE: I'll concede that a publicly funded construction project would create new jobs, but I think the Legislature should distribute such projects throughout the state instead of concentrating all the funding in Portland. After all, Portland is Oregon's most prosperous city. As a county commissioner, I sit on the Lane County Economic Development Committee, and I've learned that the state may slash its funding for economic development in our county, even though some of our local communities such as Oakridge have higher unemployment rates than Portland. I've heard Portland officials talk about a "trickle-down relationship" between Portland and Lane County, but it seems more like the trickle-down relationship between a dog and a fire hydrant. While I don't support state funding for baseball, I recognize that the Legislature may need to play a role in facilitating private investment in a new stadium. Recently the House passed HB 3606 which would authorize an outside entity to issue bonds for the construction of a new stadium, but not put the state on the hook as the guarantor for the bonds. Many of our Lane County legislators supported this approach, and I understand why they did. We need to pursue any opportunity to put Oregonians back to work, as long as we're not promising direct subsidies from the state. The staunchest baseball fans were disappointed by HB 3606, but I'm glad that our local legislators are sticking up for Oregon's workers without placing undue burdens on the budget. The bill now awaits a vote in the Senate. Portland officials have made a strong pitch for a new stadium, but if they want state money, their pitch is high and inside. It could be a bean ball for education and social services in Oregon. Tom Lininger is county commissioner for the East Lane District.
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