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Short-Sheeted The session is finally over in Salem — 227 days, 3,000 bills introduced, 875 bills passed, six vetoes. I've been telling folks for months that we wouldn't get out unless some moderate Republicans joined the Democrats and provided votes for a revenue package. Since I criticize them mercilessly when they've disappeared in the past — it's only right for me to acknowledge that moderate Republicans, including Pat Farr, showed up with courageous votes at the end. Along with 11 other moderates, Pat helped close the session. The same thing happened in the Senate, where four moderate Republicans joined 14 of the 15 Dems in moving the revenue package and getting us out of Dodge. I have to admit, though, there were times toward the end when I longed for a visit to our sister state to the south. However, after viewing the events in California — as sensitive as I am to vertically challenged people — I've begun to feel resentment at being shorted. We're getting the short end of the stick in Oregon; we've been short-sheeted! In California, life imitates art; in Oregon, where we can't afford art, we imitate California. It's like Hollywood morphed two movies — Twins and Terminator — to create the Governator. California gets Arnold, the Taxinator: "We will fix the schools and the police with no new taxes, just like my father taught me in the Hitler Youth Brigade." Meanwhile Oregon gets Danny DeVito with an attitude — Kevin Mannix. Danny stars as Kevin in Secret Plan: The Sequel. Christopher Walken co-stars in a challenging double role as Dan Doyle and Betsy Close. And, well, we couldn't find anyone to play Jeff Kruse … something about negative typecasting. Seriously, consider Mannix's behavior. When the session ended, Kevin rabidly jumped on a newsroom microphone and promptly announced that the Oregon Republican Party, the Constitutional Party, and Citizens for a Sound Economy will gather signatures to defeat the revenue proposal "for the people who will be footing the bill for this massive income tax increase." What a lie! In fact, no Oregonians will pay any more in taxes. They'll simply get three-fourths of the Bush tax break instead of all of it. Come on, Kevin, you shameless whore, you yourself were espousing an income tax surcharge a few months ago in front of the governor and party leaders from both sides! You have no clue how to achieve $700 million in cuts. But we do know, if you did cut proportionately, that schools would lose over $300 million. If you haven't heard of the Citizens for a Sound Economy, they're one of the largest national right-wing organizations, funded by Big Tobacco, big drug companies, and, surprisingly, Bill Gates. They fight against public education, public services, and for the privatization of Social Security — not our friends. Even Hasso Hering, conservative editor of the Albany Democrat-Herald, attacked Kevin: "If he is going to throw bricks … Mannix has an obligation to show how he would balance the budget without this modest surcharge on the income tax."
On the home front, it's good to be back — sorta. My union has decided to treat me like the crazy uncle in the attic, burying me in an assignment far from Salem and my own district. This happened to me once before. In the early '70s in Vermont, I helped organize an AFSCME effort to represent workers at the state hospital. We lost the election by a few votes. Management at the state hospital assigned me to the graveyard shift on a back ward for six months to show their displeasure. This time, unfortunately, it's the union shoving me onto the back ward. This should warm the cockles of those who considered me a sellout for my work on PERS. They accused me of having a sweetheart deal with the governor; not so, mon ami. My union consultant job was unilaterally canceled and I was placed under a supervisor who once wanted me fired. Oh well, too bad there's only one Labor Day each year. Thank you, Ted Taylor and EW, for allowing me to vent. I will continue to offer my observations on state politics as the situation arises. And I'll be back to talk to you when we're in session again, which might be sooner than you think. Thought for the day: Stop Mannix! 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
Maudlin
'bout Remodelin' How should Eugene grow? A group called 1000 Friends of Oregon says that Eugene should "grow up," not "grow out." This group favors increasing the density of our urban core rather than expanding our urban growth boundary (UGB), which is the line around the metro area that prevents shopping malls from encroaching on farmland and forestland. On the other hand, a group called Oregonians in Action (OIA) insists that redevelopment of the urban core is too difficult. These people like the UGB about as much as they like the KGB. In a recent op-ed piece for The Register-Guard, an official with OIA said that the philosophy of urban containment stifles economic development. The author put quotation marks around terms like "land use planning" and "land use goals," as if these were dubious propositions rather than settled law. My own view is that we should explore all opportunities for redeveloping the urban center before we consider enlarging the UGB. Let's be honest: Downtown Eugene could use a facelift. Many of the buildings in our downtown sprang up in the 1970s, which was not exactly the zenith of American architecture. Maybe we should market Eugene to Hollywood as a shooting location for films set in the '70s, like the upcoming remake of Starsky and Hutch. Some of the concrete buildings in downtown Eugene make communist Eastern Europe seem like Renaissance Italy. On December 13, 2001, a cover story in EW used a fancy architectural term to characterize Eugene's buildings: "Butt ugly."
If we have to put new buildings somewhere so we can accommodate our growing population, why not transform the ugly buildings of downtown Eugene into taller, better-looking buildings? Why allow the construction of more and more box stores on the periphery when several lots are underutilized in the urban center? Abandoning downtown for the so-called "premium land" on the edges of our community is like abandoning your spouse of 20 years for a new trophy wife. It's not just bad land use planning, it's disloyal. We should stand by our downtown, the way several thriving communities such as Portland have done. The op-ed by OIA complained about the scarcity of developable land within Eugene's UGB. But what about all the developable land that exists in distressed timber towns like Cottage Grove and Oakridge? These towns benefit when developable land is scarce in Eugene. When it comes to the economic development of Lane County's small towns, OIA is MIA.
Of course, we shouldn't rule out any expansion of Eugene's urban growth boundary for all eternity. At some point in the future, we'll need new ground to accommodate major employers that might want to establish facilities in our community (especially employers that can't find suitable lots within the existing UGB). I, for one, believe that our local governments should follow the suggestion of the Lane Metro Partnership and invest a small amount of money to study the availability of industrial land within our UGB — so long as we're making comparable investments to create inventories of natural resources and other assets. But in the meantime, let's unplug the centrifuge that flings all development to the edge of our community. While redevelopment of our urban center won't be easy, it's worth the trouble. If we insist on a new site for every new commercial or residential development, our urban core will collapse. Remember that "new" is half the way to "Newark." Tom Lininger is a law professor and former county commissioner.
Home
Schooling What I learned (or re-learned) this August while building a straw bale house in a small, desert valley in Utah: On a seemingly still day, a large, heavy mat of cardboard (two inches thick by four feet wide and seven feet long) can float east for miles, a thousand feet overhead like a magic carpet if a dust devil grabs it and lifts it into an air stream. It's as fun to plaster one's home with mud, clay and straw as it was to play in mud when you were six. A community with neither streetlights nor outdoor house lights allows a starry night or a full moon to dock immediately next to you. Mud breathes. The Colorado River used to be called the Grand River. Hence, Grand Junction, Colorado; Grand County, Utah; and the Grand Canyon. When a house construction crew includes a healer, a Celtic music radio program disk jockey, and an artist/rock music disk jockey, the house seems to be built like a song — with spirit. Breezes matter in southern Utah. If you doubt this, go sit for a few minutes in the sealed, plastic, temporary outhouse with the door closed, on a hot day. Even if you have no feet, you can be the hardest-working straw baler. Some years ago, when a political dispute was raging in the valley and signs were torn down by opposing sides, someone tacked up a lone sign that survived, and remains today at the entrance to the valley: "Caution: Falling Sky." The friendly owner of the nearby upscale winery and resort on the Grand River is depleting the next valley's aquifer and tearing your arid public lands to shreds with his cattle. You choose how much you sense Earth's presence around you. The skin of a house is like the skin of living beings: It covers many parts, skills and mistakes. Among the few things that succeed in being white in red dust (aka redrock) country are the sacred datura flowers, unfurling large after dusk and lasting one night. If you're lime, sitting in water in a garbage can all winter will make you stronger.
There is inexplicable, but sharp enjoyment in drinking wine and eating eggs nurtured by neighbors. Especially when the wine comes from the vineyard of two gay men, and even good Mormons helped when the community turned out to pick their grapes; and the eggs come from the chickens of a woman who drives an old black and white police car. Different hummingbird species make different sounds with their wings while hovering. If you cook at home, you won't notice you've just ordered the senior breakfast. Some of my neighbors care as much about who dies, and how, in an attack on Baghdad as an attack on Manhattan; others care only that people are dying in one of those cities. Our hardware stores assume all houses will be built with straight lines and 90° angles. Now that the oceans are heating up, corals are committing suicide by throwing out their food-producing algae. (I read this one evening online, after a record-hot day of building.) Some construction workers carry black widow spiders away, rather than killing them. When a 1,200-pound steel beam falls on your big toe, make sure you're standing in sand. Humans aren't as beautiful after death as juniper trees are. If you are aware, political work for the environment will find you anywhere on Earth. I wonder what the bear was thinking when he decided to poop on my well cover. Steel rusting is merely burning more slowly than a forest on fire. The best night to swim at the local swimming hole is Saturday evening because the Seventh Day Adventists have the water rights, but don't irrigate alfalfa on their Sabbath. In a rural desert community, the food of current excitement is what is in season and local. In an urban area, the food of current excitement often is what is out of season and from far away. Living inside a house brings comfort. Living outside brings mysteries. Mars can be a close friend at 2:30 am, August 2003. Mary O'Brien of Eugene has worked as a public interest scientist for the past 22 years. She can be reached at mob@efn.org
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