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Slant: short opinion pieces and rumor-chasing notes. News: URBAN RENEWAL EXPANSION GETS NOD The Eugene City Council voted Nov. 20 to move forward with a proposal to expand and continue the city's urban renewal districts. The effect of the vote will be to increase taxes and divert scarce school funding (see EW cover story, March 6). The proposal, which will go to a public hearing in January, will expand the Riverfront Urban Renewal district by about 20 percent and renew it for another 20 years and continue the Downtown Urban Renewal District for 20 years. Urban renewal is a complex method of creating a dedicated pot of money for development projects by manipulating taxes and diverting existing revenue for schools and other public services without a vote of the people. Continuing the two urban renewal districts rather than eliminating them would effectively increase taxes roughly $38 for the average homeowner and divert about $2.8 million in other school and government tax revenue, according to city estimates. State school funding would lose about $1.1 million a year, the city of Eugene $1.1 million and Lane County about $200,000. The tax and diverted revenue impact of urban renewal will increase dramatically in later years as property values rise in the expanded districts. The city, however, hasn't developed estimates of the longer term impact. Urban renewal has been controversial in Eugene for decades with critics blaming it for destroying the city's historic downtown to build concrete parking garages and wasting money on a road to nowhere in the UO Riverfront Research Park that threatens to develop a scenic natural area along the Willamette River. The recent decision to use urban renewal to fund a long-delayed new library was far more popular, but expanding and continuing the districts would create far more money than is needed to pay off the library debt. City staff and councilors have said using urban renewal to help fund a new $33 million police station and adjacent parking garage costing millions more will be a top priority for the diverted money. The two districts now generate about $4.1 million a year in taxes and diverted revenue. The police station has twice failed at the polls by a wide margin. The council voted 6-2 to move forward with urban renewal. Councilor Betty Taylor complained that urban renewal money is spent "outside the public eye" and is too often wasted. She pointed to the millions of dollars spent on the railroad underpass at the Riverfront Research Park. "It's just a big waste of money sitting there, and that's the kind of thing that's easy to do with an urban renewal district." — Alan Pittman
The cities of Eugene and Springfield have complained for years now that they need higher taxes to fix a massive backlog of road repairs.
But the problem apparently isn't so great that they are willing to divert money planned to serve developers with new roads to instead fix potholes in old streets. The regional Metropolitan Planning Committee (MPC), made up of officials from local government, voted down a proposal Oct. 9 to divert available money from new roads to fix the roads we already have. MPC member and Eugene City Councilor Bonny Bettman said in an interview that it makes no sense to spend money on new roads instead of maintaining the expensive roads the city already has. "Any available money we have to preserve the system should be spent to preserve the system." Bettman had hoped to take about $700,000 from a project to extend Chad Drive in north Eugene to serve The Register-Guard and big bog stores in north Eugene and instead use the money to fix decaying streets in the city. The city of Eugene now has an estimated backlog of $94 million in road repairs. Timely repairs and maintenance of streets can save multiple millions of dollars in reconstruction work later if repairs are ignored, the city says. The city estimates that with the current lack of maintenance money, the repair backlog will grow to $231 million over the next decade. The city of Eugene passed a road fee and a 3-cent gas tax to address the road repair problem last year. But the council recently repealed the road fee after progressives complained it was a flat tax on homes, and businesses complained their share of the tax was too high. The gas tax brings in about $2 million a year for Eugene. Bettman says money for the Chad Drive extension should have come from fees charged to nearby developers who will benefit in higher property values because of the new road. "That's exactly the purpose for which system development charges were created." The city now faces such a huge backlog in road maintenance because it has for years subsidized new roads for developers at the expense of maintenance of existing streets, says Bettman. "That's why we have a $94 million backlog," Bettman says. "There's no discipline." The Eugene City Council passed a resolution 6-2 in September to support the MPC redirecting money from new roads to preserving existing streets. The resolution was opposed by Mayor Jim Torrey, who won election with record-breaking contributions from developers. Torrey said the new roads are needed to relieve congestion. "We can't just stop building new roads." Bettman countered that the new roads were less about reducing traffic than serving speculators by accessing new lands for development. At the MPC meeting, Torrey argued against money for road repairs, but then "as a courtesy" to the council resolution, voted with Bettman for an amendment to allow Eugene to divert new road money to preservation. The motion failed 3-4. Torrey then voted for the main motion of new road spending without the amendment while Bettman voted against the package. — AP
A facilitated town meeting on "Racism and Injustice: An examination of the effects of 9/11 on Muslims, Jews and Others" will take place at 7 pm Wednesday, Dec. 3 at Westmoreland Community Center, 1545 W. 22nd. Discussions will center on discrimination, harassment, concerns about the role of the U.S. in the Middle East, and fear of speaking out. The meeting will be facilitated by Ibrahim Hamide, Sharon Emery, LMFT, Gary Reiss, LCSW, and Aura Salomon. The meeting is sponsored by the Eugene Middle East Peace Group.
$48 MILLION EYED FOR ROAD TECHNOLOGY Local road planners envision spending $48 million over the next 20 years to install hundreds of traffic cameras, reader boards and remote controlled stop lights on major roads all over Eugene-Springfield. In a draft plan, the planners claim the computerized Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) will save at least 10 times more money in expensive traffic congestion and accidents than it costs to build and operate. In addition to the $48 million in construction costs, the system will cost up to $2.5 million a year to operate. Planners have not identified a funding source, and the high-tech approach may have to compete for funding with the low-tech reality of millions of dollars of unrepaired potholes and cracks in existing streets. With cameras everywhere, the system could also draw fire from those opposed to big-brother surveillance. ITS projects envisioned vary widely. Examples include: an automatic weather detection and deicing system on I-5 bridges; reader boards that warn of upcoming congestion or approaching trains at crossings; signs at bus stops that tell passengers exactly how long they have to wait; traffic lights that adjust their timing depending on traffic levels; lights on freeway ramps that space out merging cars and electronic bus passes. — AP
Two mayoral hopefuls have already waded into the 2004 political pool, not waiting to see if Jim Torrey is going for another term as Eugene mayor. Perennial candidate Makyadath Lazar has completed filing his candidacy for the non-partisan May 18 primary elections, and newcomer Willie Nicholas has filed initial paperwork. "Several people have picked up information packets without indicating what their intentions were," says City Recorder Mary Feldman, "but none have returned to start the process." City Council incumbents Bonny Bettman and Betty Taylor have submitted initial filing papers for Wards 1 and 2 respectively. No one has filed for Ward 7 currently held by Scott Meisner, nor Ward 8, held by Nancy Nathanson. Other council wards are not up for re-election. Only one candidate so far has filed for the three EWEB Board positions also on the May ballot. John Simpson has filed papers for Wards 1 and 8 currently held by Patrick Lanning. Positions held by Dorothy Anderson and Melvin Menegat are also up for election.—TJT
A short news story on Blue Mountain Park spraying last week contained an error regarding Mosby Creek. The creek does not contain habitat for Chinook salmon. The error was due to an editor's mistake.
Carded
at the Café Stacy Borke, 20, and her friends frequented Café Paradiso, where they'd drink tea and eat pastries while they listened to world and folk music and other acts that interested them. "I liked the size of the venue — it was small enough to have an intimate experience with the performance but large enough to accommodate various group sizes," she says. As for the cover charges for shows, says Borke, "You get more than you pay for." With those positive thoughts in mind, Borke and her friends wandered into the all-ages restaurant at the corner of Broadway and Olive a few Friday nights ago to catch WYMPROV!, an all-female comedy act that recently signed on to perform regular Friday night gigs there. But Borke and her friends were shocked to find themselves turned away because they weren't 21, a brand new rule imposed by Paradiso owner Greg Fleener that began that night. The 21 and over rule kicks in at 9 pm Friday and Saturday eves and will go into effect at a certain time weeknights beginning mid-December or the beginning of January, says Fleener. "There aren't too many venues like Café Paradiso," says Borke, "That's why I am so outraged by their decision." While Fleener says he will book earlier all-ages shows and bump up the open mic time to accommodate minors, he didn't have much of a choice. "The OLCC approached me a week before the Eugene Celebration and said 'We need to talk,'" says Fleener. He waited a month and a half, then the OLCC finally got back to him, giving him two weeks to make a change. The OLCC wanted him to either bump the age to 21 when evening entertainment started, or move all drinkers to the rear of the venue, where there isn't much space and they wouldn't be able to see the stage, he says. After consideration, Fleener decided to go with 21+ during evening entertainment, and expand the wine and beer offerings to full bar service. "The more a place is not food-service oriented, the more it then becomes something we have to look at in terms of restricting access," says OLCC Regulatory Specialist Dan Green. "In that place on certain nights, the focus is more like an entertainment venue, so that's basically what led to the conversation with Café Paradiso." At other venues, like Sam Bond's, minors are allowed for the purpose of consuming food but once the entertainment begins, it's 21 and over only. Customers are notified of the regulation through what the law calls "minor postings;" literally, signs that say "No Minors" after a certain hour. "The overriding thing for minor postings in Oregon is that minors are primarily allowed in areas where alcohol is being served for eating purposes," says Green. Where the service is minimal, where the environment is more for entertainment, they're not. A few years ago, the OLCC made headlines when it cracked down on several local all-ages venues, beginning with the McKenzie Ballroom in downtown Springfield. In response to complaints — some say by racist neighbors who did not like the Latin dance nights that attracted a large Latino population to downtown Springfield — the OLCC rewrote state regulations to have different standards for restaurants, dance halls and concert halls. For dance halls, which the McKenzie Ballroom fell into, the rules required a physical barrier to separate where alcohol is being consumed and where it is not. To answer that, the McKenzie erected an unsightly wall right through its center, but that didn't stop the venue from being closed down. The OLCC then swooped down on the WOW Hall, the Community Center for the Performing Arts, which has always been all ages, and tried to talk its managers into erecting a barrier on its dancefloor, not to separate alcohol service from minors, but to separate adults who had been drinking from minors. The WOW Hall fought the walling off of its dancefloor, but met the new dance hall regulations by restricting the sale of alcoholic beverages to its downstairs area, an obvious physical barrier that allows easy identification checking of its patrons. But the time was difficult. Bob Fennessey, WOW Hall publicist, says "It was fortunate we had someone who was looking out for our interests and that was state Rep. Floyd Prozanski, a WOW Hall member, who was our angel. When the OLCC was rewriting the regulations, the WOW Hall was held harmless." The law is different for concert halls, a category that the Hult Center and the Shedd fall into. The OLCC considers concert halls places where "drinking is minimal, allowed in the lobby before or after a show or during intermission, or confined to areas not accessible to minors," says Green. Concerns over alcohol-consuming adults having access to minors in the lobby is not a discussion the OLCC has had with those venues, as it did WOW Hall several years ago. A new venue, Cozmic Pizza at the Strand, offers wine and beer while the interior of The Strand remains all ages. But that's for two reasons. First, when the evening entertainment begins, there is an obvious cordoned off section with a sign that says "Over 21 only." The second reason is that the Strand also houses a coffee stand with sitting area, which the OLCC "has no jurisdiction over," says Green. Green says for the most part, bars in Eugene are "pretty good," and under-age drinking is not a big problem. "The penalties are big enough so that there's incentive to be careful," he says. The biggest problem the OLCC faces is fake IDs, but OLCC employees go around to various bars and train employees on what they look like. At Café Paradiso, because of the short notice of the change, owner Fleener has not had a chance to rebook future shows. "I'll probably do more dance bands," he says. As to her and her friends getting shut out of their favorite hangout, Borke says, "It exemplifies the age stratification that continues to exist in our community."
MIKE BARNES
Since 1997, Cascadia Forest Goods has marketed wood products from Forest Stewardship Council-certified forests, as well as recycled and salvaged wood. "We sell products from forests that have been properly cared for, at close to market price — in some cases below market price," say CEO Mike Barnes. "Our Restoration Fir Flooring is wood from understory thinning." A Portland native, Barnes lived as a monk for eight years of high school and college at Mount Angel Seminary. Following two years of grad school in Seattle, he spent time with priests doing social justice work in Panama, Colombia and Mexico. On his return, he became a professional organizer, working for grassroots democracy in Chicago and other U.S. locales. "I returned to Portland in 1979," he says. "I was one of the founders of Oregon Fair Share." In 1993, Barnes was invited to direct the Ecoforestry Institute, a training center in southern Oregon. He started CFG there, then moved it to Eugene in '98, when his daughter reached school age. "We're busy now," he notes. "For the first time, we have a positive cash flow." Learn more about CFG at www.cascadiaforestgoods.com.
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