Oregon daily emerald., May 23, 1973, Page 7, Image 7

—Editorial —
Auditorium : yes-Site:
Baker Park
Two of the five ballots for this Thur
sday’s special election will deal with
Eugene’s proposed auditorium. Measure
52 requests a $5.5 million bond issue for the
auditorium. Measure 53 asks voters to
choose between two proposed sites — the
original downtown location and one in
Alton Baker Park.
Voters rejected the auditorium ballot
in the November election, and surveys
taken since then say that the measure was
defeated largely because of the downtown
location. Evidently, people were con
vinced that an auditorium placed in the
heart of the city would result in traffic
congestion and parking problems.
The newly-drawn plans for the
auditorium have been scaled down some
since the November defeat. The original
estimate for taxes was 83 cents per
thousand assessed property value, while
the new figure is 74 cents. The nine-cent
difference, according to the City Recorder,
is based on the projected increase in the
1974-75 valuation of property in the city.
The total amount for the auditorium
has been lowered from November’s $8.5
million to a new figure of $7.5 million. In
addition to a large donor program, the
Lane County Auditorium Association had
planned on receiving a $1.25 million grant
from the federal Economic Development
Agency (EDA). Now the federal funds for
EDA have been cut off by President
Nixon.
The Emerald believes that Eugene
needs an auditorium center. Hopefully,
Thursday’s voters will agree with this
point of view. Beyond deciding yes or no
on the auditorium, however, the voters will
be given their choice on the center’s
location.
We believe that Alton Baker Park
offers the best site. 11118 location has the
advantage of utilizing the existing parking
space at Autzen Stadium and avoids one of
the chief concerns people have raised
about the downtown site — that of traffic
congestion.
Although both sites will be of similar
cost and size, the Alton Baker location
would utilize a sprawling (5.63 acres) area
while the downtown site would be con
tained within two square blocks between
Sixth and Seventh avenues and Oak and
Olive «*»*eets.
Some people feel that the proposed
2800 seat capacity of the auditorium is too
small. However, if compared with other
cities of equal size to Eugene, or even
larger, 2800 seats seem to be a good
number. Many bookings can be made for
two performances a day if necessary.
Also, this seating range is considered ideal
by many people who feel that a larger size
ruins visibility and acoustics.
Another concern, especially among
University students, is whether the
proposed auditorium will be able to book
rock concerts. On this concern,
specifically, the Auditorium Association
has promised to be fair and equitable in
allocating space requests.
The auditorium measures may face
tough sledding because of competition
with three other ballot measures dealing
with the city budget and pay for the mayor
and city council. The past track record for
bond issues, including the one in
November, is full of voter rejections. For
this election, however, a rejection won’t be
because of the location, but whether the
voters want an auditorium.
Africa Day--'ln fair conscience'
By Nkonge Mantu
On Friday, May 25th, we the African
students at the University will be
celebrating Africa Day in commemoration
of the tenth anniversary of the creation of
OAU — Organization for African Unity. In
doing this we will be re-asserting our
commitment to the African course which
is the eventual but total eradication of all
foreign and allied local elements that
today foster and perpetuate insidious
enslavement and economic exploitation of
the African peoples through surrep
titiously camouflaged neo-colonialism.
It is a day that reminds us of the fact that
logically the black people the world over
have a duty to perform both individually
and in concert for the well being of their
kind despite what any body else thinks.
It is a day when we are going to honor
and remember our fallen heroes who have
fallen victims of this political and
economic malady never forgetting that in
their falling, we continue to derive
strength and courage to trace their foot
steps — Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Dr. Ed
wardo Modlane, Malcolm X, Amilcar
Cabral, et al.
It is a day to avow our commitment to
what is African as opposed to what has
been forcibly and clandestinely injected
into Africa. This begs for some sifting but
while we are at it, I do not see how in fair
conscience we cannot recognize that for
example there is something inherently
good in Uganda’s Amin’s administrative
overtures or for that matter Zaire’s
Mobutu’s declaration that all Zairois
should discard the perpetual shame en
meshed in the Christian names they bear. I
honestly wonder what is so Christian about
a stupid Belgium, French, or British name
that makes the western press scream so
loudly against Mobutu’s move. Of course
the colonialists are to lose one of their
infinite and very subtle holds on us. Small
wonder they scream so much.
Nkrumah once said, “The Imperialists
came to Africa and told us to first seek the
kindom of heaven and the rest would be
given unto us. All the while, they were
making suckers of us by taking over our
earthly kingdoms!’ How naive can we be to
crowd such an issue with what I have
heard often, to my consternation,
described as the good brought to Africa by
missionary imperialists? This is the day
we remind ourselves that too much has
been said about us, most of which is wrong,
by too many people. Funny as it may
sound, our gullibility shines here when we
consider how much of this garbage we
have come to believe. I say that time
better be now when these loudmouths have
to shut up and listen to us for a change.
Attempting to project an international
‘good boy’ profile before we clean our
house is a shift from sublime to ridiculous.
It is the day we have to acknowledge
shame on us for not having done and not
doing our part and consequently plot our
strategies for the future.
Yes, it is the day we will have to ask
ourselves how in fair conscience we can
consider ourselves free while all in
dications point towards the fact that our
propensities are towards benign neglect of
the plight of our brothers and sisters in
Mozambique, South Africa, Angola,
Zimbabwe and Guinea Bissau.
In any case, it is freedom rather than life
that is equitted with death in the axiom
‘give me freedom or death’. What I am
attempting to say here is that in regard to
the extant plight of the Africans in the
imperialist controlled states, we will have
to smoke out the damned apartheid per
petrators, their allies and emulators
regardless of whether we will die in the
process or not. I say this because I believe
that in fair conscience we cannot afford to
look at the situation otherwise since a
different course of action would be an
outright betrayal of all black people.
It is that day we will have to
acknowledge the fact that in this world
there has to be a place where every black
man has to feel privileged for being black.
Europe or the U.S. are definitely not such
places nor do they have the potential for
being so. Africa conspicuously qualifies
and it is towards making this possible that
we should direct our undivided efforts.
At the risk of provoking my passive
African friends, I will say that if by going
to school here we learn to think differently
from what I have stipulated above, we are
nothing more than a bunch of stinking
idiots in the eyes of our parents and
catalysts to our future generations’ doom.
The pacifists amongst us, whose concept
of Pan-Africanism is both infinitesimal
and ridiculously illusionary, might deem
me a war monger. Without an iota of
apology, I will say that rather than ad
vocating war, I am simply promulgating
the situation as it stands and that if a war
arises I stand ready to fight because in fair
conscience I cannot conceive taking a
different stance. After all Ben Bella said,
“Africa must die a little for Africa to live.”
I believe him and will take the former if it
will efficaciously contribute towards
achieving the latter.
Note: Mr. Mantu is a senior in business
from Kenya — East Africa.
— Commentary
Auditorium deserves yes' vote
By SCOTT BARKHURST
This Thursday, voters will decide
whether or not Eugene will have an
auditorium—and the student vote (or
lack ot it) may well decide the issue.
In its second and final go-around, the
Lane County Auditorium Association
(LCAA) is offering a revised proposal
over the one offered last November —
including a choice of site (Alton Baker
Park vs. downtown) and elimination of
the convention hall. Both these
revisions were enacted as a result of
voter surveys taken after the
November election.
For those who questioned the
downtown site, the park site offers a
clear alternative, with ample parking
and little urban congestion.
Auditorium architects have specifically
stated that the auditorium facility
would become much more of a
“community-recreation center” if it
were built on the park site.
Why only 2800 seats? For the same
reason the Portland Auditorium seats
3000 and Memorial Coliseum seats
10,000. A coliseum and an auditorium
are two different buildings; one is built
primarily for sports, the other is built
primarily for cultural events, with
acoustics, visibility and seating that
coliseums cannot offer.
In Washington, D.C., the new JFK
Performing Arts Center has three
halls—none of which exceeds 2800
seats. Yet they book rock concerts, jazz
groups and symphonies all year round.
In short, a 2800-seat auditorium will
not exclude rock concerts; extra
performances can and will be
scheduled. Booking agents in Eugene
and Seattle have confirmed this with
the LCAA.
There is only one problem with
Eugene’s proposed auditorium: it has
a $7.5 million price tag, $5.5 million of
which is to come from the local bond
issue. The remaining $2 million would
come from a donor campaign — and
donor campaigns historically draw
from businesses, middle- and upper
income brackets, a fact that opponents
continually overlook in their charge
that the so-called wealthy would “not
be paying their share” of construction
costs.
$5.5 million is a lot of money. No one
has said it isn’t. But auditoriums that
are designed to be flexible, functional
and long-lasting for their communities
are not built on shoestring budgets.
And unless some rich dude waltzes in
the door with a couple million bucks he
wants to give away, there is simply no
reasonable alternative to the financing
of a public-owned auditorium. That is a
reality that voters must recognize.
In simple language, the defeat of the
auditorium proposal means students
and Eugene residents will continue to
hear Les McCann in the EMU Ballroom
and Van Cliburn in McArthur Court. Or,
as one lady wrote in Sunday’s Register
Guard:
“1 want to help buy something to lift
up our sad and tired spirits. I want a
little beauty ... I want to sit in comfort
and listen to good music where the
acoustics are as good as the musicians.
I want to see plays where I can hear the
actors and not perish from the heat . . .
in short, I want to spend some of mv tax
money for an auditorium for all of
us. . .”
That’s what it’s all about, folks.