To accommodate petitioners, opposition
City opts for retrial of fluoride in dual vote
By LORRAINE NELSON
Of the Emerald
Fluoridation will be before city voters at
least twice more before 1979.
The Eugene City Council decided at its
regular Monday night meeting to put the
fluoride issue back on the ballot June 28
and regardless of the outcome of that elec
tion, the issue will appear again on the gen
eral Section ballot in November, 1978.
City council action won’t be official until
Council Bills for each election are approved
later this month.
A petition with 6,498 authenticated signa
tures was presented to the council March
29 by Citizens for Pure Water. Discussion
of the fluoride issue at the council’s
Committee-of-the-Whole meeting April 6
revealed that some people in the commun
ity had said they would work against the city
budget, scheduled for the June 28 ballot, if
the fluoride issue was not on that ballot.
R.J. Martin from Citizens for Pure Water
said he felt local media had implied or
ganized action existed to defeat the budget.
He denied any such action against the
budget from his group but said there were
individuals who had said they would work
against the budget if the fluoride issue was
not on the June 28 ballot.
Steve Brown, fundraising chairman of the
Citizens Committee for Better Dental
Health, testified against the June 28 elec
tion date saying that putting the issue on the
ballot for a special election would be the
“kiss of death" for fluoride.
Brown said that more than 40,000 votes
were cast on the fluoride issue alone in
November 1976 and never more than
20,000 votes had been cast during a spe
cial election. He felt 20,000 votes was not
representative of the majority.
He said after fluoridation had passed in
the general election in 1964 it was put on
the ballot again in September 1965.
Eleven-thousand people voted during that
special election with barely half of them vot
ing against fluoride. Brown said he felt that
the issue should wait until the general
election “to find out what the majority opin
ion is. "There is no emergency,” he said,
“people are getting by.”
Jeanne Fox, a dental hygienist, also
spoke against the June 28 election date. As
a member of the Dental Task Force, Fox
was involved in a project a couple of years
ago to assess the health needs of Eugene.
The task force came with two priorities. The
first was to improve mental health and the'
second was to improve dental health.
Fox said in order to cut down dental prob
lems in Eugene, the city needed a fluoride
supply to counteract its “lacking in the water
and in the foods we eat.”
Richard Green spoke in support of the
June 28 election date saying it was impor
tant to vote as soon as possible. Green said
after the meeting that he felt fluoride would
be voted out June 28 because “There are
enough citizens in Eugene who don’t want
medicine in their water.”
Council member Eric Haws was respon
sible for the motion to have both elections.
Haws noted during the April 6 Committee
of-the-Whole meeting that his reason for
two elections was to satisfy both anti and
pro-fluoridation philosophies — one being
for an immediate vote on the fluoride issue
and the second being the concern for hav
ing the issue on a general ballot with more
people voting.
In other action the council approved three
changes in the annual update of the
Eugene Bikeway Master Plan, adopted by
the city in 1975.
They are:
The addition of a path to give bikers
easier access to Lane Community College
on 30th Avenue; the completion of a path on
Summit Avenue through Hendricks Park to
give bikers and pedestrians access over
the hill; and an improvement in the bike path
for Interstate-105. The original plan hadn’t
left enough room for bikes on a section of
the freeway. Bike traffic would have to be
diverted from the interstate at Harlow Road
and travel along Harlow to Coburg Road
where it would join with Interstate-105
again.
The original master plan was drawn up in
1974 by Lane Council of Government s
Metropolitan Bicycle Committee and an
Engineering and Planning Company from
San Francisco. The plan is intended to
serve as a general guide for coordinating
bikeway system development.
According to Diane Bishop, bicycle coor
dinator for the City Parks and Recreation
Department, memos are sent out annually
around November to neighborhood groups
and citizens groups asking for additions or
changes to the plan. Suggestions are con
sidered and put before the council each
year for an annual update of the plan.
Forty-seven of the 125 miles of bikeways
drawn up in the plan have been completed.
Bishop says the plan was constructed with
no specific completion dates but he esti
mates most of the paths will be finished by
1980.
Estimated cost of completing the plan is
$5.8 million. The plan states the city’s share
would not exceed 50 per cent of that total
because some paths outside the city juris
diction are included with anticipation of
state and federal funding agencies.
Most of the funds for city bikeways are
taken from the city genera! fund. Others
come from one per cent of the gas tax, from
the Oregon State Bicycle Committee and
from the Federal Recreation Program.
EWEB views energy proposal draft
from secret power pooling conference
A discussion draft of a federal
bill authorizing the Bonneville
Power Administration (BPA) to
purchase the output of future
Northwest energy facilities was
unfurled to the Eugene Water and
Electric Board (EWEB) Monday
night.
Rockne Gill, a Portland attorney
for EWEB, and Herb Hunt,
EWEB’s operation and engineer
ing director, presented the draft
outlining its 20 sections and em
phasizing its energy conservation
features.
The draft is a result of months of
negotiations among executives
from regional utilities, industries
and the BPA. These executives
have been meeting in private and
now are unveiling glimpses of
their plans for regional power
pooling in the form of this discus
sion draft.
The executives, collectively cal
led the Pacific Northwest Utilities
Conference Committee, hope to
hammer out a final draft of the
plan, label it the Pacific Northwest
Electric Power Supply and Con
servation Act and send it to Con
gress by May 15.
Gill admitted, however, that this
target date is too close for any
realistic hope of legislative action.
The main thrust of the proposed
bill gives BPA power to purchase
the region’s power supply, com
bine the cost of hydroelectric
power with future thermal power,
then sell this combined power to
the region’s utilities at “melded”
prices, Gill said.
Another key feature of the
legislation is the establishment of
an energy conservation program
that would encourage individual
power consumers to conserve
energy through direct interest-free
loans, amounting to $300 million.
The bill also proposes the es
tablishment of a Pacific Northwest
Utilities Organization to enforce its
Socialist leader speaks on campus
Michael Harrington, author and chairer of the Democratic Socialist
Organizing Committee (DSOC), will speak in Room 129 of the law
school at 2:30 p.m. Thursday.
Harrington’s topic is “Socialism, A Viable Political Alternative.” A
social activist for the past 20 years, Harrington has written six books,
including one published last year, “The Twilight of Capitalism.” His book
analyzing poverty, “The Other America,” is widely credited with being the
basis of the poverty program launched by Presidents John Kennedy and
Lyndon Johnson.
The Willamette Valley Bong
Company Research and
Development Dept. Wants
Your Trade-ins
Bring in your old Bong — any make, any model, any
condition and get 10 to 20% off any of our nationally
distributed Bongs.
Willamette Valley Bong Works
No. 18 Warehouse Plaza 1125 Bailey Hill Rd.
provisions.
The board members had little
discussion on the legislative draft.
Most of them only aired concern
over the fact that EWEB’s rates
would probably increase if the bill
was enacted. John Tiffany, presi
dent of the EWEB board, simply
said, “With the diverse interests,
it’s remarkable we got this far.’’
In other business, the board
unanimously awarded a $315,000
purchase bid from Rexius Fuel
and Growing Center of Eugene for
Hogged waste wood which will be
burned by EWEB for steam heat
and electricity.
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