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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 4, 1977)
New city ‘flak catcher’fields complaints The new “flak catcher” for Eugene re sidents says she has “always wanted a whack at helping citizens who are upset by the system.” Mavis Adams, city investment officer in the finance department, is on loan for six months to fill the revolving position. More formally listed on the organiza tion chart as Public Service Officer (PSO), the new member of the manager’s staff is responsible for filling citizen requests for information or ser vice and for looking into complaints about city procedures or personnel. The position was created seven or eight years ago and has a double pur pose. In addition to providing assistance to citizens discouraged or thwarted by the bureaucratic maze, the PSO is ex posed to the full gamut of administrative and departmental problems. After six months of fielding flak, the temporary staffer returns to his or her department, hopefully with more understanding of city processes and of citizen concerns in dealing with city hall. Adams was one of three people who volunteered for the position. She says showing an interest in doing the job is one of the main qualifications for filling the position. Adams has received approximately 100 legitimate complaints since she be came PSO three weeks ago and says people complain about everything from “the next door neighbor’s shrubs to trees being cut down.” Born in Arkansas and schooled in Yakima, Washington, Adams came to Eugene in 1961 and joined the city staff in 1971. An accounting major at Lane Community College and the University, she has continued io study manage ment theory and supervisory techniques as a part-time University student. After five years of administering the business license division and estab lishing the downtown development dis trict tax program, Adams has been re sponsible since early 1976 for invest ment of city revenues and long-range planning for city cash flow. Mavis Adams J National grant to help renovate interior of WOW Hall By KEVIN HARDEN Of the Emerald Architectural renovation on the W.O.W. Hall downtown will begin soon, thanks to a grant from the National Endowment Fund for the Arte. According to Jonathon Pincus, the in-house design coordinator for the Community Center for the Performing Arts (CCPA), the $9,960 grant will be used to completely renovate the interior of the per forming arts building. The grant, awarded in June, is to be used for architectural design renovations from dimate control to acoustics. The grant is part of the endowment fund’s program for the upgrading of cultural facilities that couldn't otherwise afford the renovations. Specific areas are included in the grant, Pincus said. Undetermined amounts of the money wiH be divided between hiring a technical theater designer to design seating and hiring a climate control expert for the building's heating and cooling system. The community center was purchased in December, 1975, by a group of area artists and interested citizens in an effort to pro vide the West Eugene area with a commun ity center which focused on entertainment activities. Built by the Woodmen Of the World in 1932, the hall was first used as a fraternal organization meeting house and then, in the late 1960s, was rented to civic groups for their activities. When the building was purchased by the CCPA, Pincus said, it has fallen into disrepair. At their own expense the artists turned the hail into a performing arte center which offered rehearsal space, classrooms, a small performing auditorium and an inti mate setting to the public at the lowest pos sible cost. The CCPA group, which has already begun the first phase of the renovation, re searched the possibility of a grant for the construction early last year. “We wanted to demonstrate to the community what poten tial the W.O. W. halt really has,” Pincus exp lained. Until the grant was awarded two months ago, the group had been working on their own design program, Pincus said. Acting as a spokesman for the group, CCPA member Jim Williams proposed Monday during the Eugene Civic Center Coimmission hearings that the community center group work with the civic center commission to coordinate both design ef forts. “We’re not competitive,” Pincus exp lained. ‘They’re a whole different center from ours. 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