Oregon Daily
TUESDAY, JULY 13, 1993
EUGENE, OREGON
VOLUME 95, ISSUE 7
^ . by AfiWxy'y lor*«y
Eight-year-old Luketan Somnasang (right) and younger brother Jong, five, hand rolls ol coins to pay the rent at Oregon Hall.
Housing tenants
protest increase
□ Family housing residents pay rent at
Oregon Hall with coins last Thursday
By Ed Carson
Oregon O&ty fmwakj
Tenants in family housing who believe they ore being short
changed by the University responded in kind
Protesting proposed rent increases in family housing, several fam
ilies gathered at Oregon Hall last Thursday ut noon to pay their rent
in coins.
Holding signs that carried slogans such as "Save Family Housing'
and "Double Taxation without Explanation," the tenants said they
wanted to send a message to the University of how the $20 to $-10
monthly rent increase going into effect Sept 1 will affect student
families.
"We re here to demonstrate how much every one of these coins
means to us," said Amazon tenant Laurence Miller.
Suzanne O’Shea agreed
"W'e want to make a statement of the hardship that tenants in fam
ily housing face.” O’Shea said. "We want them to physically see the
hardship."
The protesting tenants charged that the University is abandoning
the mission of family housing to provide self-supporting, low-cost
housing in order to make up budget shortfalls. In particular, pro
testers criticized the University’s plan to dramatically increase its
Turn to PROTEST, Page 4
Pt*j*o Dy Amnory ►ownnr
Cydnl Cartar. tout yaars old, and brothar Danny, savan, hold
signs as part ol a prolast Thursday at Oragon Hall.
‘Tilt train’
makes stop
in Eugene
j More than 3.000 people
turn out to see the X2000
By Ed Carson
{irpyon fifc/y f nxxakl
Thi' Kugeno-SpringfHdd area s,nv a
glimpse of Oregon's transportation future
when 11 new high speed tilt train rolled
into (lu> Kngonn
Amtrak station
last Thursd.n
Kvmi though
tin' train stood
still, tho long
lino and vim
dors wore rom
mist ont of .1
I) i s n o v land
rido Morn tli.ni
t ,000 |ioo|i|o
ton rod tho
Swedish-lm ill
X2000
X2CHH) passenger train While M.iiting m
lino, thoy could buy an 11 ei roam Isir or an
X2000 T-shirt (or thoir children
They also got to sno tho hydraulic Idling
mechanism operate, whir ti is one of the
technological improvements that allow
tho X.!()()() to travel through curves HI to
40 percent faster than standard trains.
The X2000 is capaido of speeds up to
! 50 uiph However, the train could only
travel up to 70 mph in Oregon her ause of
poor railroad conditions
Earlier in the day. tho X200O look (>ov
Hartiara Roberts, state legislators and other
dignitaries on a demonstration trip from
Salem to Albany
The demonstration run and Eugene tour
are part of Amtrak's nationwide puhlit ity
campaign to drum up support for high
speed rail Since May. the X2(HIt) lias Iwieii
touring key railroad corridors around the
country, trying to convert the puhlit away
from airplanes and automobiles and bat k
to the railroads
The Northwest Corridor from Eugene to
Vancouver. B.C., was recently designated
as a high-speed corridor Oregon will need
to spend $450 million in order to improve
truck conditions to permit speeds of up to
125 mph.
One of the major advantages of tilt
trains is that they do not require an entire
ly nuw track to reach top speeds, unlike
"bullet trains" in Europe and Japan. This
makes high speed service possible at a
fraction of the cost of bullet train systems.
WEATHER
Today should be partly sunny
after morning clouds, but during
the night, it should be mostly
cloudy.
Highs should reach the mid
70s, with lows in the upper 40s
DOING TIME AT SCHOOL
SEATTLE (AP) - A judge gave a young defendant an option for avoid
ing a stiff sentence of community-service work: attending college
Jackson Gooch. 23. a first time offender, faced up to a year in prison for
manufacturing and selling ooulerfeit steroids
Hut at Gooch s sentencing last Friday, U S. District Judge John
Cougenhour instead imposed five years probation and 4.000 hours of com
munity service - the equivalent of 500 eight-hour work days
Then came the catch: Cougenhour said he would give Gooch 1.000
hours of credit against the community-service work for each year he main
tains a college CPA of 2 5 or better.
Gooch attends Green River Community College
SPORTS
PORTLAND IAP) - Paul Allen, the billionaire owner of the
Portland Trail Blazers, broke ground Monday for the most
expensive stadium ever built for an NBA team
Allen and Mayor Vera Katz donned hard hats and climbed
aboard huge backboes to scrape the first shovels full of dirt off
of the site of the team s new $262 million arena.
The stadium will seat more than 20.000 people, an
in> rease of more than 7.000 seats over itearbv Memorial
Coliseum, home to the Trail Blazers sine* the team s first sea
son in 1970
The new stadium, still nameless, is expected to be com
pleted in lime for the 1995-96 season