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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 10, 1995)
Oregon Daily TUESOAY, JANUARY 10. 1995 EUGENE. OREGON VOLUME 96. ISSUE 73 Blue jean-clad Kitzhaber takes top office Inauguration: Kitzhaber outlines goals, Roberts says goodbye' Kaly Soto Oregon Oath,' £ 'marina ~\fy friends. we wtilk this fxith together As long ns we live within these borders, and share in the blessings and bounties of this small green corner of (Uni's earth, we owe something in return We owe something to each other What we get. m1 must give back in equal mea sure lj-t us begin today — one state . one people one dies I —John Kitzhaher The weather outside the state Capitol building was dark, and wet. but the mood inside was one of joy os John Kitzhaher took the oath of office as Oregon's 35th governor. Before his new wife, his par ents, the state legislature, the Oregon Supreme Court, and hundreds of onlookers, kitzhaher promised to hold him self and other government employees accountable for their actions and to cooperate with the new Republican-led legisla ture. Turn to KITZHABER, Page 4 CWtY OHAS&f John Kltzhaber with new wife Sharon at hla side Is sworn In as Oregon's 35th governor by Circuit Court Judge Pro Tempore Donald Doh HtOfKJ fOUCOfcAlf *«r»*S Eugene Mayor Ruth Bascom outlines her goals. Mayor to concentrate on development plans Goals: Bascom will focus on environment, high speed rail Ben Moebius Oregon Cterty trrwaki Mayor Ruth Bascom hold tho concept of sustainable develop moot os her focus for the next two years at the State of the City address Monday. Bascom vowed that economic and environmental concerns could be reconciled, during her speech in the Hull Center lobby She said both issues are impor tant to the future of Eugene. She offered the West Eugene wet lands and various outlaying development projects as exam phis where sustainable environ ment could help Bascom also spoke about the success of the high speed rail project through the Cascadia Corridor from Vancouver B.C. to Eugene. The Mount Rainier train, which now connects Eugene to Seattle, beat its pro jected numtmr of passengers for the first month of operation by 2.600 Bascom announced that the Pacific Northwest will make a bid for the Summer Olympics of 2004. hosting games in cities throughout the Cascadia Corri dor. The high speed rail would work as the quick, efficient con nection that would make multi* city games possible, Bascom said. ■ GOOD MORNING > TUCSON, Art*. (AP) — Graceful red dunes and vol canic rocks spread carefully over a courtyard on the campus of the University of An/ona are the practice grounds for a $150 million robot mission to Mars, America's third visit to the red planet II the little bit of Mars works as planned, it will help develop the equipment for NASA's Mars Pathfinder mission set for launch next year Staff and students at Arizona's Lunar and Planetary laboratory shov eled 79 tons of orange red soil into a courtyard of a classroom building and then sculptured it into a gently rippled plain resem bling a river valley on Mars Volcanic rocks from nearby mountains completed the barren scene In March, more than 40 international space scien tists will gather at the Mar scape to test, lor the second time, the Pathfinder mission equipment Mars Pathfinder is due lor launch next December and is scheduled to touch down in a place called the Ares Tiu Outflow Valley on July 4, 1997, The mission is a show case of NASA’s concept of smaller, quicker and cheap er voyages of exploration Measure 8 issue has long history PERS: Debate over controversial measure depends on history of public retirement funds Marcelene Edwards CV#0or» CrrmfokJ Though I tin debate surrounding the Pubtii Employees Retirement System (PKRS) may have seemed new whan Measure H was introduced Iasi spring, the PERN program bus a long history. Measure H. which Oregon voters approved by a slim margin last November, requires puhlii employees to contribute f> percent of (heir salaries lo (heir pension funds Opponents of the measure say the history of PERS will be the key to the constitutional undoing of the measure. The PKRS system began in 104f) when employers in the public sector realized that they wanted to hire people who were qualified, then they had to provide a retirement plan, said David Hailey, deputy director of PERS. The plan began as a defined contribution system where a member would put money in. invest it and then get that money back. Now it is a defined benefit system where employees are told they are going to get a determined amount of their salary The controversial part of the PERS system has its roots in a I07‘i dispute between public employees and the state over wages At that time the government was receiving "a lot of pressure from employees" for n raise. Hailey said Public employees had not re< eived a raise in quite some time and wanted some type of Management decided to take over the payment into the I’KKS, whir: h would, in essence, give the employee a (> percent raise I h o contribution w o u i d n ' I cost employ ers (> percent because they wouldn't have to pay taxes on it, Hailey said. Here's how the system worked in Its pre-Men.sure H state: Employers would pay the fi percent directly into a retire ment fund for workers. Here's how the system func - tions now The money goes to employees and then to the pen sion fund Employees put 6 p«r i ent into their retirement fund that, along with the employer contribution, is invested by the State Treasurer Jim Hill. compensation Seanul in it five-part senes Turn to PERS, Page 4
