Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 13, 1997)
MATHEW STIFFLER/Emerald The Hyundai plant in West Eugene is set to receive $27 million in property tax exemptions as a result of the West Eugene enterprise program. Council to debate zone policy ■ CITY: The law, which grants tax breaks to local businesses, is believed to encourage too much growth By Eric Collins Community Reporter Many people might not have noticed the steady climb in devel opment in West Eugene over the past ten years, but small business owners and corporations certain ly have noticed $42.6 million in savings. These companies have taken advantage of the West Eugene En terprise Zone policy, which gives a 3-year property tax exemption for businesses that follow certain zone requirements. Every ten years, the policy can be changed, and the policy is up for review by the City Council this March. Tonight at 7, the council’s En terprise Zone Advisory Commit tee is holding a public meeting in the City Council Chamber at Eu gene City Hall to hear opinions on revising the policy. Since 1987, 43 businesses have taken advantage of this zone poli cy, subsequently creating about 1,000 new jobs. Small business owners have benefited by $1.4 million in sav mgs, while Hyundai, HMT Technology and eleven other projects have saved about $41.2 million. Ron Tinsley, owner of Cus tom Craft works, which is located within the zone, said the exemption helped his business create 18 to 20 jobs. He said he thought most of the uproar regarding the tax exemption has come from recent concerns over the Hyundai plant. The plant has been approved for a $27 million tax exemption. “(This zone] helped mostly small business,” Tinsley said. “Small businesses need all the help they can get.” To qualify for a property tax ex emption, businesses much meet several qualifications: businesses have to manufacture a good; they have to invest $25,000 in new property or equipment; they have to agree to use the employment of fice for referring applicants; and they have to increase their em ployment by 10 percent. Mark Jacobson, a member of the advisory committee, said addi tional requirements for future companies were being consid ered. Denny Braud, City of Eugene zone manager, said the combina tion of releasing the city’s Growth Management Study and the revis ing of the enterprise zone come at a good time. The study, which was released Feb. 6, concluded that citizens did not encourage growth in Eu gene and wanted new companies to pay their full cost of develop ment. The committee will report its findings to the Eugene City Coun cil in March. Newspaper archives to be placed on Net ■ USNP: Knight Library recently received funds to place Oregon’s newspapers into a nationwide archive By Sarah Keech Freelance Reporter A $258,220 grant from the Na tional Endowment for the Hu manities will allow the University Knight Library system to catalog and preserve all archived Oregon newspapers and place them on the Internet. The grant was given to the Uni versity to help preserve the histo ry of Oregon and to add to the U.S. Newspaper Project’s nation wide archive, with online ser vices provided by the Library of Congress. For 12 years, the USNP has located and cat aloged newspa pers from across the country. With this grant, Ore gon becomes the 49th state to be included in USNP's compre hensive archive. The project to collect, catalog and preserve on microfilm all past and present newspapers in Ore gon will take several years and in volve the work of many people. “The initial grant covers two years of work, but we plan to ap ply for an extension of an addi tional year,” said Karen Darling, head of the library’s serials de partment. Darling will be coordi nating the cataloging phase of the project. Mark Watson, the USNP Ore gon project manager, Darling and others will initially catalog the material already housed in the li fit-— Cataloging these newspapers will make historians more aware of them, and the general public will have better access to them. — Karen Darling Head of Knight Library Serials Department -99 brary's microfilmed newspaper collection. From there they will fill in lost or missing issues and search the state for newspapers * that are not already part of the University’s collection. “We plan to send letters out to public libraries, museums and historical societies to locate addi tional newspapers,” Darling said. Finding a new, undiscovered newspaper in Oregon is rare be cause the records have been kept up to date. “We don’t expect to find many because Oregon has been keeping records since the 1950s, and most newspapers have already been cataloged,” she said. An advisory board made up of librarians, journalists and histori ans will be set up to help with the project. “They will work on publicity, help us find newspapers we may have overlooked and give us new ideas for the project,” said Dar ling. 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