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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (May 20, 1997)
▼ EDITORIAL EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Steven Asbury MANAGING EDITOR: Thom Schoenbom NIGHT EDITOR: Thom Schoenbom EDITORIAL EDITORS: Ashley Bach & Brian Diamond editorials, letters, commentary and perspective ■I NEWSROOM: S (541)346-5511 ■ DISPLAY ADVERTISING: ■ (541)346-3712 •j BUSINESS OFFICE: 5 (541)346-5512 N CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING: U (541) 346-4343 Chasing justice Two local apartment complexes care more about money than fair and complete service to tenants My friend’s cat is missing. It really shouldn’t be a big deal. Cats disappear all of the time. But my friend lives at Chase Village, an apartment complex by Autzen Stadi um. Why should this make a differ ence? Funny you should ask. At both Chase Village and Duck’s Village, a number of residents re vealed to me some of the bizarre and unfair circumstances involved in their living environments. The rumor I heard before I pursued OPINION jqfc Kristal this story was that Chase Village was capturing cats in “cat traps” and tak ing them to the Greenhill Humane Society to be exter minated. Fortu nately, this is not altogether true. Chase Village has a policy that all residents’ cats be indoor cats. The management requires that the resi dents who have cats report them so they can be charged the pet clean-up fee. Despite this policy, a number of residents have unregistered, tagless cats — my friend being one of these people. Because she was too afraid of management punishing her for hav ing an illegal cat, she never went to management to find what had hap pened to her cat. When I spoke with management, I discovered that live cat traps have been a reality at Chase Village for the last two weeks. So far, three tagless cats have been captured. The first cat was taken to the Greenhill Humane Society. Chase Village manager Stan Efferding took a picture of the cat, documented it with a number and left it there. Because the Humane So ciety receives so many stray cats in the spring and summer (about 60 per day), the 12-year veteran employee handling the cat failed to notice that the cat was declawed. Therefore, she exterminated the pet the same day it was brought in. When this employee discovered her error, she left work crying. The owner of the cat went to the Humane Society two days later and asked whether the people there had seen her cat. They told her they had not. After this incident, the two other captured cats were taken to Lane County Animal Regulatory. Efferding said he set the traps be cause he received letters and calls from many residents that birds and squirrels were being killed. Cat refuse was found in sandboxes, and cat fights were preventing tenants from sleeping. He said in the past, resi dents who don’t comply with the in door cat rule have moved out, leaving their unspayed cats behind. Efferd ing, a cat owner himself, greatly re grets the error and called the Green hill Humane Society to find out why the resident’s cat was killed. He also has stopped setting traps during the day. Now, the traps are only set out from 1 to 4 a.m. The point isn’t that the Humane Society made a mistake. The point is that an apartment complex’s manage ment should not be capturing their residents’ pets and transporting them across Eugene. How can it be sure that the cat be longs to one of its rule-breaking resi dents? One of the cats captured be longed to a Duck’s Village resident. The other cat belonged to my friend. The two surviving cats have been re trieved. Two weekends ago, three non-resi dents attending a party went for an after-hours swim. They were con fronted by a Chase Village security guard and a police officer. One, car rying an open container, was arrested for trespassing. Maybe I’m overreact ing, but that seems to be a rather harsh punishment for swimming af ter hours. Maybe I’m overreacting by being upset when pets are accidental ly killed. Although strict rules exist to pro vide a safe, quiet environment for tenants, sometimes management goes a bit overboard. On the other side of Kinsrow Av enue, Duck’s Village advertises 24 hour security as one of the advan tages of being a tenant. However, a few residents informed me that their tires were slashed on their bicycles and that one of their bicycles was stolen. Their main front door lock has broken at least five times, and a knife fight was heard beneath one of their bedroom windows. Because Duck’s Village was built so rapidly, many units are also falling apart. One-year-old balconies are al ready rusting. Windows, which were not caulked until this month, leaked water throughout the year. Huge homogeneous apartment complexes do not exist to provide an aesthetically and environmentally pleasing living environment. Rent at Chase Village runs at the high cost of about $355 a month, while Duck’s Village is now raising its rent from up to $325 for a four bedroom apartment to $340 per month: A high price to live in “really expensive dorms.” It should be no surprise when these institutions insensitively solve noisy late-night cat fights with cat traps or fail to live up to the standard of quality security that they’ve promised. These actions are taken for one reason: to ensure a consistent profit. Nicole Kristal’s column appears every other Tuesday in the Emerald. Her views do not necessarily repre sent those of the newspaper. E-mail: nkristal@gladston e. u Oregon .edu In the May 19 Emerald, the opinion on political neutrality implied that the labor practices of Wholesome and Hearty Foods, the producer of Gardenburger, were question able. Actually, the debate revolves around the labor practices of NORPAC, which Wholesome and Hearty Foods does business with. The Emerald regrets the error. LETTERS Life as usual Erik Talbert’s take on life as usual made me quite angry, even though he eats organic Gar denburgers [ODE, May 13). Somehow he missed the point that life has changed, and there are some things we just don’t eat any more on principle, not be cause they sell and make mon ey. I expected others to have learned some new information as it became available to inspire us into different actions. Presi dent Frohnmayer has not learned it either and is in trou ble now for several transgres sions. Yes, Gardenburgers are good. So are shrimps and scallops (the dragnets ruin reefs and sea bot tom forever)-, so is steak (fed with grain humans could eat); so is Jarlsberg cheese (Norway is whaling again); so are Nike shoes, Toys-R-Us and grapes. But if you have a social con science and believe in justice or the well-being of our environ ment and can accept that the state of our planet is precarious, you might use your brain and re consider. Gardenburgers are boycotted because they are distributed by a company (NORPAC) that cares little about its workers. The product is good but needs to be with a wholesaler with con science. In the meantime, could not Talbert and others eat anoth er veggie burger and Frohnmay er could teach the students to stand up for workers’ justice in stead of only thinking money? Boycotts work! Hilde Cherry Eugene Naked courage I’ve let a lot of important is sues go by due to my busy schedule but, this time, I just had to speak up. I think it’s sad when a 16-year-old has to serve as the spokeswoman for equal treatment of women’s bodies, and I commend her for her courage [ODE, May 15). As an adult, I want to say that I agree with Jesikah Allen; there is nothing obscene about women’s breasts. If society did n’t hold women to a different standard than it did men, bare breasted women wouldn’t be a problem for businesses nor a concern of parents with small children. If female toplessness became commonplace, women’s breasts would cease to be ob jects of mystique and sexual al lure for the male’s gaze and lust, thus creating a healthier social climate for both women and children. Such changes in social norms cannot occur, however, if people “agree in principle” but take no action. The silence on this issue is disturbing. That is why I urge everyone who believes the female body should be respected as whole some and presentable to call the city council and protest the formation of any ordinance which would classify the expo sure of female breasts different ly from that of men. Chen Zheng Ar-Rashid Psychology VINNERS LanyKing CNN talk show host Larry King will marry 37-year-old Marry Shawn Sothwickin De cember—the couple will have 10 marriages between them. Tiger Woods The golf super sensation picked up right where he left off at the Mas ters this weekend, earning his second straight victory on the PGA Tour. Laurent Kabila The rebel leader’s l troops took control | of the Zaire capital, \ marking the end of j former President { Mobutu’s reign. j Christopher Reeve I The actor who gained fame by playing Superman has recovered some feeling in his spine after injuring himself in a horse- f riding accident two years ago. I LOSERS Hillary Rodham Clinton Whitewater special prosecutor Ken neth Starr claims he may have enough evidence to indictthe first lady. The Duck’s Golf Team After an impres sive showing in the Pac-10 champi onship, the Ducks' were eliminated from the NCAA West Regional Golf Champi onships this week end. Mattel Employees 400 employees for Mattel Inc. toy company are out of work after Mat tel bought Tyco Toys Inc. Theodore Kaczynski Attorney General Janet Reno said she believes the death penalty should be request ed in prosecuting the suspected Un abomber.
