Editor in chief: Laura Cadiz
Editorial Editors: Bret Jacobson, Laura Lucas
Newsroom: (541)346-5511
Room 300, Erb Memorial Union
P.O. Box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403
E-mail: ode@oregon. uoregon.edu
On-line edition: www.dailyemerald.com
The Unkindest
Citizens in Eugene and Lane County are a visi
ble bunch. Protests, forums, public debates
and elections get ample attention because
people here take little for granted.
In fact, they take little on face value. Voters, citi
zens and students want a public body to watchdog
the police department. Homeowners put up signs
on Jefferson Street telling drivers to stick to the
speed limit. And strangely enough, people even
organize anarchist rallies.
The city and county pride themselves on being
in the know, but some issues still get swept under
the carpet. Ignored.
Case in point: battered women in Lane County.
There is no formal organization to which they be
long; they rarely speak in one voice. Organizations
such as Womenspace and the Lane County District
Attorney’s Office act to give them one, but now
even these organizations may have trouble meet
ing that need. A 3-year-old grant of $600,000 given
annually to Lane County by the Centers for Disease
Control ran out Sept. 30.
The grant, entitled the Coordinated Community
Response to Prevent Intimate Partner Violence,
was originally given only to six counties in the na
tion, Lane County among them. Coordination was
the key point; the grant funded outreach programs
and expansion of cooperation between existing
ones.
For instance, two positions at Sacred Heart Med
ical Center were funded through the grant. Their
goal was to assess each woman who came into the
hospital showing certain injuries as to the possibil
ity of domestic violence. Similarly, two positions
in the District Attorney’s Crime Victim and Sur
vivor Services Program that centered on domestic
violence will be cut. Sacred Heart, the District At
torney’s Office, Womenspace and Sexual Assault
Support Services are just few of the groups that
had the opportunity to coordinate efforts against
domestic violence with help from the grant. And
cooperation among such diverse organizations is
the key to spotting violence, treating victims, fo
cusing on the perpetrators and making them legal
ly responsible.
The grant, called the CCR project, did not go to
Lane County this year in part because the county
didn’t spend enough of the grant money docu
menting its success. The CDC has been more apt to
give additional grant funds to counties that could
prove positive impact because there is such com
petition for funding. But why would the CDC favor
spending large amounts of grant money to analyze
how well the money is working?
What’s appalling is that the grant is gone right at
the time when it was seeming to have its impact.
Those outreach programs were just taking hold. Is
three years long enough to evaluate success? It
feels as if the rug has been pulled out from under a
program that was just beginning to take root.
What’s more appalling is that Lane County orga
nizations were notified they did not get the addi
tional funding — after believing that they would —
only days before the next payment would have
been made.
With so precious few tax dollars to go around al
ready, non-profit and even local government ag
necies depend on national grants, there is no doubt
these efforts will be missed. Lane County serviced
2,010 women for either stalking orders or restrain
ing orders from July 1998 to June 1999. SASS re
ports requesting even more of these “protective or
ders” on behalf of women who didn’t come
forward themselves.
Now cooperation between these groups is in
jeopardy.
The supreme irony is that October is Domestic
Violence Awareness Month. Let’s be aware that
there’s a problem and that it is already difficult to
combat. Let’s be aware that finding a solution or al
leviating some of the symptoms may now become
even more difficult, now that the grant money is
gone.
Let’s protest that.
This editorial represents the opinion ot the Emerald editorial board. Re
sponses may be sent to ode@oregon. uoregon. edu.
Quoted
“I never saw [the
bail] go out... did
it? Then it’s a
grand slam. But he
never touched the
bases? I llbe dog
gone."
— N.Y.Mets
Manager Bobby
Valentine, to re
porters after his
team won a 15-in
ning game against
Atlanta on a grand
slam ruled a sin
gle, setting up
what might be a
major upset in the
National League
Championship Se
ries. The Oregon
ian, Oct. 18.
“You have a horrif
ic incident like the
Columbine shoot
ings, and that
paints a picture of
a continuing prob
lem that has not
gone away. But
people are
shocked when you
try to tell them that
juvenile crime is
actually going
down.”
—Shay Bilchik,
head of the U.S.
Justice Depart
ment’s Office of
Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency
Prevention, on sta
tistics showing
that juvenile ar
rests for serious
and violent crimes
fell nearly 11 per
cent in a year. The
Register-Guard,
Oct. 18.
“To reduce the un
fortunate personal
ization of the
process—in par
ticular in the wake
of the inherently
divisive impeach
ment proceedings
—the wiser
course, I believe, is
for another individ -
ual to head the in
vestigation.”
— Kenneth Starr,
now the former In
dependent Counsel
investigating Pres
ident Clinton. Starr
was replaced by
Robert Ray on
Monday. The Ore
gonian, Oct. 19.