Torrey starts second term,
confronts issues first hand
■ He wants to improve
police/student relations,
revitalize downtown and
see new fire/police stations
By Christena Hansen
for the Emerald
This year’s election cycle
seems to have hardly fazed Eu
gene Mayor Jim Torrey.
Re-elected to serve a second
four-year
term by 69
percent of
voters, Torrey
is busy whit
tling away at
his munici
pal. wish list
for expanded
youth pro
grams, a revi
t a 1 i z e d
downtown
and a slimmed-down City Hall
renovation project.
And regarding the University
area, where recent protests have
put relations between police and
students in the spotlight, Torrey
said he is putting his confidence
in the efforts of the newly formed
Eugene Police Commission to
improve the situation. Estab
lished last December, the com
mission is made up of 12 mem
bers, including one University
student, and was created to al
low a forum for the police de
partment’s broad policies to be
evaluated, Torrey said.
TORREY
“I spent more time making
sure it was a broad-based com
mittee than any other set of rec
ommendations that I have made
to the City Council,” Torrey said.
“We have people from all spec
trums of our community. They’re
to look at the policies that the po
lice department use in respond
ing to protests, the loud parties
and things of that nature. They’re
running it through that filter, and
it’s very helpful.”
Torrey said he has little pa
tience for out-of-the-ordinary
protests and parties on campus
or elsewhere in Eugene that end
up costing tax payers large
amounts of money. As a result,
he said he supports — in concept
— the police department’s pro
posal to charge renters a fee for
multiple police visits within a
90-day period.
“I would be inclined to find
some level of penalty for multi
ple abusers,” he said. “If we're
having to send police officers
weekend after weekend after
weekend to the same location,
then there needs to be a re
sponse.”
The police department’s pro
posal, introduced to the commis
sion last month, has come under
fire from some University stu
dents who worry that the 90-day
window is too long, allowing a
renter to be fined for activities of
a former renter. Other students
r
have complained to 'Jorrey that
the threat of fines would keep
students from calling police in
the case of an emergency, he
said.
But Torrey said he thinks the
proposal could be modified to
penalize only those responsible
for overuse of police resources
and feels confident that students
in need of emergency services
would not avoid calling police,
fire or medical services.
Torrey said his frustration
comes, in part, from working to
secure money for new projects —
including his desire to offer after
school activities to children and
youth — only to watch funds
drain away in police-related ex
penses.
The protest over Pennsylvania
death row inmate Mumia Abu
Jamal on April 3 “was a $29,000
expenditure,” he said. “We just
turned down numerous people
at our budget committee process
for programs in the range of
$29,000 to $30,000 because we
didn’t have the money.”
During his first term as mayor,
Torrey made little progress to
ward providing city funds for
“Lighted Schools,” a program
that he envisions paying commu
nity members, including senior
citizens, college students and
high school students, to mentor
and teach younger children after
school hours and on weekends.
It’s an effort that he promises
to throw his heart and soul into
during his second term. Already,
he said he is mulling over the
idea of proposing to the City
Council a five-year serial levy or
a 5 percent surcharge on admis
sion to theaters, movies or other
shows to pay for the program.
“We have a really great recre
ation sports program in Eugene:
Kidsports,” he said. “It’s as good
as any in the country. But what
we don’t have right now is acces
sibility to safe places and posi
tive activities after school. My
goal would be to have [the pro
gram] from the time school gets
out until 7 p.m. at night.”
Torrey’s interest in children’s
reading programs — a trademark
of his first term in office — is
also likely to continue. As the
vice chairman of Oregon’s Juve
nile Justice Advisory Committee,
Torrey’s goal last term to read a
book to every elementary class in
Eugene had a deep connection to
his philosophy that childhood
reading problems are strongly as
sociated with juvenile crime.
During his first term, Torrey
persuaded state lawmakers to
put $250,000 toward the Bethel
Reading Readiness Program, de
veloped by University education
professors Deb Simmons, Ed
Kameenui and Roland Good to
help students be proficient read
ers by the time they reach third
grade.
To Torrey’s satisfaction, the
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program’s two-year report pre
sented Tuesday night showed
that the number of non-readers
in Bethel’s first-grade classes
dropped from 15 percent to 6
percent, Simmons said.
Also at the top of Torrey’s
agenda for his second term is his
desire to “bring vitality to the
downtown area,” a part of Eu
gene that he sees as somewhat
strangled by one-way streets and
the section of the downtown
mall that is blocked off to vehi
cles.
Although on May 16 voters
turned down the ballot measure
aimed at building new police
and fire stations, Torrey hasn’t
given up the idea of presenting a
more modest proposal to voters
{ {/ would be inclined to
find some level of
penalty for multiple
abusers. If we’re having
to send police officers
weekend after weekend
after weekend to the
same location, then there
needs to be a response.
Jim Torrey
mayor
that he said would trim at least
$8 million off the original police
plan alone. He favors the con
struction of an additional 90,000
square-foot building on the park
ing lot south of City Hall and a
strengthening of the current
building.
“Anytime we lose an election,
I don’t want to just throw the
same thing back in front of the
people — I don’t believe in doing
that,” he said. “But we have to
find a safe place for our police of
ficers to work. I’m not positive
that I’m going to get everything I
want, but I’m going to fight real
hard for it.”
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