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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 29, 2005)
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NOT VALID WITH ANY OTHER OFFER rFirst 500 orders receive' a Florida / (Bahamas ^ Vacation and Cruise J (check for details online) Friday and Saturday August 26 - 27 17 miles west or Portland 24 hour info line: (503) 299-4769 Micahel Franti & Spearhead Sade Francis, Big Wu Robert Walters Heavy Or3an Band ■ ■ ■ ■ 9 ■ jerry josepn & the jacKmormons Benevento Russo Duo, Global Funk Flowmotion, Big Island Shindig hREfiON DAILY EMERAID your independent student newspaper IN BRIEF Badger blamed for break in Oregon dam HERMISTON — A burrowing badger is being blamed for a 50-foot break in an earthen dam that sent 78 million gallons of industrial la goon water across a road and into a tributary of the Umatilla River. The lagoon contained processing water from the J.R. Simplot Co. pota to plant, storm runoff and cooling water from a nearby energy plant. “For the most part it was fresh wa ter,” said Fred Zerza, a Simplot spokesman in Boise. “The water itself does not appear to be contaminated.” State environmental officials advised residents not to use well wa ter as a precaution. Simplot offered to test about a half-dozen domestic wells in the area and made bottled water avail able, Zerza said. The potato operation has been closed since November. The dam’s plastic liner gave way and the water washed out part of Oregon 207, closing it temporarily. The lagoon is about six miles south of Interstate 84 along 207. “An animal, probably a badger, burrowed its way through the dike and chewed into the liner, and that initiated the breach,” Zerza said. The 15-year-old lagoon was less than half full. — The Associated Press Neighborhood: Piercy says communication important Continued from page 1 to make neighborhood associations more powerful and more organized. City Councilor David Kelly, who represents the West University neigh borhood and surrounding areas, said the council has not done anything more with the neighborhood initia tive idea than make it a priority for the next 18 to 24 months and said councilors will discuss the idea in de tail in the months to come. He said the idea is “little more than a rough goal” at the moment. “By this being a priority issue it means that the council is very inter ested in having a renewed neighbor hood focus,” Kelly said. West University Neighbors Chair Drix Rixmann said he has already no ticed significant changes in the way the city and the neighborhoods work together, which are evident at meet ings between neighborhood leaders. He said there is already discussion about ways to increase funding for neighborhood newsletters and to make possible changes to the city’s Web site to highlight the city’s differ ent neighborhoods. Piercy said it is crucial that neigh borhood meetings be a place where different opinions can be heard. She said she hopes to give neigh borhood leaders the “training they need to be able to bring out the vari ous points of view” and to know how to handle disagreement, because “people won’t keep coming if they don’t feel it’s a place where their voices can be heard.” Kelly said while the council cur rently has not done anything more than prioritize the neighborhood ini tiative, the most important thing for the public to keep in mind is that neighborhoods are on the council’s list of priorities. “We’re at the first step of many steps here,” Kelly said. Rixmann said increasing neighbor hood involvement may be the best way to combat problems in the city that some residents say have not been given the attention they deserve because of money problems. Piercy said budget woes mean the city cannot have the large number of police officers patrolling specific areas that citizens may like to see, and Rix mann said that could be seen as anoth er reason to increase neighborhood awareness and involvement. “What else can you do on a budg et of nothing than just have the neighbors do it themselves?” Rix mann said. Piercy said one thing city officials may look at is a method to give neighborhood associations a formal role in planning processes and proj ects the City Council is examining. Piercy said the relationship be tween the city and the University is an important topic and is something in which she would like to see neigh borhood associations take a more ac tive. She said one of the biggest is sues she hears about is the questions surrounding the University’s plans for a basketball arena. "If it’s located here then we have a high interest in how it affects our traffic flow, what kind of en trance way it makes into our com munity,” Piercy said. “So this whole community is interested in how that plays out.” Piercy said she believes the Univer sity does a fine job of engaging the public in necessary discussion about planning projects and is hopeful the arena planning process will see heavy public involvement. “I just hope that the University re ally gets engaged with people at the front end,” Piercy said. It is important for neighborhood associations to get organized and to tell city officials about specific things like the arena project that they want to be involved in, Piercy said. “We have a responsibility, whether we hear from them or not, to do our best to engage; sometimes, though, people don’t get really engaged ’til pretty far down the conversation, and I think we should be inviting them to tell us how they would like to be in teracting,” Piercy said. “The stronger neighborhood asso ciations we can have and the better we can engage them in our commu nity’s decisions, the better off we are,” Piercy said. meghanncimiff@dailyemerald.com 020406 ARE YOUR WEEKENDS MISSING SOMETHING? + + + + Join us on Sundays for worship services featuring Holy Communion. We have traditional services on Sunday mornings and Marty Haugen services on Sunday evenings. Sundays 8:15 am, 10:45 am and 6:30 pm Student/Young AcJult Bible Study, Sundays, 7:30 pm Central Lutheran Church Corner of 18th &. Potter • 345.0395 www.welcometocentral.org All are welcome.
