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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (April 17, 2003)
PAY FOR PISGAH The Board of County Commissioners has green-lighted a $2 parking fee at Howard Buford/Mt. Pisgah recreational area, voting 3- 2 in favor of the fee. With Sorensen and Morrison opposing the fee, and Dwyer and Green favoring it, Lininger was left to cast the deciding vote. The difficulty of that decision was com- pounded by the majority of commissioners — Morrison, Green and Dwyer — insisting that if the fee was not passed, they would deny Lane County Parks Department the additional $150,000 to $200,000 in future funding needed to fulfill the department’s basic mis- sion. According to Lininger, voting against the fee would have meant a devastating blow to Lane County Parks, so he was forced to vote in favor of a fee he did not support. In their discussion, the board established a $20 annual pass for frequent users, as well as a “Golden Pass” for senior citizens. There will also be free admission for those willing to vol- unteer about 15 hours of work at the park. — Bobbie Willis WAR & DIVERSITY Issues of diversity and the ongoing war will be addressed in a workshop called “Local Faces, Global Fates” at 6:30 pm Wednesday, April 23 through UO Center on Diversity and Community (CODAC). It will be held in Gerlinger Hall. The workshop session will concentrate on media depictions and other representations of American and international people of color within the post-9/11 climate. Workshop par- ticipants will include Debra Merskin, UO pro- fessor of journalism; Steven Bender, UO law professor; Nerissa Balce, CODAC postdoc- toral fellow and Ethnic Studies visiting pro- fessor; and Dr. Tim McMahon, of UO Academic Learning Services. John Shuford of CODAC says, “The ‘war on terror’ has, in all circles, raised questions about where America is heading, what sort of society we want to be, and what the world will come to look like in the shorter and longer term. Diversity issues, both local and global, and diverse perspectives are particularly rele- vant to consider when addressing these ques- tions, even when we try to deal only with small portions.” This event is free and open to the public. For more information, please contact Shuford at 346-3212 or codac@uoregon.edu CANOPY YEARS Cascadia Forest Defenders activists and “ewoks” have been occupying the Clark tim- ber sale since April 20, 1998 and are currently celebrating the five-year anniversary of the Fall Creek Tree Village. The campaign is the longest known continuous tree-sitting protest against logging in U.S. history (see numerous stories in the EW archives online). In 1998, with a lone tree-sitter named Happy, the occupation of the 96-acre, low-el- evation old-growth Clark timber sale began. In a short time, one tree-sit grew into a tree- village with up to seven trees occupied over time by hundreds of rotating activists. The ac- tivists took to the trees and blockaded roads when Zip-O-Log Mills of Eugene began log- ging and building new roads into the timber sale units in early 1998. The treehouses are perched 150’ to 200’ high in the forest canopy among 700-year-old trees. Activists have en- dured five years of rain, cold, harassment by federal officers, threats, sieges, closures, raids and arrests. The highly controversial timber sale has been challenged legally numerous times and has been reduced in size from 96 to 29 acres following a citizen survey locating endan- gered tree vole nests. The Forest Service has offered to cancel the contract, but Zip-O is still undecided. For more information, contact Cascadia Forest Defenders at forestdefend- ers@tao.ca or visit www.forestdefenders.org STELLAR BUILDINGS The Northwest EcoBuilding Guild, which has been a longtime promoter of green build- ing in Eugene, in conjunction with the City of BY PAUL NEEVEL Lorane Elementary teachers and staff Together with other employees of the Crow- Applegate-Lorane School District, teach- ers and staff at Lorane Elementary School will work for 12 days with- out pay this spring to help the district survive the state’s budget cri- sis. “To minimize the affect on students, they have given up their Memorial Day holiday and some inservice time,” says school board member Cathy Boucher. “These people put children first, and they are the strong point of our district. The same is happening all over Oregon.” Shown in the photograph are grades K-2 teacher Carroll Noel (wearing shades), who retires this spring after 26 years at Lorane; grades 5-6 teacher Melinda Holben (hand to chin); grades 3-4 teacher Marshall Sperling (far right); along with administrative assistant Sheila Hinke, a 25-year veteran; custodian Loren Heath; and library assistant Wendy Fast. “We’ve been as creative as we can,” says Sperling, who also serves as special-ed teacher and principal of both Lorane and Applegate elementary schools. “Most schools are doing more with fewer people. We’re here to teach — our focus is still the kids.” 8 APRIL 17, 2003 Eugene Building Dept. and EWEB, hosts an evening with David Eisenberg at 7 pm on Friday, May 9 in the EWEB Training Room. Eisenberg’s organization, the Development Center for Appropriate Technology (www.dcat.org or www.dcat.org) is “arguably doing more than anyone in the world to bring about the profound changes in our building codes the world needs,” says Robert Bolman, proprietor of Maitreya EcoVillage and green building designer. “In the field of green and natural building,” says Bolman, “David Eisenberg is absolutely stellar.” CALL SURGE The Oregon Department of Human Services (DHS) is adding more staff and phone lines and expanding its hours due to a 500 percent increase in calls this year. People are worried about child and elder abuse and neglect, access to health and dental programs, homelessness, personal or family crises, drug and alcohol treatment, mental health pro- grams and services for people with develop- mental disabilities. To accommodate the recent surge in calls to the Governor’s Advocacy Office (GAO), the Legislature recently approved five addi- tional staff positions and two additional phone lines. The office will stay open until 7 pm. Callers may still leave phone messages after the office closes or e-mail dhs.info@state.or.us. In addition to the increase in phone calls, the office is receiving more than double the amount of e-mail messages as last year. In the first six weeks of the year, office staff managed 21 percent of the total number of cases (4,099) they worked in all of 2002. If this volume continues, workers will manage 7,460 cases by the end of 2003 for an overall increase of 182 percent. GAO contact Gin Denison says the majority of calls coming in are regarding health issues, including loss of prescription drug benefits. “I have never heard so much pain, so much helplessness,” she says. “The loss of hope is what is most frightening.” Despite the high volume of callers, Denison says she is concerned that certain populations — seniors and people with men- tal illness, for example — are not contacting the office. “I would encourage family members to take the initiative and make the call for their loved ones,” she says. “We have a collective, ethical responsibility to look out for each other, starting with our own families.” The GAO can be reached by calling (800) 442-5238, or e-mailing dhs.info@state.or.us. POWER OF PLANTS Maggie Matoba wants people to know about the healing properties of plants — not the medicinal properties, but the therapy, for- mally known as horticulture therapy, that can be derived from nurturing and cultivating a garden full of plants. Matoba, a master gar- dener, runs a nonprofit organization called Healing Harvest that promotes horticulture therapy. Healing Harvest will be holding its second annual Plant Swap ‘n’ Sale from 10 am to 3 pm, Saturday May 3 at Emerald Park (1400 Lake Dr.). The event will include food music, crafts and how-to workshops. Matoba first discovered the therapeutic qualities of gardening with her own father, through his last ailing years. He suffered a stroke, but, Matoba says, “He was just a to- tally different person in the garden …” To complete her training as a master gar- dener a year ago, Matoba began doing horti- culture therapy with adolescent girls through Looking Glass counseling services. “These girls have no sense of permanency or confi- dence,” Matoba says. “This has given them a chance to see something grow and to nurture it. They create it and can be proud of it.” Matoba also does horticulture therapy with the elderly. “It gets them out of isolated situations, into more communal situations. They have a sense of ownership and pride, and this get them out and engaged in their sur- roundings.” Matoba hopes to expand her work with the elderly, using horticulture ther- apy with Alzheimer’s patients. “Gardening hits all sorts of things,” she says. “It’s physical, cognitive and social, but meditative. It puts people into a whole differ- ent space,” which can lead to emotional heal- ing and health. — BW CORRECTIONS/CLARIFICATIONS In our short story last week on Sexual Assault Support Services unionizing, the cor- rect name for the IWW is the Industrial Workers of the World.
