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.