CITY GETS RAISES
SPRAY TIME
The city is closing a $2 million budget gap
by shutting a pool and reducing library, plan-
ning and parks maintenance budgets, among
other cuts in services to citizens. But city fire-
fighters and police officers are sitting pretty.
Over the past eight years firefighters have
received raises of 17.5 percent more than infla-
tion. The city gave police raises of 7.7 percent
over inflation.
During the same period, the city gave most
other city union employees (AFSCME) raises
that only just kept pace with inflation.
A system of binding arbitration for police
and fire employees accounts for their higher
pay raises, according to a memo from city bud-
get manager Kitty Murdoch. Cops and fire-
fighters can’t strike, instead their pay disputes
are settled through binding arbitration by state
mediators. Arbitration “generously awards”
police and firefighters raises comparable to
other fire and police agencies around the state,
according to Murdoch. The arbitration system
doesn’t compare police and fire raises with
other city of Eugene employees.
Of course, the city’s top bosses have also
made sure they get their raises. This year city
managers and executives got a 3 percent cost of
living raise. Next year, they’ll get another 2
percent.
By comparison, Gresham city managers
got no raise last year. Corvallis city executives
got only a 1.5 percent raise last year with an-
other 1.5 percent this year. In Salem, no city
worker got a raise last year. Next year, Salem
AFSCME workers will get a 1 percent raise
with managers getting nothing.
While city councilors are spending hours in
meetings arguing over how to find a few thou-
sand more dollars to prevent damaging cuts,
city worker raises aren’t on the table. Labor
costs make up about 80 percent of the city’s
budget. Just a 1 percent cut in overall pay
would save about $2 million, enough to solve
all the city’s budget problems.
— Alan Pittman
The Union Pacific Railroad will be spray-
ing herbicide along the tracks running through
the Eugene area from May 19 to June 3. The
chemical they will use, commonly known as
glyphosate, is better known by its commercial
name, Roundup.
Neighbors and local anti-toxics organiza-
tions are protesting both the health risks associ-
ated with Roundup and the lack of notification
about the spraying to railroad residents. The
railroad runs through the Whiteaker, River
Road, Trainsong, Bethel and west Eugene
neighborhoods.
The EPA rates glyphosate at toxicity level
III, with I being most toxic and IV being least
toxic. Independent studies, however, have re-
peatedly found harmful side effects from the
chemical to both humans and animals.
According to the Journal of Pesticide Reform,
glyphosate-containing products can cause eye
and skin irritation, headache, nausea, numb-
ness, elevated blood pressure and heart palpita-
tions. The inert ingredient that helps Roundup
attach to weeds is more toxic than glyphosate
itself, and the combination of the two is yet
more toxic, the journal reports. A 1997
Princeton study found that an ingredient in
Roundup caused death to half of the animals in
the experiment.
“I think that anyone within a couple of
blocks of the track should be concerned, espe-
cially if they have children or are pregnant
women,” says David Monk, executive director
of the Oregon Toxics Alliance.
Neighbors say that UP refuses to sign a
written agreement promising to notify resi-
dents of upcoming sprayings, relying instead
on a verbal agreement that neighbors says is
not always followed. UP could not be reached
for comment.
“We end up with no way to protect our-
selves,” says Majeska Seese-Greene, president
of the Whiteaker Community Council and
member of the Railroad Pollution Coalition.
Activist organization Communities Against
Railroad Pollution will be handing out infor-
mation about Roundup May 17 and 18 at the
BY PAUL NEEVEL
LYNDA DUFFY
When blues singer/Realtor Lynda
Duffy read a December Register-
Guard story about low-income people
forced to live without electricity and
water, she immediately phoned the
Eugene Water and Electric Board.
“She wanted to know about need in
the community,” says EWEB’s Charles
Dalton. “I let her know there was a
ton of need out there.” Duffy’s brain-
storm: a benefit concert. “I’m a mar-
keting genius,” she admits. “I learned
it from my dad — he truly cared about
people.” For a solid three months,
Duffy dealt full-time with bureaucratic
mazes and artists’ and politicians’
egos to coordinate Blues for HUES
(Heat Up Eugene and Springfield). St
Vincent de Paul agreed to dispense
the money raised, and the Hilton
donated space for the March 28
event. “It was an incredible learning
experience,” Duffy says. “Now my job
description is ‘everything.’” Featured performers included Curtis Salgado and Paul
deLay, plus an all-star lineup of local blueswomen: Linda Hornbuckle, Deb Cleveland,
Barbara Healy, Norma Fraser, and Duffy herself. “We got the biggest applause,” she
observes. “We raised $25,000 this time — we plan to make it an annual event.”
8 MAY 15, 2003
Van Buren crossing between 1st and 2nd
Avenues. — Nika Carlson
LAWNS NOT FOOD
University student, employee and east cam-
pus housing resident John Boosinger is grow-
ing on borrowed time. His 25-by-40 foot front
yard garden is scheduled to be the first victim
of the new east campus maintenance policy.
The policy, part of the East Campus
Development Plan, was adopted just over a
month ago. It says that the university will do
regular landscaping in the area to maintain a
“graceful edge” to university property. All
yards must be returned to grass, which will be
mowed by the university on a regular basis. No
more lawn art and no more gardens.
“It’s a little ridiculous,” says Boosinger. “You
can be out (in the yard), but you can’t do any-
thing to it.”
Boosinger and his wife will be allowed
to finish the growing season, but will have to
remove the garden at the end of the summer.
New leases will have more specific language
about lawns and yards.
Five weeks ago, University Housing offi-
cials demanded that Boosinger remove the 2-
1/2-year-old patch. They rescinded their de-
mand after Boosinger, legally permitted the
garden according to his lease, threatened legal
action.
“I am using water and land in a responsible,
healthy, efficient, and beautiful way, and I be-
lieve the university should support my efforts
instead of literally trying to destroy them,”
Boosinger wrote in an e-mail to the university.
The new plan, in development for more
than six months, took into account the concerns
of neighborhood, said Mike Eyster, director of
housing for the university.
“The policy was designed to maintain the
yards better than we have in the past and make
it look more like a residential neighborhood,”
he said. “We had complaints about the grass
being too long or that there’s a garden in the
front yard.”
Boosinger says he’s had nothing but posi-
tive feedback about the yard, and expressed
frustration that he will no longer be able to
grow the vegetables that provide nearly 70 per-
cent of the food he, his wife and his child eat in
the growing months.
“We know that the food is better for us than
anything we could get at the store, and it tastes
better too,” he said. “There are no negatives to
it other than that in the university eyes it does-
n’t meet the standards of appearance for the
east campus area.”
— Nika Carlson
MORSE RIDES AGAIN
Wayne Morse, Oregon’s maverick U.S.
senator for 24 years in the mid-20th century,
was not the dramatic type. But much of what he
said in challenging every U.S. administration
he encountered took on the aura of high drama.
Portland playwright Charles Deemer de-
cided to string together a series of Morse’s
memorable statements into a one-man show of
high volatility. What gives them explosive
character is the startling way they become con-
temporary if viewed as responses to the current
U.S. administration.
Premiere performance of the 40-minute
show will be at 1:30 and 3 pm Sunday, May 18
as part of the annual Wayne Morse Open
House at the Morse Home, 595 Crest Dr. The
occasion will once again feature free ice cream,
tours of the Morse Home and pony rides for the
kids.
Morse may be best remembered for his
prophetic challenge to the Vietnam War, when
he was one of only two senators to vote against
the illegal Gulf of Tonkin resolution of
President Lyndon Johnson. That dissent is but
one of several expressed in the play that sug-
gest parallels with the current administration of
George Bush.
Directing will be Sparky Roberts. Claude
Offenbacher will perform as Morse. Karl
Nestvold is the narrator. Admission is free.
STARHAWK CIRCLES
Starhawk, author of many books, including
The Spiral Dance, Walking to Mercury, and
The Fifth Sacred Thing, will be in the Eugene
area from May 20-25. She will be promoting
her most recent book Webs of Power: Notes
from the Global Uprising, as well as training
local activists who want to pass along their
skills and experience to others through role-
play and interactive exercises.
Aworkshop for teaching the tools and skills
to help participants be effective agents for
change and to free their imaginations will be
followed by a ritual of healing and empower-
ment culminating in a spiral dance.
Starhawk may be best known for Spiral
Dance, a spiritual guidebook on the practices