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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (July 24, 2003)
PEG MORTON FASTING ON CAPITOL STEPS Eugene Quaker and retired mental health worker Peg Morton, 72, began a week-long fast and vigil this week on the steps of the state Capitol building in Salem. Her intention? To draw attention to shrinking funding for social services in the state. “My heart feels torn apart as I learn of the effects, and potential effects of massive cuts to human services by the Oregon state government,” she says. “A disabled friend of mine attempted suicide because of re- moval of her medications. Another person, living with mental illness, did commit sui- cide because of desperation in her search for services. Large numbers of people ad- mitted to emergency mental health facili- ties are now released without medication or follow-up counseling. The stories are unending. Disabled people by the thou- sands live in fear of what will happen to them.” Morton’s juice fast began Monday, July 21, and she is being joined by supporters in prayer groups, meditations and songs of justice and peace. “Oregon is a state with many resources and much wealth,” she says. “Taxes must be raised, in ways that do not harm people of lower and middle incomes. Inappropriate tax loopholes must be closed. Long term tax reform towards a re- turn to a progressive tax structure, includ- ing corporations, must happen.” Morton is no stranger to political ac- tivism. She has been involved in many peace and social justice causes over the years, including civil disobedience at the U.S. Army School of the Americas in Georgia. She says she hopes her Salem vigil and fast will “serve as a magnet to bring others out to make a strong state- ment. It will not be especially effective un- less others join me. Time is running out and the Legislature will soon close its doors.” — Ted Taylor AIR QUALITY SLIPPING The air around here is getting dirtier. The number of days of “good” air quality in the Eugene/Springfield area declined from 323 in 1999 to 302 last year, an extra three weeks of questionable air, according to the Lane Regional Air Pollution Authority (LRAPA). Last year there were 56 days of “moder- ate” health concerns for a very small num- ber of people. There was a week of un- healthy days for certain people that are sen- sitive to bad air. That’s a total of over two months of less than good air — much longer than you can hold your breath. — AP BY PAUL NEEVEL Yotokko Kilpatrick “The Willamette Valley was once a mosiac of prairies, savannah, and riparian hard- wood forests, burned annually by Native Americans,” notes Yotokko Kilpatrick, founder of the Walama Restoration Project. “Now it’s highly fragmented — less than 1 percent left.” WRP enlists schoolkids and other volunteers in pro- jects designed to maintain and restore natural habitat. “We’ve worked mostly in urban parks,” Kilpatrick says. “We’ve done invasive species removal and riparian habitat revegetation.” To honor his Cherokee ancestry, Oklahoma native Kilpatrick adopted the name Yotokko, which means “mud where shore and water meet.” He moved to Eugene in 1991, just before the Gulf War, and helped orga- nize Food Not Bombs, an informal group that served meals under the Washington Street bridge. He left in 1996 to study permaculture and sustainable living in several Northwest locations, aided in the Lomakatsi Restoration Project for the regeneration of watersheds in southern Oregon, then returned to Eugene in 2001 to start WRP. “I try to foster connections with the natural world,” Kilpatrick says. “These kids will be environ- mental advocates in 20 or 30 years.” — Paul Neevel CLOSING IN ON KLAMATH FARMING TORREY ARENA IDEA GETS COOL RECEPTION A proposal to improve the management of the Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuge failed to pass the U.S. House of Representatives last week, but the narrow margin — 228 opposed to 197 for — shows growing support for limiting com- mercial farming on the refuge to less water intensive crops. By only 31 votes, the House voted down language that would have required that farms on the Klamath refuges whose leases expire in the next fiscal year comply with the same rules that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service applies to farming on other wildlife refuges, and re- duce their use of water and toxic pesti- cides. The bipartisan measure was spon- sored by Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Mike Thompson (D-CA) and Christopher Shays (R-CT). “The number of votes in favor of this amendment illustrates the support for real solutions to the problems of water short- ages in the Klamath Basin,” says Susan Holmes, senior legislative representative at Earthjustice. “This common sense amendment would have made an impor- tant start toward rebalancing the equation in the Klamath Basin to benefit wildlife, fishermen, Native Americans and farm- ers.” Unlike other national wildlife refuges that permit farming to provide food for wildlife, some lease farming on the Klamath Refuges is done purely for commercial purposes. If this amend- ment had passed, crops that provide no benefit to wildlife, and which con- sume the most water and use the most pesticides, would have been barred. Water diversions for Klamath Basin farms have been blamed for massive fish kills in the Klamath River, putting thousands of people involved in salmon fisheries out of work. — Aria Seligmann Eugene Mayor Jim Torrey is pushing for the city to allow the UO to build a new basketball arena at the site of the former Agripac cannery. In an e-mail earlier this month to the City Council and city executives, Torrey writes that the replacement for MacArthur Court could be built alongside the planned new federal courthouse and be part of a new convention center. “I do believe that [with] the critical mass that the new Mac Court and the New Federal Courthouse will bring, that that area of downtown Eugene could very well entice a new hotel with additional conven- tion capacity in that same general area. The new Mac Court could also serve as a won- derful venue for large convention recep- tions in the area surrounding the court ...” But councilor Bonny Bettman e-mailed back, “It is not beneficial to downtown to site an arena there. It would most likely be a detriment to downtown and a drain on taxpayers.” Bettman raised a number of concerns in- cluding: The UO facility wouldn’t pay taxes, the expansion would cost the city money in subsidized parking and land trans- fers, game fans would eat at the arena and not local restaurants, the arena would create parking problems for surrounding busi- nesses and neighborhoods, and the facility would be vacant most of the time. Bettman said there was little support for the arena among councilors and the city Planning Commission. — Alan Pittman JULY 24, 2003 7
