CONSTRUCTION BOOM
COULD HELP ECONOMY
DEFAZIO & WYDEN:
CLUELESS LOBBYISTS?
Eugene’s faltering economy is headed for
a major shot in the arm from 10 major con-
struction projects that could pump up to a bil-
lion dollars into the local job market in the
next five years or so.
Here’s a rundown of local projects
planned to start soon:
• The state wants to build temporary re-
placement I-5 bridges over the Willamette and
McKenzie rivers at a cost of $39 million in the
next 18 months. Permanent bridges 7 to 10
years later will likely cost well over $100 mil-
lion.
• The state plans a massive new freeway
interchange at I-5 and Beltline. The first
phase, completed by 2006, will cost $18 mil-
lion. Later phases are expected to cost at least
another $104 million.
• PeaceHealth plans a $300 million new
hospital in Springfield.
• McKenzie-Willamette plans an $80 mil-
lion new hospital, probably in Eugene.
• School District 4J plans to spend $116
million on new schools and remodeling.
• The federal government is building a $72
million new courthouse.
• The city of Eugene wants to spend $9
million a year on street repairs. This month,
the city plans to begin work on $3 million in
projects funded in part by the city’s new local
gas tax. More money will come later if the
council goes through with its controversial
transportation systems maintenance fee. The
city is also spending about $500,000 in federal
money this year for road work at the airport.
• The city of Eugene plans to break ground
this fall on an $8 million new downtown fire
station.
• The state wants to spend $100 million on
a new West Eugene Parkway, if it prevails in
legal appeals.
• LTD will start construction this summer
on a $11 million Bus Rapid Transit line.
The construction boom could help provide
local jobs and boost industry profits. But with
projects competing for construction compa-
nies, the boom could also drive up costs for
local hospitals and taxpayers.
— Alan Pittman
Congressman Peter DeFazio and Oregon
Sen. Ron Wyden have been lobbying for the
international Hynix Corporation, but were
their efforts contrary to sustaining jobs and
profits at the Eugene plant?
Last month, Wyden and DeFazio repeat-
edly urged the International Trade
Commission not to raise tariffs against Hynix
chips in response to an unfair trade complaint
by U.S. competitors.
Wyden and DeFazio complained tariffs
would threaten jobs at the Hynix plant in
Eugene. “I spoke with the U.S. Secretary of
Commerce last week to urge him to set the
lowest possible tariff rate in this case,” Wyden
said in a press release. “Oregonians are strug-
gling with the highest unemployment rate in
the country, and now is not the time to let a
baseless trade dispute torpedo another 1,000-
plus jobs in our state.”
“Hynix has been one of the only bright
spots in an otherwise dismal economy in
southwest Oregon, and unlike many compa-
nies, Hynix has rehired employees after tem-
porary layoffs, even in the midst of recession,”
said DeFazio in a press release.
Wyden and DeFazio’s lobbying efforts did
not succeed. The Trade Commission upheld a
U.S. Commerce Department ruling that im-
posed a 45 percent tariff on Hynix memory
(DRAM) chips. Hynix’s low chip prices were
illegally propped up by a $12 billion Korean
government bailout, the U.S. found.
“I’m deeply disappointed,” Wyden said in
a press release.
But while the tariff could hurt profits at the
Korean corporation, the tariff may actually
help, not hurt jobs in Eugene. The import duty
does not apply to chip production within the
U.S., which makes the Eugene plant more im-
portant to Hynix as a way to avoid the steep
tariff.
Hynix announced in a press release July 24
that in response to the new import tariff,
“Hynix will increase the production of
DRAMs in its Eugene, Oregon fab, which is
not subject to the CVD [tarrif] duty imposi-
tion, to continue to provide quality DRAMs to
its U.S. customers.” — AP
BY PAUL NEEVEL
Yayoe Kuramitsu
“My family was always generous, in spite of
the war thing,” says Yayoe Kuramitsu, who
was born in the Gila Bend internment
camp in Arizona in 1943. “They had three
grocery stores and a restaurant — fed a lot
of people who couldn’t pay.” Kuramitsu
studied art at San Jose State, taught high
school for two years on Oahu, then
returned for a master’s in social work from
Boston College. “My mother taught me the
concept of service to humanity,” she says.
After seven years at medical centers in
Hawaii, she joined her sister in Eugene in
1977. “It was the best thing I ever did,” she
says with enthusiasm. “The richness of cul-
ture — so many good causes to get
involved in.” In addition to 19 years at
Sacred Heart, where she directed the med-
ical social work department and the Center
for Senior Health, Kuramitsu has served on
20-plus boards and committees, from the
Oregon Health Plan to Meals on Wheels. Semi-retired for five years now, she consults pro
bono at the Alzheimers Association and puts in one full day per week as an eligibility
screener at Volunteers in Medicine, a clinic for uninsured working people. “I like to support
underdog organizations,” she notes. — Paul Neevel
10 AUGUST 7, 2003
CONFERENCE FOR
PRISONER SUPPORT
Is slavery dead in America? Not if you’re
behind bars. “After slavery was abolished,
they [Congress] made sure that slavery in
prison was not,” says Brenton Gicker, a core
member of the Break the Chains prisoner sup-
port collective, and a critic of the 13th
Amendment. Adding to the crisis in the
American penal system are rising prison pop-
ulations, declining services, prison privatiza-
tion and racial injustice, organizers say.
More than 25 lecturers, writers, performers
and artists will convene in Eugene Aug. 8-10
for the first conference organized by Break the
Chains. The organization formed about two
years ago in response to the Jeffrey “Free”
Luers and Craig Marshall case, and works for
the rights, education and well-being of politi-
cal and social prisoners in the Pacific
Northwest.
Among the speakers at the conference will
be Laura Whitehorn, a former political pris-
oner, writer, and activist currently creating a
correspondence course on HIV and hepatitis C
for prisoners; Ward Churchill, a noted Native
American activist and scholar who explores
genocide, colonization, political repression,
the penal system, and indigenous peoples’
struggles in the Americas; Safiya Bukhari, a
former Black Panther and political prisoner
who helped found the Mothers Inside Loving
Kids (MILK) group, which was created to
help women in prison maintain contact with
their children, and Jim Page, a songwriter who
will be performing after presentations by les-
bian prison activists Chrystos and Leslie
Bull.
According to Gicker, the conference
“should be really nonsectarian and interna-
tional,” dealing with “medical neglect in
prison, black nationalism in prison … all dif-
ferent aspects of the prison situation and the
different aspects of resistance to it. Pretty
comprehensive.”
Lydia Bartholow, another member of the
collective, says, “We have workshops on
transgender people in prison; we have work-
shops on women in prison; we have work-
shops that focus in on Chicanos in prison; we
have workshops that focus in on mental illness
… wherever you’re coming at it from, there’s
going to be something for everyone involved
in social change in prison.”
The conference will open at 8:30 pm
Friday, Aug. 8 at the United Lutheran Church
on 22nd and Washington, and close at around
midnight Sunday at WOW Hall. All events
held at UO are free, while the collective will
ask for donations at off-campus sites. More in-
formation on additional presenters, locations
and times can be found at www.break-
thechains.net
“There’s one group of people who has ab-
solutely no way of getting their desires out and
their word: prisoners. They’re a criminalized
class, and they can be completely ignored for
the most part by the state and by social services
agencies.” says Bartholow. — Celene Carillo
FAST FOR MIND FREEDOM
While Eugene citizens are fasting on the
state Capitol steps to protest budget cuts for
social services, David Oaks of Eugene will
begin a hunger strike this week for human
rights in mental health. Oaks is executive di-
rector of Support Coalition International.
Oaks says he is planning to join the Fast
for Freedom in Mental Health beginning
Aug. 16. He will join others in Pasadena,
Calif.
“A beautiful mind is a terrible thing to
label, forcibly drug and electroshock,” says
Oaks in a message to supporters, and he
quotes Martin Luther King Jr. saying, “The
salvation of the world lies in the hands of the
maladjusted!”
For more information on the fast, visit
www.mindfreedom.org
FARR DEFENDS VOTE ON
MEAGER SCHOOL BILL
Responding to criticism from Sen. Tony
Corcoran in EW, Rep. Pat Farr (R-Dist. 14)
says he wants to “assure my friends in educa-
tion that I will continue to fight for stable and
adequate school funding.”
Corcoran in his “Insider Baseball” column
July 31, says Farr “failed his first big test as a
freshman after getting elected as an education
supporter. He buckled under pressure from the
speaker and voted with the Republicans. His
justification, that his school districts would be