BARRY’S ESPRESSO
TO GET ’BUCKED?
Southies, get your rugelach and bialy
while you can. Barry’s Espresso and Bakery
at 29th and Willamette may well be replaced
with what owner Barry Siegel was told
would be a “national coffee presence” when
PC Market of Choice expands late next year
into the Rite-Aid section of the plaza. Given
the “national coffee presence” that moved in
kitty-corner to Full City downtown and that
same presence in The Stereo Store center on
7th Avenue, it’s a good bet that Barry’s is get-
ting Starbucked.
Siegel has a month-to-month lease with
Rite-Aid on its current location at the front of
the drugstore; he says the agreement is good
at least through next summer. (Siegel has
rented this space since Barry’s original loca-
tion was absorbed into the U-Lane-O/Oregon
Community Credit Union reconstruction.)
However, with Market of Choice’s expansion
next year resulting in a smaller drugstore,
Rite-Aid has no plans to extend Siegel’s
lease. Siegel says he has no choice but to
keep his eyes open for another south Eugene
location. “I’ve had this business in south
Eugene for six and a half years now. I’d be
silly not to try and stay in the area.”
He explains that such a relocation isn’t
easy for a small, local business like his.
While he has cultivated a strong and loyal
customer following, he hasn’t found support
on an official level. “There isn’t anyone [city
officials] standing up for the small businesses
in this town.” The city, he says, makes it diffi-
cult — and expensive — for a small business
to get started or relocated.
A manger, identified only as “Derek,” for
Market of Choice said that “no one here
knows anything about this — I have no infor-
mation.” Trond Ingvaldsen, vice president of
real estate for Standard Insurance Company,
Portland owners of the shopping center prop-
erty, says that Siegel’s tenancy is dependent
on continuing the lease through Rite-Aid.
This is unlikely, he concedes, since Rite-
Aid’s reconstruction involves downsizing
and displacing tenants within the drugstore.
As for that national coffee presence,
Ingvaldsen says, “There are lots of rumors
flying down there, but we haven’t made any
agreements with any coffee chains. We’re
still in lease negotiation with Rite-Aid and
PC Market.” Ingvaldsen does say that follow-
ing the reconstruction of Rite-Aid and
Market of Choice, Standard Insurance will
build additional retail space, but nothing will
be available for at least three years.
Good news for the college set: Siegel has
opened a second bakery on campus at Alder
and 12th Avenue. In spite of all the South
town shuffling, he says, “We’re happy that
our customers and the community really sup-
port us.” — Bobbie Willis
CONFERENCE ENERGIZES
GRASSROOTS MOVEMENT
This past weekend’s Peace, Justice And
Media Conference accomplished its mission,
according to two of its organizers, Michael
Carrigan and David Zupan.
The ambitious mix of speakers, work-
shops and panels was intended to “educate
and empower the public to lobby and reform
the mainstream media to gain more fairness,
accuracy and diversity of voices and to build
and strengthen the progressive movement
and the independent alternative media,” says
Zupan.
“Attendees left the conference better in-
formed, more united and with some new
skills they can use to get their voices heard in
their communities,” says Carrigan.
Some post-event fund-raising was needed
last year to cover costs, but this year the con-
ference is expected to meet expenses, thanks
to an increase in sponsorships from 50 to
more than 120 organizations from around
Oregon and the book tour appearances of Jim
Hightower and Molly Ivins (still to come
Oct. 25). The organizers estimate that more
than 1,500 people have attended events so
far.
Hightower drew a standing room only
crowd of more than 850 at his LCC appear-
ance Oct. 9. Panels and workshops continued
all weekend, some drawing large crowds,
others only a few people. Carrigan described
BY PAUL NEEVEL
Moriah Chavez
Two years ago, as a seventh-grader at
Spencer Butte, Moriah Chavez began
earning elective credits as a volunteer
peer tutor in special-ed teacher Todd
Brenneman’s life skills classroom. “This is
one student who really has her head on
straight,” Brenneman reports. “Moriah
truly cares for the students and always
wants the best for them.” Chavez contin-
ued as a tutor in eighth grade. “I really
liked it,” she says. “When I heard they
were doing summer school for a month, I
volunteered for that.” Now a freshman at
South Eugene High, Chavez recently fin-
ished her season with the JV volleyball
team. She still puts in an hour a day as a
life-skills tutor at South. “I go swimming
with them at the Y or we go downtown on
the bus,” she says. “There are five other
tutors — they spread us out through the
day.” In her third summer of work with the Northwest Youth Corps, Chavez spent a
solid month in the woods this past summer in a crew of 10, building trails and bridges,
pruning and planting trees. “It’s hard work but it’s fun — we earn minimum wage,” she
notes. “Everybody got stung except for me. I’ve had enough peanut butter sandwiches
to last me for all time.”
8 OCTOBER 16, 2003
the turnout at the free sessions as “fair, but
not great, despite extensive publicity. …
Except for a Friday evening hip hop concert
and the workshops dealing with military re-
cruitment, there was very little participation
by young people. A better job of outreach to
youth at their schools is needed.”
Zupan attributes the limited workshop
turnout to “some degree of activist burnout”
post 9/11, and that “learning how to be an ef-
fective media activist is not at the top of many
people’s lists.”
Planning for future conferences and events
will likely again include a large dose of enter-
tainment to encourage participation. —TJT
IVINS TALKS TWICE
In response to the quick sell-out of her
7:30 pm lecture Saturday, Oct. 25, columnist
Molly Ivins has agreed to do a 3 pm lecture
the same day, also at the McDonald Theatre.
Tickets are $10 in advance and are available
at Tsunami, Black Sun, Foolscap, Mother
Kali’s, Star Gate and Book Mine book stores,
the UO ticket office and the Justice Not War
office at 454 Willamette, 343-8548.
Tickets at the above outlets are still avail-
able for a separate dinner reception, music
and book signing with Ivins at Cozmic Pizza,
8th and Charnelton, after her evening talk.
Advance tickets are $25, or $30 at the door.
COHOUSING GROUP
EYES LINCOLN CORNER
Cohousing Eugene has “tied up” a down-
town parcel at the northwest corner of 11th
and Lincoln for an urban cohousing commu-
nity, according to Martin Henner of the group.
Cohousing is a style of cooperative hous-
ing developed in Denmark that features indi-
vidually owned houses or apartments that are
architecturally designed to promote commu-
nity interaction and neighborliness. The
housing often includes common buildings
and grounds in addition to self-sufficient
apartments or homes.
The group held an information meeting
Oct. 11 at the Eugene Public Library and is
now recruiting members who would like to
help design the project and then purchase
homes in the completed community.
For more information, call Henner at 345-
6466 or visit www.cohousing.org
DOPPELT TACKLES
LOCAL SUSTAINABILITY
The broad and often puzzling topic of sus-
tainability will be on the agenda of the City
Club of Eugene at 11:50 am Friday, Oct. 17 at
the Eugene Hilton. Bob Doppelt, director of
the UO Center for Watershed and
Community Health, will speak on “Growing
Lane County’s Economy Through
Sustainability: Results of a Six Month UO
Research Effort.”
Doppelt is expected to outline the find-
ings and recommendations of a multi-faceted
academic study into the business and job op-
portunities potentially available through the
application of sustainable development prac-
tices in Lane County. Doppelt will summa-
rize four reports that have been produced by
this project covering green building, natural
foods, eco-industrial development, and the
results of a questionnaire mailed to private
companies and public agencies throughout
Lane County.
Doppelt’s talk precedes the free
Sustainable Business Symposium at UO
Nov. 14-16, one of the longest-running sus-
tainability conferences in the Northwest.
This year the symposium will be held in
the newly completed Lillis Business
Complex and will feature a products exposi-
tion, panels, workshops and speakers, “pro-
viding concrete examples of how businesses
can simultaneously increase profits, decrease
ecological impacts and increase investment
in the social capital of our communities,” ac-
cording to organizers.
Speakers include Donna Wilson, Alan
Durning, John Cusack, Michael Shuman and
Jack Roberts. Get updated information at
www.uoregon.edu/~sbs/
MINER’S LETTUCE
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL?
The 4J school district has revised its pol-
icy on naming new schools to include not just
dead presidents. The new policy allows
schools to be named after “indigenous and
characteristic” local plants and animals, geo-
graphic place names and distinguished peo-
ple. Using a living person’s name is OK, as
long as they are retired. The new policy also
allows “thematic names which reflect the
character of the community, culturally and