Eugene weekly., November 26, 2003, Page 7, Image 7

URBAN RENEWAL
EXPANSION GETS NOD
The Eugene City Council voted Nov. 20 to
move forward with a proposal to expand and
continue the city’s urban re-
newal districts. The effect of
the vote will be to increase
taxes and divert scarce school
funding (see EW cover story,
March 6).
The proposal, which will
go to a public hearing in
January, will expand the
Riverfront Urban Renewal
district by about 20 percent
and renew it for another 20
years and continue the
Downtown Urban Renewal
District for 20 years.
Urban renewal is a complex method of cre-
ating a dedicated pot of money for development
projects by manipulating taxes and diverting
existing revenue for schools and other public
services without a vote of the people.
Continuing the two urban renewal districts
rather than eliminating them would effectively
increase taxes roughly $38 for the average
homeowner and divert about $2.8 million in
other school and government tax revenue, ac-
cording to city estimates. State school funding
would lose about $1.1 million a year, the city of
Eugene $1.1 million and Lane County about
$200,000.
The tax and diverted revenue impact of
urban renewal will increase dramatically in
later years as property values rise in the ex-
panded districts. The city, however, hasn’t de-
veloped estimates of the longer term impact.
Urban renewal has been controversial in
Eugene for decades with critics blaming it for
destroying the city’s historic downtown to build
concrete parking garages and wasting money
on a road to nowhere in the UO Riverfront
Research Park that threatens to develop a scenic
natural area along the Willamette River.
The recent decision to use urban renewal to
fund a long-delayed new library was far more
popular, but expanding and continuing the dis-
tricts would create far more money than is
needed to pay off the library debt.
City staff and councilors have said using
urban renewal to help fund a new $33 million
police station and adjacent parking garage cost-
ing millions more will be a top priority for the
diverted money. The two districts now generate
about $4.1 million a year in taxes and diverted
revenue. The police station has twice failed at
the polls by a wide margin.
The council voted 6-2 to
move forward with urban re-
newal. Councilor Betty Taylor
complained that urban renewal
money is spent “outside the
public eye” and is too often
wasted. She pointed to the mil-
lions of dollars spent on the rail-
road underpass at the
Riverfront Research Park. “It’s
just a big waste of money sit-
ting there, and that’s the kind of
thing that’s easy to do with an
urban renewal district.”
— Alan Pittman
ROAD REPAIR
BUCKS DIVERTED
The cities of Eugene and Springfield have
complained for years now that they need higher
taxes to fix a massive backlog of road repairs.
But the problem apparently isn’t so great
that they are willing to divert money planned to
serve developers with new roads to instead fix
potholes in old streets.
The regional Metropolitan Planning
Committee (MPC), made up of officials from
local government, voted down a proposal Oct.
9 to divert available money from new roads to
fix the roads we already have.
MPC member
and Eugene City
Councilor Bonny
Bettman said in an
interview that it
makes no sense to
spend money on
new roads instead
of maintaining the
expensive roads
the city already
has. “Any avail-
able money we
have to preserve the system should be spent to
preserve the system.”
Bettman had hoped to take about $700,000
from a project to extend Chad Drive in north
Eugene to serve The Register-Guard and big
BY PAUL NEEVEL
MIKE BARNES
Since 1997, Cascadia Forest Goods has marketed
wood products from Forest Stewardship Council-
certified forests, as well as recycled and salvaged
wood. “We sell products from forests that have
been properly cared for, at close to market price —
in some cases below market price,” say CEO Mike
Barnes. “Our Restoration Fir Flooring is wood
from understory thinning.” A Portland native,
Barnes lived as a monk for eight years of high
school and college at Mount Angel Seminary.
Following two years of grad school in Seattle, he
spent time with priests doing social justice work
in Panama, Colombia and Mexico. On his return,
he became a professional organizer, working for
grassroots democracy in Chicago and other U.S.
locales. “I returned to Portland in 1979,” he says.
“I was one of the founders of Oregon Fair Share.” In 1993, Barnes was invited to direct
the Ecoforestry Institute, a training center in southern Oregon. He started CFG there,
then moved it to Eugene in ‘98, when his daughter reached school age. “We’re busy
now,” he notes. “For the first time, we have a positive cash flow.” Learn more about
CFG at www.cascadiaforestgoods.com.
bog stores in north Eugene and instead use the
money to fix decaying streets in the city.
The city of Eugene now has an estimated
backlog of $94 million in road repairs. Timely
repairs and maintenance of streets can save
multiple millions of dollars in reconstruction
work later if repairs are ignored, the city says.
The city estimates that with the current lack of
maintenance money, the repair backlog will
grow to $231 mil-
lion over the next
decade.
The city of
Eugene passed a
road fee and a 3-cent
gas tax to address
the road repair prob-
lem last year. But the
council recently re-
pealed the road fee
after progressives
complained it was a
flat tax on homes, and businesses complained
their share of the tax was too high. The gas tax
brings in about $2 million a year for Eugene.
Bettman says money for the Chad Drive ex-
tension should have come from fees charged to
nearby developers who will benefit in higher
property values because of the new road.
“That’s exactly the purpose for which system
development charges were created.”
The city now faces such a huge backlog in
road maintenance because it has for years subsi-
dized new roads for developers at the expense of
maintenance of existing streets, says Bettman.
“That’s why we have a $94 million backlog,”
Bettman says. “There’s no discipline.”
The Eugene City Council passed a resolu-
tion 6-2 in September to support the MPC redi-
recting money from new roads to preserving
existing streets.
The resolution was opposed by Mayor Jim
Torrey, who won election with record-breaking
contributions from developers. Torrey said the
new roads are needed to relieve congestion.
“We can’t just stop building new roads.”
Bettman countered that the new roads were
less about reducing traffic than serving specula-
tors by accessing new lands for development.
At the MPC meeting, Torrey argued against
money for road repairs, but then “as a courtesy”
to the council resolution, voted with Bettman for
an amendment to allow Eugene to divert new
road money to preservation. The motion failed
3-4. Torrey then voted for the main motion of
new road spending without the amendment
while Bettman voted against the package. — AP
RACISM & INJUSTICE
A facilitated town meeting on “Racism and
Injustice: An examination of the effects of 9/11
on Muslims, Jews and Others” will take place
at 7 pm Wednesday, Dec. 3 at Westmoreland
Community Center, 1545 W. 22nd.
Discussions will center on discrimination,
harassment, concerns about the role of the U.S.
in the Middle East, and fear of speaking out. The
meeting will be facilitated by Ibrahim Hamide,
Sharon Emery, LMFT, Gary Reiss, LCSW, and
Aura Salomon. The meeting is sponsored by the
Eugene Middle East Peace Group.
$48 MILLION EYED
FOR ROAD TECHNOLOGY
Local road planners envision spending $48
million over the next 20 years to install hun-
dreds of traffic cameras, reader boards and re-
mote controlled stop lights on major roads all
over Eugene-Springfield.
In a draft plan, the planners claim the com-
puterized Intelligent Transportation System
(ITS) will save at least 10 times more money in
expensive traffic congestion and accidents than
it costs to build and operate.
In addition to the $48 million in construc-
tion costs, the system will cost up to $2.5 mil-
lion a year to operate.
Planners have not identified a funding
source, and the high-tech approach may have to
compete for funding with the low-tech reality
of millions of dollars of unrepaired potholes
and cracks in existing streets. With cameras
everywhere, the system could also draw fire
from those opposed to big-brother surveillance.
ITS projects envisioned vary widely.
Examples include: an automatic weather detec-
tion and deicing system on I-5 bridges; reader
boards that warn of upcoming congestion or ap-
proaching trains at crossings; signs at bus stops
that tell passengers exactly how long they have
to wait; traffic lights that adjust their timing de-
pending on traffic levels; lights on freeway
ramps that space out merging cars and elec-
tronic bus passes. — AP
NOVEMBER 26, 2003 7