Eugene residents will pay hefty fees at
Amazon Pool this summer.
DEVELOPERS GET DISCOUNT
WHILE POOR PAY FULL PRICE
SALMON STILL PROTECTED
BY PESTICIDE BUFFERS
A poor family in Eugene has to cough up
$175 for a summer pass to Amazon Pool this
year under the city’s policy of recovering
100 percent of its costs for recreation pro-
grams.
But a developer hoping to make millions
off rezoning a piece of land he speculated on
to build a big box store on the edge of Eugene
only has to pay 22 percent of the cost of pro-
cessing a land use permit.
City Councilor Bonny Bettman says the
city spends about $800,000 a year subsidiz-
ing developer profits by not charging for the
full cost of processing land use permits.
Rezonings and other land use changes can re-
sult in “a huge profit for the applicant,”
Bettman says. “The taxpayers should not be
subsidizing that.”
Bettman proposed increasing developer
fees to about 65 percent of full cost recovery,
still way below the 100 percent the poor fam-
ily has to pay for having its kids learn to swim
and have fun. But the city budget committee,
stacked by Mayor Torrey with conservatives,
balked.
The city council could reconsider the de-
veloper subsidy, but Bettman hasn’t had any
luck in the past. “This is an issue that I’ve
brought up every single year,” Bettman says.
“We have some of the lowest development
[charges] in the state of Oregon.”
—Alan Pittman
The Seattle District Court has denied a mo-
tion to suspend its January 2004 injunction
prohibiting the spraying of certain pesticides
near salmon streams. The pesticide industry
group CropLife and grower groups had re-
quested a stay that would remove safeguards
for salmon while they appeal the ruling to the
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
In a strongly worded opinion written on
Tuesday, May 18, U.S. District Court Judge
John Coughenour denied the industry request
for a stay and underlined the need for the in-
junction’s protections for threatened and en-
dangered salmon.
Coughenour’s order stated, “In enacting
the ESA (Endangered Species Act), Congress
expressly preferred the preservation of endan-
gered species, deprived of the ability to protect
themselves against the perpetual technologi-
cal crusade of ever-expanding humankind,
over the preservation of chemicals that have
the potential to make extinction of these
species imminent.”
Coughenour also faults the Environmental
Protection Agency for its lack of compliance
with the law that made the injunction neces-
sary, and for its poor communication to pesti-
cide users about the injunction’s requirements.
His ruling further stated, “If the EPA had
expended as much effort in compliance with
the ESA as it has expended in resisting this ac-
tion, the lawsuit might have been unneces-
sary.” —AS
• Post-election rumors are flying like crazy about Nancy Nathanson’s future. She
hasn’t conceded her defeat to Kitty Piercy as mayor of Eugene. This has led some to
speculate that Nathanson is planning a write-in campaign for mayor. If that’s possible,
why is her campaign phone number disconnected? Or some say she’ll do a write-in bid
for her old Ward 8 City Council seat. She could ask Chris Pryor to withdraw. If that
happens, how about a Ward 8 write-in runoff between Nathanson and Mitzi Colbath,
who lost to Paul Holvey for a State Legislature bid, but whom many wanted to run for
council? Nathanson says ”I have no specific plans for the future at this time. I’ll be
looking at that later.” Meanwhile, she says she’s recuperating from a “hard and busy
campaign season.”
• David Barsamian, wild and witty founder of Alternative Radio, was preaching to a
large choir last Monday in the First Methodist church in downtown Eugene. He drew
boisterous applause in recounting the reasons and need for “ regime change” in
Washington. He brought equal approval when he complimented the crowd for recent
“regime change” in Eugene.
His offering of “good news” included the books on bestseller lists critical of the
Bushies: Plan of Attack by Bob Woodward, Against All Enemies by Richard Clarke,
Worse than Watergate by John Dean, The Politics of Truth by Joseph Wilson, and
LOGGING FUELS FIRES,
DOESN’T PREVENT THEM
President George Bush wants to cut down
the Northwest’s forests in the name of saving
them from wildfires. But a leading forestry
scientist said this week that it’s exactly such
indiscriminate logging that has fueled
Western forest fires.
Duke University forester Norman
Christensen said this week in
a press release that logging lit-
ters the forest floor with saw-
dust and debris that fuels
fires. At the same time, re-
moving trees increases wind
speed by removing wind
breaks and increases tempera-
tures by removing shade, ac-
cording to Christensen. He
adds, “As a result, ground fuel
fires that break out can spread faster and far-
ther than they would normally.” —AP
NEW TREE-SIT RAISES STAKES
FOR TREES, PEOPLE
Several members of the Cascadia Forest
Defenders (CFD) have erected two tree-sits
on the site of the Straw Devil timber sale in
the southern Willamette National Forest, near
Oakridge. The tree-sits are of a new design,
suspended more than 100 feet in the air by a
complex network of ropes anchored to as
many as 25 trees per platform, each covering
several acres.
If any of the ropes are tampered with or
the trees are felled, the structure will drop and
down will come tree-sitter, all the way from
100 feet up.
“We will not tolerate vio-
lence on the part of the forest
service toward forest ac-
tivists simply protecting the
last of the wild beauty in our
region,” says CFD member
Evelyn Whisps.
This will be the second
summer that CFD has occu-
pied the Straw Devil sale in
an attempt to halt the destruc-
tion of the old growth forest. Straw Devil is
host to numerous nesting sites of the threat-
ened and rare Oregon Red Tree Vole, one of
the primary food sources for the endangered
Northern Spotted Owl, along with other
species.
The Red Tree Vole and the site of the tree-
sits were formerly protected under the Survey
and Manage Program contained in the
more. Barsamian added his recommendations for relevant reading: Melville”s Moby
Dick, Orwell’s 1984, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, and Greene’s The Quiet American.
In the “good news” category he also listed Michael Moore’s new film and he told us
to see The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, The Fog of War, and a movie made in
1966, The Battle of Algiers.
• Democrats, Greens, Independents, check your mailboxes. Because you live in a
pivotal state in the ‘04 election and because the Bush campaign has all the money in
the world, you may have received a lovely color picture of Laura and George.
That’s what happened to our Democratic friend over at the coast. Here’s his account:
“My lovely color pic of Laura and George Bush came from Bush-Cheney ‘04, and above
the signatures (big and bold, of course) it says ‘To (my name): Thank you for your early
commitment and dedication as a Charter Member of the campaign in Oregon. Grassroots
leaders like you are the key to building a winning team. Best Wishes.’
“And then the sigs, Laura Bush, George Bush. The letter with it is from Marc
Racicot, chairman, and starts out ‘Dear Friend,’ but the Friend is struck out and my
name is written in. It is all very, very slick. I’m supposed to send back a Receipt
Confirmation Form, and also money, from $1,000 down to ‘other’. These people
should be running the war!”
MAY 27, 2004 7