TO THE EDITOR
EDITOR’S NOTE: We are giving priority this issue to letters regarding state and local candidates and issues
since they have gotten less attention than the presidential race. See our website this week for more letters.
FICECK QUALIFIED
Qualifications. Perhaps voters should
think more about them. They didn’t in 2000,
and almost elected George Bush. The conse-
quences have not been happy ones.
I live in House District 14; the current rep-
resentative for my district is Pat Farr. But Pat
is leaving, and reminding us of his short
House tenure by running his wife, Debi, in his
place.
She has never held an elective office. She
did work for her husband for two years as a
staff person. But that qualifies as nepotism,
which has little or no relevance as a qualifi-
cation.
Other than chief of staff for her husband, I
find Debi Farr’s qualifications (debifarr.com)
to be more relevant for a Toys ‘R Us position
than one that will undoubtedly deal with seri-
ous budgetary matters and other contentious
legislation in the next few years.
Debi says she attended UO, but does not
mention graduating. She also states that she
has fund-raised for “playground equipment”
and was “co-chair of the all-night graduation
party for Willamette High School,” worked
with the Girl Scouts and the Oregon Junior
Miss Pageant, and sang with a music team at
the Eugene Mission and in nursing care facil-
ities.
Farr’s opponent is Bev Ficek. From her
website (electbev.com) I see she has run for
elective office at least twice, and won — once
for a seat on the City Council, and once for
mayor. She was also on the city Budget
Committee. She was also a board member
with Habitat for Humanity, Lane ESD, the
Lane Council of Governments, president of
the PTA and the Sacred Heart Foundation
Board. She holds a BS degree from UO in
geography.
I am concerned about Oregon’s funding of
public schools. In that respect, I find no men-
tion of school funding by Debi Farr, but I do
find endorsements for Ficek’s candidacy by
both the Oregon and Eugene Education
Associations. And she has other notable
endorsements.
I hope voters can navigate to these two
candidates’ websites and examine qualifica-
tions while dismissing presumptions. We
need all we can of the former, and no more of
the latter.
Tom Erwin
Eugene
DON’T BE FOOLED
Despite it’s deceptive ballot title, Measure
37 presents a clear choice: To keep a land use
planning program that for more than 30 years
has protected Oregon’s farms, forests and
neighborhoods. Or to turn them over to what
former Gov. Tom McCall called the “grasp-
ing wastrels of the land.”
Measure 37 proposes “just compensa-
tion” if a property’s market value is reduced
by land use regulations. But its real purpose is
to extort local and state governments into
waiving land use protections by promoting a
feeding frenzy of selfish, irresponsible and
bogus claims.
Supporters spout the “do what I want with
my own property” mantra as if it were a
divine right, forgetting that our rights — our
original deeds — to land in the West were
granted by governments the measure vilifies.
Property rights without responsibilities —
without regulations that protect the common
good — are a self-serving recipe for chaos.
Who really stands to benefit from passage
of this measure to destroy Oregon’s land use
planning program? Follow the money: 72
percent of its funding has come from big tim-
ber and the real estate industry. Travel to
California or the East Coast and experience
for yourself the consequences of growth
without restrictions. See why so many have
fled to Oregon from these areas to enjoy the
fruits of 30 years of foresight. While promis-
ing to allow you and your neighbors to “do
what you want on your own property,”
Measure 37 will pick your pocket and offer
you fool’s gold in return. Don’t be fooled.
Vote No on Measure 37.
Robert Emmons
Fall Creek
DISSING KEANE
It’s one thing for our friends at EW to take
a shallow and somewhat paranoid approach
to the presidential election and not even men-
tion Green Party candidate David Cobb in
BY JERRY DIETHELM
Distorted Picture
Measure 20-88 ‘vision’ is far from 20-20.
N
ot so fast. There are still some serious questions to be answered
about the downtown “Civic Center Vision” and the proposed new police
station on 8th Avenue across from City Hall. Questions such as, “Whose
vision is this?” And is this a popular, widely shared vision, or is it something that’s
been cooked up by our outgoing mayor and city staff and pressed too quickly
through a lame duck City Council?
And why didn’t this proposal ever pass through our Planning Commission
where it could get some needed public air and where it could build the wider pub-
lic understanding and support a project of this scope demands? Come to think of
it, the proposed Triad hospital project on the EWEB site never passed through the
Planning Commission either. These two projects and the development of 8th
Avenue as a “Great Street” connecting the Park Blocks to the new courthouse and
the river are projects that will have a long-term impact on our downtown and our
riverfront. They need to be brought to our attention, not quietly managed and
slipped behind our backs. They deserve to be done well, even if it takes more time
and care. They need to build community in more ways than one.
Now we’re being told that the police station will be built on 8th Avenue whether
we pass Measure 20-88 or not. So what would a no vote on Measure 20-88 really
signify — that we think the police should put their house in order before we build a
new house for the police? That we think the matter of the city-owned site and its
relationship to the fate of City Hall is too far from settled? (What if we decide, for
example, to move City Hall to the EWEB headquarters building when it becomes
clear that the required Triad subsidy is just too large to swallow or to hide?)
Would it mean that we don’t approve of the merging of police and social servic-
es that the bond issue would provide? Or if that’s such an important idea, that it
shouldn’t be tacked on to the building project as a sweetener and ought to be
4 OCTOBER 28, 2004
made integral from the start?
Would it mean that we wonder if the $29 million
might be better spent to jump start Chief Lehner’s
plan for community policing and pay for some of the
startup costs in the neighborhoods that will be neces-
sary to make it work? Would it mean that we are excit-
ed about the possibility of remodeling of the Park Blocks
but don’t think the necessary public planning has been done
or that a satisfactory agreement for city-county cost sharing
has been reached?
Would it mean that we approve of the “Great Street” preparation of 8th
Avenue and look forward to its conversion to two-way traffic, the wider public
sidewalks, lights and trees that will set the public framework for the kind of mixed
use development that we know is required to bring a city street to life and make it
safe, but just don’t think it’s a good home for the police?
D
oes anyone realize or remember (or care) that at least five of the 10 teams
of planners, architects, landscape architects and city officials who partici-
pated in the mayor’s all day Civic Center Vision design charette recom-
mended against siting the police building and its connected one-full-block of park-
ing garage on the city-owned site? Team after team asserted that it would put a
“big dead thunk” of no street life after 5 pm for two full blocks on 8th Avenue —
just what a “Great Street” doesn’t want or need — and proposed a location that
had better access and was more suitable for the mass car storage that most peo-
ple don’t realize is part and parcel of a modern police station.
With so many of the town’s planners and designers raising the alarm, wouldn’t
it be wise to take another look before plunging stubbornly ahead? Measure 20-88
is and open and far from shut case.
Jerry Diethelm is a member, along with Charles O. Porter and Jerry Rust, of the Executive Board of the Emerald
Waterways Citizens Committee, Inc. He is also professor of landscape architecture at the UO.