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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 13, 2005)
downtown, for the cannery district — where the input opposed re-routing Highway 99 along the riverfront — and for the Civic Center, where the input sup- ported preservation of City Hall. • We need to start saving the important buildings we have left, like the purpose- fully anti-monumental City Hall and the classic industrial-Deco EWEB steam- plant building. • We need improved hospital planning. That should be helped by the recent CHOICES/FoE state appeals court victory against shotgun zoning changes for hospital siting by the City of Eugene. • We do need a hospital in central Eugene, like we have now. But we shouldn’t put it right on the downtown riverfront; we shouldn’t sell off the EWEB headquarters at a quarter or third of its value to do it; and we shouldn’t cut the 800-foot Patterson Trench — up to 20 feet deep and maybe 60 feet wide — under the tracks right at the riverfront. • In contrast, Millrace daylighting could emerge as a magically inspiring downtown-to-university connection strate- gy. Activity-friendly development and detailing could fight back against obesity in Track Town. • Reclamation of the rail yards, when the time is right, could foster myriad improvements in our central neighbor- hoods. • Protection of upland-wildlife habitat and all our open waterways could ensure living, green hills for the future. • Despite our standing policies and reg- ulations, development has breached the wooded ridges of our South Hills both in the east, like around Spring Boulevard, and in the west, like around Hawkins. Protected only by the difficulty of development and by the historic South Hills Study, these areas that are essential for habitat and for recreation need more protection. • We should continue to protect and restore Amazon Creek, starting with acquisition of the Amazon Headwaters Keystone at Martin and West Amazon, and continuing all the way through town. • An urban land trust could start to pro- tect pocket parks and trail and habitat rib- bons by assembling voluntary conserva- tion easements as well as key acquisitions in situations where the city can’t respond. • We need to work together — city, neighborhoods, sympathetic developers, and Friends of Eugene, backed up by 1000 Friends of Oregon — to restart the city efforts on nodal development. • To make nodal development begin to work here — as it is working already up in Portland and down in Berkeley — we could use a new name, like “urban vil- Human Rights By Hope Marston Eugene residents deserve a lot of cred- it for their consistent stands against hate literature. Every time some white supremacist group starts handing out overtly racist pamphlets or flyers, people from Eugene are quick to decry the racism and to provide community educa- tion. Eugene is not yet as quick to recognize more subtle, yet persistent, forms of racism. A common perception is that Eugene is liberal and tolerant; that in Racial profiling in Eugene, as in every other community in this nation, is the usual, not the unusual. lages.” More importantly, we need a real and specific definition of the goals and attributes of an urban village to focus our efforts. • We’ve shown quantitatively that developing the Royal Node — or any node at the urban fringe — would actually increase car miles; whereas, the main point of nodal development is to naturally ramp down car miles. It is time for the city to cancel all nodes at the urban fringe. • On Dec. 9, in this very room, 48 citi- zens testified against the draft Regional Transportation Plan, the RTP, which is partially replacing TransPlan. No one spoke in favor of the draft plan. The Metropolitan Policy Committee, the MPC, then voted to pass the plan, 8-1. I’m pleased to announce that on Dec. 30, FoE filed an appeal of that rushed-through RTP. We are going to stop the WEP! To do it, we need your help. Please visit our web site at FriendsofEugene.org to support this effort. So this question goes out to the Eugene community: Is it time? Are Eugene pro- gressives really ready to step up and do what it takes to support an emerging pro- gressive establishment? I hope so! 1"Ê-V ÊvÊÕÃVÊÊUÊÊ Eugene, police won’t bother you unless you’re somewhere you shouldn’t be, doing something you shouldn’t do. But that’s not true. Just this year, we learned from a well-respected city of Eugene employee that he was racially pro- filed by a Eugene police officer while walking to his car with four friends on Labor Day weekend. And that wasn’t the first time Cortez Jordan experienced racial profiling — or even the second or the third. In the months following his com- plaint, many more charges of racial profil- ing have been reported to the NAACP and Communities United for Better Policing (CUBP). Racial profiling in Eugene, as in every other community in this nation, is the usual, not the unusual. Largely invisible to the dominant culture, it looms large in the eyes of those who encounter racism every day. We salute the efforts of CUBP in ask- ing the City Council to create an external police review board. Our community needs independent review to ensure accountability in the EPD so that when there are complaints of racial profiling, a critical eye from the community can make an evaluation based on evidence. To Eugene’s credit, a series of study circles on racism is being organized. It, too, is long overdue and much needed. Back in 2001, when European- American activists like me became con- cerned about the sweeping new post 9/11 laws being passed by Congress — like the so-called PATRIOT Act — Latino activists had a different view. “You’re worried about police coming in the middle of the night and dragging you or your loved ones away?” one activist asked me. Then she said, “Our communities have faced secret detentions for many years. You’re worried about being held without charges? You’re worried about disappearing? We’ve been there for many years. 9/11 just made it worse for us.” But what can a city like Eugene do about national laws with sweeping powers that may threaten members of our own community? On Nov. 25, 2002, the Eugene City Council did something that The Register-Guard, Mayor Torrey, and even some council members didn’t think was possible. Eugene became the 16th municipality to express its outrage at post 9/11 laws and orders that resulted in detentions and abuse of innocent people. Councilors voted unanimously to pass Resolution 4743, which states that no city funds will be used to support the federal government in secret detentions or in upholding the PATRIOT Act. The council took a local stand on a national issue. And because Eugene city councilors stood up for human rights in this way, other communities took heart, and today, there are 367, with more and stronger resolutions being passed. The Lane County Bill of Rights Defense Committee aims to strengthen Eugene’s original resolution by asking the City Council in 2005 to pass an ordinance that would make it illegal for city employ- ees to cooperate with federal officials in secret detentions or harassing immigrants or racial profiling. In this way, local peo- ple can influence a vital national issue. In this way, we, the people can defend the promise of our Bill of Rights, building on what we accomplished in 2002. ■ >LiÀÊÕÃVÊ-iÀià / iÊVViÀÌ>ÃÌiÀÊ>`ÊÃÌÀ}ÊÃiVÌÊi>`iÀÃÊvÊÌ iÊÀiÜi`Ê iÀÊ* >ÀVÊ"ÀV iÃÌÀ>Ê>««ÞÊÌ iÀÊÛ>ÃÌÊiÝ«iÀiViÊÊÌ iÊ ÃÞ« VÊwi`ÊÌÊÌ ÃÊÃÕ«iÀLÊ«À}À>ÊvÊV >LiÀÊÕÃVÊV>ÃÃVÃt "<,/\Ê-ÌÀ}Ê+Õ>ÀÌiÌÊ °Ê£ÈÊÊ y>ÌÊ>À -"-/"6 \Ê-ÌÀ}Ê+Õ>ÀÌiÌÊ °Ê££ÊÊÊÀ ,-\Ê-ÌÀ}Ê+Õ>ÀÌiÌÊ °ÊÓÊÊÊÀ / ÕÀÃ`>Þ]Ê>°ÊÓäÊ U ÊnÊ«°°Ê Ê " ,/Ê ÀiiÊÕÃV>ÊÃ} ÌÃÊÜÌ Ê,LiÀÌÊÕÀÜÌâÊ>ÌÊÇ\ääÊ«°°Ê /ViÌÃÊfÓ]ÊfÓx]Êf£ÓÊ>ÌÊÕÌÊ iÌiÀÊÈnÓxäää®ÊÀÊ 1Ê/ViÌÊ"vwViÊÎ{È{ÎÈή°Ê 14 JANUARY 13, 2005
