news
PEG MORTON
briefs
Sugar Fisk drums up some attention
at the Eugene Post Office.
CENTS SHOW
PREFERENCES
Local tax activists gathered April 15 at
area post offices to call for a redirection of
federal spending priorities from supporting
war to supporting social and environmental
programs. They found support in both
Eugene and Springfield, but also found some
different priorities in the two cities on how
citizens wanted their taxes spent.
Taxes For Peace Not War and Eugene
PeaceWorks made camp at the Eugene down-
town Post Office. On behalf of Taxes for
Peace, activist Peg Morton read a proclama-
tion stating why she was not paying part of
her federal taxes, and reported that $3,500 of
resisted income taxes from group members
would be going to tsunami relief, American
Friends Service Committee and other organi-
zations. Another $162 of resisted phone taxes
were given to Brethren Housing and
Cascadia Forest Defenders. Fliers with infor-
mation about the federal budget were handed
out to the public.
About 300 passers-by in Eugene and
Springfield were given an opportunity in a
“Penny Poll” to vote on where they want their
taxes to go. People were handed 10 pennies
and asked to deposit them in jars representing
six categories of the federal budget.
In the category of human resources,
Eugene residents voted for 54 percent sup-
port while Springfield residents voted for 50
percent. For military spending it was 3.5 per-
cent Eugene, 10 percent Springfield. In fund-
ing the Iraq War, it was 2 percent Eugene vs.
6 percent Springfield. Funding the national
debt was 7.5 percent Eugene and 10 percent
Springfield. General government spending
was 9 percent Eugene vs. 8 percent
Springfield. Physical resources (infrastruc-
ture and environment) got 24 percent in
Eugene and 16 percent in Springfield.
“The federal budget reflects priorities that
are directly opposite to the opinions indicated
by the polls,” says Michael Carrigan, one of the
organizers, noting results were similar to last
year. “Over half of the discretionary budget ap-
propriated by Congress this year goes to the
Pentagon. The money the U.S. spends on the
military equals the military budgets of all other
nations in the world combined.”
That same evening at the Gateway Post
Office, 30 activists dressed in black protested
the Iraq War, lining up for nearly six hours
holding graphic images of injured casualties
of the war. The signs included messages such
as, “Your tax dollars paid for this,” and “It’s
our money, stop the war.”
“Positive encounters from motorists far
outweighed the few negative ones,” says ac-
tion organizer Peter Chaberek.
BY PAUL NEEVEL
Jude Hobbs
“I’m big on biodiversity,” says permacul-
ture instructor and landscape designer
Jude Hobbs, who describes her own east
Eugene yard as a forest garden. “My
focus is edible landscape — food plants for
people and wildlife.” A native of the
Garden State, Hobbs studied horticultural
therapy before she migrated west. She
ran out of cash in Medford and spent
three years there as a mental-health ther-
apist. “It was emotionally draining,” she
says. “I decided I wanted to work with
plants.” She worked at nurseries and
taught organic gardening, first in Ashland,
where she met Eugene native Jerome
Hobbs, and later in Portland while he
studied medicine. “As a self-employed
person, I needed to diversify,” says Hobbs,
who launched Cascadia Landscape Design in 1982 and moved it to Eugene in
1987. She also teaches permaculture at LCC, and offers PC certification courses
in four states. She supports local agriculture as VP of the Lane County Food
Coalition. “The Willamette Valley is a breadbasket,” she says. “There’s no reason
for people to be hungry.” Learn more about permaculture and upcoming classes
at www.cascadiapermaculture.com
8 APRIL 21, 2005
SUBSIDIZED
SPRAWL
Your sewer bill will go up so developers
can dodge fees and make more money under
a $144 million plan by the local wastewater
commission.
Systems development charges (SDCs)
normally recover the cost of expanded sewer
capacity from the developers who profit from
the new services. That keeps existing home-
owners who’ve already paid for their services
from having to subsidize urban sprawl.
Two years ago, the Metropolitan
Wastewater Management Commission
(MWMC) moved to increase SDCs to cover
the cost of serving new growth. The increase
was recommended by a committee that stud-
ied the issue for months, but the Home
Builders Association of Lane County ob-
jected strenuously. They threatened a lawsuit
and the MWMC settled, agreeing to knock
off about a third of the proposed SDCs.
But that big break for developers will come
on the backs of ratepayers who will be forced
to subsidize urban sprawl and developers’
profits. The MWMC plans to increase sewer
rates 6 percent this year and issue $100 million
in bonds that will saddle ratepayers with the
cost of development for decades to come.
The growing city of Coburg, which does
not charge SDCs, is hoping to hook up to the
regional sewer system, requiring expanded
capacity, according to Eugene Councilor
Bonny Bettman.
The MWMC plans a public hearing at 7
pm Thursday, April 21 in the Springfield City
Council chambers. The Eugene City Council
plans to take up the matter with a May 9 work
session and public hearing and May 23 vote.
The MWMC can be contacted at
nlaudati@ci.springfield.or.us or 726-3695.
— Alan Pittman
BRO CALLS FOR
CIVIL UNIONS
The civil rights group Basic Rights
Oregon issued a statement last week in re-
sponse to the Oregon Supreme Court deci-
sion in the case of Li v. State of Oregon that
annulled more than 3,000 same-sex mar-
riages performed in Oregon last year.
“We feel enormous sadness knowing that
thousands of same-sex couples who recently
celebrated their first anniversaries as married
couples have had those marriages painfully
revoked,” reads the statement. “Nothing
about this decision precludes BRO or the
ACLU from continuing to advocate for civil
unions in Oregon courts or the Oregon
Legislature. Continuing that fight is exactly
what we will do.”
INNOCENCE
ON THE LINE
Noted civil rights lawyer Lare
Aschenbrenner will return to UO to speak of
his role in “Oregon’s early exonerations” at 5
pm Monday, April 25 at the Knight Law
Center, Lewis Lounge. The talk is free and
open to the public.
Aschenbrenner will speak about his cases,
his career as a civil rights lawyer, and his role
in exonerating an Oregon black man who had
been convicted of murder and imprisoned for
30 years, a story which recalls the case of
Rubin “Hurricane” Carter.
Aschenbrenner went on to represent black
citizens of Mississippi during the late 1960s
when the rage of the old white power struc-
ture was at its peak. In the 1970s,
Aschenbrenner co-founded Oregon’s first
public interest law firm and worked on envi-
ronmental issues. In the 1990s, he led a suc-
cessful fight for recognition of 226 Alaska
Native villages.
His talk is sponsored by the Oregon
Innocence Network, a group of law and jour-
nalism students currently lobbying the UO to
support a clinic dedicated to freeing innocent
people behind bars in Oregon. For more in-
formation, call 346-3717.
CORRECTIONS/
CLARIFICATIONS
• Gov. Ted Kulongoski got 49 percent of
the vote in the 2002 election, not 29 percent
as printed last week in an interview with
Peter Sorenson. Also, Sorenson is 53 years
old, not 48.
• An inappropriate personals ad last week
referencing “Keystone” was inadvertently
printed. EW regrets the error.