AURA-
SOMA
BY ALAN PITTMAN
Regional Rivalry
Springfield and Lane County conservatives
attack Eugene.
E
ugene, Springfield and Lane County
cooperate on a lot of stuff. Air pollu-
tion regulation, road funding, sewage
treatment, jail funding, human services fund-
ing and metropolitan land use and transporta-
tion planning all are governed by regional
boards composed of representatives from the
various jurisdictions. Getting anything done
requires cooperation, as the boards often give
veto power to each jurisdiction.
In the past this wasn’t too much of an issue.
Eugene, Springfield and Lane County were all
dominated by conservatives and/or
Republicans who often put developer and
business interests ahead of taxpayers and the
environment. But last year that changed with
the election of a progressive mayor and City
Council majority in Eugene, leading to mount-
ing friction.
“Every time there’s a difference of opin-
ion” on regional issues, Eugene Councilor
Bonny Bettman said, “there’s a tendency to
attack Eugene, and let’s get on the Eugene
City Council bashing bandwagon. ... It’s like
a campaign.”
Conservative Springfield city councilors
recently threatened to withdraw from the Lane
Regional Air Pollution Authority (LRAPA) if
Eugene progressives could appoint a new
member moving the air board from it’s pro-
industry stance to a more pro-health and the
environment position.
The threat apparently had the desired
effect. Gary Rayor, a Eugene representative on
the air board, recently cast a key swing vote
against appointing a new pro-health member
to the board. “I thought it [the appointment]
would put the agency at risk for Springfield or
Lane County pulling out,” Rayor explained
later.
“It’s ridiculous,” said Eugene councilor and
LRAPA board member Betty Taylor. “I would
not give in to threats.”
Republican Springfield Mayor Sid Leiken
last week called for Eugene to get out of the
way of expanding the urban growth boundary,
allowing urban sprawl and big developer prof-
its. Conservative county elected officials
recently chaffed at the Eugene council’s rejec-
tion of a county plan to drastically increase
taxes to double jail and deputy funding using a
new special district. The controversial jail plan
would have Eugene taxpayers subsidize rural
services and could jeopardize Eugene school
and library funding.
The Eugene City Council has itself been
chaffing under Springfield and county offi-
cial’s refusal to allow discretionary federal
road funding to go to fixing potholes rather
than building new roads for developers. “It
was really a non-starter,” said Councilor David
Kelly of the Eugene effort to redirect the road
funding at a recent Metropolitan Planning
Commission (MPC) meeting. “We didn’t have
a single supportive voice around the table.”
“Springfield and Lane County are keeping
Eugene from using money that we’ve been
allocated for our highest priority needs which
is street preservation,” Councilor Bonny
Bettman complained.
In the intergovernmental disputes, The
Register-Guard has fallen squarely on
Springfield and Lane County’s side and helped
whip up the conflict. The R-G, which long ago
dropped “Eugene” from its name, is also one
of the area’s largest developers and benefited
directly from using the disputed road funds to
build a connection to I-5 from its Chad Drive
headquarters and business park.
Eugene’s progressive representatives previ-
ously clashed with county and Springfield offi-
cials on the MPC over the controversial West
Eugene Parkway (WEP). Despite almost 50
citizens testifying unanimously at a public
hearing against the $170 million, wetland
destroying freeway, the MPC voted 8-1 just
before last Christmas to proceed with the proj-
ect.
Citizens criticized the body as undemocra-
tic. Of 10 voting members on the MPC, only
two represent Eugene, even though Eugene
represents almost half the population in the
entire county. “Eugene has not had nearly
enough power there,” Taylor said.
Most of the regional governing bodies are
undemocratic. Eugene has nearly double the
population of Springfield, but conservatives
dominate LRAPA. Eugene property owners
will pay about half the taxes under the county’s
proposed new jail/deputy district, but the coun-
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‘ There’s a tendency
152 W 5th • Eugene
to attack Eugene,
and let’s get on the
Eugene City
Council bashing
bandwagon. ... It’s
like a campaign.’
M-Sa 10-6 • Sun 12-5
344-4074
– B ONNY B ETTMAN
ty isn’t giving Eugene representatives half the
say in how and whether it will be created.
The regional rivalry shows little sign of
abating and may likely intensify as the new
Eugene mayor and council make appoint-
ments to regional bodies to replace conserva-
tive appointments made by the old council
under Republican Mayor Jim Torrey.
The stress could cause some of the region-
al bodies to collapse.
“Cooperation is good and we should all act
for the common good,” said Taylor. “But if we
have totally different ideas about what the
common good is, then we should act inde-
pendently.”
LRAPA’s functions would be taken over by
state regulators. But it’s unclear if the region
could legally go without regional land-use and
transportation planning bodies. State land-use
planning regulations and federal road-funding
regulations require regional planning.
Bettman says “Eugene does have a stake in
how rapidly growth occurs in Springfield.”
Inefficient urban sprawl demands public subsi-
dies from scarce regional road and other infra-
structure funding, she points out. “The faster
growing city is being subsidized by the slower
growing city.”
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JUNE 23, 2005 9