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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 27, 2005)
news briefs Barbara Lee LEE RETURNS TO EUGENE U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee of California was last in Eugene in August 2002 when she received the Wayne Morse Integrity in Government Award. The award was fitting — the late Sen. Morse cast the lone vote of dissent on the Tonkin Gulf Resolution that expanded the Vietnam War, and Rep. Lee was the only member of Congress to oppose giving the Bush Administration a carte blanche to go to war after 9/11. Lee, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Progressive Caucus, has sponsored legisla- tion disavowing the doctrine of preemptive war and led efforts to create a Department of Peace and end the ongoing genocide in Darfur, Sudan. This week, Lee will be back in Eugene as the keynote speaker for the “Gender, Race and Militarization” conference at the UO, co-sponsored by the UO Center for the Study of Women in Society and the Women’s and Gender Studies Program. Other speakers will include authors Catherine Lutz, Lakshmi Chaudhry and Karen Houppert, who have all published books about the military. The conference will be held from 9:45 am to 6 pm on Oct. 28 in the Erb Memorial Union on the UO campus. Lee will speak at 4 pm in the EMU Ballroom. All events are free and open to the public. For a complete schedule, visit http://csws.uoregon.edu or call 346-5015. — Kera Abraham SPRAWL BRINGS BIG PROFITS Developers flocked to the Eugene City Council last month calling for an expansion of the urban growth boundary. They blamed rising housing prices on regulations controlling urban sprawl. Homebuilders across the state are using the affordable housing argument to attack regulations con- trolling urban sprawl. But rising home prices may be more about developer profit taking in a hot hous- ing market than land use regulations. Fueled by low interest rates and specu- lative frenzy, median home prices shot up 25 percent last year in Lane County. That increase of $40,000 a home translates into high profits for homebuilders, whose build- ing costs in labor, land and materials increased comparatively little over the same period. Many local development companies are privately held, but the economics of home- building can be clearly seen in the record profits of large publicly traded homebuild- ing companies. Toll Brothers, for example, says in its required SEC filings that it con- centrates on luxury homes for the wealthy, a market “sweet spot” that maximizes prof- its. With the housing price boom, Toll’s profits have about doubled in the last two years to $409 million with continuing such jumps projected. In the last four years, the corporation’s stock price has increased six- fold. With rising prices Toll made nearly twice as much profit per home in 2004 than it did in 2000. No where in the corpora- tion’s exuberant annual report to investors does the word “affordable” appear. — Alan Pittman MILLEGAN OFF TO FED COURT For more information, contact Millegan’s attorney Barry Bachrach at bbachrach@bowditch.com or (508) 926- 3403. — Ted Taylor TOXICS GROUP ANNIVERSARY Oct. 28 marks the five-year anniversary of the Oregon Toxics Alliance (OTA), Walterville resident Kris the only statewide organization Millegan will be in fed- eral court in South devoted exclusively to addressing toxics and related policies. A Carolina on celebration is planned that will Halloween, defend- also honor founding member ing himself and his Kris Mary O’Brien. publishing compa- Millegan The celebration is from 5:30 ny against a lawsuit filed by the Special to 7 pm Friday at the Campbell Activity Center, 155 High St. For Forces Association more information, call 465-8860 or (see “Sinister Forces” visit www.oregontoxics.org cover story 8/25). “Back in 1999, the right of communities The lawsuit is an attempt to shut down to learn of toxics in their midst was a hot- Tine Day Books following the publication button issue and the future of community in 2003 of Expendable Elite: One Soldier’s pesticide and toxics reporting programs Journey into Covert Warfare, a Vietnam hung by a thin thread in the Legislature,” memoir of Lt. Col. USASF (Ret) Daniel says Lisa Arkin, executive director of OTA. Marvin. The book documents covert “Eugene’s landmark community Toxics Special Forces incursions into Cambodia in Right to Know Law and the right of other 1966, as well as assassination efforts. Oregon communities to have a law like “If the Special Forces Association has Eugene’s was under attack by industry lob- their way, you will never know what really happened,” says Millegan. “Nothing in the byists in the Legislature.” Eugene voters passed a community book is classified or describes operations right-to-know (RTK) law in 1996 that not already outed by a variety of sources.” established the most comprehensive local Millegan says the colonel became a toxics reporting program in the nation. born-again Christian and decided to tell the truth, and his “credibility makes the Special Within a few months, industry lobbyists were organizing conservatives in the Forces Association based in Fort Bragg Legislature for a nearly successful attempt uncomfortable enough to launch a cam- to kill Eugene’s law. paign of intimidation and harassment “In 1997 the House Democrats saved against the author, his publisher Trine Day and even the book’s national distributor Eugene’s Right-to-Know by sheer audaci- ty,” says O’Brien. “It was the last night of IPG to cut off the publisher’s source of the entire legislative session. The final bill income and force him to comply.” on the docket would have dealt the fatal Millegan says he has already spent blow to Eugene’s law. With only two min- about $20,000 on attorney fees and is scrambling to come up with another utes to go until the clock ran out, the Democrats refused to push their buttons $15,000 to defend himself. “They are try- that would have allowed a quick electronic ing to bully and bankrupt me,” he says. vote to take place. Instead, they forced a roll-call vote. The roll call could not be completed before the mandatory time limit for the session ran out.” The industry lobbyists returned to the Legislature in 1999 and passed HB 2431 that made it extremely difficult for any other community to enact its own local RTK rules. Democrats had enough votes to support a veto by Gov. Kitzhaber, but he signed it under pressure from industry lob- byists. In the wake of this loss, the environ- mental community rallied, led by O’Brien, Michael Carrigan and others from around the state. That October 1999, with a grant from the Bullitt Foundation, twenty top environmentalists met at Breitenbush to tackle the problem. The group created OTA to raise the level of understanding through- out Oregon about the need and opportuni- ties to eliminate unnecessary toxics use and contamination. “There was the feeling that existing groups like OSPIRG and Oregon Environmental Council just couldn’t han- dle it all,” says Jonathan Poisner, executive director of Oregon League of Conservation Voters who attended the summit at Breitenbush. “There needed to be a consis- tent effort to look at statewide toxics issues.” Key leaders from the Breitenbush meet- ing formed a board of directors and OTA was incorporated as a non-profit in 2000. Arkin says that the membership-based OTA has been defending Eugene’s RTK law, organizing local and statewide cam- paigns to reduce toxics use, and represent- ing communities in their quest for safety and health. OTA had a significant victory this year, she says, when they created the grassroots campaigns that stopped two fos- sil-fueled power plants from siting in the Willamette Valley “We are participating at every opportu- nity to raise awareness about the threat that toxics pose to our state’s health and helping communities to take action,” says Arkin. OCTOBER 27, 2005 9
