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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 21, 2006)
• Sports fans will be debating the Oklahoma game Saturday and its controversial referee calls for a long time, and Oklahoma President David Boren is even asking for the game to be wiped from the record book. So who does deserve the most blame and credit for the outcome? Veteran Eugene sports writer George Beres has a unique take on game’s final minutes: “The game had many heroes in its unbelievable 34-33 come-from-behind victo- ry, but none would’ve had the chance for heroism had it not been for a serious bonehead play by Sooners coach Bob Stoops. His team led 30-20 with barely over 3:00 to play, AND had the ball inside the Oregon 5 on second down. Oklahoma’s Adrian Peterson could have waltzed into the end zone for 6 points, especially with three chances to go 4 yards. Inexplicably, on second down, Stoops had his quarterback pass. It was incomplete. Meaningless as it seemed then, the incompletion stopped the clock, preserving crucial seconds for the miraculous Oregon comeback. One running play moved the ball closer to paydirt, but on fourth down, the Sooners went for a field goal, as if to say: “Who cares? We no longer need it anyway,” and they led, 33-20. Oregon’s magical quarterback Dennis Dixon quickly passed the Ducks back downfield, and scored on a 16-yard run to make it 33-27. No problem, thought Stoops. Now we get the ball and we can run out the clock. He did not expect Oregon Coach Mike Bellotti’s son to come in as a secret weapon. Luke is the onside kick specialist. He punched the ball the required 10 yards, and a teammate got possession to give Oregon another chance. The winning TD came with :46 to play on Dixon’s pass to Brian Paysinger to make it 34-33. Oklahoma had one last chance for a field goal to pull it out, but it was blocked by Blair Phillips, and Oregon had a memorable victory. What no one remembered was that the field goal would not have been needed had the Sooners coach not squandered that unnecessary pass minutes earlier. His great running back was ready to run the ball into the end zone that, combined with the extra point, would take Oklahoma out-of-reach at 37. Instead, the Oklahoma coach became a most unlikely hero for Oregon.” Such a remarkable game is likely to stir Duck fans to even greater frenzy at the next home game against UCLA Oct. 14. The California game Oct. 7 is scheduled to be broadcast live at 5 pm as part of ABC TV’s Saturday Night College Football, on either ABC or ESPN. • You could have knocked us over with a chainsaw when we got the news that a federal judge in California deemed the Bush administration’s Roadless Rule invalid, restoring the Clinton-era rule. WOW! This is as exciting and unexpected as Oregon’s come-from-behind win against the Sooners. Now the nail-biter question becomes, What does this mean for ongoing roadless area logging in the Biscuit? “It seems pretty clear that the Bush admin- istration needs to put down the chainsaws and walk away,” said the Siskiyou Project’s Rolf Skar. But, as the Wilderness Society’s Rich Fairbanks pointed out, “They can’t glue the trees in Mike’s Gulch back on their stumps.” Still, the ruling is moral vindication for environmentalists who have called salvage logging in Biscuit’s roadless areas a sham from the start. Some of the credit goes to Kulongoski who, along with three other guvs and the WS, brought the suit against the Forest Service and the USDA. Neither Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest spokesperson Patti Burel nor WS attorney Mike Anderson know yet whether the ruling will force the Forest Service to halt logging in the roadless Blackberry unit, but FSEEE’s Andy Stahl has a few ideas. Stahl thinks it’s unlikely that Judge LaPorte’s decision alone will stop the Biscuit roadless logging, but someone could bring another suit seeking to enforce the 2001 Roadless Rule in Oregon. Such a case would likely end up before Judge Hogan, whose environmental track record looks like a clearcut, but arguing to keep logging in Biscuit’s roadless areas could be a tough sell for the feds. • The old Sears building site across from the downtown library would make a good site for a new City Hall, but we’re happy to see that several Portland firms have submitted last-minute proposals to develop the key city-owned property with a combination of retail and housing and/or hotel. One plan of particular interest would take over the entire block, including property owned by Connor & Woolley. Letting go of this property would be an opportunity for C&W to boost the value of their other properties downtown, and it would be a show of goodwill. Either way, a major redevelopment on this block would be cause for celebration. City Hall, if it’s ever rebuilt, can be somewhere else. • Kari Westlund, director of Lane county’s visitor and convention office, and Bob Zagorin, who chaired a tourism infrastructure task force, both made compelling cases at the City Club last Friday for more hotel rooms and convention space in downtown Eugene. They would like a couple of 350-room hotels just to keep us from falling behind Boise, Spokane and nearly every other city in the Northwest. Private funders are putting up a convention center in downtown Bend. Last weekend the point was made when entertainers for Fiesta Latina had to find rooms as far away as Salem and Roseburg. Football fans had rented all the local space. • Made us proud when Eugene attorney Martha Walters was appointed to the Oregon Supreme Court by the gov- ernor on Monday morning, and three of the five finalists came from Lane County. The other two were Circuit Judges Lauren Holland and Karsten Rasmussen, now stronger candidates for future openings. This appoint- ment was Ted Kulongoski returning to his roots. He started his career as a labor lawyer in Eugene, a tough advocate for individual working people. That’s what Martha Walters has been in her 30 years as a trial lawyer. Congratulations to both for the great appoint- ment. 10 SEPTEMBER 21, 2006 news briefs WHAT, UO BIKE THEFT? You can’t count on Portlanders to stop a bike thief, according to a recent Willamette Week report (“Steal This Bike,” 9/19). A WW intern used bolt cutters to gank his own bike out in the open seven times, but passersby barely gave him a second glance. The same might apply here in Eugene, where bike theft numbers exceed Portland’s, but at least one righteous soul re- cently called campus police to report sus- pected bike pilferage on UO grounds. But campus cops neither logged the report nor shared the informa- tion with the EPD. On the evening of Sept. 15, UO freshman Chris Pollard witnessed a man standing next to a green pickup truck loaded with several bikes near a rack outside of the Hamilton Complex. When Pollard ap- proached, the man waved to another man, who grabbed a pair of 4-foot bolt cutters and jumped in the truck, Pollard alleges. They drove away, but Pollard found two cut U- locks lying where the truck had been parked. Pollard wrote down the truck’s li- cense plate number and called the Department of Public Safety. DPS made a radio entry of a suspicious condition and scoped nearby buildings, but didn’t log an official report. “They were given a vehicle description including a li- cense plate, so they checked that out,” said DPS Sgt. Lynn Brown. “Nothing more than an area check … and it didn’t even get posted onto the media log.” The info was not shared with the EPD because Pollard wasn’t the owner of the stolen bike, Brown explained. “Even though the witness saw the incident take place, until the victim calls in, there is no crime,” he said. Pollard, unsatisfied by the DPS re- sponse, posted his testimony on Craigslist in hopes that vigilant citizens will do more than campus police. “I’ve gotten emails from people glad that someone is doing something, because it doesn’t seem like the police are doing anything,” he said. — Kera Abraham TASK FORCE DRAFTS IDEAS It’s been more than a year since Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy launched the Sustainable Business Initiative with the goal of making Eugene one of America’s green- est mid-sized cities by 2020. The initiative aims to bolster business and local quality of life by stressing the “triple bottom line” of eco- nomic, social and environ- mental well-being. A 16-person task force chaired by local business owners Rusty Rexius and David Funk gathered input from more than 750 people, with support from a 50-person technical advisory committee and UO Resource Innovations staff. Through nu- merous roundtables, online surveys and meetings with local nonprofits, the task force drafted eleven recommendations for the City Council, which Funk and Rexius will discuss with the councilors at a Sept. 25 work session. “These are informal opportunities for the city councilors to ask more questions,” said SBI staffer Sarah Mazze. “Then it will be up to the City Council to vote on the various recommendations whenever they choose.” The recommendations include: Making
