• The timing is irritating as hell. Lane County commissioners are finally taking
action to move the Fairgounds to a new location in West Eugene, way too late for
PeaceHealth’s medical center relocation and too late for McKenzie-Willamette’s
new hospital. Or is it? As we’ve editorialized before in this column, the Fairgounds
would be an excellent site for a new hospital — and McKenzie-Willamette’s chosen
site nearly four miles north of downtown is absurdly inconvenient for patients, visi-
tors and employees. Plus, the siting dispute is likely to end up in court even if it
makes it through the upcoming City Council vote.
A hospital on West 13th would provide easy access from downtown, south and
west Eugene, western Lane County, and freeways via the Washington-Jefferson
bridge. Doctors who see patients at PeaceHealth’s Hilyard campus would find a
Fairgrounds hospital site conveniently just 13 blocks away, about a mile. The dis-
tance for doctors to travel between RiverBend and the proposed RiverRidge Golf
Course site is about five miles, with at least two sometimes clogged intersections
to negotiate.
Neighbors in the Fairgounds area might object to a medical center in their
midst, but something busier and noisier than a hospital could be built if the land is
sold to the highest bidder and rezoned commercial or mixed-use.
• Regarding the terrorist label debate, we heard a different perspective from an
anonymous reader who felt betrayed by one of the convicted eco-saboteurs she
had befriended. She says she herself was dragged into the investigation and now
fears retaliation if she speaks out publicly. “These people are far more dangerous
because they hide their intentions and actions behind a phony, lying facade of
being gentle and loving. Exposing innocent lives to risk of death by fire or starving
is neither gentle nor loving,” she wrote, referring to the arsons and freeing of
caged animals. “I feel I was personally terrorized, as was the community I live in.
Yes, they ARE terrorists.”
news
• It’s always amusing to read about Eugene and our part of the country in the
national press. Charles McGrath of The New York Times wrote a piece in the May
Golf Digest describing a winter outing at the Bandon Dunes golf resort on the
south coast. Instead of flying through Portland, as suggested by conventional wis-
dom, as he put it, “We landed in Eugene, where standard headgear is the logging
cap, and drove west for a bit through Ken Kesey country, a rainforest of towering,
moss-draped pines, and then south for a couple of hours along the Umpqua River,
where all the fishing docks were empty. I cracked the window while passing
through North Bend, where giant mounds of sawdust heaped the wharf, waiting to
be loaded onto freighters; the whiff of cedar was so strong it was like driving
through a pencil sharpener.” Hey, you in the “logging cap,” do you recognize that
place?
briefs
PIT TO PIT
DRAWS BIG
TURNOUT
• A dozen E W staffers got out of town to attend the annual convention for the
Association of Alterntive Newsweeklies this past weekend in downtown Portland,
hosted by Willamette Week. The confab is usually held in far-distant cities. We got
to hang out with Arianna Huffington, David Iglesias, Jim Hightower, Ron Wyden,
John Callahan and Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, schmooze with hip alt paper
folks from around the country, ride the new aerial tram, eat salmon until we grew
gills, prowl the roaring clubs and cheer on the huge and outrageous Portland Pride
parade with its lively Eugene-Springfield contingency.
One big highlight was winning our first national journalism award. Former EW
reporter Kera Abraham garnered a third-place feature writing award for her series
“Flames of Dissent.” Pardon our bragging, but this gives EW a total of 19 journal-
ism awards to date for 2006 content, and we still have one more statewide contest
to go.
An estimated 150 to 200 people gathered
downtown June 15 for Citizens for Public
Accountability’s (CPA) “Pit to Pit Walk,”
and many of them expressed strong opin-
ions about development on West Broadway.
For the walk, CPA invited the public to join
local officials, architects and others to view
the area encompassing West Broadway and
the two excavated pits known locally as
“Lake Sears” and “Aster’s Hole.”
City staffers Susan Muir and Nan
Laurence spoke to the crowd, along with ar-
chitects Art Paz and Jerry Diethelm. Other
voices included City Councilor Betty
Taylor, George Brown of the Kiva, Realtors
Sue and Hugh Prichard, Greg Bryant of the
• When the governor of New York keynoted a fundraiser for the governor of
Washington last week in Seattle, Eliot Spitzer praised citizen activists, singling out
environmental activists “who have led the way.” He said we stand on the shoulders
of grassroots activists who have led the various rights movements in this country.
Those were provocative comments from a former New York attorney general in
this region where activism of any kind, especially environmental, often is suspect.
DIVA Director Mary Unruh addresses the crowd downtown.
10 JUNE 21, 2007
PAUL HARRISON
• What’s up with City Hall planning? We hear the master planning for Eugene’s
new City Hall is going ahead. We’re not convinced Eugene needs a new City Hall in
light of other needs, but city staff and the council are charging ahead. Providing
office space for the new police auditor and Office of Sustainability means city
offices are scattered over 10 locations downtown. Councilors met this week to talk
about financing options for buying the county’s “butterfly” parking garage and the
Rock N Rodeo site. To comment on the proposed new City Hall and separate new
police station, email comments@eugenecityhall.com or phone 682-5222.
SLANT includes short opinion pieces, observations and rumor-chasing notes compiled by the EW staff. Heard any
good rumors lately? Contact Ted Taylor at 484-0519, editor@eugeneweekly.com
Tango Center, Mary Unruh of DIVA, Noa
O’Hare of the Farmers’ Market, builder Rob
Bolman, River Road activist Jan Spencer,
David Monk of CPA and numerous citizens
and students.
Among other ideas, they discussed the
need for small parks and open spaces in the
redevelopment; the removal of parking me-
ters; maintaining the alleyway view and
pedestrian traffic between Broadway Plaza
and the library; maintaining downtown’s art
and artists; and concerns about a Whole
Foods-type market affecting local grocery
stores.
The group also discussed ideas about re-
habilitating older buildings, including one-
story structures, rather than bulldozing
them. Other suggestions included bringing
back the vendor carts and subsidizing the
higher rents existing businesses face in
moving into new buildings.
“Many participants expressed opposi-
tion to the current large redevelopment plan
being considered by City Council,” said
Lynn Reichman of CPA, “and voiced con-
cerns for the viability of downtown busi-
nesses that would be dislocated or otherwise
harmed by such a large construction proj-
ect.”
“The public space across from the li-
brary is the most important urban space the
city can design at this point,” said architect
Paz. “It’s ‘the’ space. It is [like] what trans-