BY STEVE MCQUIDDY
A Beautiful Thing
Sighting the rare bird of democracy
O
ne night this July, I saw one of the rarest
birds in America today. It landed in the
early evening in south Eugene, not far
from the Amazon swimming pool. A crowd gath-
ered as it scratched the ground for food, found
enough to keep it going through the night, and
then moved on to search for sustenance in an-
other part of the county.
It was the bird of democracy, and it was beautiful.
I admit I wasn’t expecting such a display. Like oth-
ers, I came out of curiosity to the first stop of the five-
meeting Lane County Board of Commissioners 2007 Listening
Tour, billed as a community forum where “County Commissioners want your input,
thoughts and ideas to help shape the future of Lane County Government.”
Instead of platitudes from the politicians and single-issue bulldogging from au-
dience fanatics, I found participation. The commissioners gave a short overview,
and then the 70-plus roomful broke into six or seven tables, each hosted by a com-
missioner or county representative. Three broad questions framed the discussion:
What brought you here tonight? What’s your reaction to what you’ve heard so far?
What principles, values and strategies do you feel should attend county decisions?
At the first table I visited, one man said the primary role of government is to
‘We only get the message out when we’re
proposing a tax and telling you what you’re
going to lose.’ —Bill Fleenor
protect the people, period. One woman said she worried that real estate develop-
ers were taking over the county. Another woman wondered why voters seemed to
want services without paying for them. Another man said he feared the very fabric
of society was disintegrating.
The first man said people won’t do anything unless we cut all services except
for public safety. Parks, libraries, permits — cut them all, he said. Then people will
start paying attention.
We already don’t have public safety in rural areas, a woman said.
Another woman said libraries are funded by the city, not the county.
It went on like that: general statements tempered with minor corrections.
Assumptions countered with challenges. Personal experiences shared. Prejudices
revealed.
At another table I visited, hosted by Commissioner Bill Fleenor, a woman asked
about the news she heard that county managers were receiving healthy pay raises
in this time of financial crisis. It’s not the details here I want to highlight, but the
exchange:
What about the managers’ raises? the woman asked. The dozen or so people at
the table leaned forward or looked at Fleenor. The message was silent but clear:
Yeah, what about those raises?
Fleenor cited the source of the salary money and the limitations imposed by
work contracts.
But wait, another person said, and cited some specific figures that could be
construed as suggesting waste and mismanagement in county government.
Fleenor answered to each figure. One had been presented out of context, an-
other was incomplete. He clarified the context, provided deeper meaning.
The body language of the entire table relaxed like a fight had been called off.
We’d heard the challenge, the response, the counterpoint, and the clarification. We
had the information we needed. Now we understood.
I
t is true that not everyone has the time to attend meetings or study thick re-
ports. But we might have the time to check out succinct and clear summaries
presented in readable terms. That was one message the commissioners
heard: Use creative and innovative ways to communicate.
As Fleenor acknowledged, “We only get the message out when we’re proposing
a tax and telling you what you’re going to lose.” He’s right. They should tell us
more about what we’re getting.
It is the job of government officials to complete their work in an open, partici-
patory way. It is their job to make available to us the facts and information on the
issues so that we can understand what’s at stake when we make our voting deci-
sions. But it is not their job to make sure we are interested or entertained. That
part is up to us.
Government is not the problem; our lack of participation is. The fabled bird of
democracy is not extinct. But it will come only if we call.
Steve McQuiddy is a longtime Eugene resident and journalist who currently teaches academic learning skills at
LCC. The Lane County Commissioners Listening Tour continues Aug. 28 in Cottage Grove and Sept. 12 in
Springfield. Learn more at www.lanecounty.org
4 AUGUST 16, 2007
TO THE EDITOR
WHAT WE ASKED FOR?
What are the implications of Alan
Pittman’s (8/2) question, “Will Eugene fire-
fighters subsidize Springfield’s urban sprawl
in the Gateway Area?” Simple answer: As
long as Eugene is the “Gateway to Gateway,”
I believe Eugene is getting what it bargained
for.
As the former mayor of Springfield, I
fought the idea of PeaceHealth moving to our
Gateway area from the very beginning. To
move 6,000 individuals overall to the urban
fringe that is without the infrastructure to
handle them is dumb, to say the least. The
Eugene policy makers should have allowed
PeaceHealth to build on Chad Drive, which
was the hospital’s first choice. However, they
did not want sprawl in Eugene, but it seemed
OK to push sprawl to Springfield.
In addition, part of that bargain, as it turns
out, is to allow the McKenzie-Willamette
Hospital (or whatever their name will be) to
move to an even dumber place — a dead-end
road off the most congested off-ramp on
Beltline, with even less infrastructure — like
in “dumb and dumber.”
I did not ask or encourage any Eugene
company, including Symantec, to move to
Gateway. And I’m still furious that our small
Springfield nonprofit hospital, built by vol-
unteers, was forced to prostitute itself to sur-
vive and to abandon my neighborhood in
Springfield in order to backfill a bad policy
decision made by Eugene. So I answer, “Yes
indeed” to Pittman’s question.
Bill Morrisette
Springfield
COME JOIN US
As a longtime participant in the Oregon
Country Fair, I feel badly for Sian Nelson
(7/26) that he has not found a niche within the
Family festivities for himself. At present I
work with two teams within the Fair (the Jill
Heiman Vision Fund and the Neighborhood
Response Team) and am reaching my hand
out to you, Sian, inviting you to meet with me
to talk about possible ways you could partici-
pate in the 2008 Fair.
Please drop me a note at the Fair office
(442 Lawrence St. in Eugene) so that we can
talk and see where and how a Fair connection
might be made.
We do view ourselves as inclusive rather
than exclusive, and I would like to work with
you to embrace and actualize your desire to
become an active member of this magical ex-
perience.
Michael Connelly
Eugene
DUPLICATE THE MODEL
Thanks for the coverage (8/9) you gave
Skinner City Farm (SCF) and the other
small, grassroots, decentralized efforts that
keep organic materials from going into our
landfill. Kudos to the city’s household / gro-
cery store composting programs and the
work of our local schools.
Where SCF stands out and can serve as a
model is in its usage of human power to move
materials and its direct application of com-
post and worm castings into community gar-
dens. Envision the city of Eugene, perhaps
with the Neighborhood Matching Grants
Program, initiating a citywide, decentralized,
human-powered solution by duplicating the
SCF model in each community garden to
start and then expanding into neighborhoods
throughout the city. The low capital invest-
ment in bicycle cargo trailers like SCF uses
and the volunteer work force should look
good compared to the costs of running a cen-
tralized, citywide collection service.
I see SCF and the other efforts as exam-
ples of projects that could challenge the status
quo, which generally advocates for large
scale, expensive solutions. Rather than hav-
ing trucks take our organic materials out of
town (to then bring it back in to sell to us)
let’s keep our organic household and restau-
rant kitchen scraps in our neighborhoods.
Karl Benedek
Eugene