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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 1, 2007)
TO THE EDITOR pensions, and lame PowerPoint presentations for overpaid bureaucrats: the same folks who brought us the Sears pit and the eyesore park- ing lot at 8th & Charnelton. If they can’t turn the Sears and Aster pits into beautiful, afford- able housing and retail with the $29 million they already have, then they need to be fired. Incremental development will gradually bring us a downtown filled with a variety of spaces, places and people. Don’t let the proponents fool you with their “all or nothing” red her- ring. We can make a big impact with existing funds. Vote no on 20-134. Charlie Magee Eugene DOWNTOWN DAN? After lambasting the R-G one year ago for “sticking the finger through the line between advertising and news” and being “more and more willing to cross ethical lines for ad money,” (EW, 10/26/06), and, three months later, gleefully reporting that the R-G had re- ceived the journalistic equivalent of a Darwin award from the Columbia Journalism Review for the same bit of trashy advertising (EW, 1/18), how does the Weekly justify the adver- tisement/advice column Downtown Dan, a political action committee ad masquerading as a Savage Love knockoff (down to the acronym names for people supposedly asking “Dan” for advice)? Truthfully, I don’t care very much about the political issues surrounding this latest cash fight for downtown, and I sure as hell have never been a huge fan of the R-G. I’m simply nauseated by this attitude of “It’s OK if we do it” that seems so typical these days, and typical of the Weekly more and more. Fletcher Hale Eugene EDITOR’S NOTE: The ad in question was submitted to our advertising department, which operates independently of our newsroom. Part of our mission on the news side is to point out what we observe as ethical blunders in other local media, such as when advertising and editorial commingle. A parody on a sex column doesn’t raise a red flag for us; a big advertising finger sticking up into a news story does. M50 SAVES LIVES Should we raise prices on cigarettes? I think we should! Cigarettes are bad for our health and bad for people’s health around us, and we could be giving the money to chil- dren’s health care. Smoking is bad for our health. Smoking creates bad habits for thousands of people; it also kills people from lung cancer and many other diseases. Not only is it bad for the smok- ers, it is bad for the people around the smok- ers. There are so many Americans getting sick and dying from second-hand smoke. There are many Americans who have never smoked a day in their life, yet they’re dying from other people’s smoke. If we raise the prices of ciga- rettes maybe some people will stop smoking, and we wouldn’t have that problem, and the money could go to a good cause. If we raise the prices, we can give the money to the children’s health care. We could be saving lives of children if we pass Measure 50. Some people who smoke can’t pay for the raised prices, but children’s health care is more important than cheap cigarettes. If we want to improve the health in our country or even the state, we should raise the prices of cigarettes. Jacey Eberlein Kennedy Middle School UNBELIEVABLE CLAIMS Proponents of Measure 20-134 are upping the ante on their fallacies. Not only are they telling us that increasing the urban renewal $40 million won’t take money from schools and public services, but now they are expect- ing us to buy the claim that the West Broadway redevelopment project will stop urban sprawl and save our wetlands and wa- tersheds. Are the developers buying up the hillsides of Eugene for development and the big box stores they want to build on our West Eugene Wetlands just going to walk away if 20-134 passes? What about the Homebuilders Association? Will the passage of 20-134 make this group cease and desist from lobbying to bump out the UGB? I think not. The KWG concept only offers about 200 housing units and 95 hotel rooms. Oh, that ought to put a dent in urban sprawl. To actually impact sprawl, downtown needs thousands of new residents. NOVEMBER 1, 2007 5
