• Saving the Amazon Creek headwaters continues to swim upstream
against city staff and conservative opposition. Corporate PR person Liz
Cawood and Councilor and Republican political operative Mike Clark recently
sought to torpedo protecting the natural area by apparently publicizing in-
flated numbers from confidential city property appraisals. It’s amazing that
the majority of local elected officials support saving the natural area from de-
velopment, but staff and conservative activists have stymied preservation for
more than a year. So much for democracy.
• Angry armed men are on the prowl in Eugene demanding huge amounts of
money from citizens. Local residents are advised to hold tightly to their park,
planning and library budgets lest the Eugene police make off with even more
of their cash to dramatically increase cop numbers despite falling crime rates.
• That was Pat Farr at Rob Handy’s press conference last week in the Lane
County Courthouse (see News Briefs last week). State Sen. Vicki Walker intro-
duced and strongly endorsed Rob as the candidate to boot Bobby Green off
of the County Commission in 2008. Handy spoke of his experience as a small
businessman, neighborhood advocate, environmentalist and fiscal conserva-
tive, taking the opportunity to poke at several soft spots in the county
ledgers.
Republican Farr stood out in the crowd dominated by Democrats, including
Mayor Piercy. Farr now works for Republican political operative Rick
Lindholm, whom Green previously employed to gerrymander his district.
news
briefs
HUGE ROAD
TAX DESPITE
NO VOTE?
After voters slammed a $2 million a year
pothole repair tax in the last election, the city
council has turned around and plans to ask
voters for a $8 million a year pothole tax in
May.
The new tax, a 10-year, $81 million bond
paid by property tax increases averaging
$109 per home owner, would be the largest
tax increase in the city’s history.
The property tax increase has been
pushed by the Eugene Chamber of
Commerce and council conservatives.
Business interests pushed the property tax as
a substitute for an earlier proposal for a tax on
parking spaces that would have shifted more
of the tax burden from home owners to big
box stores that generate high road use.
Ironically, the conservative councilors
who are the strongest backers of the pothole
tax have some of the most anti-pothole tax
constituents in the city.
Voters in Councilor Jennifer Solomon’s
Ward 6 in Bethel voted 78 percent against the
gas tax for potholes on the November ballot.
In Councilor Mike Clark’s north Eugene
Ward 5, 64 percent opposed the tax increase
for roads. In Councilor George Poling’s
northeast Eugene Ward 4, 63 percent op-
posed the tax increase for roads. Solomon,
Clark and Poling won their seats in largely
unopposed elections.
Overall, 56 percent of voters opposed in-
creasing taxes to pay for road repair. But on
the council, support for the bigger tax in-
crease appeared unanimous.
To pass the big tax, “we as a city council
have to be behind it 100 percent,” said
Councilor Chris Pryor. Pryor argued that
more voters will support a property tax than a
gas tax. “A bond measure to rebuild streets is
more clear and more persuasive than a gas
tax.”
But Councilor Alan Zelenka said the fail-
ure of the gas tax is a good gauge of how the
larger property tax may fair. “The gas tax is
very analogous here.” — Alan Pittman
LAS POSADAS
IN EUGENE
From Christmas to Solstice to Hanukkah
to the Islamic Eid ul-Adha, December is the
month of festivals. If you want to branch out
beyond sitting on Santa’s lap and demanding
gifts this year, there are a couple of places in
Eugene where you can go and experience the
traditional Mexican Christmas celebration of
Las Posadas.
Las Posadas traditionally takes place over
nine nights and reenacts Mary and Joseph’s
search for an inn (Las Posadas in English is
“the inns”) in which Mary could give birth.
Each night a party is held and each night
the peregrinos (pilgrims), carrying candles
and figurines of Mary and Joseph, come to
the door and sing, requesting lodging. After
the peregrinos have been turned down at two
houses, they are allowed in at the final house
and evening ends with singing and the break-
ing of piñata.
The celebration takes place from Dec. 16-
24, and on the final night, Christmas Eve, an
image of the Christ child is carried in. The
nine-day celebration is said to have been in-
troduced by Catholic missionaries in 1587
not only to celebrate the birth of Christ but to
replace the Aztec celebration of the birth of
the war and sun god Huitzilopochtli that took
place in December.
To celebrate Las Posadas in Eugene, go
to the Gather Room at Oak Hill School at 6
• Looking ahead: With Tom Kemper
pulling the plug on his downtown
Eugene redevelopment plans, will
LCC end up with a new building
downtown? It could be cheaper to
convert a building to LCC class-
rooms and offices rather than
plumbing-intense residential use.
Might there be some other civic uses
for downtown buildings currently
under city options? UO student housing would be great downtown, and those
kinds of public projects don’t rely on commercial banking.
At the county, relocating the fairgrounds will likely be a big issue in 2008
along with routing LTD’s EmX bus through west Eugene. Every proposed
route has problems. Will LTD try to run the route on new pavement along
parts of Amazon Creek? More budget cuts coming at the county level?
Restoring federal funds for counties remains a crap shoot, and a bad roll
could mean 20 percent cuts at the county.
At the state, big battles over Measure 47 implementation are brewing de-
spite the legally specific language in the measure. And of course the 2008
general election ballot will be staggering. We’ll be picking a president, law-
makers, councilors and mayor and probably voting on 20 state measures.
Some reasonable-sounding but insidiously destructive antigovernment initia-
tives are certain to make it on the ballot with the hope that voters will not be
paying attention.
• A small but hardy group of adventurers showed up on the stormiest day of
the year Dec. 2 to attempt a hike into Devil’s Staircase. Our outdoors
writer James Johnston organized the expedition to the remote and nearly in-
accessible Wassen Creek waterfalls in the Coast Range. He’s been wanting to
familiarize people with an environmentally sensitive area targeted for logging
under the Western Oregon Plan Revisions (WOPR). The group carpooled two
hours to the trailhead and took off on foot, he says, but soon turned back
amid crashing trees and flying branches. Later that day a landslide closed the
highway they had traveled. Johnston says the hike will be rescheduled, prob-
ably in early spring. Visit northforkphotos.com/wassennotes.html for more
information and to get on Johnston’s email list.
• Cable TV is now running The Day After Tomorrow . Remember this 2004
flick? Millions of Americans die in an apocalyptic ice age triggered by global
warming. The movie on TV has commercial breaks, and guess what’s being
advertised between scenes of mass destruction? You guessed it: SUVs and
big vans with multiple DVD players. After all, we will need four-wheel drive
rigs to escape the coming catastrophe.
• We’re happy to report that the EW: A Blog! (blogs.eugeneweekly.com) is get-
ting some attention. What’s on EW A Blog! these days? Check out Tasering preg-
nant women, Albertsons’ weird new plastic bag policy, “dens of inequity” vs.
“dens of iniquity” and “Aliens, brothels and Chuck Norris.” The hits keep com-
ing.
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
DECEMBER 13, 2007 9