ECO-ARSON
TRIAL IN
TACOMA
The only accused arsonist in the FBI’s
Operation Backfire arrests to go to trial is in
court in Tacoma, Wash.
Briana Waters is accused of being a look-
out in the arson that destroyed the University
of Washington Center for Urban Horticulture.
She is also accused of assisting in building
“firebombs” with timing devices. Testimony
in the case started Feb. 11, and the trial is ex-
pected to last a
month.
Waters, a violin
teacher and mother
of a 3-year-old
daughter, currently
lives in Berkeley,
Calif., and she
maintains her inno-
cence. If she is con-
victed, she faces up
Briana Waters
to 35 years in prison. Eugene’s Civil Liberties
Defense Center (www.cldc.org/waters.html)
is providing updates on the trial on its web-
page. — Camilla Mortensen
READY FOR
ROUNDUP
READY SUGAR?
The Sierra Club, food safety advocates
and organic farmers sued the USDA last
month over a decision to allow sugar beet
farmers to start planting Roundup Ready
sugar beet seeds.
While Oregon ranks sixth in nationwide
production of sugar beets, the Willamette
Valley produces almost all the seeds for sugar
beets grown in the U.S. These days the sugar
you put in your coffee has just as good a
chance of being from sugar beets as it does
from sugar cane, since a little more than half
of the sugar grown in the U.S. is from the
beets. In 2008 the sugar you eat has an excel-
lent chance of having grown from genetically
modified seeds.
In 2005, the USDA approved a Roundup
Ready sugar beet seed. Like Roundup Ready
corn, alfalfa and soy the seeds are resistant to
Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup. Opponents
to the decision argue that the environmental
impacts of the seed, including cross-pollina-
tion, were not adequately assessed.
Sugar beets can cross-pollinate with Swiss
chard and ordinary table beets. Roundup
Ready sugar beet pollen could conceivably
make its way into another farmer’s organic
beet crop. This has repercussions for Oregon’s
organic farmers who cannot use genetically
modified seeds. Other Roundup Ready crops
such as corn and wheat have alledgedly acci-
dentally cross-pollinated with the crops of
farmers using non-genetically modified seeds.
Critics point out that the long-term affects
of these genetically modified seeds are un-
known. Data from American Crystal shows
the company has already begun planting the
biotech seeds in trial sites and plans to plant
the genetically modified seeds to use in sugar
in 2008. — Camilla Mortensen
LOVING YOUR
LUNCH BOX
Local Eugene business owner Nancy
Owen Myers has partnered up with a fellow
lunch-packing moms to tackle the issue of
soggy sandwiches in a reusable, washable
and durable lunch box. Kids are going ba-
nanas for the roll out packs that keep their
food contained, calm and collected.
The lunchboxes come in a variety of col-
ors and hold four small plastic containers for
food, a drink bottle and a salad dressing con-
tainer. The packs unfold and can be used to sit
on when not holding food items.
Myers and her friends got fed up with put-
ting lunches together for their children in
bags that fell apart. “The lunches would get
squished, and the kids wouldn’t eat the food.
When they’d come home, there would be
food left over in the lunches I packed for
them,” said Myers.
This led Myers and friends to create
LunchSense, a company that launched this
year that sells lunch boxes designed by
Myers.
Word of mouth about the lunch boxes got
out when kids around Myers’s kids and their
friends began taking the lunch boxes to
school. “Kids are telling kids about them.
They go ape for it, and they like the look of
them,” said Myers.
Myers hopes to launch the lunch boxes in
the Pacific Northwest and on the web in the
next year. She also hopes to have them made
out of reusable and eco-friendly materials
abroad. “Most of the materials used are made
overseas. It is cheaper to have it done over
there,” said Myers.
She has plans for a set of lunch boxes to be
used for picnics and a series of bicycle-
friendly packs. She will exhibit the lunch
boxes at the Better Living Home Show in
Portland in March. Call 541-515-0089 to find
out more about the lunch boxes.
— Mark Arellano
• Let’s see if we have this right. A Eugene police sergeant appears to seek to
intimidate the independent police auditor questioning his performance
by using his official position to file a criminal complaint against her. The
police chief, who never wanted an auditor to begin with, immediately refers
the frivolous complaint to the district attorney. The DA, who works closely
with police and has a clear conflict of interest, immediately launches a full-
bore criminal investigation. City staff withhold information from the City
Council on the complaint for more than a week. Sounds like official miscon-
duct to us.
• Some news in city elections. Mayor Kitty Piercy has three challengers so
far in May: Ian Goldfarb, Jim Ray and Nick Urhausen. The City Council Ward
1 open seat currently held by the retiring Bonny Bettman has George Brown
and Shimeon Greenwood on the ballot, and we’ve heard rumors of a possi-
ble third candidate, Jason Blair, a project director at Oregon Research
Institute who campaigned for the downtown urban renewal measure that
Brown opposed. Blair, who also writes film reviews for EW, is still undecided.
“I’ve been considering it,” he tells us this week. “I think it’s a huge opportu-
nity to improve relations at the council level. My only hesitation is whether
I’d have the time to do the job properly.” Andrea Ortiz (Ward 7) now has a
challenger, John R. Crane, a local businessman and former CEO of
Kidsports. Betty Taylor (Ward 2) and Chris Pryor (Ward 8) are still running
unopposed. March 6 is the filing deadline for the May primary.
• What’s Jim Torrey up to? The former mayor wrote a letter to the editor
of the Oregon Daily Emerald last week talking about being politically “inde-
pendent” and nonpartisan and urging Democrats to vote for Barack Obama
in May. OK, you can lower those eyebrows now. The longtime Bush support-
er did NOT say he’d be voting for Obama in November, just supporting him
in the primary. Torrey’s maintaining a high profile. He’s on the 4J School
Board and was a guest at the conservative Rubicon Society recently, and his
name pops up in phone surveys asking people how they rate local politi-
cians. Is Torrey contemplating a last-minute filing for the mayor’s race? He
might be polling better than Pat Farr, and let’s not forget the attempt to
write in Torrey when Nancy Nathanson lost the mayoral primary to Kitty
Piercy in 2004. What would Torrey’s campaign slogan be? How about “A
Mayor for Sprawl of Eugene”?
• Dave Hauser, president of the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce, sent
a letter to the mayor and councilors this week complaining about the lack of
geographical balance on city boards, committees and commissions. This
sounds more like a political wedge issue than a real and substantive con-
cern. A lot of thought, consideration and recommendations go into the
appointment process by the mayor and council. The Chamber didn’t make a
peep when Mayor Torrey stacked city panels with pro-sprawl conservatives,
many of whom are still serving. Piercy and the council are actually bringing
more diversity of thought and attitude to city government.
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
HEALTH CARE
REFORM ON
THE AGENDA
The Democratic presidential race is stir-
ring a debate on who has the best health care
plan, but few details are being discussed in
the media. Meanwhile, the practical points of
comprehensive health care reform are being
examined in Oregon, and the public is invited
to join in.
There will be a series of public meetings
sponsored by the Eugene-Springfield chapter
of the Archimedes Movement and Health
Care for All-Oregon. The next meeting will
be at 7 pm Wednesday, Feb. 27, in the EWEB
Board Room, 500 E. 4th Ave. in Eugene.
On the agenda will be a presentation on
the Oregon Health Fund Board’s plans for the
Oregon Health Plan for low-income
Oregonians. Many low-income Oregonians,
including many children, are not covered by
the existing plan, due to lack of funding, fed-
eral restrictions on the use of federal dollars
and bureaucratic obstacles. Rhonda Busek,
vice-president of Lane Independent Practice
Association, which is responsible for the per-
WWW.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM • BLOGS.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM
BY PAUL NEEVEL
HAPPENING PEOPLE
AT THE HULT
Twelve years ago, in
February of 1996,
“Happening People” made
its debut as a column in
Eugene Weekly. This photo-
graph of artist Kari Johnson,
along with her sculpture The
Revolutionary Oracle,
appeared a few months later,
in June of 1996. The Oracle
was one of seven pieces
included in that summer’s Outside Art exhibit in downtown Eugene. As of
February 2008, 670 individuals and groups, each of them nominated by readers
of the Weekly, have been featured as Happening People. Beginning this Friday,
Feb. 22, and continuing through March 29, a selection of portraits from the HP
archives will be on display in the Jacobs Gallery at the Hult Center for the
Performing Arts. The exhibit, titled Telling Stories, also includes large-format
photographs of the disappearing traces of man in the wild areas of Oregon,
from tidewaters to high desert, by Corvallis photographer Rich Bergeman. An
opening reception is scheduled for 5:30 to 8:30 pm Friday, Feb. 22. All past,
present and future Happening People are cordially invited to attend.
EUGENE WEEKLY FEBRUARY 21, 2008 9