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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 21, 2010)
Endorsements At a Glance eadline for dropping ballots in one of the white boxes around town is 8 pm Tuesday, Nov. 2. Postmarks don’t count, so it’s best to mail ballots in by Thursday, Oct. 28. Below are our selected endorsements at a glance. See our full endorsements last week, and for races and issues not listed, please refer to your Voters’ Pamphlet. Most candidates have easily found websites. D CONFERENCE FOCUSES ON BEING GREEN Planning is well under way for an all- day community conference on making Eugene more ecologically sustainable. The event will be from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm Saturday, Oct. 30, at the First Methodist Church, 1375 Olive St. in Eugene. The event is called “Eugene — Local and Green — Getting Started, Moving Forward, Working Together,” and is sponsored by Eugene’s Neighborhood Leaders Council Committee on Sustainability, in collaboration CANDIDATE RACES with numerous community groups and organizations. Cost is sliding scale, $5 to $20, and light refreshments and finger food will be provided. Jan Spencer, one of the organizers and presenters, says the conference will focus on “practical actions people can take for living more local and more green.” He says presenters and panels will “touch on food, reinventing the urban landscape, community collaborations and success stories, neighborhood mapping, challenges and exciting strategies and possibilities for the coming years.” Speakers and panelists so far include Hanna Scholtz, Denise Christine, Sue COUGAR KILLS FOR NAUGHT? The ODFW’s cougar plan faces some steep criticism in a review of its first three years. The state plan set up areas for the targeted killing of cougars in order to study the results on human safety and predation. No human death has been recorded as a result of a cougar attack in Oregon. Dr. Robert Weilgus of Washington State University wrote in his review that no evidence was used to support statements claiming that the Oregon kills reduced depredation. “When the plan came into being, in 2005, the purported purpose of the plan was to increase public safety, in order to achieve that the plan is designed to do one thing only and that is increase cougar mortality,” says Sally Mackler of Predator Defense. Contrary to the design of the study, research suggests that too many cougar kills increase the proportion of juvenile cougars, which are usually killed by rival adult males in the wild. Juvenile cougars are more likely to resort to using livestock as food, and may even attack humans. “By pursing this kill-only strategy, we’re in conflict with the purpose of the plan,” Mackler says. Activists in the big cat arena believe that future plans should rely on different methods of cougar management for financial reasons, as well. “The information that we have from the review shows that it costs about $3,000 per cougar killed. About 100 were killed in first three years of the plan, and it cost $310,500 to accomplish that,” Mackler says. “That money could have been spent better to improve public safety and improve protections for livestock through the use of guard dogs and other nonlethal protections.” Three years of the cougar plan were compiled in an ODFW manuscript and sent on to 13 employees of agencies similar to the ODFW and one academic for peer review. Six responded, and the results were presented to the House Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Communities Committee in September. These responses will be factors in the decision on renewal of the cougar plan in the spring. — Shannon Finnell U.S. SENATOR. Ron Wyden (D) U.S. HOUSE, DISTRICT 4. Peter DeFazio (D) U.S. HOUSE, DISTRICT 5. Kurt Schrader (D) GOVERNOR. John Kitzhaber (D) STATE TREASURER. Ted Wheeler (D) SENATE DISTRICT 4. Floyd Prozanski (D) SENATE DISTRICT 6. Lee Beyer (D) SENATE DISTRICT 7. Chris Edwards (D) HOUSE DISTRICT 7. Sara Byers (D) HOUSE DISTRICT 8. Paul Holvey (D) HOUSE DISTRICT 10. Jean Cowan (D) HOUSE DISTRICT 11. Phil Barnhart (D) HOUSE DISTRICT 12. Terry Beyer (D) HOUSE DISTRICT 13. Nancy Nathanson (D) HOUSE DISTRICT 14. Val Hoyle (D) STATE MEASURES MEASURE 70. Veterans’ loans. Yes MEASURE 71. Annual Legislature meetings. Yes MEASURE 72. Lower interest loans. Yes MEASURE 73. School money for prisons. No MEASURE 74. Marijuana dispensaries. Yes MEASURE 75. Corporate casino. No MEASURE 76. Park funding. Yes COUNTY CANDIDATES & ISSUES WEST LANE COMMISSIONER. Jerry Rust SPRINGFIELD COMMISSIONER. Pat Riggs-Henson SPRINGFIELD MEASURE 20-173. Yes LANE COUNTY MEASURE 20-174. Yes LANE COUNTY MEASURE 20-175. Yes LANE COUNTY MEASURE 20-176. Yes WWW.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM • BLOGS.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM EUGENE WEEKLY OCTOBER 21, 2010 11
