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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 10, 2011)
letters TO THE EDITOR OPEN HOUSE Kindergarten? First Grade? Public School? actions were taken. Or how about on the federal level of a recent president who started a war based on lies; why was he not impeached? Wanting to hire assistants to help with a heavy workload and talking about how to make it happen doesn’t seem worthy of an expensive and time consuming legal battle. It seems to me the people who should be ashamed are the ones who brought this whole issue up in the fi rst place. What an incredible distraction from the work they need to focus on in helping accommodate the needs of the citizens for now and the future. Follow the money to see why this was instigated in the fi rst place. It won’t take long to fi gure out their motives. Thank you Commissioners Handy and Sorenson for all your great work for Lane County, and I am sorry you have been put through this fi asco. Pamela Driscoll Dexter ONLY LAWYERS WIN Regarding Judge Gillespie’s opinion against Lane County Commissioners Rob Handy and Pete Sorenson on the Oregon Open Meetings Law: It’s standard procedure; lose at the trial level, and win on appeal. And the lawyers get rich. Which is the primary purpose of our legal system. It doesn’t accomplish anything else. Frank Skipton Springfi eld THE FINAL TALLY Well then, is this the fi nal tally in the Dumdi/Seneca-Jones Timber Company lawsuit against the county? 1) Cost of 5 half-time administrative assistants: $180,000; 2) cost of one jail bed: $300,000; 3) cost of lawsuit: $1,500,000 ($300,000 so far to the county); 4) public meetings laws actually violated: 0. So Dumdi/Seneca-Jones Timber have hypocritically stuck the county (i.e. the citizens of the county) with an unwarranted fat bill to gain less than half a jail bed. Oh, and by the way, possibly bankrupted two honorable men in the process. Nice job! Ramona McCall Eugene SOLID VERDICT Where did you get that Judge Gillespie’s verdict has anything to do with two commissioners meeting circumventing Oregon’s Public Open Meetings Law? I read three county commissioners and their three budget committee appointees, along with appointed representatives for certain county commissioners (i.e. Phyllis Barkhurst) meeting without public notifi cation and out of the public view, with the clear intent to deliberate and reach decisions regarding the spending of the public’s funds before they were supposed to in a public session. All with the admitted intent of circumventing Oregon’s Open Meetings Law (the technical “quorum” defense?). Did you actually read the verdict? I remember you asking once for me to provide you a transcript of a speech that you could have easily pulled off the internet yourself. Did you do the same with the Gillespie verdict? Rely on someone else’s interpretation? Oooh, an opinion based upon someone else’s bad opinion. Bad journalism! Gillespie’s verdict is pretty solid. I doubt the state Supreme Court will overturn it. I also can’t help but wonder if you would have been so defensive of their illegal action if the commissioners who were found guilty were named Stewart, Bozeivich and Leiken. Chris Matson Eugene Consider id our elementary l program at Far Horizons for ages 5-12 Come to an informational day for parents Tour classrooms • Meet teachers Learn about Montessori elementary curriculum EDITOR’S NOTE: We read it all, and we read that while they were not sued to begin with, Judge Gillespie named Commissioners Stewart and Dwyer as having participated in the “serial” email meetings as well. A BAD JOKE EW recently reported that The Nation magazine considers Mayor Piercy the country’s most valuable local public offi cial. In 2007, Piercy voted for the Regional Transportation Plan highway expansions. She supports the new Seneca Sawmill forest incinerator even though it will increase deforestation and air pollution. Claims that Eugene is concerned about human rights did not result in public explanations of why police sheltered criminals on the force. Perhaps EW could investigate the sales job that resulted in The Nation’s award, since it probably avoided these inconvenient truths. Carbon credits for highway widening is a bad joke. I fi rst subscribed to The Nation in 1983. I found it useful for understanding the Reagan regime. They run some authors I like, notably Jeremy Scahill and Michael Klare. But I dropped my subscription during Bill Clinton’s time since their partisanship ignored the crimes of the Democrats and worse, they attacked Oliver Stone’s excellent fi lm JFK. Sorry that I don’t trust “liberal” magazines who side with Allen Dulles and Gerald Ford in their promotion of the offi cial story of the military coup of Nov. 22, 1963, even if some of their other views are good. See www.oilempire.us/the- nation.html for details. I hope there will be at least one city in the U.S. that drops highway plans due to peak oil and climate chaos before gasoline rationing starts, but it probably won’t be Eugene. The writer Ed Abbey said “Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.” Mark Robinowitz Eugene EMX SUPPORT I am writing in support of building the EmX in west Eugene. In 2001 the Eugene- Springfi eld community adopted a regional transportation plan and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) was selected as a key element of the plan. This plan was updated in 2004 and 2007 and today BRT, or EmX as our local system is called, remains a key to our transportation future. The EmX will provide accessible transportation, reduce green house gases and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. It will also encourage commercial and industrial development along its corridors. In the U.S., during the early 20th century when streetcars were introduced (including WWW.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM • BLOGS.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM Thursday, February 17 • 3-4pm Far Horizons Montessori School 2490 Hilyard St, Eugene 541-485-0521 • fhms@efn.org Heart & Sole 30 % % 30 SUPPORT FOOD SHARES FOR FOOD FOR FOOD 4BUVSEBZ 'FCSVBSZUI % % 30 SUPPORT FOOD SHARES 'PPUXJTFXJMMDONATE 30 PGEBZTQSPmUTUP FOR FOOD Food For Lane County & Linn-Benton Food Share SUPPORT FOOD SHARES % 30 30 % FOR FOOD FOR FOOD HELP SANDALS SHOES CLOGS BOOTS SUPPORT &#SPBEXBZt%PXOUPXO&VHFOFt FOOD SHARES 48.BEJTPOt%PXOUPXO$PSWBMMJTt .PO4BU4VOtXXXGPPUXJTFDPN 7KH\·UH+HUH« & H U W L I L H G 2 U J D Q L F 6 H H G 3R W D W R H V +IXERIEVP]WXEVX« REXYVEPP] 3VKERMGZIKIXEFPIWXEVXW 7IIHW WIIHWXEVXMRK WYTTPMIW 2EXYVEPJIVXMPM^IVW 3VKERMGWSMPEQIRHQIRXW &SSOWXSSPW «ERHWSQYGLQSVI 9DULHWLHV WRFKRRVHIURP 2OLYH6W :LOODPHWWH6W 0RQ6DW6XQ EUGENE WEEKLY FEBRUARY 10, 2011 5
