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O.K.C.A. 36th Annual
2011 OREGON
KNIFE SHOW & SALE
Now the Biggest Knife Show in the World!
APRIL 9-10, 2011
Lane County Events Center & Fairgrounds
796 West 13th Avenue, EUGENE
SATURDAY
April 9
8 a.m. - 5 p.m.
425
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SUNDAY
April 10
9 a.m. - 3 p.m.
Hand-Crafted and Factory Knives for Sale
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Antique Knives and Swords
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Bowie, Military, and Scout Knives; Tomahawks;
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Knifemaking Demonstrations
Historical Exhibits • Free Parking
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4924058A03
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4 APRIL 7, 2011
EUGENE WEEKLY
I deeply appreciate the coverage of
local environmental and planning issues
provided by the Eugene Weekly, which
is regularly both more probing and more
accurate than what our community gets
from any other local media.
In that spirit, I’d like to add to and
clarify one aspect of the 3/10 Weekly
article “Envision Sprawl.”
When I referred to an Envision
Eugene group that is “really lopsided”
to
development-oriented
interests,
and “...oppressively dominated by the
homebuilders and the Chamber,” I wasn’t
thinking of the overall Envision Eugene
Community Resource Group (CRG).
The 60-plus-person CRG group has
seemed to me to be broadly inclusive and
fairly well balanced, and during most of its
many day-long meetings, the CRG worked
largely in a genuinely collaborative,
consensus-oriented process.
For instance, I think much of the strength
of protections around neighborhood concerns
in the current draft Envision Eugene proposal
comes from the diverse neighborhood voices
around the big circle of the CRG.
However, in the last accelerated month
of CRG meetings, the process seemed to
shift the role of the CRG gradually from
profound community consensus building,
to something more like a jumbo focus
group providing feedback on the draft
proposal emerging from City staff.
In the course of that rush month, four
committees were started to continue CRG
work between meetings at a fi ner level of
detail. To these committees were distributed
some of the most controversial and
technically pivotal details of the Envision
Eugene planning process.
And it was with regard to these
committees, three of which are still
meeting, that I complained of substantial
imbalance. At least two of these committees
appear to have an absolute majority who
are paid representatives of development-
related interests — numbers that can
readily swamp the broad public interest.
Equally troubling, in these continuing
committees spun out from the CRG
without a fi rm grasp on maintaining
consensus process, the collaborative
seeking for win-win approaches, to meet
real long term community needs, seems to
have broken down. (The 400 to 500 acre
industrial expansion number came out
through just such a breakdown.)
The committees are still fi xable.
With a restoration of balance in their
membership, and a renewal of real
consensus facilitation, it is very possible
that the good work of the Envision Eugene
CRG could continue at a fi ner level.
To my eye, the overall value of the
Envision Eugene effort hangs in the balance.
Will the outcome be high-minded words
providing a thin progressive veneer on
development business-as-usual? That would
be a disaster for the next generation of
Eugenians.
Or will the outcome be a fi rm change
of direction for development in Eugene,
letting 6,000 more single family detached
homes by 2031 be enough — in addition
to the 47,000 already here — while
setting our strong focus on high-quality
mixed-use redevelopment in the existing
commercial areas in the inner half of the
UGB and fi rmly protecting our established
residential neighborhoods?
That could be a win-win-win for
walkability, for our spirit of community,
for affordable housing and transit, for the
nature around us and for the development
community. We need to help build a more
compact, more effi cient, more beautiful
Eugene.
Come to the public hearing on April
25, 2011, and let the Eugene City Council
hear what you think about planning for
Eugene to grow inward, in the underused
core commercial areas, or planning to
grow outward, onto farmland, forests and
rare natural areas.
Kevin Matthews
Friends of Eugene
OUTDATED VIEWS
Before I moved to Eugene, I had
assumed her to be a place full of social
and political progression, which included
progressive views of marriage and sexual
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