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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (July 14, 2011)
concluded legislative session, some of the campaign’s most prominent supporters were small business advocates and family farm organizations — the very business owners who need access to this kind of capital. Oregon Working Families Party is a minor political party that can be found at http://oregonwfp.org — Philip Shackleton STATE BANK COALITION LOOKS AHEAD Despite failing to pass both HB 3452 and SB 889, the coalition to create a state bank of Oregon is optimistic and looking towards the legislative short session beginning in February 2012 to build on the gains made in this session. Barbara Dudley, co-chair of the Working Families Party, wrote in a recent essay in The Nation that the state bank coalition is a “grassroots” campaign anchored by the Working Families Party campaign and includes activists and organizations that represent small businesses, family farms, rural and urban communities as well as labor unions. Steve Hughes of the Oregon Working Families Party said growing the campaign between now and the February session will focus on a new initiative called “Oregon Banks Local.” Hughes noted that right now 80 percent of bank deposits in Oregon are held by large, publicly traded banks with headquarters out of state. Much of this money is not staying in Oregon. Hughes says that the advantage of banking local with a lending organization that is not tied to Wall Street banks is that these institutions are answering to a different set of financial motivators. “Whereas a Wall Street bank has to maximize profit and operates with often very short time horizons, community banks have the ability to practice what we call ‘patient capital,’” he says. “In other words, they have the ability to evaluate loans based on a broader set of criteria and can afford to invest in main street businesses that may not turn a massive profit right away.” The Oregon Workers Party is not proposing a retail bank that would compete with local banks and credit unions. What they are proposing is defined in Dudley’s Nation article, “a banker’s bank that would partner with local financial intuitions to shore up their lending capabilities through participation loans.” This would decentralize banking power. She calls this an “exercise in the FDR tradition of saving capitalism from itself.” Hughes says the campaign is going back to where it began with its grassroots “Move Your Money” campaign, attempting to build a broad base of support and connect “Bank Local” with established “Buy Local” and “Eat Local” campaigns. Hughes says that during the just- LIGHTEN UP BY RA FA E L THIRD OF UO IS SPORTS Just how big is sports at the UO? A third of the value of all the buildings at the UO are sports related and a fifth of all the revenue and spending at the institution of higher education goes to sports, according to a 2010 UO report to the NCAA. The UO’s annual revenue and expenditure report to the athletic association reported that the book value of all the athletic facilities at the UO is $277 million, and athletics brought in $122 million in revenue. Most of the revenue, 60 percent, came in from contributions to the UO Athletic Department. About 60 percent of the contributions, about $45 million, were related to Phil Knight giving the new jock- in-the-box, athletes-only study center. This year Knight is building an even bigger building for football administrators, but the Nike CEO and the UO haven’t said how much it will cost. Most of the big sports money at the UO, of course, is football-related. Football directly brought in 84 percent of the revenue the UO identified by sport in the report. Basketball brought in 12 percent, leaving just 4 percent for all the other women’s and men’s sports. Football brought in $15 million in ticket sales and $7 million in NCAA distributions including bowl games. The football program also spends big money. The UO gave football coaches $4.5 million in direct pay and benefits. That includes $2 million in reportable direct compensation for the head coach and an average of $280,000 each for nine assistant football coaches. The football players work for free for the high-paid coaches but get academic scholarships, aid and health care worth about $38,000 per student, according to the UO report. Sports at the UO get a $1.1 million subsidy from the state budget and a $1.5 million subsidy from student fees, according to the report. Spending on women’s sports and men’s sports is not equal at the UO. The UO spent 74 percent of gender-allocated money on men’s sports and 16 percent on women, according to the UO report. About 57 percent of athletic student aid at the UO goes to men. The UO report to the NCAA was obtained by the UO Matters blog and posted online after a month of asking for it, according to the blog. — Alan Pittman This year’s Duck football team looks good enough to beat all its opponents — except, maybe, the NCAA. IT’S ABOUT TIME BY DAVID WAGNER T here’s been a slugfest in our back yard the past few weeks and I’m not talking about fisticuffs. The slugs have been getting the upper hand in my onion patch so my Walla Walla Sweets are not going to produce the way I’d hoped. I just have to accept the balance of nature is not always in my favor. The potatoes got in late this year, like so many vegetables, because of the long, cold spring. I always put a tarp over the potato bed during the winter so that the summer’s straw mulch will compost nicely and the bed will not be too soggy when potato planting time rolls around. During the growing season last year, I had stashed the folded tarp under some shrubbery in the corner of my yard. I had always intended to fold it tightly and store it in the shed but never got around to doing that. It stayed on the ground all summer and into the fall. When I picked it up to spread out after the potatoes had been dug, there were four or five garter snakes that slithered out. It had served as good a snake hideout as my wood pile. So this spring I made a point of setting my tarp back in the spot where it was last summer. I want to attract garter snakes because they are one of the few natural predators of slugs. That’s right, garter snakes eat slugs! Too bad they won’t swallow the snails. David Wagner is botanist who lives and works in Eugene. He teaches moss classes and leads nature walks. He may be reached at fernzenmosses@me.com RHINO GETS A MAKEOVER BRING Recycling in Glenwood is preparing for its 40th birthday bash with music, food, art, demonstrations and a refurbished rhinoceros. Jabali, the lifelike black rhino who lives in BRING’s bioswale, has been hauled off to Old Dominion Collision Repair Center in Eugene for “a facial, mud wrap and some discrete body work,” says Sonja Snyder, campaign director for the nonprofit. The fiberglass rhino originally served as a spokesmodel for Rhino Linings before retiring to greener pastures at BRING. Her name, which means “strong as a rock” in Swahili, was the winning entry in a naming contest among BRING newsletter subscribers. Jabali will be one of the main attractions at the free event from 10 am to 4 pm Sunday, July 24, in BRING’s Garden of Earthly Delights at the BRING Planet Improvement Center at 4446 Franklin Blvd. in Glenwood. The festivities include live music, kids’ activities, demonstrations, reuse crafts and plants for sale, art exhibit, community booths, food booths and free coffee by Café Mam. LTD will provide free bus passes to the event. Also on July 24, BRING Gallery inside the retail store will host an unusual fashion show and exhibit featuring “re-creations” by some of the area’s most innovative designers. The show includes elaborate costumes, funky fashion and practical everyday wear including many pieces made from nontraditional scrap materials. Participating artists are Linda Anthony, Mitra Chester, Debrah DeMirza, Laura Lee Laroux, Tylar Merrill, Lesley Neufeld, Diana Shampang-Voohries, Terrisa West and Becky Wright. An artists reception will be from noon to 2 pm. The exhibit runs through Sept. 9. For more information on the July 24 event, contact Nicole Holck at events@ bringrecycing.org A L DAV E WWW.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM • BLOGS.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM EUGENE WEEKLY JULY 14, 2011 7
