Eugene weekly., November 03, 2011, Page 8, Image 8

OCCUPY HELPS
LOCAL HOMELESS
While media attention has centered on where
Occupy Eugene will move to next, the occupiers
themselves, in addition to discussing where to place
their camp, have put effort towards working with those
for whom where to sleep at night is daily concern,
Eugene’s homeless population.
“In Eugene our discussions have revolved around
supporting and even transforming the homeless
community,” says Jamil Jonna, a UO grad student and
an Occupy Eugene organizer. “There’s a greater
hankering for social change in that community,” he
adds.
While the Occupy Wall Street movement has
focused on issues of economic inequality, corporate
greed, corporate personhood and Wall Street bailouts,
Jonna says Occupy Eugene has concerns specific to
the local community, and one of those is working on
homeless issues. Contrary to reports on other Occupy
efforts, Jonna says the homeless are “not a drag on the
movement but actually part of it when given the
opportunity.”
Occupy Eugene started off camping in the Park
Blocks Oct. 15 but moved to Alton Baker Park a week
later in order to not interfere with the Saturday Market.
Jonna says Alton Baker had exposure, safety and other
issues and the group moved temporarily to the UO.
Over a period of several weeks Jonna says Occupy
Eugene decided to move to Washington-Jefferson
Park, which has the advantage, he says, of protection
from rain and weather thanks to the highway overpass.
He says that location was selected early on and was
The Occupy Eugene protesters are waving signs
saying they are the 99 percent, but who are the top 1
percent here?
In Lane County, the top 1 percent get almost double
the income of all of the bottom 40 percent combined,
according to state income tax return data on adjusted
gross income. That’s about 4,000 people getting almost
twice as much money as about 83,000 people.
The income for the top 1 percent in the county
averages $561,000 per year while the income for the
bottom 60 percent averages a poverty level $15,000 a
year, according to the 2009 tax return data.
The income disparity in Lane County is somewhat
better than in Portland’s Multnomah County. Here the top
1 percent gets 12 percent of all the income; in Portland
the percentage is 14 percent. But in Benton County, home
of Corvallis, the top 1 percent gets only 11 percent of all
the income.
The income gap in Lane County has also improved a
little over the last decade with the big drop in the stock
market. In 1999 the top 1 percent had 15 percent of all
the income.
Besides social unrest, the Oregon Center for Public
Policy (OCPP), links income disparity to economic
despair. The public interest think tank notes that the last
time that income inequality reached such high levels was
just prior to the Great Depression.
OCPP quotes Marriner Eccles, a businessman who
became Federal Reserve chairman during the Depression:
“(B)y taking purchasing power out of the hands of mass
consumers, the (wealthy) denied to themselves the kind
of effective demand for their products that would justify
a reinvestment of their capital accumulations in new
plants. In consequence, as in a poker game where the
chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the
other fellows could only stay in the game by borrowing.
When the credit ran out, the game stopped.”
— Alan Pittman
LANE COUNTY
REDISTRICTING
DONE FOR NOW
The long battle over Lane County’s voter districts has
ended … for now, but some involved in the contentious
process say the final results could wind up in court.
“What you’re seeing is wholesale gerrymander,” says
Scott Bartlett, a member of the Lane County Redistricting
Task force.
On Oct. 26, Commissioners Sid Leiken, Jay Bozievich
and Faye Stewart voted to choose scenario eight, the
boundaries suggested by Bozievich after the Oct. 5
public hearing. Commissioners Pete Sorenson and Rob
Handy opposed scenario eight, which Sorenson has also
called a gerrymander, meaning the district’s boundaries
were altered to benefit a group or person.
While the commissioners have been split down
conservative/liberal lines, more conservative areas have
themselves been split on scenario eight. This redistricting
puts Glenwood and the Harlow area into Springfield, and
Whiteaker and west downtown Eugene into South
Eugene, and Churchill residents into rural East Lane.
Bartlett says that by packing East Lane, Faye Stewart’s
district, with urban residents, it “significantly urbanizes
the East Lane district by displacing Cottage Grove as the
8 NOVEMBER 3, 2011
EUGENE WEEKLY
PHOTO BY ROB SYDOR WWW.DIGITALLATTE.COM
WHO OCCUPIES THE
LOCAL TOP 1 PERCENT?
one of the top choices suggested to OE by the city of
Eugene. He calls the city’s willingness to work with
the movement unique and says “The city is working
with us and we’d like to leverage that, especially about
issues such as the Downtown Exclusion Zone.”
On Halloween, OE had a zombie walk to the
Eugene branches of several national banks to take a
stand against corporate greed.
Efforts in other cities to dislodge occupations have
created controversy. In Oakland, Calif., police attacked
the Occupy Oakland camp Oct. 25 with rubber bullets,
tear gas and other “less lethal” weapons. Scott Olsen,
a 24-year-old former Marine who survived two tours
of duty in Iraq uninjured, was struck in the head by a
police projectile and his skull was fractured.
Eugene’s Occupy movement has been marked by
dialogue with city officials and a lack of confrontation
with police thus far.
Jonna encourages people to participate in the
dialogue, and he says the next big march will be Nov.
5. According to the OE website, “Remember,
Remember the 5th of November is National Bank
Transfer Day … If you’re looking for ways to make a
difference, here is one way: If you have a bank account
at a corporate-owned bank, move it to a local credit
union on Nov. 4th or 5th.” For more info go to
occupyeugene.org
On Nov. 9, We the People Eugene will do a teach in
called “Occupy Eugene in Context” at Harris Hall with
UO History professor Daniel Pope, author of American
Radicals; Lauren Regan of the Civil Liberties Defense
Center; Stan Taylor of the LCC Peace Center; Carol
Stabile, director of the UO Center for the Study of
Women in Society; UO political science professor Joe
Lowndes; and Occupiers. — Camilla Mortensen
Occupy zombies
want to eat your banks!
IT’S ABOUT TIME
BY DAVID WAGNER
W
atching leaf drop through the fall, we notice that not all trees
CALIFORNIA FIGWORT,
SCROPHULARIA
drop their leaves at the same time. Of course, different species
CALIFORNICA
shed leaves at different times, maples before the alders, but here I
refer especially to the black cottonwoods along the Willamette River. Their leaf
drop is spread out over several weeks. Some trees will have dropped their leaves
completely while other trees are still laden with green leaves. Their variance seems
greater than any other tree species.
A good project for a family with kids keen on nature would be to pick a line of
cottonwoods and take pictures once a week through the season, noting dates when each
tree turns color and when it becomes bare. Then, next spring follow the same trees to see if the
early leaf droppers are the earliest ones to leaf out.
Aspen, in the same genus as cottonwood, grows in clones. A hillside of aspen will have some clusters
with yellow leaves, some with green leaves. Watch out for this on a trip to Klamath Falls next year.
Beware of the white mushrooms proliferating in lawns this time of year. We have had a recent invasion of these
“lose your lunch bunch” fungi, probably a result of global warming.
Our herbaceous perennials have long since had all above-ground parts shrivel and wither away, leaving only forlorn,
dry stalks with seed capsules. Their seeds will begin to sprout and grow now that the ground has been moistened by
autumn rain.
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
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