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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 8, 2011)
DOJ WEIGHS IN ON LNG TERMINAL UO PRIVATE SCHOOL TUITION Statesman-Journal columnist Dick Hughes criticized the debate about firing UO President Richard Lariviere last week as divorced from the reality of average Oregonians. “Amid the drama about whether the president’s departure would hinder the UO’s march to greatness,” Hughes wrote, there was “no mention of reducing tuition costs to make college more affordable to the masses.” He wrote “the disconnect between the academic world and mainstream Oregon” was “painfully obvious.” Tuition and fees at the UO have increased 114 percent since 2000, increasing from $3,819 to $8,190 per year for state residents, according to state data. For non-residents, costs have increased 87 percent, from $13,839 to $25,830. Tuition and fees for state residents at the UO increased more than four times faster than per capita income in Oregon over the past decade, which rose only 24 percent to $25,893, according to the U.S. Census. Supporters of Lariviere’s plan to separate the UO from state control argued that privatization would increase donations that would lower tuition. But that’s apparently not how the UO’s biggest donor, Nike billionaire Phil Knight, saw the plan. Knight told The Oregonian a year ago that the “step toward becoming more of a private university” would allow the UO president to “set his own tuition. He’s hamstrung (currently) in the sense he can’t charge more tuition than the Legislature will let him do for in-state kids.” UO executives have been pushing to privatize the UO for decades. In 1993, a Legislative report found that a plan to privatize the UO and quadruple tuition would price about 60 percent of students out of higher education, causing a dramatic drop in enrollment that would force big cuts in faculty and a big impact to the economy in Eugene. — Alan Pittman PIRATES HACK THE AIRWAVES Turn your radio dial all the way to the left and you might start picking up broadcasts from KHAC, Eugene’s new pirate radio station at 87.5 FM, “Hearts and Crimes Radio” with the tagline, “First on the Dial, First in Your Heart.” And no, pirate radio does not involve talking like a pirate; it refers to the pirating of the airways when people start to broadcast without a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) license. KHAC has started beta testing its transmitter and plans to be up and running by Dec. 12, occupying an unlicensed spot on local airwaves with music and talk programming. The radio roll-out is connected with the larger Occupy protest effort to shut down the West Coast ports that day, says Static, a member of the KHAC initiative. The port shutdown is a coordinated effort to shut down “Wall Street on the waterfront,” according to westcoastportshutdown. org and Portland is one the ports targeted. Dec. 12 is also the day the Eugene City Council will decide whether or not to extend Occupy Eugene’s camping permit. While KHAC is not affiliated with Occupy Eugene, OE was an inspiration to get it off the ground, says Daniel, a member of the core group getting the station up and running who preferred not to give his last name. He says KHAC will bring a “community voice to the airwaves,” and anticipates the programming will “dovetail with other projects” such as OE. CONTINUED P. 9 8 DECEMBER 8, 2011 EUGENE WEEKLY When opponents to a liquefied natural gas terminal and an associated pipeline in Coos Bay predicted that the proposed import terminal would flip and become an export terminal, the natural gas industry called it a conspiracy theory. Then in July of this year, the proposed Jordan Cove terminal in Coos Bay came clean and admitted it was looking into exporting rather than importing liquefied natural gas (LNG). In September the project and its backers applied for an export permit. The Jordan Cove LNG import terminal project and its 234-mile Pacific Connector pipeline have had conditional Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approval since December 2009. But on Dec. 2, the Oregon Department of Justice filed a motion to revoke the approval and reopen the record, arguing that the project is no longer in the public interest. LNG opponents include landowners who are fighting having a gas-filled pipeline running through their lands and farms. “Pacific Connector received permission to ‘take’ our land with eminent domain because they claimed it is a public need to import natural gas, to increase domestic gas supplies so American can be assured of abundant energy,” says happening people Francis Eatherington who co-owns farmland affected by the proposed pipeline. “But now they now claim they can use that same permit to export natural gas, that it is still in the public need. We disagree, and we don’t want to be used to enhance the energy company’s profits at the expense of the American public.” The terminal and the pipeline have also been fought based on their possible effects on forests, which would have clearcuts through them, and on the rivers the pipeline would cross, and based on the concern that exporting natural gas would drive up prices for American consumers. “Re-examining the administrative record before FERC makes sense,” says Susan Jane Brown, an attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center who has been working on the LNG issue. “Many aspects of the Pacific Connector and Jordan Cove project have changed since the initial environmental analysis several years ago, and still more aspects of the projects haven’t even been finalized yet,” she says. “FERC should take a fresh look at the project, and fully consider the ecological, economic and social impacts of Jordan Cove and Pacific Connector,” Brown says. — Camilla Mortensen BY PAUL NEEVEL SUSANE REIS “I started piano lessons when I was 5,” says Susane Reis, who grew up in Turlock, Calif., the daughter of Portuguese immigrants from the Azores. “My interest in creating my own sounds was not nurtured by piano teachers.” Still, she stayed with lessons through high school, began taking on students of her own at 18, and changed her major at California State University at Stanislaus from business to piano performance. “I had 35 students by the time I graduated,” says Reis, who entered the UO’s piano pedagogy program three months later, in the fall of 2009. “A lot of piano students aim to be professors. My goal is to teach children and beginners and make it enjoyable.” On July 26 this year, a month after graduation, she opened the Eugene Piano Academy at 507 Willamette St. “I found this place last April,” she says. “I bought electric keyboards on Craigslist and found a 1945 Steinway grand piano. I learned about business from a small business for dummies’ book.” Reis bases her group lessons on the Harmony Road Music Course developed by her mentor, Jan Keyser of Clackamas. “Kids are encouraged to write their own music, as well as become readers and performers,” she says. Registration for winter term classes ends Jan. 9. Learn more at eugenepianoacademy.com WWW.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM • BLOGS.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM
