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
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