Eugene weekly., September 13, 2012, Page 6, Image 6

of contact for any public records requests from OE.” The
statement goes on to say that Occupy representatives
were at times unavailable and that there was further delay
until a fee waiver was completed. The statement continues,
“Due to the time lag in OE providing the supportive data
The Eugene City Council is readying for another public
for the fee waiver request, the data was stale and had to
forum on the Downtown Public Safety Zone, often called
be regenerated so that it was accurate. The documents
the downtown exclusion zone, in advance of an Oct. 8 vote
were emailed to OE on Sept. 7.”
on whether to renew it. Occupy Eugene police liaisons and
Regan of the CLDC says the difficulty of acquiring the
attorney Lauren Regan of the Civil Liberties Defense
records is a travesty to the public process because the
Center say the Eugene Police Department stonewalled their
public records act is supposed to be easily used by
public records request until the last minute. Now the EPD
citizens in a timely fashion, “and when they are completely
is suggesting that the city pay $15,000 for legal
tooled from using that process so that they have to rely on
representation for the accused rather than do away with the
a lawyer to get involved in order to coerce the records out
exclusion ordinance. The council could renew the law or
of the public agency, that too is just a total breach of
allow it to expire on its sunset date, Nov. 30.
public trust and is a total violation of the Oregon public
Jean Stacey says she and fellow Occupy Eugene police
records act.”
liaison Michael Carrigan went directly to EPD Chief Pete
Regan and Stacey are calling on the council to refuse
Kerns in April 2012 after police representatives responded
to vote on the DPSZ until they are able to analyze the
to attempts to get public records beginning in fall 2011
data. Without complete data, Stacey says, any discussions
with incomplete information. “The only way we knew it
that the councilors have are
was incomplete was because
“blind discussions.”
we had taken photographs
Regan says that 5 pm on
of tickets that had been
a Friday before a Monday,
issued that were not on the
Sept. 10, council work
report,” Stacey says.
session is not enough time
Kerns agreed to appoint
The cause of our current unpleasantness:
to perform an adequate
a police liaison to help
deregulation followed by tax cuts. Romney’s formula
for change: tax cuts followed by deregulation.
analysis of the data. “It’s
acquire the records “in a
hundreds of pages of stuff.
way that is timely, contextual
BY RAFAEL ALDAVE
It’s literally put in some
and responsive,” Stacey
search terms into a
says. But while Stacey says
computer program and hit enter,” Regan says. “There’s no
Occupy submitted an official records request in April, she
reason that that couldn’t have been done five months
says the request was lost at least twice and not turned in
ago.”
until June 8. Stacey says that three months after she
Stacey says the lack of presentation of the voided
submitted the request, an EPD records representative told
exclusion requests making up 35 percent of the data and
her that the request could not be addressed until she
the use of “storytelling” after councilors requested data
provided the EPD records representative with the
“make one very curious” about the delayed disclosure.
boundaries of the DPSZ and the date it began.
“It just seems like a set-up — it just sounds like an
A representative for EPD responded to a request for
absolute circumvention of any kind of public participation
comment with a written statement, which says, “We
in this process and it clearly smacks of the EPD having
routinely respond to public records requests with a well-
significant reason to be hiding the facts that are underlying
established process. Eugene Police Department received
the DPSZ data,” Regan says.
a request on April 14, 2012, that did not go through this
The council public hearing on the DPSZ is at 7:30 pm
process, but was instead made to the chief, who does not
Monday, Sept. 17, in the Public Library’s Bascom-Tyson
handle public records requests. Two weeks later, the chief
Room. — Shannon Finnell
assigned an EPD staff member to be the designated point
RECORDS REQUEST
A LONG TIME COMING
TREES AGAINST
CLIMATE CHANGE
Those trees lining the streets of Eugene are more than just
urban decoration. They could help the city deal with climate
change. Friends of Trees (FOT) is an organization that brings
people together to plant and care for trees and green spaces.
The group hopes to begin a community-wide conversation
about creating a resilient urban canopy to help mitigate and
adapt to the effects of climate change. This will be the topic
of discussion at an event, “Trees for Eugene and Springfield’s
21st Century Urban Forest,” hosted by FOT and the city of
Eugene’s Office of Sustainability. The event will be from 7 to
9 pm Friday, Sept. 14, at the Atrium Building’s Sloat Room,
99 W. 10th Ave.
“We don’t really know what the change is going to be,”
says Erik Burke, director of the FOT Eugene-Springfield
chapter. He says some studies predict the local climate to
eventually be more like that of Sacramento, but nothing is
definite. “Most of us don’t know that much yet. We don’t
know what the models are, we don’t know what we should
be doing, so we’re trying to get people together to think about
this,” Burke says.
The event will feature talks from guest speakers Jim
Gersbach and Kris Day of the Portland-based group
Tomorrow’s Urban Forest. Gersbach, a longtime FOT
volunteer, will speak about the importance of hardy, drought-
tolerant trees in cities’ response to climate change. Day, an
FOT staffer, will focus on the need for experimentation and
monitoring of climate-appropriate trees.
“If you’re interested in trees, vegetation, climate change
and the health of our city and our urban forest I think it will
be a really interesting discussion,” Burke says, “I’m hoping it
leads to moving us forward in taking better care of our urban
forest.”
See friendsoftrees.org for more information.
— Shelley Deadmond
RABBIT RESCUE SEEKS
TO STOP SCRAMBLE
This summer’s “animal scramble” at the Cottage Grove Rodeo appalled animal lovers,
who say the rabbits used in the event can be hurt or even killed. The Cottage Grove Riding
Club, which puts on the scramble, said at a Sept. 10 board meeting that the event prevents
the rabbits from being slaughtered for meat.
Heather Crippen and her daughter Alex, who founded and run Red Barn Rabbit Rescue
in Creswell, have been working to stop the animal scramble, which was held July 14.
Heather Crippen says they initially looked into working to make the event more rabbit-
friendly, but “it’s just not an appropriate situation for a rabbit to be in.” The Crippens’ video
of the event shows bunnies being dumped out of a trailer, a rabbit being flung through the
air and rows of screaming children bearing down on a cluster of bunnies
paralyzed with fear.
Red Barn Rabbit Rescue sent letters to the board members of
the Cottage Grove Riding Club, but did not get any response,
Heather Crippen says. She worries that angry and
threatening messages the riding club received from some
animal advocates not associated with Red Barn might
have made starting a dialogue more difficult. Crippen
and Scott Beckstead, Oregon director for the Humane
Society of the United States, met with Lane County
Commissioner Faye Stewart to discuss their concerns
about the animal scramble. Crippen says the stress of
being thrown from a horse trailer and chased and
grabbed by screaming children is enough to kill a
rabbit. New rabbit owners might not recognize the
symptoms in time, she says. The riding club, which
has not responded to a request for comment, said at its
board meeting that it gives the children a care sheet.
6 SEPTEMBER 13, 2012
EUGENE WEEKLY
LIGHTEN UP
Stewart is not in favor of a county ordinance against such events, but met with a
representative of the riding club to discuss Red Barn and the Humane Society’s concerns,
Crippen says. When the riding club did not respond to a request for a neutral meeting
through Stewart, Heather, Alex and Dillon Crippen (who took notes) came to the board
meeting. Stewart says, “I was emailed by one of the riding club members last night and
they said they heard from Red Barn Rabbit Rescue and that they were going to try to work
out an agreement.”
Red Barn and the Cottage Grove Humane Society offered to raise the money to hide
$100 bills in three eggs and then mix them in with other plastic eggs for kids to hunt in an
“egg scramble,” but Crippen says the riding club was not interested in the offer. The club
said at the meeting that it’s the Cottage Grove community that wants the scramble and that
rodeo profits triple when the event is scheduled. Crippen says she has asked the riding club
to give her the exact numbers of people who leave the rodeo if the event is not scheduled,
and she will raise the money to pay the club the amount it would cost
them to not have the event. Alex Crippen noted that if the riding
club were to switch to another event, like the egg scramble,
then all the kids whose parents won’t let them participate
because they are not allowed to have a pet rabbit could
be in the event, and, Heather Crippen says, some of
those kids go home with $100 instead of a 10-year
commitment to taking care of a rabbit.
Crippen says she has also spoken with
Commissioner Pete Sorenson and state Sen. Floyd
Prozanzki, who have expressed support for the
efforts to stop the animal cruelty. Crippen says
she intends to keep a dialogue open with the
riding club and hopes members of the Cottage
Grove community who like the rodeo but do not
condone the cruelty to the rabbits will speak up as
well.
— Camilla Mortensen
VOTE NOW! BESTOFEUGENE.COM