Eugene weekly., December 13, 2012, Page 8, Image 8

NEWS
COUNCIL ASKED TO ALLOW
LEGAL CAMPING
Winter is coming. But Eugene’s Opportunity Village, a
housing for the homeless pilot project now slated for a site
near North Garfield Street and Roosevelt in the Whiteaker,
won’t be up and running for at least four to six months.
That’s why Safe Legally Entitled Emergency Places to
Sleep (SLEEPS) representatives are urging the City
Council to repeal Eugene’s camping ban through the
winter and designate specific camping areas.
About 15 SLEEPS members have pitched their tents at
the Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza in front of Harris Hall
— where City Council is couch surfing until a permanent
City Hall solution is worked out — to keep the issue in the
public eye.
Eugene Municipal Code bans camping, and it defines
campsites as anywhere where some sort of bedding is used
or a stove or fire is placed. Critics of the law say that it
makes surviving on the streets a lot harder, especially
during the winter months.
SLEEPS members say that even if the Opportunity Vil-
lage site were to open immediately, it wouldn’t be able to
immediately help on the same scale that lifting the ban could.
“Opportunity Village, even when it opens, is 30 people,” says
Jean Stacey, a SLEEPS member. “We’ve got 1,500 mini-
mum, so now we’ve got to be talking about lifting the camp-
ing ban, getting those folks bathrooms, garbage containers,
allowing them to cook food over hot fires and protect their
boundaries, determine who comes into their camps.”
The SLEEPS request to City Council asks that, under the
emergency circumstances exception in the city code, the mayor
make an emergency declaration to temporarily lift the ban from
9 pm to 6 am downtown and dusk to dawn elsewhere.
The campers plan on continuing their camping protest.
“We’ve limited who can camp here to people who are
enrolled in SLEEPS, who’ve gone through all our training
programs, who’ve signed our community agreements —
no drugs, no alcohol, no violence — and who are really
understanding of our mission, supportive of it and know
how to forward it,” Stacey says.
In the meantime, councilors voted to move toward
including Conestoga huts, small wood-framed structures,
as permitted sleeping places in the city’s car camping
program. — Shannon Finnell
TOXIC AIR TESTING
Farmers and parents in the Highway 36/Triangle Lake
area west of Eugene have been fighting for years to put an
end to toxic aerial sprays of pesticides by private timber
companies that drift onto nearby homes and gardens. After
residents, including children, in the Triangle Lake area
tested positive for the chemicals atrazine and 2,4-D in their
urine, the Oregon Health Authority and other agencies
begin to investigate the drifting pesticide issue.
According to an update on the Hwy 36 Exposure
Investigation sent out by Karen Bishop of the Public Health
Division the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency)
Region 10 has been seeking funding to develop “passive air
samplers” that could be used in the investigation. Region
10’s grant proposal was accepted for an EPA “regional
methods” grant, and the update says work on the air
samplers will begin this summer. Passive air samplers do
not require a pump to pull air over a collection device and
are more easily deployed in more steep and remote parts of
the Coast Range than heavier equipment.
Longtime pesticide protester and Pitchfork Rebellion
founder Day Owen, who has been concerned about various
hold-ups the investigation has faced, says, “We are happy
that our work has led to the development of new equipment
that can then be used not only here but all over the country.”
According to the grant proposal, atrazine and 2,4-D are
usually cleared rapidly from the system, so the amounts
that were found in the residents’ urine suggest ongoing
exposure, and increases after recent aerial sprays were
probably due to inhaling the spray as it drifted off the
intended spray site.
While passive air samplers exist for atrazine and 2,4-D,
the grant seeks to develop air samplers for other herbicides
frequently used by timber companies in western Oregon.
— Camilla Mortensen
Lief O’Neill, a 9-year-old Monroe boy who is severely autistic but also highly communicative, came within hours of
dying in late November after being denied a heart transplant in Oregon due to his disability. But doctors at Stanford’s
Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital heard of his plight and agreed to do a surgical procedure that will hopefully keep him
alive until a suitable heart can be found. He was flown from Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Portland to Palo Alto and
had the surgery Dec. 4.
Finding a donor heart could take months, says family friend and former Eugene neighbor Carole Biondello.
“Through the dedication of his parents, Lief has learned to communicate via computer,” Biondello says. “It was the
key to unlock his world and for the first time, Lief was able to share just how much he knew. It was beyond profound, not
only a huge milestone for Lief, but for all parents of kids with autism who didn’t believe it was possible.” One reason
autistic children are reportedly denied organ transplants is because they are not always able to communicate and participate
in their recovery.
Lief’s parents are Jessica (Sunshine) Bodey and Cyrus Parsons. The family owns Great Mist Trees, a pesticide-free
Christmas tree farm in Monroe. While the family is at the bedside of Lief in California, volunteers have taken over tree
sales in the parking lot of The Healthy Pet at 28th and Friendly in Eugene. A Facebook page called “Life for Lief” has
been set up to keep family and friends up to date on his medical condition, and the next fundraiser for Lief will be a holiday
bazaar and “Sensory Safe Santa” event (for kids with autism and special needs) from 10 am to 4 pm Saturday, Dec. 15, at
the Boys and Girls Club, 1645 W. 22nd Ave. in Eugene.
The family is getting support from A-Team, a nonprofit with about 300 members dedicated to children who are autistic
and their families, says family friend Tiffany Mamalove, who is overseeing the tree sales from her wheelchair. Mamalove
is herself the mother of three children with autism. “The donations have been amazing,” she says, “coming from all over
the area.” Various fundraisers so far have generated about $13,000. — Ted Taylor
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December 13, 2012 • eugeneweekly.com
PHOTO COURTESY LIFE FOR LIEF
LIFE FOR LIEF SUPPORTS CRITICALLY ILL BOY