LET TERS
NO MORE FLAT TAXES
LANE COUNTY CABAL
No! No! No! Eugene citizens do not
want another fl at tax that punishes the
middle class and the poor. We do not want
to continue down the road of fl at taxation!
$240 added to the utility bills annually
is not much for someone making over
$100,000, but for the many making less
than $20,000 or even $30,000 it is diffi cult.
The conservative Heritage Foundation
continues to advocate fl at taxation as well
as tax write-offs while schools and public
services are cut. The separation between
the rich and the poor grows larger. I hope
everyone contacts their city councilor and
asks them to reverse this punishing trend.
Ruth Duemler
Eugene
I am outraged to learn about Lane
County board members considering big
raises for their two highest-paid employees!
I don’t care if salaries are the same or not in
other counties. This county is in dire straits.
Working people are barely surviving,
EWEB is gouging us as we conserve more
energy, and it is time that employees and
elected offi cials in public agencies feel
some of the pain that the rest of us feel.
Stephen Dingle accepted his position at
the current salary. County Administrator
Liane Richardson just got an automatic 3
percent raise, and apparently from now on,
she will get another automatic one of up
to 6 percent annually. If Human Resources,
Richardson and Dingle don’t think their
salaries are competitive, they should please
fi nd work somewhere else. I know there
are competent people out there who would
love to make over $150,000 a year, and
might even really care about what happens
to the people of this county while doing it!
The board is cutting every program
(except their own salaries) and has plans to
ask taxpayers for more money. They refuse
to consider raising pathetically low taxes
on timber interests mining our forests, and
Richardson, with the three conservatives
and their business cronies, has been running
roughshod over Lane County citizens for
years! It’s like a secret cabal. I’m sick of it!
A GENTLE SOUL
I wish to say goodbye to Sweet Pea [see
news story and letter 1/24]. He was my
friend for a couple years now. Last summer
I commissioned him to compose a drawing
for a very dear friend; much of the specialty
in that was because she was a good friend
to him as well. The fi nished product was
met with delight in the three of us. I had it
matted and framed and she owns a beautiful
reminder of the gentle soul we loved.
Dan McQuillan
Eugene
MIC CHECK
No more executive raises in local
governments until we all see better days.
Nothing less will do!
Robin Bloomgarden
Eugene
FLAMING REGRESSIVITY
$10 a month out of a Social Security
Check of $670 is beyond outrageous. I
live in a really old, drafty, roof-leaking
apartment building. All I can afford.
Ten more bucks from the company that
threatens to terminate my electricity if I am
late with payment and as little as 25 cents
short. I kid you not.
I had to take custody of my 13-year-
old granddaughter. They cut my food
stamps in half. I have a masters in public
administration. I did not use it to get rich.
I used it to fi ght City Hall as a volunteer
or work for low-paying nonprofi ts. Before
my degree at age 50, I worked 30 years in
factories, low-skilled offi ce work and print
shops.
Part of the reason my Social Security
check is so small is because some of the
companies I worked for never paid into my
Social Security. For many reasons I can’t
go back and make them pay in now.
Even if you made the tax a fl at percentage
by use, those in my living circumstances
would pay much more than those who can
afford more expensive, modern, energy
UO HAD LITTLE CHOICE
What other choice did Oregon football
have? No proven head coach would come
here to face the NCAA sanctions likely to
come for illegal recruiting for which his
predecessor was accused. It should be no
surprise that Oregon’s only valid option for
a new coach would come from its current
staff.
Mark Helfrich knows the long-term
challenges because he has been on the staff
since the departed guy fi rst was head coach.
That covers the years of illegal recruiting.
Can anyone doubt Helfrich also was in on
the cover-up? Was there really a national
search for a new coach as prescribed? If so,
in the short time they had, it must’ve been
conducted on the internet.
Sanctions or not, Helfrich will not be
in mourning. He was to be paid under
$400,000 as an assistant next season.
With big cash from irresponsible donors,
UO football is likely to pay him near the
millions it obscenely paid his predecessor.
BY CATHERINE SISKRON
Sleep Deprivation
EUGENE VIOLATES BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS
T
he tents are back. Set up
by SLEEPS (Safe Legally
Entitled
Emergency
Places to Sleep), the
tents are reminders of
two basic biological needs: the need for
shelter and for sleep. These needs go
with being human, and they are denied
to the unhoused in our city.
Eugene prides itself on being a
caring, inclusive community. And
yet we have a caste of untouchables.
As a community, we criminalize
homelessness and violate the most
basic human rights. We have laws that
make it illegal to do in public things
that people experiencing homelessness have no private
place to perform. These are simple human needs, such as
sleeping, sitting or standing for extended periods of time
in any given place (“loitering”), and “trespassing” by
leaning on a building or sitting on the edge of a planter.
In her Dec. 10 commemorative statement, Navi Pillay,
the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, focused
on Articles 19, 20 and 21 of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights (UDHR) — the rights to freedom of opinion
and expression, to peaceful assembly and association and
to take part in government.
Pillay noted that millions of people around the world
are demanding civil, political, economic, social and
cultural rights. “They are asking,” she said, “for an end to
a situation where governments simply decide what is best
for their populations without even consulting them. They
4
effi cient, re-insulated living quarters.
That’s called “fl aming” regressivity.
How about a few-dollar increase to all
those new tenants who are lining up to fi ll
all that new offi ce space downtown?
Pat Hadley
Downtown Eugene
January 31, 2013 • eugeneweekly.com
are asking for their right to participate
fully in the important decisions and
policies affecting their daily lives …
[They] have been making it clear they
are fed up with their leaders treating
them with disdain and ignoring their
needs, ambitions, fears and desires.”
It is this disdain for the needs and
rights of the majority that SLEEPS and
Occupy Eugene are challenging. Some
of the human rights violated in our
community are even more basic than
having a voice in public affairs.
Article 25 of the UDHR states:
“Everyone has the right to a standard
of living adequate for the health
and well being of himself and of his family, including
food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary
social services, and the right to security in the event of
unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age
or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his
control.”
Contrast this international ideal with the reality
refl ected in these local statistics:
• 7,218 homeless people sought social services through
Lane County programs between July 2011 and April 2012.
• 2,882 shelter beds were set up at the Egan Warming
Center during 15 nights of extreme weather at 10 faith-
based sites.
• 2,285 homeless students attended public school in
Lane County during the 2010-11 school year.
And the numbers of unsheltered are increasing. The
unhoused include families with children, veterans with
PTSD, the mentally ill, addicts, runaway youth and
impoverished elderly. What happens to them on the 350
nights when the Egan warming shelters are not open?
Conrad Barney, a homeless activist, has been on a hunger
strike since Dec. 11. He says one of the biggest problems of
being homeless is sleep deprivation. In fact, sleep deprivation
is not only a violation of basic human rights (Article 25 of the
UDHR), but a common form of torture used on prisoners of
conscience and frequently used to break suspects in criminal
cases. Sleep deprivation causes anxiety, paranoia and
disorientation. It undermines a person’s ability to function.
It is a form of cruel and unusual punishment to which the
homeless are subjected on a regular basis.
In rousting the homeless, the police are enforcing city
anti-camping laws. It is up to the citizens of Eugene and
the City Council to wake up to the fact that these laws
violate not only Article 25 of UDHR, but also the Eighth
Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids cruel or
unusual punishment.
Please write to your councilor in support of SLEEPS’
modest proposal that the camping laws be lifted. SLEEPS
advocates for commonsense policies that would allow the
unhoused to sleep safely in designated dry areas and to be
provided toilets and garbage receptacles.
Changing these laws will benefi t all Eugeneans.
Currently the laws push the unhoused out into the wetlands
and wilderness areas where there are no toilet or garbage
facilities. Fecal matter, another “unavoidable consequence
of being human,” is spread by rainfall and contaminates
groundwater, creating a public safety hazard for both the
housed and unhoused.
The city of Eugene is currently forming a Commission
on Homelessness. The tents are back to remind us that the
task before the commission is complex. Changing the (anti)-
camping laws and exclusion zone laws is only the beginning.
Catherine Siskron is a longtime peace and social justice activist.