NEWS
SAME OLD CHRISTMAS
STORY PLAYING OUT
After staying at a small, makeshift camp at Franklin
Park for more than eight months, one group of homeless
people’s luck ran out two days before Christmas. City
workers picked up the people’s belongings to take to stor-
age, and in the process two tents were destroyed.
Homeless advocate Alley Valkyrie spoke with the peo-
ple whose tents were destroyed and wrote in a public Face-
book post, “This is your tax dollars at work, kids. We can’t
afford to shelter them, but they’re somehow able to find
the time and money to confiscate and destroy the worldly
possessions of people who have almost nothing, two days
before the vast majority of the country celebrates the birth
of a man who commanded his followers to reject wealth
and give to the poor.” Valkyrie says the people told her
that 24-hour notice was given on Dec. 9 or 10, and when
no one came to ask them to leave by Dec. 23, they thought
they were safe.
“As far as I know, the tents were dismantled, but noth-
ing was intentionally destroyed,” says Richard Zucker, a
Parks and Open Space supervisor who was not directly
involved with confiscating the tents. “We followed the di-
rection of the ruling of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals
about what to do with possessions that are left unattended
on public property. In the case of campsites, we do post 24
hours in advance, and we inform the people that they’re
camping illegally and they need to pick up their posses-
sions and move.”
“Even with notice, confiscating people’s belongings
two days before Christmas is inhumane,” Valkyrie says.
“It’s near freezing out and a tent is the only shelter a home-
less person has. Everyone knows that there’s no legal place
to go. If they were so worried about court rulings, they
would stop criminalizing sleep when there is no shelter.”
— Shannon Finnell
We hear Gray’s Garden Centers in both Eugene and
Springfield closed over the holidays due to Chapter 7
bankruptcy. The locally owned business has been part
of the community since 1940. Gray’s has reportedly
been in Chapter 11 reorganization for the past year. The
store has a prime location on busy 6th Avenue in
Eugene and a second high-traffic location at 4441 Main
St. in Springfield. We hear it’s possible the stores and
their inventory will be sold and the business will
continue under new ownership. Owner James Kline did
not respond by press time to our query for more
information. Reed & Cross Floral has been operating as
part of Gray’s in Eugene, and we have not heard what will
happen with that business. Independent nurseries and
garden-related businesses are facing growing
competition from cut-rate big box stores.
Holiday shopping picked up locally this year,
according to anecdotal reports. We hear from Mike
Wooley, owner of Long’s Meat Market in the Southtowne
Shoppes at 28th and Oak, that his store had record sales
the Monday before Christmas with some 800 customers.
And several Holiday Market vendors we talked to said
they had their best markets yet, nearly selling out their
inventories. One vendor had sales of $10,000, which
will carry him over to the spring and summer art fairs.
Sponsors Inc. made the top three nonprofits in
Oregon Business magazine’s list of the “Best Nonprofits
to Work for in Oregon.” That’s the second year in a row
that Sponsors has won third place out of 100 Oregon
medium-size nonprofits. Sponsors, founded in 1973,
provides re-entry services and transitional housing to
people released from Oregon prisons and jails. Emerald
People’s Utility District was third in the large nonprofits
and Oregon Community Credit Union was fourth.
VAN ORNUM TASER CASE
CAN NOW GO TO APPEAL
In May 2008 Ian Van Ornum was Tasered by a Eugene police officer while prostrate on the ground.
On Dec. 27, 2013, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled that he could continue to pursue his appeal of his
conviction for resisting arrest. The appeals court can either not take action, which would leave Van
Ornum’s conviction standing, or decide to send the case back to trial court.
Laura Fine Moro, who was Van Ornum’s trial attorney, says the anti-pesticide rally that Van Ornum
had helped organize and where he was participating in street theater “was a peaceful rally held in ap-
preciation of the County Commission’s decision to limit the spraying of pesticides.” She adds that Van
Ornum was part of a UO student group that “wanted to educate citizens about the good work of the
commission and the dangers of pesticides.”
Van Ornum was dressed in a fake hazmat suit and spraying water out of a bottle on which someone
had drawn a skull and crossbones. Moro says that police were called to the scene by Homeland Se-
curity, who had been monitoring local activist Day Owen and mistakenly believed that Owen’s rural
anti-pesticide group the Pitchfork Rebellion was some sort of eco-terrorist group.
The state Supreme Court ruling centered on the judge having proposed instructions to the jury that
said a police officer should determine the appropriate use of force. Van Ornum’s attorney proposed that
that the jury should consider unreasonable force from the point of view of the person being arrested.
Van Ornum was convicted but as he began his appeals process there was another case of a person resist-
ing arrest after being pepper sprayed and punched by police. In that case, the Oregon Supreme Court
instructed judges to tell juries to consider the issue from the point of view of the person being arrested,
and that affects Van Ornum’s case.
Moro says that previously in the Oregon Court of Appeals, soon-to-be-retiring Judge David Schuman
“wrote a searing dissent to the majority opinion” that had denied the appeal in the Van Ornum case and
“the opinion of the Supreme Court clearly vindicates him.”
She says Van Ornum now lives in Southern Oregon with his partner and child and has become a
bluegrass recording artist with his band Patchy Sanders. — Camilla Mortensen
A free legal clinic for veterans, the first of its kind in
Oregon, will be held at 5 pm on the last Wednesday of
the month. The next will be Jan. 29 (not Jan. 22 as we
wrote last week in this column). The Eugene clinic is a
partnership of the VA Roseburg Healthcare System and
Access the Law (ATL), a nonprofit organization that
provides a variety of legal services on a sliding-scale
basis. “ATL attorneys and other volunteer attorneys
have years of criminal defense and civil litigation
experience to support justice-involved veterans,” says
Marc Friedman, executive director of ATL. Email access@
accessthelaw.org or call 242-0445 for an appointment
or leave a message after hours at 729-9349.
BRING’s free calendar, which features artwork by
local school children, is now available and 10,000
copies have been printed. The RecycleArt calendars are
a joint project of BRING Recycling and Lane County. This
is the 26th year the free calendar has been made
available to county residents. Find the calendars at
BRING at 4446 Franklin Blvd., Springfield and Eugene
libraries and at garbage transfer stations around the
county. See bringrecycling.org or call 746-3023.
Looking to start a pot dispensary? The Oregon
Health Authority will begin accepting applications for
legal medical marijuana dispensaries on March 1. A
conference on this topic is being planned Jan. 30-31 at
the Ashland Springs Hotel in Ashland. Lots of prominent
speakers and an exhibit hall are planned. Visit ommbc.
com or email alex@ashlandalthealth.com for more
information.
Dates have been set for the Evergreen Tattoo
Invitational, which promises up to 250 of the “best
artists in the world,” according to organizer Erin Smith.
The first and hopefully annual three-day event will be
Feb. 21-23 at the Willamalane Center on South 32nd
Street in Springfield. See evergreentattoo.com or call
743-3357.
eugeneweekly.com • January 2, 2014
7