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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 16, 2014)
SLANT • City of Eugene public hearings on budget options are coming up Jan. 21 and 29 (see Activist Alert). Once again this year, popular city services are on the chopping block, and we don’t really know why. The alleged $3 million budget gap is based on assumptions made by the city manager and his staff, and we don’t even know what all of those assumptions are. Just this week the city released its Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) for 2013 and it looks like city net assets increased by $7.3 million over 2012. If we do indeed still have a $3 million budget gap, why does it need to be filled by cutting popular city services? Why are we not looking at administrative compensation and staffing and ongoing tax breaks for developers? Why are millions being set aside to build a new City Hall when Harris Hall works for now and we’re spending up to $2 million a year renting downtown city offices? Shouldn’t capital projects be bonded and not come out of the General Fund? Is the Budget Committee at least questioning why Eugene has 300 more FTE employees than Salem? Why have we not had an independent performance audit of every city department and its budget, particularly the hugely expensive Eugene Police Department in its fortress north of the river? Public hearings and citizen input are mandated in the budget process, but they are only useful if they are not obfuscated by unanswered questions and unexplained assumptions. • Tom Bowerman and Adam Davis outlined their latest research to the crowded City Club of Eugene meeting Jan. 10, but one big question remains: Will these numbers documenting progressive Oregon values help bring change in Oregon or will they sit on a shelf collecting dust? When asked, Bowerman said they were research guys, not policy guys, but he clearly hopes to stir hearts and minds to force change from the bottom up. Their 2013 Oregon Values and Beliefs Survey queried 9,000 Oregonians and found that 81 percent feel that K-12 education is a top concern, 57 percent consider environmental protection more important than economic growth, and other good progressive numbers. lighten up BY RAFAEL ALDAVE If the reason the Lane County commissioners are not releasing the Richardson report is to avoid lawsuits, what are they calling the court proceedings filed over the report first by the local paper and now by former commissioner Bill Fleenor? • County commissions all over Oregon are the playground of Tea Party Republicans and Libertarians, in part because rural areas tend to be more conservative than urban areas. But county governments are also strategic targets for Americans for Prosperity and other national right-wing organizations. Counties have big budgets and county decisions have a big impact on agriculture, industry and extractive industries such as mining and logging. We see that happening here in Lane County with environmentally progressive city policies being diluted by backward county policies. Eugene at least tries to protect sensitive open spaces while Lane County unabashedly allows them to be logged or mined with minimal restraints. One exception is the recent skirmish in which Cottage Grove residents and Lane County Commission candidate Kevin Matthews got the county to step back on a proposal to log the county’s Blue Mountain Park under a 1986 forest management plan. Down in Republican-dominated Douglas County we’re seeing an unusual revolt against a conservative power base. A small but stalwart group of green-minded folks are protesting county plans to clear-cut 20 acres in the beloved Mildred Kanipe Memorial Park near Oakland. The historic farmland and forest was willed to the county in 1983 by Mildred Kanipe with the stipulation that “No timber shall be cut or harvested except as may be necessary.” But now the county has broken the original trust and is looking at road building, logging and herbicide spraying in the park. A decision is expected as we go to press this week. Find out more on our blog or at mildredkanipepark.org. SLANT INCLUDES SHORT OPINION PIECES, OBSERVATIONS AND RUMOR-CHASING NOTES COMPILED BY THE EW STAFF. HEARD ANY GOOD RUMORS LATELY? CONTACT TED TAYLOR AT 484-0519, EDITOR@ EUGENEWEEKLY.COM 10 January 16, 2014 • eugeneweekly.com NEWS >>> CONTINUED FROM P. 9 gress, labor and environmental interests can’t see it, more than 600 corporations have access to it. DeFazio points to NAFTA (the North Ameri- can Free Trade Agreement), which he also voted against, as an example of what could go wrong with the TPP when foreign corporations will be able to undo U.S. environmental laws by claim- ing they hurt future profits. He uses the example of dolphin-safe tuna. DeFazio says the U.S. es- sentially pays fines to Mexico to not use dolphin- killing nets while fishing for tuna because Mexico asserts that U.S. dolphin-safe labeling provisions deny Mexican tuna effective access to the U.S. market. DeFazio says the TPP will allow foreign corporations to challenge U.S. law in an interna- tional secret tribunal. DeFazio says he wants to “stir this up and educate people” because once people know more about the dangers of the TPP and fast-track au- thority and act on a grassroots level, they will de- mand that Congress not give in to pressure to sign off on the trade deal. Congress will only have 60 days to vote on the TPP if fast-track goes through, and because Obama has a trip to Asia scheduled in March, DeFazio thinks time is growing short. Fast-track authority could also affect the U.S. and European Union’s Transatlantic Trade and In- vestment Partnership (T-TIP). Negotiations over T-TIP launched last summer, according to a White House fact sheet. The Corvallis forum will be 5 pm Tuesday, Jan. 21, at the Boys and Girls Club, 1112 NW Circle Blvd., and the Eugene forum will be 6 pm Wednesday, Jan. 22, at the UO’s EMU Fir Room. — Camilla Mortensen GOSHEN ‘GREAT’ PLAN PROBLEMS Lane County is plowing ahead with its plans to develop the rural industrial area of Goshen, which lies just south of Eugene. The county calls its plan to develop Goshen “GREAT” — the Goshen Region Employment and Transition plan — but land-use and environmental advocates have seri- ous doubts about its greatness, and LandWatch Lane County has a case about Goshen before the Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA). Lane County issued a press release on Jan. 13, touting a $20,000 Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development (DCLD) grant to conduct a “sewer feasibility study” in Goshen. Mia Nelson of land-use advocacy group 1000 Friends of Oregon says the county is going at things backwards. She says a feasibility study is a good thing “and something that should have hap- pened before the county went running to the state LANE COUNTY AREA SPRAY SCHEDULE • USFS plans to spray riparian weeds in Sweet Home and along Middle Fork Willamette and McKenzie rivers for false brome and yellow archangel with Aquamaster by backpack and Japanese knotweed by injection with Imazapyr. USFS would like comments regarding alternatives by Jan. 31. The environmental assessment is expected to be completed for public review in April 2014. Contact USFS office in Springfield for more information. • Roseburg Resources Co., 935-2507, plans to spray its roadsides throughout Lane County with aminopyralid, clopyralid, glyphosate, imazapyr, metsulfuron methyl, sulfometuron methyl, triclopyr to have Goshen designated a ‘regionally signifi- cant industrial area.’” She asks, “What if sewer isn’t feasible?” Goshen, like nearby Lane Community Col- lege, is not on the Metropolitan Wastewater Man- agement sewage system, and being able to deal with wastewater and sewage affects the growth of a community or industry. Nelson adds that even more importantly, “the county should have done a wetlands evaluation on the front end — even before doing this sewer evaluation.” She says it’s possible that most of the vacant land in Goshen is wetlands. “It might be,” she says, “because about 80 percent of it is mapped as hydric soils.” Hydric soils are very wet soils commonly associated with wetlands, and de- velopment that affects wetlands is regulated un- der state and federal laws. Nelson says, “Inherent in the question of whether sewer is ‘feasible’ is a determination of how many usable acres the sys- tem will serve.” LandWatch Lane County argued its Goshen case before LUBA last week. Lauri Segel-Vacch- er, who has been working on the issue with Eu- gene attorney Sean Malone, says LandWatch is “disappointed that DLCD is using planning-grant money this way.” Segal-Vaccher says it’s hard to support funding for “the county to develop ur- ban levels of industrial and commercial services outside the urban growth boundary.” LandWatch works to prevent sprawl and to protect natural ar- eas and farmlands. Segel-Vaccher says LandWatch pointed out at LUBA that Lane County needs to address the wetlands issues, which are related to the septic/ sewage issues, now. She says that Lane County, on the other hand, argued that it was “too early for a feasibility study” because it thinks “on-site septic would work for a while,” and when the county sees septic no longer works, then it could do a feasibility study. Lane County spokesperson Anne Marie Levis says at this point the county does not have any comment on the LUBA review. LandWatch argued that the county needs to study the feasibility in conjunction with the pro- posal because the Goal 14 exception the county wants “assumes levels of development beyond on-site septic and/or water service capacity,” and Segel-Vaccher says the need for that isn’t ade- quately justified in the county’s proposal. Goal 14 is an Oregon statewide planning goal that keeps urbanization inside city boundaries. In a recent newsletter, LandWatch wrote that the group “has reason to believe the county hopes to ultimately run sewer service to Goshen through the LCC basin, where developers, including the McDougal brothers, own land and would benefit from urbanization.” — Camilla Mortensen amine, triclopyr ester and additives non-ionic surfactant and oil surfactant. See ODF notice 2013- 781-00359-C. • Roseburg Resources also plans to aerially apply urea fertilizer on 260 acres near Sturtevant Creek. See ODF notice 2013-781-00007-C. • Roseburg Resources also plans to aerial and ground spray atrazine, clopyralid, hexazinone, metsulfuron methyl, sulfometuron methyl, glyphosate, imazapyr, non-ionic surfactant, triclopyr amine and/or triclopyr ester on 57 acres near Sturtevant and Wolf Creeks. See ODF notice 2013-781-00009-C. Compiled by Jan Wroncy and Gary Hale, Forestland Dwellers: 342-8332, www.forestlanddwellers.org
