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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 13, 2014)
NEWS ACTIVIST LERT • The Trans-Pacific Partnership is the topic of a free Sierra Club forum at 7 pm Thursday, Feb. 13, at the Unitarian Universalist Church at 13th and Chambers. Speakers include Jesse Swanhuyser, chair of the national Sierra Club’s Committee on International Trade, Human Rights and the Environment, and Linda Peterson of the Oregon Fair Trade Coalition and AFSCME Local 3214. Contact Bill Rogers at 654-0405. • A free meeting on “Marijuana Re-Legalization” will be from 5:30 to 7 pm Thursday, Feb. 13, at the Eugene Public Library. Facilitator will be Dan Koozer, director of Willamette Valley chapter of National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) and co-founder of the Cannabis Liberation Front and the Emerald Empire HempFest. Sponsored by the Lane County ACLU. Email lanechapter@aclu-or.org for more information. • A “bee swarm” protest is planned for 11 am Saturday, Feb. 15, on the sidewalk outside of Home Depot on Seneca Road, as part of the national “Show Bees Some Love” campaign, bringing attention to pesticides that damage bee colonies. A carpool to the protest will meet at 10 am at Beyond Toxics, 1192 Lawrence St. • A workshop on rain gardens will be from 9 to 11:30 am Saturday, Feb. 15, at Petersen Barn Community Center. $10. RSVP to 465-6443, ext. 102. • “Imagine Peace” is the theme of a multi-choir concert at 2:30 pm Sunday, Feb. 16, at New Hope Church, 1790 Charnelton St. Performing will be In Accord Community Choir, Eugene Peace Choir, Rogue Valley Peace Choir and Portland Peace Choir. $3 to $5 suggested donation. • Permaculture advocate Jan Spencer will speak at 6:30 pm Wednesday, Feb. 19, at the East Blair Housing Co-Op, 940 W. 4th Ave. as an introduction to a tour of the site from 1 to 3 pm Saturday, March 1, which will also meet at the co-op’s community room. Call 345-3827 or see suburbanpermaculture.org. • Friends of David Oaks (FODO) is planning a “living estate sale” Feb. 21-23 and the group is looking for good items to add to the collection of antiques and collectibles coming in. The sale will be held in the storefront next to Jasper’s Deli at Delta Oaks Shopping Center on Green Acres Road. Find the FODO sale on Facebook at wkly.ws/1os or call 343-8242. • The Eugene Budget Committee’s Revenue Team subcommittee meets from 5:30 to 7:30 pm Thursday, Feb. 20, in the Atrium Building Sloat Room at 10th and Olive. • Gil Penalosa, executive director of 8-80 Cities, will speak at a gathering from 7:30 to 10:30 am Thursday, Feb. 20, at the Eugene Hilton. Penalosa will join a panel to talk about creating cities for people of all ages though sustainable and healthy urban design. Panelists include Mayor Kitty Piercy, Christine Lundberg and Doris Towery. Dan Egan will facilitate. LANE COUNTY AREA SPRAY SCHEDULE Doug & Linda Carnine, 485-3781, plan to hire Larry Kimer, 206-7187, to ground spray 200 acres near Spencer Creek with Element 4, triclopyr. See ODF notice 2014-781-00159, call State Forester Brian Peterson at 935-2283 with questions. White Water Ranch, 968-7596, may be planning to backpack spray 60 acres near Ritchie Creek, a fish- bearing stream, with Westar, Roundup and/or Crossbow with water, the notification is not clear on the details and a written plan was not submitted but may be required. See ODF notice 2014-771-00126, call State Forester Tim Meehan at 726-3588 with questions. Compiled by Jan Wroncy & Gary Hale, Forestland Dwellers, 342- 8332, forestlanddwellers.org. 8 February 13, 2014 • eugeneweekly.com >>> CONTINUED FROM P. 7 tracted by a scandal of his own making, our economy con- tinues to founder, our rural areas continue to suffer neglect and the electorate becomes angrier and — rightly — more disaffected.” She continues, “We deserve better than this.” — Camilla Mortensen WHOVILLE WEATHERS THE SNOW AND ICE Less than three weeks are remaining of the 30-day re- prieve given by the Eugene City Council on Jan. 30, and the campers at Whoville persevered through a storm that shut down schools, public buildings and stores. The 30 to 35 residents periodically cleared snow from the tops of their tents and the walkways between them. “I’m loving it,” Whoville camper Megan Ludwig says. “It’s not easy, but I come out every hour and my tent’s not doing too bad. So I’m loving it.” Campers say teamwork and donations got them through the snow and ice storm. “Basically, you take care of your own tent or somebody might do it for you,” Whoville camper Aurora Richardson says. “We all take care of each other here.” Campers fought the freezing temperatures by gather- ing around the outdoor fire pit, with candles in their tents or inside the warming structure near the center of the site. The approximately 7-by-12-foot kerosene-heated structure is made up of wooden boards, blankets and tarps. Inside, campers passed around the communal guitar to pass the time. “Most of us have gotten used to the community setting, and we need each other to take care of each other,” Richard- son says. “I don’t know where I’d be if I was still downtown on the streets.” She says campers are not going to move at the end of the 30 days if the city has not given them a new site. “Until they give us a place where we can all go — all 35 of us — then we’re here,” Richardson says. “But we’re really confident, working with them, that they’re going to provide for us a place.” City Councilor Alan Zelenka says Whoville is a micro- cosm of a bigger problem — the 1,700 people in Eugene without housing. “The snow’s going to go away and so will the cold. But that’s not the long-term solution to any of this,” Zelenka says. “The long-term solution to this homeless stuff is pre- venting it, but that doesn’t help with the immediacy of deal- ing with the cold.” City Councilor Mike Clark says the council is having trouble agreeing on a long-term solution to get people off the streets. “But I think it’s real wrong that by default we’re saying ‘Yeah, I guess it’s OK [to sleep outside].’ Because I don’t think it is,” Clark says. “I wouldn’t let my kid sleep outside in this and I wouldn’t want to. So why is it OK for some- body else?” — Missy Corr WOW HALL, CITY AT IMPASS OVER HISTORIC STREET LIGHTS A dispute has been brewing for years over a proposal to install four historic street lamps in front of the Woodmen of the World Hall, aka the nonprofit Community Center for the Performing Arts on West 8th Avenue. The WOW Hall is willing to cover the costs of installation, retrofitting, main- tenance and electricity, but Eugene Public Works is balk- ing, saying the old lights conflict with the city’s efforts to upgrade street lighting citywide. Eugene has about 10,000 streetlights. The light fixtures date to the early mid-20th century and were removed and stored several years ago as part of im- provements in the West University Neighborhood. WOW Hall, built in 1932 and one of the few historic buildings still standing downtown, wants to buy the lights and retrofit them with energy-efficient bulbs. The intent is to add to the building’s historic ambiance and also to enhance the neigh- borhood and improve security, according to Jon Pincus, fa- cilities and development consultant to the nonprofit. “This is part of a historic landscape context for a Na- tional Register property,” Pincus says, and adds that current lighting is inadequate, particularly on the west side of the building along Lincoln Street where trees cast shadows at night and illicit activities sometimes go on. The WOW Hall has partnered with the Downtown Neighborhood Association, the Eugene Historic Review Board and others on this project, and Pincus says he has the support of city planning staff and local businesses. But city Traffic Engineer Tom Larsen has declined to sign off on a Neighborhood Matching Grant proposal that would make the project possible. “The response from the grant people was you need to have Public Works buy off on this for the application to go ahead,” Larsen says. “I would categorize his [Pincus’] re- sponse as getting support from everybody else on the block rather than sitting down to have a conversation with Public Works.” Pincus says he is frustrated that Eugene Public Works won’t return his calls or meet with him. An email asking for a meeting this month was sent Feb. 6 to both Larsen and Kurt Corey of Public Works. A tentative meeting has been set for Feb. 21. “I will inherit this forever if it goes in,” Larsen says, cit- ing multiple concerns: Public Works has been trying to get old, inefficient, high-maintenance lights out of the system. The old globe lights have “hidden maintenance costs” and provide diffused light instead of directed light. One of the locations proposed for the old lights is next to a new street- light. Merchants have agreed in the past to maintain special lights but went out of business, leaving the burden on the city. Public Works has denied special streetlights to other businesses, such as a pink light requested by Voodoo Do- nuts. “We don’t do special fixtures for special people,” Larsen says. “I like to treat everyone the same in that respect. But Voodoo Donuts heard ‘no’ the first time and kept the stan- dard street lights.” Pincus says Larsen’s concerns about efficiency and maintenance have no merit, and the project is similar to many historic restorations that have been conducted by the city of Eugene and around the country. “This project will help the community understand the historic nature of the WOW Hall and will have a great benefit for the neighbor- hood surrounding the hall.” — Ted Taylor CITY HALL AND A WRECKING BALL Concepts of a new Eugene City Hall don’t look much like the old building, city councilors saw at a Feb. 10 work session. Architecture firm Rowell Brokaw presented config- urations of a small building, with a council chamber similar to the existing one, facing 8th Avenue near its intersection with Pearl. The first phase of the plan includes a new council cham- ber, mayor, City Council and city manager’s offices and pos- sibly community meeting rooms covering between a quarter and half the block. The partially underground parking would likely be eliminated and temporarily replaced with street- level parking until phase two of the project comes before council — at an as-yet undetermined date. Mayor Kitty Piercy says that temporary street-level park- ing was recommended as a way to keep the remainder of the block shovel-ready for phase two of City Hall while possibly taking in a little income, but parking isn’t the only option. “I’d like to have a broader discussion than just park- ing,” she says. “It could be a community garden space — there are a lot of possibilities for it.” >>> CONTINUED ON P. 10
