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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (May 1, 2014)
ACTIVIST LERT • Springfield City Club will hold a county commissioner candidates forum at 11:45 am Thursday, May 1, at Willamalane Center, 250 S. 32nd St. Candidates from the East Lane and Springfield districts have been invited. The club meets every first and third Thursday. See springfieldcityclub.org. • Spencer Creek Grange is hosting a county commissioner candidates forum for District 5 from 7 to 9 pm Thursday, May 1, at the Grange, 86013 Lorane Hwy. Candidates invited are Joann Ernst, Kevin Matthews, Jose Ortal, Jack Schoolcraft and incumbent Faye Stewart. The public can submit questions for consideration directly via spencercreekgrange.org. • The documentary Gasland Part II will be shown at 6 pm Thursday, May 1, at the Bijou on 13th Avenue and will include guest speakers Francis Eatherington of Cascadia Wildlands and national activist Tom Gleichman of the Sierra Club. • Kai Huschke of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund will present a series of free community rights workshops in Lane County. The first, “Who Decides: Our Community or Corporations?” will be from 7 to 9 pm Thursday, May 1, in the Bromley Room, Siuslaw Public Library. The next, “Breaking Free of Corporate Control,” will be from 6 to 9 pm Friday, May 2, at McKenzie Hall 214 at 11th and Kincaid on the UO campus. The third, “Local Self-Government: Reality or Myth in Oregon?” will be from 6 to 9 pm Saturday, May 3, at LCC Downtown Center, Room 105. Donations will be accepted. • A conference on “Healthy Masculinities” will be May 1-2 at OSU in the Memorial Union. The two-day event includes panel discussion with university leaders, presentations by students, faculty and staff. Discussion will focus on how to translate conference findings into action. See blogs.oregonstate.edu/mensdev. NEWS COUNTY’S DINGLE GETS SALARY BUMP TO $152,630 The Lane County Board of Commissioners voted on April 22 to give County Counsel Stephen Dingle a raise via a step advancement after what commissioners say was a positive review in a closed executive session. Dingle’s sal- ary was at $145,995 a year, according to his contract. His move to what the board order calls “the next step on the sal- ary schedule for Program Manager, D82, which is Step 8,” puts his salary at $152,630. While members of the media can attend executive ses- sions, they cannot report on what was said. Members of the public cannot attend. Personnel issues and legal matters are often discussed in executive sessions. In January 2013 a controversial attempt to raise the sala- ries of Dingle and of fired county administrator Liane Inkster (formerly Richardson) caused a furor during a time when the cash-strapped county was lobbying for a tax levy to support the jail. The proposal, written by former Human Resources Director Madilyn Zike, called for Dingle’s salary to move to $166,400, an increase of 14 percent. An outcry arose after the attempts to raise Dingle and Inkster’s salaries became public, and the attempt to raise the salaries was withdrawn. Inkster was later fired after it was revealed she had manipulated her compensation. Step advancements are called for in Dingle’s contract if af- ter 12 months his “evaluation is successful or better.” Commissioner Faye Stewart said at the public County Commission meeting that Dingle’s “excellent job” merited the pay increase in his contract. Commissioners Pat Farr, Jay Bozievich and Sid Leiken mirrored the praise of Dingle’s work. Bozievich cited Dingle’s work on the “managing within the law” training program for supervisors. Commissioner Pete Sorenson did not comment before joining the unanimous vote. When contacted for comment, Sorenson said he gave his com- ments in the executive session. Dingle was criticized by the public for not recusing himself from the outside investigation into Inkster and her pay issues and for the county’s heavy-handed redactions in the blacked- out copy of the results of the Inkster investigation. Dingle recently lost a jury trial in which he defended the Lane County Sheriff’s Office, which was accused of improper- ly seizing a man’s car and failing to provide him with adequate due process. The county was ordered to pay $25,418 for violat- ing the man’s constitutional rights. — Camilla Mortensen SORENSON CALLING FOR MORE COUNTY OPENNESS County Commissioner Pete Sorenson is calling for Lane County to return to being a little more open and available. He sent an email to the county’s agenda team, which de- termines what items will be dealt with at County Commis- sion meetings, that starts, “I remember a time when the Re- publican Central Committee, the Democratic Party of Lane County and many other groups would routinely use Harris Hall as a gathering place. I remember a time when the Coun- ty Administrator (Bill Van Vactor) had a policy of person- ally responding to media inquiries.” Today, the county has a contracted public relations professional responding to media calls and emails. The email went to acting administrator Alicia Hays, County Counsel Stephen Dingle, Board Chair Pat Farr and Vice-Chair Faye Stewart. Sorenson brought up the issue at • Changing attitudes about climate change will be the topic with Tom Bowerman of PolicyInteractive at City Club of Eugene at noon Friday, May 2. Bowerman will talk about his research and its implications for public policy. $5 for nonmembers. See cityclubofeugene.org. • County Commission candidate Kevin Matthews will be available for discussion from 8 to 10 am Saturday, May 3, at Sunrise Café in Pleasant Hill. Call 514-4776 or visit friendsofkevinmatthews.org. • The 15th annual Million Marijuana March will begin at 11 am Saturday, May 3, at the Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza and end at high noon at the old Federal Building at 7th and Pearl for a rally with speakers, information booths and live music. The event will also be in Corvallis and Salem. • Benjamin Ross, author of Dead End: Suburban Sprawl and the Rebirth of American Urbanism, will speak at an event from 4 to 6 pm Sunday, May 4, at Cozmic, 199 W. 8th Ave. Hosted by 1000 Friends of Oregon and part of the McCall Speaker Series. Call (503) 497-1000 ext. 137 or email Amanda@friends.org. • Health Care for All Oregon’s next local meeting will be at 7 pm May 6, at First Methodist Church, 1376 Olive St., in anticipation of economist Gerald Freidman’s talk May 14 at Very Little Theatre. Call 484-6145 to get on the email list. LANE COUNTY AREA SPRAY SCHEDULE • Rosboro LLC, 746-8411, plans to hire Dole Land Management, Inc. to spray 500 acres of roadsides on their timberlands throughout Lane County with imazapyr and/or triclopyr. See ODF notice 2014-781- 00453, call 935-2283 with questions. • ODOT has begun spring spraying. Call Tony Kilmer at ODOT District 5 at 744-8080 or call (888) 996-8080 for herbicide application information. Highways I-5, 58, 99, 101, 126 and Beltline were sprayed recently and Highway 36 may be sprayed Wednesday. Compiled by Jan Wroncy and Gary Hale, Forestland Dwellers: 342- 8332, forestlanddwellers.org. 8 May 1, 2014 • eugeneweekly.com PHOTO BY KURT WILCOX GRAD STUDENT UNION RALLIES FOR A LIVING WAGE Dental coverage and living wages are not something people think about if they already have them. But when a worker doesn’t have one, or in the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation (GTFF) of the University of Oregon’s case, either, this can lead to not only health problems, but also to friction when it comes to contract negotiations. The UO GTFF 3544 held a rally Friday, April 25, out- side Johnson Hall to spread awareness about what the union says is the administration’s lack of ability to meet with the GTFF and provide fair negotiations. “The purpose of the rally was to show the administra- tion that we’re frustrated for working without a contract for about a month now,” says Shawna Meechan, a bargaining team member. The GTFF attempted to negotiate salary by dropping the 6.1 percent increase in salary they originally proposed down to a 5.5 percent increase. The UO administration came back to the GTFF with a counterproposal one week later that featured a 2 percent increase in minimum GTF salaries for the year and a 2.5 percent salary increase for the following year. GTFs teach 18 percent of lectures at the UO and lead 95 percent of discussion sections and 82 percent of labs, according to statistics from the UO’s Ad- missions Office. That’s about one-third of the school’s in- structional hours, the union says. The administration’s counterproposal was deemed to be so unfair that during the bargaining session observers left the room to join the protesters outside. GTFs argue that because of inflation, their raise would only be about a .33 percent increase if the administration’s proposal stands. “We think [a 5.5 percent increase in salary] is a fairly reasonable demand given that the financial aid office at the UO has published what it takes to live in Eugene and a lot of our members live below that line,” says Joe Henry, vice president of external relations for the GTFF. Meechan says that the GTFF’s original proposal was an attempt to bridge the “living wage gap” that is experienced at the UO. GTFs at the lowest levels make $553 a month and GTFs with the highest level of experience and working the maxi- mum 19.5 hours a week allowed make $1,617 a month over a nine month period, according to the UO Graduate School. The UO estimates it costs $1,620 a month for a graduate to live in Eugene. The administration also offered a 5 percent increase for the dependents of GTFs in premium health care coverage. GTFs countered that the national average is 10 percent. The GTFF will hold another rally at noon Thursday, May 1, on the street side of the Prince Lucien Campbell hall at the UO. The rally will be in celebration of the international labor holiday and part of the Global Climate Convergence, but also to support the continuing negotiations of the GTFF. — Kevin Sullivan
