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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (May 8, 2014)
ACTIVIST LERT • A protest in response to a sexual assault case allegedly involving UO basketball players is being planned at noon Thursday, May 8, on the lawn behind Hendricks Hall on campus. Organized by the UO Coalition to End Sexual Violence, wkly.ws/1qv. • The Eugene Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee will meet from 5:30 to 7:30 pm Thursday, May 8, at the Sloat Conference Room at the Atrium Building, 99 W. 10th Ave. • Cascadia Wildlands annual Hoedown for Cascadia’s Ancient Forests will begin at 6:30 pm Saturday, May 10, at Avalon Stables outside of Cottage Grove. Call Josh Laughlin at 434-1463 or visit cascwild.org. • Noted economist, author and professor Gerald Friedman of the University of Massachusetts will speak at a free Health Care for All Oregon event from 7 to 9 pm Wednesday, May 14, at Very Little Theartre, 2350 Hilyard St. Friedman says, “The only way we can control health care costs and avoid fiscal and economic catastrophe is to establish a single-payer system with universal coverage.” See hcao.org. • BEST (Better Eugene Springfield Transit) is organizing a series of events over the next few months to talk about mass transit and support for better bike and pedestrian transportation. The next “Beer By Bus” event will be April 28. Contact Rob Zako to get involved, call 343-5201 or email rob@ best-oregon.org. • The worldwide March Against Monsanto for World Food Day will be in 275 cities and locally the gathering will begin at 11 am Saturday, May 24, at the Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza at 8th and Oak. Find the event on Facebook to get more information or to help. POLLUTION UPDATE Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) assessed a $7,800 penalty against the Metropolitan Wastewater Management Commission (MWMC) last week for causing pollution of waters of the state in February. MWMC operates the Eugene-Springfield wastewater collection and treatment system, including the treatment plant on River Avenue and the “biosolids management facility” on Awbrey Lane. On Feb. 8, staff at the treatment plant pumped 221,000 gallons of treated sludge to the biosolids facility, where there was a power outage, resulting an a 100,000 gallon sludge overflow, 54,000 gallons of which flowed to a storm drainage ditch that flows to Flat Creek. DEQ noted in a letter to MWMC that, “sewage sludge contains pollutants and pathogens that can harm aquatic life, contaminate drinking waters, and impair recreational, commercial and agricultural uses of water. Discharge of sewage sludge to waters of the state poses a significant threat to public health and the environment.” The city of Eugene recently sent the Albertson’s on West 18th in Eugene a letter requesting cleaning and regular inspection of catch basins near their loading dock, due to the fact that monitoring has demonstrated that these catch basins are significantly contributing to bacteria concentrations in stormwater discharges, which flow to nearby Amazon Creek, which is listed by DEQ as “impaired” due to high bacteria concentrations. DEQ recently released a pre-enforcement notice it sent to Christopher J. Bartels (who does business as Bartels Packing) in February for discharging blood wastes to Fern Ridge Reservoir during an announced inspection by DEQ. DEQ noted that animal blood wastes are hazardous to public health and the environment, and that the discharge posed risk of significant environmental harm. Bartels was fined over $15,000 by DEQ for similar violations last June (EW 6/27, goo. gl/Xb41PD). — Doug Quirke/Oregon Clean Water Action Project LANE COUNTY AREA SPRAY SCHEDULE • Little Lake Logging and Const. Inc., 927-3339, plans to spray Tordon RTU (triclopyr ester) on 30 acres near Little Lake Creek. See ODF notice 2014-781-00486, call Robin L. Biesecker at 935-2283 with questions. • USR Company LLC, Rosboro LLC, 746-8411, and High Mountain Investment Group, 746-8411, plan to hire Dole Land Management Inc. to spray their roadsides throughout Benton County with imazapyr and/or triclopyr. See ODF notices 2014- 551-00183, 2014-551-00184 and 2014-551-00185, call Bill Mahr at 929-3266 with questions. • ODOT is currently spraying roadsides. Call Tony Kilmer at ODOT District 5 at 744-8080 or call 1-888-996-8080 for herbicide application information. Hwy. I-5, 58, 99, 101, 105, 126 and Beltline were sprayed recently. Hwy. 36 may be sprayed soon. Compiled by Jan Wroncy and Gary Hale, Forestland Dwellers: 342-8332, forestlanddwellers.org. 8 May 8, 2014 • eugeneweekly.com NEWS CITY MANAGER’S BUDGET SUGGESTS CUTS, NO REVENUE SOURCES City Manager Jon Ruiz’s recommended city budget for Eugene’s coming fiscal year closes a $2.5 million gap with one-time funding from the city’s reserve fund and reductions to parks maintenance, downtown library hours and recreation services. It also calls for a one-time con- tribution of $200,000 to the nonprofit group TrackTown USA. The Budget Committee, which comprises eight citizen members and all of the city councilors, passed a motion to recommend Ruiz’s proposal to the City Council. The council will decide May 27 following a public hearing if the budget will be put into place. “It seems to me that we have not asked much of our- selves in the creativity department,” Budget Committee member Jill Fetherstonhaugh says. She says the list of budget remedies reviewed by the committee, which consists of only reductions and one- time funding from the city’s revenue reserve, is boring and uninspired. The city’s Revenue Team, a group made up of 13 citizens and two city councilors, evaluated dif- ferent possible revenue sources. TIBETAN REFUGEE SPEAKS ON ADVERSITY, OPPORTUNITY AFTER CANCER DIAGNOSIS Lady Jangchup Palmo reacted in a unique way the moment she was diagnosed with cancer. “Her first re- sponse was laughter, joy,” says Jigme Rinpoche, her son. This is because Lady Palmo, a Tibetan refugee who was instrumental in bringing the Dalai Lama to Eugene last May, sees this life threatening disease — now in its fourth stage — as a natural part of life. “She doesn’t look at it as an obstacle or a punishment,” Rinpoche says (Tibetan honorific for “precious one”), “but rather as a blessing in disguise because it gives her an oppor- tunity to grow.” And now she will also use her experiences as an op- portunity to bring her knowledge and insight to others. On May 8 Lady Palmo will visit LCC to speak about “transforming adversity into opportunity” — a topic in which she is well versed and that she believes can be of use to everyone. “As a member of the Revenue Team, we reviewed ideas,” Fetherstonhaugh says, “but we [the Budget Com- mittee] haven’t discussed any of those.” Ruiz’s recommendations include use of one-time funding for a $200,000 contribution to TrackTown, a nonprofit that organizes Hayward Field track events. The contribution is the only budget item that was not included in City Council’s budget suggestions. “As we move toward the 2016 Olympic trials, we want to play a part of that,” Ruiz says. He says the dona- tion is a move toward economic prosperity because the city will benefit economically from the tourism. One-time funds will also be used for $250,000 in Hu- man Services discretionary funding and $306,000 to keep the Sheldon Branch Library open through fiscal year 2015. Human Services discretionary funding of $175,000 that was funded with one-time money last year has been cut from this year’s proposed budget. Catholic Community Services Executive Director Tom Mulhern spoke against one-time money to fund Hu- man Services during the April 1 public hearing. He says when money is labeled as one-time funding “you create the environment for cutting it next year or the year after or some point down the line, and that’s what we would like to avoid and forestall. That’s what happened to the $175,000 that’s being cut this year.” The public hearing on the budget will begin at 7:30 pm Tuesday, May 27, in Harris Hall at 125 E. 8th Ave. — Missy Corr “Looking at the world today, we urgently need a vision, and a courage to overcome our narrow, selfish interests,” Palmo says. “From a Buddhist point of view, all suffering comes from oneself.” Lady Palmo was 15 years old when the Communist Chinese invaded her native Tibet, and the conflict took the lives of both her parents and four of her siblings. She endured bullet wounds and captivity and now lives far away from her homeland, moving to Oregon in 1997. Since her youth, Lady Palmo has devoted her life to accepting, embracing and incorporating changes, even the negative ones — and that has not changed with her cancer diagnosis. Her commitment has not gone unno- ticed here in Eugene. “Just this morning, while on her walk with my brother, a man presented her with a flower,” Rinpoche says. “Things like this happen all the time.” And looking at her frail but still vibrant figure, one can see why. “We are all looking for happiness,” she says. Lady Palmo speaks at 6:30 pm Thursday, May 8, in the Raggozino Performance Hall, LCC. It is a free event, but a “love-based offering” of $10 is suggested. — Samuel Wendel
