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