LET TERS
VAMPIRE PLANNING
Regarding the proposed Seavey Loop
industrial zone land grab: I can’t believe
the four Tea Party commissioners and the
Springfi eld City Council are trying to ram
this atrocious proposal past the citizens
of Lane County, but I guess the success
of the Parvin Butte murder has convinced
them that they can do anything they want,
including destroying our most popular
county park, a community of several
thousand people and hundreds of acres of
farmland.
My friend’s backyard adjoins Oxley
Slough. The industrial zone would cover
Oxley Slough (divert it? put it in a pipe?)
and threaten the homes that border the
slough, which serves as fl ood control in the
event of Willamette River fl ooding. The
homes are probably safe with the slough
undisturbed, although part of my friend’s
yard is always underwater in February,
but when they take that fl oodwater sponge
away, who knows what will happen.
Does allowing this scam to go forward
constitute illegal takings of private land
for no public benefi t, or will they get away
with it as they did with destroying Parvin
Butte and the city of Lowell, or the Ninth
Ward in New Orleans, or any of hundreds
of thousands of other robberies conducted
by the 1 percent of the 1 percent?
Can we stop Aaron Jones and his
VIEWPOINT
relatives and friends from destroying
Lane County, or are we doomed to watch
helplessly as our lives are sucked away by
the vampire class?
Ann Tattersall
Eugene
OCF-GMO BLUES
An open letter to the Oregon Country
Fair: I have attended the Fair since 1974,
including participating in food booths
and entertainment. I still believe it is truly
one of the most magical events of its
kind. The Fair has always represented a
visionary dream of peaceful coexistence,
green
sustainability
and
creative
expression through art and a wide variety
of entertainment. I have watched the Fair
grow and overcome seemingly impossible
odds to continue its improbable run.
One area the Fair vision doesn’t square
with is the dream of sustainability and its
blind eye to its lax food booth standards.
This is a glaring weakness that the Fair
needs to address over the next few years.
The preponderance of genetically modifi ed
food ingredients in the majority of food
booths runs contrary to the vision of true
sustainability. Does green sustainability
at the Fair end outside of the Community
Village and Energy Park? In the case of
most Fair food booths, it unfortunately
does.
Why would the Fair support the use of
these GMO ingredients? By allowing this
practice, the Fair is, in effect, supporting
chemical poison companies like Monsanto?
The excuses for change are as weak as its
food policy. I hear that “food costs will soar.
How would it be policed? How do vendors
know how to weed out GMO ingredients?”
These problems can be overcome. The Fair
needs to step up to the plate (literally) and
make sustainable changes.
Andrew Harrison
Gold Hill
COHOUSING NOT
HARMONIOUS
Oakleigh Meadow Cohousing (OMC)
has half the members that it needs,
partnered with Paradigm Construction,
Essex as general contractor and Wil l Dixon
as the project manager. The city of Eugene’s
permit department has listed the permits as
apartments, townhouses and commercial
building, not condominiums. The planned
unit development (PUD) application is for
condos, which must be owner occupancy. Is
the permit department allowing the permit
to say apartments or townhouse because
Paradigm is supporting OMC fi nancially?
The city has said the scope of work will
change to condos after the application
has been approved. OMC’s application is
in appeal to Land Use Board of Appeals
(LUBA), which set a hearing for July 24.
This is all happening just down the road
from the major development on River Road
behind the old Goodwill in the Greenway.
Check out the meadow before it gets
developed. Everyone has the right to hire a
company to check for a water line. EWEB
has proceeded to do more work than just
locate a water line for OMC project without
approved permits. This all seems to be more
about money than land use change and
being harmonious to the community.
Please visit saveoakleighlane.blogspot.
com.
Anne Love
Eugene
A CARING COMMUNITY
Oakleigh Meadow Cohousing (OMC)
has just about 75 percent of the homes
spoken for and building plans have been
submitted to the city as of June 30. The
project was incorrectly titled “apartments”
at that time, but it has since been taken care
of and the records updated.
The LUBA decision should be rendered
by mid-August. OMC is aiming to break
ground and start construction this fall.
Essex is our general contractor and
Paradigm Properties is our partner. EWEB
is helping us design the water and electrical
facilities for our project.
BY COUNCILOR BE T T Y TAYLOR
An Overdue Step
THE REAL FACTS ABOUT THE CITY’S PAID SICK TIME PROPOSAL
W
hile much ink has already been
spilled over the City Council’s
proposed paid sick time policy, it’s
important that our community is
debating actual facts and applying
appropriate context to the matter. I would like to clarify
some key points.
As the Eugene City Council, we serve everyone who
lives and works in our town, which is why the proposed
ordinance applies to everyone who works more than
the occasional fl yover in Eugene, regardless of their
employer’s base location. As a public health measure, it
wouldn’t work so well if some people have to continue
to work sick, spreading contagion to colleagues and
clients. We want everyone working in Eugene to be able
to recover at home and reduce the impact of their illness
on everyone else.
This is not a complicated policy. Are there details to
understand? Of course, but not that many.
There’s been a lot of discussion of onerous tracking
and reporting, but there will be no sick days police.
Employers will not be required to report any sick days
data to the city. Like most employment laws, enforcement
will happen on a complaint basis, meaning employees
who experience a violation can complain to the state’s
Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI), whose staff will
then investigate.
The tracking is pretty similar to what’s already
done for payroll. And, further, avoiding fair labor laws
because they require some human resource time isn’t
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July 24, 2014 • eugeneweekly.com
right. One simple option available to
all employers to reduce paperwork
and accrual tracking is to front-load
their staff with the total hours they
would accrue in a year, then all that
is required is to track actual hours
used. Experience shows that people
are quite protective of their sick
time and only use it when it is really
needed. In fact, many don’t use
their sick time at all, costing their
employer nothing.
Council has devoted a great
deal of time to this issue because
it’s important to us and to the
community. And the process isn’t
over. A thorough rule-making
process is yet to come, during
which many details will be ironed
out. This will be done by soliciting input from a
range of perspectives, and by applying data, with lots
of opportunity for robust dialog. Once the rules are
established there will be several months for employer
trainings and education as well as outreach to workers to
ensure the smoothest possible implementation.
Our proposal will not cost the city millions of dollars
as some are claiming. Nor will it cost employers millions.
Quite the contrary: Paid sick time leads to healthier
employees, less costly turnover and a more committed
and productive workforce with less presenteeism (when
people are physically at work but not able to do much
due to illness). Experience from other cities tells us
that paid sick days policies do not
impede business growth. And let’s
not forget that there is a current
cost to not having paid sick time,
one that is borne mostly by working
people whose health and fi nancial
security suffer when they’re forced
to either work sick or lose needed
pay (or their job) when they get ill.
What we’re proposing is a
straightforward, minimum labor
standard of fi ve earned sick days
per year (40 hours). This will be a
welcome improvement and provide
a much needed sense of security for
those who currently don’t have a
single paid day off work — not one.
Oregon and Eugene are known
for innovation, excellence and
leadership in many arenas, but when
it comes to setting basic workplace protections and family
supportive policies for everyone, we are behind the rest of
the world. Ensuring a few paid sick days for everyone is a
small but signifi cant opportunity to do better.
I have supported this idea from the very beginning
for the simple reason that it is a long overdue step in
the right direction for our community’s public health,
our local economy and, importantly, for all the hard-
working folks who struggle to maintain their own and
their family’s health while holding down a job.
Betty Taylor is a Eugene city councilor representing Ward 2.