Eugene weekly., January 22, 2015, Page 9, Image 9

NEWS
• EW lost a trusted friend and critic when Arnold Ismach
died on Jan. 16 at age 84. Ismach was dean of the UO School
of Journalism and Communication from 1985 to 1994 and
has criticized us for “too much entertainment — not enough
news.” But his most recent observation, maybe two weeks
before his death, was “I read the Weekly Thursday nights and
it makes me feel good.” Ismach was a lifelong journalist, one
whose curiosity and passion for the world around him lasted
long past his retirement from the UO. He volunteered for
years for Planned Parenthood, many other civic groups and
local candidates, plus attended most meetings of the City
Club of Eugene where his sharp questions reflected his
years of journalistic experience. Arnold Ismach truly wanted
to make this world a better place.
• A decision on MUPTE, the city of Eugene’s Multiple-
United Property Tax Exemption program, is on the Eugene
City Council agenda after we go to press this week, and we
expect a revised MUPTE will be passed. Too bad, unless by
some miracle the tax giveaways are tweaked to encourage
truly affordable housing in some parts of town that really
need it, such as Hwy. 99. Instead, Eugene will likely continue
its tradition of rewarding millionaires with tax breaks for
building housing on prime property that would likely have
been built anyway. And these new, subsidized apartment
buildings will compete with the existing, non-subsidized
rental market. The new and improved MUPTE will have well-
meaning rules and a review panel for oversight, but we
predict developers will find ways to build whatever pencils
out, with up to 10 years of tax breaks boosting their profits.
Student housing projects might be banned from the new
MUPTE, but we expect students will end up living in some of
the units anyway, with a wink and a nod.
Councilor George Brown has been critical of MUPTE as it’s
proposed, but came up with some ideas this week to make it
more fair and transparent. Brown drafted some motions that
would require half the rental units in MUPTE projects to be
“workforce and/or affordable” housing and provide clear
ways for the city to audit and recoup windfall profits from
those projects. In lieu of a major overhaul, MUPTE should be
written off as a failed experiment in urban planning.
• Fierce lines are already drawn in the Oregon Legislature,
not yet in formal session, over a carbon tax. Tina Kotek,
speaker of the House and a Portland Democrat, told a City
Club of Eugene audience Jan. 16 that a carbon tax will be
“difficult to do in this session.” That’s probably not what
Democratic environmental legislators want to hear. Then
comes the newsletter from Sen. Jeff Kruse (R-Roseburg)
talking about the governor’s “socialist, environmental
agenda.” He sees the low carbon standards extension and
the carbon tax as two of the worst environmental issues,
both expected to come early in the session. Kruse says,
“Oregon contains 1 percent of the population of the U.S. and
the U.S. population is 3 percent of the world population.
Clearly anything we would do would be symbolic at
best.” Clearly, those of us concerned about global climate
change better sharpen our pencils and prepare to go to
Salem.
QUOTABLE
Suffering is dysfunctional, except as a bodily warning
against danger. Psychologically and socially it’s merely
destructive. — Ursula K. LeGuin, The Dispossessed, 1974.
LANE COUNTY AREA
SPRAY SCHEDULE
• Zemas LLC, 231-5363, plans to hire Andrew Albert
Bluhm, 974-2021, to spray Glyphosate 5.4 with Foam Buster
on 35 acres between Conger Creek and Wolf Creek Road.
See ODF notification 2015-781-01508, and call Dan Menk at
935-2283 with questions.
• Roseburg Resources, 679-3311, plans to aerial and
ground spray 950 acres in 12 locations south of Veneta, Noti
and Walton with atrazine, clopyralid, glyphosate, hexazinone,
imazapyr, metsulfuron methyl, sulfometuron methyl,
triclopyr amine, triclopyr ester and/or Forest Crop Oil. See ODF
notification 2015-781-01438, and call Dan Menk or Brian
Peterson at 935-2283 with questions.
Compiled by Jan Wroncy and Gary Hale, forestlanddwellers.org: 342-8332.
BY CAMILLA MORTENSEN
HELP A DOG OUT
Foster homes let shelter animals shine
B
iggie the pitbull was scheduled to be euthanized
at Los Angeles County’s Carson Animal Shelter
on Dec. 13. He was so shy that no one was inter-
ested in adopting him, and the shelter was out
of room. But, instead of being put to sleep
that day, he was picked up, fed a hamburger and
driven to Oregon thanks to a network of animal
rescues, animal lovers and people who provide
foster homes for pets in need.
Fostering an animal, from baby kittens and
dogs all the way to horses, involves giving a
pet a home, for anywhere from a couple of
weeks to several months. Anyone who has the
time and space can do it. In some cases, expe-
rience isn’t needed. Many Lane County animal
rescues as well as Greenhill Humane Society
and First Avenue Shelter (FAS) are in need of
foster homes for the animals that come in.
“You can do this successfully without break-
ing your heart,” says Sasha Elliott of Greenhill.
She says one of the reasons holding back potential
fosters is fear they will grow attached and not be
able to give the animal up. “Of course we all get at-
tached; of course we fall in love, but your heart just
gets bigger,” she says. “It’s so much more reward-
ing to foster than not to be involved at all.”
Emma Scott of the newly formed Northwest
Dog Project echoes that sentiment. Like Green-
hill, NWDP is looking for good foster homes for
the animals that come in. While some animals
do well in a shelter, others, like Biggie, become
stressed by the commotion and the parade of people
coming though. Sometimes this stress means they hide,
causing potential adopters to pass them by. Or in other
cases, like Matt Cooper’s long-term foster dog Ruby,
who spent more than a year at First Avenue, dogs get hy-
per and bark too much. Cooper says after only a week or
two at home, Ruby more or less became a normal dog.
Cooper calls Ruby a “rags-to-riches story,” as the
pitbull mix was eventually adopted by Ed King of King
Estate Winery. “She’s gone from a concrete kennel to
this idyllic existence,” he says. And it wouldn’t have hap-
pened without a foster home.
Cooper, who owned his last dog for 17 years, says at
some point he will be ready for his next lifelong dog,
but for now, fostering allows him to be more flexible. He
promotes his fosters on social media and meets potential
adopters.
While Cooper takes on dogs from FAS that are behav-
iorally challenged — he’s had his current foster, Paige,
for nine months — other fosters are much shorter term.
Elliott says Greenhill needs foster homes to bottle-feed
kittens, which can take from two to six weeks to get the
felines big enough to enter the shelter.
Darla Clark of Strawberry Mountain Rescue and Re-
hab utilizes foster homes for the horses she gets in. “A
rescue is a shelter,” she says. “And while all nutritional
and veterinary needs are met in rescue, any animal is
happier in a home environment with a foster parent who
can give one-on-one attention.” Also, she says, placing
horses in foster gives her more room at her rescue for
emergency cases.
NWDP is building a facility, Scott says, and looking
for foster homes for the dogs it rescues locally and from
high-kill shelters in California. NWDP is looking for
fosters for small dogs and for large breed puppies. One
things she says is hard to find is fosters that are experi-
enced with large breeds like pitbulls, who are able to take
on “project dogs” but don’t have their own dogs. NWDP
provides weekly training for the foster dogs and encour-
BIGGIE IS BEING FOSTERED BY AN EW STAFFER
ages the foster homes to be part of that.
Elliott says Greenhill and FAS run their foster pro-
grams similarly. Greenhill tends to get more dogs surren-
dered by owners, while FAS dogs are more likely to be
strays. She says potential foster homes fill out an online
application and Greenhill follows up with a call: “We talk
to them about the program, see what they are looking for
and determine if it’s a good fit for both of us.”
She says that similarly to NWDP, Greenhill could use
some experienced homes for larger breed dogs, but the
shelter’s foster homes “get a lot of support and a lot of
training so they don’t have to have previous training. We
can give them tools to set them up for success.” This in-
cludes a 24-hour helpline, she says.
Foster homes “let them be the dogs they are meant to
be, not what society has forced them to be through ne-
glect or abandonment,” Elliott says.
EW Associate Editor Camilla Mortensen is fostering
Biggie, and has fostered for Save the Pets and Luvable
Dog Rescue, and she previously fostered a horse named
Sunny for Strawberry Mountain. After a couple weeks
in his foster home — and the EW offices — Biggie has
come out of his shell, begun wagging his tail and happily
greeting new people and dogs. Biggie makes his debut
at the Oregon Truffle Festival’s Joriad North American
Truffle Dog Championships this week.■
For more on fostering contact: Greenhill at green-hill.org, Northwest Dog
Project at northwestdogproject.org, Save the Pets at savethepets.net, Straw-
berry Mountain at strawberrymountainmustangs.com or go to Petfinder.org
and locate more local rescues with adoptable pets who may be in need of
foster homes.
eugeneweekly.com • January 22, 2015
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