Eugene weekly., October 01, 2015, Page 8, Image 8

• Lane County’s new Performance Auditor Shanda
Miller will be available to talk about her work in a series of
public meetings that will include at least one county
commissioner. The next will be at 3 pm and again at 6 pm
Thursday, Oct. 1, at the Siuslaw Public Library in Florence.
Future meetings will be at 5:30 pm Monday, Oct. 19, at
the Brewstation in Cottage Grove; 7 pm Tuesday, Oct. 20,
at South Eugene High School cafeteria; and noon
Thursday, Nov. 19, at Springfield City Club. The auditor
assists the commissioners in improving the performance,
accountability and transparency of county government.
• The Community Alliance for Public Education (CAPE)
is hosting “Life After High-Stakes Standardized Testing,”
7 pm Thursday, Oct. 1, at Eugene Friends Church, 3498 W.
18th Avenue. Speakers are Rachel Eells, a Seattle teacher,
and Sarita Amaya, an administrator from Beaverton.
• Arguments for and against the Eugene Library Levy
Measure 20-235 will be the program at City Club of
Eugene at noon Friday, Oct. 2, at the Downtown Athletic
Club, 999 Willamette Street. Arguing for the measure will
be Rep. Val Hoyle, talking about the importance of
Eugene’s library system. Arguing against the measure
will be former city councilor Bonny Bettman McCornack,
blaming library fund shortages on mismanagement of
city funds and lack of accountability by the mayor and
council. $5 for non-members. Police profiling will be the
program for the following week, Oct. 9.
• A lecture on “Climate Change, Analytical Psychology
and ‘What the World Hangs On’” will be from 7 to 9 pm
Friday, Oct. 2, at the Downtown Baker Center, 975 High
Street. Speaker is Jenny Gordon, Ph.D., founding member
of the Eugene Friends of Jung and licensed psychologist
and Jungian analyst. Free for students and EFJ members,
$15 for others. A workshop follows Saturday, Oct. 3. See
eugenefriendsofjung.org for details and registration.
• The annual Great Willamette Clean Up begins 8 am
Saturday, Oct. 3, at various sites along 200 miles of the
Willamette from Portland to Oakridge. Sponsored by
Willamette Riverkeeper and more than two dozen
businesses and agencies. A volunteer thank-you party
and free lunch will follow around noon. Register or learn
about sites in Lane County by visiting
willametteriverkeeper.org or email Emmons@
willametteriverkeeper.org.
• A Harvest Festival for Human Rights will be from
noon to 2 pm Saturday, Oct. 3, at 1175 G Street outside
the First Baptist Church in Springfield. The free event
features a hot meal, children’s activities and a produce
giveaway. Information tables will showcase resources
available for low-income people. Volunteers and produce
donations are needed. The event is organized by the
Springfield Shelter Rights Alliance, a program of CALC. For
more information call 485-1755.
• Local high school students are organizing the
Willamette Valley Student Union to advocate for
students, citing “ongoing issues of injustice and inequity
in Lane County schools.” An organizing meeting is
planned at 2 pm Sunday, Oct. 3, at The Boreal, 450 W. 3rd
Ave. next to REI in Eugene. Call (458) 215-0060 for more
information.
• “Diversity in Higher Education: Dangers of a
Colorblind Policy” is the topic of a free lecture at 7 pm
Tuesday, Oct. 6, at the Knight Law Center, Room 175.
Speakers are Gary Orfield and Patricia Gandara,
co-directors of the Civil Rights Project/Proyect Derechos
Civilies at UCLA. The event is part of the Wayne Morse
Center’s 1015-17 theme of “The Future of Public
Education.”
CORRECTIONS/CLARIFICATIONS
The one-in-four statistic for the prevalence of mental
illness discussed in our “Into the Institution” (9/24)
comes from two places, the World Health Organization’s
2001 report and a NAMI factsheet using numbers from
the National Institutes of Mental Health. The most recent
2013 numbers from NIMH show 18.5 percent, one-in-five
Americans, have “any mental illness,” but we neglected to
explain that, causing consternation for some of our
readers who like to do math. Whether using the one-in-
four or one-in-five statistic, mental health issues are rife
in our community and across the country, and our stories
last week only address the tip of the iceberg.
8
October 1, 2015 • eugeneweekly.com
COMMUNITY CELEBRATION
AT CIVIC SITE OCT. 4
As Linda Wheatley stood on the edges of the Civic Sta-
dium site on June 29 and watched the structure become
engulfed by flames, she felt sick. “It was as if something I
owned myself were burning,” she says.
As a member of the Eugene Civic Alliance advisory
board, Wheatley had worked hard to save the historic base-
ball stadium, and now, the old wooden beams were beyond
repair. Despite her grief, she watched the fire and listened
to those around her telling stories of wonderful times spent
at Civic, and she says it became clear to her that “this was a
powerful moment.”
Wheatley says she and others hope to recapture the sto-
rytelling spirit at the Civic Play On Community Day Oct. 4.
Although the historic stadium is lost, the fire did not change
Eugene Civic Alliance’s core mission: to create a commu-
nity hub for all ages to enjoy.
Matthew Scheibe, a landscape architect working on the
site, says while historic preservation is now out of the equa-
tion, the clean slate offers more flexibility in the alliance’s
plan. It still makes sense to position the new stadium, Lane
United soccer field and children’s fieldhouse in the same
configuration, he says, but elements like accessibility and
the positioning of the pocket park are now easier to align.
“It is a community events center that transcends sports —
it’s a place for us to be together for the ambiance, to enjoy
concessions or be in an outdoor environment,” Scheibe says.
“And we’re hoping this event will give everyone a taste of
that.”
Wheatley says Lane United Football Club and Eugene
Timbers Football Club Azul will attend the event, as well as
Healthy Moves, Kidsports and the Ems baseball team with
its Sluggo mascot. The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art will
provide art activities for kids, and the field will also host
food carts and a beer garden.
To help capture stories, Wheatley says students from
Pacific University will set up a story booth in the style of
NPR’s StoryCorps, where community members can record
memories of Civic.
It’s also a last chance to see the baseball diamond and
dugouts before the field is razed in preparation for renova-
tion. Wheatley says a group of artists, including Jud Turner,
Betsy Wolfston and Tim Boyden, will make art from the
piles of scrap metal, and the works will be auctioned off in
the spring.
The alliance estimates it will need to raise $17 to $20 mil-
lion to complete its vision.
Scheibe says that although the old stadium is lost, the site
and community memories are still there. “We lost something
big, but we still have a lot to be excited about,” he says.
Civic Play On Community Day is noon to 4 pm Sun-
day, Oct. 4, at the Civic Stadium site. Admission is free.
— Amy Schneider
FIGHTING BACK AGAINST
CORPORATE RIGHTS
It’s the opposite of Citizens United and then some. Cor-
porations have rights beyond personhood, according to
Thomas Linzey of the Community Environmental Legal
Defense Fund (CELDF). Those rights allow corporations to
run roughshod over local communities, affecting everything
from their drinking water (think of Nestlé in the Columbia
Gorge) to their homes (as with coal trains running through
towns).
CELDF and local communities across Oregon are work-
ing to establish community bills of rights that assert the right
to local self-governance as well as proposing ballot measures
that challenge the current legal structure that puts control in
the hands of corporations, not citizens.
Linzey will speak at Lane Community College on Oct. 7
on the topic “Time for an Oregon Revolt: Communities tak-
ing on corporations and the state of Oregon.”
Linzey is giving his talk as part of a seven-city community
rights tour that will highlight work not only in Lane County
but also in Benton, Lincoln, Coos, Columbia and Douglas
counties, where people are working on adopting community
bills of rights to ban GMOs, coal trains, pipelines and pesti-
cide sprays.
In that vein, the Oregon Community Rights Network
(O4CR), one of the groups bringing Linzey to town together
with the LCC Peace Center, announced it has re-filed its pro-
posed state constitutional amendment that seeks to “secure
the right of local community self-government most specifi-
cally in placing community rights above corporate privilege.”
The group says it has begun to gather “the required 1,000
sponsorship signatures for the administrative review process
to take place” with an aim to be cleared for the signature
gathering needed to qualify for the November 2016 ballot.
This isn’t the first time Linzey has come to Oregon to
talk about community rights. He spoke in 2013 as a keynote
speaker at the Public Interest Environmental Law Confer-
ence and again in 2014 at The Shedd. Since then, he says, the
issue has grown and people are now talking about changing
the federal Constitution, not just local laws, so he will be giv-
ing a more advanced talk.
Linzey says that almost more controversial than the local
efforts to ban activities like growing GMOs in Lane County
is the aspect of the law that would protect it “from challenges
from corporations by stripping them of certain rights and pro-
tections.”
It’s a broad new expansion of civil rights that insulates the
law from corporations, he says. Linzey points out that when
it comes to stopping something like a liquefied natural gas
pipeline, as citizens are trying to do in Coos and Columbia
counties, there is no means to halt it at the local level.
The community rights effort for a charter amendment
to ban GMOs in Lane County will not only be bolstered by
Linzey’s talk but also by Neil Young’s “The Monsanto Years”
tour at Matthew Knight Arena Oct. 8 (see music this issue).
Young also co-produced a documentary, Seeding Fear, about
Monsanto. The group Support Local Food Rights, Lane
County, will table at the concert to gather signatures and call
attention to its work to pass a charter amendment that would
ban GMOs in Lane County.
Linzey speaks 7 pm Oct. 7 at LCC’s downtown campus
conference room, 101 W. 10th Ave. More information on
Linzey and CELDF’s work is at celdf.org. See Seeding Fear
at wkly.ws/22t. — Camilla Mortensen
GAMING AND COMIC
CONVENTIONS TAKE OVER
EUGENE OCT. 2-4
Two big conventions — or “cons,” as attendees call them
— hit Eugene this weekend, one focused on gaming and the
other revolving around comics and pop culture.
The emergence of tech-centric events is great for the area
economically, but the question of whether this town is too
small for multiple cons has led to a little drama, according to
event organizers.
Indie Game Con packed the house at Eugene Mindworks
on 5th Avenue last year, with at least 300 guests. The conven-
tion is moving to LCC’s downtown campus this year, where
game developers will display 27 video games, most of which
are locally created.
“There’s a desire for this kind of thing,” says Ted Brown,
director of Indie Game Con. “It gives exposure to developers
who otherwise have few outlets to showcase their games.”
It’s also good for Eugene, Brown says, because it exposes
people to the area — a developer from Canada will partici-
pate this year — and encourages growth in the tech scene.
“The more people we have here working, the better we