LET TERS
young Oregonians by the time they are in
third grade? Or even earlier?
This letter was prompted by a message
I received from one my students. It read:
“I have taken several state math tests
in the past, and I have gotten close, but
never passed them. But taking that smarter
balance test made me think I’m probably
not going to pass the test. So I don’t know
how I’m going to graduate high school.”
I hope you will reconsider this harmful
policy. More and more studies have come
out that demonstrate the harm the Smarter
Balanced tests have on educational
progress. There is no reason to subject
children to a test that they have little
chance of passing.
Geoff Barrett
Eugene
WEALTHY MIGRATION
We notice that new people to Oregon want
big taxes to repair all of Bend. I suspect that
natives of Bend, their kids or folks who’ve
lived there 25 or 30 years don’t want taxes
VIEWPOINT
and don’t want Bend too improved.
Like other states, Oregon has very bad
class warfare going on. People with plenty
of money move here, raise all the home and
cost-of-living prices, and original residents
can’t stay in our own states.
It happened to California; natives who
were kids there, grew up and were forced to
move away because “big-ticket outsiders”
all moved to California and raised the cost
of living astronomically. The natives could
not afford to stay in their own birth state!
Now, most of California adult residents are
not natives.
If you longtime and native Oregonians
do not organize and discuss legislation,
both locally and on a state level, to limit
the amounts (and high-wealth categories)
of hordes of people moving from other
states to Oregon, you will lose your own
state and be forced to leave forever.
It’s happening now. Endless migration
of wealthy hordes invading other states and
pricing out the inhabitants may not go on
forever when individual states start passing
legislation to limit numbers and wealth
categories of immigrants so families don’t
lose their own birth states to huge costs of
living.
Look at California and be very afraid.
Massive wealthy migration will destroy
Oregon, too. That is a promise. Michigan
is very, very empty, guys! Go there!
D.H. Bucher
Eugene
KOCH AND NPR
I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard
that Koch Industries is an underwriter
for NPR (KLCC). The Koch Brothers
have done everything in their power to
undermine democracy in this country
by buying politicians, from Congress
to local politicians. They have been
instrumental in funding climate change
denial as well as preventing regulations
that insure Americans have clean water
and air. They are the worst face of polluters
and corporate greed in this country.
David Koch sits on the board of OPB
and no doubt influences the content of
material seen on NOVA, which squashed
a documentary about them.
Did Alternative Radio disappear from
KLCC programing because of donations
from the Kochs? Was the show too
controversial for the Kochs?
I do not know the answers to these
questions, but I think the general manager
of KLCC owes its listeners an explanation
as to why it sold out our beloved KLCC to
these pirates.
I have gone out of my way to not support
Koch Industries, as I feel they undermine
our democracy, and will no longer support
KLCC fundraisers. KLCC, why would you
do this to your listeners?
Arlen Markus
Eugene
EDITOR'S NOTE: KLCC General Manager John Stark
tells us: "Koch Bros. is an underwriter for 'Marketplace
Morning Report,' produced by American Public Media,
not NPR. KLCC's editorial firewall prevents sponsors,
whether Koch or LCC or Marché, from in any way
influencing our news coverage. Likewise, NPR and all of
public media pride ourselves on our editorial integrity."
BY BONN Y BE T TM A N MCCORN ACK
Kick DTURD to the Curb
TERMINATE URBAN RENEWAL
W
ith the city’s most recent proposal
for a new Downtown Urban
Renewal District (DTURD) Plan
Amendment, councilors are on the
verge of destroying any lingering
hope that they serve the public rather than the economic
elite. That hope will be replaced with profound distrust
if they resurrect the DTURD after vowing to end it.
City councilors must be so completely out of touch
if, after multiple fiascos like Capstone, MUPTE,
City Hall, South Willamette rezone, city service fee,
stormwater fee expansion, etc., they believe they still
have a fount of political capital to muster for continuing
the DTURD. Especially since they promised it would
end.
Downtown Urban Renewal in Eugene is about to
celebrate 50 years of failure. After tens of millions of
public dollars invested, and despite subsidies exceeding
the entire taxable valuation of the DTURD, real
property values in the district have barely increased.
The money expended downtown has been siphoned
away from critical community needs. DTURD is yet
another local example of privatizing public resources.
DTURD gets its money by diverting property tax
revenue into its coffers — taxes you paid for schools
and essential city and county services. That money is
then used for planning department salaries, subsidies
for developers and downtown property owners, and
a few “poster child” projects. Those expenditures
circumvent the budget process and thus avoid having to
compete with taxpayers’ actual priorities like schools,
parks, public safety, jails, infrastructure, etc.
In 2007, the city came up with a scheme to
increase the DTURD’s debt by an additional $40
million and expand the boundary. That proposal had
the endorsements of most elected and non-elected
officials. Plus, the city spent tens of thousands of
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May 19, 2016 • eugeneweekly.com
taxpayer dollars on an “informational” campaign in
favor of the proposal. Some of us, fiscally conservative
progressives, launched a grass roots campaign against
the DTURD Plan Amendment, and voters killed it by
about 70 percent to 30 percent.
Having been trounced soundly at the ballot, the
city was left without a plan amendment. And because
the debt was paid, the city was legally obligated to
terminate the district and refund the excess money (or
TIF, tax increment financing is the “official” term for
revenue diverted into the DTURD’s coffers) back to
schools and local governments. The city violated the
state statutes by continuing to transfer property tax
revenue into the DTURD accounts.
The city badly wanted to keep that money and to
keep the district alive, so in 2010 it moved forward
with the $13.6 million plan amendment. That money
was to fund three “poster child” projects: LCC’s new
building, paying off debt on a parking garage and
using that money to fund patrols downtown, and for
improvements to the Farmers Market. (The $500,000
allocated to the market has never been spent.)
Being cognizant of the fact that they were shamefully
thwarting the voters’ will, council promised that the
district would terminate after paying off the debt for
those three projects. Not only did city officials vow to
end it, they legislated the district’s termination in the
text of the adopted plan:
“Upon the repayment or defeasance of debt related
to the urban renewal projects specifically identified
in the Plan, as amended by the 2010 Amendment, the
Downtown Urban Renewal District will be terminated,
any unused tax increment funds will be returned to
Lane County for redistribution to overlapping taxing
districts, and other assets and liabilities transferred to
the City of Eugene.” (Excerpt from Section 100 of the
2010 plan amendment. Sections 1200 and 1300 A also
have explicit “shall terminate” language.)
Again, council, enabled by City Manager Jon Ruiz,
is ignoring its promise to the taxpaying public to end
the district. Not only are they planning to reverse their
vow to terminate it, but they are doubling down on it
by proposing to expand the district’s boundary by 10
percent and increase the spending capacity up to $48
million.
The city is floating four vaguely construed projects
with a range of cost estimates as justification to
continue the district. There are many questions and
inconsistencies surrounding those projects, but there
isn’t space here to debate the pros, cons or costs of
them.
And it’s beside the point because the city does
not need DTURD to pursue worthwhile, community-
supported projects. If a project is a high enough priority,
council can allocate money from the capital budget,
ask voters for a bond or create a local improvement
district.
Councilors, the manager and the R-G are now
attempting to reframe this stunning betrayal of public
trust as a choice between sending DTURD back
to the voters or simply adopting it with a majority
council vote. But, in reality, the choice is whether to
completely betray the public trust or do the ethical
thing and terminate the district as promised.
A public hearing on the ordinance approving the
new proposed plan amendment will be held 7:30
pm May 23 at the Public Services Building, Harris
Hall, 125 E. 8th Avenue.
You can also submit comments to the City Council
on the city of Eugene website. Be sure to indicate you
want your comments “on the record” for the hearing.
Bonny Bettman McCornack is a retired register nurse, former Eugene Ward
1 city councilor and longtime progressive city and neighborhood activist.