BY CAMILLA MORTENSEN
• After Yi Shen Market and Restaurant on West
11th Avenue suffered repeated incidences of
vandalism, friends of restaurant owner Phung Hsieh
launched a Go Fund Me page to raise money so that
she can purchase security cameras. With a goal of
$4,000, the fundraiser has brought in $9,373 to help
Hsieh, but the vandalism has continued at Yi Shen
and other Asian restaurants in the area, including LZ
Chinese Dish, Jade Palace and Lotus Garden. Because
of this, friends of Hsieh have set up a nightly security
watch to prevent further vandalism until the security
cameras are installed, and volunteers are needed. For
more information on how to help, visit gofundme.
com/Yi-Shen.
FOUNDING MEMBERS
OF FRIENDS OF KESEY
SQUARE GATHER IN THE
DOWNTOWN PLAZA THEY
HOPE TO REVITALIZE
• The Refugee Resettlement Coalition of Lane
County says it is looking for “volunteer Arabic, Kurdish
and Farsi translators to help our first families
periodically, as they settle into their new lives.” The
RRCLC says it is looking for volunteers but may be
able to pay a fee. The RRCLC is a “coalition of
community volunteers who have banded together to
support the Catholic Community Services’ newly
launched program to resettle refugees in Lane
County.” The coalition will be supporting the ongoing
resettlement of refugees who already have a family
tie here in the area. For more info go to ccslc.org/
refugee-resettlement-program.
• The newly formed Lane County Equity and
Access Advisory Board is looking for members and
has extended its membership application deadline to
5 pm July 29. Lane County says, “The Equity and
Access Advisory Board is interested in having diverse
representation that includes people of different racial
and/or ethnic backgrounds, identities, abilities and
perspectives. Advisory Board members must live
within the geographical boundaries of Lane County.”
According to the county, “The mission of the Equity
and Access Advisory Board is to guide and advise the
county administrator on policies and practices
surrounding equity, inclusion and access in both
internal and external matters.” Applications are
available online at lanecounty.org/volunteer and in
the Board of Commissioners Office located at the
Lane County Public Service Building, 125 E. 8th
Avenue in Eugene. For more information email
equity@co.lane.or.us or call 541-682-4203.
• The city of Springfield is accepting applications
to fill a volunteer position on the 10-member
Springfield Police Advisory Committee for a term
expiring September 2020. The open position is for a
representative from the minority community. The
application packet is available at the City Manager’s
Office in City Hall, 225 Fifth Street, Springfield, 541-
726-3700. The Springfield City Council strongly
recommends all applicants attend at least one
committee meeting prior to the appointments. The
group generally meets on the first Thursday evening
of each month. For more information about the
Springfield Police Advisory Committee or future
meeting information, call Michael Harman at 541-
726-2347.
LANE COUNTY AREA
SPRAY SCHEDULE
Oregon Department of Transportation is spraying
roadsides. Call 503-986-3010 to talk with a vegetation
management coordinator or call 1-888-996-8080 for
recent herbicide application information. Hwy. 36 was
recently sprayed.
Giustina Land & Timber Company, 345-2301,
plans to hire Northwest Reforestation Services LLC,
554-0489, to backpack spray and hack and squirt a
total of 119.3 acres on three units near Hamm Road,
Goldson Road and the Long Tom River with glyphosate,
imazapyr and/or Forest Crop Oil. See ODF notification
2016-771-07901, call Brian Peterson at 541-935-
2283 with questions.
Compiled by Gary Hale, Forestland Dwellers: 342-8332, forest-
landdwellers.org
10
July 7, 2016 • eugeneweekly.com
FRIENDS OF KESEY SQUARE SEEK TO
SAVE DOWNTOWN’S OPEN SPACE
W
hile the furor over the proposed sale of Kesey
Square has died down, those who love public
spaces have not forgotten that the corner of
Broadway and Willamette Street is not offi-
cially safe from future development.
A group, Friends of Kesey Square (FOKS), has formed in
order to keep Kesey Square firmly in the public domain and
to revitalize its use as a downtown space.
One of the first items on FOKS’ agenda is to officially
rename the square. Cary Thompson, one of FOKS’ founders,
points out that there are probably one hundred “Broadway
Plazas” across the county, but there is only one Kesey Square.
Currently the square’s formal title is indeed “Broadway
Plaza,” according to the city of Eugene, but the Kesey name
came into being in 2003 when local sculptor Pete Helzer’s
iconic statue of literary luminary Ken Kesey, “The Storytell-
er,” was placed there.
Kesey Square “speaks to us all and says ‘Hey, you’ve ar-
rived,’” says FOKS member and landscape architect David
Dougherty.
Despite the square’s use for more than a decade as a public
space, the land is still zoned commercial, leaving it in jeop-
ardy of being developed.
In October 2015, the Eugene City Council went into ex-
ecutive session to discuss possibly selling the square to a de-
velopment group, 2EB LLC (2 East Broadway), to have a
mixed-use building with apartments built on it. As word went
out, controversy grew. While some saw Kesey Square as an
eyesore, many more called for saving Eugene’s downtown
open space. The city then later put out a call for other ideas
for the square.
In response, Eugene businessman Ali Emami, who owns
the buildings flanking the square, yet again proposed open-
ing up the square’s tall brick walls, a proposal the city has
made unworkable in the past by saying it could later revoke
the decision to open the walls. A compromise was floated,
which Mayor Kitty Piercy called “win-win,” that would have
attempted to bring Emami together with 2EB to both keep
the plaza open and build apartments, but it did not succeed.
In April, the City Council, in a 5-3 tally, voted down a
proposal to prohibit the sale of Kesey Square. Councilors
George Brown, Claire Syrett and Betty Taylor were in sup-
port of the motion.
As Dougherty told the City Club of Eugene in December,
“It is the responsibility of the building to ‘capture’ and acti-
vate the space that it defines.” Dougherty said, “The activities
of the buildings must spill out, overflow and mingle with the
public space to create the vibrancy that we all desire.”
Kesey is the “heart and soul” of the city, Dougherty tells
EW.
Fellow landscape architect Jerry Diethelm says that in or-
der to get a public open space to work, there must be fewer
obstacles to those seeking to hold events there. Diethelm says
FOKS will look at short-term enhancements to the square. At
a June 30 launch and photo session for FOKS, group mem-
bers pointed to a lack of seating and food carts that could be
arranged more invitingly in the space.
Ward 1 City Council candidate and FOKS member Emily
Semple says that the goal is for Kesey Square to be a pub-
licly owned plaza, not a park. Eugene parks have curfews,
she points out, whereas Kesey Square “is the last remaining
place in Eugene where it is legal to practice our First Amend-
ment right to peaceful assembly and free speech between 11
pm and 6 am.”
A public square is not the same as a park, Thompson says,
it’s a different entity. A square has businesses down the sides
it interacts with.
Downtown business owner Jewel Murphy, proprietor
of Passionflower on Broadway, says of FOKS, “I am in-
terested in being part of a group that wants Kesey to stay
in the public domain and wants to develop a plan involv-
ing lots of members of the community that come to-
gether in agreement and that does ongoing fundraising
to keep Kesey beautiful.”
That statement, Diethelm says, sums up the mission of
Friends of Kesey Square.
The group’s founding statement says it wishes to officially
change the name to Kesey Square, “it will take whatever le-
gal steps are necessary to keep Kesey Square public,” and it
seeks to reprogram and redesign the space “in keeping with
the imaginative, innovative, adventurous and creative spirit
of its namesake storyteller.”
Founding members of FOKS are Murphy, Thompson,
Dougherty, Diethelm, Randy McGowan, Gwendolyn Iris and
Ruth Miller.
To join FOKS, send an email saying, “I’m a Friend of Kesey Square” to Jerry
Diethelm at diethelm@comcast.net or Cary Thompson at cdthompson58@gmail.
com.