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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (July 7, 2016)
IT’S ABOUT TIME NEWS BY CAMILLA MORTENSEN COUNTY COMMISSION TARGETS CITIZEN INITIATIVES BY D AV I D WA G N E R O PIPSISSIWA, CHIMAPHILA UMBELLATA B y July, gardens are burgeoning with flowers and vegetables. They will thrive through the summer only if we pay diligent attention to adequate watering. Digital hose timers are great for extended trips out of town. We also have to deal with combatting weeds and pests. I wrestle with use of poisons. Slug bait offends my organic sensibilities but it seems the only effective way to keep snails away from our hostas and lilies. Is it really necessary to use strictly organic fertilizers? Lawn grass can’t tell the difference between one source of nitrate or another; fixed nitrogen is fixed nitrogen to a plant. What about the commercial fertilizer additives? Horse manure seems pretty noble at the end of these ruminations. July is a squirrelly month for Willamette Valley urbanites. Can we trap and eliminate fox squirrels humanely? It is not legal to catch and release these arboreal rats to another neighborhood. The harsh realities of nature show up if we keep eyes open when taking our neighborhood walks. A bushtit nest on the ground reveals predators at work. The little hatchlings don’t have a chance once discovered. Crows and jays don’t survive on bugs, nuts and berries. A dried and flattened garter snake shows roadkill isn’t just a country highway sight. Escape to the mountains is always good for keeping mental balance with nature. Flower diversity is amazing in the forests and ridgetop meadows. Day hikes are best as high country camping is generally made intolerable by mosquitoes until late August. n June 28, the Lane County Board of Com- missioners discussed giving themselves the power to block certain citizen-powered ballot measures the board deems not of “county concern” before those measures are voted on. Commissioner Pete Sorenson was the lone dis- senting voice on the agenda item labeled “Potential Changes to Lane County Initiative and Referendum Process.” Sorenson tells EW while no actual vote was tak- en, the “dominant flavor” was to move ahead with an ordinance. He says were the commission to move ahead, he has two questions that he would like an- swered. First, “Is there a problem?” Sorenson says he doesn’t think Lane County has had a lot of prob- lematic local measures. During the meeting, Josephine County’s 2014 ban on growing genetically modified crops that was struck down because it conflicted with Oregon law was pointed out as an example. Second, Sorenson says there is already a system in place for dealing with local ballot measures that are passed by citizen votes but might have por- tions of them that are unlawful on a state level or are beyond the scope of the county, and that process throws out nonlegal portions of measures. He calls the proposed ordinance a “solution in search of a problem.” The Josephine County ban was still developing support when, in 2013, the Oregon Legislature es- sentially banned all GMO bans when it made the state the sole regulator of seeds. The Josephine County GMO ban passed but was struck down thanks to the state law. If the Lane County Commission succeeds in pushing through this ordinance while local group Community Rights David Wagner is a botanist who works in Eugene. He teaches moss classes, leads nature walks and makes nature calendars. Contact him directly at fern- zenmosses@me.com. EUGENE WEEKLY GETS RESULTS “Eugene Weekly is not your ordinary publication. EW has helped me build my brand and ever since, my business has been growing in many different ways. On a weekly basis, I can have EW edit my ad exactly how I need it to be so I can let the people in Eugene know what is the latest at Noodle Bowl. At this point, I believe Eugene Weekly is the best publication in our community. ” — Jc Lee For more information on how Eugene Weekly can help your business grow call 541-484-0519 12 July 7, 2016 • eugeneweekly.com Lane County is working on two initiatives — one to ban aerial spraying of herbicides and another ad- dressing the community right to self-government — it too will ban a local rights effort while it is still developing. Sorenson says the ordinance could “suppress rights people currently enjoy,” and to change rules on a process that is already under way, such as the Community Rights initiatives, is “frowned upon.” Ann Kneeland, attorney with Community Rights Lane County, says an ironic aspect of the proposed ordinance is that the county commission is target- ing Community Rights initiatives that seek to create greater legal authority for citizens to protect them- selves from corporate harms. Kneeland says that “local government is trying to stop the people from engaging in this lawmaking at the behest of corporate interest.” She adds, “Here you now have the Lane County Commission doing precisely what the initiatives are trying to prevent.” The initiatives are trying to resurrect the people’s authority to protect themselves, Kneeland says. The initiatives are “calling out that government and in- dustry are in bed together.” Kneeland says that the discussion was not an ar- bitrary act of the board being concerned about the cost of the election. That, she says, is a red herring. “The elephant in our collective room is the govern- ment operating at the behest of corporations and not to the benefit of the planet.” Sorenson says if the proposed ordinance goes forward, there would be a public meeting. Community Rights Lane County meets 8 pm on the first Monday of each month, at the First United Methodist Church, 1376 Olive Street. More infor- mation about CRLC can be found at Community- RightsLaneCounty.org. @EUGENEWEEKLY o t s e r he r e m m u S Cheers to Eugene Weekly Readers! We are proud to serve our local beer lovers! more than 1000 varieties 1591 Willamette St. beer, cider, mead and wine thebierstein.com Your Beer Headquaters for Summertime Fun
