NEWS
BY JORDAN RICH
‘Working in support of our
farmers and our food economy
has been the most gratifying
work of my life.’
— LY N N E F E S S E N D E N
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
ENDS 10 YEARS AT
WILLAMETTE FOOD
AND FARM COALITION
L
ynne Fessenden is stepping down from her decade-
long position as the executive director of the Willa-
mette Farm and Food Coalition, a nonprofit focused
on developing a sustainable food system in Lane
County. But she says her passion for educating the
community about local foods is still as strong as ever. “It’s
been ten years, and that’s long enough,” she says.
Fessenden has a doctorate in oceanography from Or-
egon State University, is a self-taught nutritionist and says
that while she enjoys gardening, “I mostly buy from local
farmers because I like supporting them.”
Fessenden has done a lot more for local farmers than
just buying her groceries from them. With Fessenden at
the helm, the WFFC has helped develop the local food in-
dustry by convincing farmers that they can grow hard red
wheat, which is ground into flour so that people can eat
locally farmed wheat products.
NEWS
Under Fessenden WFFC convinced schools to buy food
from local farms with its Farm to School program.
WFFC also implemented a Supplemental Nutrition As-
sistance Program match program that has helped make lo-
cal fresh food affordable to those who don’t have that much
money to spend. SNAP beneficiaries who spend $10 on food
at the Lane County Farmers Market get an additional $10
worth of “Food Bucks” to spend there on fruits and veg-
etables.
While attending OSU, Fessenden says she was more
community-focused than her peers. “In graduate school I
proposed a course to our dean that would teach grad students
how to tell the general public why their research mattered,
in three lines or less, and he laughed me out of the room.”
She later worked as the associate director of a national
nonprofit, the Science and Environmental Health Network.
“I loved the work but felt strange after a while that I was
BY CLAIRE RISCHIOTTO
FUTURE OF EUGENE PARKS
WILL BE CITY CLUB TOPIC
L
ack of funding in recent years has led to cracked
pavement, aging playground equipment that needs
to be replaced and other maintenance needs in Eu-
gene’s parks. City parks officials plan to bring this
issue before the City Council as soon as March.
Next week, parks officials will present their ideas and
take questions in a panel discussion at a meeting of the City
Club of Eugene.
Eugene’s Parks and Open Space Division faces an an-
nual $2.3 million operational maintenance budget gap and a
$30 million capital backlog for developing and purchasing
park land, city officials say.
Also on their list of needs is money to maintain 17 un-
developed parklands in southwest Eugene, Santa Clara,
Bethel and Willakenzie.
The Parks and Recreation System Plan, also known as
PARKS and RECreate, seeks to identify priorities for the
next 10 to 20 years of parks and recreation in Eugene by ad-
dressing current problems, preparing for future population
8
helping communities all around the country but was not con-
nected to what was going on in my own,” she says.
Since Fessenden’s sister was already an organic farmer,
Fessenden was familiar with agriculture, and that influenced
her decision to take the position at WFFC.
Fessenden is going to keep working with WFFC to pub-
lish the 2017 edition of the Locally Grown Guide, an infor-
mational booklet on local farmers and where to find their
food.
She will also be working with the Willamette Valley Sus-
tainable Foods Alliance to launch a regional foods brand.
After that, she says, she won’t know until she gets there.
“Everyone eats. Everyone has a food story. That is what
makes this work so powerful. There is no one who is not
touched by food,” Fessenden says. “Working in support of
our farmers and our food economy has been the most grati-
fying work of my life.”
January 26, 2017 • eugeneweekly.com
growth and trends, and creating a vision to benefit current
and future generations.
The plan includes funding the $2.3 maintenance gap and
developing one community park and five neighborhood
parks in underserved areas within five years, according to
a parks report.
At the City Club meeting, Parks and Open Space Plan-
ning Manager Carolyn Burke, Parks and Open Space Di-
rector Craig Carnagey and Recreation Services Manager
Sandy Shaffer will present the Parks and Recreation Sys-
tem Plan to attendees.
Even with funding issues, Carnagey says his department
can still take care of Eugene parks — but not at the level
the public expects. “We’re not doing it at an adequate level
to keep providing the quality of services the community has
been expecting over the years, and it’s slowly starting to
diminish,” Carnagey says.
Following through with funding the budget gap and back-
log will require a majority vote from the City Council on a
proposed measure with a specific plan on how to fund park
projects, he says. The most common funding methods are a
voter approved property tax levy and bond measure (both
funded through property taxes), Burke says.
A levy would cover the cost of daily park operations and
maintenance, and a bond would fund capital projects, such as
building a new community center.
If a measure were to pass both a bond and levy, this
would cost the median homeowner $64 a year ($31 a year
per household for the bond and $33 per a household a year
for a levy, which expires after 5 years), according to a report
commissioned by the city from The Trust For Public Land.
The idea of the City Club presentation is for the public to
feel informed enough about the Park and Recreation System
Plan that they “can participate in the decision making pro-
cess,” Burke says.
After the officials’ presentation at the meeting, there will
be discussions among each table. Then City Club members
can address officials with questions. Nonmembers can ask
members to pose a question.
The City Club meeting will begin at noon Friday, Feb. 3, at the University of Or-
egon’s Baker Center, 975 High Street. Admission is $5 for nonCity Club members.
Admission is free for City Club of Eugene members and students with student ID.
Lunch is available for an extra charge. The meeting will also broadcast at 6:30
pm on Monday, Feb. 6, on KLCC 89.7 FM.