BY BEN RICKER
OUT, DAMNED
SPOT! OR
A MODEST
DISPOSAL
Eugene’s newest foray into social
cleansing targets man’s best friend
G
eneral Lee is no bigger than a burrito.
The couple-week-old pit mix — named for the
flame red Dodge Charger in the ’80s TV series
The Dukes of Hazzard — peeks out from behind
the zipper of Annamay Bertholf’s jacket.
Bertholf’s friend, who prefers to remain nameless, just
sold his iPod to scrape together enough cash to pay for
the pit bull pup’s parvovirus shot this morning. Lee yawns
himself awake and passes back out.
With two other dogs in tow, Tinkerbell and seven-
month-old Kita Mihart, Bertholf and her friends collect
themselves in a darkened alleyway after a cold night sleep-
ing on the streets.
This small human/canine herd could be the target of a
proposed city ordinance aimed at shooing undesirables out
of the downtown business district by banning their dogs.
“We’re trying to address behavior downtown,” Mayor
Lucy Vinis says. “I think it’s worth trying.”
If the city goes ahead with it, the ordinance to ban dogs
in the downtown core could take effect as early as next
month. In that case, all but certain privileged canines —
those belonging to area residents and people who work in
the downtown core, as well those belonging to the disabled
— will be subject to fines and removal from the dozen or
so city blocks in the heart of downtown Eugene.
“The fact that people set up blankets on sidewalks with
their dogs, and stay there all day long, that’s not the behav-
ior we want,” says Eugene’s new mayor.
The downtown restriction would be identical to that
which prohibits dogs from entering the commercial cor-
ridor along 13th near the University of Oregon. Vinis cred-
its the 1996 dog ban for tidying up the West University
district.
The downtown ordinance would be up for review in
November, she says. “If people are unhappy with it, we
can change it.”
Vinis doesn’t see a problem with adding a minor nui-
sance code to the current police force workload. “The po-
lice are all going to be down there anyway,” she argues. “It
wouldn’t cost a thing extra.”
Not so fast, says Ward 1 councilor Emily Semple. The
newly elected Semple says she’s concerned a dog ban
would mean police time and taxpayer money wasted.
Semple opposes the ban, but voted in favor of holding a
Feb. 27 public hearing in order to have an open discussion
that includes as many community voices as possible. At
the same meeting, the city will hear from the public on an-
other controversial ordinance that would make downtown
a smoke-free zone.
Think of the time it takes for the cops to stop someone
and write a ticket. And what about the signs the city would
have to put up? Semple asks.
“It wouldn’t cost ‘nothing,’” she says.
On top of that, it could prove nigh impossible for the
police to enforce.
The second a person says their dog is a service animal,
and certainly all dogs downtown are performing a service,
Semple says, even if it’s only companionship, the police
won’t be able to do much.
It might not be 100 percent honest, Semple admits, but
who wants to be hassled by the cops for walking their dog?
The 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act protects
people who rely on service animals from having to carry
proof of their disability. The ADA does not legally require
owners to outfit their service dogs with special insignia of
any kind, either.
Additionally, cities are prohibited from requiring own-
ers to register service animals.
Semple says she knows there are problems downtown,
and that some people report feeling unsafe there. That’s
why Semple favors opening a community center down-
town where people and their dogs could rest and safely set
down their belongings.
Why not help by giving people an alternative to clog-
ging pedestrian walkways? she asks.
“We are after a change in atmosphere downtown,” Vinis
says. “I think it’s a good discussion to have. It’s about try-
ing to address behavior downtown.”
That’s certainly not how the homeless see it.
“This is just a backdoor way for the city to fuck with
us,” Bertholf says.
Bertholf and company come close to crying as they try
to describe how hard it is to get by in Eugene without a
place to live. The threat of the city’s proposed dog ordi-
nance “is almost too much,” Bertholf says.
One of Bertholf’s friends says he suffers from an anxi-
ety disorder. His dog, the well-behaved Tinkerbell, is one
of life’s few steady comforts. She guards his camp at night
and can predict oncoming seizures.
He says his mental condition makes him behave errati-
cally sometimes, but having Tink around helps him keep
his nerves in check.
When the city talks about making downtown “safe and
welcoming for everyone,” Bertholf says they don’t really
mean it.
Bertholf and her group say their lives would be a lot
easier, too, if city officials and police focused on illegal ac-
tivities rather than criminalizing homelessness. Drugs and
crime are just as frightening to people who sleep outside,
they say, if not more so.
Eugene is as much their home as anyone else’s, they
argue, and any kind of dog ban is just an indirect way for
city leaders to get them to move someplace else.
“I don’t always feel comfortable with the way other
people dress,” Bertholf says, “but you don’t see me trying
to outlaw crop tops.”
Eugene City Council hosts a public hearing to discuss proposed ordinances that
would ban dogs and smoking in the downtown core 7:30 pm Monday, Feb. 27,
at Harris Hall in the Lane County Courthouse, 125 E. 8th Avenue.
8
February 16, 2017 • eugeneweekly.com
BY PAUL NEEVEL
HAPPENING PEOPLE
JOSHUA AND BENJAMIN PHELPS
When twins Joshua and Benjamin Phelps were four years
old and living in Pittsburgh, their dad Randy Phelps taught them to
build a circuit with a battery and a motor. “He got us interested,”
Joshua says, and two years later the family moved to Eugene,
their dad’s hometown. “Over the years, we’ve built many more
complex circuits.” They ran wires throughout the house for an
in-home telegraph system and built an electric airplane that flew
five blocks before landing in a tree. As middle-schoolers at
Roosevelt, they acquired a programmable Arduino microprocessor
to build a solar panel that tracked the sun and a computer cursor
controlled by raising an eyebrow. When their father, a doctor at the
Child Development and Rehabilitation Center, learned of the
nationwide Go Baby Go (GBG) project that transforms toy ride-on
cars into mobility vehicles for young kids with disabilities, he
alerted his sons. “We went to a workshop and learned to build a
car,” Benjamin reports, “with a go-button on the steering wheel and
a frame for back support.” The brothers, now sophomores at South
Eugene High School, added a microprocessor and a joystick to
make their GBG fire truck more useable for kids like 3-year-old
Luca. Diagnosed with cerebral palsy, Luca doesn’t walk and has
limited use of only his right hand. He has fun driving and socializing,
and he gains skills with the joystick that enhance his prospects for
a motorized wheelchair in the future. The twins built 10 trucks last
summer and introduced the project to the South Eugene Robotics
Team, which has built three more. To support the local Go Baby Go
effort, visit gofundme.com/e5yh6fss.