LET TERS
LOGGING SCHEME
The Aufderheide National Scenic By-
way out of Oakridge, one of the nation's
most scenic drives, has been severely
degraded by Willamette National Forest
logging. For miles all one will notice is
logged-out stands along both sides. The
Middle Fork District staff will tell you
that it’s a fire fuels thinning that is sup-
posed to protect the community of Westfir
and Oakridge. However, in actuality the
Willamette National Lumber Service has
destroyed naturally generated stands that
were very fire resistant. Opening up these
south-facing stands allows them to be tak-
en over by fire prone understory plants and
invasive scotch broom. Every 5-7 years
they will need to hire crews to thin out the
fire prone understory and scotch broom at
a cost of $1,000-$2,000 per acre. They will
pay for this with additional logging of big
trees.
Why aren’t forest protection groups at-
tempting to stop this type of ecosystem and
tourism destroying logging perpetrated in
our national forests and Bureau of Land
Management lands? Most forest groups
have seemingly drunk the “thinning” and
“fire fuels reduction” scheme Kool-Aid.
This new logging scheme is just the latest
reincarnation to convert our national for-
ests and BLM forests into one giant tree
plantation.
Shannon Wilson
Eugene
MCCORNACK IS DIVERSE
I was upset about parts of your article
“4J Students Face Racial Discrimination.”
I am not a 4J employee and have no knowl-
edge of the events reported.
You completely glossed over what is one
of the most culturally, racially and economi-
cally diverse elementary schools in all of 4J.
We have teachers and a counselor who are
fluent in Spanish — many of our staff are
from diverse racial backgrounds. We have
interpreters at all PTO meetings, school
events, parent teacher conferences, Title 1
Family Nights and Latino Family Nights.
LET'S MAKE A DEAL
McCornack has core values that every
student learns that are reinforced all year
long: principles of inclusion, cultural di-
versity and dignity. Every year, the students
work on the school dignity creed, which
reads: “We the people of McCornack pledge
to help create a Human Dignity Zone free
of discrimination. We believe that people
should judge others by their heart and ac-
tions, not by their appearance, religion,
disabilities or abilities. All people are cre-
ated equally and are worthy of respect. We
should live together in peace and harmony
and love the world and everyone in it be-
cause our differences make us special. We
are all the same in different ways so we will
treat others with dignity, kindness and re-
spect, the way we would like to be treated.”
I can say with sincerity that our Mc-
Cornack staff are caring, inclusive and
respectful professionals. I do not believe
there is discrimination happening in those
inclusive halls.
Ericka Thessen
Eugene
JERRY ROSIEK FOR 4J
Around a decade ago, things had
become so bad for students of color and
advocates for diversity at the University
of Oregon’s College of Education that a
series of large protest marches by students,
faculty and community members brought
the issue to a crisis point.
This followed years of efforts to change
things, including a 4J middle school
refusing to take culturally uneducated
student teachers, entreaties to 4J district
administrators to pressure the UO, and an
emotional, standing-room-only meeting
in the Eugene Public Library in which
the UO president, provost and dean were
addressed by tearful students and angry
community members. Still the UO would
not change.
The protests led to the dean’s
replacement and a chance to make things
right. This is where Jerry Rosiek came in.
Newly hired by the new dean, Rosiek and
his colleagues completely revamped the
teacher education program and brought it
BY BOB WA RREN
Any-Town, USA
DON’T TURN FARMLAND INTO INDUSTRIAL PARKS
T
ake a drive out Highway 99 to Clear Lake
Road and turn west. As soon as you leave
the busy industrial highway you are in
another world, instantly surrounded by
green, open farmland. You experience a
vista that stretches all the way to the Coast Range to
the west.
That’s what I see, and maybe that’s what you see,
but that’s not what the city of Eugene sees. Instead of
prime farmland and green open space, Eugene envi-
sions a 924-acre industrial park.
The city claims it needs to pave over this prime
farmland in order to create “large” industrial sites for
job creation. It also throws parks and schools into the
mix, just in case using the magic word “jobs” is not
sufficient to bring people on board. This is a clas-
sic example of how economic development can, and
often does, overpower land use planning to totally
change the face and future of a community.
Why does Eugene need additional “large” indus-
trial sites? Well, we don’t. The claim is that these
larger sites are needed to recruit large employers that
allegedly pay higher than average wages, and, without
these additional sites, Eugene would be create fewer
high wage jobs. Hogwash.
It is unlikely this urban growth boundary (UGB)
expansion will actually create any new jobs at all. Oh,
there will be jobs there, jobs that would otherwise be
somewhere else in Eugene or Springfield. A big part
of our problem is that we plan for job creation as if
Eugene and Springfield each existed by itself, isolated
from the other. They do not. They are both part of one
contiguous urban area, one community, and we would
be better off to do our economic development plan-
ning that way.
The city “needs” large industrial sites because the
4
March 16, 2017 • eugeneweekly.com
state of Oregon says we do. Why? Because those are
the kinds of companies the state of Oregon recruits,
mostly because, based on economy of scale, Business
Oregon cannot afford the staff resources to go after
smaller companies. And the culture of Business Or-
egon favors doing the “big deal,” as they kowtow to
the big site-selection consulting firms.
We need to pay attention to what we recruit for
large sites, as well as the cost to do it. Business Or-
egon does not give a hoot about local communities
and would put anyone and anything anywhere. And
since the state relies on income taxes for revenue, and
gets nothing out of property taxes, Business Oregon
relentlessly pressures communities for bigger and big-
ger property tax giveaways for these large companies.
Prineville is a classic example. The Facebook data
center there creates a few high-wage jobs that will
likely go to people from somewhere else who will
probably not even live in Prineville. They use up vir-
tually all of the community’s business support infra-
structure like water and power, and they won’t pay a
nickle of property taxes for fifteen years. Does any-
one think Facebook is still going to be there in fifteen
years?
Small cities and local economic development
agencies do not actually recruit businesses to locate
here. That’s a common myth, promoted by the agen-
cies themselves. They mostly just wait while the state
does the recruiting. However, local business recruit-
ment does exist. It is being done by organizations
like Tracktown USA, the Bach Festival, Travel Lane
County and the McKenzie River Guides Association.
It is being done by local industry associations like
the Silicon Shire and the Oregon Brewers Guild, and
business incubators like RAIN and Sprout.
These organizations and others put our commu-
nities in the national and international spotlight and
bring visitors and jobs. They get the attention of small
businesses — that’s the first, and most difficult step in
recruitment. Once here, the visitors find themselves
in a community that is not just like everywhere else.
Some will be motivated to explore the opportunity to
move or expand their businesses here and create jobs,
without demanding or expecting big tax breaks, and
they likely will not need big sites. Based on our ex-
perience with the recessions of the 1980’s and 2008,
it would seem prudent to have a diversified economy
based on smaller businesses, rather than relying on a
few large employers.
The people that come here to listen to world-class
music at the Bach Festival, or watch the Olympic Tri-
als at Hayward Field, or fly fish the McKenzie River,
find themselves in a place not like where they came
from. They are in a place with its own distinct per-
sonality. Many of them are from places that look like
everywhere else. From cities that have spread out into
each other without end, losing their identity in the pro-
cess.
I believe the UGB, something totally unique to Or-
egon, helps keep us unique, keeps us from not looking
or feeling like everywhere else.
And I believe our uniqueness is our biggest eco-
nomic development recruitment asset. Let’s not
squander that asset to create another industrial park
that looks just like every other industrial park in the
country. It’s the UGB that helps to make us differ-
ent, and every time we expand it, we edge just a little
closer to being just another place that looks like every
other place, Any-town, USA.
Bob Warren retired in 2012 as the regional business development officer
for Business Oregon for Lane, Lincoln, Linn and Benton Counties. Prior
to that, he worked in Gov. Barbara Roberts and Rep. Peter DeFazio’s
offices.