OREGON
ECLIPSE
B Y T E D TAY LO R
AUDITOR DEBATE AT
OUR REVOLUTION
3
WEEKS AWAY
CELESTIAL EVENT OR
COSMOLOGICAL DISASTER?
Oregon is in the path of the Aug. 21 total solar
eclipse with Eugene just on the fringe of the area
that will experience totality. If you live in Corvallis
you can take off your solar shades once the eclipse
is total, but in Eugene, though it will get darker, you
will need to wear those special specs while staring
at the sun.
The eclipse starts at 9:04 am in Eugene-
Springfield, reaches its peak at 10:17 am and wraps
up at 11:37 am, according to NASA. Most of Lane
County sees about 99 percent of the sun blotted out.
You need to travel north of Monroe on Highway 99 or
to about Brownsville on I-5 to experience totality.
Travel. That’s the problem. Oregon’s Office of
Emergency Management estimates 1 million eclipse
visitors in its planning scenario. Oregon only has
about 4 million residents. So the state’s called in the
National Guard, and the Oregon Department of
Transportation and other state and local agencies
are sending out warnings that sound like an
impending natural disaster instead of celestial
event: Stay put! Don’t travel! Have a full gas tank!
Carry water! This is either going to be an amazing
event, an amazing disaster or another Y2K with
much ado about nothing. Let’s hope the National
Weather Service doesn’t start predicting another
bout of 100-degree temps for that week.
On the positive side, President Donald Trump was
born during a total lunar eclipse and many
astrologers are predicting this total solar eclipse
spells disaster for his presidency (as if it weren’t a
disaster already).
— Camilla Mortensen
First public debate on city auditor initiative leans toward petition
he first public debate on the proposal to establish
an Office of Independent City Auditor did not go
well for the opposition.
On July 29, the “trans-partisan” political group
Our Revolution Lane County heard arguments
from chief petitioner Bonny Bettman McCornack and op-
ponent Chris Wig, and at the end of the debate voted 36-5
to endorse the measure. Our Revolution is a local chapter
of a national group that arose from the 2016 Bernie Sand-
ers presidential campaign.
Wig is chairman of the Democratic Party of Lane
County, but represented himself as a “concerned citizen.”
The DPLC has not yet taken a position on the proposal,
which is now gathering signatures to go on the ballot next
May.
Wig ran for Eugene City Council last year and says he
supports independent auditing and may even end up cam-
paigning for this measure. But he said he wants to hear
first from a study group on the topic led by Mayor Lucy
Vinis. “My concern at this juncture is that any endorse-
ment for or against any specific proposal is premature,”
he said. “I think this particular proposal has a lot of really
good aspects in it, but it also raises some questions.”
He is concerned that no citizen review panel is re-
quired, the funding mechanism is “outside the normal
budgeting process” and does not allow for flexibility,
and the auditor’s subpoena power is “highly ir-
regular.”
Auditors can use subpoenas to legally
compel the release of information that is be-
ing withheld or delayed by agencies or of-
ficials.
He also voiced concern that
the drafting of the measure was
not done in public. “If key
stakeholders and communi-
ties of interest had been in-
volved, some of these con-
cerns I have raised would
CHRIS WIG
have been addressed in the
EXPRESSED
proposal and the proposal
CONCERNS ABOUT
T
THE INDEPENDENT
AUDITOR PROPOSAL
IT’S
ABOUT
TIME
A
BY D AV I D WA G N E R
LEWIS MOCKORANGE
PHILADELPHUS LEWISII
6
A ugust 3, 2017 • eugeneweekly.com
would be better for it,” Wig said.
McCornack said her group considered adding a citi-
zen review panel, but decided that peer review, stringent
federal Government Auditing Standards and open public
access to the auditor’s work would provide adequate feed-
back. She said nothing in the measure prohibits a citizen
review panel, and some auditors may prefer to have them.
The measure could also be amended later by another pub-
lic vote.
McCornack, David Monk and former city councilor
George Brown are chief petitioners in the effort to get an
independent auditor; they have formed a group called City
Accountability.
Regarding the fixed budget, McCornack said the au-
ditor’s independence requires a predictable and adequate
minimum budget not subject to the whims of changing
administrations or councils, and the council can allocate
extra funds for special projects.
The subpoena power may never be used, McCornack
said. Retired Oregon state auditor Gary Blackmer told her,
“Just knowing the auditor has it is enough to motivate co-
operation.”
McCornack and others have pointed out that drafting
this measure has been a public process in many ways. The
City Council unanimously approved the idea of a perfor-
mance auditor in 2002, but a series of city managers,
mayors and conservative council members have
kept it off the action agenda.
Blackmer has advocated for an independent
auditor numerous times in public talks
in Eugene, and the topic has been
discussed in many candidate
debates and in op-eds and
letters to the editor of lo-
cal newspapers. Black-
mer helped draft the
technical aspects of
this measure based
on his many years
as a city, county and
state auditor.
ugust is a month of tension between
the urge to backpack into the high
Cascades and the density of
mosquitoes near the best campsites
around lakes or wet meadows. In most
years, the fierceness of mosquito attacks tends
to diminish toward the end of August. Mosquitoes
proliferate rapidly in snowmelt ponds. The sooner
the snow disappears, the sooner mosquito-
breeding season diminishes. Our dramatic
recovery from recent years of drought and low
snow pack was predicted to stimulate a massive
resurgence of mosquitoes this summer. Reports
from friends confirm this prediction is valid in the
western Cascades. It may well take fall’s return of
freezing nights to make for truly mosquito-free
hiking.
Following an especially wet and cold spring,
July was hotter than normal with practically no
PHOTO: TED TAYLOR
rainfall. Blackberries, raspberries, thimbleberries
and others in the same family are maturing
sooner. The invasive and proliferous Armenian
blackberry is already bearing fruit in many
locations, suggesting the peak will come before
my birthday. Commercial berries are also peaking
early. Food preservers need to take note! We like
to put up a year’s supply of marionberries,
blackberries and blueberries by freezing many
pint bags.
Pressure on conservationists continues to be
intense. The irrational policy changes generated
by our lunatic president demand nature lovers
pay attention to attacks on wildland preserves of
all kinds. It is difficult to know where to apply
maximum pressure. Opportunities for future
generations to enjoy at least small fragments of
natural environment depend on contemporary
activists.