Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 21, 2017)
B Y K E L LY K E N O Y E R • Impact Your Health Eugene, a free community health care event, returns to the Lane Events Center, 9 am to 5 pm, Sept. 24 and 25. Organizers say the event is “intended to serve those who need and could never hope to pay” for health care necessities including free diabetes screenings, consultations with medical doctors and eye doctors, and free dental exams, cleanings, fillings and extractions. There will also be representatives from local drug and alcohol recovery support groups. Volunteer medical professionals from any field are still needed; equipment will be provided. Some professionals can gain continuing education credits by volunteering. For more on receiving care, volunteering to provide care, or to support the event in other ways, contact Randy Meyer at 541-937-2786 or randy@ caringhandsworldwide.org. • Centro Latino Americano is seeking mentors for its youth mentoring program. The program serves at-risk Latino youth in the community and offers community engagement, increases their social skills and connects them with resources. Mentors are needed for one-on-one mentoring relationships with youth as well as group mentoring, which includes two-hour sessions twice a month and monthly group outings. If you are interested in mentoring call 541- 687-2667 or email mentor@centrolatinoamericano.org. And on Sept. 23 Centro is organizing a DACA renewal clinic for those who need to renew their applications before Oct. 5 in order to meet the current government deadline. Each application costs $497, and Centro is raising funds to cover the costs for as many young immigrants as possible. They estimate that about 120 local people are in need of these services. Go to centrolatinoamericano.org to donate to the effort via PayPal. • 350 Eugene hosts a Fall Membership Potluck and Meet-up at First United Methodist Church, 1376 Olive Street on Sept. 28. Betzi Hitz of 350 says, “At 6 pm bring vegetarian food or drink to share and your own plate/bowl, cup and eating utensils.” At 7 pm the guest speaker is David Stone from Friends for Douglas Fir Monument, and there will be campaign updates and action break outs. The lead campaign for the coming year is the fight against the Pacific Connector Pipeline and Jordan Cove liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal. • Womenspace ‘invites the public to join us in remembering victims, standing up for survivors, and fighting for a safe community.” A Vigil for Victims and Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence is the opening event for Domestic Violence Awareness Month. The nonprofit says, “Together, we will remember victims killed by an intimate partner, celebrate survivors who have overcome abuse and support community members who are currently surviving abuse from an intimate partner.” Community members of all ages and genders are encouraged to attend 6 to 7 pm Sunday, Oct. 1, at Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza in downtown Eugene. •The nonprofit Community Veterinary Center is having an open house 2 to 4 pm Oct. 1 at 470 Highway 99 North in Eugene. The event celebrates the completion of a new addition, a surgery and x-ray room, financed totally by numerous donors across Lane County. Info at communityvet. org. • CAHOOTS-Metro (aka Springfield CAHOOTS) is now available 24 hours per day, every day, as of Sept. 1. CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets) got a federal grant from Lane County for mobile mental health crisis intervention and was already available 24-hours per day in Eugene, with two vans in service during peak hours, for reasons primarily related to addiction, homelessness and poverty, the group says. Each CAHOOTS team consists of an emergency medical technician or registered nurse and a mental-health crisis worker. Services provided include crisis counseling, transportation to shelter and treatment facilities, family mediation, first aid and more — all at no cost. In Eugene call the Eugene Police Department non-emergency dispatchers at 541-682-5111. And for CAHOOTS-Metro, covering Glenwood and Springfield call the Springfield Police Department non-emergency dispatchers at 541-726-3714. For more info visit whitebirdclinic.org. • An interfaith group including Sikh, Quaker, Muslim and Christian communities has been working together to feed the hungry. The volunteers feed an average of 300 people every Sunday at First Christian Church at 12th and Oak in Eugene. If you wish to help, please join them either 10 am to noon Saturdays to prepare food and set up the dining room, or 7 am to 10:30 am Sundays for cooking, serving and cleaning up breakfast. 6 September 21, 2017 • eugeneweekly.com AN ECCO STUDENT SURVEYS THE CLEARCUT NEAR LCC PHOTO: STEVE CONNELLY A CLEARCUT PROTEST Possible McMansions near LCC cause concerns D riving up 30th, you may have noticed a massive gash in the forest next to Lane Community College. The clearcut adjacent to LCC may soon be home to McMansions, thanks to a few well-known land profiteers who operate in the area: the McDougal brothers. But LandWatch Lane County has filed an appeal to fight the planned development there. High school students at the Lane Community College Early College and Career Opportunities (ECCO) program protested the clearcut near their school during class on Fri- day, Sept. 15. Several dozen students walked out of their classroom, accompanied by an instructor, to check out the clearcut nearby. ECCO LCC instructor Steve Connelly says, “That day the students organized themselves to go see the clearcut.” Connelly came along for the ride. The clearcut spans over 130 acres adjacent to LCC, despite Oregon Department of Forestry rules limiting clearcuts under the same ownership to 120 acres. The forested area changed ownership in May to three different companies owned by Norman and Melvin Mc- Dougal: Leelynn Inc, Wiley Mt. Inc, and McDougal Broth- ers Inc. The McDougals are a pair of well-known land developers with a spotty reputation thanks projects such as the mining of scenic Parvin Butte, a landfill that kept catching fire, and an attempt to get a water right on the McKenzie River that was ruled water speculation. “We came back to school this year and there’s this huge frickin’ gash above the school that’s set up to have a bunch of 4,000- or 5,000-square-foot houses on,” Connelly says of the clearcut near LCC. KC Westphal, a 17-year-old ECCO student, says she’s frustrated to see the forest coming down to make way for large houses “because we only have 2 percent of our forests left in Oregon.” Her classmate Paisley Eidemiller, 16, says they decid- ed to check out the clearcut after hearing the construction noises and seeing the gaps in the forest. “We were walking across the tree graveyard, as I like to call it,” Eidemiller says. “It hurts to feel like that’s gone, and that it’s no longer going to be a part of that community, and when we look up there instead we’ll see people looking down on us.” Lauri Segel-Vaccher at LandWatch Lane County says her organization is already tracking the McDougals’ plans for that land. The land is zoned F2, which is forested rural land. According to Segel-Vaccher, F2 zoning generally re- quires that parcels are over 80 acres, and each parcel is only permitted one “forest template dwelling.” But an odd loophole in county code, she says, allows parcels that are already under 80 acres to undergo property line adjustment. She says this is the McDougals’ plan — to divide up the larger plots into pseudo-subdivisions for large, mansion-style houses, but with far fewer regulations than a subdivision would have within the Eugene urban growth boundary (UGB). “I’ve been asking for code amendments to address this,” she adds. The developers would sell the parcels for a tidy profit after getting approval for each plot to have a dwelling and a well, she says, adding that the McDougals have done this before across the county. “The approvals go with the prop- erty not with the owner,” Segel-Vaccher says, meaning the new owners of the parcels won’t have to do any paperwork to get approval for wells or housing. She says the McDou- gals “turn forestland into home sites.” She says this is a major environmental concern because those parcels may not have enough water to sustain six different wells and the needs of six different households. None of this requires testing by the county, thanks to the F2 zoning. “The planning commission has the belief, buyer beware. That is their attitude when it comes to water,” Se- gel-Vaccher says of Lane County. Since the land is outside the UGB, the new develop- ments won’t be hooked up to municipal water or sewer. This means there will also be a septic tank attached to each house. “If there weren’t so many of them in such close proximity it wouldn’t be a big deal,” she says, but septic tanks fill up and leak over time, and “people don’t neces- sarily repair or replace them the minute they start leaking.” The high school students at ECCO say they plan to pro- test the clearcut in the future, and they may soon have an opportunity. Segel-Vaccher says that her organization has already sprung into action. “The organization I work with, LandWatch Lane County, has filed an appeal of a proposal they made to the county. It was also appealed by a neigh- bor.” She adds, “What we’re appealing is the county’s ap- proval of these lots being lawfully created.” EW reached out to the McDougals for comment, but didn’t receive a response before press time. Those interested in supporting LandWatch Lane Coun- ty’s appeal can attend a hearing scheduled for 9:30 am Thursday, Oct. 5, at the Lane County Customer Service Center located on North Delta Highway.
