The Legacy of the Mims Family
Thanks to G. B. Lawrence for reminding and informing readers of the critical part the Mims family played in accommodating not only Black University of Oregon athletes but a succession of traveling non-white artists, entertainers and speakers during a period of racial segregation and exclusion (“Helping Preserve A Legacy,” EW, 1/16).
In 1980 I worked for Housing and Community Conservation (HCC), whose purpose was to provide low-interest loans to bring deficient housing up to code. We expected one loan to serve as a catalyst for others, and to a large extent that occurred, especially in the east butte area where the Mims property is located.
The affordable, federally funded loan on which I worked with the Mims family as a housing inspector literally provided the foundation and structure that helped preserve the architectural and cultural integrity and significance of both houses on the site. Many of the homes in east butte, and elsewhere in Eugene as well, were restored, directly or indirectly, with HCC loans.
Sadly, funding for the agency dried up in the early 1980s, but its legacy lives on, largely unrecognized, in housing throughout Eugene’s historic communities.
Robert Emmons
Fall Creek
An Idea for Punishment
“Baxter-Krause also faces up to two years in federal prison” (EW online, 1/22).
If corporate polluters were sentenced to a prison in a cancer alley, would their defense lawyers protest cruel and unusual punishment?
David Hoffman
Eugene
The Hidden Costs of Housing
The viewpoint — “Strengthening Democracy” by Diana Bilovsky (EW, 1/16) — misses key points of unaffordable housing.
Often ignored housing costs include excessive costs to buy or sell a home of 6 percent due to collusion and price fixing in the real estate industry. The 6 percent adds zero value to a home and is around 2 percent in Europe. If a person sells then buys, that is a cost of 12 percent.
Big government expenses of excessive property taxes, building permit fees, costs of sewer and storm water as well as corruption in politics make home ownership unaffordable for many.
The solution is to reduce the size of our wasteful, inefficient big government funded by the above taxes and fees by ending the city manager type government and replacing it with a business with a board of directors voted on by taxpayers, similar to EWEB. We can achieve much greater services with much less cost with a business-oriented organization, and allow competition from other sectors in the private industry. Due to lack of competition and forced use of our bloated government and entrenched bureaucrats, we will not get anywhere until major changes are made.
And get politicians to allow a maximum of 2 percent real estate commissions and costs.
Gary Cook
Eugene
Choking on Emissions
I think it’s time that Eugene started emissions controls on all vehicles. The air here has gotten worse. What would it take to institute this?
Randi Briscoe
Eugene
A Decision in Poor Taste
The recent actions of the Eugene 4J school board regarding our current principal Nain Muñoz and his resignation has sparked some heated discussions in the community and has reminded people of past events where 4J has also not had the community in mind.
As a 12th grader at NEHS, I personally am not too surprised they chose not to reconsider his resignation because in my 12 years attending school in this district, they’ve never really impressed me with the choices they make.
Regardless of my personal opinion, though, it is a little shocking that they would make this decision considering the uproar from staff and students retelling stories and sharing how he’s the best administrator our school has had in a long time, but also because that just leaves yet another school in our already understaffed district without a principal.
Unfortunately, 4J is known for making poor decisions regarding its students. For example, all the false promises they made regarding Japanese immersion school Yujin Gakuen and their building. In short, 4J promised them the old North Eugene High School building, but in the end they were pushed to a bunch of portables in the south hills.
In conclusion regarding our principal, I think 4J needs to open its eyes and realize leaving yet another school without a very loved administrator is just poor taste.
Emily Harness
Eugene
Railyard Concerns
Union Pacific, a Class I railroad that currently owns/operates the railyard and tracks in Eugene, has filed for approval to lease this yard to Central Oregon and Pacific Railroad (CORP), a Class III operation.
Union Pacific’s Transportation Division union members expressed concern about this transition, and opposed the lease as it will impact the quality of maintenance of the railroad. Union Pacific employs highly skilled union workers, whereas CORP is not held to this same standard.
UP railroad employees handle railcars full of toxic materials on a daily basis. Union Pacific has also been responsible for ongoing groundwater cleanup efforts in Eugene for many years.
CORP’s mismanagement of the Coos Bay branch line shows a pattern of failure to maintain infrastructure and safeguard communities. A Class III railroad like CORP lacks the financial resources to prevent or respond to a disaster, leaving taxpayers to bear the costs and health risks. This is not acceptable!
Will the non-union CORP management take on the responsibility of protecting their employees, and Eugene’s citizen’s water and soil, or will they abandon these critical environmental protections like they did in Coos Bay, a much smaller operation?
It is critical that Class I standards be upheld at this railyard! This lease is dangerous. We must prioritize public health and safety while preventing future disasters and contamination in the middle of our city!
Robin Bloomgarden
Eugene
How to Restore Services
I am one of the founding members of Health Care for All Oregon, the group who gathered signatures to put Measure 23 on the 2002 Oregon ballot. If passed, that measure would have established a universal health care system for all residents of our state. Nearly everyone I know has had recent problems accessing medical care, even when insured.
I am one of the majority of Eugene residents who are frustrated and angry at PeaceHealth for abandoning Eugene by closing the University District hospital and emergency department with a few weeks notice, giving no time for our community to explore how that resource for our residents could have been kept open.
Eugene Healthcare Coalition formed to explore how services could be restored. The coalition joined with several neighborhood associations to hold a health care forum in September to look at what might be done. This included, among others, Oregon Representatives Julie Fahey and Nancy Nathanson, who explained how the funding passed in the 2024 legislative session would help Eugene fill some of the gaps.
The coalition and some neighbor associations, plus others, have planned a second forum to problem solve our serious situation. Please mark your calendar for Saturday, March 1, to attend the second health care forum from 2 pm to 4 pm in person or live-streamed. Check the Eugene Weekly calendar for location and link.
Charlotte Maloney
Eugene
We Need Better Signage
Some time ago, the city of Eugene made a traffic pattern change at Pearl Street and East 11th Avenue. For years, there were two lanes that allowed for turning right onto East 11th. The change resulted in just the original turn lane remaining, eliminating the other lane from turning.
There was no signage placed by the city to indicate this change, yet people have been accustomed to turning right from a lane that no longer allows it for years. It’s a habit.
On Wednesday, Jan. 8th, I was waiting in the turn lane for a pedestrian to cross East 11th when I was hit by someone turning right from the lane to my left.
His insurance denied my claim, stating Google maps indicates there are two lanes that turn right.
Google maps rarely updates, yet if the city had placed some signage indicating the change, the accident may not have occurred, and my vehicle would remain undamaged.
Bob Kennedy
Eugene
Deep Concerns about Language
While I have long been a supporter of Looking Glass programs for homeless youth and look forward to learning more about the mission of Scorpion Creek Ranch, I have deep concern about the language used in the article (“Not ‘A Band-Aid on a Bullet Wound,’” EW, 01/16).
Why are participants of this program referred to as “patients”? Homelessness is not in and of itself an illness. These children are residents, not “patients.”
And who are these “general contractors” entrusted with the protection and restoration of these vulnerable children to safe, sustainable homes?
It sounds dangerously like institutional care where homelessness is criminalized.
Katherine Knowles
Eugene
Editor’s Note: Patient was the language used by our reporter.
Judgement Rendered
Right on, Glenn Jones for the rewrite (EW letters, 1/2). Some others are feeling “Sadness, Despair and Anger” also (EW, 12/26), and you put it perfectly.
I have lived in Eugene for most of my 91 years. I can remember when it was actually a beautiful clean town. Now l drive by a stack of stolen grocery carts piled high with “stuff” and topped with a broken bicycle — Bailey Hill between the trail and Rexius. And this is only one of many rat inducing piles of detritus.
Is no one responsible anymore? Is it a human right to foul property? Not important? Is it the right of an angry person to hurl a bowl of chili at a city official who, I might add, has been working to try to solve this very problem? When do the rights of the citizenry get explored? When do we dare to use the word “choices”?
Yes, it looks like it is time to say, “OK, good luck with that, mister,” and I will add, “Move on.”
You bet I am judging. As will anyone reading this, judge in their own way.
Marjorie Harris
Eugene
Thrown Under a Bus
Why are huge, double buses driving around town with zero to three people riding in them? It saddens me to see this gross inefficiency. I see them every day on Coburg Road and leaving the station downtown. Three to six people would fit nicely in a smaller, more efficient van. Maybe someone thought “if we build it they will come”? Didn’t work in this case.
Bill Klupenger
Eugene
More About the Homeless
Rewrite had it right!
To be clear, my issue is not with Eugene’s generically referenced “unhoused” or “homeless” population as a group. Rather, it’s with Eugene’s drug/alcohol addicted campers. I believe that was the group Glenn Jones targeted in his letter “Rewrite!” (EW letters, 1/2).
This segment of our unhoused has exhausted the majority of Eugeneans’ patience, including myself. Jones was not wrong when he referenced their behavior of “Smoking meth? Being disruptive? No attempt at self improvement? Stealing bicycles?” Jones forgot to mention stealing grocery carts, shoplifting and treating people like biological ATMs to support their habit(s).
You may remember the $1.2 million in tax dollars needed to remove soil contamination and restore Washington Jefferson Park after its resident tenting population was relocated in 2021. In February 2023, the city of Eugene hit Union Pacific Railroad with more than $216,000 in fines for failing to clear piles of trash from homeless camps along rail lines north of Franklin Boulevard for a half-mile stretch of the Willamette River.
And now it’s Danebo Pond’s turn. The property owned by Levi Miller and reported on by KEZI, which they titled “Dumping Ground,” was a horrific example of what Eugenans have been putting up with. This group takes and gives nothing in return. It’s difficult to empathize with those who have no empathy for the impact they have on Eugeneans who work, pay taxes and just want a safe and clean city to live in. Is that too much to ask?
Ron Patton
Eugene
We’re Getting Warmer
2024 was the hottest year on Earth in human history, and the planet has warmed 1.6 C degrees, according to the World Meteorological Organization. We are experiencing a slow moving emergency! We know the obstacles to stabilize warming in the face of coming catastrophic disasters aren’t physical or technological — they are entirely political.
We know that climate-forward actions adopted by the U.S. will be reversed by the Trump administration. But we can still act locally. We find ourselves in One Fragile Moment, which is the title of climate scientist Michael Mann’s new book.
We are faced with a choice. We can continue to increase planet-heating emissions or we can do what’s necessary to transition off of fossil fuels. One way is by increasing fees on the fossil fuel industry. Their product has caused the climate crisis and their astronomical profits should pay for our transition to clean energy. It is past time to make the polluters pay!
Now, more than ever, local and state officials must confront this issue head-on. The stakes are high. The climate-fueled fires in L.A. are headed Oregon’s way. Time to get off fossil fuels and electrify our energy use — for everything. Tell your representatives you demand climate action.
Deb McGee
Eugene
Keep Muñoz at NEHS
I’m an 11th grader attending North Eugene High School. The issue I will be addressing is the resignation of our current principal, Nain Muñoz. I firmly believe that our 4J district should allow our principal, Muñoz, to rescind his resignation.
The primary reason I feel strongly about this issue is because he is the best principal I have ever encountered. What makes Muñoz different from the rest is the amount of love and effort he puts into each and everyone of his students. He attends every sporting event, extracurricular and club we have, and he always shows his support. He has so much support and love from the students, staff and parents, and the district should let him rescind his resignation.
The district stated that it wanted our students, staff and parents to suggest qualities for our new principal. However, our oldest teachers like Brandy Wormdhal said, “We don’t want to talk about that. Here’s all the things, but he’s got them.” Another teacher, Clair Wiles, said more than focusing on specific qualities, she hopes 4J will have more conversations about retaining principals and supporting them in their roles. In conclusion, it’s clear that our district needs to listen to their students and staff and give us, and especially our principal, the support we need. I urge our district to first let Muñoz rescind his resignation.
Ava Brown
Eugene
Better Spend Tax Money
President Donald Trump is planning to cut funds to Medicaid to pay for his tax cuts for the rich. What’s next? Hand over the Medicare Trust Fund to Elon Musk?
Wouldn’t it be great if we could designate on our tax forms what we want our taxes to pay for? Check the box for what percentage of your tax due you want to go to the military, education, environmental protection, health care, aid for Israel, for Ukraine, etc.