City Manager from Sprawl City USA

When Jon Ruiz was hired away from an assistant city manager job in Fresno to serve as Eugene’s new city manager this year, he defended Fresno’s reputation for urban sprawl. The San Francisco Chronicle profiled the sprawling, “corrupt,” “depressing” city at the millennium as “a cautionary tale of planning gone wrong and development gone wild.” Continue reading 

Bailout Fix: More tax Breaks for the Wealthy

The U.S. Senate is considering passage today of a Wall Street bailout modified to include tax breaks for the wealthy. The measure includes a provision to reduce the “alternative minimum tax,” a tax originally designed to make sure millionaires couldn’t deduct away all their taxes. Citizens for Tax Justice, a leading non-partisan fair taxation think tank, analyzed the impact of a similar AMT elimination proposal in 2006. Here’s what they found: Continue reading 

Tift Merritt Q&A

As promised, here’s Jason Blair’s Q&A with Tift Merritt. A lot has been written about your voice. When were you first aware of your own voice? The first time I remember being aware of my own voice was when I had my first apartment. I would sing all the time and play music in the middle of the night and my neighbors would bang on the wall, telling me to be quiet. And I thought, I didn’t realize I was singing that loud… Continue reading 

Best of Eugene: It’s the final countdown!

… if I could figure out how to type out the melody of “The Final Countdown,” I would. But I can’t, so I’ll spare you. ANYWAY, you have approximately seven hours left in which to vote for the Best of Eugene. And we want your ballots. Yes, yours — and yours, and yours, and that guy over there’s. Remember, kids, if you don’t vote, you don’t get to complain about the direction our country’s heading. Er, I mean, the businesses which take home the magical sparkly winners’ certificates. Continue reading