We've got issues.
• A $35 annual vehicle registration fee is heading for the May ballot as Lane County struggles to provide basic services. We’re not fond of flat taxes since they exacerbate the gap between rich and poor, but this fee is a bit more progressive than some we’ve seen. Very poor (or green) households don’t even own a car, low-income households might have one car and wealthier households are likely to have several vehicles plus boats and trailers. Continue reading
• We would like to assure parents and their children that Mickey Mouse lives. Continue reading
• The Eugene City Council is expected to take the next step this week in expanding our urban growth boundary to provide more space for industrial land. It appears the controversial 300-acre expansion for housing is not needed, thanks to a math error being discovered. Puzzling. But the plan to expand 924 acres to create industrial land near the airport is also flawed. Strong arguments against UGB industrial expansion can be found in the Envision Eugene online survey done in December and January. Continue reading
• EW lost a trusted friend and critic when Arnold Ismach died on Jan. 16 at age 84. Ismach was dean of the UO School of Journalism and Communication from 1985 to 1994 and has criticized us for “too much entertainment — not enough news.” But his most recent observation, maybe two weeks before his death, was “I read the Weekly Thursday nights and it makes me feel good.” Ismach was a lifelong journalist, one whose curiosity and passion for the world around him lasted long past his retirement from the UO. Continue reading
• It was a great season for the 13-2 Ducks, but you could feel the wheels on the wagon starting to come off even a few days before the Jan. 12 national title game against Ohio State. A drug-related suspension of the team’s second-leading receiver was followed by ESPN analysts warning that, despite a high-powered offense, the Ducks are a scheme-driven squad capable of being exposed as a one-trick pony. And exposed they were. Continue reading
• We’ve ranted against sprawl for decades and we will likely continue to do so ad nauseam. We are not against growth, per se. People have to live somewhere, and our population is growing for a number of reasons, mostly sex. But we see no reason to encourage growth (or sex) to line the pockets of land speculators and shoddy developers. As City Councilor Betty Taylor asks, “Who profits from these plans?” We’d rather see quality of life be our community priority instead of taxpayer-subsidized growth. Continue reading
• Oregon’s minimum wage goes up 15 cents an hour to $9.25 in January, thanks to a ballot measure in 2002 that tied the minimum wage to inflation. But of course an extra $26 a month in pay won’t bring Oregon’s estimated 72,000 working-poor households out of poverty. Seven out of 10 poverty-level families have at least one parent who is employed, often full-time at minimum wage or above. The Oregon Legislature in 2015 is expected to try to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and Republican die-hards will object, saying thousands of jobs will be lost. Continue reading
• Our Give Guide has expanded from less than a page in years past to the multiple pages you see this week. Eugene is home to hundreds of nonprofits doing exceptional work locally and around the world, so our list is far from complete. Why are we such a thriving center for nonprofits, much more so than other communities our size? Continue reading
• Parting is such sweet sorrow: Since Ducks quarterback Marcus Mariota won the Heisman last week — and won it decisively — he ceased to be just another great UO athlete. If he wasn’t already, Mariota is now a national celebrity, evidenced by his immediate appearance on network television Dec. 15 when he read the Top Ten list on “Late Night with David Letterman.” Letterman introduced Mariota as “a good-looking kid” from “your University of Oregon Ducks,” and he wasn’t talking to us, Eugene. Continue reading
• Congrats to all players for ending the GTFF strike on the UO campus. We’re even pleased that we can stop honking our horns in solidarity with the picketing graduate teaching fellows marching for hours on end. Hopefully, this conflict will not be a forerunner for broader labor disputes at the university, now that the faculty is unionized. It should not be. The UO has a long history of working peacefully with unions, the SEIU, for instance, and the GTFF until this fall. Continue reading