We've got issues.
DEAR OREGON Your air feels freer, your coffee tastes richer and you always sound like a Sunday afternoon. I must a steal line and declare, “Oregon, I have just met you, and I love you.” It has been so few days, and yet I already wish to rip off my license plate and replace it with yours and a matching collegiate bumper sticker. Continue reading
A PROPHETIC MOMENT I’ve had the privilege of being Peg Morton’s scribe for her many writings in the last months of her life. More of these writings will be disseminated after her memorial service as she requested. In mid-November she wrote a proposal that was communicated throughout the world to her “peace-building, nonviolence-loving groups and others, including faith communities, friends and family.” Thousands of people have now read, shared and are acting upon Peg’s proposal, which begins: Continue reading
BEAUTY IN THE CRACKS As an alternative to more buildings downtown, how about some grass, flowers and trees? There’s a reason birds and bees and human beings naturally flock to them. City leaders seem hell-bent on filling every downtown space with concrete, providing green for the moneyed interests but only gray for the rest of us. There’s beauty lying dormant in the cracks. Continue reading
COUNTY SHELTER IDEA Imagine that from cooperation among the Eugene Mission, the city of Eugene and Lane County, a partnership develops that allows the Mission to operate as a public shelter, able to receive public funds like Community Development Block Grants or FEMA emergency shelter and food grant funds. It probably would require the Mission’s board to change some requirements, and would require the county to help fund but not run the Mission. Continue reading
MAKE IT POSSIBLE I have been reading with concern of the proposals and letters to the editor concerning the future of Kesey Square. I have been living in a senior apartment community, Olive Plaza, in downtown Eugene. Many of us walk for our exercise and refreshment. There are no places where we can go and sit. There is no green, no small park near the area where we live. A new City Hall park is much too far away. Kesey Square remains the one place where we could go, but the benches have been removed. Continue reading
PUBLIC BONFIRE NEEDED Each morning as I ride the bus to downtown, it takes me through the center of the Capstone project. Almost every morning, including some recent ones where a burn ban is in effect and, memorably, when the Egan Warming Center was shut, there is a gas bonfire burning in an empty courtyard that is gated off from the public. No one who really needs to stay warm could access it even if they wanted to. In my mind it has become symbolic of the taxes that I, as a lucky homeowner, get to pay to support this city. Continue reading
FAIRGROUNDS SHELTER Let’s consider the Lane County fairgrounds as a possible site for sheltering the unhoused. The fairgrounds, close to central Eugene and on a bus route to downtown, comprise 55 acres of land, many of which get little use outside the main events held there annually, such as the fair itself, the logging expo, home shows, etc. Almost all the sheltering projects developed in the last few years are in the Whiteaker neighborhood. It would be fairer to spread the burden throughout Eugene. Continue reading
A TWIST ON MUPTE If Multiple-Unit Property Tax Exemption (MUPTE) tax waivers are not giveaways to developers, as City Councilor Chris Pryor would have us believe in a recent Register-Guard commentary, then they are bribes we can little afford to bestow. How many more levies will be sent to the ballot to make up revenue shortfalls because of the city’s agenda of largesse to developers? Continue reading
SLEEP FOR SURVIVAL Refusing to lift the camping ban is not only unconstitutional, but inhumane. Contrary to popular beliefs, unhoused does not mean unemployed. An unhoused citizen who works at night would not be eligible for rest at one of the “dusk to dawn” camps. Working the night shift is difficult as it is, but the increased struggle for obtaining sleep can actually cause safety issues in the workplace. Continue reading
MISGUIDED TAX The most hated tax in English history was called a head tax in which the lord of the manor and peasants were taxed at exactly the same amount. It’s remarkable that EWEB has seen fit to revive that very same concept with a basic charge of $20 a month, which they propose to increase to $25 a month whether you live in a mansion in the hills or in an apartment on 6th Avenue. Continue reading