Opinion: Page 408

Bailing Out City Hall

Viewpoint

The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer and Eugene City Hall is exacerbating this inequity with two separate money grabs.  Oregon Center for Public Policy’s research shows that in Oregon the lowest income households pay the highest share of their incomes to state and local taxes, and highest income households pay the lowest share. More than half of Eugene’s 65,631 households earn less than $50,000 annually, with 21,128 earning below $25,000.  Continue reading →

Letters to the Editor: 2-7-2013

Letters

ABUSE OF POWER The “Neighborhood Groups Exonerated” news brief Jan. 31 accurately reported how City Councilor Chris Pryor instigated a formal investigation of neighborhoods’ involvement in a land use appeal without having any supporting evidence of wrongdoing, and how the city attorney’s investigation completely exonerated neighborhood leaders. However, some important facts weren’t mentioned. Continue reading →

Slant 2-7-2013

Slant

• Bonny Bettman McCornack is back in our pages this week reviving her City-Zen Journal column. We’ve missed her strong voice and clear analysis of complex issues. She retired in frustration in 2009 after a memorable eight years on the Eugene City Council and numerous committees and commissions in Lane County. Often she was the only voice in public meetings asking tough questions and calling for accountability and transparency. Continue reading →

Remaking Democracy

In search of a more democratic, green form of socialism

Viewpoint

I want to violate the American taboo on socialism in response to the Weekly’s Jan. 17 Slant column that asks are we really listening to Martin Luther King Jr.’s message. “If so, why the growing disparity between rich and poor?” The pathologies the Russian, Eastern European, Chinese and Cuban forms of socialism are obvious. But the truth and political relevance of Marxist – and, I would add, biblical, Buddhist and ecological – critiques of capitalism are, I think, ever more persuasive in a world of increasing inequality and ecological limits. Continue reading →

Slant 1-31-2013

Slant

• The proposed $10 a month stormwater fee hike has been reduced to $5 after a public outcry against it and doubts that the City Council would approve it. But some interesting ideas have surfaced that might be worth pursuing as the city struggles to raise much-needed revenues. One proposal kicking around unofficial email lists is changing our city stormwater fee to reflect the footprint of living units and other impermeable spaces. Continue reading →

Banning GMOs

The New Civil Rights Movement

Viewpoint

As the fight over genetically modified canola and other GM crops escalates in the Willamette Valley, a group of farmers and neighbors in Benton County have spent the past year talking about how to stop GMOs. They’ve asked the question that people across the country ask when faced with corporate threats — such as GMOs, fracking or water privatization — how do we say no?  Traditional environmental activism would have them writing letters to elected officials, submitting public comments on proposed GMO plans and testifying at hearings.   Continue reading →