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• How could this happen? Four prominent Eugene progressives standing at the City Club podium May 3 arguing about Ballot Measure 20-211, the Eugene city services fee. Alan Zelenka and Steve Johnson support it, Bonny Bettman McCornack and George Brown oppose it. Five of eight city councilors oppose it. Conservatives must be chuckling. We wonder how City Manager Jon Ruiz, his staff and Mayor Kitty Piercy put out this seriously flawed measure. Continue reading
• Ballots should be arriving in local mailboxes this weekend or early next week, and we are concerned that voter turnout might not be very high, even with three money measures on the ballot. That’s a lot of money to ask for in a recession, so it’s time to think hard about what you want to fund. For us, it’s schools. This is an off-year election and the campaigns are pretty low-key compared to the presidential year overload that made small children cry, and even some adults. Continue reading
• One week after the Boston Marathon, more than 35,000 athletes ran the London Marathon. Some 8,500 are expected in the Eugene Marathon races April 27-28, and hundreds of thousands more are running in cities around the world, many with tributes to Boston and renewed determination to carry on to the finish line. In our frustrating search for meaning in all the insanity that’s happening in the world, we are brought back to ponder the lines painted large on the Hayward Field east grandstand: “Believe in the power of the run.” Continue reading
• Eugene City Councilor Betty Taylor spent countless hours studying the West Eugene EmX Extension before deciding to support it, and it looks like a similar thoughtful process has gone into her decision to not support the city service fee on the May ballot. Taylor was in the undecided column until this week. Now five out of eight councilors are on record opposing the fee, and if the ballot measure fails it looks like the council will try to find other sources of funding for the threatened services. Continue reading
• The city fee debate is taking some fascinating twists with Councilor George Brown changing sides as he delves more into the issues of city finances and budget priorities. Will other key supporters of the ballot measure also jump ship? Local Democrats lined up early in favor of the fee but without exploring the arguments in any depth. This debate is getting awkward as supporters discover the city has enough excess reserves from fiscal year 2013 to cover the anticipated deficit in 2014. Continue reading
• Eugene is moving ahead on renovating City Hall, or at least finding an architect, and we hear from reliable sources that longtime City Hall renovation proponent Otto Poticha and his team of architects were rated near the bottom of the list of seven architecture firms that have applied. Poticha won’t even be interviewed for the job. Continue reading
• The report on the audit of the Eugene Police Department’s Property Control Unit (PCU), which revealed 1,116 missing items including guns, drugs and jewelry, was quite an eyebrow raiser. We met with Police Chief Pete Kerns and the civilian employee who requested the audit, and they said some policies and procedures have been ignored for years, leading to disorganization. Further investigations will hopefully determine whether the missing items are really gone from “The Vault” at EPD or just misplaced, and whether any criminal activity has taken place. Continue reading
• Lane County Commissioner Faye Stewart’s convoluted attempt to get all of Lane County residents and businesses to pay for his ill-advised industrial development plans in Goshen is raising eyebrows even among the pro-growth crowd. As regional economic development veteran Bob Warren points out in his Viewpoint this week, “It’s time for a reality check.” Looks like the garbage fee idea, Senate Bill 248, died this week, at least in its present form. Continue reading
• A PAC has been formed to oppose the flat fee measure that will be on the May ballot in Eugene (see our news story this week). This could prove to be a fascinating debate, raising all sorts of wonkish issues that are normally ignored by the public, and alas, even by the media. It’s good to see former councilors Bonny Bettman McCornack and Paul Nicholson back in the fight and asking tough questions. And it’s not too early to ask: What will happen if this measure fails and somehow money is found or reallocated to maintain CAHOOTS or Sheldon Pool or branch libraries? Continue reading
• The South Willamette Street Improvement Plan’s six design concepts for the street, which will be repaved in 2014, were presented last week to a big crowd. Willamette between 24th and 32nd avenues has needed an overhaul for a long time — its four-lane configuration and redundant driveways that act like tiny intersections have led to an accident rate almost twice the state average for similar roads. Bikers must choose between sharing the lane with impatient drivers or risk riding on the sidewalk. Continue reading