Citywide opposition needed
The story on the Crest Drive struggle is a step toward ending the strange and unfair method the city has for paying for roadwork.
I live on Maple Street (part of another project), and there are untruths in the information on our project. Yes, our street needs work, but the work is not going to benefit us. Instead we are losing most of our trees, the rural nature of our streets, our property taxes will go up forever and we are being forced under threat of losing our homes to pay for it all.
I was at the city meeting where everyone wanted to put their name on the list of those opposing the project, far more than the 21 percent cited.
A low-income mobile home park may be forced to close. The people in our area are divided between those who oppose the project and those who believe the city has made up its mind and does not care what we think. It is those people who believe we are powerless that allow the city staff to get away with this.
We need citywide opposition to this, and probably civil disobedience to drive a stake through the heart of this injustice.
Gary Adams
Eugene
Throw the county bums out
The lead editorial dealing with three members of the Lane County commissioners’ office was outstanding (Register-Guard, May 1)!
I, and certainly most other Lane Country residents, feel that if Peter Sorenson, Bill Fleenor and Rob Handy refuse to accept the fact they were elected to serve the needs of the citizens of Lane County, they should resign their positions immediately. Yes, if they do resign, that will do harm to the lifelong pensions they are definitely waiting to receive upon retirement for dedicating their lives to the peasants.
Because we know they won’t resign, the next best step is to force them from office with a recall election.
Does anyone know how this might come about? If so, please step forward and get things going.
I, and certainly all law-abiding citizens, am sick of seeing serious, often felonious, law violators booked and immediately released without serving one day in jail for violent crimes — and I’m not speaking of crimes such as running a stop sign.
Let’s throw the bums out!
Harold Lang
Eugene
Double standard for Seneca
For years environmentally minded publications have touted biomass and wood-gas for power generation as a means to get off the hydro- and coal-powered grid. Now Seneca Sawmill Co. wants to use basically the same technology, professionally designed rather than backyard cobbled together, and it’s suddenly a dirty, profiteering scheme.
I suspect that if Seneca wanted to install solar panels and some windmills, there would be a general cry about displaced water run-off and wind turbine bird strikes. Typical double standard.
Robert Poe
Eugene
Bike bridge doesn’t add up
The city of Eugene cannot afford to fix the streets unless residents pay and cannot fix potholes without adding taxes hidden in utility or garbage collection bills, but get this — the city wants to build a bike/pedestrian bridge over Delta Highway at a cost of least $3.9 million and use eminent domain to force the purchase of private property to boot.
This is being done while Eugene suffers from high unemployment and high poverty rate. I for one support bicycling and consider bike and pedestrian paths to be valuable and important to the community, but this plan smacks of being totally oblivious to the concept of respect for taxpayer money and prioritizing the use of this money.
A quick calculation reveals the absurdity of this expenditure. Even if the cost of this bridge stays on budget, and the city thinks $1 per crossing is a good value, it would require that 1,082 people to cross this bridge every day, 365 days a year over 10 years to justify this cost. If only 108 cross each day, this would be $10 for each crossing.
Yes, I know, the bridge would last more than 10 years, but there is an additional $2.25 million in federal money to be spent, and nobody knows how many would cross?
If 100 cross every day for 20 years, the real cost is $8.50 each. Go figure.
I don’t think this is the time for this extravagant spending.
Mike Knefaty
Eugene
A missing element: realism
The reporter who wrote the article on foreclosures (Register-Guard, May 3) must have forgotten the five Ws of journalism.
Please, less fluff and more facts. Is the house in Eugene an asset or a liability? Does it generate rental income or is it also in foreclosure? I know this woman avoids opening bills, but someone has to, just to find out how much she actually owes. Now, on to her income: How much does she receive from Social Security, how much from her public employee pension and any other income?
This woman doesn’t need our sympathy. She needs to step away from her fantasy and take a cold shower of reality, or maybe even get a job. Please don’t call me unsympathetic or a hater. I’m just a realist.
Che O’Ryan Springfield
Doesn’t the public have rights?
After listening to all the supporters of Ian Van Ornum, I have a question:
What about public rights? What about my rights? What about my right to be in public when I choose without someone threatening, terrorizing or disturbing me?
The Constitution gives Van Ornum the right to protest in peace, the right to express his opinion in peace. Nowhere does it say he has the right to dress up in a bio-hazard suit with a garden sprayer sporting skull and crossbones filled with an unknown liquid.
Nowhere in the Constitution does it give him the right to dodge in and out of traffic spraying cars and buildings with an unknown liquid.
I don’t know him. Why should I trust his word that it’s just harmless water? How fast would you be crying to the police if he really had a toxic substance and you were sprayed?
Van Ornum is damned lucky some motorist wasn’t frightened enough to run him over in perceived self defense. For a guy attending college, he ought to know better.
Helen Lindell
Springfield
A lesson in Woodrow’s story
The late Springfield City Councilor John Woodrow was a good man. I see many tributes, but what seems to be left out is why he may have settled in the Eugene-Springfield area.
From my recollection, Woodrow was brought here by the need of the company he worked for back in the mid-1990s. He was chosen to be the supervisor for an install of automation equipment at a certain factory being built in this area.
The factory was the Hyundai plant in Eugene. From my understanding, many things went wrong during the installation but Woodrow pushed on with his team to fix the problems.
I was hired by Woodrow at the tail end of the installation and continued on until the end of the contract, some two years later. He left us the summer of 1998 to pursue other opportunities, thus he was my supervisor for less than six months. While I am a local person (a graduate of Thurston High School), Woodrow came here because industry had moved in and there was work to do. I appreciate his mentorship and I am proud to have worked with him.
My point is, not only should we welcome people who settle here, but we need to attract and welcome industry as well. Industry will attract good people, such as John Woodrow, as well as much needed jobs.
Jim Carpenter
Springfield
Street assessment is unfair
On May 1, The Register-Guard ran a story regarding the Crest Drive street repair project. As a resident in the area and one of the signatories on Bill Eddie’s petition, I just want to offer a little input and an explanation of why I signed the petition.
I actually support the project and I am willing to pay my share. In spite of Eddie’s comments in the newspaper article, I do not think the city should be paying a larger share of the project cost. The city of Eugene has, I think, really gone the extra mile to please this neighborhood for this project. Between the subsidy program and payment options, it seems to me that the city has done enough in that regard.
But I signed the petition because the assessment is unfair, because some of us get to pay for the project while our neighbors down the street with houses two and three times the value of ours pay nothing. They live on cul-de-sacs and private roads and depend on using these streets as much as we do. And it’s not just a few people, but something a large percentage of the houses in this neighborhood.
It’s unfair and it’s stupid: The city is both failing to fully collect revenue toward a public project and unfairly burdening those whom they are charging for the project. The rules should be updated. Soon, I hope!
Max Schwanekamp
Eugene
Bill would hurt virtual education
As we quickly approach the end of the 2009 school year, Oregon children will be looking forward to the summer months ahead and the advancement of another level of education. However, my student, along with all other Oregon virtual public school students and parents alike, are uncertain of their option of education in the future because of Senate Bill 767.
SB 767 would effectively eliminate virtual public schools in Oregon. This backward movement is in high contrast to other thriving virtual public schools across the nation. These schools are expanding as this new and innovative public school option has proved itself successful in helping so many students and enhancing public education.
Oregon virtual public school students and parents believe in quality and accountability, supporting our certified teachers, and fair and equitable funding in education. We oppose inequitable funding, limiting parental access, and disenfranchising certified teachers in participating in a viable form of education. Are these not the same forthright beliefs that brick and mortar public school students, parents, teachers, and administrators hold? And if they don’t, why don’t they?
I urge Sen. Bill Morrisette to vote no on SB 767 to prove that he does not want politics and money to come before our students’ education.
Bonita Vian
Springfield