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Slant: Short opinion pieces and rumor-chasing notes. News: One on One with the Chief PETITIONS TAKEN OUT ON URBAN RENEWAL A local citizen group opposed to the City Council's expansion and renewal of an urban renewal (UR) district along the Willamette River has filed to refer the issue to the voters. Organizers have less than four weeks to gather and submit 3,722 valid signatures.
Paul Nicholson and Howard Bonnett are the chief petitioners and Ruth Duemler is organizing the petition drive. Duemler says the group is looking to get at least 4,500 signatures from 45 signature gatherers, and she's found 30 volunteers so far. "This is the best chance we have to overturn this tax giveaway," says Duemler, noting that "schools and social services have been making cuts in essential programs." The Riverfront UR District will divert an estimated $40 million over the next 20 years in state and local revenues that support schools, health care, fire, police, parks and other government services, according to city documents. The city plans to use the diverted money to build a new highway near the river, a new police station downtown and subsidize developer projects along the Willamette including the UO's controversial Riverfront Research Park. Local UO neighborhood activist Zach Vishanoff has also filed a separate petition. "Looks like we have dueling petitions," he says. "I didn't see anything being filed, so I went ahead. I'm ready to roll." Vishanoff plans to personally gather thousands of signatures around campus. But unless he combines with Duemler's group, the two petition drives may have to have their signatures counted separately. Duemler herself is a veteran signature gatherer. She says she personally gathered 11,000 signatures for a forest initiative and organized a local group that gathered more than 30,000 signatures on a health care initiative. The deadline is more rushed on a referral, she says, but "we should make it." Duemler says citizens will be eager to sign and revoke urban renewal when they learn "it takes money away from social services and everything else" to fund a "stupid road" too close to the scenic Willamette River. Progressives on the City Council are split on whether or not the Riverfront UR District is a good idea for Eugene. One main sticking point appears to be questions about how the money will be spent. An e-mail debate on the topic has Councilor Bonny Bettman voicing concerns about how UR funds have been spent in the past, including the recent allocation of $750,000 to fund planning for roads to serve traffic from the new federal building. She's also worried that the urban renewal money will be used to fund a state highway section north of the new federal building, creating more of a barrier between downtown and the water. Councilor David Kelly voted for the district and defends the need for the money. He notes the new public library was built with UR funds. "I am convinced that a healthy city needs a vibrant central city, and such a downtown is significantly cheaper to service in the long run than a city with less concentration of population and more sprawl," he wrote in an e-mail. "The experience of many cities (including Portland) is that it usually takes some economic muscle to kick-start redevelopment; urban renewal funds are one of the very few ways we can provide that muscle." But opponents are saying UR is a discredited funding scheme, and that it has destroyed the historic character of downtown Eugene and actually hampered renewal. Weighing in on the virtual debate, Nicholson writes, "Property within the district has lost value in real dollars since the downtown urban renewal district was formed. It has underperformed virtually every other part of Eugene. Nor has the Riverfront Research Park delivered the benefits promised in exchange for purloining the taxes that should be supporting public services." Kelly says UR is working well in Portland and the new Riverfront district requires council approval of any expenditures over $250,000. Petitions are available at Paul's Bicycle Way of Life and volunteers can call Duemler at 484-6145. — TJT and AP
BRIEF CASE 'TACKY,' SAYS VICKI ELMER Responding to last week's news story on Eugene's city attorney and an amicus brief he wrote regarding a PeaceHealth and Springfield court case, former City Manager Vicki Elmer says, "I think it's tacky." City attorney Glenn Klein has been criticized by city councilors and land-use activists for writing a legal document for the League of Oregon Cities (LOC) that is viewed as helping facilitate PeaceHealth's move to Springfield.
"Most city attorneys I know are scrupulous to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest," says Elmer. "Prudent city attorneys also don't put themselves in situations where a future conflict might arise. What if, for example, in the process of decommissioning the Eugene facility, or re-developing the property, PeaceHealth needs a permit or funding of some kind from the city, or litigation occurs — who will represent the city's interests then?" Jan Wilson, an attorney representing CHOICES, one of the groups allied against Springfield and PeaceHealth in the appeals court case, says, "The conflicts of interest here are so apparent that I can't even imagine how the attorneys involved could possibly think they could get away with this — they would never be allowed to do this in private practice." Was Klein actually paid to prepare the brief on behalf of PeaceHealth and Springfield? Klein declined to answer questions about payment, but didn't deny being paid. According to Christy Monson, a staff member at LOC, Klein had "not charged the League for preparing this brief. The Legal Advocacy Committee is aware, though, that PeaceHealth has offered to pay Glenn for the brief." Monson also says that "having another entity with similar interests either provide the drafter or pay for the drafting is not at all unusual, since the League does not have extensive financial resources." But PeaceHealth spokesman Brian Terrett says "PeaceHealth had absolutely nothing to do with Glenn Klein and his involvement in an amicus brief as a representative of the League of Oregon Cities." Whose idea was the brief? Assistant City Manager Jim Carlson says he approached Klein to request the brief be written, but the actual formal request to the LOC dated Jan. 27 was from attorney Meg Kieran representing the city of Springfield. Kieran's letter says "the city's concern, and the concern of local governments generally, is that the [LUBA] board's interpretation imposes a defacto moratorium on development unless the local jurisdictions can fund construction of infrastructure identified in the transportation system plan prior to the construction." And yet the largest local government, the Lane County Commission, joined with CHOICES and 1000 Friends of Oregon in appealing the development plans. And the Eugene City Council has an established growth management policy calling for developers to "pay the full cost of extending infrastructure and services."— TJT
PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE TOUTED FOR OREGON If San Francisco can adopt the precautionary principle, why not Seattle, Portland, Eugene, Corvallis? That was the buzz at the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference (PIELC) at UO last week after a presentation by Debbie Raphael, toxics reduction program manager for the San Francisco Department of the Environment, Janet Nudelman, program director for the Breast Cancer Fund in San Francisco, and Mary O'Brien, Eugene environmental scientist. Raphael and O'Brien met earlier with a group of local officials and citizens to talk about the implementation of the principle in all San Francisco city/county departments and commissions and its applicability to Eugene. The principle was adopted last July after an 18-month process. Sometimes called "better safe than sorry" or "an environmental version of the Hippocratic oath," the precautionary principle improves the way environmental decisions are made. Instead of asking "how much environmental harm will be allowed" in San Francisco, decision-makers will ask, "how little harm is possible?" San Francisco already is a leader in making choices based on the least environmentally harmful alternatives, thus challenging traditional assumptions about risk management. The adoption of the precautionary principle, as part of the environment code, insists that environmental decision-making be based on rigorous science — science that is explicit about what is known, what is not known and what may never be known about potential hazards. The principle also requires decision-makers to consider possible impact to the local economy. This is not a new concept in Europe, but it represents another area where the Bush administration and the European Union are in fundamental disagreement. A new EU policy is taking shape. Called REACH, it sets the agenda for global chemicals policy by shifting the burden of proof from regulators to industry. As the Europeans put it, "No data, no market." Berkeley already is examining San Francisco's new ordinance. If interest at the environmental conference is any indicator, Eugene could soon be doing the same. Many of the panels and keynote talks at the PIELC were recorded. For information, contact Jason Busch at Land Air Water, 346-3828 or L-A-W@law.uoregon.edu — AJ
MOBILIZING FOR PEACE A global day of action is slated for Saturday, March 20 in recognition of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Throughout the world, peace marches and protests are planned to give voice to those in opposition of the continued violence. Locally, many organizations are joining resources for a kick-off voter campaign to register, mobilize and educate voters. From 1 to 5 pm at Cozmic Pizza, Justice Not War, the Lane County Democrats, Kucinich for President, Friendly Neighbors for Peace, Whiteaker Neighbors for Peace and Justice and other organizations will be on hand to register voters and provide information. Showings of Unprecedented and Uncovered will also occur. WAND will be tabling from 11am to 4 pm in front of the library to register and educate voters. Volunteers are still needed for a door-to-door campaign. From 5 to 8 pm, door-to-door volunteers and others will converge at Cozmic Pizza for entertainment and debriefing. Please call 343-8548 for volunteer opportunities. Gearing up for Saturday, on Friday, March 19 beginning at 8 am in Opal's Park, downtown Cottage Grove, Stand for Peace will present "The War's Toll," a reading of the name of every U.S. and "coalition" soldier who has died in Iraq. As of Feb. 28, the reported total is 649. A gong will be struck for each name read. — AS
One
on One with the Chief New EPD chief Robert Lehner arrived in Eugene in early January, in time to deal with one of the city's biggest police scandals ever: the criminal activity of male police officers engaged in sexually abusing women. So far, two officers have been arrested, but the investigation continues and inside rumors suggest several more officers may be in trouble. Under this cloud, EW requested an interview to discuss how Lehner intends to deal with this tragedy, and where he stands on other issues of concern to Eugene. The conversation took place on Feb. 20.
EW: You've been meeting with neighborhood groups and talking with many community leaders since you arrived. Have you talked to anyone in the community meetings about the two 'bad cops?' RL: The meetings have not been specifically for that issue, but for getting acquainted. 'What are your issues? What do you say? What do you feel?' Getting to know each other. The subject has come up pretty frequently but I wouldn't say it's the number one thing on their minds. EW: What has gone on within the police department with regard to sensitivity training around this issue? RL: At the moment, it's de-stressing and debriefing, because people here are pretty freaked out by it, as you would expect. The public is understandably freaked out, but the cops are, too. This is not only not a good thing, it's a horrible thing, because people do ask them when they go out, when they're on a call: We'll get the 'Aren't you the guys…?' or even in a friendly way, 'What do you know about this or think about this?' so it's a very common thing. EW: So they're hearing about it? RL: Oh, yes, they're hearing about it. There's an element of debriefing, de-stressing that needs to continue to go on. At yesterday's meeting, I did meet with Margo Schaeffer of Womenspace and we talked about it, and our talk was more geared toward domestic violence but we did expand the issue quite a bit because it is an issue that is about power and that transcends sexual assault into domestic violence and other areas. EW: Do you feel there's been a climate here that needs to be improved as far as increasing sensitivity toward the issues? RL: It's looking like it. Yeah. I wouldn't say there's a glaring absence, but just from some of the information I've received from Margo and others, it's leading me to believe we have some work to do there. EW: How would you go about doing that training? What ideas do you have? RL: First of all, exactly the nature of the training needs to concern, among other things, what went wrong. Something clearly went wrong here. Until the second case adds the kinds of review that details what we need to do, we'll have to wait. That combined with input from frankly, experts like Womenspace and SASS and law enforcement experts will allow us to kind of gauge sort of where we are with respect to where we need to be and where we want to go. Within the organization there's this spectrum of where we are: from very sensitive, very attuned to the issues and understanding of what the issues are, to people who are frankly, oblivious. What I have to do is find out just how long that range is, with an eye toward narrowing that range and shifting the whole thing up. And until we have a pretty good feel for where we are, it's hard to design that program. EW: Has the police union weighed in on this? RL: Oh, they've expressed concern over this, too. I have not sensed any defensiveness. They get painted with this brush, too, as do we all. When I go to briefings, it's like, when something like Rodney King happens, it doesn't matter where you work, that's nasty enough, it's big enough that … we were asked about that in Tucson, and you want to say, 'Oh come on, it's a thousand miles away and has nothing to do with us,' but it does. It does have something to do with us. We're wearing the same suit. This is a trusted position. People identify with your position often before they identify with you as a person. EW: Would having an independent citizen review board in order to keep an eye on these sorts of things help? RL: That's a question we're going to have to do in a couple of steps here. We'll start with: I'm not opposed to civilian review. I have no issue with it. The problem for communities who are trying to decide what this review model is going to look like — and I have three different versions of it from Tucson I've been involved with over the years — is very fundamental … the more power you give a review board, the more complicated and expensive it gets because you have to start balancing the rights of all parties involved much more delicately and so ultimately what you end up with is the systems that we want, tempered by what you can pay for. EW: Who does it get expensive for? If it's a volunteer board? RL: The city. At its basic level, a civilian review is right here in Eugene. It's called a jury. If you don't like what's happened to you, if you believe it's a violation of your rights, you can bring a suit, and if there's a potential for winning it, there are a thousand starving lawyers out there who would take that case because the city is, under those circumstances, a deep pocket. And what ends up happening is it's the people who decide that case because the chances of getting a cop on that jury are about zero. And the jury has the full power to discipline the department in terms of money. In some cases it's via a judge issuing orders that require a certain mode of operations in the future. There is very delicate balance that goes on. The accused, whether it's criminally or civilly, has the right to a lawyer. So does the plaintiff. There are very complicated rules for how you balance those rights. There are civilian review boards that have, as you know, full blown supboena power. They have the power to discipline an officer and when they have that power the officer has a legal right to an attorney. But then there's all these rules that come into play so there has to be a mechanism to arbitrate those disputes and to do this gets really expensive. To force an officer to testify under oath requires he be paid; that's not a volunteer assignment. You have to hire a recorder to record the procedure sufficiently to be able to take it on appeal to a court for either side. I'm not saying it's not good. It's fine, but it's really expensive. EW: What would you suggest a community do if there is a frequent complaint against a police officer or officers or if there are things going on internally that just seem not quite right? RL: First off, let me back up and say one other thing because it's relevant to the discussion. The question is could or would a civilian review board or a jury for that matter, be able to prevent the Magañas and Laras of the world. Because I think the quick answer to the question is no. They won't. If a review board came in and said those two are terrible you should fire them or have someone else fire them, the same things would have happened and…the preventive effect of the review board compared to what's in place frankly is no different. And then the question is, 'Why would you go to the expense?' (Just as we went to press with this interview, Lehner told the R-G he thought the EPD's internal investigation mechanisms needed improvement and asked the Police Commission to examine the complaint process.) EW: Here's a situation known to many people in Eugene. Your car gets broken into and the EPD tells them we don't have the resources to follow up on those types of crime. But in a town with streets barely wide enough to drive it down, we've got a tank. We've got this very combat-ready SWAT team. What do you think of those priorities? RL: As I understand it, we don't have a tank; it's the National Guard's tank. EW: Yes, the National Guard tank. When do you think it would be appropriate to roll that out? RL: I would say life and death hostage situation. EW: Not because you heard there's a marijuana growing operation in Whiteaker? RL: (He looks down and his the muscle in his left cheek twitches.) Not gonna happen. (A week later, Lehner apologized to the Whiteaker Community Council for the incident.) EW: What about the SWAT team? RL: Good question. It needs to be a community dialogue because if your car is burglarized and we do nothing because we don't have the resources and by the way, it should be that if you give us a budget, and it should be more line item than it is, then we can say here's what we cannot do. The reality is you do have an alternative. You can decide or not decide to take it to your insurance company. If we've got somebody with a gun holed up in a bank vault with three hostages, that's not an option. Then the question is at what level do you keep that capacity to be able to deal with that situation and two, when do you use it? EW: Let's talk more about the SWAT team. You mentioned earlier something about Rodney King being 1000 miles away. And yet we had somebody come from Los Angeles who looked at Eugene like it was L.A. and like the cops had to be at war against this little town. We have peaceful protests here. And we have a SWAT team that has come out and faced down peaceful protesters. RL: Well I"ve gone pretty well on record as saying you don't use advanced tactical operations against peaceful protesters. You don't. EW: So, pepper spray? What do you think about using it? RL: It depends on the circumstances. EW: Peaceful protest. RL: Now define peaceful protest. EW: People gathered, they may be shouting, or singing or chanting, but they don't have guns or weapons of any kind, maybe marching down the street. RL: Are they violating the law? EW: Would you use pepper spray against somebody who's jaywalking? RL: No. EW: Would you use pepper spray against somebody who's sitting in a tree? RL: That depends. The short answer to the question is none of these are black and white. Every situation depends. If you're dealing with nonviolent protesters, there are protesters of three types. There are those that are nonviolent and legal, not breaking any laws. Obviously you don't. You don't use any type of police action against a protester like that, at all. Let's use the opposite extreme: those who are throwing stuff, breaking stuff, violent. You may very well use pepper spray against them. EW: Pepper bullets? RL: Against a person who is throwing things, breaking things, setting things on fire or violent? Yes. But for the second kind of protest, in the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s non-violent civil disobedience, The short answer is 'no.' I don't think you do. Where it gets tricky is, if for example, there's something else going on. Let's say and I'm making stuff up, because I have no idea. But if there's a court order trying to remove that person from that tree. A court order is something the police department is required to execute by law. What that means is there's some kind of time imperative on it because in most cases I don't see why there would be a time imperative on it and frankly, if you want to sit in a tree for 20 days, I really don't care. (EPD public information officer Pam Olshanski interrupts and tells him about the June 1, 1997 tree-cutting incident.) EW: It's happened. Police approached someone in a tree, pulled his pants open, pepper sprayed down his pants, while the mayor sat in his car and watched. Symantec Corporation wanted the trees removed to build a parking lot. Now the trees are gone, and so is Symantec. RL: I don't know enough about that specific case. But I tell you, it doesn't sound good. But people who are engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience… EW: You wouldn't pepper spray them? RL: I wouldn't pepper spray them. EW: Let's say, if there was police tape, and they were told do not go beyond this point, and somebody reached an arm over… RL: Well depends… EW: Would you pepper spray them? RL: I wouldn't pepper spray them. EW: If there were children in the crowd would you pepper spray them? RL: Even if there weren't children in the crowd. The question there is do you or don't you make an arrest? That's the question and the preferred way of dealing with a nonviolent protest, frankly, because if you're doing civil disobedience, you're there making a statement, you're probably willing to get arrested and we're certainly going to accommodate that. But here's the catch: The rule is nobody gets hurt. And I have another simple philosophy personally. If we say we're going to keep that intersection open, and 10,000 people come along and say 'No, you're not, we're going to close it,' they're engaged in a nonviolent civil disobedience act. They'll sit there and guess what, we don't have the capacity to remove 10,000 people. It's not going to happen. You win. It's real simple. EW: You wouldn't bring out the SWAT team? RL: If they were nonviolent? No. EW: We've had the SWAT team brought out for nonviolent protesters, in Eugene. RL: I'm talking about now. I wasn't here before January 2004. And I'm here now. And if a protest or gathering or any such thing is peaceful, even if it's technically illegal, that's the jaywalking question, I don't think it's appropriate to use that level of force. However, there are people who sometimes use that as an excuse to engage in violent or destructive activity and then it gets difficult because we have to do what we have to do. There is an expectation that we stop that behavior, depending on the nature of that behavior, that does require protective equipment. But the simple answer is that in some cases where it starts out to be entirely peaceful, nonviolent, even with acts of civil disobedience, sometimes that turns. You may have 1000 people there doing that, but you may have a dozen who are not, and those dozen can cause a lot of damage. And it requires some advanced tactical capability in that kind of environment to be able to deal with those people without hurting others. EW: So what sort of training do you intend to do with your police officers who may have been here for a long time and may have been trained differently before you? It sounds to me like you're thinking of redrawing those lines. RL: You're absolutely right. I've had that conversation. Because the next one gets pinned on me, right? EW: Mm-hmm. RL: Even if I don't know what procedures are, the next one gets pinned on me. And frankly, the last thing I want to see happen is something that I don't personally agree with. I will tell you I have some inner admiration for people who are willing to do some civil disobedience as long as they're really willing to do it nonviolently. EW: I'm sure before you came to Eugene you heard about our famous "anarchists." What's your opinion on this group? RL: First off, I don't know that I've necessarily met them yet. But I draw a distinction between activists and extremists. The activist is one who will use the present system of politics, money, boycott, and all legal mechanisms and with others, on occasion, will engage in that second form of protest of nonviolent civil disobedience to bring about changes, politically or socially. It may not be tied with anything political, it might be tied to raising public awareness of getting funds to support some park project. And that's wonderful. That's the kind of activist, frankly, we need to make Eugene a better place to live. To me an extremist is one who advocates damage, violence, illegal activity other than nonviolent illegal activity to bring about change. Anarchists are on both sides of that. If they're on the side of activists, even if there's illegal activity, nonviolent disobedience, more power to them. If they're on the other side and breaking stuff, I'm sorry, we're charged with enforcing the law. No, I'm not sorry. We're gonna do that. EW: Some activists in Eugene have been watched very closely for their activities. What kind of communication has the FBI had with you regarding people in Eugene? RL: With respect to people in Eugene, actually only one conversation, and it was built on a conversation I had previously in Tucson. That position there was the same as here. We do not watch, keep files or investigate people who are not engaged in criminal activity. Even though we're, for example, videotaping people who are engaged in criminal activity, and we happen to find somebody else in the picture who isn't, we don't keep that part of it. We only investigate, monitor and take action on people who are either criminals or strongly believed to be engaged in criminal activity. If they ask me as chief of police in Eugene to do anything beyond that, we will not do it. We will not. EW: By now you've had a chance to review the budget. What changes would you make right off the bat? RL: It's set for the next round, but we are talking about fresh starts for the next cycle. I've already been having conversations with the city manager on what services we can provide: how much we have for investigation, but also how much for drug treatment in jail. Because if there isn't money on that end, we can arrest someone 10 times for drugs and it won't make any difference. There's a system involved in that that's very important. Also, we need money for property crime. In Eugene that's very significant. There are only a couple of ways to get people to stop stealing, especially if drugs are involved. As long as you're addicted and can't work and need to get enough money to live, you're gonna steal stuff. The only way to stop them is to lock them up so they don't steal stuff. So there needs to be a rehabilitation component, as well as an isolation component, but you have to have both. You can't keep them in jail forever and you don't want to keep them in jail forever. EW: A lot of money has been cut for social services, such as drug treatment programs. RL: That's a serious problem. EW: For instance, local treatment centers, like Buckley House, are having big fundraisers to keep going. (The Buckley House fundraiser is Friday, March 19 at the McDonald Theatre, see calendar.) RL: I went to Buckley a few weeks ago, they have not only a good program, they will take people over and over again until they get them clean. And they do it on such a slim budget, if we had to deal with the other end of that, it would cost us millions of dollars. If you don't have Buckley House, some of those people will die. They may be on the street and get hypothermia, or they may step out in front of a car. That's just not right. But Buckley's just part of the bigger picture. Most of the people who are chronically homeless, in my experience, also are mentally ill. And if those people are not treated with programs for them, we condemn them.
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