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Slant: Short opinion pieces and rumor-chasing notes. You Are Here: News:
JIFFY LUBE MOVES FROM GREASY TO GREEN In the automotive industry — usually considered gritty, grimy and greasy — there shines an environmentally conscious ray of light: Jiffy Lube at City View and West 11th Avenue has been certified as an ecological business by the Automotive Eco-Logical Business Program.
The program, a joint project of associations representing the automotive repair trades, the Pollution Prevention Outreach Team (a group of environmental experts from seven Portland-area agencies) and AAA of Oregon/Idaho, recognizes automotive repair shops that "go the extra mile to minimize their environmental impact to the earth." Kathy Arbuckle, owner of the shop, describes herself as "the most unlikely automotive business owner. I paint watercolors and am trained as a Montessori teacher," she says. But last July, Arbuckle found herself in charge of the business. Following her 2002 divorce from the shop's previous owner, under whom the business filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Arbuckle, formerly an investor, was left with the choice of Chapter 7 bankruptcy or making the business work with her own plan of reorganization. As an owner now, she says, "There's been a really steep learning curve. But when I found out automotive businesses could be ecologically certified, I thought, 'There's something I can get behind.'" Jiffy Lube had already been recycling oil and radiator fluid, and Arbuckle has found resources for recycling oil bottles, windshield wiper blades, even radiator caps. The process for certification began with an extensive checklist detailing, among other things, hazardous waste management, spill prevention and handling of waste oil. The checklist was sent to John Taylor of the Department of Environmental Quality in Salem. Taylor, who works in DEQ's Small Business Assistance Program, helps assess environmental compliance for the Eco-Logical Business Program. He, along with representatives from LRAPA and the city of Eugene's Wastewater Management division, then conducted an onsite visit to go through the checklist point by point. "One of the advantages for consumers is it gives people a chance to do some basic comparisons," says Taylor. "You can decide if you want to work with an ecologically certified business or not. More generally, it's just a higher level of knowledge, and that awareness benefits everyone." Unlikely as the combination of the automotive crowd and environmentalism might seem, Arbuckle says new recycling habits are sticking. "At our monthly crew meeting, one guy even said, 'Now you've got me doing this at home.' Changing the world starts with one person," she says. Two other automotive businesses in Eugene — Mack's Radiator on West 11th and Wayne's Garage on E. 27th — are also ecologically certified. — Bobbie Willis
KELLY TALKS POLITICS AT CPA GATHERING Should progressives in Eugene see their victories in the May elections as a mandate to charge ahead with a whole new liberal agenda for the community? Not necessarily, said Councilor David Kelly, keynote speaker at the Citizens for Public Accountability (CPA) annual meeting June 2. CPA formed nearly 10 years ago in response to behind-closed-doors plans to build a huge polluting Hyundai factory on west Eugene wetlands, and the group has taken leadership roles on many environmental and social issues over the years. Past annual meetings have not been as upbeat as this year's, due in large part to the frustrations of dealing with conservative, pro-sprawl city and county governments. CPA was involved in supporting progressive council and mayor candidates this year and members celebrated their victories at the annual meeting. Kelly says the election outcome was "a repudiation of what has happened in the past" on the council, but he warned that "Nancy (Nathanson) did get 46 percent of the vote and those people have not gone away." Kelly urged caution in council action next year to "avoid a backlash in two years, and we can't accomplish much in two years." Kelly says he hopes to see council initiatives that target "common ground," such as creating good jobs and a healthy local economy. What energized the local election campaigns this year? Kelly figures having an open mayoral race helped get people activated, and "people are so disgruntled with what's happening on the national level, at least they could get involved on a local level." Kelly also said "winning takes organization, volunteers and money, and we had all three this time." Jan Spencer of the CPA Steering Committee outlined CPA's work over the past year in "educating the public and ourselves about issues of land use and transportation." He noted successes in not only the election, but also in foiling attacks on Eugene's Toxics Right to Know law, effective opposition to the proposed gas-fired power plant in Coburg, work on the third annual Citizens' State of the City Address and other projects. CPA is now meeting at 7 pm the third Wednesday of each month at Oregon Toxics Alliance, 1192 Lawrence St. A special meeting will be held at 7 pm June 16 at OTA to talk about the election results and plan future activities. For more information, call 686-6761 or e-mail spencerj@efn.org — TJT
DAVID COBB GETS OREGON GREEN NOD Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb easily won the Pacific Green Party's presidential primary held June 5 at Portland State University. Cobb won 14 of the 19 delegates allocated to the Pacific Green Party. Two delegates will be assigned for "None of the Above" and one delegate will be pledged to each of the following candidates: Peter Camejo, Lorna Salzman and Ralph Nader. Nader is running as an independent in November. Cobb, a Texan now living in California, is leading in the delegate count heading up to the national Green Party convention to be held June 25-27 in Milwaukee, Wisc. "This campaign is all about growing the Green Party and providing an alternative to the bankrupt policies of the two major, corporately funded political parties," said Cobb in a prepared statement.
ACTIVIST ALERT * House parties to support the presidential candidacy of John Kerry are now happening in Eugene and have raised more than $16,000 out of a total of $90,000 in Oregon during the month of May. The statewide contact for house parties is Lisa Sohn at (503) 209-5933. * A "No on 36" campaign briefing for community leaders is planned for 5:30 pm Thursday, June 10, at the Eugene Public Library. Initiative 36 is Oregonians in Action's revived Measure 7 "takings" initiative that is expected to qualify for the November election. The measure is seen as a direct attack on Oregon's land use laws. Campaign director Tim Raphael will review results of initial polling and focus groups, review campaign message and lay out key early strategy elements. Contact is timraphael@comcast.net or (503) 490-1060. * Coming up June 19 are a teach-in and rally on "Iraq after June 30: Can We Get Out … How?" featuring Ibrahim Gassama, associate professor of international law at UO, Susan Cundiff of WAND and Gordon Lafer, associate professor with LERC at UO. The event begins at noon Saturday at the Federal Building, 7th and Pearl downtown. "More than 800 American soldiers dead, 10,000 or more Iraqis dead, and an untold number of Iraqis and American soldiers injured. How can we justify such cost?" reads a statement from Progressive Responses, a CALC program sponsoring the event. "Support our troops by holding our elected officials accountable for the administration's policies in Iraq. Come, get informed and be prepared to take action." For more information, call 485-1755. CORRECTIONS/CLARIFICATIONS In EW's Summer Guide (5/27), incorrect dates were listed for the Pacific International Children's Choir Festival. The correct dates are June 23-29 at the UO. Six choirs participate in six days of music making and cultural exchange. The festival culminates in a Gala Concert featuring a 200-voice Festival Chorus under the baton of guest conductor Rebecca Rottsolk. For details, visit www.oregonfestivalchoirs.orgor visit EW's online archives at www.eugeneweekly.com
In
Memory While the Eugene Public Works people scoped out the suitability of the dog park's western pasture, one neighbor phoned the city. He didn't want trees on his side of the park. When it came time to plant the trees, the parks people examined the dead — perhaps deliberately poisoned — tree that had been planted near the western boundary a few years earlier. They suggested digging in the middle pasture. Henry's friends compromised, planting one big leaf maple to the west to replace the dead one and sowed the rest of the trees in the middle pasture. But another neighbor griped. She liked the middle pasture's openness, and now it was ruined. In defiance of the city's rule against establishing tributes in public spaces (the city does not have the finances to maintain them), Henry's friends are planning to erect a memorial plaque. Henry Hutto is gone but not forgotten, and controversy in his name lives on. He'd be proud. — Michele Taylor
Finders
Keepers
Two and a half years ago, while doing found-item stories for the radio program This American Life, Rothbart started collecting finds in earnest to publish in a magazine. He invited readers to participate in the hunt, and the result is now three issues of the magazine and a book. All items are published as copies of the originals, accompanied by a title and short interpretation. Traveling from their Ann Arbor, Mich., headquarters, Rothbart, his brother Peter and crew are at Sam Bond's for the magazine's "Slapdance Across America Tour 2004." Try to get a headcount and the man at the sound board has "no idea." The man collecting money says, "I'll give you a random number — 78." This reporter's own rough count says 80 spectators to start, and another 20-something by the middle of the reading — packed tables and standing room only for geek-chic grad students, a woman with a pink hibiscus in her hair, artists, two women with sassy red buckled purses, teachers, pierced punk rockers, and a table-full of people listening and playing cards over jelly jars of Jabberwocky and hard pear cider. Rothbart looks like something of a literary Beastie Boy. He wears long shorts and an oversized button-up sports shirt with eight athletic team patches emblazoned on the front panels, all topped by a ball cap with an Old English "D" monogram. He works the bling with two chunky gold chains, one with a palm-sized, cast gold motorbike rider dangling from it and the other with a cast gold basketball hoop. He reads from his favorite FOUND submissions, including love notes, hate notes, notes passed in class, failed algebra tests, monthly budgets, warning signs like this one (found by Peter): "After leaving the building, please … Lock this door. It will prevent unauthorized people from entering the building and defecating in the washing machine. Many thanks!" And to-do lists like this one: "E-mail Corey; Introduce him to lesbians; Continue to convince self that I'm not madly in love w/him." Items are by turns touching, hilarious, angry, bittersweet — but always startlingly honest. Twenty-nine-year-old Rothbart has "always loved this stuff." He remembers that as a child he crossed a baseball field to get to school and was fascinated by the treasures he found in the windblown trash collected against the baseball backstop. Fascination for found things has turned into a movement of sorts, some kind of layman's anthropology glimpsing true and close into the lives of everyday people. The response from the audience is: riotous laughter; the occasional heartfelt sigh; periodic whoops of commiseration. Part of the reading includes FOUND-inspired songs performed by Peter Rothbart. Particularly wonderful is his folksy acoustic guitar rendition of "Damn, The Booty Don't Stop," based on a found cassette tape titled The Booty Tape. The tape is full of home-recorded rap songs about — you guessed it — booty. So, watch what little scraps of your life you lose; better yet, watch for what little scraps of life you can find — FOUND is always looking for the great stuff. Check www.foundmagazine.com for information on the tour, the magazine and how to participate. — Bobbie Willis
Blow
Job Roger Magaña allegedly used the power of his Eugene Police badge to rape, sodomize, kidnap, sexually abuse and/or harass a dozen women.
Prosecutor Robert Lane said in his opening statement last week that Magaña had "tarnished" the police badge for all officers in the city. By convicting the recently fired officer, Lane told the jury, "you're going to restore some of the luster of that badge." But defense attorney Russell Barnett said in his opening that it was hard to believe that a competent police department would have let Magaña's alleged crimes continue for so long against so many victims without detection. "He's either the slickest guy working with the dumbest people, or perhaps the accusations don't add up." A 31-year-old single mother of three was the first alleged victim to testify in the trial, which is expected to continue until mid July. The mother said Magaña followed her and a girlfriend in his patrol car late one night in October 2001 after she walked out of Rockin' Rodeo, a former nightclub located across from the Hult Center. The woman said Magaña ordered her out of her parked car for a sobriety test and laughed at her when she couldn't walk a straight line. The woman alleged Magaña gave her a choice: Get arrested for drunken driving or meet him later. She wasn't attracted to Magaña, but "I didn't want a DUI," the woman said. "I didn't have a choice." The woman said Magaña told her to drive her friend home to Springfield, despite the fact she was drunk, and then meet him at Papa's Pizza on Coburg Road. The woman did what she was told and ended up following Magaña's patrol car to a dark parking lot behind Meadowlark elementary school in North Eugene at 3 am. There, the woman alleged Magaña kissed her, fondled her breasts and put his hands up her skirt, "with his fingers in my vagina." The woman said she didn't report the crime or call for help. "I was scared," she said. "He was a police officer in uniform with a gun and handcuffs." At one point Magaña saw the woman had a small bag of marijuana, but he threw the illegal drug to the ground and didn't pursue the matter, the woman alleged. On cross examination, defense attorney Barnett asked why the woman called Magaña months later if she had been sexually assaulted. The woman admitted that she had a drinking problem and said she called Magaña while intoxicated and regretted it afterward. She said thinking about the sexual assault still "makes me sick inside." In his two-hour opening statement, prosecutor Lane laid out his plans for testimony from a dozen more women Magaña allegedly sexually abused or raped. Often the abuse involved "blow jobs," Lane said, apologizing to jurors for the language, "you're going to hear it a thousand times." * With one woman, one of several drug or alcohol abusers Magaña allegedly targeted, Magaña "would always say you're going to jail or you're going to give me a blow job," Lane alleged. On one occasion, Lane alleged Magaña forced the woman to kneel on the sticky "utterly disgusting" floor of the Monroe Street Park restroom and give him a blow job. When she once threatened to tell, Magaña allegedly threatened her with a gun and said he would kill her if she did. * At a softball team party, Magaña offered a drunk 19-year-old woman a ride home. Instead he took her to a Eugene Airport parking lot, allegedly threatened to arrest her for underage drinking, "held her head down" and "forced his penis into her mouth" and ejaculated. When she threatened to report him, Lane alleged Magaña said, "who you going to believe, you're a 19-year-old, you're drunk, I'm a cop." A few days later, Lane alleged Magaña came to the young woman's house while off-duty, again threatened to arrest her, and then "pushes her down and rapes her." * One woman with drug problems and a 9-year-old daughter traded sex with Magaña for favors such as not arresting her or for allowing her to look at her secret police records, Lane alleged. At one point, the "paranoid" woman feared Magaña and other cops would kill her. After performing oral sex on officer Magaña, she spat out his semen on some sweatpants which she kept as evidence, Lane alleged. The semen's DNA matches Magaña, according to Lane. * Magaña allegedly stopped a heroin addict and
fondled her on the pretense of conducting a drug search. Magaña
threatened the woman with arrest, took her to a remote area * Magaña allegedly tried to force yet another blow job with another young woman with drug problems. But the woman escaped the patrol car and ran. * Magaña responded to a 911 call for help from a domestic violence victim. But instead of helping, Magaña allegedly threatened the woman with arrest to get another blow job. * Responding to another domestic abuse call, Magaña allegedly forced another woman to give him a blow job by threatening to take away the woman's children. * Magaña met one 20-year-old at an underage drinking party the police broke up. He invited her to ride in his police car. Interested in police work, the woman rode with Magaña 20 to 30 times before the officer allegedly came to her apartment, pushed her down, orally sodomized her and raped her. "He really didn't get much of an erection," Lane said, but his penis "penetrated her vagina." * Magaña's final alleged victim called 911 after the officer allegedly entered her apartment uninvited, grabbed her breasts and said he wanted to "bend me over and do me." Lane said the women's testimony will be supported with records of thousands of personal cell phone calls Magaña made and with police dispatch records and records of patrol car computer use. Defense attorney Barnett's opening rebuttal statement lasted only 20 minutes. He said jurors should doubt the women because they are motivated by money they hope to win from the city in pending civil lawsuits. "They have the same lawyer and they're each asking for the same amount of dollars in millions," he said. Barnett said the women saw the opportunity to accuse Magaña and make money when the police sex scandal first became public. He said the women, many who have been arrested, are biased against police officers. Lane admitted some of the women were suing the city and several did have drug and alcohol problems. But he said their main motive is seeing their alleged abuser convicted and it's clear their testimony is backed up by supporting witnesses and evidence. Lane, however, struggled to explain how a competent police department could have allowed such a crime spree by one of its own to go undetected for so long. He said many of the alleged victims, some drunks or addicts, believed the police would not believe their word over a police officer's. Although many women were intimidated from reporting the crimes, some did speak out. "This stuff has been happening for years and people have been telling people about it for years," Lane said. One woman told another Eugene police officer she traded sex for not getting arrested, but the officer did nothing, Lane said. "Nothing happened." At another point a woman on trial in municipal court burst out to the judge, "how would you like to give a Eugene cop a blow job?" Lane said. But "nobody did anything." Another woman told a personal injury lawyer about Magaña years ago, but the case was not pursued, Lane said. When the final victim called 911, police took Magaña's denial over the woman's word and did not pursue the matter. They investigated only after the woman called back and provided evidence that Magaña was lying about claiming he didn't even know her, according to Lane. If not for her calls, "it could so easily have gone the other way and none of this would have come out," Lane said. Magaña appears to have had little effective supervision from EPD. When he allegedly went to assault one woman, he told dispatch he was on "special assignment" and unavailable for other calls. No one apparently asked him what his "special assignment" was. Magaña was "working a tremendous amount of overtime," says his attorney Barnett. The city pays officers time-and-a half or double time for overtime. The EPD continuously complains that its officers are
overworked and have no time for community policing or helping victims
of small thefts. But Magaña appeared to have plenty of time to
pursue his interests. Lane said Magaña ran up personal cell phone
bills of up to $700 a month. Many of the calls were to victims while
on duty, Lane said, citing "a huge number of phone calls to personal
numbers at a time the defendant is supposed to be doing work for the
citizens of
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Lost
and Found in Eugene
