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Slant: Short opinion pieces and rumor-chasing notes. News: News: GRIFFIN TO OUTLINE 'DISTURBING QUESTIONS' REGARDING BUSH, 9/11 Michael Moore's new film Fahrenheit 9/11 continues to generate intense controversy regarding the events of Sept. 11, 2001, but some researchers go far beyond Moore's allegations of incompetence and corruption in the Bush administration. One such researcher, David Ray Griffin, will be speaking at 7 pm Wednesday, July 28 at the Eugene Hilton. Griffin is the author of The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11. The book details a persistent, ongoing, private inquiry into the events of 9/11 and evidence of complicity in those events by officials in The North American Aerospace Command (NORAD), the National Military Command Center, the Federal Aviation Administration, and even the White House. The implications of such evidence would, of course, generate a constitutional crisis that dwarfs Watergate. Griffin's credentials are extensive. He earned his bachelor's here in Eugene at the Northwest Christian College, his master's at the UO, and his Ph.D. at the Claremont Graduate School in Southern California. He is a professor of religion and theology at the Claremont Graduate University in Santa Barbara, and executive director of the Center for Process Studies. He is the author of more than 20 books, including God, Power, and Evil; and Two Great Truths: A New Synthesis of Scientific Naturalism and Christian Faith. In The New Pearl Harbor, Griffin expresses his reluctance to embark on his investigation, stating that, "It seemed to me simply beyond belief that the Bush administration — even the Bush administration — would do such a heinous thing." But at the urging of colleagues he began to look into the allegations, and found, to his satisfaction, that they merited further inquiry. Much of his work is based on a comprehensive timeline for the events of 9/11 produced by Paul Thompson for the Center for Cooperative Research (www.cooperativeresearch.org). Thompson's timeline is drawn exclusively from mainstream sources like The New York Times and the Washington Post. The details revealed in the book are indeed disturbing. Normal protocols for the interception (an action distinct from the shooting down) of off-course airplanes were not implemented on 9/11, the failure occurring not once, but four times. The government issued two contradictory explanations of this failure to the media, first stating that NORAD was not able to scramble interceptor jets at all, and later stating that jets were scrambled, but arrived too late. Griffin cites video evidence indicating that the Twin Towers fell at nearly free-fall speed — something that could not have happened in official scenarios explaining the buildings' collapse. Perhaps even more troubling is the destruction of World Trade Center Building Seven, which collapsed totally into its own "footprint," exactly like the Twin Towers, even though it was not struck by any airplanes, and had only small fires inside that should have been controlled by the building's sprinkler system. Financial evidence includes the statistically anomalous "put options" placed on American Airlines and United Air Lines stocks during the week before Sept. 11, which netted unknown investors at least $5 million when those airline stocks plummeted as a result of the attacks. The monies remain unclaimed and the Securities and Exchange Commission has made no move to investigate. Griffin will discuss all of these issues and more at the Eugene Hilton. More information about the Eugene 9/11 Alliance is available at www.oilempire.us/eugene.html — Gordon David Kaswell
GAY RIGHTS BACKERS GETTING ORGANIZED State and national efforts to ban gay marriages are motivating civil rights activists and others to organize both in opposition to bigotry and in support of members of the community who happen to be lesbian/gay/bi/trans/queer (LGBTQ). Among the local actions is a vigil showing solidarity with those attending 7:30 pm Sunday services at the Metropolitan Community Church, a LGBTQ congregation. The vigil begins at 6:30 pm outside the First Congregational Church, 11th and Oak downtown. "Just as supporters of all faiths stood outside Temple Beth Israel during the days following anti-Semitic attacks on our synagogue, the community is being called upon to show we stand unified with our LGBTQ Christian neighbors," says a note from Sally Sheklow, an LGBTQ activist and writer Last week the U.S. Senate defeated a resolution to pursue a constitutional amendment narrowly defining marriage, so attention is now focused on state initiatives. Oregon's Defense of Marriage Coalition is expected to get a constitutional amendment defining marriage on the November ballot, and one group actively opposing it is Heterosexuals for the Right of Gays and Lesbians to Marry (HGLM), a UO Law School-based organization fighting marriage discrimination. "The stakes in Oregon are now extremely high," says Dan Galpern of HGLM. "We are determined to respond effectively. HGLM has determined to press ahead with a public campaign to call the heterosexual majority to its better nature. We who have availed ourselves of the benefits of our discriminatory marriage laws — or who contemplate doing so in the future — are especially obliged to ensure that the right to marry is extended as well to same-sex couples." For more information, visit www.hglm.orgor e-mail ccs@law.uoregon.edu — TJT
BUSH ENVIRO RECORD DRAWS MORE CRITICISM The Portland political group America Coming Together (ACT) has issued an analysis of President Bush's environmental record following the recent visit of Secretary of Interior Gale Norton to central Oregon to announce a compromise on a three-dam system on the Deschutes River. Norton's visit "only reminds Oregonians how offensive the Bush administration policies have been on clean water and clean air," says Scott Ballo of ACT. Ballo's examples include: The non-partisan League of Conserv-ation Voters President Deb Callahan says the Bush administration is well on its way to compiling "the worst environmental record in the history of our nation." The administration wants to destroy the Clean Water Act. "Under pressure from the Mining industry, the Bush administration objects to any provisions in the Clean Water Act limiting the mining industry's ability to pollute our nation's lakes, streams and rivers." Under the administration's Clear Skies Initiative, "the Clear Air Act will be gutted and the nation's air will be filled with more mercury, nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and other dangerous emissions." White House efforts to weaken the Clean Air Act will compromise public health, says Ballo. "The Clean Air Task Force reports the Bush administration's new loopholes in the New Sources Review portion of the Clean Air Act will mean at least 20,000 deaths per year and over 12,000 new cases of chronic bronchitis around the country." For more information, visit www.actforvictory.org
CORRECTIONS/CLARIFICATIONS In last week's CHOW story "Little House, Big Flavor," the story should have said that the coffee being served at Zalaya is custom roasting from Cafeto Coffee Co. A credit was inadvertently omitted from the photo of John Dobson in last week's "Seeing Stars" news story. The photo was by carolezoom.
Salvage
Gone Mad This is no ordinary timber sale: With a final proposed extraction of 372 million board feet (that's the equivalent to 70,000 loaded logging trucks), the Biscuit fire salvage project is the largest timber sale in recent national history. Three of the first five sales sold last week to Oregon timber companies, meaning that logging could already be under way in the Siskiyou National Forest in southwest Oregon, an area that was proposed as a national monument in 2000. The sales are located within the area of the Biscuit fire that burned in 2002 and surround the Kalmiopsis Wilderness and several important salmon rivers, such as the Rogue, the Illinois and the Chetco. In such a biologically diverse and sensitive area, "This is the last place you want to do logging," said Dominick DellaSala of the Klamath-Siskiyou branch of the World Wildlife Fund. With cutting planned in 6,750 acres of land designated under the Northwest Forest Plan as late successional reserves (LSR), much of which are old-growth forests, and 8,150 acres of inventoried roadless areas, the sale plows straight through logging regulations left intact from the Clinton administration. Judy McHugh of the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project says that the Forest Service plan meets the 13 standards and guidelines that allow for cutting in the LSR. The other 4,500 acres of land are within matrix lands, open to logging under the Northwest Forest Plan. Environmentalists at state and national levels are outraged by the Bush administration's manipulation of intact and highly supported environmental policies, such as the roadless area rule, which prohibits logging in certain areas with a high environmental value. Members of Greenpeace International as well as local organizations have conducted onsite protests and have petitioned Oregon representatives to stop the logging. Josh Laughlin of the Cascadia Wildlands Project says that justification for the salvage sale relies on bogus scientific reports, such as the Session's Report released last year claiming the need to log as much as possible as fast as possible in order to prevent future fires and to effectively rebuild future owl habitat. "Basically what we're seeing is a payback to the over $1 million the (timber) industry tucked in George Bush's back pocket," he claims. "This is science for sale and nothing else." Representatives from several southern Oregon conservation groups requested a temporary restraining order July 16 from a federal court in Medford in order to protect the old growth reserves in the Siskiyou Wild Rivers Area. They claim that the sale will extract more than 50 million board feet of old growth reserve logs. The Forest Service bypassed the customary citizen review process and approved the sales under an "emergency exemption" to salvage the burned timber and recreate habitats. However, wildfires naturally help to shape diversity and are important in evolving ecosystems, said DellaSala. And Laughlin says, "It's absurd to say that the spotted owl habitat was decimated." He claims that owls still utilize burned habitat. Then why pay money — a March 2004 Eco Northwest report finds that extraction of over 300 million board feet will cost the U.S Treasury more than $34 million — to destroy habitat that still exists, then try to rebuild it as though it were natural? This is without mention of the potential erosion and other damage to sensitive ecosystems that is caused by logging in watershed areas. "Our concerns have to do with impacts on wild salmon and degrading streams," explains Don Smith of the Siskiyou Project, one of the organizations that requested the restraining order. Healthy streams and rivers are crucial to wild salmon survival. McHugh claims that the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project includes the logging of the area as well as replanting and reconstruction of lost habitat. "We feel like we're making an investment," she said. The Bush administration's recent announcement of termination of the roadless area rule provides a timely open door to timber companies, allowing cutting to go ahead while state governments scramble to set up comprehensive policies. Even though Gov. Kulongoski recently declared the Siskiyou Wild Rivers Area "a natural resource jewel — not only to Oregon but to the nation," there may not be time for him to petition the Forest Service. "That's problematic because roadless areas are on the chopping block now," said Laughlin. Environmentalists agree that the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project will devastate old growth reserves, harm important habitats and ruin recreation in the area. "People go to the Siskiyou rivers area for beauty and solitude, not for clear-cuts and muddy rivers," said Laughlin. "It takes decades to recreate habitat that we already have."
Roger Magaña used his police power to harass, sexually abuse, sodomize, kidnap, coerce and/or rape a dozen women for nearly a decade without the Eugene Police Department stopping him. Magaña was sentenced July 13 to 94 years in prison. Juan Lara plead guilty to a smaller sex crime spree while he was a cop and got five years.
The police say they'll do a better job of catching bad cops. But even Police Chief Robert Lehner acknowledges that the public may not believe the police can police itself internally. "It is right that it cuts to the core of the trust in this community," he says of the abuse of power by the two officers. The lack of trust in police has lead to calls for external police oversight and a less secretive disciplinary process, but resistance to reform is deeply entrenched.
INTERNAL EXTERNAL "There will be some outside involvement" in the department's review of what it did wrong with the hiring, training and supervision of the two convicted officers and whether any other officers were involved, Lehner says. Lehner hasn't decided exactly how that external component of his internal investigation will work, he says. Tim Laue chairs the Eugene Police Commission, a citizen body appointed by the mayor to advise the EPD on policy. "I don't think it could be credible" to just do the investigation internally, he says. "There should be external components to it." Laue notes that in the past the police have hired consultants from the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) and International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) to conduct reviews. The state police were also called in to examine the June 1, 1997 incident when police used clouds of pepper spray and tear gas against tree sitters and protesters. But Lauren Regan, a local attorney with seven years experience handling police complaints, says the external reviews of the June 1 incident by hired consultants or fellow law enforcement officers showed no real independence and were "a total whitewash." The IACP, for example, found that police pepper spraying tree sitters, including one in the groin, was "reasonable." The consultant did not talk to any spray victims or view videotapes of the incident before it reached that conclusion. Oregon ACLU Director Dave Fidanque says police should make sure they give any outside consultant a charge to investigate with full independence. "People are justifiably concerned."
EXTERNAL REVIEW BOARD After the June 1 pepper spray incident, citizens pressed for an external review board to provide independent oversight of police power. The council referred a charter amendment to the November 1998 ballot that would have created an external review board with some investigative capability to review complaints and give the EPD advice on officer discipline. The measure failed by less than 1 percent. After the Magaña and Lara cases, Fidanque says the city should consider an external review board again. "There clearly needs to be more of a role for civilian oversight." Mayor elect Kitty Piercy agrees that the city needs to create an external citizen review board "so people can feel safe and that their complaints will be heard." Lehner says he won't stand in the way of creating a citizen oversight board. "I could not imagine that the city of Eugene would come up with a [citizen oversight] model that I could not wholeheartedly support." But while there appears to be broad support for some kind of external review board, the real fight may be over how much actual teeth and independence to give external review. Asked about his position on external review, Lehner says he agrees with an article opposing external review boards that have the power to overrule internal police disciplinary decisions. Lehner says he wouldn't oppose the review board model that passed in 1998. That model was purely advisory with the police free to ignore its recommendations and much of the disciplinary information held secret from the public. Lehner says a review board with much independent investigator power would be "really, really expensive." A decade ago, Lehner was an assistant police chief in Tucson, Ariz., when he joined his chief and police union in opposing the creation of a stronger citizen review board to replace an advisory committee criticized as "cheerleaders" for police, the Tucson Citizen reported.
'FAN CLUB' Eugene already has a weak civilian oversight system. In 1998, the city council passed an ordinance creating a citizen Police Commission. The commission advises EPD on policy matters, but does not review police complaints. Lehner praises the commission as a "very dedicated group," but the Police Commission has disappointed reform advocates. "They pretty soon became groupies," says Councilor Betty Taylor of the Police Commission. Members of the group are appointed by Mayor Jim Torrey, who has a history of strongly siding with police against citizen complaints. Torrey's appointments have made the group a police "fan club," Taylor says. "They are quite sympathetic to law enforcement," Regan agrees, adding that the commission hasn't done much by way of reform that she can see. Although supposedly independent, the commission has never disagreed with the EPD by recommending a policy change that the police oppose. Often the commission recommends policy changes only after the police have already made them or agreed to them. Six years after its creation, the Police Commission is only now taking up the long burning issue of reforming internal police review of complaints and then only at the urging of Chief Lehner in the wake of the officer sex scandals. The commission plans to begin its review more than a year after the Magaña and Lara abuse first came to light and take more than a year more to complete its report. Commissioner Laue defends his group. "We've done a pretty credible job," Laue says. "It's a diverse group." Commission member and City Councilor Bonny Bettman says the commission is an "effective body." The group successfully recommended that EPD ban hooding suspects, for example, she says. But Bettman acknowledges, "there have been small incremental changes that have improved the police department, but they've been small." It's not clear whether the police commission will come back with a report next September recommending a stronger or a weaker system of internal police accountability. Chair Laue says he'd like the review to include an examination of complaints by police officers that the department is too strict and lacks "consistency and fairness" to officers in handling citizen complaints.
POWERFUL UNION Meaningful police reform may face opposition from Eugene's powerful police union. The union opposed the 1998 police review board measure. The last chief to come to Eugene from outside the department and try to tighten discipline faced stiff union opposition. Chief Leonard Cooke said he was "stunned" by the "loose discipline" he found in the department in the 1990s, according to testimony before the state Employee Relations Board. Cooke later was forced to resign after the union heavily criticized his efforts to increase discipline and impose community policing. The union also played a major role in ousting former city manager Vicki Elmer in 1998 after she angered local officers by asking the state police to investigate the June 1 pepper spraying of tree sitters. In 2000, the union threatened to sue Councilor David Kelly for libel after he questioned police use of force against protesters and called for police reform. In 2002, police union members were suspected of breaking video camera equipment in their patrol cars to destroy evidence of their actions, according to a report in The Register-Guard. Police apparently didn't investigate. Last year, the union successfully revoked the hiring of George Aylward as chief. Aylward had angered the police union in Middletown, Conn., for firing an officer accused of racist arrests and for suspending another officer who threatened college students. Aylward was named as the top candidate for chief in Eugene, but withdrew in the face of opposition from the Eugene union. The union then supported Lehner for the chief job. Lehner had served in Tucson as president of the police union there. Lehner says some officers oppose external citizen oversight of their activities, taking a "we know best" attitude. But Lehner says without community involvement in police decisions, "we don't know best." But the chief can't change the department's disciplinary system significantly without the permission of the union. The city has signed a contract through 2005 that sets forth detailed disciplinary rules and requires union consent to changes. The union has the power to pursue binding arbitration with the city if it disputes any disciplinary action. The union has often won such arbitration cases by successfully arguing that efforts to tighten discipline make disciplinary actions illegally inconsistent with past, looser discipline. That arbitration system has made the complaint/discipline policies of the EPD inherently resistant to reform. Former Chief Cooke ran into that consistency roadblock repeatedly in the early 1990s when he tried to tighten discipline, according to employment board documents. Lehner says the union so far appears "amenable" to changes in the way police handle citizen complaints. "I really don't think it will be a problem." Laue says union officials he's talked to are open to negotiating reforms in the wake of the scandals. "They are just as appalled as a lot of people in the community." In dealing with the union, Lehner's experience as a union president may even help, says Fidanque. "I'm hoping he can make that case that dramatic changes are needed to restore confidence in the department and that it will take more than just window dressing."
SECRECY Lehner says a key part of his efforts to restore trust with the community will be opening the department's records to the public. "The more open our records are, the better off we are." "I've never seen an example where openness was detrimental — embarrassing yes," says Lehner, but in the long run public scrutiny improved the department. "There's no reason that our records, our actions can't be open." But despite Lehner's public proclamations of "sunshine on police practices" the department continues to refuse to release documents relating to Magaña and police discipline. Police PR person Pam Olshanski has refused requests by Eugene Weekly to view Roger Magaña's personnel file, records of complaints against Magaña and records of allegations of similar misconduct against other officers. "That is not a public record and it is not releasable," says Lehner of the requested personnel files. Actually, under the Oregon Public Records Law, the documents are releasable. The law allows but does not require cities to withhold personnel and disciplinary records, but only if the public interest in disclosure is outweighed by the need for secrecy. In the past, courts have held that when crimes are alleged, the public interest requires disclosure. Lehner says he thinks more documents should be released but has run into concerns from "fellow executives" in the city who oppose disclosure. He says he's asked Eugene's attorney to give an opinion on the matter. A culture of secrecy is deeply ingrained in the city bureaucracy. In the Police Operations Manual, not criticizing the department by blowing the whistle on wrongdoing is official policy. The rules for officer conduct state: "While on duty, or off duty and identifying yourself as a department employee, you may not publicly criticize or ridicule the department, its policies, or other employees by any expression, where what you say or write produces intolerable disharmony, inefficiency, dissension, chaos, or is without a factual basis." In an apparent further effort to plug embarrassing leaks, the EPD has in recent years imposed a policy of requiring reporters to first get permission from the police PR office before talking to department staff. The city has also agreed in its police union contract to keep wrong-doing by officers secret, in apparent violation of the Public Records Law. The contract states, "personnel files of all employees shall be considered confidential." The contract often even keeps complaints against officers secret from command staff. Documentation of complaints found lacking evidence or dismissed cannot be kept in an employee's personnel file. Even complaints that were proven true are deleted after as little as two years. Such programmed amnesia would make it more difficult to catch a serial offender like Magaña. Eugene may have one of the most secretive police departments in the nation. Lehner says his former Tucson department was far more open with the public and says he was "surprised" when he came to Eugene and found out how much information the city withheld from the public. EPD secrecy is backed by policies of increasing secrecy in the city as a whole. City Manager Dennis Taylor imposed a new public records policy in February requiring high fees and formal written requests for documents that the city had in the past simply handed over for free to the public. City Manager Taylor has even sought to control information provided to the City Council. He has told councilors that, unlike other citizens, they must first go through him before talking to city staff to gather information.
UNACCOUNTABLE Although elected officials supposedly hold office to hold government accountable, in Eugene the council hasn't played that role. The Eugene council has yet to hold a meeting to discuss police reform after the Magaña and Lara scandals. Part of the problem with the council doing its accountability job is the city charter. The charter gives enormous exclusive power to the unelected city manager to hire, fire and supervise city employees, including cops. The council can only hire and fire the city manager. If elected officials "attempt to influence the manager in the making of any appointment or any removal of city personnel" they can be forced from office, the charter states. "The mayor and council may, however, in open council session, discuss with or suggest to the manager anything pertaining to city affairs," the charter makes clear. That last provision would allow the council to openly discuss Magaña and Lara and order policy reforms and suggest to the manager any possible discipline/firing of other officers who might be implicated in the scandal. Mayor Jim Torrey used the open session provision once to tell former City Manager Vicki Elmer not to hire a specific assistant city manager candidate. But Councilor Bettman says it's hard to discuss such matters without information. She faults the city manager for keeping the council in the dark on Magaña and Lara. "I know as much as the average citizen reading the newspaper knows." Bettman also faults the conservative mayor and majority on the council for years of weak leadership of the police department and city. After the council fired Elmer in 1998, the city went through five years of acting and short-time managers before the council hired Taylor as a permanent manager last year. The acting managers before Taylor in turn hired a series of acting and short-time police chiefs after Cooke resigned in 1998 until hiring Lehner this year. "There's some higher accountability here," Bettman says. The acting managers and police chiefs who still work for the city as executives also share some potential blame, Bettman says. "With crimes of this magnitude, there's accountability all the way to the top of the organization." Bettman says passing a charter change to allow the city council to hire an independent auditor to check up on city management would help establish public accountability. A city charter reform committee unanimously recommended such an auditor in 2002, but the conservative council majority voted not to refer the change to voters. In Portland, an independent auditor reviews police complaints and recently played a role in the ouster of a police chief and police reforms after a string of questionable shootings. But in Eugene the auditor reform would challenge the enormous power of the city manager to control information and faces stiff opposition from the secretive city bureaucracy. "I don't see what the problem is right now," Taylor said in opposing calls for an auditor in the wake of the Eugene police scandal. Bettman says the current system leaves the council in the dark with little ability to hold the city accountable to citizens. An auditor "would give the council the ability to ask the hard questions," Bettman says. Had the auditor been in place a few years ago, "it may have resulted in much more responsive action on these [police reform] issues." In the end if the city doesn't answer to itself on police accountability, it may still have to answer to others. Local municipal and circuit court judges have thrown out criminal cases that relied on officers the judges apparently didn't believe. Attorney Regan says in such cases judges should tell police managers about the suspect officers. "They should have a duty to protect citizens." More accountability and public information could come from a host of multi-million-dollar civil lawsuits filed against the city by Lara's and Magaña's victims. "A lot of it will come out in the civil suits," Regan says. "Those [money] judgements will certainly spur policy choices by the EPD." But Lehner says even if Eugene does police reform perfectly, it won't guarantee there will be no more officers like Lara and Magaña. Police are human, he says, and, "there will always be those who abuse power."
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