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Slant: Short opinion pieces and rumor-chasing notes News: News: News: Happening Person: Michele Bulgatz
BALLOT TITLE AVOIDS USING WORD 'POLICE' The city funding measure on the ballot in November to help pay for a new $30 million police station does not even mention the word "police" until 137 words into the ballot title verbiage. Voters will see the ballot title, "General obligation bonds to partially fund Civic Center Vision project," followed by the question: "Shall City of Eugene issue $6,780,000 of general obligation bonds to partially fund Civic Center Vision project? If the bonds are approved, they will be payable from taxes on property or property ownership that are not subject to the limits of sections II and IIb, Article XI of the Oregon Constitution." The word "police" is first found 62 words later, buried in the "explanation" section. Voters have twice before defeated bond measures to build a new police department building in Eugene (see EW cover story 7/29). — TJT
TORREY DID NOT FARE WELL WHEN UNOPPOSED Mayor Jim Torrey, who's considering a heavily funded write-in campaign against presumed Mayor-elect Kitty Piercy in November, only garnered 54 percent of the vote when he ran unopposed in the November general election in 2000. And he failed to get a majority of the turnout in more than one-third of Eugene's precincts. In the 2000 election, about 38 percent of Eugene voters skipped over the mayor's name while punching chads, and about another 8 percent wrote in another name for mayor. Michael Glownia ran a low-budget write-in campaign. In the May 2004 primary, Piercy got 51.7 percent of the vote in a heated contest with Torrey-backed Councilor Nancy Nathanson, who ran second in the field with 45.7 percent of the vote. — TJT/AP
COMMENTS CONTINUE ON COMMUNITY POLICING The Eugene Police Commission is still requesting public input regarding their "community policing" policies. The city website (www.ci.eugene.or.us/PoliceComm/publicinput.htm)says the Police Commission is "beginning a review of police department policies and procedures for handling and investigating complaints from a citizen perspective." The website requests ideas, concerns and suggestions about filing complaints with the police department. The input may range from a citizen's perspective on how to file a complaint against an officer, to what would prevent a citizen from filing a complaint, to personal reports of past experiences of filing a complaint. These reactions and others regarding department policy can be e-mailed to holly.a.mathews@ci.eugene.or.us or sent to Eugene Police Commission, 777 Pearl St., Rm. 106, Eugene 97401.
EUGENE TO BE CENTER OF MOVEON CAMPAIGN The grassroots drive by MoveOn to deliver 440,000 new votes to John Kerry is ready to launch, and Eugene will be at the center of the Oregon campaign. Later this month, MoveOn organizers will open a field office in Eugene, hold daily recruitment meetings during the week of Sept. 20 and run a training session on the weekend of Sept. 25-26 for the more than 1,000 volunteers expected to join the "Leave No Voter Behind" campaign. MoveOn needed just two days last week to gather 100 people in Lake Oswego on the night of Bush's speech at the Republican National Convention. "This is our biggest campaign ever," said Amy Hojnowski, MoveOn PAC field organizer in Oregon. "In addition to Portland, we'll have offices in Salem, Eugene and Ashland by the end of the month." Times, places and contact information for the Eugene campaign were not available at press time. Watch EW for details, or visit www.moveonpac.org/lnvb
HEAVY HITTERS COMING TO SPEAK THIS MONTH What's at stake in the November presidential election? Three noted pundits will be touring the Northwest together this month, each offering their perspectives. Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, Global Exchange activist Medea Benjamin and nationally syndicated columnist Norman Solomon will stop in Eugene and Corvallis as part of their tour. Tickets are expected to be cheap in order to draw large crowds. The weeklong speaking tour of Oregon and Washington begins Friday, Sept. 24 in Ashland, reaches Eugene Saturday, hits Salem Sunday, Corvallis Monday and Portland Tuesday. The tour then heads north through Washington state. Times and locations were not available at press time. Watch EW for announcements or visit www.speakersclearinghouse.org The Eugene appearance is sponsored by Eugene PeaceWorks, Justice Not War Coalition, Eugene Weekly and other groups.
ACTIVIST ALERT Noted Oregon political commentator Russell Sadler will talk at noon Friday, Sept. 10 at the Eugene City Club luncheon at the Hilton. Admission for those not eating is $3. Sadler's topic is "Why Elections Are Not Final Anymore," a reference to the mayoral race and the West Eugene Parkway. For more information, visit www.cityclubofeugene.org The Eugene Permaculture Guild is holding its eighth annual Northwest Regional Permaculture Gathering in Eugene this weekend with the theme "Advancing Towards an Enduring Bio Region." Keynote speaker at 7 pm Friday, Sept. 10 is Dr. Allen Kapular, land use bike tour is Saturday. Location for most events is Maitreya Eco Village at the corner of Almaden and West.Broadway, a block east of Chambers. For more info, call Rob at 344-7196 or e-mail spencerj@efn.org Related to the gathering is a non-credit fee course offered this fall at LCC; "Global Trends, Local Choices." The series of evening sessions will look at global trends in water, agriculture, habitat, resource scarcity and population, followed by an examination of locally based responses: food choices, land use redesign, suburban conversion, permaculture, voluntary simplicity, local culture, neighborhood networking and more. See www.efn.org/~spencerj/LCC.htm Local wellness/relaxation expert Nancy Hopps will be a featured speaker at the World Wellness Weekend in Ashland Sept. 11-12, along with headliners Deepak Chopra and Dr. Bernie Siegel. Hopps will share excerpts and exercises from her CDs and her upcoming book on how to integrate spiritual principles and self-care practices into day-to-day life. For information, visit www.worldwellness.orgor call (541) 552-1782.
CORRECTIONS/CLARIFICATIONS In Dan Carol's column last week, he inadvertently called the Oregon Bus Project the Oregon Bush Project. Has anyone else noticed Dan's Bush obsession? In Jerry Harris's column last week he mentioned the name "Bobby Bonds." He tells us he intended to write "Barry Bonds." Bobby Bonds was Barry's famous bat-swinging daddy who died last year about this time. The folks at Eugene-Springfield Solidarity Network tell us they were mistakenly given credit in both EW and the R-G for hosting the big Labor Day Picnic at Jasper Park, but the real credit should go to the Lane County Labor Council. "ESSN is merely one supporter of that fabulous picnic," says Hope Marston of ESSN.
George Bush supporters from Eugene have contributed twice as much money to their presidential candidate as local John Kerry supporters.
The Bush campaign received a total of $232,069 from Eugene backers compared to $114,510 for Kerry. The totals come from a Eugene Weekly analysis of data on campaign contributions to the two presidential campaigns and the state and national Democratic and Republican parties from the beginning of last year through the end of June. The big lead in Bush money from Eugene comes in a city that's heavily Democratic. In the last election, only 31 percent voted for Bush. Eugene Mayor Jim Torrey contributed $2,250 to Bush. Torrey, a Republican, was elected with big contributions from many of the same donors that now back Bush. The biggest source of Bush bucks in Eugene is the local Giustina family, which has made millions from clearcuts and speculating on urban sprawl. The Giustinas and their company executives have contributed $62,000 to the campaign. The Jones timber family comes in second with $31,250 in contributions. Aaron Jones owns the Seneca Jones Timber Company. Kay Toolson, CEO of the Monaco RV maker in Coburg, contributed $14,500 to get Bush re-elected. Randy Papé of the Papé heavy equipment company gave $10,000. The Gonyea family, logging and land speculation, gave another $8,000. The Woolley family, logging and real estate speculation, gave $7,500. Other big donors include the Murphy family (lumber mill) $6,500, and the Lee family (developers), the Tykeson family (real estate speculation) $4,250 and the Stewart family (logging) $4,250. Some local Republican big wigs would have ranked higher if contributions they made from addresses outside Eugene were included. For example, the Demers family of Veneta, which has speculated heavily on land in West Eugene and Veneta and has made huge donations to campaigns for the West Eugene Parkway, contributed a total of $27,000 to re-electing Bush. The Chambers family of Pleasant Hill, owners of KEZI television and Chambers construction, land speculation and development companies, contributed a total of $7,000 to the Bush campaign. Almost half of the Bush money was associated with Post Office boxes, indicating heavy support from business owners. In all, Bush received a total of 170 contributions from Eugene averaging about $1,400 each. In contrast, Kerry contributions averaged about $500 with 234 separate donations. Almost 60 percent of Kerry money came from south Eugene, home to many of the city's progressive voters. However, Bush also did well in the south hills, making almost half of his total contributions from the wealthy area. But only one percent of Kerry money was associated with Post Office boxes. Only three Kerry supporters contributed $3,000 or more. Retiree Marcia Sigler gave $4,432 and retiree Dwight Taylor gave $3,950. Physician Vern Katz gave $3,000. Statewide, Bush has raised $1,260,328 in Oregon compared to $953,882 for Kerry, according to Center for Responsive Politics counts of direct contributions to the two campaigns. The Bush campaign has been given a huge boost by the Oregon timber industry, which stands to cash in on Bush policies for repealing environmental protections and logging green old growth in roadless and burned areas. According to a recent report by the public interest group Common Cause, 14 Oregon timber companies donated more than $670,000 to Bush and the Republican Party during the 2000, 2002 and 2004 election cycles.
Railroaded Andy Stahl tries to do the right thing by the environment. At work, he's the executive director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, a non-profit organization in Eugene advocating greater environmentalism within the Forest Service. From home, he rides his bicycle to work two days a week, 18 miles each way, instead of driving a car. And when he has to go out of town — as he occasionally does for business trips to Seattle — he relies on Amtrak. "I always go business class," Stahl says. "You get a seat with no one next to you, on the left side where there's only one seat and the view of the water, and you get a free newspaper, and a $5 coupon for food in the café car." He catches the early-morning Amtrak Cascades train, the one that leaves Eugene at 5:45 am. "It gets someone like me, traveling on business, to Seattle by midday, and I have the whole afternoon there, and then I catch the 5 pm train back," he says. It's a long day, but Stahl says it beats logging five or more hours each way in his car: "The train is so much more relaxing, even if it arrives an hour later." Stahl has enjoyed the relative luxury of the Cascades run since 1995, when the state of Oregon first sponsored an extension of the service from Portland down to Eugene. The Cascades service, unlike the tourist-oriented Coast Starlight train that chugs up and down the entire West Coast, is geared towards Northwest commuters along the I-5 corridor. But occasional commuters like Stahl may not be numerous enough to keep the Cascades run going in Oregon. In 2003, approximately 120,000 train passengers went through the Eugene station. Eugene's ridership is less than a quarter of Portland's. And faced with a looming $600 million deficit, the state of Oregon over the past year has repeatedly eyed its Amtrak service with a lean and hungry look. Troubled times Passenger rail systems around the world are generally subsidized by their national governments, and are not always expected to turn a profit. But Amtrak is an oddity, an entity treated both like a government service (it is subsidized by federal and state governments) and like a private corporation (it is expected to make money). Every year, Amtrak asks Congress for money; every year, Congress resists. Early in February, Amtrak released its $1.8 billion budget request for 2005. So far, Congress is considering offering only $900 million. A similar dance is played out at the state level, with each of the 23 states that sponsor Amtrak trains deciding how much they want to dedicate to Amtrak during each budget session. In spring 2003, a desperate Oregon Legislature considered cutting the entire Cascades train service in Oregon. At the last minute, the lawmakers came up with $10 million. But in the fall, the state found itself again looking at cutting the Cascades service in half due to leasing difficulties with Union Pacific, the railroad company that owns the track used by Amtrak in Oregon. UP gave the state a grace period, and in January, ODOT announced that, by reallocating federal funds within its budget, it would be able to pay Union Pacific the $15 million promised four years ago for track improvements. For now — despite frequent delays due to Union Pacific's higher-priority freight trains — the state's Cascades service is still humming along. But it may not survive the 2005 legislative session. "As long as we have a budget crisis, the trains are at risk," explains Claudia Howells, the former ODOT Rail Division Manager. "When they have to compete with the Oregon Health Plan, prisons and tuition increases, it gets tougher and tougher to fund trains." Howells, who left ODOT this spring to run for the Legislature, is optimistic that the state's current Amtrak service will survive through the next legislative session. But she's skeptical about the state's long-term commitment to providing passenger rail service. "It's pretty hard to run a program of this magnitude, when it comes up for review every three months," she said. "The effort it took to sustain the trains during the last legislative session was painful. We probably had a one-vote margin in both houses." Despite Amtrak's budget troubles in the Oregon Legislature, the city of Eugene is busy building the rail service a nicer home in town. Six years ago, the city researched a train-station renovation, and managed to come up with $4.5 million in funds. Most of the monies are federal highway enhancement funds; $1 million came from Amtrak itself. By September this year, the 1908-vintage Eugene train depot should be completely renovated and enhanced with a pedestrian plaza. The city also plans to add a bus turnaround and drop-off area. Eventually, the city hopes the train station area — currently hidden at the north end of Willamette, with an ad-hoc assemblage of parking spaces and tarmac right up to the edge of the tracks — will become a gathering place both for passengers and locals, with outdoor tables in front of coffee shops under attractive lights and flowers. Howells is pleased by the city's efforts, but urban renewal projects, she says, only go so far. "It's up to the state, really, if the state decides it wants to move ahead," she says. "What's really at issue here is whether Oregon wants to be considered a 21st century state, or go back to a 1950s transportation system." She adds, "If we had $300 million now, we could have a full business plan by the end of this decade." Amtrak, or passenger rail in whatever form, would be here to stay. But if the Cascades service were to disappear, Andy Stahl would be stuck. "I don't know what I'd do," he says. "I'd probably grit my teeth and drive."
BURNING
BUSH
Burning Man is, first and foremost, a party. And Black Rock City — the flat, five-square-mile swath of dry lake bed where Burning Man takes place — is a strange and happy refugee camp for people escaping mainstream America. It's a temporary autonomous zone where alcohol flows freer than water and glowing art cars animate the nightscape. Strange structures — a mirrored cube, flame-shooting flowers, a glow-eyed elephant — rise from the alkaline Nevada desert like monuments of an alien empire. The dusty earth, dubbed "the playa," is devoid of wildlife, vegetation, and water. It's a blank canvas. This year 35,000 people — most of them furry, glittering or tentacled — descended upon the Black Rock Desert around Aug. 30, erected a ludicrous city, whooped it up for a week of artistic debauchery, and then dissolved it all back to dust by Sept. 6. Black Rock City isn't exactly a political place, but I attended Burning Man with a question in mind: What does it mean, politically, when tens of thousands of people — most of them young, creative and progressive — dedicate vast amounts of energy to create an alternative society in the middle of nowhere? Is it a way to shun the American political system, or does it inspire Burners to participate in the "real world" as earnestly as they do on the playa? John Perry Barlow, a long-time Burner and co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, addressed this issue in an essay on Disinfo.com after last year's event. "I felt as if I were watching the best minds of the next several generations blowing themselves into starry oblivions as deep as the desert night, pushing the envelope of strangeness into near-psychosis at a time when the world beyond The Playa seems to have gone quite mad enough already," writes Barlow. "[W]hile I believe that dancing is a revolutionary act, it is clear to me that we can't simply dance this darkness out of office."
I poked around Black Rock City for hints of political activism, but my enthusiasm waned as the week progressed. The sun burned my brain to a husk and the dusty wind vaporized it. It felt almost sacrosanct to bring up John Kerry's health care plan while leggy women in pink combat boots buzzed by on giant motorized bunny slippers. When a dreamland becomes your reality, the reality of the real world fades. Part of the reason that politics seem so out of context in Black Rock City, says Burning Man founder Larry Harvey, is because the event is supposed to be inclusive rather than divisive. "Overt politics stay off the playa because the factionalism and the ideologies they represent are irrelevant," he says. "I don't think a meaningful politics can be created until we re-establish real community." I met with Harvey on a private platform overlooking the playa on a windy Friday morning. A grainy-looking man in his mid-50s, he wore his trademark Stetson hat and big dark glasses. Dust coated his jacket and puddles of mucus gelled to the corners of his mouth. Harvey, a Portland native, conceived Burning Man when he and a friend began burning an effigy on the beach in San Francisco in the mid-'80s. Now that his brainchild has exploded into a mind-blowing überfest, Harvey is full of well-chewed theories on what it all means. Burning Man, he tells me, is an attempt to reclaim social capital — that is, creativity, cooperation, and freedom; all the good things that money can't buy. Harvey views capitalism as the killer of culture. He says that marketing erodes social capital and destroys what is sacred. "Cold, calculating intelligence has been manipulated into making us think that products can be substituted for real experience," he says. "They've learned that they can sell fear as easily as pleasure. That's why things are so weird right now. Our politicians are sold to us as products."
But Black Rock City is no place to pedal products — including candidates. Money is verboten; food, drinks and gifts are given freely. The point is to free up the human spirit by barring commercialism and replacing it with a "gift economy." Goods flow, smiles are exchanged, and art assumes the highest value. But that ideal is political, if not overtly. "This is an intensely civic place," says Harvey. "We march under the banner of art, because the art is the jokester. You can say and do all kinds of things that challenge the status quo in society, and you have a special dispensation to do so." Through the haze of dust, neon lights and drugs, political art did have a presence on the playa this year. A man who calls himself Tikitom rode a cart that doubled as a voter registration booth and a mobile bar. A volunteer for a San Francisco-based group called Kewl Katz for Kerry, Tikitom says that Burners seem to be a more politically active group than the general populace. "I'd say about 90 percent of the people I've talked to are registered," he says. "I've met one Republican." For Tikitom, registering voters at Burning Man is a matter of conscience. "I'd feel guilty if I took a week off work and didn't campaign," he says. Still, he feels that the event drains progressive resources when they're needed most. "I think Burning Man detracts from the energy necessary for this election," he says. "I always tell people, voting isn't enough." Cory Mervis, a 36-year-old veteran Burner with long dark hair and a wide-open face, took activism a step further. She and her volunteers raised funds, bought a bus, transformed it into mobile art (a bald eagle with the word "vote" painted across its body), and drove across America registering voters and administering political questionnaires. Mervis and her volunteers launched the journey from New York City on July 22 and drove through 30 states, their route spelling out "vote" across the U.S. map. Although the bus looks kind of bohemian, Mervis is careful not to push the partisan envelope. "As a long-time Burner, I don't want politics to ruin my party," she says. "You don't want to exclude people. If we're going to be doing politics out here, we need to talk about the issues. Let's talk about health care; let's talk about jobs, and say, 'How are we going to fix this?'" Still, it's not hard to guess where Mervis' heart lies. "I know how many people it takes to swing an election, and I've met that match," she says with a grin. She has registered about 500 voters since her tour began. "I've been getting applause and thumbs-up wherever I drive this thing," she says. Despite the general aversion to "real-world" issues on the playa, Black Rock City LLC is now a corporation, and it is mired in political infrastructure. Corporate staff members lobby Washington, cultivate relationships with Nevada state and local authorities, and impose regulations on participants. Salt Lake City public defender Clive Schwank worries that Burning Man's mounting bureaucracy could ruin the party. "Political structures are invasive by nature," says Schwank, who hosts a karaoke champagne ballroom on the playa. "It will turn this world [Burning Man] increasingly into the outside world."
And that's something every Burner dreads. In Black Rock City, people are free from the bureaucracy, the advertisements, the squareness of the outside world. Too much encroachment of the system could kill the anarchistic organism that is Burning Man. "I come here to be able to escape those political processes," says Schwank. "People don't vote in our society because they think it's a waste of time — and quite frankly, they're probably right. My motto is: If you're part of the solution, you are the problem. The less order, the better. Organic systems are better than rational systems." Schwank says he doesn't vote unless he feels his voice will have an impact. Suzi Chang, a filmmaker from San Francisco, sees things differently. She is producing a documentary of American voters leading up to the November election, and she brought her project to Black Rock City. I found her at a press conference wearing a hot pink miniskirt and shitkicker boots topped with fuzzy pink pom-poms. She asked the panel members — all staff of Black Rock City LLC — whether they would consider creating a political party. The reply was a sharp no; they would not consider it. They wouldn't want to alienate anyone who didn't agree with their platform. The answer frustrated Chang. "When they say, 'We can't speak for everyone,' I say, 'We need someone to speak for us," she tells me. "I am stepping from being passive and pissed off, feeling helpless and powerless, to feeling empowered to launch a revolution." Chang says that the reason young Americans haven't been very politically engaged is because politics are no fun. She envisions a political movement anchored in art and celebration, where events like Burning Man can spawn creative activism. "If we party with consciousness, that's so much better," she says. "We have the power. We just have to let it out of the bottle."
MICHELE BULGATZ
"In yoga, the body is a tool to develop the heart," says yoga teacher Michele Bulgatz. "Coincidentally, you can get a strong body." A native of Southern California, Bulgatz began her study of yoga shortly after moving to Eugene in 1992. Six years later, newly certified as an instructor and newly pregnant, she began to teach when her own teacher suddenly left town. "'You're going to take over my classes,' she told me," Bulgatz relates. "I was thrown into six classes a week!" After a two-year hiatus while her son River was an infant, she gradually worked her way back, and currently teaches 10 classes weekly at the UO and at the Four Winds Yoga Center. (She ranked second in the 2003 EW readers' poll of favorite yoga instructors.) Bulgatz is the principal organizer of the Loving Kindness Yogathon, a 12-hour yoga-practice and meditation event scheduled for 7 am to 7 pm Saturday, Oct. 2, at St Mary's Catholic Church in downtown Eugene. "The first purpose is to increase the level of loving kindness," she says. "The second is to raise money for good causes." Birth To Three and Healing Harvest will benefit from donations. Find details at heliosnetwork.org
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