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Slant: Short opinion pieces and rumor-chasing notes News: News: News: THE
MONEY IS NOT THERE When developers and their friends were pushing to pass the West Eugene Parkway (WEP) back in 2001, they repeatedly promised the project would not involve city taxpayer money. "The state will build and maintain it," one ad in The Register-Guard claimed as fact. "It is not the responsibility of the city of Eugene." The ad listed the names of 13 conservative local elected officials backing its statements, including Eugene Mayor Jim Torrey.
Another ad proclaimed "THE MONEY IS THERE" and featured Torrey's photo with the quotation, "The state has the money to fund the West Eugene Parkway and is committed to pay for it — all of it." But now those campaign claims are in doubt. The Oregon Department of Transportation has asked the city of Eugene and Lane County to agree to accept that ODOT will "jurisdictionally transfer" the eastern half of the WEP to the city and county. ODOT wants the transfer to circumvent state and federal requirements that new highways they fund not be quickly clogged with traffic as ODOT now projects the eastern WEP will be. Such a transfer of jurisdiction raises questions about who will pay to build and maintain the transferred highway. "Who pays for the costs?" Lane County staff asked in a memo to commissioners. The state's proposed memorandum of understanding (MOU) agreement does not commit the state to cover all construction overruns or maintenance costs. Normally, the city and county pay for the construction and maintenance of streets that they jurisdictionally control. Rob Zako of 1000 Friends of Oregon says ODOT's proposed jurisdictional transfer is a "direct contradiction" of the proponents' campaign claims about the WEP. "The voters were told one thing and now we're being offered something else," Zako says. "The state may build it, but they're only going to maintain half of it." Eugene officials have complained for years that with a $90 million maintenance backlog, the city doesn't have enough money to maintain the streets it has now. The Eugene City Council will take up the issue of the parkway MOU next Wednesday, Sept. 22 at noon. The question of whether city taxpayers would be stuck paying for the WEP was a hot issue during the campaign three years ago. Opponents questioned where the money would come from and whether city taxpayers would be hit with the bill. A $120,000 ad campaign by development interests pushed the WEP advisory vote to a narrow victory. In 2001, the state estimated the WEP would cost $88 million in 1997 dollars. Now that estimate has reached $111 million in 1997 dollars. Adjusting for inflation, that figure translates to at least $131 million in current money. So far, the state has committed only $17 million for the project. With WEP costs continuing to spiral, Zako says the city should get clear information from ODOT on who will pay for building and maintaining the freeway before signing any MOU. ODOT is asking the city to "say yes now and we'll figure out later what you said yes to," he says. Besides who will pay, the jurisdiction transfer also raises a host of other unanswered questions about a freeway that's been mired in decades of controversy over urban sprawl, fiscal waste and destroying wetlands. The new council and mayor coming in January appear to have a majority opposed to the project and may repeal any agreements to build the freeway that lame duck conservatives make. City jurisdiction could allow multiple driveways and businesses on the freeway making it as clogged as West 11th. ODOT earlier rejected proposals to build streets under city jurisdiction instead of the WEP because it said the project required a state highway. Can ODOT legally build a freeway through a rare wetlands park? When, if ever, will the rest of the money for the project come? Does it make sense to spend millions on a section of a road to nowhere?
Vote by Mail Fraud Found in 15 States Has vote by mail opened up Oregon to voter fraud? The New York Times reported on its front page Sept. 13 that officials are concerned about mail-in ballot fraud. Mail ballots raise the prospect of partisans purchasing or coercing ballots marked the way they want or collecting ballots from voters in neighborhoods that support their opponent and then destroying or altering them. Prosecutors have brought cases charging fraud with mailed absentee ballots for incidents in at least 15 states, the paper reported. Six states require witness signatures for mail-in ballots, 10 states prohibit political operatives from collecting ballots and eight states require the identification of people who help a voter complete a ballot, the Times reported. Oregon does not have any of these safeguards, but county clerks do try to verify signatures. — Alan Pittman
Sustainability Confab is Downtown Sept. 23 Eugene and the UO will host a one-day conference on "Making Sustainable Development Work: Real World Applications for Eugene-Springfield and Lane County" from 8:30 am to 5 pm Thursday, Sept. 23 at the UO Downtown Baker Center on High Street. Fee of $15 includes lunch. Early registration is recommended as space is limited. Joining local city and UO officials in the conference will be Kitty Piercy and mayors and staff from the cities of Burlington, Vt., Olympia, Wash., Fort Collins and Boulder, Colo., Missoula, Mont. (invited), and other communities. Agency directors from the Sustainable Jobs Fund in Vermont, the AceNet economic development agency in Georgia, and Shorebank Enterprise Pacific in Washington State will talk about the specifics of their sustainable development programs and answer questions about the costs and benefits for government, business, and the community at large. The conference will focus on municipal level sustainable development programs; local sustainable business retention and expansion programs; and local climate change programs (which are linked with business development). Considerable time will be available for dialogue and question and answers. For registration information visit http://cwch.uoregon.edu/conferenceor call (800) 824-2714 or 346-4231.
Marché to Feed New Art Museum Crowd Eugene's acclaimed Marché restaurant, where Sen. John Kerry dined recently, will operate a café in the renovated Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the UO beginning in October, several months prior to the museum's scheduled grand opening Jan. 23. The 33-seat café will be open from 9:30 am to 4 pm Monday through Friday until the museum reopens, and then will be open seven days a week with extended hours on Wednesdays to 8 pm and from 11 am to 4 pm on weekends. Visitors can enter through the museum's new south courtyard. Owner of Marché is Stephanie Kimmel and Marché Museum Café manager will be Leah Pearl. The "Museum of Art and Marché are a perfect match," says museum Director David Turner in a prepared statement. "Stephanie's reputation has been built on the highest standards of quality, presentation and service. We share the same values." Turner says he expects the café to become "a destination for university and community members."
Times, Venues Set for Ellsberg, et al A Northwest tour with Daniel Ellsberg, Medea Benjamin and Norman Solomon has settled on times and places (see story last week). The tour will reach Eugene Saturday, Sept. 25, for three events beginning with panel talks from 2 to 4 pm at the LCC Performing Arts Hall. The public is also invited to join the three speakers for a light dinner/dessert/reception from 5 to 7 pm at Cozmic Pizza (8th & Charnelton) where war heroes Ellsberg and Dr. Eugene Lazowski will receive Peace Awards. The $20 tickets for the event include admission to a 7:30 pm panel discussion moderated by Alan Siporin at the First United Methodist Church at 1376 Olive St. Sunday, Sept. 26, in Salem, Ellsberg and Solomon will speak at 7 pm at Cone Chapel in Waller Hall on the Willamette University campus. On Monday at 7:30 pm, Solomon and Ellsberg will visit OSU in Corvallis and speak in the LaSells Stewart Center. On Tuesday, Sept. 28, the three speakers will visit campuses in Portland including a public event at PSU beginning at 7 pm in the Smith Center Ballroom.
Eugene's Republican Mayor Jim Torrey squeezed every last drop of media attention he could get out of three weeks of headline grabbing speculation that he would run as a write-in candidate for mayor against Kitty Piercy.
With cameras from three TV network affiliates and The Register-Guard trained on him, Torrey waited until 15 minutes into his speech to answer the question of whether he was running, the reason the media were there. But first, Torrey used the spotlight to continue to pump himself and his conservative agenda, as he had done in a host of stories about the write-in over the past three weeks. Torrey claimed he was a political "moderate." In fact, Torrey's voting record is far right. In the past five years, Torrey broke tie council votes 13 times, always siding with big business and developers against the environment, livable planning and efforts to reform corporate welfare and increase government accountability. Torrey claimed he was a political "bridge builder." But while Piercy has reached out to business and development interests to be a "mayor for all Eugene," Torrey has never made a similar effort to reach out to environmentalists and government reform advocates. Torrey claimed he had brought "civility" to the city council. But Torrey, one of the city's most controversial mayors, has applied his call for civility to only his political opponents. He sat in his car and did not question the police pepper spraying and gassing of tree sitters on June 1, 1997. He instead praised police for the attack. He did not criticize the Gang of 9 for its attack ad campaign against council progressives. Instead he went on local conservative talk radio to join the attacks. Even now, Torrey refuses to acknowledge that Piercy is the city's mayor-elect. Such a display of incivility by a sitting mayor for his/her replacement is unprecedented in Eugene. Torrey tried to take credit for a number of city successes, including the new library, fire, parks and schools measures. But Torrey was not the leader and initiator of any of these campaigns, and they passed thanks to harder work done by many other councilors and citizens. Torrey didn't take credit for the dramatic failure of the Eugene Police Department under his tenure, which has twice lost police building votes and is now embroiled in an officer sex abuse scandal. At the press conference, Torrey used the spotlight to continue to push his conservative agenda: divert money from schools and services to fund corporate and developer tax breaks and give-aways; divert money from city services for an unpopular, extravagant new police station; and damage a protected wetlands park to build a freeway to serve land speculators and urban sprawl. Not until he'd exploited media attention to get all his plugs in did Torrey announce, with slow, baited words, "I will" (pause) "not be a candidate for mayor of Eugene." Asked why he dragged out the announcement in his speech and for the last three weeks for so long, Torrey admitted that he did it to call attention to his conservative issues, like building the wetland freeway. "I didn't think the issues were sufficiently surfaced and discussed in the primary," he said. The publicity stunt worked like a charm. Over the past three weeks when Torrey was supposedly musing a run-in, The Register-Guard gave the Republican and his developer supporters a total of 17 articles and editorials, almost all with a positive spin. That's more coverage than the 15 stories the paper gave the May mayor's race when there were five actual declared candidates. Piercy bested all the candidates with 52 percent of the vote, avoiding a runoff and earning her a spot as the only name to appear on the November ballot. But at his press conference, Torrey refused to acknowledge that Piercy's election meant any kind of voter mandate for her moderate campaign in support of both a strong economy and environment. Torrey claimed turnout in the election was low, "I don't think that vote indicates what direction" the city should go in, he said. However, 3,683 more people voted for Piercy in May than voted for the West Eugene Parkway in 2001, when the wetland freeway squeaked by with a 1 percent margin. Torrey has repeatedly claimed that vote represents a strong mandate to build the parkway. But in her campaign, Piercy openly said she opposed the project, and won. Was Torrey's write-in stunt part of the Republican's campaign for another elected office, perhaps secretary of state or Congress? Torrey refused to answer the question from Eugene Weekly at the press conference. Instead, he questioned whether EW would endorse him, and said he would only answer questions from reporters whose coverage he liked.
The
Electras Call us shallow but studies show that most Americans vote for the candidates they'd rather have a beer with. Sure we think about issues. But Democratic strategist Dan Carol of Eugene says that before we start thinking politics, we look at personality traits — things like character, likability, values and even sex appeal.
If that's the case, would most Americans rather hang out with John Kerry, the guy who played bass in a popular high school surf/rock band — or George Bush, the cheerleader? Before Kerry had even won the Democratic nomination, the Washington Post did a short story on his stint with The Electras while he was in prep school at St. Paul's in New Hampshire. Since then the media has all but ignored the story. But now Bend-based PR firm Waterston Communications has taken on the job of promoting this little-known aspect of Kerry's life. The year was 1961. The Soviets were building the Berlin Wall. Kennedy was sworn into office. The Freedom Riders were traveling through the South testing the limits of desegregation. And the Beatles were looking for a bassist. Isolated at their all-boys boarding school, a few guys decided to form a band to meet girls. They recruited Kerry, who was just learning to play bass. This was the pre-Beatles era and the boys appear on the cover of their re-released album with their hair carefully slicked down and parted on the side, looking dapper in suits and white, button-down shirts. The music is fun, light, danceable early surf-rock, mostly instrumental covers including the Ventures' "Yellow Jacket." They played school dances, had a lot of fun and recorded the album in the school's band room, pressing just 500 copies. Now an original can go for as much as $2,500 on Ebay. But you can buy a copy of the re-released CD from their website (www.theelectrasrockandrollband.com)for just $14. Carol said bringing up the Electras as a campaign strategy is a good move as long as it doesn't seem forced, as if Kerry's trying too hard to show he's just a regular, fun guy. "Everybody loves music," he said. "And this shows his fun-loving side. Say what you will about George Bush. In the 2000 election he came off as looking more comfortable in his skin than Al Gore." Clinton got it. And even though he was the fat kid in band, he got up on "The Arsenio Hall Show" wearing sunglasses and played sax. In this election, as in 1992, the candidates' coolness factor could easily swing the vote because once again, the 18- to 24-year-old age group is a key demographic. "The youth vote is critical," said Dan Isaacson, the 24-year-old vice chair of the Democratic Party in Lane County. "If more than 50 percent of us vote, I think this election will be over." This year rock may play a more important role than even the savviest strategists realize. The Vans Warped Tour, which features mostly alternative punk rocks bands and caters to people 35 and under, drew crowds as large as 25,000 this summer. This year the fervent message, shouted from almost every stage, was "Vote" and "Don't vote for Bush." Rock The Vote, founded in 1990 in response to government censorship, played an important role in the 1992 election, registering 350,000 young voters and encouraging about two million to get to the polls. For the first time in 20 years, youth turnout increased, jumping 20 percent compared to the previous presidential election. In the 2000 election in which Bush claimed the White House, the turnout of 18- to 24-year-old voters hit an all-time low of 38 percent. So once again, Rock The Vote organizers have aggressively mobilized to get young voters a voice. Joining Rock The Vote this election is a new political group with musical roots, Punk Voter. "This is about getting everyone to mobilize as a block of concerned voters," reads their website (www.punkvoter.com)."Punk bands, punk labels and punk fans must form a union against the chaotic policies George W. Bush has put in place." The Punk Voter concert series, "Rock Against Bush 2004" featuring Anti-Flag, Strike Anywhere, Midtown and Mike Park makes a stop in Portland at the Roseland Theater on Sept. 18. Numerous other political groups including Future Soundtrack for America and locally, "Make Rock Not War," have also jumped on the bandwagon. Isaacson said highlighting Kerry's rock and roll past could help him win the hearts of those very important young voters, as long as cyncial Gen X and Y'ers don't feel patronized. "We're a hard market to market to," said Isaacson. "But I like the rock & roll thing. It promotes the youthful, lighter side of Kerry. It shows he's not a dry person and that he's reaching out to everyone."
Courage
to Change Do people want to change our sources of energy and therefore clean up rivers, nuclear waste and our air? It seems many do; much has changed in 10 years. One night a decade ago, I was in Calgary, Alberta, to hear an American space scientist talk about his latest book. Brian O'Leary, had earned a Ph.D. in astronomy and now held the rapt attention of the audience with anecdotes of his odyssey. He'd journeyed from the excitement of the NASA astronaut program in the 1960s and teaching physics in Ivy League universities to Exploring Inner and Outer Space — the title of one of his books. The audience's mood shifted, however, when O'Leary said that independent inventors and theorists proved it's possible to tap the underlying "zero-point energy" of the space that surrounds us, for generation of electricity. He asked rhetorically, "Wouldn't it be great if we didn't have to drill for oil anymore?" "And we could clean up the waterways. We have this abundant source of energy that can be tapped either by a magnetic motor or by a small solid-state device like a little black box that electronically plucks this energy out of the vacuum of space. Just a little bit is all you would need to power your home or — like here — your public places. And your car." The mellow-voiced scientist repeated that in the future we will not need oil for fuel. Nor will we need nuclear power, nor to dig for coal. "It's almost like we've been in a nightmare, creating these polluting dinosaurs in our industrial civilization over the last 100 years." He stopped pacing the platform. "I think we're going to look back, say from the year 2020, with 20/20 hindsight - and look at the 1900s as that century when we abysmally polluted the earth — when we went down an incredibly crazy path. And then we backed off." Why is this alleged new energy source not reported in mainstream publications? It isn't the first time discoveries were ignored, O'Leary said. Think Galileo. The resistance to a new idea is in proportion to the idea's importance; energy is a multi-trillion-dollar industry. Humankind has never dealt with a changeover of this magnitude, but we could take our time and do it wisely. Ten years later, O'Leary has a new book covering solutions to environmental problems — Reinheriting the Earth. And he and Alden Bryant, an originator of the U.N. Climate Change Treaty, have started a citizens' federation called the New Energy Movement (NEM). Its first public conference will be in Portland from 9 am to 8 pm Saturday, Sept. 25 at Reed College, and continuing at 1 pm Sunday at Portland State University auditorium. Last year O'Leary and Bryant testified at California Energy Commission hearings, and O'Leary spoke to U.N. officials as well as doing mass-audience radio interviews and a public speaking blitz. The single best chance for humankind to solve global problems, says the New Energy Movement manifesto, is a transformation in the way we generate and use energy. The range of options — breakthroughs in how society powers its homes, workplaces and transportation — is broad. The NEM supports a spectrum of clean-energy alternative technologies, from innovatively enhanced solar and wind technologies and low-impact tidal power to water-as-fuel breakthroughs to inventions that seem to tap into the energy of the cosmos. On that far end of the spectrum where new theories have not yet been developed to explain results of experiments, some experimenters claim to be finding a harmonious-with-life type of electricity that they call cold electricity, or radiant energy. But so far nothing is ready for the marketplace. O'Leary says new energy science is not a magic potion, but could help create a better world if used wisely. As with alternative healthcare, a holistic power-generation science which recognizes subtle energies — life force — is scorned by defenders of the old materialistic, reductionist worldview. The non-profit movement's activists are quick to add that even the desired gradual changeover in energy technology won't solve many problems unless the change comes with more awareness of our responsibility as caretakers of ecosystems. "New energy science is in the research phase of a research-and-development cycle," O'Leary says, seeking help for inventors. While critics note that no revolutionary energy inventions are on the market yet, he requests that people be realistic. "Asking today's under-funded independent inventors to immediately deliver finished products is like asking the Wright brothers to deliver passengers and mail right after their maiden flight in 1903." Meanwhile, it seems government planners are in no hurry to promote truly new small-scale clean energy technologies. Fuel cells are touted, but decision-makers plan on using carbon fuels and nuclear fission to produce the hydrogen for powering fuel cells. If the emerging science of energy-from-surrounding-space is fully understood, more citizens of the world may perceive their interconnection with fellow humans who also arise out of a nonmaterial background sea of energy. A longer version of this article first appeared in New Connexion Magazine (www.newconnexion.net)and is reprinted with permission. For more information on the conference, call (866) 585-2344 or visit www.newenergymovement.org |
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