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Slant: Short opinion pieces and rumor-chasing notes News: News:
HOMEWORK, BUT NO HOME The bad news: Lane County school districts have some of the highest homeless student rates in the state. The good news: At least they're staying in school. According to an Oregon Department of Education report for 2004-05, 4.5 percent of Eugene's public school students in grades K-12 lack regular shelter, as do 5.5 percent in Springfield and a staggering 9 percent in South Lane. By comparison, 3.4 percent of Portland's public school students are homeless; the average rate statewide and nationally is 2 percent. This is the first year that ODE has released homeless student data. "It's kind of a mixed message," ODE spokesman Gene Evans said. "Lane County has a pretty serious homeless problem, but the number of homeless students is big because the kids continue to come to school." In 2003-04, 2.4 percent of Eugene's and 3.1 percent of Springfield's public high school students dropped out, compared with 4.3 percent in Portland and 4.5 percent statewide. The federal No Child Left Behind Act and McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Assistance Act require every public school district to employ a homeless liaison who connects homeless students with services that provide shelter, transportation and food. Evans credits Lane County's numerous assistance services, such as the Lane County Food Bank and Looking Glass shelters, for helping local homeless minors stay in school. But it's not easy. "Homeless students tend to do half as well [academically] as the poorest students," Evans said. "If I'm in fourth grade and I don't have food, shelter or security, it's pretty hard to concentrate on math." Kasey White, Eugene 4J's homeless liaison, works with students at local shelters such as First Place Family Center, the Eugene Mission and Looking Glass's Station Seven. She helps to arrange their enrollment and transportation, aiming to keep them at the same school year-round. Still, some homeless students are out of her reach. "Even the shelters are at capacity right now," she said. "If they don't have friends or families that they can stay with, they are literally on the street." In addition to helping kids directly, White educates 4J staff about how to be sensitive to homeless students' needs. "Because their living situation is unstable, they often can't make it to school on time or be prepared because they don't have a place to do their homework or get a good night's sleep," she said. Springfield School District Homeless Liaison Janet Beckman said that a lot of the homeless students she works with are dedicated to graduating high school. "But as soon as they turn 18, things change for them," she said. "In Lane County, there are no services for a single adult without children other than a small portion of food stamps. They no longer qualify for medical assistance. This is sad, but it's almost better to be teen parents, because at least they can get medical and housing assistance." — Kera Abraham
DHL STIFFS TEMP WORKERS On Dec. 13, the Lane County Workers' Rights Board (WRB) condemned the layoffs of 17 temporary employees working for DHL Express, an international package delivery service, and released a report describing a systematic "misuse" of local temp workers by DHL. The temp workers wear DHL uniforms, drive DHL trucks and deliver DHL's packages, but they're not on the DHL payroll. They are employed by temp agency Emerald Employment, which provides workers for Runia Transport, which sub-contracts for DHL. The temp workers start at $8.75 an hour with no benefits or paid vacation, while unionized DHL workers in Portland can earn more than $21 an hour with health care, paid vacations and pensions. The layoffs may have been a response to the temp workers' attempts to unionize. A majority of the workers had elected to join the local Teamsters union, and on Sept. 20 they went on strike, picketing outside DHL's depot near the Eugene airport and filing an unfair labor practices complaint against Emerald Employment. On Sept. 21, Emerald agreed to raise their starting wage from $8.25 to $8.75. But the workers still didn't have a union contract, and Teamsters arranged to begin negotiations with Emerald on Dec. 13. But DHL pre-empted the negotiations on Dec. 9, when it changed its relationship with sub-contractor Runia Transport, cutting its local routes in half. As a result, Emerald laid off 17 of the temp workers who had been pushing to unionize. "The people who had been identified with the organizing effort were fired, and the people who had not been identified as part of the organizing effort were kept on," said Eugene-Springfield Solidarity Network (ESSN) organizer Claire Syrett. "We believe that DHL pulled this maneuver as a way to avoid paying decent wages and benefits to their employees." Teamsters Local 206 Representative Stefan Ostrach said that DHL is ultimately responsible for the unfair set-up. "DHL is completely culpable here," he said. "They're the ones who are choosing to use this business model and hiding behind the sub-contractors, and allowing the sub-contractors to hide behind the temp agency. But unfortunately, under the law, the only employer we can negotiate with is the name on the paycheck." The WRB called upon DHL to hire the 17 laid-off workers directly onto its payroll and offer them benefits, as it does with its workers in Portland, and as does its chief competitor, UPS. ESSN sent an e-mail to its members, asking that they not patronize DHL until it complies with the board's recommendation. "The community cannot afford the DHL business model of relying on low-wage, insecure temporary jobs," said WRB Chair Margaret Hallock, "because it is the community as well as the workers that ultimately pays for health care costs and high unemployment." — Kera Abraham
HAZY DAYS On Dec. 10 and 11, Lane Regional Air Pollution Authority (LRAPA) reported levels of fine particulate matter that made the air unhealthy for sensitive people such as babies, the elderly and people with asthma to breathe. Fine particulate matter is small-diameter pollution particles, such as smoke from wood burning, vehicle exhaust and industrial emissions, that remain suspended in the air. When air becomes stagnant, it combines with low overnight temperatures to trap particulate matter near the ground, making the air unhealthy to breathe. The National Weather Service issued an air stagnation alert for the southern Willamette Valley that began Dec. 9 and will continue through 10 am Dec. 16. According to the EPA, breathing high levels of fine particulate matter can trigger or exacerbate respiratory health problems such as asthma, coughing and painful breathing, chronic bronchitis and decreased lung function. These problems can get worse if a sensitive person is exposed to high levels of particulate matter for several days in a row. That happened in Eugene on Dec. 10 and 11, when the LRAPA monitoring station on Amazon Parkway and 28th Avenue detected the worst air pollution so far this winter. Around 4 am on Dec. 11, the fine particulate concentration peaked at 100 micrograms per cubic meter, a level that can put the general population at risk of respiratory damage. The air improved slightly on Dec. 12 but remained near the unhealthy range. Particulate levels were lower at the Springfield and downtown monitoring stations. When particulate levels are elevated, people with asthma, heart or lung diseases, the elderly and small children are the most at risk. They should avoid heavy exercise in the evening, when pollution levels tend to be highest in the winter. "This time of year, [pollution] is primarily caused by increased wood burning," said LRAPA Interim Director and Operations Manager Merlyn Hough. "We ask that people avoid unnecessary wood burning, and that if they do need to burn wood, that they do so as cleanly as possible." That means reducing smoke by burning small, hot fires, leaving stove dampers open and allowing fires to burn out at the end of the evening. Particulate matter has environmental as well as health effects. It settles on soil and in water, sometimes changing the nutrient and chemical balance, making water more acidic and depleting nutrients in soil. It also causes haze and impairs visibility, and can damage stone and other building materials. For more information, access LRAPA's Air Quality Index through the link at lrapa.org, and check real time monitoring info at mdas.lrapa.org — Kera Abraham
GUIDE TOUTS DRAGONFLIES A local non-profit organization has teamed up with two dragonfly/damselfly experts to publish a new Oregon guide book timed for holiday giving and, perhaps coincidentally, timed for the heated discussion on the fate of the West Eugene Wetlands. The book, Dragonflies and Damselflies of the Willamette Valley: A Beginner's Guide, by Eugene authors Steve Gordon and Cary Kerst, has full-color photographs of 52 species, including many species found in the West Eugene Wetlands. It is the first book on dragonflies specific to Oregon. The book was published by CraneDance Publications and was sponsored by numerous donors, including anonymous individuals, Lane County Audubon Society and WREN, the non-profit Willamette Resources and Educational Network. Kerst has a bachelor's in entomology from Purdue and a master's in entomology from OSU. Gordon has a bachelor's in geography from UO and spent 30 years as a planner with the Lane Council of Governments; the latter 17 years spent on the West Eugene Wetlands Project. Gordon has been a key player in the long debate over the West Eugene Parkway and its potential impact on federally protected wetlands. The book is available at some local book stores and online at www.wewetlands.org for $15 plus $2 shipping and handling. All proceeds benefit WREN.
QUOTABLE In his Nobel Prize acceptance lecture last week, British playwright Harold Pinter said: "The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public; an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading — as a last resort — all other justifications having failed to justify themselves — as liberation. ... Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice." For full text and video, see: www.haroldpinter.org
EARLY DEADLINES EW offices will be closed Monday, Dec. 26, and Monday, Jan. 2, which brings early deadlines for reserving ad space in the Dec. 29 and Jan. 5 issues. The display ad deadlines for those two issues will be 5 pm Thursdays. The classified ad deadlines will be at 5 pm Fridays. Questions? Call 484-0519 or e-mail office@eugeneweekly.com
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