Jerry’s Predictions for 2015

From the riverfront to City Hall to Alley Oop

Ketchup (from the 17th-century Chinese kôe-chiap or kê-chiap): the Rs in Congress will be playing it for the next two years, and BO in Washington will be rampant.

When Hillary Clinton is elected president in 2016, she will nominate Barack Obama to the empty Thurgood Marshall seat on the Supreme Court.

In 2015, the city of Eugene will lose its fear of open space and at long last create a concept plan for Downtown Park and Open Space. By popular demand and following Springfield’s long lead, a Eugene Parks and Recreation District will be established, and a long-buried Eugene Parks Department will be rescued and released from its prison in Public Works.

A New Riverfront Commission will appear from on high and shepherd a public path toward building an EGC (enhanced greenway corridor) that brilliantly ties and binds the riverfront from Eugene to Springfield together as one.

The sidewalks around Capstone will magically widen and apartments will be removed to create pocket parks, community art, music and commerce, and a full renaissance of healthy street life. Walls all over downtown will be rededicated for sitting. And Ken Kesey will do a fiery tango with Betty Taylor in a crowded Kesey Square.

In a new MUPTE: The city will take an equity position and require a design review for all projects that require city subsidies to promote civic values and interests.

The R-G will shrink its paper size again to 8 1/2 x 11 inches and further reduce costs by dropping papers in the middle of blocks near customers.

Civic and Religious Insurance: New EIT policies (enhanced insurance testaments) will be offered in the new year for protection against fatwas, curses and excommunications, nightstick rape, reformations, godly pranks, spiritual fraud, xenophobic backlash, polychromic crazyisms and forced gourmet anal nutrition.

Torture: The ADC (Anti-Dignity Coalition) will continue their Torture for Freedom, Choke for Change and Debase the Desperate campaigns.

Texas will add old Alley Oop cartoons to its biology textbooks to enhance students’ understanding of evolution, geological time and the Kingdom of Moo.

EWEB will continue to try to justify SDCs (system development charges) for infill at the same rate it charges developers for BPP (boundary pushing projects) and FAS (fringe-area sprawl), and for secretly paying three times as much for biomass energy generation as it pays for solar.

The city of Eugene will consider asking its citizens if it supports present plans for a new City Hall and then think better of it when the early polling shows that people would prefer downtown toilets, baths and showers, in emulation of Pope Francis’ latest additions to St. Peter’s Square in Rome.

The new mental hospital in Junction City will be chosen as the site for the remake of the movie Bleak House. And Nurse Ratched will roll over and go coo-coo in her nest.

A YouTube video will go viral showing euphoric spirits in phosphorescent gauze wrappings with joyous hearts and laurel wreaths dancing in the Amazon Headwaters’ swirling mists.

And a new CCC will arise, a Continuously Caring Community, to renew a public commitment made 76 years ago (remember that spirit) to the 10 civic acres that await new life, sport, health and all-age recreation at Civic Stadium. ν