I would like to thank Eugene Weekly for publishing Paul Nicholson’s Viewpoint (1/2/20). I modeled some of my approach to serving as an elected official on Paul’s (and a very few others) work ethic. Read all the materials. Ask all of the tough questions, even if go-along-to-get-along elected officials sitting nearby squirm and fret with honest discussion of issues important to many people’s values. Speak truth to power. Craft policy and budgets and decisions based on the highest good, not what will make the few and powerful even more powerful, and stop the wealthy from excessive feeding at the public trough.

As part of the “nice,” wishing everyone a healthy and happy new year, let’s not forget the “naughty” of 2019. Nicholson highlights only a few instances of coal-in-stockings. Let’s not overlook the folly of executive director Jacob Fox and his Board of Homes For Good — formerly HACSA (Resident Commissioners Michelle Thurston and Char Reavis, and Lane County Commissioners Pat Farr, Jay Bozievich, Joe Berney, Heather Buch and Pete Sorenson).

Fox adroitly pulled a bait-and switch, apparently with HFG board leaders asleep at the wheel. Fox’s scheme of selling the Lombard Site, long slated for affordable housing, to the notorious out-of-state, pave-and-run, market-rate (i.e. expensive) apartments developer, Evergreen Housing Development Group, is an outrage to our community.

Many view the land as the last local, publicly owned parcel in our cherished Willamette River Greenway. Moving it into private hands is not only naughty; it is scandalous.

Rob Handy

Eugene