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Protecting Lane County
We join you in appreciating the excellent work of the local nonprofits in your Dec. 24 “Giving Guide” for 2009. Given the Weekly’s bias, however, it was not surprising to find a guide long in groups devoted to social issues that “rank high on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: food, shelter, safety, medical care,” and short in nonprofits working on environmental protections.
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Land use now easier to appeal
Using a stakeholders’ process set up by Lane County commissioners, historically adversarial land stewardship advocates and pro-development consultants were able to come to an agreement and change the $3,700 fee charged to appeal a land use decision to $250. Robert Emmons of LandWatch Lane County says this change, as well as changes to the way lot lines are decided, is “really going to make a difference to what possibilities we have to protect some of this landscape.”
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Governor’s ‘new vision’ turns blind eye on environment
For a governor desirous of getting Oregon’s landscape “shovel ready” for corporations instead of crops—and with the anti-planning group Oregonians in Action in the catbird seat—the state’s pro-development Big Look Task Force came through in spades. Yet, according to Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s Aug. 5 guest viewpoint, the task force’s three years of “extensive evaluation, outreach and engagement” resulted in legislation that provides a “new vision” of “shared belief,” healing “old divides” and “forging new partnerships” that will “lead us to a better future.” A better future, certainly, for those who long have sought to weaken Oregon’s land use planning program.
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Land-use law: the Big Look's failings
For a governor eager to get Oregon’s landscape “shovel ready” for corporations instead of crops—and with Oregonians in Action in the catbird seat—Ted Kulongoski’s pro-development Big Look Task Force came through in spades. Yet, according to the governor in a recent guest opinion (“Reform of land use law took a broad, cooperative effort,” Eugene Register Guard, Aug. 5) that committee’s three years of “extensive evaluation, outreach and engagement” resulted in legislation that provides a “new vision” of “shared belief,” healing old divides and “forging new partnerships” that will “lead us to a better future.” A better future, certainly, for those who’ve long sought to weaken Oregon’s land-use planning program.
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The data that guide growth are subject to manipulation
Oregon’s unique land use system confines most growth to cities while preserving farms and forests. Only land inside an urban growth boundary may become part of a city. Oregon allows expansion of an urban growth boundary when a city’s inventory of “buildable lands” falls short of a 20-year supply. Such a deficiency is demonstrated by a population forecast that predicts how many new homes will be needed during the next 20 years.
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Seneca plan boosts pollution, profits
In an April 4 guest viewpoint about her company’s proposed biomass energy plant, Jody Jones justifies Seneca Sawmill Company’s plan to substitute “biomass-generated pollution” for “gas-generated pollution” with catchphrases such as “renewable power,” “carbon neutral,” “reduce our community’s dependence on fossil fuels,” “reducing greenhouse gases” and “generates far less pollutants than many other energy generating methods.” She provides no data or scientific evidence to support these claims. Unfortunately, it is nothing more than self-serving propaganda to justify further pollution of our air by changing the name of emissions to “renewable biomass cogeneration.” Haven’t we learned that changing the label doesn’t change the consequences of threats to our environment?
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Citizens to Report on State of City
The Eugene Mayor’s State of the City address was held this week (1/7). But it’s followed by the Citizens State of the City and County (CSCC) report at noon Monday, Jan. 12, at Harris Hall, 8th and Oak. Local activists will talk about “the critical issues of our time,” says environmental educator and activist Jan Spencer. … Robert Emmons, president of LandWatch Lane County, will describe the consequences of weak regulation, lack of enforcement and the state’s “Big Look” land use task force for city and county planning efforts.
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Hacking Away: Oregon's land-use program under constant attack
Since its inception 35 years ago, Oregon’s land-use program has been under attack from the same forces that brought us Measure 37. Little by little, lot by lot, timber and real estate interests, developers and their enablers in legislatures, commissions, councils and land management divisions have been busy night and day eviscerating the system.
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LandWatch Gathering
An update on Measure 37 reform will be on the agenda of LandWatch Lane County at the group’s annual meeting planned for 6:45 to 9 pm Thursday, May 17, in the Bascom/Tykeson Room of the Eugene Public Library.
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LandWatch Targets Measure 37
Up to 35,000 acres of land in Lane County could be developed, mostly into subdivisions, if Measure 37 claims are allowed to continue unchecked. State and county officials charged with evaluating the claims have established a routine of granting waivers of land use regulations to most applicants. “During the past year, hundreds of citizens have come to realize the destructive nature of the measure,” says Bob Emmons of LandWatch Lane County. “They have contacted their elected officials urging them to reinstate fairness and sanity to land use in Oregon.” Measure 37 is on the agenda of LandWatch at its annual meeting planned for 6:45 to 9 pm Thursday, May 17, in the Bascom/Tykeson Room of the Eugene Public Library.
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Heinous M37
Bob Emmons’ viewpoint “Forces of Destruction” (2/22) on the “clear cut” corruption of officials at local, state and federal levels regarding near nonexistent regulation of land use legislation and blatant illegitimate logging and clear-cutting operations was both distressing and sobering.
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Forces of Destruction: Measure 37 is only the latest assault on land use laws
Thanks to Eugene Weekly and reporter Alan Pittman, voters have a well-researched and graphically captivating picture of the statewide land abuse fiasco purchased—on the cheap—by a handful of developers, corporations and speculators (“Looming Sprawl,” 1/25). Left unsaid is that Measure 37 has opened a gaping and potentially lethal wound in a land use program already suffering the death of a thousand cuts—institutional corruption in which parasites like Greg Demers and the two McDougal brothers have been thriving for decades.
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Looming Sprawl: Will Measure 37 get fixed before it devours Oregon
There was an old woman named Dorothy who lived on a hill. She’d lived there a long time and lived there still. She’d long dreamed of building another house or two. But that’s what the big bad government wouldn’t let the little old grandmother do. So Dorothy English, 94, became a poster child. The media love a poster child, and soon English’s fable was retold and broadcast over and over to pass an initiative, Measure 37, to give English back what the government had taken without just compensation.
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LandWatch Event May 11
One of the Willamette Valley’s leading rural land use advocacy groups, LandWatch Lane County, is planning its annual meeting from 6:45 to 9 pm Thursday, May 11 at the Bascom/Tykeson Room at the Eugene Public Library. The public is invited to the free event.
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LandWatch Gathering
The uncertainty surrounding Measure 37 will be one of the main topics on the agenda of the annual meeting of LandWatch Lane County at 7 pm Tuesday, May 3 at the Bascom/Tykeson Conference Room at the Eugene Public Library. The meeting is the largest public event of the year for an organization that does most of its work behind the scenes, collaborating with other environmental groups and lobbying for conservation of farm and forest lands.
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Happening People: Nena Lovinger
“I’m committed to this state and this community,” says land-use activist Nena Lovinger, volunteer secretary for LandWatch Lane County. LandWatch coalesced in the mid-’90s to counter proposed relaxation of land use codes that would have allowed development on Lane County’s forest resource lands. “We succeeded in that effort,” she notes.
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Under Siege: LandWatch fights to preserve shrinking resource lands
EDITOR’S NOTE: Robert Emmons, president of LandWatch Lane County, spoke at the annual meeting of LandWatch, May 9 at Tsunami Books. Below are his comments.
As many of you know, LandWatch Lane County formed five years ago to protect forests, farms and open space from urban sprawl and, I might add, from plain old homegrown ignorance and stupidity. We led a successful campaign to keep dwellings off 695,000 acres of forest resource land. And we’ve testified before councils and commissions, helped elect favorable officials and established a network of information, including a quarterly newsletter, to concerned citizens. Together with Friends of Eugene and 1000 Friends of Oregon we hired a staff person and opened an office in downtown Eugene.
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LandWatch Gathers
The population of the Willamette Valley is expected to almost double over the next 50 years, adding nearly two million more people. What will be the impact on farming, forestry and our cities? LandWatch Lane County has been involved for the past five years in research, education and lobbying of public officials for sustainable and sensible land use policies and practices. The non-profit group is planning its annual meeting from 7 to 9 pm Thursday, May 9 at Tsunami Book Store, 2585 Willamette St. in Eugene.
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Watching the Land
LandWatch Lane County has recently acquired non-profit status and is seeking new members and financial support.
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