A park, 1/4 - 1/2 of a block in size, across from the library, is a capital idea. But I've heard worries about its becoming a "problem". This is code for "poor people" and "youth". Hardly problems. We just have to make sure that everyone mixes well.

The Library Park provides a great opportunity for local economic development. Here are a few ideas to make this a lively public space:

Extend the library hours

There's no reason the library can't be open until midnight. The City could do a $5 "cover charge" for 9pm - midnight, and provide a band, to pay for the library staff. People would pay it. The Library Evening could become quite a scene ... lectures, music, literary circles, vendors, etc.

Extend the bus hours

Keeping LTD active later, especially on weekends, could pay for itself. Local venues & pubs can get involved in raising ridership, bus awareness and making the system easier to use. And, it could lower incidents of drunk driving.

Extend the Atrium hours

The ground floor of the Atrium is a terrific evening venue. Any number of local entrepreneurs would rent this space, charge a cover, and hold events there.

Vendors in the park

An incubation program for vendors, in collaboration with LCC and Saturday Market, would make the park a place to eat, snack and shop late into the evening. All that's needed is some rain shelter, awnings, arcades etc.

Vendors in the surrounding buildings

Arcades and awnings provide shelter from the rain ... if they are high enough, they allow sun through. Small shops, vendors and food providers can line the two sides of the park, and extend down the alleyway. This is a permanent market presence.

Benches, tables, chairs, awnings, fountains and amenities

Loose tables and chairs for people to sit. Fountains for people to splash around. Trees for shade. Bicycle valet parking for those willing to brave the elements. Awnings and tents to protect people from the elements.

Infill housing

We've identified a number of places to put housing on top of the surrounding buildings. And, of course, an affordable housing complex on the West side of the park, perhaps with a local CDC like St. Vincent de Paul's, with ground floor shops and a close integration with the park, would be ideal.

1/4 block of apartments: Student housing and affordable housing

The collapse of the speculative housing market doesn't mean everyone has a place to live:

a) Affordable housing -- the local St. Vincent de Paul is committed to developing affordable housing, and the site is city-owned.

b) UO Student housing -- the University continues to expand its housing on and off campus, but why not place car-less students (graduates, undergraduates, and their families) downtown? It's across the street from the fastest bus to the University, and would help to connect students to downtown.

Use your resources: The Tango Center, New Zone, DIVA, Bradford's, The Farmer's Market, etc ...

The surrounding small businesses, co-ops and non-profits are over-flowing with ideas, but are underfunded. They would all certainly take responsibility for programming activity, to connect the park to the rest of the Eugene community.

Portland's auditor recently issued a finding, that in Portland, areas with Urban Renewal funding have higher property values than areas without Urban Renewal funding. Even if that is your goal (Should it be? Why is expensive property a public good?), what kind of comparison is that? "Massive, wasteful spending" vs. "no spending at all"?

The problem is a lack of "political clout" among alternative revitalization approaches, to make a case for a comparison. For example, CDC's can efficiently create jobs with community-driven revitalization and incubation programs, but these are not compared with Urban Renewal. They should be. If you compared the economic benefit of government small business aid programs (all of which are gone now, like CITA from the 1970's) the efficiency of public benefit, as contrasted with Urban Renewal, would be extraordinary.

Having impoverished community-driven development in the past 20 years, Urban Renewal has eliminated the competition for tax money, freeing it for gentrification projects. Luckily, we can still refer all Urban Renewal spending to the ballot, but there must be organized opposition to do this. Most people aren't close enough to the City's schedule to know when it is possible ... but whenever you hear about "expansion of an Urban Renewal district" or "raising the spending ceiling on Urban Renewal", you can bet that someone is pushing to destroy some affordable neighborhood to benefit landlords and private development interests. If we all pay attention, and refer spending to the ballot, we can stop this horrific practice, in our respective Cities.

The organized opposition to the City's urban renewal boondoggle, was certainly fighting Urban Renewal in general. UR is a corrupt mechanism, chock full of anti-democratic legal protections, awarding privileges to certain property owners, and awarding contracts to a City's elite. With it, a "Gravy Train" mentality develops, where the rich and powerful in a City expect the Government to fork over money, regularly, for private work, unrelated to community interests.

Urban Renewal isn't the only mechanism by which governments provide luxury to those who already have it, at the expense of those who can't afford it. But it's a codified corruption mechanism, legally cocooned, and hard to defeat once in place.

So, we must get rid of it. Even the local daily, The Eugene Register Guard, which was for expanding Urban Renewal, is rethinking the Gravy mentality:

Voters in all parts of the city found reasons to oppose Measure 20-134. Those reasons were probably as diverse as the politics of the voters who united to kill the proposal. But the strong and widespread resistance to the council’s redevelopment plans, which had already been approved by the council before rumblings of a referendum led to a referral, suggests that the city’s leaders need to take care as they consider what to do next downtown. Given the Nov. 6 vote, it seems likely that Eugene voters would support a measure to eliminate urban renewal districts altogether.

An Urban planner, without Urban Renewal funds, might very well ask: "Ok, the citizens rejected large-scale new development and redevelopment. Basically, it's too expensive, and the social cost is too high. But if that isn't the model for revitalization, what is?"

Essentially, a downtown is a garden. But, it isn't a garden meant to impress the neighbors. It is a garden meant to nurture a complete ecology. It enables life. It's a healthy garden, a part of nature.

What Urban planners do today, is bulldoze ecologies to create flashy new sterile gardens, with big expensive plants and no other life, at the public's expense. They do this for very unnatural reasons -- to support upward distribution of wealth.

In creating a healthy ecology, you don't dig up the plants and try to relocate them all the time ... you try to help the plants you have, and you preserve the healthy clusters and matrices of life that are part of their existence. You find the patches that need help, and you nuture them back to life. It is efficient to work in this way, building upon what you already have. The more work like this you do, the more life it attracts.

This is exactly analogous to a downtown. If you want to help bring something back to life, you start with the people who come downtown, and you provide more for them. You provide more for those who do not come. You don't disrupt anything: harm no existing buisiness, building, organization, event or demographic. In fact, do what you can to help them: help them do more of what they already do. Then the ecology you already have, will thrive.

By about a 2-to-1 margin, the citizens of Eugene voted against funding the City of Eugene's Urban Renewal disaster. There is no faith in government spending, and there shouldn't be. This Urban Renewal project was a boondoggle, intended to make wealthy people wealthier, at the expense of taxpayers and the resident businesses and non-profits, in the affordable district on West Broadway.

This is a conceptual drawing from KWG, the developer that has offered to hire themselves to the City of Eugene, to destroy the West Broadway neighborhood, and, apparenty, to build posh incarceration facilities in the heart of downtown.

Urban Renewal is a wealth concentration mechanism -- governments condemn neighborhoods and destroy lives, to provide taxpayer sponsored development projects to the elite. It's never good for people, unless people force it to do good. Urban Renewal is famous for "the projects", ghetto apartment housing for poor blacks kicked out of neighborhoods wanted by the rich. Nowadays, Urban Renewal funds projects targeted at the wealthy consumer. But the buildings are the same. By destroying real neighborhoods, and creating superficial buildings in which community is impossible, the tenants get to live impoverished lives of "luxury". We have to stop this nonsense.

Urban Renewal, an extremely regressive mechanism, built to provide high-profits to the wealthy at taxpayers' expense, has always made strong political use of bigotry: against the poor, against the young, against the homeless, against people who drink, against street musicians, against petty criminals, against street vendors, against struggling creative people, against street life, against small business, against people who party, and against the 'different' --

James Baldwin, 1963:

A boy last week, he was sixteen, in San Francisco, told me on television -- thank God we got him to talk -- maybe somebody thought to listen. He said, "I've got no country. I've got no flag." Now, he's only 16 years old, and I couldn't say, "you do." I don't have any evidence to prove that he does. They were tearing down his house, because San Francisco is engaging -- as most Northern cities now are engaged -- in something called "Urban Renewal", which means moving the Negroes out. It means Negro removal, that is what it means. The federal government is an accomplice to this fact.

Now, we are talking about human beings, there's not such a thing as a monlithic wall or some abstraction called the "Negro Problem", these are Negro boys and girls, who at 16 and 17 don't believe the country means anything that it says, and don't feel they have any place here, on the basis of the performance of the entire country.

Urban renewal has not changed. At the height of the dotcom boom in Palo Alto, I watched as the remains of an old black-hispanic neighborhood in East Palo Alto -- used heavily by its poor residents, servants to the wealthy in silicon valley -- was bulldozed with Urban Renewal and similar non-democratic financiang methods, to build a high-priced, megalithic office park, at public expense.

Supporters of Urban Renewal don't care what exists. They don't care that people live and work and have history in a neighborhood. They don't care if people's lives depend on that neighborhood. They only think of what they want to see ... not what is already there. They think of themselves as "better" than the people who are there, and they believe their fantasies are more important than other people's realities. And, of course, they have support in this bigotry, from all their wealthy friends who make huge profits on inflated fees for government-subsidized construction.

The results are almost invariably bad. New does not mean better, and Urban Renewal is infamous for its support for anti-human 'architectural experimentation'. Given Urban Renewal's true purpose, of course the results will not be good for people or communities.

Just came back from a nicely-run Town Hall forum by a local progressive radio station, KOPT.

Eugene's supposedly "progressive" and "sustainable" Mayor Kitty Piercy, boldy advocated a plan to spend better than $40 million to displace an affordable arts, non-profit & commercial district, that serves thousands of people a week, with an upscale mall.

However, she hid her intentions, and the actual legislation she has backed, by stealing rhetoric from the grassroots community development phrasebook. When pressed for time, she even amusingly threw in a "neighborhood ice cream parlor" to justify her supposed change-of-mind regarding a public park in the project.

She even ended the event on an outright lie: that the $40 million will not raise taxes. The City has provided her a study showing that it will. And it's common sense: where on earth is that $40 million, to subsidize the developer's bottom line, suppose to come from? Of course it raises taxes, both directly and indirectly.

It's pretty amusing that the "yes" blog on measure 20-134 is written by a former producer of "Star Trek". Perhaps he believes the $40 million will just materialize out of thin air? Certainly, Star Trek was always the epitome of the Sterile Utopian vision ... these are the kinds of "visionaries" who want to mold the concrete-and-glass prison-cities of the future.

However the mayor, and her courtier Greg McLauchlan, didn't mention the Urban Renewal disasters ... they mentioned those in the 60's & 70's of course, because these are safely distant. They claimed that Urban Renewal has "changed" ... just like US Foreign Policy has "changed" ... well, as someone who's neighborhood is about to be torn down with public money, cash that is sorely needed elsewhere, I can say categorically that Urban Renewal has not changed significantly.

Painfully, these two newspoke their way through their presentations. They painted a joyful utopian picture, using lovely things they have actually voted against: parks, historic buildings, community services, affordable housing, local businesses ... exactly like all propaganda, they use community as rhetoric, when they are hell-bent on destroying it, for the profit of their powerful friends. They've done it before, they'll do it again ...

... don't be fooled. The more money we give the City, the more damage they'll do, the more local businesses they'll destroy, the more historic buildings they will destroy, and the more community services they will drain of money. They have already passed ordinances to that effect.

Vote No on Measure 20-134. Stop City Hall.

At the last minute, the Mayor scheduled a public forum for tonight:

"Community Forum on West Broadway Advisory Committee (WBAC) Recommendations"
Wednesday, September 19 - 5:30 p.m.
City Hall, 777 Pearl Street, Council Chamber

The result of the "WBAC" meetings, were milquetoast recommendations, which hold the developer to no public standard whatsoever. Their recommendations certainly don't save the Tango Center, or anything else along West Broadway. The relocation compensation will not save us, or our affordable commercial neighborhood.

This was all expected. The WBAC was formed for PR purposes, and stacked with Urban Renewal boosters. If the KWG Urban Renewal spending Measure passes this November, we're doomed.

The press will be at tonight's meeting, so you could go and make your opinion heard, if you're concerned about any of these things:

1. Deceptive PR exercises to give the impression that the City responds to citizen input.
2. $40 million in City subsidies to develop expensive, upscale shopping malls
3. The destruction of an affordable commercial district
4. The destruction of a downtown district that is revitalizing already
5. The destruction of historic buildings (The Public Market and Bristow buildings) continuing the wasteful legacy of Urban Renewal.
6. The huge negative impact Urban Renewal districts in Oregon have on funding for Schools and Social Services.
7. The lack of an empowered, democratic planning process.
8. The lack of clarity, transparency and democracy in City spending.

I personally have found the City planning staff, supported by the Council majority and City staff management, to be very disrespectful of, and deceptive towards, local small business and non-profit activity. The planners are very indoctrinated -- they believe that creating high-rent districts is the best way to spend public money. Do you disagree? Please tell them so, publicly, so Eugene's citizens begin to realize that Urban Renewal is NOT a public-interest activity.

Here are the very abstract "recommendations" of the WBAC:

http://www.eugene-or.gov/westbroadway

And here's the far more informative minority report, by one committee member:

http://downtowneugene.blogspot.com/2007/09/minority-report-from-wbac.html

Urban Renewal is a drain on all of us -- on our schools, our small businesses, our social services, and our wallets. Let's do what we can to stop this disaster!

Here are some excellent comments from Jon PIncus, advocate for historic preservation, regarding downtown Eugene:

... in order to even begin a discussion of the appropriate treatment of the historic properties at hand, we have to have an independent comprehensive study. That will lead us to the appropriate sections of the Secretary of Interior's Standards which have been developed over many decades in a collaborative effort between the Keeper of the National Register, The Secretary of the Interior and the National Trust for Historic Preservation using the nation's top experts in preservation, planning, architecture and history combined with the collected experience of thousands of communities as they have tried to deal with their historic properties throughout the entire 20th and early 21st cemtuies. The cavalier approach to historic resources and materials seemingly advocated by Mr. Wylie [in an article about superficial post-modern approaches to "making reference" to the past] is part and parcel of the legacy of the first Urban Renewal push in Eugene. This approach is illustrated in Otto Poticha's Aster building which incorporates three historic commercial buildings of dating approximately 1867-1890. Prior to construction of that building, these buildings were mostly intact including a virtually complete historic interior on one. They had false fronts on the Willamette Street side but were relatively intact on the Park St. side. In their incorporation into the Aster building Otto had everything demolished except the brick party walls, the alley exterior wall, one brick structure of one Park street facade minus the windows, most decorative elements and a few small bits and pieces. He added a few fake elements to "reflect" the historic material that would have been so easily restored and still incorporated into the larger building had he chosen to take that approach. The approach illustrated in the Aster Building is appropriate only when just traces of a building remains. When a complete building or large sections remain in a visible or obscured state this approach is a tragedy. We can't begin to have this discussion at all without the study occuring first. Mr. Wylie (he is still calling the bank an 1898 building) is wrong in saying that the debate has devolved to hardened positions on treatment. We may never even get the chance to have any discussion. The question now, is whether we will even get to know what historic resources we have.

The West Broadway Advisory Committee (WBAC) was created by the City Council in response to public pressure against their hell-bent plans to destroy West Broadway. The point, from the City's point of view, was to imprint the rapacious developer, and the horrors of Urban Renewal, with a kind of public-looking stamp of approval. In the middle of the WBAC deliberations, the public forced the City Council to put the funding for the disaster in front of the voting public. Here's the report of a dissenting member of the WBAC committee, Citizens for Public Accountability (CPA)'s Rob Handy:

What went wrong? One member’s view:

1) BEGIN AS WE MEAN TO GO ON

When CPA was asked to participate on the Committee by several decision-makers, CPA made it clear that our issues and interest reside in discussing and considering the balance of public investment with demonstrable public benefit---how will the public money be spent and for what.

We were assured that though the Council motion was silent on the topic, it was inherently obvious that the Committee needed to address the Five Elements in a climate of fiscal discipline, with a goal to prioritize the ultimate recommendations to Council. Given this, CPA agreed to participate.

Once the Committee began to meet, support for the CPA perspective vanished. Our hard-working Co-Chairs and one City Councilor unilaterally decided on a narrow interpretation of the Council motion.

2) CART BEFORE THE HORSE

Many communities have successful downtowns by first having public charrettes that identify design principles and a community vision, before asking for bids and specific design proposals from the development community.

City of Eugene chose to skip engaging the public as an important first step. Instead, by issuing a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for West Broadway redevelopment, out of town developers essentially took the lead on designing our downtown.

Backfilling a public involvement process COULD have been successful, if the Committee had found balance in weighing the interest of the broader public with the interests of the developer.

Sadly, a majority of the Committee seemed content with one perspective voiced several times at different meetings:

“ Don’t upset the developer with ideas different than his.”
“ Don’t scare off the developer by including public input that varies from his plans.”
“ Keep our recommendations general, stay away from prescriptive specifics”

3) BUT, ISN’T THAT HOW OUR REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY WORKS?

Successful majority rule involves compassion and understanding for different points of view and incorporating some of the views into the ruling framework. Ideally, diverse political and social groups coexist with respect. The result is good,balanced governance.

Disappointingly, many on the Committee failed to address the political realities before us: To gain the trust of the broader community for the Committee recommendations to Council, we needed to be inclusive, creative and very specific in our recommendations. The inability of Committee members to recognize the importance of public trust will most likely doom the success of the necessary funding measure on this November’s ballot.

The Committee majority’s indifference to broader community concerns makes Council’s job of finding a balance all that more difficult.

4) COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATIONS: I’LL TAKE MINE VANILLA

Overall, the Committee recommendations are broad, weak or so vague that they are open to multiple interpretations. The developers and City Council, for that matter, can interpret them in whatever way best supports their particular agenda.

The vague recommendations don’t provide much direction to the developers other than to encourage requests for more public subsidies. The Committee majority failed the community by remaining silent on providing a prioritization matrix for the recommendations to Council (save for a generic mix of uses). Many Committee members did not feel it was the charge from Council to make their recommendations in a context of fiscal discipline and prioritization.

With few specific recommendations and a lack of interest in setting priorities, the Committee has created a dilemma for the Council. They must be mindful of the public money funding any private development project. Therefore, it will be impossible for them to direct the developers to enact all of the recommendations. So how will the Council prioritize the recommendations when the Committee making them has provided no direction for doing so?

KWG”s guaranteed 13% return on investment is solidly set as backdrop in further negotiations with the City, while potential estimates for City expenditures of public dollars continue to climb.

5) MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

By doing the public process first, we would be championing that which many in the public want:

* A true downtown park like many great cities and a magnet for development interest.

* Preserving more of the remaining historic buildings that define a downtown.

* Valuing local downtown businesses and non-profits with affordable rents.

* Transit-oriented development across from our EmX hub.

* Priority for public investment given to housing, parks/public open space and ped/ transit infrastructure improvements, NOT for parking nor to guarantee a return on an investment of a private developer.

And most importantly: showing our community that we can spend taxpayer money responsibly, with genuine public value for public subsidies.

6) IN SUMMARY

Most Eugeneans share CPA’s excitement about downtown. We have varying perspectives about the value of an incremental approach that doesn’t displace successful businesses and non-profits, and the value of insuring little risk for the developer and significant risk for our community’s public dollars.

Some say: be careful with public money, accrue quantifiable public amenities as part of any public-private relationship. Some say: “just do something” downtown, let the developers design our downtown, and don’t do anything to scare them off.

Given the integrity and talent brought to the table, I believed the Committee could come to find balance with the specificity the public needs for a return on their tax dollars, and the flexibility a designer needs to mesh a myriad of values and design elements.

Sadly, our Committee collectively failed in this effort. We failed to address the concerns and values of the broader public, but instead adhered to the mantra “keep recommendations vague, don’t upset the developer”.

There's some confusion about stepwise improvements to an urban fabric -- I've heard it expressed like this "Do we want to do it all at once or incrementally?"

The basic principle of urban revitalization, is to preserve the good, improve things with potential, and bring new things where nothing exists. Very rarely do you tear things down -- that's Urban Renewal, a destructive, discredited form of cronyism disguised as public good.

But in making incremental improvements to a large urban area, there is no reason that small changes cannot be made in several places at once. In a living organism, sensitive positive changes happen simulataneously. But they must be aware of each other. Two people shouldn't open the same kind of shop without knowing about each other, just as a human embryo, doing many things at once, shouldn't grow two spleens.

In the case of downtown Eugene, a project at Center Court/Aster's hole, another in the Sear's lake and it's parking lot (whether housing, or a park), and another in the former Bon Marche/Symantec building, would pretty much be all that's required to complete West Broadway's revitalization -- assuming that nothing existing is damaged.

Of course, these non-consecutive incremental changes, are still incremental, based on complete knowledge of the ground. You wouldn't clearcut a forest to build a sustainable culture there, and similarly, you can't destroy a neighborhood and expect to create a new one from scratch. These failed, sterile, all-at-once urban renewal projects litter downtowns around the country, and the victims of such schemes are perfectly aware of the horrors that were perpetrated with their tax dollars.

The chairs of the West Broadway Advisory Committee are of the volunteer breed of anti-democratic bureaucrat. They see public pressure as a nuisance in the face of their enlightened sense of "progress". They solicit public input all year 'round, and when the public IS interested, they become frightened of the rabble, and act as if they have some sort of lethal force at their disposal.

Only five people wanted to speak before the final committee meeting. A minimum of 10 minutes are usually allocated for this, and people have regularly been given 3 minutes to speak. The chair arbitrarily decided to make it 2 minutes each, and limit the total time to 8 minutes, and four speakers -- a procrustean assertion of their authority against the rabble. The public complained, and the massively corrupted City Staff issued disingenuous shrugs, claiming no influence over a process they normally controlled like an inanimate object. The speakers shared the time, but they'd lost all respect for the committee chairs -- who generally treat the public like crap, archiving input, but not looking beyond the research presented by City Staff -- and so some public speakers spoke the length they needed to, ignoring the weak cries of pseudo-authority from the chairs.

Sham public processes must be interrupted, whenever possible, so that the public-at-large takes a closer look at unaccountable government behaviour.

The City of Eugene's thorough effort to lie to the public about every aspect of Urban Renewal, was amusingly revealed in court yesterday. I'll quote the article by the Register-Guard's Ed Russo:

Holland also asked Klein why his summary didn't explain how the change to the downtown urban renewal district would cause other local governments to forgo property tax revenue.

Klein's summary says the financing method, called tax increment financing, "reallocates" property tax dollars from other governments to the urban renewal district.

Klein responded that it is too difficult to provide a detailed explanation in 175 words or less, the allowed length of ballot summaries. "It's how much you can fit into 175 words," he said.

For 50 years, Urban Renewal has been called by city officials as "just a tool". Entire wealthy districts, the recipients of the most Public Subsidy (watch out for the weasel-phrase "public investment"), can, with the always-willing approval of governmnet, apply their taxes directly to their own purposes.

The City wants to raise the spending for Urban Renewal by $40 million, to give it to a Portland developer. This is money that can be used for schools, public health, public safety, roads ... anything else.

City officials say "It won't raise your taxes". Of course it will: imagine that citizens could apply all current taxes to their own properties, which is what a fully-enabled Urban Renewal district does. Where would money for public services come from? Taxes would rise. Every specific act of spending taxes on something new, raises taxes.

In normal speech, the direct consequence of an action, are included in descriptions of an action. Urban Renewal boosters and City Planners have become so removed from reality, that they insist taxes only rise if they pass a "raise taxes" act. And yet, somehow, these acts are rarely passed, and our taxes keep raising, and services decline.

City officials are not only disconnected from reality. They are not only lying. They have destroyed their own ability to think and speak.

At a public meeting, I was pulled aside by, it turns out, a publicist for power-and-money. She pretended to be many things, in order to get me to "open up", and reveal, I suppose, some fatal flaw in our "campaign strategy" to stop the destruction of the neighborhood. Then, after a bit of argument, I realized ... she knew my personal history, thoroughly. Perhaps this was an attempt to gain my confidence? I ended our conversation.

Creepy, yes. Luckily, the conversation revealed the paper-thin arguments of her well-funded camp.

"Urban Renewal" she boldly asserted "is what all the great cities do." "There's no viable alternative" she said. I guess only big cities function. A big surprise to those of us who don't live in them.

She even painted a pretty picture of the removal of "neighborhood blight" and "the homeless" in New York, asserting it was a "win-win" for everyone. Destroy communities, defund social services, and then kill the vermin. A kind of "get-tough-on-the-poor" jingoism.

"West Broadway needs a new start" she said. "It's unsafe, and a low-rent district, and that's inappropriate for our downtown". So, affordable housing is ok, but affordable commercial districts are not?

And then, of course, she called me a "vested interest". I'm in the neghborhood slated for demolition, a volunteer coordinator of a popular community non-profit, dedicated to revitalizing downtown, who's fighting against a big-money apocalypse -- and I'm a "special interest"? She, as a representative of developers who want to get rich from public funds, is of course not a vested interest?

KWG's Tom Kemper is very clear that he will only produce the mega-project, if he gets the $40 million in subsidies, and if he can do what he needs to, to make his project "work". He is quite clearly not interested in the public input, which the City Council has deceptively collected, with the intention of ignoring it.

To quote Kemper in the Register-Guard (July 14, 2007):

"It's bold. It's ambitious. It's really upscale," he said. "It's also a big change (for Eugene), and it's expensive."

He needs to destroy the existing neighborhood, and all the existing businesses and non-profits, in order to create his high-rent district. He need to create it his way, or it won't work for him financially.

Who wants that? 1% of the population? In this political campaign for November, we must make it clear what the mega-project will be, must be, according to the economics of such a project.

Incredibly, among the talking points of the pro-mega-development campaigners, is an assertive lie: 'this is not a subsidy, but a public investment.' Well, I'll quote wikipedia:

In economics, a subsidy is a kind of financial government assistance, such as a grant, tax break, or trade barrier, in order to encourage the production or purchase of a good. The term subsidy may also refer to assistance granted by others, such as individuals or non-government institutions, although this is more commonly described as charity.

KWG is asking for subsidies to produce the megaproject. Anyone who buys a chunk of the result, will be buying a 'house', if you will, constructed in part with public money, and which would have not been built without it. Any commercial entity, say 'The Gap', which rents in the mall, will be renting a space, indeed an entire neighborhood, created for their use, with public money. Their landlord, whatever corporate entity is created to do this, will have new property created for them with part public money.

Luckily, the voters will understand that $40 million of their tax money, is $40 million, no matter how you spin it. They will not give it to a developer of a downtown mall, just as they would not give it to the developer of a surburban mall.

In Today's Register-Guard, an editorial excoriated the Eugene City Council's willingness to change the substance of the referendum on the Gas Tax.

But the wildly anti-democratic nature, of the Eugene City Staff and current council majority, runs far deeper. At its core, the City is not driven by the surveyed needs of the citizens. It's driven by the agendas of the most powerful businesses and institutions in town. These agendas are of course unrelated to Public Benefit. They tend towards projects that are massive, wasteful, anti-life, and enriching of the wealthy class.

How do we approach the reform of a fundamentally corrupted City Hall? Well, the right steps are already being taken: cut their funding. This is the subject of both referenda in November, and the message is clear: we don't trust you. The Gas Tax referendum is explicit -- people don't trust the City to spend a nickel, literally.

If we cut their funding enough, they won't even be able to spin the illusion that they are doing something for us. They will then start to work differently, in small, transparent increments, so the public can judge how effective their actions are.

Eugene's chief downtown planner, Mike Sullivan, once said to me "You know the Taekwondo business near Cafe Perugino? I think the Tango Center would be a much better fit there. We should try to do something about that." I couldn't believe my ears ... he was thinking of "swapping" two businesses from their locations, as if we were some kind of monopoly pieces? Does he have any idea of the pain associated with the "simple thought" he was considering forcing upon others?

"Easy for you to say" I said.

If he could descend from this sterile, rarified cognitive state, and begin to understand people's reality, there are ways he could present such suggestions, at the appropriate stage. If he's interested in influencing the location of things, he should form an incubator and support resources for new businesses downtown, and make such suggestions before people have created a functioning business in a particular physical/social context.

The planner's God-like Board Game mentality is the norm, not the exception. It stretches to politicians of course. Alan Zalenka, complaining that we were trying to stop his expensive, destructive, anti-democratic megaproject, whined: "I don't see what the fuss is about. The rents on West Broadway are too low. I don't think we want this neighborhood to be a low rent district." The fact that artificially raising the rents would destroy 25 businesses and non-profits, and one of the City's major civic spaces, not to mention the waste of City funds desperately needed for real problems, has no effect upon his thinking.

On the advisory committee there are two openly technocratic members, Mike Coughlin and Jean Tate, who are very happy to play the Board Game with people's lives. At a recent meeting Tate said that reparations for the destructive relocation of a non-profit were too high, even though it was a federally mandated amount. "$20,000 is a lot of money for moving a non-profit" she said -- even after she'd just heard that $1 million in sweat equity had gone into one. Coughlin wanted to disqualify as many of the threatened businesses as possible, to save money. Even though the federal law, as described to him already, said explicitly that everyone active on the date of the City's HUD application was eligible, period.

But even commmittee members with human-rights backgrounds can be entranced by the typical, technocratic, architect/planner mindset. It made Pastor Dan Bryant of the historic First Christian Church downtown, come out against Historic Preservation, and against Human Rights. Because the City presented a mock "report" to the committee, dismissing the historic value of Eugene's first brick building and it's Public Market building (which houses the Tango Center), he concluded the buildings should be torn down, and wrote:

I would also recommend that we follow Jessica's suggestion that the design of the new building "make reference to the old bank by differentiating the base from the upper stories and the use of a prominent corner design feature." Lastly, I would recommend that interpretive displays with photos of the original buildings be included in the new structures.

So, we should destroy the businesses, and the buildings they are in, and then create a memorial to the destruction? The only way a human-rights advocate could make this statement, is after he has been placed on a powerless planning committee, whose members have been hypnotized into thinking they have the power of life-and-death over others.

Now, the entire City council is focussed upon the destruction they want to see happen. They are purposefully blinding themselves to the value of people and places, that don't need their help, and focussing upon expensive mega-developments that the citizens have not asked for. And they are therefore expending energy better spent upon improving the city, and helping its citizens, not tearing it down.

All this inexcusable government-bullying in the liberal university town of Eugene. We must conclude, I believe, that even small governments naturally tend towards inhumanity. That means we must all work harder to push back, if we are to survive.

On Wednesday, August 22, from 6pm - 9pm, the City and its West Broadway advisory group will hold a Second public forum on West Broadway.

I hope the attendance is high, and diverse. However, the City picks the speakers at these meetings, framing the debate in an extremely partisan fashion. They have picked the facilitators and consultants for the advisory group from the beginning. They are trying very carefully to remove from the debate any criticism of the process itself. And, of course, it's the process itself that is the main problem. The City is spending rare public money on a parade of high-partisanship and disinformation, disguised as helpful non-partisan civic meetings.

Only massive participation by citizens will change the nature of this debate. And a "No" vote on money for destroying West Broadway in November, will stop the worst of the damage. That money is specifically intended for the anti-community, neighborhood-levelling developer from Portland, Tom Kemper. A "no" vote will prevent him from imposing his expensive, profit-driven apocalyse upon downtown Eugene.

Yesterday, a bunch of businesses, who don't want to see $40 million of City money wasted on a mega-project by an infamous Portland mega-developer, filed a petition to challenge the City's unchecked spending on this project. It was the last chance we had to insert real democracy into the process. Urban Renewal spending is generally protected from public "interference", and the City was hell-bent on leveling the West Broadway neighborhood, and paying to make it an expensive district, catering to maybe 10% of the population.

Today, the City council got the message !

They voted to put it on the November ballot !!!

The City has not helped a single business or non-profit, in the threatened West Broadway district. They haven't given us a dime. And yet they want to pay Portland's Thomas Kemper, who has said that community input "is a problem", $40 million in City money for his project. This is the same City money that would otherwise be spent in small increments for social projects ... including nearly $10 million in HUD money, which normally goes to childcare, at-risk youth, women's shelters, homeless bootstrap programs, opportunity centers, pollution clean-up, vocational training, rehabilitation programs etc. It's insane that the City thought they could get away with this. But now, everyone can vote on it.

Of course, the Tango Center is one of dozens of organizations slated to be destroyed by this money, in one fell swoop. No reparations were in the works, despite rhetoric to the contrary. Let your friends know that the City's plan for "revitalization" is simply to bulldoze, waste money, and raise rents. Let them know that denying the large sum of money, will make the process more community-oriented. Slower spending will make real revitalization, for people, possible.

You'll hear this all on the news after 5pm. KEZI may even use some footage of Tango, at the TC, if you'd like to watch.

When a business or non-profit is under threat from government aggression, it's important for them to contact their supporters.

The Bijou, Eugene's Art Cinema, is threatened by a random proposal in the City's development plan, calling for an Art cinema. So they handed out pamphlets, contacted their e-mail list, and plan to show slides before films, encouraging people to defend local business, and prevent the City from subsidizing their competition.

I sent something similar to Eugene's Tango Community, asking people to attend the City's "token democracy" events, and make the most of them:


If you want to take a short break from Friday@Five, August 3, wander down to the City Tent at the intersection of Willamette & Broadway, where you have a chance to give the City a piece of your mind, about:

1. The City paying millions for a guaranteed net profit to Portland developers.
2. The poverty of the ideas presented by those developers
3. The lack of local understanding demonstrated by those developers.
4. The suggestions by those developers that the city subsidize imported competitors to the Bijou and the Kiva.
5. The destruction of an entire nightlife district that serves a wide range of the Eugene population.
6. The construction of a sterile new neighborhood, at City expense, that is intended to serve the wealthiest 10% of the population.
7. The lack of guarantees of full reparations (despite claims to the contrary) to businesses and non-profits slated for destruction.
8. The destruction of perfectly sound buildings, in order to create more expensive buildings: subsidized gentrification.
9. The destruction of historic buildings, currently hiding behind the modern facades of DIVA, the Tango Center, and Taco Time.
10. The lack of a participatory public process for improving downtown.
11. The totally abstract, non-local, uninformed and speculative nature of the destructive redevelopment plan.
12. The use of HUD money, intended to help low-income people, to pay for a developer's bottom line.
13. The use of 10's of millions of dollars of public money, for an inefficient, wasteful, unimaginative project, when the neighborhood is already revitalizing without help.
14. Spending millions of City money on subsidies, when the most important public problems of our day are not addressed.
15. Importing businesses at public expense, instead of incubating new local businesses.

Anyway, take your pick: poor quality, wanton destruction, gentrification, unfair subsidization, anti-sustainability, anti-local-interest, human rights abuses (that's us!), anti-democratic civic process, massively wasteful spending ... etc.

The City staff will be listening to the public from 5:30pm - 8pm at a tent on the corner of Willamette and Broadway.

The City Advisory Committee will take public comment August 4, Saturday morning from 9am to noon in the Atrium, 10th and Olive.

Please give them an earful. Tell them to stop threatening us, to stop bombing our neighborhood -- we're surrounded by their failed projects -- to stop making plans for us, and help us to fix things those things we know how to fix! Help us fill the empty spaces with community-based projects and businesses, or create useable open spaces. Help us with investment to fill our own spaces with daytime activity to complement our nighttime successes. Build housing in the empty land where there are parking lots, not where there are buildings with tenants! Help us create space for the community to live, for people to learn, and gather -- not just more places to go shopping.

We can absolutely stop this disaster. All it takes -- is for us to all speak up!

The nightmare project the City staff continues to push for West Broadway, is so lavishly disjoint from reality, that Staff can make expensive promises, that they do not intend to keep, just to keep the project "on track".

The most recent example was during the vote to use HUD money for buying both unoccupied and occupied buildings on West Broadway. The buildings, in fine condition, have been labeled "blighted", and the proposed nightmare "will create hundreds of low-income jobs".

This empty prose, intended to fulfill fig-leaf rhetorical requirements of our insanely corrupt federal government, was questioned by several city councilors. One question was "how about jobs lost through the destruction of businesses and non-profits? are those accounted for in these job-creation figures?"

Denny Braud, Staff point-man for the nightmare, began to make promises, essentially by referring to law he was subject to, that "ummm ... no, I think no jobs will be lost" during the cataclysm of dislocation, destruction, etc. of dozens of businesses and non-profits. Of course, he is not accountable for his words, and knows that. He also knows, as an administer of urban redevelopment loans, that the definition of "jobs" can be dodged in any way he sees fit.

Well, the West Broadway tenants certainly don't want to be dislocated. But if the City is going to seriously consider this crazy and destructive project, they should put the weight of law behind Braud's promises. Maybe then they'll begin to see how expensive, inefficient, insensitive, and ultimately ineffective this project is.

I wrote to the two most sensible members of the City Coucil:


Betty, Bonny,

At last night's meeting, Denny Braud emphatically guaranteed that no businesses, non-profits nor jobs would be lost in the staff's West Broadway neighborhood demolition plan. Of course, with the council majority behind him, he is perfectly aware that he is not accountable for his statements, freeing him to rely upon a list of existing statutes which, hypothetically, would take care of the tenants.

If he is so confident, perhaps the majority of the council could confidently pass a bill, which, in this given footprint, in the event any action under the current West Broadway initiative is taken, guarantees the recovery-of-investment, full-relocation and return-to-sustainability-and-mission, of every business and non-profit in the footprint, as of today. This means tenants, lease-holders, sub-lessees and anyone else dependent upon these organizations or their facilities. We have been under threat by the City for too long, and want these guarantees, which have now been explicitly promised. The advisory committee has been charged to do this, but without the resources to do so -- a situation that makes the chances of relocation funding seem even more remote.

If you could kindly introduce a bill to that effect, it would be most helpful to all of us.

With many thanks!

US Federal HUD (Housing and Urban Development) grants are intended to create jobs and housing for low-income people.

The city is using this money to do more than finance the projects of developers. It is using that money to guarantee profit of wealthy developers. A 13% profit, on a project which could grow to be as large as $100 million.

All this, to destroy a downtown that is revitalizing itself, and rebuild it, speculatively, for the wealthy. Who don't exist in Eugene in large numbers.

Perhaps we need an initiative petition, with a very basic message -- public money cannot be spent to guarantee profits.

There's a very common behavior, among bureaucrats disdainful of the public (you can fill in your own opinion regarding the percentage). When no citizens reply to their obscure required public legal notices and announcements, they smirk. As if to say "there's nothing wrong with what we're doing: no one complained." Or perhaps to say "people are so dumb and lazy, they don't even want to be heard". In anycase, there's no good reason for the grin. It is in fact the exact grin of a criminal who's just pulled a fast one.

I don't know why they call these people "public servants". Well, actually, I do. It is intended to mislead. Like the "Department of Defense", which is obviously focussed entirely upon aggression. Not unlike most public servants.

A letter to Rob Handy, CPA representative on the committee

The whole process is, of course, framed to create "standard development projects" more than to actually add vitality to West Broadway.

For example, the developers want a guaranteed profit, to produce something ("a nightlife") which is completely speculative. The actual tenants on West Broadway, on the other hand, have created the best nightlife in Eugene, already, and the city hasn't given us a penny -- nothing to even help us break-even, let alone profit.

The positive thing that should be emphasized is efficiency in public expenditure, and a genuine track record in the neighborhood. In that case, the existing tenants have already done a far better job than the developers propose to do in the future -- by several orders of magnitude! Compare their vague predictions and projections with our actual numbers -- which can be observed after 8pm, any day.

Also, the notion that West Broadway is moribund is massively overstated. Compare it, even during the day, with 90% of downtown, and it will be found to have more people.

In any case, since the existing tenants are the most efficient at revitalization, they should be given a chance to buy their own buildings. The primary reason for the appearance of desertion on West Broadway, because of unrented space, is the existence of powerful landowners (the City, in the case of the Sears building, and Conner & Woolley in the rest of the cases) who have little incentive to improve their property. Give West Broadway businesses and non-profits an opportunity to buy their buildings from these owners, and you can be certain that they will be filled to the brim with activity. Small owners are far more likely, and more efficient, at making the incremental green changes people would like to see in any buildings. We want to buy our building, for example, restore the original facade, improve the passive heating and cooling throughout the building, incorporate more community projects, etc. No out-of-town developer could possibly do this efficiently.

I worry about the fact that no one, on the committee, actually is resident on the threatened footprint of West Broadway. People may make suggestions like "the farmer's market building should become a farmer's market again", without understanding that this entire process has been hurting the existing lane county farmer's market -- which is a very fragile, unsupported organization, with storage in my building and important street offices, that the city wants to tear down! That's just one example. If the developers need an advisory committee, then the advisory committee needs one of their own. Perhaps this could be proposed?

Of course I'm very worried by the proposal of "charettes", which have been used as PR cover to destroy neighborhoods in the last two decades or so. I was told by a City Planner, for example, that I should be relocated because "the downtown plan calls for it". As if the community members on that committee would have said "yes, let's destroy community projects in order to build community".

This "destroy the village to save it" mentality is everywhere in Urban Renewal, and modern urban planning -- just an extension of the profit-taking colonization this country is built on. The best parts of cities around the world are destroyed every day by this sort of process.

And, of course, we don't want to be relocated. Actually, it would simply destroy us. And anyone else who is "relocated". It is a human rights violation, a small-scale version of the relocation of native americans from their lands. We've done a very good job of revitalizing our place, and don't want to be destroyed. Thousands have been part of our work, and $1 million in sweat equity has been poured into the place. Any form of good-intentioned relocation, if that was possible, would be very expensive for the city -- of course, if we are just ignored, and kicked out, we will sue, which will also be expensive for them. We've already been put in an impossibly precarious situation just because of the City's "purchase options" -- our leases aren't being renewed!

I believe if money is allowed to enter into the Advisory Committee discussion, the destructive part of the process will be derailed. There is nothing efficient about buying an occupied building, relocating businesses, tearing it all down, and building new, with guaranteed profit, and high rents. If the City waives its hands around and says "oh, let's just do what the people want. Don't worry about the money." -- reply with "we don't want to waste our time. We'd like to come up with a plan that doesn't cost much, and achieves a great deal, so that it has a hope of being accepted by the entire community." Consensus is key -- the small projects (filling the holes, not tearing down buildings, arranging financing to sell to tenants) are quite efficient, and will have no dissent. Anyone who wants more, at the cost of sacrificing such agreement, is simply not being cooperative. The entire City staff can be accused of this, as they keep pushing for maximum destruction, when their record for efficiency is non-existent.

The reason power corrupts is simple: when your actions are amplified, it's very easy to think that your opinions are more important than other people's lives -- because, in effect, they are. The fundamental problem, is the existence of systems that allow such amplification -- it's obviously immoral, promoting destruction and murder as a matter of policy.

Since every fantasy is destructive, they must be eliminated from government.

Instead, government should simply help things that already exist -- things that people have invested their labor in.

But this must be done in an equitable fashion. Powerful people should not have more access to government than any other person. Only in this way, will government be transformed from a power-wielding monstrosity, to something collective, which genuinely nurtures the world it is part of.

Citizens for Public Accountability – Monday, July 9 at EWEB, 7:00 PM

PUBLIC BENEFIT vs. PUBLIC SUBSIDIES

*Where is the money coming from?

The planned West Broadway Development Project could cost the taxpayers up to $40 million in public subsidies. Didn't the City just pass a gas tax and a bunch of other fees because they did not have the money to maintain our streets?

The City of Eugene says the money is coming from URA/BEDI/HUD. Say what? Exactly. What on earth do those acronyms mean? Come to this CPA meeting and find out how the City finds money when it wants to.

*What will the citizens get for their money?

CPA's own Rob Handy is on the 11 member Citizens Advisory Committee that the Mayor has named to advise the City Council about this development. At this meeting, Rob will explain what the newly formed committee has done so far, and how they intend to involve the public as the design process moves forward.

Learn how you can get involved and be prepared for both the related public hearing and the Committee's public input session coming up soon...

You may have recently received a seemingly innocuous postcard/hearing notice from the City of Eugene about them...Important decisions will be made about the future of your downtown, come find out all about it!

If you were one of the 150 to 200 citizens who went on CPA's recent "PIT to PIT Walk," come see what you can do next. If you missed the Walk, come learn what's happening!

www.lanecpa/cpa

Essentially, the City has tried to hypnotize the public, into thinking that we should "tear down West Broadway to save it." but they've made an additional argument: ""tear down West Broadway to save our town"!

In order to "achieve density goals", they would tear down small businesses and community centers. This is analogous to building Nuclear Power plants in order to stop Global Warming! Why would you choose to approach a problem with a solution that immediately causes problems? Because some "professional" tells you to?

Where did this "shock treatment" mentality come from? How did we become so susceptible to false dilemmas? In psychological tests, most people refuse to directly answer questions like "would you kill this person to save these two people". The reason we resist? Because it's never true! Only if we're impossibly under-trained for the real world, or over-trained for "leadership", would we think we could ever be faced with such a dilemma. To treat people like "eggs" that need to be "broken" in order to "make omlettes", is to immediately sacrifice your humanity, because it fails the universal moral standards test : it is something you would never want applied to you and your family.

Dear Mayor and Council,

West Broadway is increasingly healthy !

Please don't hurt it.

It is the heart of Eugene's nightlife !

People from all walks of life, from professors to mechanics, teachers to roofers, find their way to West Broadway for a social drink -- because of the stunning diversity of local establishments there!! Since it's a pedestrian-friendly area, they can socialize, eat, entertain themselves, and sober up, without driving. And there are popular all-ages activities too, where high-schoolers mingle with retirees.

Mike Clark says "I think it is fundamentally broken in this area." This is dangerously imprecise talk from a public official, extremely negative, and a direct threat to all of us, who have actually rolled up our sleeves, and made West Broadway the most lively district in town.

So let's get to specifics. What's a problem, and what is not?

Problem: Mad street people. Mike has trouble with one street person. We all know him.
Solution: This person should be offered help & psychiatric care.

Problem: North Side at-risk-youth. These kids are just bored, so they hang together, in the space Symantec abandoned. Sometimes they beg for money. More rarely, they get in trouble.
Solution: An opportunity center and school, in this space. There are several non-profits with fascinating, community-participatory ideas for a school there. It works -- the at-risk youth in front of Network Charter School do not beg for money.

Problem: Holes in the ground, caused by the City, and developers.
Solution: Build "housing in the holes". And ONLY in the holes. Please leave the rest of our buildings alone!

Problem: Center Court building
Solution: Let it rent. It was full, until recently, and then emptied on purpose. A non-profit wanted to buy it, but local elitists prevented this. It's a perfectly viable building, as it is.

Problem: Day-time activity
Solution: Most of the businesses and schools on West Broadway would love to be busier during the day. Some investment from the City would make that possible, at a far lower cost than KWG's "guaranteed profit" demand.

Because it is so disjoint from reality, the current, dangerously vague planning process, also addresses non-problems.

Not a problem: KWG wants to turn West Broadway into an "entertainment district".
Reason: West Broadway already is this!! Market forces, and committed people, did this work already. Why would you destroy it?

Not a problem: Lack of shopping
Reason: Does every place need to be a shopping district?! There are lots of local shopping areas already, and there are dead streets all over downtown ... why would you destroy the heart of Eugene's nightlife, to create a daytime shopping district? That's extremely wasteful. Does no one care about efficiency anymore?

Not a problem: Lack of housing.
Reason: First, we must see if "housing in the holes" is viable. Also, please keep in mind, that if you want a lively nightlife district, you don't want much housing. All around the world, the most dense nightlife is separated from housing. West Broadway never had much housing, and doesn't "need" it. And why would you remove buildings, full of businesses, to do it? Why is the housing "better" than the businesses? Why would you want to unnecessarily make that judgement, and destroy people's work? Why not build housing, instead, on surface parking lots, a block away?

Not a problem: The Washburne building
Reason: It's 90% full !! The City should step back from it. Similarly, why is the Tango Center building threatened by the council? It is 83% occupied, and draws 500 sober people downtown every week. It should be protected by the council.

Not a problem: Drinking
Reason: This is legal activity, and safest in a pedestrian-friendly place like West Broadway, where food, dancing and music are also available.

Not a problem: The poor and disenfranchised
Reason: They have the right to gather in the heart of Eugene, too. If you want to help them, then help them -- but don't try to kick them out, just because you don't want to see them.

Please, please consider passing a resolution not to destroy businesses and non-profits on West Broadway. Even if you think "something" is wrong with West Broadway -- then, like a doctor, you must "first do no harm". Threatening us, with this planning process, has already been harmful.

West Broadway is improving, by itself, very rapidly. Another local restaurant/bar opened up, and is already very popular.

And yet the calls for "tearing down West Broadway" and cries of "something is broken there" are getting louder. This is destructive and anti-business, and yet people trying to stop the destruction, are labeled "anti-business" ... presumably because we are against developers who want to destroy our lives.

But there is a strong undercurrent here ... a teetotaler's agenda. West Broadway is now "the bar district". You can walk among 10 bars here at night, all within sight of each other. It's a pretty nice scene, tempered by food booths, dancing and art projects.

There are just some people who don't like to see the poor hanging out. They don't like kids "hanging around". And they don't like to see people drunk. But, they have the legal right to do these things. So the underlying "morals" cannot be articulated. Instead, generalities like "we want something more upscale" or "it's just scary down there" are spoken in hushed tones. The fact that adults talk this way, hiding their intolerance with euphenism, is just another sign of the elite dysfunction in the body politic.

A very easy solution to filling empty spaces on West Broadway:

Multi-purpose community centers.

These mixed, public/private/ngo partnerships, with music, internet, food, retail, services etc., are in high-demand. And they are very easy to start. Just hold regular meetings of people who want to initiate projects and businesses. They will find each other.

Here's the Jacob gallery, a "high-end", and high-concrete, "pedestrian street", which lacks any sign of pedestrian life, in the middle of the day. No one says that this, or the "gallery district", or many other "clean", and sterile, parts of downtown, are "broken".

And yet West Broadway, which always has actvity -- is considered "broken"? It's because the kids and homeless people are not "people"? They are, in fact, citizens. looking for something to do. And so are the 2,000 people a week who come to the Bars on West Broadway. Do they not have the legal right to drink and dance?

Except for the Bus stop, West Broadway is the most successful part of downtown. It could be more successful, but the City is threatening to tear it down to "make it work". Destroying the village to save it.

West Broadway has only four problems. They are simple problems, with simple solutions, much less expensive than proposals on the table to destroy existing businesses and schools on the street.

1. Center Court: This building is completely empty. Beam has made a proposal to fill it, in cooperation with KWG. That makes sense. (Note that including the full Washburne building in this project makes NO sense).

2. Aster Hole: Beam also has a proposal to build something on this lot, and fill it. Sounds good.

3. Sear's lake: KWG has proposed to build housing here, and on some of the adjacent parking lot. That makes sense. Tearing down buildings that are mostly full, makes NO sense.

4. The Northside Vacuum (former Symantec-occupied storefronts): If the City offered subsidies to move in here, probably as little as a year's rent, people would jump all over the opportunity.

That's it. Note that, in the current process, if these small problems were solved, West Broadway would be revived. But if there is more ambition, including the destruction of other people's work, and insane judgments about what is "good business" vs. "undesirable business", more subsidies, more initiatives, more rancor, more lawsuits ... nothing at all will happen! At worst, there will be destruction AND nothing will result.

Stick to the small stuff. Make the little projects work, and don't try to fix the parts that ain't broken.

City staff members visit with tenants on West Broadway, trying to convince them that they "don't belong there", because the district is "not dense enough" or "not valuable enough" or other such nonsense. People shouldn't be forced to abandon their neighborhood even during high demand, but here, we have low demand, and half-empty space, and they want to build more densely?

More insulting, is when the City suggests to tenants that they "move and come back", or "find a place in the new development". A suggestion which makes us "groundlings" roll our eyes -- how can you expect a business to survive such a move? Hypothetically, if lots of money was provided, it might be possible to compensate -- but it's terribly risky to take something that works, something that has adapted to a specific location, and move it. After all, 99% of all business ventures fail.

The principle of continuity is rarely understood by anyone who hasn't felt it in their bones -- the day-to-day struggle to keep your ship afloat. City officials are so indoctrinated by, and enamored with, futurist visions of destructive urban renewal, that they don't realize they've become a tsunami, wiping out everything in front of them.

Purposely, there is no process for public participation in the City staff's plan to redevelop West Broadway.

First the City staff, without even the direction of elected officials, accumulated purchase options on occupied buildings -- obviously not something the tenants want. This forced the City council to initiate an RFQ process. The only people likely to respond to such a process, were developers in favor of demolishing the neighborhood and its businesses at public expense. The exception was my proposal, which was not just making a statement -- it was holding the door open for the democratic process it advocated. When the commitee decided to recommend two private developers, when the City staff recommended one (so they could shut out the public completely), and when the council finally decided on two private developers, they ensured that the only way to do anything -- either a suggestion or an actual proposal -- would be through private channels. The public would be accused of "circumventing the process" if it made suggestions directly to council.

City staff are very well trained to pronounce their undemocratic process "democratic", and the people at large, defending their money and rights, as "undemocratic". People in power fight against democracy at every turn, but use its rhetoric every day, and have done so for millennia.

When part of a city has been abandoned, and the Bohemians and working people move in, they often create a wonderful neighborhood. The demand for the neighborhood increases, values increase, the wealthy outbid the poor, and slowly the neighborhood, as it was, disappears. This can generally be stopped, but it's very hard work. In Eugene, 5th Street Market is an example: started by hippies, taken over by millionaire investors. Greenwich Village in Manhattan is a more famous example, but I think one of the best examples, is Venice, Italy ... built gradually for more than a thousand years, the Venetians themselves are now priced out by expensive hotels, and billionaires looking to display their art collections.

It's hard to stop. But a different trend, is when such gentrification is subsidized speculatively, by government. Subsidized Gentrification is the Eugene City staff's brilliant plan for West Broadway in downtown Eugene: take solid buildings, half-full with Bohemians, and before the process has run its course, before there is demand, kick out all the poor people, destroy the businesses that serve them, and roll-the-dice on a high-end mall.

There's a downtown group that's partisan to this kind of development, and its director recently wrote me:

"The real estate is too valuable for it to stay in the current condition"

I wrote back:

"If the cost of locating to the buildings is too high, as it obviously is, then the real estate is less valuable than expectation. When the demand increases, so does the value. That's very basic economics. When the demand is low, redevelopment can only happen with grossly wasteful public subsidy. This happens all over the country, and it's criminally undemocratic."

Most of the council, mayor and staff of the City of Eugene is so indoctrinated, that they can barely imagine development for downtown Eugene involving the people already there. The clear exception is Betty Taylor, who is keenly aware of reality. But she only has one vote.

The local tenants were mentioned enough recently, however, that I heard murmurs, inspired by a mild sense of guilt, bubbling up from the subconscious of some councilors. Even Chris Pryor quietly mentioned "integrating with local business", by which, I believe, he really meant "preserving local business". But he didn't vote for the resolution Alan Zelenka made, which included a request from the (eventually two) selected developers, for their plans for existing businesses. Along with a long list of other details. This makes the staff work harder, which gives us time to protest, to modify the worst aspects of the City's initiative.

Andrea Ortiz made a statement about these plans for downtown, and how they explicitly excluded the poor, rather than simply tryng to create a more inclusive and civil community on West Broadway. This made people think, but only for a moment ... it didn't translate into anything concrete.

It's very hard to inject ideas into the process of government. The only apparent approach is to be a wealthy developer.

The next time I submit a proposal to a government, I'm going to include more than one possibility.

The first thing that happens, when making a case for community-based solutions, is the combing of the proposal for something that will cause rejection. Modern governments just work that way. The spirit of the proposal is actually not important: the red herrings are.

So I made a community-based proposal that described a preference for putting some buildings into a trust. I wouldn't have even talked about the buildings, but the RFQ required some statement on the purchase options. The committee didn't want a trust solution, so they reject the proposal out of hand -- all principles were ignored: 1) the sufficiency of existing structures, 2) the lack of necessity to increase density, 3) the simplicity of filling the empty space, 4) the precious people whose work now fills half of the existing spaces.

I needed to list all the possibilities ...

A. The City could issue a policy statement, that existing tenants will not be kicked out, so that their work can continue, without constant threat of Urban Renewal.

B. The City could make loans available to large groups of guarantors of tenants, so they can buy their buildings and make improvements to them. Currently, City loans, like those of most banks, must have no more than 4 guarantors reponsible for the loan. This makes it impossible for a group of 1000 poor people, for example, to buy a $1 million building, because no 4 of them can afford to take on an additional $250,000 mortgage each. The system is skewed towards the wealthy, making community-based solutions extremely difficult.

C. Initiate a small grant program to groups proposing to move downtown.

D. Create a reward / recognition grant program to help existing groups to expand their activity.

These are simple, open-ended policies, which are easy to test, and are non-destructive. They would lay the groundwork for endless fascinating business and community projects in downtown Eugene.

The conditions are right. This is a very good time for a community-oriented plan for downtown Eugene's West Broadway. There are no viable alternatives for the long stretches of unleased space.

The City keeps asking for large-scale development, ignoring the tenants, who have worked very hard to survive downtown, and obviously don't want to move. Because the city keeps pushing this, the area stays vacant -- who would invest in something the city might arrange to tear down? The fear instilled in the tenants keeps most of the businesses and non-profits from being as successful as they could be, and prevents new people from filling the empty spaces.

The City rejected the local option, in the City-framed RFQ process. But, of course, this isn't the only approach to making positive things happen ... in some ways, it was the least likely approach. Because the RFQ process was launched by a broken system. And RFP's and RFQ's exist to decrease public participation in government, not increase it.

Probably nothing will happen in this current round development speculation. But since the process itself is negative, the tenants and those interested in a local solution to downtown need to do something about it.

We'll be circulating a petition to the City council, stating that development planning for properties occupied by tenants is harmful to downtown, violates tenants' rights to pursue their business in peace, without government interference, and is unsustainable because it wastes buildings, businesses, non-profits and public energy by planning to destroy existing downtown, for speculative fantasy. We will ask that the council stop such planning for occupied space, and provide funds to incubate local proposals for filling in the empty space.

The City Council is even reluctant to ask voters, in a survey, whether or not to spend $100 million on a new City Hall. "They won't have enough information," the councillors protest. As if they needed any. No money should be spent on a new City Hall. No money should be spent on any new construction. There are other pressing matters.

Much smaller amounts of money, $1 million, could revitalize West Broadway. But that doesn't go far enough. The way West Broadway needs to be revitalized, the way the spaces need to be filled, must directly address all the civic priorities.

More or less, here are the real citizen priorities:

1) quality of life
2) accessible healthcare
3) jobs, and meaningful work
4) crime prevention
5) freedom & human rights
6) honesty in government
7) responsible businesses and citizens
8) education
9) sustainable, stable, peaceful society
10) ecological sensitivity

West Broadway, I've said before, is not so far from being a kind of "street university". It can go all the way in this direction, with just a little bit of help from the City.

The first things that needs to be created are incubators of actvity, to enable the citizens to gather and work together to work on civic priorities, and thereby draw community interest to the partly empty area downtown.

2) a active community clinic and healthcare action organizing center
3 & 8) street-level showcase-workshop-schools in many different fields
4) social service action teams
5 & 6) independent community media
7) mutual support resources
9) conflict resolution center
9 & 10) ecologically-oriented centers (appropriate technology, reusable products centers, nature awareness centers, etc.)

All of which improve quality of life. Just a fraction of the material implied here would fill West Broadway with self-sustaining activity. It would be essentially a service-center for community life --- well-placed, in the heart of town, in downtown Eugene.

What was on West Broadway, 80 years ago? It might give us a glimpse into the actvities of a downtown that serves its citizens. Also -- just reading this little list makes one think of ideas for West Broadway.

On the Intersection of Willamette & Broadway:

Western Union Telegraph
JC Penny
Hoffman Hotel
Hargreaves & Lindsay (contractors)

Then, heading West:

Borroughs Adding Machine Company 68 W
Mathison Barber Supply 39 W
National Cash Register 43 W
Dunbar T N Co 82 W (tires)
Valley Printing Co 76 W
Ludford's Paint Store 55 W
Caswell's Variety Store 56 W (notions)
Oregon fire relief assn 37 W (insurance)
Emery Insurance Agency 37 W
Art Needlecraft Shop 45 W ("hemstitching business")
SOS Implement & Hdw Co 73 W (hardware store)

Pretty much ending with a large Auto Service complex on Broadway & Olive:

Bettis & Wyatt Super Service Station
Brakel & White Factory Service Station
Auto Lite Authorized Service Station
Bosch Authorized Service Station
Delco Authorized Distributor
Noth East Service Station
Remy Authorized Distributor
Exide Battery Service

Across the street from a General Store:

Haskell Market 904 Olive
"Groceries, Flour, Feed, Hay, Grain, Field and Garden Seeds, Stock & Poultry supplies, Fertilizers of all Kinds"

Data from the 1927 Eugene Telephone directory.

A former Eugene City Councilor wrote me:

... our city administration's involvement precludes a real solution to the downtown's problem. Whether wittingly or unwittingly, they are committed to the big developer approach to "renewing" downtown ... our bureaucracy is not motivated by an interest in reviving the downtown.

The City is pro-construction and anti-people. This is true for City Staff, who try to convince downtown tenants that they do not belong there, and for most City Councilors, who don't like to discuss the 20 or so local businesses they are willing to displace downtown. When they were talking about pressuring landlords to fill the space downtown, to quote one in today's paper:

"Lord knows, the tenants might be worse than the empty buildings," said Councilor Chris Pryor.

I'm sure the tenants would appreciate that. It's the same kind of off-handed prejudice that makes the City Council dislike the bars that light up West Broadway at night, and dismiss busy arts-related projects as being economically unimportant, even though they have vast community support in comparison with a "Gap" or "Bed, Bath & Beyond". Any tenant is better than emptiness. If there's a problem, it can be dealt with, but the sheer desert-like quality of West Broadway during the day is the most important problem to deal with.

Unfortunately, they are still focussed on tearing down buildings, making the place even more of a desert.

New construction is pointless when the spaces are mostly vacant. New construction is supposed to meet demand, and there is none. It's very much the same irrelevant approach the City took towards opening and closing the street ... these things make no difference. What matters are the activities and the people in the area, not the amenities, the buildings, or the streets. Sure these could be improved, but the most important thing is relevant activity, people, organizations, businesses and events, forming a continuous fabric of life in a neighborhood.

I submitted a video to the city on this subject, as a response to an RFQ, so that they had to see it. But they focussed on the parts of the proposal they didn't like (buying and managing buildings, which is optional), and not on the fundamental points (1) no new construction is necessary (except in the vacant lots) and (2) there are actual people and projects in these places (3) if you want to revitalize downtown, support these and other community members to expand activty there.

Nothing is a greater sign that the city is insanely construction-focussed, than the unnecessary New City Hall, which should be stopped in its tracks by petition-initiative before it goes any further. A new City Hall is not a priority to the citizens of Eugene. Healthcare, jobs, education, quality of life -- these are important. It's possible to take take the money planned for City Hall, and fund new activity to completely address these needs, both downtown and throughout Eugene. Instead, they want to throw it away on unnecessary buildings ...

Responses to the RFQ for West Broadway can be found here.

Essentially, the Downtown Eugene Community proposal, which I presented in video form, is more of a human rights statement. Given the other proposals, it needed to be made.

Out of the standard development proposals, the Beam proposal is the most context-sensitive, except for the suggestion to tear down the north side of Broadway ... possibly the most active nightlife area in Eugene.

Essentially, Beam looks like they could rennovate the already-heavily-rennovated Centre Court building, and the empty lot next to it. It would be more efficient not to rennovate, however, if this is done solely with City money. If the City has to pay for it, then rennovation should be avoided, and the Downtown Eugene Community process would be a more efficient expenditure.

The other proposals are unrelated to the context, even KWG's. But KWG should probably still develop their original idea on the half-block between the Tango Center and the Library. If they pay for it.

The other proposals are too insensitive to mention. And terribly unrealistic, given the market here.

The February 9, 2007 deadline for responses to the Downtown Eugene Oregon West Broadway RFQ has passed. There were five responses -- four of the normal kind, urban renewal "tear down and rebuild" proposals. And one that advocates preserving the living activities downtown, enhancing them, and filling in the empty spaces with local business and community activities.

THE FILM IS HERE

Many modern professional services have, buried, deep within their doctrine, the notion that they are doing good. That they fix things. That they are like doctors.

But, for the most part, they do not take the hippocratic oath:

"I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment, and never do harm to anyone."

Let's look at architects, financiers, developers and urban planners.

Certainly the first three groups are available for hire or partnerships. Some try harder to do good than others, of course.

But Urban Planners, and related City staffers, are dedicated to public service, and paid by the public. Certainly they must have a hippocratic oath?

No. If that was true, the vast human destruction of Urban Renewal could not have taken place.

In fact Public Servants are often required to take rather the opposite of the hippocratic oath. They are sworn to duty. To obey. To serve ... those in power. Not people. They can do any harm that their civic leaders, whether elected or otherwise powerful, instruct them to.

A government, even at the local level, is an empire, holding onto territory.

Government officials don't believe that, of course. If they did, the citizens would know it, and there would be a revolution. So, as a matter of natural selection, governments survive when they're perceived, and perceive themselves, as professionals, providing service. This makes the citizenry relax.

Unfortunately, in reality, this perception disconnects government from its citizens. It puts officials in a professional, corporate bubble.

Most importantly, the priorities within the bubble become unrelated to the priorities in people's lives.

The current project for a new City Hall, in downtown Eugene, is a very good example. The project is high on the list if inside-the-bubble priorities, because the offices aren't as nice as the government would like. But the project is at the bottom of the list of people's priorities.

Eugene suffers from high unemployement. It has a large population of poor and marginalized citizens, many highly educated, with no access to healthcare or housing. There's a shortage of public money for education, childcare, local economic development, at-risk-youth etc.

And yet the City has spent $2 million so far planning a new City Hall, even when they're pretty certain that the citizens will not allocate the money to actually build it (between $30 - $100 million). They perceive this problem as lack of understanding on the citizens' part. "We need a new City Hall" officials cry, even though the current one works fine. For $2 million, they could have completely freshened up the existing building. Instead, they bought a plan to tear down this CIty Hall, buy other existing buildings and buinesses, tear them down, dislocate the employees etc.

While it's extremely wasteful to meet the priorities within the bubble, it tends to be quite efficient to spend money on priorities outside of it. Every dollar spent on education, healthcare, local small business and non-profits, directly helps someone, and creates a greater sense of community.

The process is backwards. It would be easy to fix, if officials would simply accept the priorities of the majority as valid. Instead, they seem to think of citizens as somehow under-educated.