Businesses React to Willamette St. Plan

Eugene’s Willamette Street.

Local business owners on Eugene’s South Willamette street are reacting to the Eugene City Council’s decision Tuesday night to re-stripe the busy South Eugene street, near Eugene’s Spencer’s Butte. Mayor Kitty Piercy broke the council tie to move the project as businesses react to Willamette St. plan.

Ultimately this should help with the traffic in the South Eugene, even though there is some misque’s and questions to be answered by some local businesses, who feel this isn’t the proper thing to do with Willamette Street. A hot topic among residents and business owners along the stretch of Willamette Street have complained for years that Willamette Street needed a new facelift and restructuring as much of the street has no bicycle lanes and turn lanes to turn safely into businesses along the four-lane street between West 24th Avenue and 32nd street between Willamette and Donald.

With some the opposition saying this isn’t the best solution for the neighborhood, a much more different viable plan and configuration of Willamette Street should be considered, but as the City Council voted earlier this week to move the project forward in a supposedly test configuration of the four-lane street to see how drivers, pedestrians and bicyclists adapt to the new configuration, which will be restriped next year in 2015 and the city will test the new configuration for a year – the plan could work into a permanent fixture after the year without further fanfare or the city could try something else, which is yet to be seen.

Among, those who feel it will doom businesses and traffic along Willamette Street, bicyclists tend to favor the three lane approach, which includes bicycle lanes into the project and drivers tend to favor a more favorable four-lane street in both directions. It is yet to be seen who wins the bet in the next year, win or lose – the project will still likely be the talk of the town.

Without any real changes to South Eugene’s Willamette Street the city could be haunted for years to come without a change to a past mistake.

 

CERT Training as an instructor proves vital

This past weekend, after eighteen hours of training, that began on Friday morning at 9 A.M. sharp at Eugene’s Fire Department Training Facility in Eugene – twenty plus students all veteran CERT Trainers except for two of us myself and a friend from the Sheriff’s Search and Rescue Unit and Commander of Central Aid Agency, all came together as an entire unit of instructors taking FEMA’s Train The Trainer (TTT) Course for the Eugene-Springfield Community Emergency Response Team.

What was interesting was the instructors that taught the class were from Polk County, Oregon, CERT Team just outside of Salem, Oregon. The four, Kimber, Dell, Dave and Wendy all threw their knowledge, experience and awesome instruction on how CERT Trainers should be teaching the basic CERT Training to their students.

We all learned the right and wrongs and what to improve during our training and learned about ourselves along the way, as well..

For some of us, we’ve never taught a CERT class full of students, but we learned in front of our own peers and colleagues along the way – that there was no easy way out, we all had to learn how to trust our own instincts and fears – at the end we actually found out, “we could actually do this!” I said to myself, late Sunday night after getting some much needed sleep from three days of eight to nine hours for a total of 18 hours of classroom lecture and lab work with the two “teach-backs” as they are called – I came out learning from the best that have been traveling the state teaching other CERT Teams around the state of Oregon the same things they were teaching us in Eugene-Springfield CERT.

It could get any better than that. It was awesome and a lot of fun – I’m actually looking forward in teaching those in the community what it’s like to a prepared member of CERT and what they can do to help their communities, neighbors and family in the event of a disaster or emergency.

www.eugenecert.com

www.fema.gov/community-emergency-response-teams

www.eugene-or.gov/index.aspx?NID=255

2011: Another year gone down

  What can we say about the year 2011? Was it another one of those knock off years or was it, one of those really silly crabby cake years, where the beefcake went wild and rampant? Perhaps, its just another one of those dull moments in time, where things are just rampant as they can be?

Politics for sure, was a strange player in 2011. The Republican Party seems to have taken their fight from the Democrats and tore into America along the way – dragging it on its heals verge of collapse. They held a President at bay and cooked up bully tactics to sway the Democrats off course and held a nation hostage.

The Bank and Mortgage crisis took America by storm and failed – before, going overboard in crisis. In the end, nobody won a damn thing in the battle against the big banks and the mortgage companies, they falsified everyone’s documents for their own financial gain and profit & recourse, ultimately – they failed to return America their money that was loaned to them.

Even though, the United States Government had to bail them out on money loans and now, America is finding out they stole taxpayer dollars to finance their own agendas in the long run and still profited from the loan as well – their own executives racked up high paying salaries that outraged not only the consumer, but, also the government, congress and watchdog groups around the world.

They became the greedy, scrooges and “Mr. Potter types” (a character from, the Jimmy Stewart movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life”).

I never really understood 2011 to begin with, but toward the end, when American troops were called home from war, America was brighter, than, she could shine, during the Christmas holidays – just in the nick of time, I must say.

So? What was one of the craziest things to happen in 2011? For starters, I’ll say this – The “Occupy” protests have opened an lot of eyes and ears, but their tactics is just unruly called for and their actions are unjustified. A friend had joined them and he found out they were complete idiots – I sensed the same thing myself.

Eugene’s Occupy group was nothing, but, a core model group, that never really never really went tactical with police, it somehow got the city government involved to support their movement and give them leeway and space. They bitterly or should, I say – the city literally kissed their fanny bottom dollar into stupidity of letting them camp illegally, until one man was killed in a fight at the Washington and Jefferson Street Bridge Park.

The encampment, has since been torn down and the mess is in process of being cleaned up – but, the large formation of protestors hasn’t been seen, since the city stumped down its foot and declared “eviction” from the WJSBP campsite.

Where have they gone? I don’t know? Rumor has it they’ve been taken in by those who support the movement, others say, they moved on to more important things, like join their foes in larger cities with larger movements and more critical tactics.

Several Occupy protestors here recently, stormed a city councilman’s home during the Christmas holiday’s to protest their stupidity of his vote to not let the movement stay at the WSJBP encampment – the police ultimately came in force and took them to jail on a variety of charges.

They were released from jail and have all since plead not guilty, meaning crapoon tactics could hit the courts as well…, swell, if they go to trial over their actions of free speech and whatever else, it could spell a headache for the court and the presiding judge on the case.

The Occupy movement certainly was a strange and brittle movement of 2011 – I’m hoping, it doesn’t continue into 2012 and the protestors move onward to something beneficial and practical in nature, than causing collateral damage to city and state government economies around the country and locally.

It was a banner year for disasters in the Midwest with the tornado outbreaks that shattered many lives along the way and made headlines across the country as well. The state of Texas was in a severe drought year once again and was on the verge of becoming a dust bowl of sorts – a good super soaker from a hurricane could solve the problem in a variety of ways and dredge the state in better times.

The Pac-10 Football Conference ultimately became the Pac-12 Football Conference and added two more schools to the conference of sports as the Oregon Ducks finally make it back to Pasadena and the Rose Bowl with the Big-12 Champs, the Wisconsin Badgers. Who wins the honor of the Rose Bowl is yet to be seen in 2012 on Rose Bowl Game Day.

Guess, I can safely say, “go ducks!” – that’s the spirit of the supporting your local University team.

In closing – I guess after ten years since, September 11th, 2001, America has shined her armor and braved her sacrifice to her military troops, who protected America for what she stood for and what this country built upon among those who created the United States from the British Rule of the 1700’s.

She stood tall and braved her right to be free and what she stood to mean to those looking to start a new life and journey in America. I’ve always admired her bravery and her strength, but, it doesn’t stop me from believing America is always wrong, but, there is a right as well. And, we’re free to say as we wish without restriction and censorship – but, when politics come into play, America has to dwell on her right to free speech for all and who have a say in their own voices and opinions.

This is America and a nation of rejoice. And I still believe in a place called home and a journey called hope – this was the beginning to the end of 2011, we’ll remember her words and the legacy she left behind in the new century.

Occupy Eugene–they blew it!

  So, Occupy Eugene folks interrupted a Eugene City Council Meeting Monday night with a planned Choir – Now, who’s corny idea was this to make a bad impression to the members of the city council, when they had the chance to make a very SERIOUS GOOD CHANCE to make an impression to council members for an extension of their December 15th deadline to vacant the Washington and Jefferson Street Park.

Some Council members left the council chambers has the choir continued to disrupt the city council meeting Monday night. However, council members decided to postpone the vote until Wednesday, December 14th. One councilor proposed an extension of 45 days at the current site, but, it’s unknown how that will fair well with city officials as they have been taken a lot of heat from various city residents about the encampment in the Whitaker Neighborhood.

What is even more interesting is the Eugene Police Department has sent council members a current Police Report of current criminal activity that has been ongoing inside the Occupy camp, as well, according to various local news reports. 

What is “Occupy?”

If you’ve ever been to downtown Eugene near the Washington and Jefferson Street Bridge, you may have noticed a large encampment of “Occupy Eugene Protestors” camping out in the Whitaker Neighborhood Park, near Skinners Butte Park in Eugene.

A friend recently posted on her Facebook wall, that she was disgusted at what she saw as she drove near the park on her recent trip home through downtown Eugene. She was dismayed at the amount of homeless people living and merging with those of the Eugene Occupy protestors. But, what really intrigued me about her post was about the amount of trash she had seen as she drove by the park on West 6th Avenue.

I have yet to see the encampment myself and the situation involved at the Washington and Jefferson Street neighborhood park. As a resident, writer/blogger and member of the Human Rights Accessibility Committee, it makes me wonder why the city of Eugene is allowing these people free reigns of the city’s camping ordinances

We the spectators on the otherside of the fence, often wonder how much money is spent to keep these folks at bay and peace? It was already reported locally on a local news station, that it is already costing the city of Eugene over $100,000 to police the encampment of the Eugene Occupy crowd – it’s a strange movement, but at least they are behaving themselves in the long run, which is good to know.

But, when comes time to tear down the camp under the Washington and Jefferson Street Bridge in downtown Eugene, it could literally get out of hand like the Occupy folks in Portland, Or., and elsewhere where violence has taken the protestors to the streets by storm.

It’s only hopeful that the Eugene crowd would be more mellower than that and head the advice of the city to disperse quietly and peacefully. But, many predict, it can become an ugly entanglement between protestors and police – literally a dangerous combination between the to factions. Still not a good premise for a storyline if you ask me.

Washington and Jefferson Neighborhood isn’t prepared for such a fiasco and fight between the two parties – the city and the protestors. Many with memories still fresh in their minds from the Broadway Street and Charnelton protest for the 1990’s after tree setters faced off with police, merited in some strange tactics which called the differences between two escalated into a pepper spray melee between police, protestors and members of the media.

Strange as it can be – this one strange century to begin with in the twenty-first century and reminder, that political avenues are are still a way of life with those who protest and those who claim their using free speech – it’s just the opposite if you ask me, point blank.