Downtown Eugene


Friday, June 29, 2007

Press release: CPA Meeting July 9

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


Friday, June 15, 2007

No dilemma

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.