VIEW

Date: Aug. 5, 2008

Yes it is true-! With the efforts of neighbors, citizens, Eugene City Council, Mayor Kitty Piercy and our new City Manger Mr. Ruiz the Green parcel was purchased for 1.6 million on August 1st 2008. I can hardly believe it but Betty Taylor just confirmed it with me. THANK YOU ALL FOR ALL YOU CONTRIBUTED. This is great news and makes saving the Beverly parcel even more hopeful.

May the forest be with us,

For the most current information, please click here

Date: April. 18, 2007
  Subject: Eugene City Council passes motion to start eminent domain for Amazon Headwaters

Dear Friends and Neighbors,
Just after 12:30pm today, during the regular Eugene City Council noon worksession, and after substantial discussion, the council approved a motion by Councilor Taylor directing the city manager to start the process to use eminent domain for acquisition of two key natural parcels in the Amazon Headwaters. The vote was 'four-plus-one' in favor.

The next big step in this historic process toward protecting the Amazon Creek Headwaters East Fork Forest (Joe Green property) and the Amazon Creek Headwaters Keystone (Beverly property) will be a public hearing on the special ordinance required to authorize park-acquistion eminent domain. Our current impression is that this hearing will be held on or around May 21, 2007.

*** Please mark your calendar, and stay tuned for details! ***

A white paper by Southeast Neighbors summarizing the unique case for eminent domain for these rare remaining pristine pieces of the Amazon Creek Headwaters is available online at:

http://www.southeastneighbors.org/files/
Amazon_Headwaters_White_Paper_20070416.pdf

More than three generations of activists have worked long, long, and hard to save these beautiful, fragile parts of Eugene's primary watershed, pouring hours, hearts, souls, and pocketbooks into the process. Today we moved one big step closer.

Date: Feb. 9, 2007
  Subject: Green Valley Glen PUD DENIED-!

It looks like from my brief scan through this 52 page document the reasons are their 180 day clock and the completeness of their application was a problem --and you can read that on the first page of the H.O. report-- also the fact that they did not do the appropriate geotechnical work ahead of time; they did not have a clear plan. Page 45 is her conclusions if you want to cut to the chase. Happy reading.

Green Valley Glen PUD.pdf (4 MB PDF)

Date: Sept. 4, 2006

Greetings to all,

It has been a while. My apologies for allowing such a long time to lapse between updates to this site. It isn�t that I have not been thinking about the web site, but that I have been so busy following the developers with their plans and preparing for the Dillard Heights PUD Public Hearing. For those of you that have not heard of Dillard Heights, it is a finger-shaped, 7.5-acre parcel just past Hunters Glen and is bordered by the first and second switchback on Dillard Road. It is not far from the 40-acre East Fork Headwaters Forest and it drains into the East Fork�s protected Goal 5 stream corridor. Richard McDougal is the owner/developer and in his employment are Consulting Engineers Olsen & Morris and Civil Engineers K & A. Their plans call for 32 houses.

The public hearing was 8/23/06 and was held in Council Chambers. There was, as we expected, a large turnout of citizens opposing the PUD. The hearing went very well and our testimony was impressive and compelling. I think that we really took them by surprise. The two big issues at hearing were soil stability and storm drain. Gunnar Schlieder, our Engineering Geologist, and Al Johnson, our Hydrologist, prepared reports that took the wind out of their sails. The developers asked to keep the record open. The Hearings Official reluctantly granted them a 7-day extension and lectured them on the fact that they had used up all of the 245 days worth of extensions and that they were putting him, the Hearings Official, in a difficult position as well as, possibly, the City of Eugene. They had until 8/30/06 to come up with their response to our testimony; we have until 9/6/06 to respond to their rebuttal arguments. We are currently diligently preparing our counter-arguments.

Joe Green's attorney, Mark Hoyt, was there taking notes and he gave testimony, neither for nor against, expressing concerns regarding storm drain run-off that would flow through the Green parcel. I feel that we did a very good job at the hearing and we will need to do an even better job on the Green PUD as I think that they are a lot sharper than the Dillard Heights crew.

On 8/5/06 Joe Green turned in what was supposed to be all of his final revisions for his PUD; however, the day after the Dillard Heights Public Hearing he asked for another two-week extension. My guess is that they want to look more deeply into the geology and hydrology issues of their plans. It is unfortunate that Dillard Heights PUD had to come before the Green PUD, as it obviously gave Green some ideas of what we are up to, but not all of our ideas.

This is a costly process and everything leading up to and including the Dillard Heights public hearing cost us somewhere in the neighborhood of $4000.00. Thank you to those that have contributed donations that have made this all possible. After paying for Dillard Heights we will have left in our budget around $4500.00. We will need to raise money to replace what was spent so far. The Green PUD is likely be double the cost of Dillard Heights as it is much larger and they are going to be heavier contenders. Remember that all donations are tax deductible. Checks should be made out to Friends of Eugene, as they are our fiscal sponsor. Thanks to all who showed up at the public hearing and to all who continue to support this critically important cause.

Save our forests and protect our watershed.
Lisa Warnes,
VIEW

Date: March 3, 2006
  Subject: Please send a petition.

Please take time to send a copy of the formatted petition to the Eugene City Council. Click here to view the petition.

Date: January 22, 2006
  Subject: Cozmic Benefit Success

Greetings,

The benefit at Cozmic Pizza went very well. The music was really great!! The musicians and the sound person did a fantastic job. Lots of pizza and dancing, I think that everyone had a great time. We brought in $1000.00 at the door and an additional $330.00 from the silent auction. It was interesting watching the biding wars. Betty Taylor was there for a little while, until the the music got a bit loud and blew her out the door. For the most part people were very interested in the cause, looking through the information that we provided and discussing the subject. Thank you all so much for helping and contributing to an evening of fun and success.

As I stated in my last email there is some interest from council in an '06 General Obligation Bond ( GOB ) for open space and minimally developed parks. I spoke with David Kelly this morning. He told me that he thought that some of the council would support a narrow bond measure, meaning small. He mentioned Bonny Bettman being concerned about hitting up the tax payers in '06 for too much money, as she wants to make sure that the tax payers are not too tapped out so that we ( the tax payers ) can afford to fund the '08 giant bond measure that would pay for a new City Hall.

I am sitting here asking myself, why in the world would we ( the tax payers ) vote for a giant bond measure in '08 for a new City Hall if City Hall is turning their backs on helping us ( the tax paying citizens ) with protecting our safety and quality of life through the preservation of our watershed. They need to be doing everything they can to keep houses off these steep slopes and out of the headwaters. I also spoke with Betty Taylor this afternoon and she told me that it is the Citizens of South Eugene vote in favor of most off the bond measures. It seems to me council needs to be reminded of this in a big way. We need to flood our Mayor and City Council with letters about not being conservative with the '06 GOB for parks. I think they need to play nice if they want want a new house, don't you think?

Here are the addresses of council member that would actually listen :

Up-coming council meetings that concern our plight :

Monday ( tomorrow ) - 1/23/06, 5:30 McNutt RM / Work session on stream corridor acquisition

Monday - 2/13/06, 5:30 McNutt RM / Parks Recreation & Open Space Inventory -- We need to write them about this as well. Adding EFAH Forest and the Beverly property to this inventory.

If you need help with letter writing, please contact me.

Lisa

P.S

Another point - Council is discussing using their power of Eminent Domain on some buildings downtown so that some developers can get these buildings, as the owners don't want to sell. You have likely read this in the paper. Something is very wrong if the city uses their power of Eminent Domain for this, which is clearly for the enrichment of private interests ( the developers ) and not use Eminent Domain on the propertyin steep forested headwater lands, which is clearly for the good of the public with its safety and water quality issues. I think that we need to tell our officials that they need to represent us, the tax paying citizens and stop selling out to in and out of town developers. Letting developers destroy our forested headwaters is definitely for the enrichment of private interest.

Date: January 19, 2006
  Subject: VIEW meeting

Greeting,

The meeting tonight was lively, as we had much to talk about. Nothing new to report on the Green PUD. They still have not turned in any thing else, and the clock is ticking. They have until March 26th to get everything into the Planning Department. If they miss that date they would have to re-file. The cost to file is around $12,000. We have a VIEW flyer ready for the benefit, Saturday night, 7:30 (1/21/06 ) at Cozmic Pizza, hope to see everyone there. We are writing grant proposals for funds. The web site is proving to be beneficial. We received a check from the Sheffield Foundation in Ithaca NY for $500.00. Today I was contacted by the Phileo Foundation in Portland. The gentleman that I spoke with told me that our cause is an important and necessary one and that I should write a grant proposal to Phileo and ask for $5000.00. So I will.

Other news, there is interest from some members of city council to have an '06 General Obligation Bond for acquisition of land for open space and minimally developed parks. Our lobby committee has started dialogue with city council to get the East Fork Amazon Forest and the Amazon Keystone (Beverly Property) in that inventory. Council will meet on this February 13th. I am not sure what time, but I will find out. I will keep you all posted, as public and written testimony will be needed to show support.

NEWS FLASH-!!

There is a PUD that has already been submitted to the Planning Department. It is called Dillard Heights, located on Dillard RD just passed Hunters Glen, right around the horseshoe turn, southeast and uphill from our beloved East Fork Amazon Forest. It is a7.5 acre, finger shaped parcel with Dillard RD wrapping around it on three sides. The developer is Snow Mountain Resources out of Creswell. They are proposing 33, 3- story houses, moderate to high income. The plan will log out most of the trees and vegetation. The public hearing is February 8th, written testimony needs to be in by January 31Th if you want it in the Hearings Officials packet. I believe that having written testimony in the HO's packet is critical to the success of defeating a PUD. Believe me, we want to defeat this one, as it is not only a dangerous place to build houses, but it is the upper end of the East Fork Amazon Headwaters, OH AND BY THE WAY, there was a landslide on the lower end of the Dillard Heights property, near the Joe Green parcel during the recent down pour on Tuesday 1/17/06.
I have a full set of plans for the Dillard Heights PUD for viewing. Contact me it you would like to join me and the South East Neighbors in defeating this PUD.
~ Lisa

Date: January 7, 2006
  Subject: Party with a Purpose!
  Flyer Release to the public

Join us for this �Save the East Fork Amazon Headwaters Forest� Benefit Concert and Silent Auction

Featuring:
  Matt Butler Acoustic strings (7:30)
  Kudana Eugene�s Finest Marimba: (8:30)
  Disco Organica Great dance music! (10:00)

When: Saturday, January 21st, 2006 at 7:00pm
Where: Cozmic Pizza (8th and Charnelton, Eugene)
Cover: $5.00-$20.00 (Sliding Scale) donation to VIEW
What: A benefit for VIEW

VIEW (Visions for Intact Eco-Systems and Watersheds) VIEW is a Eugene-based group dedicated to the protection and preservation of wildlife habitat, natural resources and watersheds within Eugene City Limits. Currently, VIEW is working to save the East Fork Amazon Headwaters Forest.

Click below to download the flyer. Please print it and distribute freely.
   COzmic.doc
   flyer.jpg

Date: December 28, 2005
  Subject: South hills growth adds traffic
  Printed in The Register-Guard, Letters in the Editor's Mailbag

Southeast Eugene housing developments in progress or under consideration could add nearly 2,500 to 2,900 new car trips to Amazon Drive and Hilyard Street every day. Eugene traffic management tells us that one house equals 10 daily car trips.

The Green Valley Glen development alone proposes to build 110 houses on 40 acres between Nectar Way and Dillard Road. This land contains the East Fork Headwaters of Amazon Creek and is one of the last pristine forests left in the Eugene city limits.

Other southeast housing developments either in progress or under consideration are Spring Knoll, with 29 new houses, located near 43rd Avenue and North Shasta Loop (application is approved, building not yet started); Hidden Meadows, with 30 new houses, located just past Hunters Glen off Dillard Road, and alongside the Ridgeline Trail (building is under way); and Deerbrook, which could be 70 to 125 new houses on the Beverly property at the end of West Amazon at Martin Street (project is in the preplanning phase).

Consider how bad the traffic is now on Hilyard at East and West Amazon, 30th Avenue and bottlenecked on down to 24th Avenue during peak hours. Now add all the cars that would be coming and going to and from the new houses. Traffic that spills over to the side streets will certainly increase as well.

To learn more or to get involved in the future of the southeast hills, contact Vision for Intact Ecosystems & Watershed at lisawarnes@efn.org
LISA WARNES
Eugene

Date: November 10, 2005
  Subject: DESTRUCTIVE PLAN
  Printed in Eugene Weekly, Letters to the Editor

As representative of the Vision for Intact Ecosystems & Watersheds, I would like to respond to the comments made by Mark Hoyt, developer Joe Green's attorney (10/27 news, "Going, Going ...").

Hoyt speaks of change being hard and the property being zoned R-1. Change may be hard, but the destruction of a beautiful, pristine forest loaded with many natural amenities is heartbreaking.

This parcel was zoned R-1 back in the '40s, when there was not much careful planning or forethought given to zoning. Basically it was a matter of drawing lines on maps. If a parcel of land contained beds of quicksand, but was zoned R-1, wouldn't it be a bad idea to build houses on that land?

As far as our protest being unwarranted, if Mr. Hoyt was not an attorney who lives in Salem working for a Portland developer, but rather an environmentally concerned citizen of Eugene, he might see that not only is this protest warranted, it is critical for the survival of what makes Eugene a special and desirable place to live.

Putting 110 homes on this parcel with its steep slopes, rare plant and sensitive animal habitat, stream corridors, wetlands and grand fir stands is simply not the "environmentally responsible approach" he claims it is. A truly environmentally sound approach would be to put 10 to 20 homes at most on this site.

East Fork Amazon Headwater Preservation Society (EFAHPS) [now VIEW] still maintains: no development! Please visit our web site at www.efn.org/~ksl and join us in saving this forest for natural open space.

Date: November 3, 2005
  Kera Abraham article in Eugene Weekly,
  "Playing the Cards"

"This was not a high-priority acquisition for us," [Medlin] added. "Doing an acquisition just because a site has rare and endangered species, that's not been our business mandate." [Includes a complete historical timeline for the property.] Read more...

Date: October 27, 2005
  Kera Abraham article in Eugene Weekly,
  "Going, Going..."

"Is the city turning back on its pledge to protect the south hills forests?" Read more...

Date: October 13, 2005
  Subject: SPECIAL CREEK
  Printed in Eugene Weekly, Letters to the Editor

I appreciate the environmental coverage in your newspaper. I would like to read more about the South Park Development at the Amazon headwaters.

This creek is so special to me, my heart is torn out every time the area is scheduled for development. All the bicycle trails along it and the wetlands farther west would receive degraded water if housing replaces wildlife there.

The recent article on this topic neglected an important plant species found only in the woods there: The way-side aster, Aster vialis. Once thought extinct in the wild it was found in south Eugene some years back. I believe this is the only Willamette Valley population. Other special plants live there too. I too saw pileated woodpecker there as well as the most bountiful, beautiful, and splendid masses of the fawn lily, Erythronium sp., ever!

I think the city of Eugene or some other concerned group should purchase this wildlife area.

Brian J. Dykstra,
Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado

Date: September 27, 2005
  Subject: City Council meeting

Greetings, Last night's city council meeting took what little faith I had in left our elected officials and tossed it right out of the window. The motion for the temporary moratorium that Betty Taylor was going to bring up at the Goal 5 Hearing was actually done in a previous work session before the Goal 5 Hearing. We knew nothing of this change. It happened at the last minute, we were told under the direction of Mayor Piercy. The motion was defeated 7 to 1 with Betty in support. I am not as upset with the outcome as with the process. This was a blatant disregard to public input and the democratic process. At any rate, there was a great turnout and people not planning to give testimony rose to the occasion and spoke up. They were wonderful. Thanks to all of you brave speakers.

Joe Green turned in the application for his PUD yesterday. I went to the Planning Department today and picked up the plans and made copies. They show 110 homes. YIKES! I will be showing the plans tomorrow night around 7PM. Come by my house and have a look (5020 Nectar). For those that can't make it tomorrow, we will host plan reviews again in the near future. The yard sale was pretty successful. Between sales and donations we raised $910.00, not bad. Thank you all for your help and support. You are a great bunch of people and I am proud to share the neighborhood with you.

Lisa

Date: September 21, 2005
  Subject: Emergency Protection for High-Value Natural Resource Lands (EFAHP)

Greetings, Betty Taylor will be taking a motion to Monday night's council meeting. This motion will ask council to impose a temporary moratorium on development applications on properties with a natural resource rating of 66 or greater that are in the Goal 5 Study. Following is a letter Eben wrote to council to get this thing off the ground. The letter will offer you some background on this matter and I would be happy to answer any questions. We have the support of Betty Taylor, David Kelly and Bonnie Bettman. We need to lobby Chris Pryor, Andrea Ortiz and Kitty Piercy. The others will be flat out against the idea. This is one of those very important times to get involved and voice your opinion. We need you to email our three possible supporters and encourage them to vote "yes" on this motion. We also need you to show up Monday night, September 26, Council Chambers, 777 Pearl Street. WE NEED VERBAL TESTIMONY! I'd be happy to coach anyone that would like to participate. Sign up for testimony is 7:15, meeting starts at 7:30. Let's be a community and be heard--be there!

Lisa

Date: September 20, 2005
  "Emergency Protection for High-Value Natural Resource   Lands" From: "Eben Fodor" To: "Mayor and City Council"

"In order to make the Natural Resources Plan a meaningful process, we need a temporary emergency suspension of land use applications on the highest value sites that have already been identified in the NR Inventory." Read more...

Date: September 16, 2005
  Subject: EFAHP Yard Sale

Greetings, We will be holding the yard sale on Sunday, September 25th, from 10:00 to 4:00. We still have some things from the last sale, but must add to what we have! Bring donations to Liz's, 5015 Nectar Way , where we will hold the sale. We need someone to put up some signs the night before or early Sunday morning. I have arranged an add in the Register Guard. We also need people to come over Saturday to sort and price. Sunday we will need folks to help set up, say around 8 AM, yikes! I have good reason to believe that Joe Green will be filing for a PUD next week. The big moment we have all been dreading, yet gearing up for. I have been lobbying council to declare an emergency suspension on the application process, so that we can play out our most recent strategies. Not sure I am getting any where with them. I believe they need to hear from a larger group. So take some time to share your thoughts with our councilors and mayor.

Thanks to everyone,
Lisa

Date: September 5, 2005
  Subject: Forest Update

Greetings, Many things have been going on behind the scenes. We hired Biologist Ethen Perkins and associate Jim Reed to survey the property for Aster Vialis and Tall Bugbane. They found both. They photographed the plants and are putting together GPS (global position survey) mapping. This mapping is important to our case, as well as the documentation of the Red Legged Frog and the Pileated Woodpecker. This GPS mapping will cost us around $900.00 in addition to the funds we have raised for Eben Fodor and Jan Wilson. We have around $1700.00 left in our budget. After paying for the GPS mapping and fees to Eben for last month, we will be broke. We have raised around $4820.00 since last November through donations and the yard sale. This money was spent on research, legal representation, expert consultation, literature from the city, printing and rental space for meetings. We are building solid ground work for fighting a PUD. Joe Green has not filed an application yet, however he has had a pre-development meeting with the City Planning Department. We took copies of these concept plans door to door. If you didn't get one let me know. As soon as Green turns in an application to be reviewed for completeness it becomes public record. I have been checking in with the Planning Department on a regular basis. On other fronts we have met with City Councilor Chris Pryor and are negociating having both EFAH and the Beverly Property added to the PROS Plan Inventory (Parks Recreation and Openspace). This move is important if we want to get these properties on the "06" bond measure for acquistion. At the last SEN board meeting we did a head nod vote to collaberate our energy for the preservation of both EFAH and the Beverly Property. We will be needing to do more fund raising to support this effort. I was thinking of hosting another yard sale on the weekend of Sept.24th or 25th, just one of those days, but not sure which yet, I'll get back to you on that. If you wish to make a TAX DEDUCTABLE, cash donation, please make checks out to LCAS (Lane County Audubon Society)[Updated: please see the VIEW homepage for donation information]. All donation will still funnel through me and I will get them into our LCAS account. We are still talking to Trust for Public Land and the Forest Legacy people. More on that as it progesses. Thanks for all of you help and support.

Lisa

Date: August 28, 2005
  Kera Abraham article in Eugene Weekly,
  "FROGGIE FOUND IN NECTAR WAY"

"Developer Joe Green then offered $325,000, but the city wouldn't go higher. 'I would have sold it to the city for $326,000!' Katul says."
Read more...

Date: August 17, 2005
  Subject: RE: Photos of Red-Legged Frog
   and Pileated Woodpecker

"I am fairly certain that the woodpecker (99%) is a Pileated and I'm positive that the frog is a Red-legged. Let me know if you have any other questions."

Jeff Ziller

http://www.efn.org/~ksl/ziller1.html

Passed City Council July 18, 2005
  Subject: Motion from Betty Taylor

I move to direct the City Manager to
     (a) negotiate a purchase price for the Joe Green property Nectar/Dillard
     (b) contact the neighborhood as to the willingness of residents in the neighborhood or other groups to contribute funds for the purchase and the amount of such contributions, and then
     (c) bring the matter back to the council for discussion of sources for the balance of funds necessary for the acquisition.

Date: May 16, 2005
   Subject: Nectar Way site

From: Bruce Newhouse To: LIsa Warnes , Dave Predeek, David Atkin

Greetings, Lisa and Dave!

Introductions:
Lisa Warnes is a neighborhood activist in SE Eugene, working to prevent or modify planned development of a currently-vacant parcel. Dave Predeek is the president of the Emerald Chapter of the Native Plant Society of Oregon. David Atkin is an attorney for many nonprofit organizations, many of which form to take on a neighborhood or regional natural resources protection issue (such as the subject of this e-mail).

Lisa, I suggest that you ask Dave for 5-10 minutes of time on next Monday evening's NPSO agenda at the beginning of the meeting at 7:30 -- IF you have a request of NPSO (chapter board and/or members), and can suggest ways to get involved. (Send letters, testify, send money, etc.)

Dave, If Lisa requests it, I suggest that you grant it, as her issue is important.

Lisa, I suggest that you contact David if you would like to pursue forming a neighborhood or regional nonprofit to take on preservation of the site.

Below are a few notes I just sent to Lisa about this parcel. I visited it on Friday. It is probably the best S. Hills site I have ever seen, and it apparently is slated for development. We had a presentation at NPSO a few months ago from the Madison Meadow preservation folks, and while a noble effort, their 2 acre site was entirely non-native vegetation except for one small madrone tree, as I recall from my site visit there. There was nothing present for NPSO members to get excited about, except maybe restoration--but restoration was necessarily not the goal of the group. (Also, the presenter took quite a bit more time than she was allotted, which was not fair to the evening presenter nor the audience.)

This site, east of Nectar Way and west of Dillard, is quite different from Madison Meadow. It is much larger, and has some very high quality natural assets. (It also has some very serious invasive weed threats.) If full surveys were done, there undoubtedly would be other assets discovered. My notes below are from a 3 hour visit to the site, and I covered only 10-20% or so of the ground area. Ideally, it should be surveyed (fully) at least 2 times during the growing season. Lisa, I also suggest that you contact David to discuss the potential benefits of forming a nonprofit corporation for this cause.

Thanks, everyone!
Bruce

Date: April 6, 2005
  Subject: Forest Update

Greetings,

Our March 31st meeting had a pretty fair turnout--about thirty people showed up. We discussed the PUD (Planned Unit Development) process, the city council resolution and we voted nearly unanimously to hire Eben Fodor, a land use and planning consultant to help us with fighting the PUD. Eben was involved in the denial of the South Park (Beverly property) PUD. We also recruited some help from some of the neighbors. Alice Pueschner will be phoning for pledges to support our effort. We will need around $2,000 more than we have in our budget. We have raised to date $1995 with expenses so far at $947.37, leaving us with a balance of $1047.43. Fighting the PUD will likely cost from $3000-3500. On the city council resolution--Betty Taylor asked the city manager for a work session. On Thursday (4/7/05) each councilor will receive a packet which will contain the language of the resolution which is: "I move to direct the city manager to aggressively pursue all means within the legal powers of the city to protect and permanently preserve the 39-acre Nectar-Dillard parcel as natural open space including public acquisition at a fair price. Public acquisition of the parcel is important due to its high natural resource value, and the likely near-term development of the property if public acquisition does not occur."

All council members will be polled on whether or not to have this session. They have 10 days to respond. I have had communication with all councilors, except Pape, Poling and Solomon on this. Kelly, Taylor, Pryor and Bettman are solid supporters. Ortiz has said she would support this, however she also supports getting more parks in north Eugene, so she could be influenced by Pape who told me Tuesday that until the balance of parks in north Eugene matches south Eugene a work session is (and I quote) " a waste of time." Pape will try to sway council members with his tired argument of acres of parks per person in north and south Eugene. Although there may be more acres of Parks and Open Spaces in south Eugene than in north Eugene, and while we support north Eugene getting more parks, to compare developed parks with pristine forest with headwaters on steep slopes is like comparing apples to oranges. This 39.9 acre parcel is a unique and irreplaceable asset for the entire community of Eugene and the surrounding areas. A work session would be a perfect opportunity for council members to get clear on the issues involved, such as watershed, wildlife habitat, likely threatened species, connection to the Ridgeline Trail, and old growth trees. So emails to Kelly, Taylor, Pryor and Bettman thanking them for supporting this session and to Ortiz asking her to support this session would be helpful. Mayor Piercy does not get polled but will vote in case of a tie, so letting her know we want her to vote for the session if a tie occurs would also help.

Ward 1: ;
Ward 2: ;
Ward 3: ;
Ward 7: ;
Ward 8: ;
Mayor Piercy:

Thanks to all,
Lisa and Kathleen

Date: February 5, 2005
  Lisa Warnes and Kathleen Leonard,
  West by Northwest.org Online Magazine
  "Worth More Than Money"

"It seems the city dropped the ball when they had a chance to purchase this land at a reasonable price from a willing seller." Read more...

Date: January 13, 2005
  Subject: Forest Update

Dear Neighbors, We are very excited to have had such a BIG group of neighbors show up for Monday's City Council Meeting! About 20 of us took time out of our busy lives to stand up for our neighborhood, and 10 of us had the courage to speak out about why it is important to us to save our forest. In addition to our personal testimonies, we submitted a detailed memo describing past and current issues concerning the land, as well as beautiful color photos which brought the issue to life. We really delivered our message loudly and clearly. Afterwards, our City Council member, Betty Taylor, suggested that the city should CONDEMN our property! This is a great idea that we are currently researching further, since in condemnation, the courts set a fair price, and then the developer MUST sell the land to the city for preservation.

The best action that you can take right now is to send a personal email to the Mayor, City Manager, and City Council members (see address links below), giving your own message about why it is important to preserve this land. For example, you could speak about rare plant and animal species, the Amazon creek watershed, the wetlands, the old growth trees, the dangers of building on the slopes and ravines, problems with erosion and stormwater, the beauty of nature, increased traffic concerns, or any other issue of personal or community relevance. YOUR INPUT MATTERS! Speak out and make a difference! The more we are active in making our needs and issues known, the more likely we will SUCCEED and preserve this precious land.

Thank you all for staying involved and active. We can do this!
Anita Glantz

Date: January 7, 2005
  Subject: Forest Update

Dear Neighbors, We want to thank you sincerely for all of your interest, knowledge, support, and generous donations, as we work together to preserve our neighborhood forest in the face of imminent development. So far, we are aware that Joe Green’s surveyors are close to being finished with wetlands determination and natural features assessments. He has not submitted any information to the state as yet, and has indicated that he will have a plan to submit toEugeneplanning and development by mid to late Spring. Green intends to submit his proposal before the finalization of Goal 5, with its increased environmental protections, which is scheduled for this July. Lisa Warnes is in contact with Lori Warner at the State Land Department to receive any further updates.

Our environmental biologist has completed a preliminary report, which we are reviewing to decide our next course of action. In the meantime, if anyone has found, or knows anyone who has found, any arrowheads or other Native American artifacts on the forest property, please let us know as soon as possible.

IMPORTANT REMINDER:
This Monday, January 10th, at7:15 p.m.sharp, please join us at the Eugene City Council meeting at777 Pearl Street. Some of us are meeting at Lisa’s house, at 6:45 p.m. to strategize and carpool. You are invited to come and show your support for preserving our forest – the more people the better! – and optionally to share 3 minutes (or less) of personal testimony (why the land is important to you, why building a subdivision on this land is a bad idea, etc.). Please, please come and stand up publicly for what is important to you! If we get a large showing of people, including many speaking knowledgeably and passionately about this issue, we are much more likely to be taken seriously and our needs addressed by the new mayor and council. See you there!
Any questions? Call Lisa or reply to this email. Thank you!
Anita Glantz

Date: September 30, 2004
  Kera Abraham article in Eugene Weekly,
  "FORESTED PLOT'S FATE UNCERTAIN"

"Preliminary discussions about development include building new roads and more than 100 houses." Read more...

Date: August 18, 2004
  Kera Abraham article in Eugene Weekly
  "BUILDER WON'T SELL FOREST"

"If the city's effort to purchase the plot fails, Green is likely to pursue his preliminary plan to construct 105 to 111 new houses on the property." Read more...