In the April 5, 2018, issue of the Eugene Weekly, Eugene resident Archie Hering writes in a letter:
I read Bob Warren’s column (EW, 3/29) with great interest because I too am angry when I see the pit where City Hall stood Like a good Eugenean, he was lucid, reasonable and, most important, correct.
But I don’t feel that Warren was angry enough. Enough is enough, when it’s clear there is more going on than just an inactive city council.
At last year’s Women’s March, the chant was, “This is what democracy looks like,” and then a man in black standing in front of the pit replied, “And this is what local corruption looks like.” It got some laughs, but we shouldn’t be laughing.
Why are there buildings going up all the time at and near the University of Oregon? Why is Amazon Corner going up in South Eugene like a fine Oregon mushroom? Why are there huge apartment complexes finished out West 11th? How did the new police station get built so quickly, despite two special measures that defeated the move away from downtown? And how did Oakway Center build a hotel so quickly?
Yet the city cannot get a very important civic building (City Hall) built, and Civic Stadium is still an eyesore and a joke.
I challenge EW to put its best investigative reporter(s) on this clearly corrupt situation. Is it the all-powerful and smartly quiet City Manager Jon Ruiz, the most powerful person in town? Is it the commercial real estate background of former mayor and near Saint Kitty (Piercy, former mayor)?
Is the ridiculously pro-logging county commission at fault (or is it their judge, with his recent spray decision … but I digress)? Are the downtown homeless — er rather, travelers — to blame? Maybe it’s the ghost of John Musumeci?
What the f— is going on? I really think people want to know!