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q- II -9
<br /> UT NENA LOVINGER believes a solution
<br /> DoT BISHOFF
<br /> isn't that hard to find: "If we could count
<br /> on the city to enforce rules posted in the
<br /> park and count on police to enforce the law, we
<br /> I FIoi ,v d ]O you wouldn't have the problems we've been dealing
<br /> with."
<br /> Lovinger is a former Whiteaker resident who
<br /> helped create Scobert Park with her domestic
<br /> rescue a partner, Bob Emmons, a city park employee.
<br /> park?
<br /> transplanting flowers and shrubs and cleaning
<br /> the place up.
<br /> B ITTERSWEET TIME for Doug Ebbitt: She and Emmons and Ebbitt were among
<br /> One minute he was extolling the beauties some 35 people who showed up Monday night for
<br /> of Scobert Park, another mourning what a meeting of the quasi - official Scobert Park task
<br /> it's become: force. It was a maddening Eugene -style affair, at
<br /> "It is such a treasure, this park. Obviously, it's which people talked for hours without coming
<br /> under a little bit of Beige here, but this is one of within spitting distance of agreement.
<br /> the great things in the city, it really is. When it's When Lovinger made her just- enforce -the-
<br /> in bloom — even when It's not in bloom — it's law statement, city officials at the meeting had
<br /> wonderful." the usual answers. "The reality of the situation is
<br /> It is, even now. A lovely one -plus acre oasis of that police can't be in the park 24 hours a day,"
<br /> green and blooms and big old trees nestled along said Richard Bremer, the community service
<br /> Fourth Avenue — just behind Hilda's Latin officer who directs the Whiteaker Public Safety
<br /> American Restaurant — in the historic Station.
<br /> Whiteaker Neighborhood. Nobody asked the next question: Why not?
<br /> Born in controversy 20 years ago — when the If the situation at Scobert Park is as bad as
<br /> city had to condemn the property to wrest it everyone seems to agree — if let's- make -a -drug-
<br /> from the Scobert family who'd owned it for years deal is the principal park activity, with pooping-
<br /> - the park is again controversial. on- the - plants a close second — why not a heavy
<br /> "I'd hate to see it destroyed," Ebbitt said police presence? Or at least a light one?
<br /> there Tuesday. "But if Not enough cops? Bet the Traffic Team could
<br /> something isn't done, at spare one cop a day for park patrol.
<br /> , some point it will be." The city's traffic fine take might sag slightly,
<br /> The city of Eugene but police are always talking priorities. Doesn't
<br /> _ did something over the park safety rank with traffic safety?
<br /> .. .i \'' weekend: Declared The city already surrendered West
<br /> a 0 Scobert temporarily University Park to indefinite closure last
<br /> . k closed. Then declared November. But park boundaries are where city
<br /> i I it temporarily open officials ought to draw a line and say:
<br /> 1 . I again, while park "Beyond this, we will retreat no more Unsafe
<br /> z,? neighbors and /or parks are a sign of an unsafe city. We will defend
<br /> , ,. ,M ..% i, admirers try to decide them with whatever it takes."
<br /> .. , .;n what the something is And, in truth, defense might not take a 24- • vl. ? that should be done. hour police presence. As Ebbitt noted, when park
<br /> The city reversed protesters showed up at Scobert, drug dealers
<br /> itself after a couple dozen keep - the - park -open and shooters scuttled away.
<br /> people moved in tents and sleeping bags. And So, when the Scobert task force holds another
<br /> after a keep - the -park -open petition arrived at maddening meeting tonight at 7 at Whiteaker
<br /> City Hall. School, it needs to look anew at a suggestion
<br /> "Those folks (the sleep -in crowd, who might from Tom Musselwhite. He's director of Project
<br /> generally — although not pejoratively — be Recover, a program for recovering addicts,
<br /> described as counter - culture) being in the park veterans and homeless, and ran unsuccessfully
<br /> have changed the makeup dramatically," Ebbitt last spring for Whiteaker's City Council seat.
<br /> said. For the better, he meant. Musselwhite wants to put a yurt (in Eugene,
<br /> Before they arrived, he said, "This was the what else ?) at the park's back end, and let up to
<br /> place where you came to buy heroin and shoot four recovering and /or homeless people live in it
<br /> up heroin. It was also occupied by a lot of people free — in exchange for them keeping an eye on
<br /> in here drinking all day. Cars pulled up all day the park and illegal activity at bay. Police would
<br /> long and did heroin deals with people who came be only a cell phone call away.
<br /> out of the park." Yeah, it's an off - the -wall idea. But have you
<br /> And when undesirables weren't drinking or heard anything better, from official sources?
<br /> shooting up, they were trampling ground cover,
<br /> breaking plants and peeing or worse in the To hear a message from Don Bishof, f, or to
<br /> bushes, Ebbitt said. Unfortunately, he could leave a message for him, call GuardLine, 485 -
<br /> watch all this from his house next door. 2000 and enter category 3828.
<br /> It was years of this sort of stuff that led Ebbitt
<br /> and other neighbors to ask the city to
<br /> temporarily close the park so it could recover
<br /> from abuse while they searched for a solution.
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