|
– 1/ !Co
<br /> UT NENA LOVINGER believes a solution
<br /> Hoi1t dO isn't that hard to find: "If we could count
<br /> o / , on the city to enforce rules posted in the
<br /> `/`• park and count on police to enforce the law, we
<br /> wouldn't have the problems we've been dealing
<br /> rescue a par with."
<br /> Lovinger is a former Whiteaker resident who
<br /> helped create Scobert Park with her domestic
<br /> partner, Bob Emmons, a city park employee.
<br /> I ITTERSWEET TIME for Doug Ebbitt: They spent thousands of volunteer hours
<br /> j �-�{ One minute he was extolling the beauties transplanting flowers and shrubs and cleaning
<br /> of Scobert Park, another mourning what the place up.
<br /> it's become: She and Emmons and Ebbitt were among
<br /> It is such a treasure, this park. Obviously, it's some 35 people who showed up Monday night for
<br /> under a little bit of seige here, but this is one of a meeting of the quasi -official Scobert Park task
<br /> the great things in the city, it really is. When it's force. It was a maddening Eugene-style affair, at
<br /> in bloom — even when it's not in bloom — it's which people talked for hours without coming
<br /> wonderful." within spitting distance of agreement.
<br /> It is, even now. A lovely one -plus acre oasis of When Lovinger made her just -enforce -the-
<br /> green and blooms and big old trees nestled along law statement, city officials at the meeting had
<br /> Fourth Avenue — just behind Hilda's Latin the usual answers. "The reality of the situation is
<br /> American Restaurant — in the historic that police can't be In the park 24 hours a day,"
<br /> Whiteaker Neighborhood. said Richard Bremer, the community service
<br /> Born in controversy 20 years ago — when the officer who directs the Whiteaker Public Safety
<br /> city had to condemn the property to wrest it Station.
<br /> from the Scobert family who'd owned it for years Nobody asked the next question: Why not?
<br /> — the park is again controversial. If the situation at Scobert Park is as bad as
<br /> "['d hate to see it destroyed," Ebbitt said
<br /> everyone seems to agree — if let's- make- a -drug-
<br /> es
<br /> there Tuesday. "But if deal is the principal park activity, with pooping-
<br /> •
<br /> something isn't done, at on- the - plants a close second — why not a heavy
<br /> :1;� some point it will be."
<br /> police presence? Or at least a light one?
<br /> t The city of Eugene Not enough cops? Bet the Traffic Team could
<br /> .= ; - _ s .. did something over the spare one cop a day for park patrol.
<br /> t ,7 :4;W. weekend: Declared The city's traffic fine take might sag slightly,
<br /> A t.1:4 _�. '- Scobert temporarily
<br /> but police are always talking priorities. Doesn't
<br /> . - # ``q closed. Then declared park safety rank with traffic safety?
<br /> 4 w - .°.. .. it temporarily open The city already surrendered West
<br /> j: 41 again, while park University Park to indefinite closure last •
<br /> c i l neighbors and /or
<br /> November. But park boundaries are where city
<br /> admirers to decide officials ought to draw a line and say:
<br /> h , i what the something is "Beyond this, we will retreat no more. Unsafe
<br /> that should be done. parks are a sign of an unsafe city. We will defend
<br /> The city reversed them with whatever it takes."
<br /> itself after a couple dozen keep - the - park -open i And, in truth, defense might not take a 24-
<br /> people moved in tents and sleeping bags. And % hour police presence. As Ebbitt noted, when park
<br /> after a keep - the - park -open petition arrived at protesters showed up at Scobert, drug dealers
<br /> City Hall. and shooters scuttled away.
<br /> "Those folks (the sleep -in crowd, who might So, when the Scobert task force holds another
<br /> generally — although not pejoratively — be i maddening meeting tonight at 7 at Whiteaker
<br /> described as counter - culture) being in the park School, it needs to look anew at a suggestion
<br /> have changed the makeup dramatically," Ebbitt from Tom Musselwhite. He's director of Project
<br /> said. For the better, he meant. Recover, a program for recovering addicts,
<br /> Before they arrived, he said, "This was the veterans and homeless, and ran unsuccessfully
<br /> place where you came to buy heroin and shoot last spring for Whiteaker 's City Council seat
<br /> up heroin. It was also occupied by a lot of people Musselwhite wants to put a yurt (in Eugene,
<br /> in here drinking all day. Cars pulled up all day what else ?) at the park's back end, and let up to
<br /> long and did heroin deals with people who came four recovering and /or homeless people live in it
<br /> out of the park." free — in exchange for them keeping an eye on
<br /> And when undesirables weren't drinking or the park and illegal activity at bay. Police would
<br /> shooting up, they were trampling ground cover, be only a cell phone call away.
<br /> breaking plants and peeing or worse in the Yeah, it's an off-the-wall idea. But have you
<br /> bushes, Ebbitt said. Unfortunately, he could heard anything better, from official sources?
<br /> watch all this from his house next door. To hear a message from Don Bishoff, or to
<br /> It was years of this sort of stuff that led Ebbitt
<br /> and other neighbors to ask the city to leave a message for him, call GuardLine, 485 -
<br /> temporarily close the park so it could recover 2000 and enter category 3828.
<br /> from abuse while they searched for a solution. CAMMINingiffaig
<br /> ,Y
<br />
|