City ban on cage fighting considered.

Byline: Edward Russo The Register-Guard

Despicable. Brutal. Repugnant. Barbaric.

That's what the Eugene City Council on Monday had to say about the violent sport of cage fighting. Now, councilors want to know whether residents think the city should ban or regulate the virtually no-holds-barred contests that have taken place at the Lane Events Center. The council agreed to advance a proposed ban on cage fighting to a public hearing at a yet-to-be determined date.

Councilor David Kelly, who brought the subject to the council's attention, said that one day he happened by cage fighting matches at the Lane Events Center. Kelly said he found it to be "the most brutal and dehumanizing" event he had ever witnessed.

In the contests, promoted by Eugene resident Jason Georgianna, fighters use boxing, wrestling, kickboxing and martial arts techniques during battles inside a cage.

"We should ban it completely," Councilor Betty Taylor said.

Others thought regulations would reduce the risk of fighters getting seriously injured.

Councilor Jennifer Solomon said she couldn't support a ban because the promoters would move matches to nearby communities.

"You can't regulate stupidity," she said, adding that she used to watch "extreme fighting" on television before her children were born.

The fighters are young men "with too much testosterone and not enough to do," Solomon said.

Georgianna, the Eugene promoter, said his fights are less dangerous than extreme fighting, which has no rules.

His mixed martial arts fighters are prohibited from striking their opponents' groins, throats and spines, he wrote to councilors. Nor can they bite, gouge eyes, pull hair or use head butts, he said.

Georgianna, who spoke to the council after they voted for a public hearing on a ban, said he was glad that some councilors want to learn about cage fighting because "it's a very misunderstood sport."

Georgianna said he wouldn't necessarily oppose regulations because some unscrupulous promoters are giving the matches a bad name. "I would like to move toward regulating the sport on a state level," he said.

But Georgianna said he disagreed with councilors who seemed to think that cage fighting is "devoid of any social value."

In other action, councilors agreed to offer the job of the city's first police auditor to Cristina Beamud, legal adviser to the Cambridge, Mass., Police Department, while also resolving a controversy over the auditor's authority.

The council voted 8-0 to offer the job to Beamud after a background check that included a visit to Cambridge by Councilor Bonny Bettman and a city-hired private investigator. Beamud's salary and benefits have yet to be negotiated.

Then councilors approved a resolution that clarifies that Beamud will have the complete authority to hire, fire and supervise her two- or three-person staff.

City Manager Dennis Taylor had agreed in May to delegate that authority to the auditor, while reserving the right to become involved if the auditor's decisions violated city policies.

But some councilors disliked that proposal, believing that the auditor's office needed to be completely free of the city manager in order to be independent.

Mayor Kitty Piercy had said she was going to recommend that the council on Monday ask voters to clarify the auditor's power with a City Charter amendment in November.

But she said this resolution does the same thing. Even councilors who favored the city manager's approach voted in favor of it because "everyone around this table wants the police auditor to get off to the good start," Piercy said.

Councilor Gary Pape cast the lone "no" vote.

On another subject, the council refused to endorse Region 2050, a countywide planning effort to guide population growth in much of the southern Willamette Valley during the next 50 years.

Most councilors said they had concerns about signing onto the 58-page planning document, especially since Springfield and Cottage Grove have dropped out of the effort.