City sets about to tweak plan for courthouse.

Byline: CITY BEAT/EUGENE By Joe Mosley The Register-Guard

Adhering to the "more-flies-with-honey-than-vinegar" theory, the Eugene City Council has set about pommeling a federal agency with kindness in the latest twist of a campaign to have a wheelchair ramp added to designs for Eugene's new federal courthouse.

A letter sent this week to the regional administrator of the U.S. General Services Administration calls the about-to-be-built courthouse "clearly a welcome addition" to the area just southeast of the Ferry Street Bridge.

The letter - signed by council President Gary Pape - goes on to laud the GSA's efforts to address concerns about access for the disabled, pointing out the agency's "willingness to consider a greater level of accessibility by increasing the size of the elevators to accommodate larger wheelchairs."

Having softened up the federal bureaucrats with niceties, the letter gets to the point:

"As a city council we have worked diligently to maintain Eugene's reputation as one of the most accessible cities in the country," Pape writes in the letter. "We hope that our newest public building will continue in this tradition. Therefore, we urge your reconsideration of the placement of a ramp at the front of the building that provides full access to those persons who cannot negotiate stairs."

In addition to the GSA, the letter was sent to leaders of Oregon's congressional delegation, the state's presiding federal judges and ranking members of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure - the panel to which GSA planners on the project must answer.

Advocates of people with disabilities, including the Eugene Human Rights Commission have protested what they consider to be only minimal compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act in a working design for Eugene's new federal courthouse.

The plan calls only for a street-level elevator to transport disabled people into the upper reaches of the four-story courthouse.

GSA officials have said the planned elevator would meet accessibility requirements.

They maintain a ramp would be impractical and would detract from aesthetics of the $70 million, 267,000-square-foot courthouse. However, the agency's project managers have agreed to participate in a public meeting at noon in City Hall on Aug. 26 to discuss the issue.

Lark Park renewal finished in Bethel neighborhood

The labor of love for Eugene's parks maintenance crews is complete.

Lark Park, on Coraly Avenue in the Bethel area, has gotten a complete makeover along with new playground equipment - all for the price of a sprinkler system.

Officials in the city's Parks and Open Space Division budgeted $50,000 for irrigation work at the one-acre park following voters' approval of a bond measure in 1998 for sweeping parkland improvements and acquisitions throughout the city.

But maintenance workers began putting together a plan for lowly Lark Park: to do the irrigation work themselves, rather than contract it out, and spend the money on playground equipment instead.

The project began last winter, and crews also completed a landscape upgrade, built a fence, replanted the lawn and even spruced up basketball backboards. Trees, picnic tables and a barbecue pit also were added.

But the centerpiece of the crews' work is the play structure - spiral and curved slides, climbing wall, suspension bridge and other climbing apparatus, along with swings and other more conventional playground goodies.

Willow Corner wetland

restoration nearing finish

A nine-acre dumping zone for fill dirt is about to be transformed into west Eugene's next wetland gem.

Willow Corner - at the southwest corner of West 18th Avenue and Bertelsen Road - is expected to become prime habitat for Kincaid's Lupine and Fender's Blue Butterfly, both of which are on federal Endangered Species lists. The Willow Corner site is adjacent to the Nature Conservancy's 440-acre Willow Creek Natural Area.

Fill material was dumped at the location throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s, and the restoration project will involve removing material down to the level of native soils. The site then will be reseeded with appropriate native plant species.

The $325,000 project - expected to be done in November - is being paid for by a grant from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and from the city's Wetland Mitigation Bank program.

Joe Mosley can be reached at 338-2384 or [e-mail].