LETTERS IN THE EDITOR'S MAILBAG.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Trap-and-haul is widely used

When did trap-and-haul fish facilities become so environmentally unacceptable?

Most of the major dams and diversions in the Willamette Valley incorporate such fish traps equipped with handling and trucking gear. Traps at Foster Dam, Dexter Dam and Minto Pond will each annually transport more migratory fish in one peak week of fish movement than can be expected to arrive at Trail Bridge Dam in an entire year.

Most fish ladders are fitted - or are eventually retrofitted - with traps to permit managers access to the fish for observation, sorting, tagging and selective release. Eugene Water & Electric Board has suggested trap-and-haul as a reasonable and initially less expensive alternative to retrofitting Trail Bridge with a laddered fishway.

The earth-fill dam with wide daily fluctuations in pool level during power peaking operations is a relatively poor candidate for a ladder and it is estimated to cost EWEB customers over $20 million for the retrofit. Assuming EWEB assures frequency of trap operation, failure to seriously consider installation of trap-and-haul facilities at Trail Bridge might be an expensive mistake.

MAX SMITH

Junction City 

Don't give developers subsidies

The headline "Eugene scores a coup by obtaining the right to buy eight downtown properties" should have read "Real estate broker is well compensated for finding greed button in psyche of local property owners."

Aren't local businesses and citizens sick and tired of the sense of profit entitlement that many real estate owners have? What drives demand for and value of commercial real estate is meeting the needs of businesses.

Vacant storefronts are a sign of poor investment decisions. An obsolete property's rents go down along with its value. Eugene has many obsolete buildings laid out on a grid that made economic sense over 100 years ago.

A city is the physical manifestation of the needs of commerce. When the city's configuration no longer meets those needs, it must undergo the creative destruction that the rest of the economy experiences in order to grow. This means that property investors may lose money (tough luck), just as businesses and 401(k) investors can lose money when the economy changes.

What prevents these property owners and the city, which owns the street, from forming a partnership to jointly raze and redevelop the properties? The public, as part owner, should share in any success. The McKay Investment Co. did just that; having the guts and vision to condemn their own buildings to redevelop Oakway Center.

Enriching greedy property owners by transferring their properties' overpricing and redevelopment costs to taxpayers via subsidies to a developer is not a coup. It's a scam.

MICHAEL STALKER

Eugene

Tell Congress voters are serious

This midterm election was so bitter and angry. Is there any possibility that Congress can accomplish anything in the next two years?

Yes, if we the people demand it.

There are so many crucial issues facing this country: Iraq, health care, terrorism, immigration, income inequality, education, ethics reform - the list seems endless. What will partisan bickering get us? Absolutely nothing.

There is a way to send a message that we are serious about change: www.Unity08.com. We can take politics back.

KIRSTIN JOHNSON

Eugene

DeFazio strives to keep in touch

As a Republican who wrote in the name of Colin Powell for president in 2004, I sincerely encouraged individuals residing in Oregon's 4th Congressional District to support Peter A. DeFazio on Nov. 7.

Regardless of one's respective affiliation, crossing the aisle in favor of DeFazio supported his tireless efforts to continue addressing the myriad issues confronting our nation during these difficult times, as well as those of consequence for Oregon.

Congressman DeFazio, in my estimation, is a living embodiment of what the Constitution meant by a "representative of the people." While participating as an active member of the House, he devotes time to maintain a professional and informative Web site, sends periodic newsletters to his constituents, answers e-mailed and written letters and responds with self-written notes of appreciation and the willingness to assist a citizen as best he can.

He conducts periodic town hall meetings throughout his district while others in the House take a vacation. He listens, offers a gripping handshake of sincerity and openly appreciates our right to disagree, while striving to convey accurate information and a fair approach to various concerns.

Whether participating in legislative matters in Washington, D.C., or interacting with his constituents in Oregon, I find it difficult to imagine his being more in touch.

ROBERT CHRISTENSEN

Springfield

Support Holvey's burning ban

Thanks to Diane Dietz and The Register-Guard for keeping us informed about the resurgent efforts to end field burning.

Hundreds of Lane County residents called Lane Regional Air Protection Agency to complain last summer about smoke-filled air. What they and thousands of other Oregonians have come to understand is that burning agricultural fields is an unnecessary and outdated practice. It is no longer appropriate in the increasingly populated and frequently constrained air shed of the Willamette Valley. Those of us living downwind know this firsthand, and it is we who must act if the policies that permit field burning are to be changed.

The time has come to end the practice of grass field burning in the Willamette Valley. Rep. Paul Holvey has declared his intention to introduce legislation in the upcoming session to do just that. Unfortunately, as we all know, sound science and overwhelming public support for a measure does not guarantee that it will prevail in Salem.

The Oregon Toxics Alliance is coordinating the research, outreach and organizing essential to the success of Holvey's legislative proposal. Please contact us at [e-mail] or call the office at 465-8860 to find out how you can help.

DAVID MONK, Board President

Oregon Toxics Alliance

Eugene

Schools are not penal colonies

Nilsa Welch (letters, Nov. 22) perfectly illustrates the attitudes that would have us operating our schools as penal colonies, baby-sitting agencies or canine obedience training facilities.

Teachers, in this model, are enforcers. Campus safety officers, like Thurston's Officer Mercans, are present to stop students from leaving the closed campus. A vigilante group of parent volunteers patrols the school's periphery bent on extinguishing the smoking problem.

Not much genuine teaching gets done under this model. How does my daughter get a fair crack at education when the geography teacher's energy is spent enforcing rather than preparing and delivering engaging lessons? Too, I thought that Officer Mercans' job was to keep unsafe and unsavory characters off the campus, not keep the students on it.

There is only one kind of discipline: self-discipline. All else is dog training or obedience school. Managing schools under the self-discipline model is a long and messy road. It requires student responsibility and accountability. And it does allow students to make both good and poor choices.

It involves parents and school staff negotiating, in tandem, tremendous gray areas of expectation. It involves fewer rules and more agreements. Teaching self-discipline is definitely not for the fundamentalist thinker. Those folks are better off with the enforcer model.

Welch asserts that school staff have a responsibility and duty to enforce rules and laws or get out of teaching. Fair enough. How about students bearing a responsibility to honor and abide by the rules, or stay home?

DAVE SHEEHAN

Eugene

'Dynamic ad' is downright scary

Thanks to journalism professor Jim Upshaw (Register-Guard, Nov. 22) for his guest viewpoint about the effect of Sacred Heart Medical Center's "pushy index finger" advertisement on journalism's "teetering ethical wall."

While "not many readers reportedly complained," perhaps there were thousands of readers like myself who, after their initial "Omigod" reaction, just looked away, disheartened, from both the ad and the unfortunately afflicted news story. It's true, we have to pick our battles, and our lives today are overloaded with many other very serious ones. Nevertheless, I'm concerned enough about the way legitimate news is being delivered in our country that Upshaw's column called me back to this issue.

At best, this ad was offensive. At worst, it was downright scary. I don't want to have to read local and national news via computer or some other non-print means, but it may come to that if the print media sinks any lower than it already has.

Lifelong and serious readers such as myself can only be insulted and alienated to a certain point, and that point comes ever closer for me. More and more I ask myself, "How else can I get my news?" And television news isn't the answer.

There has to be a better way for newspapers and other media to maintain economic soundness. This type of "dynamic ad" and the emphasis on celebrity news and entertainment are yet further symptoms of our country's cultural decline. I won't be a part of it if I can help it.

NANCY A. OLSON

Eugene

Invest more in rail service

John Saemann (letters, Nov. 17) correctly points out misplaced priorities in transportation spending.

Just 0.1 percent of $100 million for non-highway capital projects in the state's ConnectOregon program went to passenger rail. More track to ease congestion into Eugene did not make the final cut.

Actually, the picture is bleaker than that. Washington state owns the Talgo train sets used in the Eugene-Portland Cascades service. As Washington adds service north of the Columbia, the Willamette Valley could literally be missing the train when Washington's equipment goes north. Unfortunately, while Washington adds trains, the Oregon Department of Transportation ignores them and cuts Passenger Rail Program staffing.

Oregon needs to look to the example of states such as Washington, California (now funding more than 70 daily Amtrak trains), North Carolina, Oklahoma, Michigan, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin and more by investing in more service as well as equipment and track. It's a better bargain than the $70 million subsidy to rebuild the Interstate 5/Belt Line Road interchange.

JON NUXOLL

Eugene