LETTERS IN THE EDITOR'S MAILBAG.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Put hospital decision on hold

McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center's battle to shoehorn a roundly criticized new hospital into the middle of a residential neighborhood just got far more complicated.

Things are already bleak for McKenzie-Willamette. They do not have final state confirmation that a new hospital of the size and scope they are proposing is needed. Final approval from Oregon Department of Transportation that proposed traffic mitigation will ease legendary congestion and improve safety is a long ways off.

And there are months of deliberations and hearings before the city of Eugene will make a decision whether to allow a massive change to the residential and open space zoning to the RiverRidge golf course. Decisions are not expected until 2008.

Another shoe just dropped. McKenzie-Willamette's corporate parent, Triad Hospitals, has been purchased by Community Health Systems and, as part of the deal, most of the previously supportive Triad executives have left with their multimillion-dollar severance packages.

With a new owner who has a new agenda, how long will it take McKenzie-Willamette to gain new approval to spend upward of $250 million on a new hospital when Community Health Systems is looking at every inch of the combined organization for cost savings and long-term efficiencies?

All of this should make local and state decision-makers very uncomfortable. Until there is new corporate approval to build a new hospital, don't you think the smart decision is to take this flawed proposal off the table?

BRIAN BELL 

Eugene

Liberals don't care about votes

I was thinking the other night about how all the nice inclusive and tolerant liberals around here would do anything to advance their agendas and the public vote be danged.

A few examples of this are Measure 37 - we passed it and now the nice liberals are saying we didn't mean it and that they will fix it. Or how about the ban on gay marriage? The state Legislature (liberal-controlled House and Senate) now go and give basic marriage rights to gays. Or there is that little thing called the West Eugene Parkway that we approved by votes twice but the liberals say "no." There could also be the matter of the Eugene city gas tax that wasn't voted on and that they won't let us vote on.

Heck, there might even be the fact that liberals call our president Hitler and the like. I know that is all right, though, because he is a Republican. You can say whatever you want to about a Republican; you just can't criticize a Democrat.

DAVID LARSON

Eugene

Taxpayers are wary for a reason

The June 15 issue of The Register-Guard featured a front page article about a possible land deal Lane County could eventually buy into and move the fairgrounds. Then, on the editorial page, we read about the resignation of Lane County Administrator Bill Van Vactor, partly because of the bleak financial future and severe budget cuts when county timber funds may soon dry up.

Yes, sale of the present fairgrounds property could likely offset most of the purchase of a new piece of land, but then where does funding for all the buildings and infrastructure come from? No wonder voters are wary of county income tax proposals when such grandiose proposals are being considered by our officials.

And the ever-increasing Eugene gas tax is hard to swallow when there's plenty of money to pay for an elegant park (albeit from a voter-approved levy) and plenty of money to subsidize downtown developers but not nearly enough to keep our streets in decent repair. Of course, since the county isn't likely to be buying anything in the next couple of years, it might well become a profitable investment for the city. Maybe then we can get our streets fixed.

PHIL GARTHE

JAN GARTHE

Eugene

Body exhibit article disgusting

The Oregon Life article titled "Body Sensations" (Register-Guard, June 17) was absolutely sickening. Did you have to use so much space on such a disgusting "exhibit"? Frankly, I think anyone who looks at this as "art" must be sick in the head.

BARBARA DEXTER

Eugene

Hospital criticism self-serving

I'm wondering when, exactly, Peter Osredkar's quiet, serene home in the North Gilham area was built (letters, June 18)? Because if it was built less than 10 years ago, it's he who should be sued for the nuisance we didn't have before he moved in.

I remember when the area was nothing but a few homes in a peaceful field. Complainers in new homes are partly responsible for the increased traffic, congestion, noise, pollution, kids, etc., that I experience in what was once a quiet patch of Eugene.

I won't hear the hospital sirens because I have hundreds of new homes to buffer the sound. Bet his is one of them. Should I file a Measure 37 claim, or just sue?

Why is "not in my neighborhood" an argument for people after they move into a neighborhood? I sympathize with him. I felt the same outrage when his house was built.

MIKE DUNCAN 

Eugene

Graduates inherit broken world

Congratulations to all of the graduates this month! I am very impressed and hopeful with this new generation's intelligence, hard work and dedication to fixing this broken world.

The old "me first" generation, which specialized in greed, pollution and destruction, wants everything, but is unwilling to pay for it. Therefore the new generation has been saddled with an unending war, a $9 trillion debt ($30,000 for every man woman and child), global warming, the extinction of thousands of species, oil and water shortages, and probable future pandemics, famines and mass starvations.

All of this can be reversed, if we can get the old leaders out of the way, and if we are all willing to sacrifice, work hard and use knowledge to stop the destruction, replant the forests, reverse desertification, heal the oceans and live in peace.

I was privileged recently to watch a hundred University of Oregon Honors College graduates. These, the best and brightest, will no doubt be the leaders of the future, and I am confident they can find the solutions to all of the problems we have created.

The country has to reverse its anti-intellectual, anti-science, attitudes. We need to stop thinking in black and white. We need to learn from history, understand what is going on in other countries, realize the consequences of our actions, think of the future and become sustainable.

These dedicated, hard-working, well-educated adults are the ones to show us the way. Thank you, and good luck!

JERRY BRULE

Eugene

Clinton antipathy unreasonable

The front-page article titled "Voter paradox afoot" (Register-Guard, June 18) does point out a few contradictions voiced by those interviewed in the poll. However, by definition, a paradox is based on some sound or apparently sound reasoning.

Changing a Democratic Hillary Clinton vote to any Republican candidate based on reasoning such as "I don't like her" or she's "even worse than Al Gore, who has no personality" is not sound reasoning. Neither is that of those men poll respondents who said "they were simply unwilling to support a female."

Worse yet were the poll respondents who want a Democrat as president, but couldn't vote for Clinton because of a "sour aftertaste from controversies of her White House years with President Clinton." Or the respondent who would have to vote for Rudy Giuliani over Clinton because Giuliani "has got some honesty to him."

These statements do not represent sound reasoning, not even apparently sound reasoning. My hope is that most voters' choice for the president of the United States will not be based on sound bites, lack of serious reasoning or sexual prejudice.

RANDY MATHSON

Springfield

EWEB idea was a joke, right?

Wow, I have to say that Bill Kloos wrote a very humorous guest viewpoint titled "City should take over EWEB" (Register-Guard, June 12). I am sure Kloos must have been writing it with tongue in cheek as he couldn't have possibly meant really turning the Eugene Water & Electric Board over to the city of Eugene.

These would be the same people who stopped all future progress after thousands of hours and millions of dollars had been spent on the West Eugene Parkway because Mayor Kitty Piercy said, "Nope, don't like it." Same ones who helped Sacred Heart Medical Center decide to move out of Eugene, who saw more than 20 small businesses move offices and shops to Springfield in 2006 to get away from Eugene, who have the police force running in circles. The same people who can't come up with money to fix potholes and redo streets. The same group that cannot reach a consensus on what is best for all of Eugene and leave their personal agendas out of it. The very same people that the Springfield City Council seems to be tiring of with the bickering and strife that appears in most meetings and why Springfield wants out of a partnership with Eugene.

Turn EWEB over to the city? Kloos was just kidding, right?

DICK WALKER

Eugene

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