Jakobi Mulgrave: With Sustainability Managers like Felicity Fahy, who needs global warming?
DF: Nice. Not bad for a tyke who was in a T-boned Toyota toity-tree days ago!
JM: Toity-tree?
DF: That’s new yawk for 33.
JM: Gotcha.
The thirteen citizens on the Eugene Sustainability Commission are packing 11 dicks and 2 beavers, 22 testicles and 4 tits. (Oops. Wait. Zelenka’s on the commission. Make that 20.5.
The mission statement says “The commission will focus on all three aspects of sustainability - social equity, environmental health and economic prosperity.”
Sustainability Manager Felicity Fahy (a native of Australia) and Mayor Kitty Piercy (a native of Hades who obsessively pushes pseudo-sustainable initiatives to make sure she is remembered as the dumbest mayor of Eugene EVER) believe that a 22:4 ball:boob ratio embodies “social equity.” Wow.
You might think this is the only reason to consider buying Ms. Fahy a one-way ticket back to Sydney or Perth. You’d be wrong. You might think it is the best reason to say aloha, koala. You’d be 0-for-2.
Note: how funny is it that the inaugural sustainability manager is IMPORTED FROM AUSTRALIA. I guess the Eugene city council missed that day in sustainability 101 when you learn BUY LOCAL. Homegrown candidates for high-ranking managerial positions have demonstrated an ability to survive in the peculiar geekosystem known as the government of the City of Eugene. There’s no transportation cost associated with the interview or “moving expenses.” That is, homegrown candidates tend to be better and cheaper than imported candidates. But the ECC is obsessed with importing a-holes (Lehner, Beamud, etc.) and morons (Beamud, Reynolds, etc.) from elsewhere.
The most loathsome behavior that F-squared has engaged in during her brief and hopefully-soon-to-be-former tenure as the inaugural Eugene sustainability manager is colluding with Planning Directors Susan Muir and Lisa Gardner, City Managers Angel Jones and Jon Ruiz, the Eugene City Council and City Attorney Emily Jerome in shoving the new basketball arena down our throats.
In the February 17, 2009 Oregon Daily Emerald, there was an article about the progress made by the University of Oregon committee, chaired by Robert Melnick, charged with the task of deciding what to do with rat-infested Mac Court.
Melnick is the former dean of the School of Architecture and Allied Arts’.
Hannah Hoffman writes:
Architecture professor Robert Melnick, the committee chair, said there are three options for Mac Court: preservation, adaptive reuse or demolition. Preservation is unlikely, he said, because the University does not need two basketball courts. The other two options are the most probable.
[Senior Vice President and Provost Jim] Bean and [UO President] Frohnmayer have told the committee to consider the history of the building, sustainability and the economics of the project when drafting a proposal.
"The Mac Court site should be used in a way that maximizes the impact on the University's strategic direction while paying appropriate homage to the site's history," Bean said in a statement. "The Mac Court committee is doing an excellent job of sorting through the many options and developing criteria to help us choose an appropriate outcome."
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President Frohnmayer, Provost Bean and former Dean Melnick do not see how stupid they look by making the “preserve/adaptive reuse/demolition” decision about Mac Court AFTER beginning construction on a new arena. Frohnmayer, Bean and Melnick make the three stooges look like rocket scientists.
The city of Eugene, University of Oregon and state of Oregon collaborated in a decision-making process in which the decision about whether to preserve Mac Court was made in February, 2009, a good five years after the planning process for a “new arena” began and three months after construction began on the new arena.
Jonathan Bowers and I believe that the failure to consider the “preserve Mac Court” option prior to beginning construction on “Matt Court” is evidence that the right-of-way vacations that are essential for the new arena are not “in the public interest.” Attorney General Kroger agrees with former Attorney General Frohnmayer that “beginning construction on a new arena prior to considering the possibility of renovating the existing one” is consistent with the allegation that the project is “in the public interest.”
Note: Drive by the construction site sometime and look at the huge drills being used to rape the bedrock of a tributary of the Willamette River. Now that City Manager Ruiz has realized there’s a non-zero chance of an earthquake in Eugene, someone might want to do an assessment of the downstream consequences associated with a catastrophic failure of Fanconi’s Arena. The City of Eugene does not rely on the Willamette River for its water, but several downstream municipalities do. David B. Frohnmayer is surely going to be remembered as the king of ill-conceived penetration.
