Maybe there is hope for Portland, after all. If PDC and City Council believes that urban renewal is wonderful in all cases, then why not put any new URA or additional extensions of existing URA's to a vote. Simple and honest.

You watch, since voters said NO Eugene will go ahead and find a scheme to do it anyway.
Just like in Portland with the Convention Center expansion and light rail.

I voted against it. Before Mayor Kitty Piercy can improve the downtown area she must address the scum that has turned away patrons from business in that area.

In the 6+ years that I've lived here I've seen at least 4 good business shut their doors - either moving elsewhere or just going out of business - just because of the scum factor.

The Mayor's "solution" to this problem? Someone asked her this one morning on a radio program. Her strategy was once the renewal was finished the scum (she didn't call them that) would be forced to go elsewhere. She didn't say where, but in giving that answer she acknowledged the problem.

The Mayor and city council has, for years, decided to protect the 5% scum population in Eugene, and ignore the 95% of us that have a vested interest here. The scum will remain - but I don't think her and many of the city councilors will.

Real renewal will come when the scum is force out - maybe to Portland!

Beam Development - which has been very active in Portland and has had a lot of community support - proposed a much smaller renovation of some historic buildings in Eugene that proved very popular with Eugenians (and wouldn't have cost the city anything).

But the city of Eugene is terrible with urban renewal projects - they've leveled half the downtown in the past 50 years, and their downtown is filled mostly with parking garages and giant holes where buildings used to be.

Interestingly, there actually has been some non-urban renewal redevelopment projects in their downtown - quite nice actually (including lower-income housing) - that people there love (I used to live in Eugene). Hopefully the idiot politicians in that town will give up on their moronic schemes...

...but I don't see how you can remotely compare Eugene to Portland. Two. Completely. Different. Places: one is a town, another *almost* a city.

I've seen at least 4 good business shut their doors - either moving elsewhere or just going out of business - just because of the scum factor.

Same thing happened here in Portland...well, except the "scum" is in city hall.

It seems to me that the city of Eugene will find a way to accomplish what it originally intended, it always seems to do that somehow. I guess we'll wait and see.