From West by Northwest.org Letters to the Editor Open Letter from the Railroad Pollution Coalition By Handy, Riley, Seese-Green, Swisher, Waldorf Mar 7, 2005 Background: Below is the letter that five of us from the Railroad Pollution Coalition sent to the Mayor and City Council earlier, asking them to oppose the Enterprise Zone proposal that will be before City Council this Monday night, March 7th. The Mayor and Council need to hear from many others if we are to stop this ill-conceived corporate welfare proposal. We encourage you to write your own comments (feel free to borrow from ours if you like), and also to forward this widely to community activists. Our letter focused primarily on the railyard, but we have equal concerns about the west Eugene wetlands and the general concept of tax breaks for corporations. Thanks for your help and support, Becky Riley P.S. For more infomration about the proposal, see Alan Pittman's articles in the past two issues of the Eugene Weekly : Tax Breaks: Eugene may give millions to corporations for nothing: http://www.eugeneweekly.com/2005/02/24/news.html#news1 "A tax break program under consideration by the Eugene City Council could divert tens of millions of dollars in funding for schools and other government services to corporate profits. The City Council, which appears almost evenly split on the issue, plans to vote March 7 on creating an Enterprise Zone tax break program covering 90 percent of the city's industrial land for the next decade."... Corporate Welfare: http://www.eugeneweekly.com/2005/03/03/news.html#1 "The Eugene City Council plans to vote March 7 on a tax break proposal that could give Hynix Semiconductor a future windfall of as much as $100 million. The Hynix windfall would be a direct hit on state school funding. Thousands of school supporters recently rallied in Salem calling for cutting such corporate tax break schemes as a way to restore funding for education. The council vote, without a public hearing, will likely be the only public vote on the potentially huge tax give-away. "... Mayor and City Council e-mail addresses: Kitty.Piercy@ci.eugene.or.us mayorandcc@ci.eugene.or.us Date: March 4, 2005 From: Railroad Pollution Coalition (signers' names below) Re: Oppose Enterprise Zone Dear Mayor and City Councilors, We, members of the Railroad Pollution Coalition, are writing to urge you to vote against the proposed west Eugene Enterprise Zone proposal that will be before you on Monday evening. Whether or not "greenfields" are included, and whether or not the railyard is included, establishing this Enterprise Zone is not an approach that we support. We believe it: a) offers an unnecessary public subsidy to private development without a proven need; b) will promote industrial development in the west Eugene wetlands; and c) will harm our coalition's and the community's interest in promoting a strong cleanup of the railyard and sustainable, neighborhood-compatible development. The Enterprise Zone will have a negative impact on the West Eugene wetlands. We don't think the City should be in the business of offering tax breaks to corporations to encourage industrial development in the West Eugene wetlands or other "greenfields" within the proposed Enterprise Zone boundaries. It is premature to subsidize private development within the railyard. In this era of belt tightening and deep cuts in budgets for public services and schools, it does not make sense to offer tax breaks to private industry without much more proof of the need (and public benefit). As for the railyard, a few years ago Union Pacific was sending signals that it intended to decommission its yard operations. However, now there are indications that the company may reactivate some operations. The long term picture is far from clear. Meantime, the railroad is presently functioning as the "responsible party" paying for investigation and cleanup of contamination at the railyard. In our opinion, it is very premature to conclude that public subsidies are needed to clean up and redevelop the railyard when it hasn't even been officially "put on the market" yet, and when some cleanup is already underway and being paid for by the company taking responsibility for the pollution. In addition, we question whether incentives are really needed for redevelopment of the railyard by other industries. We think it is too early to decide this. If some railroad operations remain, then certain types of industries - such as those already being recruited by UP (freight shippers, etc.) - will find the railyard attractive due to the proximity to the rail access, if that is part of their operational requirements. Arguably those types of businesses won't need tax breaks to get them to come here - they have to move to this type of site anyway. There is no reason to believe that Eugene's railyard would be at a competitive disadvantage relative to other railyards - yards everywhere are blighted and contaminated brownfields. The Enterprise Zone approach - with its focus on creating manufacturing jobs - is too narrow and ignores or conflicts with other important community and neighborhood values. There are some rational public purposes for promoting redevelopment of brownfields. However, we would like to see the City explore a range of options for promoting redevelopment of the railyard, include promotion not just of industrial/manufacturing uses, but commercial/residential and parks and public transportation uses, as well. Our coalition's goals are to promote the strongest cleanup of the pollution at the railyard, and to promote re-development of any abandoned parts of the railyard that takes into account broader public interests - not just job creation, but livability of our neighborhoods, relative needs/desirability for commercial, retail, residential, parks, historic preservation, etc. To us, a decision to support the Enterprise Zone is tantamount to a decision to subsidize piecemeal industrial development of the railyard - development that might well happen on its own anyway - and "job creation" in the manufacturing sector at the expense of too many other community values. Industrial redevelopment will also require only the lowest level of cleanup. We urge you to oppose the Enterprise Zone, and instead, support Master Planning for the railyard. Rather than diverting public tax dollars to promote private development at the railyard, we urge you to direct City staff to put public resources into a comprehensive public planning process for the railyard. With public involvement, a master plan can be developed that will take into account broader neighborhood and community needs and desires for the railyard - including livability values, not just manufacturing job creation. We do realize that just developing a master plan does not ensure that the plan will be implemented. After a master plan is in place, we urge the City to adopt the zoning and other policies/strategies needed to implement the plan. Again, we believe that there is a much broader range of policies/strategies that could be considered that would promote broader community values (including possible subsidies to truly environmentally sensitive businesses, those that sell goods and services locally, etc.), not just the narrow goal of job creation in the manufacturing sector. Creative approaches are being used in other communities (consider Santa Fe - which has set up a Santa Fe Railyard Community Corporation). Again, please vote NO on the Enterprise Zone proposal, regardless of amendments. We believe our community can do better. Thank you for your consideration of these comments. Sincerely, Rob Handy, Chair, River Road Community Organization Becky Riley, board member, River Road Community Organization Majeska Seese-Green, President, Whiteaker Community Council Linda Swisher, board, Active Bethel Citizens Michael Waldorf, President, Trainsong Neighbors Note: Titles are for identification only - we did not have enough notice about the Enterprise Zone proposal to discuss it with our neighborhood associations. © Copyright 2000-2004 by West by Northwest.org