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The Kids Aren’t Alright

The City of Eugene is currently considering an ordinance that would allow the city to ban alleged lawbreakers from the downtown area for up to 90 days. And by “alleged lawbreakers” they mean “goddamn street kids.”

The proposal was spurred in large part by Betty Snowden, owner of the Glamour Girls and Guys shop in downtown (and host of the totally awesome “Hats Off” public access show). A couple of weeks ago, Snowden testified before the City Council about the constant harassment she faces. From the R-G article:

Snowden, who is black, said the conflicts have escalated in the past year. She refuses to let the mostly young people congregate in front of her store, and she said they are retaliating against her with threats, racist epithets and vandalism. She said she was struck by a young man last year. The gangs, as she calls them, vomit, urinate and defecate in front of her store when it’s closed.

[…]

“When we get there, ‘nigger’ is already (written) on our door,” she said, her voice rising, mixed with anger and heartbreak. “Then they’ll pass by. This isn’t three or four of them at a time. This is 20 or 30 of them, passing by over and over and over (saying) ‘You nigger. You bitch. You are going to be killed.’ This goes on on a daily basis.”

And from today’s R-G article:

The morning after the article was published, Snowden said she found human feces in front of her door.

Last week, surveillance cameras that Snowden uses to monitor the front of her store videotaped a young man ramming a bicycle into the front door, and other young men trying to pry plywood off the storefront. The plywood was covering a window broken in an earlier vandalism.

Mayor Kitty Piercy said she was reluctant to give her support to the proposal because it allowed for people who were only “alleged criminals” to be evicted and denied them a trial. I agree that the proposal is a little odd and sounds hard to enforce, which is why I plan on introducing another proposal, the “Spray Street Kids With Pressure Washers and Soap Until They Leave Act of 2008.”

In all seriousness, though, the real solution is greater police presence, which thanks to the testimony of Snowden is now happening.

  1. […] a 5-3 vote, the Eugene City Council passed the contentious exclusion ordinance that I wrote about last week. A judge can now ban individuals from the downtown area for 90 days without trial or […]

  2. Cheerio says:

    Get Kitty Piercy and her failed policies OUT of Eugene. Her socialist ideas are similar to that of the ASUO: tax and spend on worthless garbage.

  3. protagony - aka gary, now megaman says:

    shit that should say gary, I need a cool internet name.

    Let it be known across the land that henceforth, you shall be known as “Puddles the Cat”.

    -The Management

  4. protagony says:

    Also, Hynnix and Weyerhauser have absolutely nothing to do with the mayor. If you would’ve read the provided article, more jobs have been created under Mayor Kitty Piercy than under Jim’s two terms as mayor previously.

  5. protagony says:

    sakaki –
    “Sprawl? If sprawl is the worst thing you can bring up, gary, then someone really needs to beat your brains in.”

    Really?!? thats your argument back. How about you point to his prior record as Mayor and discuss something you like as opposed to being intellectually lazy.

  6. Vincent says:

    Grudge match?

  7. Ossie says:

    Someone should ask Johnny who won the last two matches, one of which was on his home course.

  8. Chris Holman says:

    Wait…I seem to remember Florida passing a law several years ago that allowed gun-toting citizens to fire if they ‘felt’ threatened. Perhaps have someone willing to feel threatened hang out in front of Betty’s store and when the street kids start yelling obscenities and threatening her life…

    Well, that’s too extreme perhaps, but you get the idea. A gun-toting Betty would definitely keep me from threatening her life if I was a street kid.

  9. Chris Holman says:

    Wow, I mean, if you don’t like Piercy that is one thing…but chalking up the economic downturn in the US to her is pretty…off-base.

    For those of you who weren’t around when Torrey was mayor…there were plenty of street people in downtown under his watch too. Of course, I know you realize this Sakaki…hehe.

    Anyway, maybe Eugene should sell its entire downtown to a private developer that can then hire Blackwater or some other security force to ensure more safety. You know, like a mall…which makes me remember when they used to call that stretch of downtown the “downtown mall”.

    Or, maybe instead of building something in the pit where the Sears used to be, we can make a sort of gladiator pit there with the street kids fighting one another for our entertainment? I know I’ve seen a few brawls west of Jameson’s, so the angst is already there…it just needs to be focused. Street Kid MMA!

  10. Vincent says:

    Game. Set. Match.

  11. Johnny says:

    Ossie, camon … that idea is as weak as your golf game

  12. Ossie says:

    The way to get rid of street punks is to set up speakers around the downtown area and play classical music 24/7. Seriously, it worked in McMinnville. Though I like the pressure washer idea best, not only would it get rid of them, but they’d be clean too.

  13. Sean says:

    After Gully sucks will come orwelduk, telling us about how Phil Knight had a hand in letting the kids run rampant on the street.

  14. Gully sucks says:

    Nate Gulley got his start being marganilized as a skinny little street rat downtown street kid, and now he is still a little rat

  15. Sakaki says:

    Less jobs? Not like we got any jobs now. Hynix closing up shop under Kitty’s watch; Weyerhauser dropping 1500 jobs next year.

    Worse Economy, thanks to Kitty Piercy and her continued disallowing of a continuing highway to connect 126 with the rest of 105.

    More pollution? Eugene isn’t in a place that the indians called “The Valley of Death” for nothing.

    Sprawl? If sprawl is the worst thing you can bring up, gary, then someone really needs to beat your brains in.

    Kitty Piercy has done NOTHING to alleviate any of the concerns, and the only person who can get things done (and who will help Mrs. Snowdon with her issues) is Jim Torrey.

  16. Timothy says:

    Because the bustling, dead town of Eugene certainly has a problem with sprawl! Careful now, or in 15 years Coburg might almost be A PLACE!

    EPD just needs to redirect some resources from Party Patrol to the Wantonly Nightsticking Street Kid Brigade.*

    *ATTN Humor Impaired: The mere existence of this sentence should tell you what you need to know.

  17. gary says:

    if get things done = less jobs, worse economy, more pollution, and sprawl.

  18. Sakaki says:

    There’s a simple way to get things done.

    Vote for Jim Torrey.

  19. Vincent says:

    I believe part of it is that there’s some kind of juvenile delinquent school nearby, isn’t there?

    I also reckon that proximity to the bus station has something to do with it, as well, since many of the kids seem disappear around 11:30pm or so… whenever the last bus leaves for the night.

  20. gary says:

    I never understood why there are so many kids around all the time. in my hometown it was just weekend nights that the future criminals of the world congregated but here its 24/7.

    Also, I’d rather have a mayor whose reluctant on some issues than a mayor willing to go the wrong direction entirely.

    older eugene weekly article

  21. Kenneth says:

    I’d go a step further and say that Kitty Piercy is reluctant to do anything about anything.

    It’s true that some of the street kids could be considered victims, but that doesn’t excuse their unending criminal behavior. The exclusion law just isn’t practical. It goes too far in infringing on rights while not going far enough in dealing with problems. A better solution would be to stop having crackdowns on campus party nights and put that same effort that yielded dozens of MIPs and party citations into cracking down on the meth, heroin, vandalism and other things that are actually damaging to public safety.

  22. Vincent says:

    Kitty Piercy is reluctant to do anything about it because she knows it’ll cost her votes from the not-insignificant number of voters in Eugene who view the street kids as victims rather than nuisances, and who protest any initiative that might get them off the streets of this city’s downtown.

    Because if there’s one thing Kitty Piercy likes more than actually solving Eugene’s problems, it’s being re-elected so she can keep talking about how she’s solving Eugene’s problems.

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