Editor’s note: This editorial was written in response to the community’s proposal to build a Riverfront Research Park. After lengthy deliberations, a master plan for the park was approved in 1988, and the first building was dedicated in 1992. Currently, the park is home to several University and non-University research and technology programs, including the Office of Research Services and Acacia International, Inc.
Throughout the 1970s, Oregon, and Eugene in particular, developed a reputation for being anti-business. Late Gov. Tom McCall publicly stated his opposition to new businesses locating in the state, while the state Legislature developed one of the most stringent land-use programs in the country.
But with the statewide unemployment rate hovering around 10 percent, Oregonians have attempted to earnestly develop the state’s industrial sector.
The proposed Riverfront Research Park, which is a joint effort by the University, the city of Eugene and local businesses, is one example of this effort.
Proponents of the park, which would be located on land adjacent to the Willamette River, argue that the faculty will pump thousands of dollars into the Oregon economy, while creating hundreds of new jobs. They also say it will enhance the University’s reputation as a leading national research facility.
In other towns, projects of this size have traditionally raised community excitement to such new heights that community leaders have bent over backwards to ensure the project’s success. City councils conduct uninspired hearings, land-use bodies waive many of their rules, and it all happens so fast that potential opponents are given little time to organize.
We hope that the Eugene City Council and Mayor Brian Obie will consider all of the park’s ramifications before they give it their full support. There are many questions to be considered.
The University, which will lease to park developers about 80 percent of the facility’s land, must place a stipulation in the lease outlawing any classified research.
A university should not be a branch office for the Department of Defense. We are not in the business of developing weapons. Similarly, no University land should be used for such research.
We hope that University President Paul Olum will fight for this stipulation in any lease, because once the land is leased out, we will have very little control over that lease.
We must also ask: Who will have ultimate control for ensuring the community’s safety in case of a major accident at the park? Will the park increase pollution levels in the Willamette River? If yes, then what will be the nature of the pollutants?
Eugene must attract new businesses. Anyone who has recently looked for work in Eugene knows this to be true.
When people are unemployed the tax base shrinks and the community cannot provide adequate services. But this does not mean that we should prostitute ourselves to any new business that offers to locate in our community. Instead, we must carefully examine the pluses and the minuses offered by any new business.
This editorial was taken from the June 6, 1985, edition
of the Oregon Daily Emerald.