Students interested in becoming involved in the Eugene community and improving the University’s surrounding neighborhoods are encouraged to attend the West University Neighbors meeting tonight at 7 p.m. at Indigo District on the corner of East 13th Avenue and Oak Street.
The neighborhood association will hold elections for its board of directors if the mandatory quorum of 20 neighborhood residents is in attendance.
Ward 3 City Councilor David Kelly said it is ideal to have a large number of students at the meetings but said it is ultimately up to the students to take a step in becoming more involved with the community.
“In this case, the neighborhood is run by those who show up,” Kelly said. “The way to change things is to show up.”
Community activist Zachary Vishanoff said he will attend the meeting to ask the current board of directors what the association has accomplished and what the goals are for the future.
“They’ve really dug the neighborhood a grave and are about to drop them in,” Vishanoff said.
University professor Marc Schlossberg will also be at the meeting to update the association on a mapping project students in his Applied Geographic Information Systems and Social Planning course completed this term. The class worked with the association to create detailed maps of the neighborhood, which Schlossberg will present at the meeting.
Vishanoff said he is concerned about the mapping project’s possible ties to broader city planning and homeland security issues and will discuss these concerns at the meeting.

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