ASUO gears up for elections
Aspiring student government leaders now have three weeks to file for candidacy in the 2002 ASUO general election, which will be held Feb. 27 to March 1.
The filing deadline for all ballot measures and open positions, including the ASUO president and vice president, is 5 p.m. Jan. 30. A primary election will be held Feb. 20-22.
ASUO presidential candidates may run alone or with a running mate. Both executive positions require a one-year commitment, and pay a monthly stipend. ASUO executives hire ASUO staff members, oversee campaigns and projects and administer ASUO funded programs.
Thirteen ASUO Student Senate seats also will be on the ballot, including two seats on the ASUO Programs Finance Committee and two seats on the Athletic Department Finance Committee. Senators are responsible for dispersing more than $8 million in student incidental fees annually to University programs, and represent students at the University Senate and the University Assembly. Term lengths for senate seats vary, and senators are also paid a monthly stipend.
For information on other open positions for the ASUO 2002 winter elections, contact ASUO elections coordinator Courtney Hight at 346-0629. Filing packets for the election are available in the ASUO office in Suite 4 of the EMU.

— Kara Cogswell

Groups fail to vote on prostitution
A lack of quorum forced two Eugene neighborhood associations to cancel a vote on whether to publish in their monthly newsletters the names of people convicted of solicitation.
The Jefferson Area Neighbors and the Westside Neighborhood Quality Project were two voters short of the 20 necessary to vote. They will decide the fate of the resolution during their next general meeting Feb. 12.
The resolution called for publishing the name and address of each person convicted by municipal court for solicitation. In Eugene, both the buyer and seller of prostitution are convicted of solicitation.
Prostitution has plagued the neighborhoods for years, said Paul Thompson, co-chairman of the Westside Neighborhood Quality Project. The two neighborhoods include the area between Willamette Street on the east to Chambers Street on the west and Seventh Avenue on the north to 18th Avenue on the south.
“Our neighborhood had a growing issue with prostitution for many, many years,” Thompson said. “It has gone down tremendously, but it has not gone away,” he said.
Neighborhood association members believe that threatening “johns” through the publication of their names will be a deterrent for customers of prostitution.
“There have been johns who have told us that they’re not looking to be exposed,” Thompson said. He added there were “in excess” of 100 convictions of solicitations during 2000, most of them in his neighborhood.

— By John Liebhardt