Monday I grabbed my twenty year-old skateboard and drove down town to the city council meeting in support of building a skate park under the Washington-Jefferson Bridge one block from the Tactics store. I parked in the Oregon Electric Station parking lot on 5th and Pearl and walked to the public building three blocks away on 8th and Pearl. Halfway there, I helped guide two young boarders roughly four feet tall to the meeting so our voices could be heard. It was a pretty good turn out, a full house. There were 33 public speakers who had three minutes apiece to state their case but only four were for the skate park issue.
One long, grey haired hippy man tried to convince the council through a series of Dr. Suess rhymes that Eugene should grow marijuana as a source of income. Other people bored the council and me with a barrage of rapid fire facts and figures that seemed to make everybody lose interest. One council member, “Betty Taylor,” who must be around eighty-six years old, fought to stay awake while a speaker accused her of not improving the roads in her district since 1901.
I slipped out of the room after the public speaking so I don’t know how they voted but I do know I parked too far away and my feet are pretty sore this morning!
-Mike and Jan
