As I said in an earlier article, my speculation of why there is such a push on public safety NOW is because of the lure of money from the 2008 US Olympic track and field trials coming to the Eugene area.
In Friday's Registerguard , there is an article stating "Downtown Hilton Ponders Expansion" for the 2008 Olympic trials.
The article continues to say...
The Hilton Hotel is considering an addition of at least 80 guest rooms. The Hilton was touted to be Oregon track clubs bid as the top candidate to be the headquarters hotel for athletes competing in the 10-day trials. The bid promised that at least 225 rooms in the hotel could be committed to the event, "there is a probability that an 80 room tower will be built before 2008." Said Eugene General manager John Erickson on Thursday.
That's an optimistic viewpoint, according to both Erickson and Kari Westlund, who as president and CEO of the Convention & Visitors Association of Lane County Oregon has urged Hilton officials to consider adding more rooms.
Westlund said the USA Track & Field site selection committee was hoping the host city for the 2008 trials would have at least two hotels with a minimum of 350 guest rooms each. A group of hotels in Springfield's Gateway area that are managed by Sycan Development loosely qualify together as one large-capacity hotel, and the potential Hilton expansion was mentioned as another possibility.
Sacramental, which finished as a runner-up for the 2008 trials, has four hotels with at least 350 rooms each.
I made a statement about our tax dollars subsidizing the 2008 Olympics, think about this.
As I stated in previous postings, for years, public safety officials have cut back on our public safety services, [fire and police] and play their little games while crime is on the increase in our area.
Now all of a sudden, with big dollars knocking at our door, the little game is starting to backfire on them.
We all know that the Olympics will bring money into the area where they are hosted, as evident by the possible future of the Hilton Hotel.
However, there are some roadblocks are in the way.
... Inadequate roads to handle the increase in traffic (especially with the main arteries being torn up for that high-speed [choke] bus line).
... Inadequate parking facilities. (of course, I am sure that the University of Oregon Department of public safety (DPS) is drooling over that one for increase in the number of future parking citations)
... Inadequate public safety patrols to handle an event that has an estimated 17,000 people a day increase into our area. (They openly tell us all the time that they don't have enough people to patrol as it is)
Just to name a couple, and so the big question is...
Who's going to pay for all this? WE ARE!!!
The good news is about the new business tax and sales tax that they're trying to push on us is that I heard recently that we are going to be ALLOWED to vote on this issue.
I am urging a NO vote on the public safety initiative.
Let them take some of their money for the 2008 Olympics of the $29 million high-speed [choke] 14 mile bus line that we were not asked if we even wanted.
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