dkSez : : : : : : Don Kahle’s blog

Whenever Eugene makes its list of New Year’s Resolutions, revitalizing downtown is always near the top. So it should come as no surprise that the city has hosted open houses this week and is launching a website (www.vibranteugene.org) to gather ideas and momentum for revitalizing downtown.
Jerry’s Home Improvement has Christmas lights for half off. Bi-Mart is displaying their vast array of storage bins. Health clubs have slashed initiation fees. Everybody wants to lose ten pounds before swimsuit season. And Eugene wants your ideas for improving downtown. Happy New Year.
Eugene city staffers this time are taking their cue — or cues — from a divided city council. They have separated this community conversation into two parts. First they want to hear what Eugene residents would like for their downtown. How to pay for any improvements will be part of the later discussion.
A two-part conversation may be a political necessity. Some city councilors believe downtown should be a higher priority and merits greater funding. Other city councilors fear throwing good money after bad. Getting both sides to agree to pay for improvements won’t be easy. Nobody wants to flush money down a rat hole, especially if it might not at least rid them of some rats.
So crafting a vision before asking for money makes some sense. As the Mad Hatter told Alice in Wonderland, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.”
But the Mad Hatter didn’t live in the real world. Watergate informant Deep Throat did, and his advice may be more relevant in this instance: “Follow the money.”
Everyone agrees that downtown first must be safe, second clean, third attractive. Once those three basic needs are met, then people will come and businesses will open and the virtuous cycle of commerce can begin.
In 1988, Downtown Eugene Inc. (DEI), a private association of downtown property and business owners, was formed to care for downtown’s most basic needs. DEI contracts with the city to administer the city’s Downtown Services District. The “red caps” you see downtown are funded by DEI. If you’re downtown early in the morning and you see a person with a leaf blower, that’s probably also DEI money being spent.
But follow the money. DEI is funded by a Special Services District Occupancy Fee. The enabling city ordinance specifically exempts empty buildings.
You can see the logic. An empty building produces no revenue, and should require no services. So why charge the property owner when nobody is using the space? I’m sure that made sense on paper, but the real world again suggests a different logic.
Busy storefronts have merchants inside. They open their doors and sweep their sidewalks. They shoo away miscreants. They call the police when things get out of hand. Empty buildings don’t do any of that. Empty buildings cause most of the trouble downtown, yet their owners pay less for the services that aim to keep downtown safe, clean and attractive.
Follow the money to one source of the problem. Downtown property owners pay less if their buildings are empty, but those empty buildings cause the problems that require money to fix. The vision and the funding are intertwined, even if those two conversations about downtown are being kept separate.
Other cities have used a vacancy tax to get property owners to fill their buildings. That might be worth exploring, but an easy first step in that direction would be an amendment to the city’s ordinance. It still can be called an “occupancy fee.” A building occupies space downtown, even if nobody occupies its spaces inside.
Once downtown property owners are required to pay the fee, whether their space is occupied or not, they’ll begin to see what the rest of us see. Only through a Lewis Carroll Looking Glass could downtown’s blight look bright, but that’s the distorted view we’ve created for property owners. For the past 20 years, we’ve rewarded downtown landlords who refuse to fill their buildings with tenants.
Correcting that mistake would be a good place to begin the new year, and it should be easier than losing those extra ten pounds.
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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Friday for The Register-Guard. Past columns are archived at www.dksez.com.

Votes are in. Yams are slightly less sweet than sweet potatoes, but more colorful (orange). From now on, I’ll just buy whichever’s cheaper.

Every holiday meal included turkey. And mashed potatoes. And gravy. So yams were like cranberries. Good for color, but nothing worth attn.

How did it come to this? Don’t blame my parents. (After 50, there are fewer & fewer to blame.) I blame gravy, which doesn’t go with y/s.p.

Paprika makes them look alike, but the top pan is yams. Both have a spicy coating. Will the sweeter spice better? http://twitpic.com/v8qrm

Sweet potatoes are on top. They look like creamed corn. (I have memories.) Yams are orange — creamed carrots? http://twitpic.com/v8o5u

Doubling sweet potato recipes (2), then halving each, treating yams as equals. The halves & the halves-not.
http://twitpic.com/v8fmp

These yam & sweet potato recipes start with cubing tubers. 17 cups of cubes later, we’re acquainted. Yams orange. http://twitpic.com/v89yz

My sons are coming for dinner, but I hope to give them something much more valuable and enduring than a meal and some gifts. Something I was never given, so today I’ll be giving it to myself as well. Finally, I will determine the difference between sweet potatoes and yams. Two different recipes — one sweet, one savory… –each made twice, once with yams, once with sweet potatoes. May the best tuber win!

RG51 – buy local options
As of right now, you have less than seven shopping days before your favorite year-end holiday marked by gift exchanges. Whether you prefer Christmas or Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Solstice, Festivus, or some animistic ritual that involves repurposing a fruitcake, the point is the same. Time is running out.
Now would be a good time to begin lowering expectations for yourself. That winter parka you were going to knit for the one you love? Not gonna happen. That custom recording of oak savannah songbirds, recorded with your loving hands in the west Eugene wetlands? Maybe next year. That perfect replica of your child’s third-grade class photo, crafted as a mosaic using hand-torn shards of old Christmas cards? Tearing up those old cards is all you can expect to accomplish this year. That might even feel good, staving off a panic attack.
Panic is common this time of year. It’s what made you think last year that a solar powered paper shredder was the perfect way to get your accountant brother-in-law to appreciate the Great Outdoors.
Take a deep breath and think it through. Your list has people who live nearby and people who don’t. Boxing and mailing is a bad idea at this late date, unless interminable lines remind you of your magical childhood visit to Disney World. Gift certificates can more easily be mailed. But gift certificates are so risky. They’re easy to lose, they often expire before you get there, and you might have to go to the mall to get one.
Consider giving gift certificate certificates. They come in a variety of festive colors now, not only the traditionally drab gray and green. They can be used by the recipient to buy a gift certificate at any store. There are no hidden costs, they have no expiration date and they can be purchased at any bank.
Shopping for the locals is almost as easy.
If you want “buy local” embedded in the message of the gift, you should know about Unique Eugene. A dozen local businesses banded together a decade ago to form an alliance (www.uniqueeugene.com). They sell gift certificates that can then be redeemed at any of their members’ stores. You’ve probably seen their entry in the Eugene Celebration parade each year. Maybe you’ve been meaning to thank them for the fun they add to the parade. This would do that.
The sure-fire solution for the buy-local crowd is Holiday Market, except you may find yourself with too many choices. Wandering through the Lane County fairgrounds this time of year, I often feel like a fly on a spin-art machine. Holiday Market is colorful and dizzying, in equal measure.
They’re ready for procrastinators. Beginning tomorrow, they’re open almost every day until 6 p.m. They’re open Christmas Eve until 4 p.m. The only day they’ll be closed is Monday, Dec. 21. If you guessed all those pagan hippies are taking the day off to celebrate winter solstice, you’re wrong. “They’ll all be home making stuff to sell those final three days,” Marketing Manager Kim Still told me. They sell gift certificates (good also at Saturday Market, scheduled to reopen April 3, 2010) at the Information Booth.
Since December 24 is both a shopping day and a celebrating day, you could launch your festivities in the afternoon without admitting any last-minute strategizing. Just blindfold your recipient, guide them into the middle of Holiday Market, put cash in their hand and tell them to spend it. They’ll find something locally and lovingly made, even if they don’t bother to take off the blindfold. Guaranteed.
We should also thank the city of Eugene for finally tinkering with their parking policies and offering free short-term parking along several downtown blocks for December, making a quick trip to a local downtown business just a little easier this year.
Maybe next year, Eugene will offer parking ticket certificates. I’d like to pay for a parking ticket that hasn’t been written yet, and then give that “gift certificate” to somebody who frequents downtown (or would) if they had immunity from next year’s first parking ticket.
Imagine a moment of free parking in downtown Eugene! Could peace on earth be far behind?
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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) owns a media marketing management company, serving local and civic-minded businesses. Several members of Unique Eugene have been clients, including Holiday Market, but no billable hours were logged in the writing of this column.