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UO E-clips, Nov. 20
Top stories for November 20, 2008: Here comes the arena -- The Oregonian reports that the 12-window for appeals challenging a permit has passed; a failed 2002 resolution opposing the Iraq war in the UO Faculty Senate is recalled by Eugene Weekly in a piece titled 'Who's running the University?'; a recovery from economic woes in Oregon won't come soon, reports the Register-Guard, which quotes UO economist Tim Duy; the R-G also reports on a plunge in state revenue, with budget cuts ahead; and The Oregonian covers UO President Dave Frohnmayer's response to ESPN about President-elect Obama's call for an end to college football's BCS
UO's arena permit gets its final seal of approval (The Oregonian): After more than six years of site-searching and donor-coaxing, Legislature-pitching and revenue-projecting, University of Oregon basketball arena planners finally arrived at their gateway day: permit-securing. A 12-day window for appeals of the project's conditional-use permit closed at 5 p.m. Wednesday. The permit, issued earlier this month by an independent hearings official, clears the way for workers to begin building a $200 million replacement for 82-year-old McArthur Court.
Who's running the University? (Eugene Weekly): In 2002, UO professor Franklin Stahl sponsored a resolution in the Faculty Senate opposing military action in Iraq. To Stahl’s surprise, the motion failed, but not because faculty members supported a war. The vote failed because UO President Dave Frohnmayer not only opposed the vote (sending a letter to faculty senators expressing his opposition), but he said that such a vote could not be taken by the Faculty Senate, the body that has governed the UO since 1996. It had to be done, he said, by a majority of the Faculty Assembly, which at that time would have meant convening almost 3,000 members.
Experts don’t expect recovery from recession anytime soon (Register-Guard): That Oregon’s economy is mired in recession is no longer in dispute. But less clear is how quickly it will recover. The economic and revenue forecast released by the state Wednesday was the latest piece of bleak news on the economy. It came on the heels of a report Monday that found the state had shed 14,100 jobs in September and the jobless rate was up nearly a full percentage point from the previous month, to 7.3 percent. ... Tim Duy, director of the Oregon Economic Forum at the University of Oregon, said a 2010 recovery may be overly optimistic, given the “sudden downshift” in economic activity in the third quarter that’s continuing in the final three months of the year.
State sees budget gap, cuts ahead (Register-Guard): An unprecedented plunge in state revenues is prompting the governor to seek across-the-board cuts to education, health care and other programs while lawmakers start confronting tough choices about yet deeper program cuts and higher taxes to get Oregon through an emerging era of austerity. Wednesday’s quarterly state economic forecast made official what the global economic crisis, mortgage meltdown, rapid job losses and shrinking stock investments have foretold for months: Oregon income tax revenues are plummeting as never before. ... Four-year universities, which includes the University of Oregon, will have to trim a total of $10.2 million. Exactly how that will be split up among the campuses hasn’t been determined yet.
Change you can believe in, Dave (The Oregonian): "We deeply respect the president-elect and we are glad that he is a fan of college football," Frohnmayer said in an e-mail response to ESPN Tuesday. "We have the most compelling regular season in all of sports, and I'm sure that contributes to Senator Obama's enjoyment of our great game." In his spare time, Obama is calling for an end to the BCS madness and a limited version of the playoff that seems to work quite well in college basketball. He's made that argument on both Monday Night Football and his "60 Minutes" interview.