A Different Kind of Change
By Envision Magazine on June 26, 2014
Story by La’akea Kaufman
Photos by Siân Kavanagh
On a warm June night in 2000, Jeffrey Luers and his companion, Craig “Critter” Marshall, set fire to three trucks at Romania Chevrolet in Eugene, Ore. Luers claimed that he did so, in part, to bring attention to America’s foreign policy towards dictators and to the growing fleet of U.S. vehicles,which is responsible for the second-highest amount greenhouse gas emissions in the world.
Luers was charged with Arson 1, Attempted Arson 1, and possession and manufacture of a destructive device. Luers was sentenced to 22 years and eight months in prison; the longest sentencing ever given in a U.S. eco-terrorism case.
“I think that the treatment that I received, as someone who had been arrested for environmentally motivated arson, was very different than the treatment that your average criminal would have been treated,” says Luers. “Because I had an outspoken environmental political agenda, I was given gang status. I will forever be identified in FBI databases as a member of a gang.”
Luers’ sentence soon gained media attention across the country. Luers gave interviews from behind bars, and continued to speak out about environmental issues.
“[he] called me into his office just to shake my hand and say that I had convinced him. That he now took ‘this global warming thing’, as he called it, seriously.” –Jeff Luers
“As a result of that, I was thrown in solitary confinement and told that if I continued to express my opinions or talk about my beliefs that I would be kept in isolation permanently,” says Luers.
This later led to a lawsuit against the Oregon Department of Corrections for the violation of Luers’ First Amendment rights. The lawsuit was settled before it ever reached a courtroom.
In 2007, Jeffrey Luers’ case was revisited by the Oregon court of appeals. The court ruled that Luers was improperly sentenced to back-to-back seven-and-a-half-year prison sentences for his crimes.
The case eventually returned to the Lane Circuit Court, where he was approved to be released in December of 2009.
“[What made] every day I spent in there mean something is when the officer that had been assigned as my gang task manager… when I won my appeal, [he] called me into his office just to shake my hand and say that I had convinced him. That he now took ‘this global warming thing’, as he called it, seriously,” says Luers. “In the end, I guess it really kinda was worth it, harassment and all.”
Jeff Luers enrolled in the University of Oregon’s landscape architecture program in 2010 with hopes of inciting a different type of change.
“I got a degree in landscape architecture because I think landscape architects have the ability to affect culture,” says Luers. “I think that if we’re going to start getting communities and cities to see their place within the landscape ecology and ecosystems around them, that has to start with how we interact with our public outdoor space.”
Luers was brainstorming ideas for his Senior Comprehensive project for the landscape architecture program when the idea for the Green Alley Project was born.
“Being from Eugene, having lived in the Whiteaker and Friendly neighborhoods for a number of years, I’m really familiar with all of our alleys,” says Luers says. “Particularly the really run down ones, ’cause I used to enjoy hanging out in them quite a bit. So I was like, ‘Hey, I can think of a couple of these that would be like the perfect little pocket park!’”
Luers began researching pocket parks and different types of sustainable alley transformations when he discovered green alley programs that had been implemented in various cities throughout the U.S.
“At the same time, I ran across a lot of scientific papers that had been peer-reviewed on the effects of road dust and pollution in dust, particularly on gravel roadways,” says Luers. “I went, ‘Wait a minute, most of the alleys in Eugene are gravel.’”
Eric Jones, Eugene city Public Works Administrator, says that often times landowners are only concerned with maintaining the front area of their property.
“In front of the house, the public land is maintained. It’s seen as an extension of their own property, so they have the incentive to take care of that space” says Jones says. “But on the back of the house, the alleys are often overgrown. Typically people don’t maintain that area.”
“If anyone is enthusiastic about beautifying the community, I’m for it.”–Catherine Reinhart
“I think that we can do better,” says Luers says. “I think that we can make alleys a vibrant component of our communities that improve not only livability, but pedestrian linkages and actually start making our city more sustainable.”
Luers conducted an online survey from January 1st to February 14th 2014, which had 95 Eugene resident responders. Fifty-nine of the responders lived on or near an alley, but only 11 of those residents were satisfied with its current use.
The goal of the project is to improve Eugene’s 26 miles of alleys, specifically located in the Whiteaker and Friendly neighborhoods, through the use of sustainable methods and technology to deal with issues such as pollution and proper storm water drainage.
Luers put together a report and submitted it to the mayor and city council of Eugene. He has been working with residents from the Friendly area neighborhood as well as members of the Whiteaker neighborhood community council to structure the project in a way that would benefit both areas.
“We really tried to get as much feedback from the people that live adjacent to these alleys and in these neighborhoods as possible so that we could address their concerns, figure out what it is that they would like to see in its place, and put together sort of a community idea,” says Luers.
So far, says Luers, the support for the Green Alley Project has been overwhelming.
“I now have a number of people that would like to use their alley as a pilot project,” says Luers. “We’ve been endorsed by nine local businesses now, mostly in the Whiteaker neighborhood.”
Sweet Life Patisserie in Eugene is one of the projects supporters. Catherine Reinhart, co-owner of Sweet Life, says she was very much in favor of the project.
“I think it’s a good idea,” says Reinhart. “Our business is actually located on an alley. If anyone is enthusiastic about beautifying the community, I’m for it.”
The next step, says Luers, is obtaining non-profit status for the project so that all of the support and funding from businesses and residents can be put into a pilot project.
“I think if people can see it, if people can interact with it, and we can weigh it against current alley improvement standards and see the benefits from it, I think we will then see a city policy that not only allows people to improve or green their alley, but encourages it,” says Luers. “It could forever change the face of Eugene and make it something.”