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LETTERS IN THE EDITOR''S MAILBAG.

Article Excerpt
Byline: The Register-Guard

Council's about-face is sad

As a soon-to-graduate University of Oregon student, I have the good fortune of being able to leave Eugene soon. The City Council's recent about-face, in which it approved the name change of Centennial Boulevard, was the most recent example of what a sad, backwards city this is.

Disregarding the cost to local businesses and residents and completely kicking aside Eugene's small tribute to this state's long history, the council bowed to pressure from a small segment of the public and sent a message that the city continues to be driven by political correctness.

No one should rightly suggest that Martin Luther King Jr. doesn't deserve local remembrance, but there are any number of imaginative ways that effort needn't require hardship on Eugeneans or a collapse of conscience by civic leaders. While public crusader Ed Coleman has won a small victory in his ongoing fight to find racial divides where they do not exist, it is the city that has lost. Eugene continues to be stuck in a time warp, and it is this refusal to move into the future that makes it a national laughingstock.

I will be laughing, when I'm gone.

BRET JACOBSON

Eugene

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