The intersection of Willamette and Broadway is a focal point for a downtown Eugene that is slowly beginning to bounce back from an economic and cultural decline that began back in the 1960s. (Nate Barrett/Emerald)

Todd Patopea is just trying to enjoy his hamburger. But instead, the newly-minted food cart owner is nearly Tased by Eugene police officers — he’s about to be part of a high speed pursuit.

“This bike comes racing down the street and bike cops are chasing him,” Patopea said.

The cops disappear down a side street and Patopea relaxes for a second but the next thing he knows, they’re heading right through Ken Kesey Memorial Square and straight for his new food cart — but stop just short.

“He dumps his bike right in front of me. I thought he was going to jump in my lap,” he said. Officers pull their stun guns but never pull the triggers.

It was one of Patopea’s first experiences at the corner of Willamette Street and Broadway — one that would set the tone for his two years there.

***

For decades, the same blight that has marked many of downtown Eugene’s buildings — and this particular intersection — has also marked the patrons.

The city of Eugene continues to invest into and revitalize the Willamette and Broadway area but has to deal with the ever-present crime and homelessness. (Nate Barrett/Emerald)

The lack of redevelopment, combined with a large transient population, which has grown to between 1,700 and 2,400 people in the last decade, are leading factors in the decline of urbanization that downtowns across America are fighting to counteract.

“Downtown had been in a sort of slump for a number of years,” said Nan Laurence, a senior planner with the City of Eugene. “There were two high profile vacant properties, known as the pits, which in addition to the vacant Centre Court building were glaring examples of downtown’s distress.”

After 50 years of decay — a decline that began when people across the country began to choose the mall over Main Street in the 1960s — Eugene’s downtown has struggled to bounce back.

Over the past year, developers, business owners and the city have tried to resuscitate the block by revamping two similarly dilapidated buildings separated by Broadway. The city provided loans to businesses with hope of injecting activity in its dying former main street.

“These are old buildings that we tried to breathe new life into and dress up for a pretty limited budget,” said Laurence speaking to the industrial chic aesthetic — a look that seems to aspire to make the block a little brother to Portland’s Pearl District. “It looks old. It harkens back to a different era and it feels more authentic.

The new buildings and businesses — like Sizzle Pie, Bijou Metro and Townshend’s Tea — are changing the DNA of the intersection.

The city of Eugene continues to invest into and revitalize the Willamette and Broadway area but has to deal with the ever-present crime and homelessness. (Nate Barrett/Emerald)

“There’s a lot more people who are working class who are interested in patronizing the carts,” Patopea said.

Anyone who spends a day near Kesey Square can feel the tumult of that culture change.

***

By 10 a.m. on a recent Thursday, Willamette and Broadway is buzzing. Business owners are opening their doors. Professionals are meeting for coffee. And the homeless are congregating in a group on the northeastern corner of the intersection.

Richard Salyer and his wife, up from Downey, Calif. to visit their son who is a law student at University of Oregon, are trying Voodoo Doughnut. In the Sayler’s suburb of Los Angeles, when the sun goes down, the town shuts down.

“You’re very fortunate that you have a lot of people on your streets,” he said. “I would feel completely safe.”

By 10:50 a.m., the police arrive at the intersection. Two officers on bike and one in a car pull up. They cuff and search one of the men in the homeless group — they find a pill bottle in one of his pockets.

“It has some marijuana flakes in the bottom,” one officer says to another. They’re gone by 11 a.m.

A Eugene police officer points to a sign that reads “This area is within 1000 feet of a school. Penalties for selling or possessing illegal drugs are more severe.” while confronting a woman sitting in the back corner of Ken Kesey Memorial Square. (Nate Barrett/Emerald)

But marijuana isn’t why they busted 29-year-old Jessie Joe Perkins, Jr. He was taken to the Lane County Jail and charged with second degree criminal trespassing and violation of park rules, according to Melinda McLaughlin, spokesperson for Eugene Police Department. Perkins, whose last city of residence is unknown, is banned from downtown through a law that’s set to expire on Nov. 30.

Police return twice more today and arrest another man — this one on a wheelchair — by 3 p.m.

The lunchtime crowd has burgers and snacks flying out of Taylor’s Chuck Wagon, Patopea’s food cart. A woman, who passed out on the Kesey statue after police told her to move along, wakes up angry.

“There she goes,” one of the cart’s regular patrons says. “Yelling. Screeching. For no reason.”

Two other men nearby smoke a cigarette that smells like marijuana.

“We’ve really been encouraging them to move along. It’s detrimental to having a nice atmosphere down here,” Patopea said. “Ninety-nine percent of the people are good. Even the street people.”

Eugene’s homelessness problem — one fueled by alcohol, drugs and mental illness — has become so pervasive and persistent that law enforcers bemoan the lack of resources to handle the city’s 13,000 annual property crimes.

One particular offender was arrested 106 times last year. Each time, the man was turned away because of a lack of space to house petty criminals at the jail.

That’s just one case. Another man was arrested 94 times. Another 66.

“Those people still aren’t the people getting held at the jail because they’re not the ones out killing each other,” Lane County Sheriff Tom Turner said at last month’s annual Eugene State of Public Safety Forum.

By 1:40 p.m., the lunch chaos calms. Some of the transients clinging to the statue move on. About six remain, holding up a large cardboard sign that’s almost as tall as they are. Someone sets off a firecracker and the transients burst into laughter.

***

“Now, compared to two years ago, the public safety aspect made it really uncomfortable for folks to come downtown,” said Patopea, who opened the food cart after losing his job as a machinist. “It’s really perking up compared to what it was.”

But with more businesses opening and the controversial Capstone Student Housing project expected to bring 1,200 students downtown, there’s still not enough being done to solve the homelessness problem and improve policing, he said.

“If people don’t feel comfortable coming down, they’re not coming,” he said.

Willamette and Broadway seen in a six-image panorama. Click to enlarge. (Nate Barrett/Emerald)

The City of Eugene expects more than 4,000 to attend its third annual Sunday Streets event, which promotes healthy lifestyles and alternative transportation, downtown this Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. This is the first of two Sunday Streets events this summer.

The city will shut down Eighth and 10th avenues from Pearl to Almaden streets to cars and open them up for people to bike, walk and participate in other alternative activities, according to Emma Newman, the city’s Sunday Streets coordinator.

“They’re going to be very fast paced, exciting races to watch people whipping around the corners downtown,” Newman said. “Eugene Sunday Street is to promote healthy and active living by opening Eugene’s biggest open space — its streets.”

Races start at 7 a.m. and include the TrackTown City Center Mile and Rolf Prima Downtown Criterium. Women can race for free in the Women’s Criterium and there is also a children’s kilometer at 11:15 a.m.

There will be an activity center in Kesey Memorial Square hosting a beer garden, public art unveiling, obstacle course and pedal-powered music from local bands.

“You get to see how the music is being made right there,” Newman said. “It’s a really fun event. You should come out.”

At Monroe Park, there will be a bicycle expo with free classes, more music and races.

The goal is to “use the public spaces of our streets to get around and experience that. We’re hoping that transfers to people’s everyday lives,” Newman said.

New businesses downtown may give out samples and participate as well.

“There’s some businesses that have taken the steps to engage with the event even more but were looking to connect with local businesses just in general,” Newman said.

Shane MacRhodes attended last year’s Sunday Streets events and said it was a huge hit with children.

“We had a girl who had forgotten her bike but we actually loaned her one,” said MacRhodes, the Safe Routes To School program manager at the 4J School District. “I heard from her mom that she loved the bike so much that she saved the money from garage sales and bought the bike.”

For MacRhodes, the best part is seeing people outside, rediscovering the fun he had being a kid and growing up riding bikes.

“I just loved seeing all the people in the streets sort of utilizing our public space in a completely different way and people connecting with their neighbors and parks in a completely different way,” MacRhodes said. “This event is not only fun and celebratory but also starts a conversation about how do we use our public space?”

His booth featured an obstacle course and balance bike race last year.

“They really loved trying those out and I think there were a couple of parents who had to buy their kids balance bikes after that,” he said. “They just rode for like an hour on them.”

The next Sunday Streets event takes place Sept. 8.

Elfriede Prefontaine died Tuesday at PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center in Springfield. She was 88.

Prefontaine was the mother of University of Oregon graduate and track star Steve Prefontaine. Twelve days before her death, she fell down at an assisted-living facility in Eugene, according to The Register-Guard.

More to come.

Students who created a petition to get Tuesday finals canceled after the Monday Blackboard outage are asking the University of Oregon to end its relationship with the company that created the software. As of this post, it has more than 1,600 signatures.

“Any unplanned loss of access to the Blackboard system, especially during final exams, amounts to a severe impact on the studying capabilities and preparedness of students,” the petition reads.

Barbara Altmann, vice provost for academic affairs, sent a campus-wide email earlier today asking faculty to consider any inconvenience the outage caused for students.

“Students affected by lack of availability of Blackboard resources should contact their instructors to discuss accommodations if needed,” she wrote.

The petition, addressed to the UO president’s office, IT department and public relations staff, originally asked the president’s office to postpone Tuesday finals. Many of the signatures were already collected before the petition’s text changed.

Scammers have called at least two Eugene Water & Electric Board customers since Friday and asked them to wire money through Western Union. The utility provider said today in a statement that it does not ask customers to pay late bills by wiring money.

If you’re behind on your bill, EWEB will remind you through the mail or hang a notice on your door before calling you.

Olympic gold medalist and former University of Oregon student Ashton Eaton will go before the Oregon State Senate on Thursday and thank them for supporting the Olympic Trials in Eugene last summer, The Associated Press reported this morning. He is slated to speak for 30 minutes.

Eaton set a decathlon world record at the trials and went on to win the gold in decathlon at the 2012 London Olympics. 

He graduated from Mountain View High School in Bend.

Woody Tasch has been a catalyst for $21 million of investments in 180 small food enterprises and organic farms over the past two years. He’s the founder and chairman of Slow Money — a nonprofit focused on such investments.

“This program will urge us to put our money where our mouths are,” said Wayne Morse Center director, Margaret Hallock in a press release. “It will appeal to people who want to build a more vibrant economy and support local agriculture. This is a chance for us to learn how local investing works.”

Tasch will speak tonight at the Global Scholars Hall at 7 p.m. in the Great Room. His talk is called “Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms and Fertility Mattered.”