My wife and I volunteer at LCAS.  Every day they round up stray dogs, some dangerous.  If these dogs are permitted to run loose there will be a real problem!  If they are not rounded up there will be people getting hurt, also costing the county.  LCAS is NOT a good candidate for closing.

As an animal lover, I agree with you. However, after having looked at what their doomsday budget is, where else do you propose they cut? Should they let more murders and child abusers go because they can't lodge them or prosecute them? Something has to give if the citizens of this County aren't willing to pay for the services that have been provided up until now. Luckily, there are a lot of animal lovers out here who I think will work together to find an option for the strays and unwanted pets if LCAS goes away. The same cannot be said for the criminals in our midst. There aren't any good scenarios right now, and everyone is fighting for the services they feel the most passionate about. We can either have a County that does everything, but nothing well, or cuts back and continues to provide good service in fewer areas. It will be interesting to see what direction they go in.

Agreed. There are no good candidates for closing left at the county.

You (Lane County) already have the lowest per-capita police officer staffing in the entire USA! Your property crime rate is already in the worst 5% in the USA!

The Lane County jail should have between 850 and 1,100 beds, but it's dropped from 150 beds last year to 93 beds now and, soon, 27 beds. At 93 beds they can't even hold all of the most violent sex offenders, I can't imagine where they'll be at 27 beds.

Half the DA's staff will have been eliminated, including all but 17 lawyers in the criminal division (they had 29 lawyers in 1980) and 10 of 11 criminal investigators have already been laid off. Misdemeanors already go unprosecuted today. Now they have to eliminate another 2,000 felony cases, so burglars and drug dealers can get away with even more. (Apparently Eugene residents don't understand the relationship between police officers, prosecutors, probation officers, jail space and crime rate.)

I recently read the following comparison: Maricopa County, Arizona has one jail bed for every 308 county residents; Douglas County, Oregon has one bed for every 365 county residents. Lane County -- one bed for each 3,600 residents today, but that's only until the new budget goes into effect in a few weeks. When that happens the county will drop from 93 county beds to 27 -- then it will be over 10,000 residents per jail bed.

It's a shame to see the animal services go, because I love animals and my wife and I volunteer too, but I'm surprised the Lane County animal services have survived the last 27 years of slashing law enforcement. In any other community they would have been eliminated before killing the last of the public safety system. At least you still have the Humane Society... there is NO other source of protection from the rapists, burglars, car thieves and sex abusers.

We're SO grateful we left...