PAT FARR DUI MATTERS

FARR’S DUI MATTERS

Recently, the R-G [and EW] published reports of Pat Farr, candidate against Rob Handy for county commissioner, getting cited in 2006 for being four times over the legal limit to drive. It is legitimate to ask why this issue is important to the race, and not just an example of dirty politics by the Handy campaign. Though I don’t speak for the campaign, I’d like to weigh in.

• Farr made this a public matter by endangering the lives of everyone on the public streets that night. DUIs are the public’s business because of the nature of the crime.

• Farr has made honesty, transparency, and “bringing trust back to government” the foundation of his campaign. Yet he hasn’t been honest about his own past. He opened the door to this.

• At the time of the crime, Farr was executive director of FOOD for Lane County. That nonprofit had just survived a huge controversy a few years before when the board fired their founding director. Another scandal at the top of FFLC could literally have brought that organization to its knees. Farr’s crime put in jeopardy the tens of thousands of people FFLC serves every year.

Judge for yourself his fitness for office.

Kevin O’Brien, Eugene