Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis presented their 3rd Annual Music Maker Grants to two young artists, Sapphyre Bardot and Najaya Ruffin, who were awarded $5,000 each and 12 months of music industry mentorship.

There was also a very special performance from 10-year-old Grayson Roberts, a visually impaired drummer whose family lost everything in the Eaton Fires in Altadena. He and his family received $25,000 from the BMAC and Lou Taylor, the head of Tri Star Sports and Entertainment Group.

Marisa Frantz and company perform 7:30 pm Friday, Jan. 31, and 3 pm Sunday, Feb. 2, at the John G. Shedd Institute for the Arts, 285 East Broadway. Purchase tickets at Tickets.TheShedd.org. Prices range from $11.75 to $32.00.

Sitting down with Eugene Weekly in the heart of her South Eugene district at Barry’s Espresso Bakery and Deli on Oak Street, Trieger answered questions about Lane County’s consistently unbalanced budget and how President Donald Trump’s nascent administration will affect county politics.

With a conservative majority on the board supportive of the new administration, Trieger — now in her second term — says the difference between politics and policy is very important.

“Politics is a really blunt instrument; it’s loud and it’s to get people whipped up. And policy is really thoughtful, disciplined, values-driven work,” she says. “There are some people, including some of my colleagues, who have yet to make the transition from politics to policy.”

Dangerous Behavior

“They’re dangerous,” she says of people who have not made the transition from the blunt instrument of politics to the thoughtfulness of policy. This dangerous behavior and what she calls “hateful rhetoric” are encouraged under Trump. Trieger points out that more local politicians than ever before are running the MAGA playbook.

The current board majority supports Trump’s second administration, Trieger says, or is at least supportive of people who are. North Eugene Commissioner Pat Farr and West Lane County Commissioner Ryan Ceniga are not registered to any party, while Springfield Commissioner David Loveall is a registered Republican, according to information from the Oregon Secretary of State.

Not long after this interview, on Jan. 28, a number of community members spoke in regard to the Trump administration in the public comment period of the Tuesday morning Lane County Commission meeting. Wearing paper hearts on their chest, the commenters spoke in support of the local trans community. 

Trieger said in response to the comments, “I’m sorry that women have to talk about their most personal and challenging reproductive health care decisions in public in order to have their basic rights honored. I’m sorry children have to beg their government to protect them from gunfire in the classroom. And I am sorry that our trans community has to come before their local government and literally beg for their lives.” 

Board Chair Loveall in his own response said, “This nation was founded upon a principle of Christian foundation,” and when it came to a remark one of the commenters made about Trump and trans people, Loveall declared: “Our president only indicates that he is reading his Bible as he should.” 

Unlike her colleagues, Trieger says she isn’t expecting any helpful legislation for Lane County, or any other local government, from the new administration. By contrast, the Biden administration passed the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, giving local governments much-needed windfalls of funding, she says.

 “Do I anticipate that this federal administration will infuse local governments with money to actually serve the needs of the most marginalized and structurally disadvantaged people in our community?” she asks. “No, I do not.” Without ARPA, she says, the county would have struggled to bounce back from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lane County received $124 million in federal funding from ARPA to help recover from COVID-19. This funding was very helpful in bridging the gaps in the county’s revenue sources, Trieger says. “Lane County has been operating on tight purse-strings for decades.”

The Unbalanced Budget

Trieger argues the root causes of Lane County’s structurally unbalanced budget are “the historic problems of over emphasizing, furthering the advantages of those already advantaged, the over reliance on extraction industry as a way to generate revenue, the absolute hamstringing of the county’s abilities to rely on our property tax base for unrestricted revenue.”

Federal timber receipts just don’t bring in what they used to anymore, and the county only gets 11 cents of the whole property tax dollar. “We are the assessor and tax collection entity for the entire county.” 

“There are 85 special districts: school districts, fire districts, library districts, etc.” Each district needs a portion of the property tax pie to operate. Special districts are created by local governments to fulfill specific service needs.

“We keep only 11 cents on the dollar for our own General Fund. We collect no administrative fee for doing that, so we are providing a free service to these 85 districts,” the commissioner says.

That money has to pay for county-owned parks and roads, the law library, the Sheriff’s Office and Lane County Waste Management, among many other services, Trieger notes.

Out of all property tax collected by Lane County, Trieger says 47 percent is divided between the 16 school districts in the county. 

Trieger explains that while the county would love to collect more, it is both unpopular and restricted statewide. Property tax increases are statutorily capped to 3 percent, and have been since Measure 50 established a limit for existing properties in 1997.

“When you demand and, in fact, deserve a certain level of service at the same time, you have to recognize that it costs money to deliver that service. So we’re in this vicious cycle of people saying, ‘I don’t want to give you more of my tax dollars because you already don’t deliver adequate service.’”

Between the increasing cost to provide services and general revenue failing to match it, Trieger feels this is compounded by the fact that the county’s 11 cents on the dollar does not go as far as it needs to. The state mandates many services that “have systematically and consistently reduced their funding for, and then costs rise.”

The county government is committed to providing its 2,000-plus employees with livable wages and benefits, despite rising costs. “Our workforce deserves good market-wage wages and health care benefits. The cost, for example, of providing health insurance for our employees has only increased dramatically,” she says. “Services stayed the same, and there’s no revenue source for us to make up that difference.”

Promising to Make a Difference

Despite this, Trieger assures the county will still deliver on its promises. “My primary focus is on the suite of programs that we have been doing and the new ones we’re standing up that address basically what I would call behavioral health equity,” Trieger says.

Additionally, Trieger wants to secure all the necessary capital for the construction of the county’s planned Behavioral Health Stabilization Center, continue the rollout of the county’s behavioral health deflection program and ensure the county’s mental health crisis intervention service remains fully funded.

While the Lane Stabilization Center has yet to break ground, Trieger notes the other programs are already seeing success.

Lane County’s deflection program sends low-level drug and quality of life crime offenders to relevant mental health and rehabilitation programs prior to arrest. The county’s Mobile Crisis Service dispatches mental health professionals to related emergency calls nationwide. In tandem, Trieger promises the programs will continue to make a difference.

However, Trieger says the county’s ability to deliver on those services could be impacted by Trump’s administration. “We are not yet deep enough into his term to fully understand the extent of the threats, but we certainly have some indications. We are monitoring and analyzing as policies develop,” she writes in an emailed statement to EW. “My goal remains to ensure we protect Lane County residents and continue providing critical services.”

Even with continued dedication toward policy, Trieger expects more strife in county politics — emboldened by the Trump administration.

“The general climate, both internal to our board and which is a reflection of what’s happening nationally, is a climate of distrust and duplicity, saying you care about people, but then taking actions that do not come along and actually result in people being cared for. That’s a huge challenge, but that’s also not a new challenge.”

To view the Board of County Commissioners calendar, go to LaneCounty.org.

Eugene Weekly sat down with University of Oregon Baseball’s head strength coach, Darrell Hunter, at the Casanova Center which houses the Duck Medical Treatment Center and Marcus Mariota Sports Performance Complex, to learn how to get yoked. Or as he put it, how to “get the most out of each athlete.”

Hunter, a former member of the UO baseball team who has now either played with or trained every member of the UO team since it began in 2009, says, “For me, it’s not just about making pro athletes. It’s about just giving them a foundation, a willingness and a desire to work out and stay healthy.” 

That’s where anyone getting back in shape should be, starting to build a foundation of fundamentals.

For Hunter, the fundamentals start with a realistic understanding of where you are physically and where you want to be. When he gets a new player, which he says happens more frequently now than ever before because of the NCAA transfer portal, he meets with them to understand where they want to be versus where they need to be. The transfer portal lets student-athletes who want to transfer to put their name in an online database.

With the baseball season starting in February, he’s training his baseball players to be able to output a lot of force very quickly on the field. “You’re swinging a 30 ounce bat against a five ounce baseball, [so] squatting 500 pounds probably is unnecessary. It’s, ‘Can I move 225 pounds faster?’” he says. 

While Hunter has his players become “more explosive” by lifting  less weight faster, he emphasizes that exercise is not a one-size-fits-all situation. “If you look at player A and player B, the workout is not the same,” Hunter says. Understanding where you need to be is one thing, but Hunter says it’s even more important to draft a plan to hold yourself accountable.

While he creates his workout schedules in four-week blocks, Hunter says the exercises “change almost every day based on what I’m seeing out of practice.” It’s all about tracking how you’re physically and mentally feeling before going into a workout.

“Build a structured plan but be willing to change the plan,” he says. “I really want to go strong today, but I feel like crap. I didn’t sleep, work is stressful. Don’t just do it endlessly. Let’s say there’s a day where it’s not supposed to be that, but I feel great today. Let’s push it that day.”

“Attack each day differently,” he says. “It’s just consistency over anything else.”

Hunter says that just as the players who are the most driven to train off the field find more success than those that aren’t, those who create a flexible plan with realistic expectations will find themselves exercising more than others (like myself) who make the resolution to work out every single day of the new year.

However, Hunter says the best way to get regular exercise is to pick one you actually enjoy doing. “You’re going to be a lot more consistent if you enjoy what you’re doing.”

On Jan. 27, the Trump administration ordered the temporary pause of federal financial assistance, grants and loans until agencies and organizations receiving federal funds could provide evidence that the money wasn’t going toward anything that defied the president’s stream of confusing executive orders. 

According to a memo from the Office of Management and Budget, federal funding could not be used for “financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology and the green new deal.” 

Until organizations could prove they would not use “federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism and green new deal social engineering policies,” the memo reads, government funding would not be dispersed.

“‘Transgenderism’ is a term appropriated by opponents of transgender equality to inaccurately and harmfully imply that being trans is a political ideology, rather than an authentic aspect of one’s personhood,” according to LGBTQ+ advocacy organization GLAAD. 

Public research universities such as the University of Oregon and Oregon State University rely heavily on a mixture of federal and state funding for their research and innovation programs. 

“We’re looking closely at each executive order and agency request to understand the potential impacts on the groundbreaking research conducted by our faculty and benefiting the citizens of Oregon and beyond,” Eric Howald, UO’s assistant director of issues management, writes in an email to Eugene Weekly.

According to the OSU’s 2024 Research and Innovation Annual Report, the university received $370 million in federal research awards. In 2023, the OSU received more funds from the U.S. National Science Foundation — an independent federal agency established by Congress in 1950 — than any other Oregon university combined.

In response to the pause on federal funding, the OSU released a statement to community members written by Irem Tumer, OSU’s vice president for research and innovation, and Jennifer Creighton, OSU’s associate vice president for research administration, finance and operations.

“The university is gathering information and guidance from federal agencies on immediate and potential impacts to sponsored research,” they write. “Given Oregon State’s reputation and preeminent status as an institution dedicated to advancing research of utmost importance to the state, the nation and the world, even a temporary pause on the issuance of new awards and on the disbursement of federal funds for open awards has broad impacts across the university.”

The UO, by comparison, received $177 million in research awards in 2024, 91 percent of which came from the federal government.

EW reached out to Oregon Research Institute, a Springfield-based nonprofit behavioral science research center that receives federal funding and is a research partner of the UO, via phone and email and have not heard back. The facility appeared closed Tuesday, Jan. 28.

Gov. Tina Kotek said in a press conference Jan. 28 that she could not speak to the specifics of how different programs would be affected by the freeze, but that Oregon wouldn’t “do anything until we know exactly what that means.

“The messages coming out of the federal government are completely unclear,” Kotek says. “We have no guidance. Those executive orders are very broad. We are getting one and a half page memos about how we must stop all things.”

On Wednesday, Jan. 29, the Trump administration rescinded the temporary freeze it had imposed, but agencies receiving federal funding are still expected to evaluate and prove that they’re not using government resources to further anything “woke” in nature.

Vibrant! An All Black Drag Show & Celebration is 8 pm Saturday, Feb. 1, at The Hybrid Gallery, 941 W.  3rd Ave. The show is 18-plus and tickets are $10 at TheHybridEugene.com/Events.

Growing up in Eugene, I always felt proud of the open-minded and inclusive community that welcomed me. The sense of belonging and support was palpable when my family and I first moved here from Mexico in 2015.

However, after living in Louisiana for three years and then returning to Eugene, I’ve found myself in disbelief that such open racism is now present in our community today. It’s hard to reconcile this Eugene with the place I remember, a city that I thought was far beyond this kind of hate and ignorance.

I usually try to avoid the topic of politics, but things have reached a point where I can’t stay quiet anymore. I’ve been holding this in for a while, but seeing how things have been progressing, I feel like I have to speak out.

The day after Donald Trump took office, I had experiences at the coffee shop I work at — all in one day — that stuck with me, and I’m not sure it would have happened the same way before his election. It was a series of comments and interactions, but they all felt like a gut punch. 

I had a customer tell me to “go back to Mexico.” 

Another mockingly called me “muchacho.” Then another pointed at the “bienvenidos” pin on my apron and asked me why I was wearing it, as if my identity was up for debate. But the worst part? The customer who asked me where I was from, and when I said “Tijuana,” he told me my English was “too good” for that to be true. Then, he tipped me 75 cents and said it was for me to “go back to Tijuana.” 

It was like he was giving me permission to be a second-class citizen, as if I didn’t belong here.

And it didn’t stop there. Another customer, a regular, refused to have me make her drink simply because of my background, and a group of teenagers mocked me in front of my face, smirking and saying “gracias” as if it was some kind of joke.

This isn’t just some isolated incident. It’s the reality for a lot of us, especially those of us who are trying to live and work in this country. This is how people are acting, and it’s being given a pass. These aren’t just random strangers — these are people who I know, who I interact with regularly and who, in some way, are connected to everyone reading. That’s what’s so disheartening.

This isn’t just about me. This is about my family, my friends and people who look like me — because if I’m treated like this, it’s only a matter of time before it impacts someone else you know. I live with the fear that one day, my parents could be taken away from me. That fear is real.

I’ve always tried to stay out of the political discourse, but I can’t ignore it anymore. When this kind of hate and discrimination is allowed to fester, it’s not just affecting me, it’s affecting all of us. It’s a reminder that silence in the face of injustice is part of the problem. So I’m speaking up, because this matters — for me, for my family and for the people who may not have a voice.

Please, don’t let this be the new normal. Let’s not forget that we’re all human, and we all deserve respect and dignity.

Rene Gonzalez, originally from Tijuana, attended high school in Eugene, and recently returned to Oregon, where he trains his horses and works at a local coffee shop.

He lived on the streets of Eugene on-and-off for about eight years, before finding stable housing around 2020. He hung out in The Kiva Grocery’s parking and general downtown area, where he used to distribute his $1 publication, Our Streets of Eugene. It shed light on Eugene’s homeless community through the written word, with poems, stories and experiences.  

On Christmas morning 2024, Buss passed away peacefully at Valley West Health Care Center. 

Buss was born the youngest of four siblings on Dec. 17, 1958 to parents John and Anne Buss in Tacoma. He was close with his older siblings, and because they lived out in the country, Vicki Sullivan, his only sister, said they would often be found playing baseball, catching frogs in the creek or getting into mischief together. 

As a teenager, Buss was a mechanically minded, music-loving rebel. He loved shop class and history most, but those were some of the only classes he ended up going to. “He would go to school, then he’d step out the back door pretty quickly,” says his Eugene housemate Sylvia Gregory. “He would sign the letter from the school saying he wasn’t there, and forge his parents’ signature saying he was excused. Then he’d get back before they got home from work.” 

Ever since he was a child, Sullivan says, “He loved as deeply as anyone could ever love.”

He played many instruments, including guitar, bass and drums, so much so that when he was a teenager his parents gave him the attic so he could play as loud as he wanted. He loved classic rock, and his favorite bands were The Rolling Stones and Nirvana. He passed on this love to his many nieces, giving them each different albums for birthdays and Christmas, and teaching them how to play music. “I’m a huge music person myself, now, because of my uncle,” says his niece, Tonja 

He was also a practical joker. When his nieces were little, “He’d tell us these scary stories, and then he would incorporate everything around him into the story at the perfect time,” Guizzetti-Clark. says. From having a flashlight flicker behind his back, to having his friend bang on the window at just the right moment, “He would just petrify us,” Guizzetti-Clark says. “My Uncle Ronny was just the coolest person ever. He was our favorite.”

When he was in his late teens, he moved to Modesto, California. He worked for many years at a moving company with his brother. After he left the company, other jobs he worked included being a PepsiCo driver, a candy distributor and working at a container manufacturer. “I never knew him not to have a good, solid job and a nice muscle car. He always had some type of fast car,” Guizzetti-Clark says. After that, he returned to the moving industry and was making “$100,000 a year” he told Eugene Weekly in 2014.

He married a woman named Diane in 1986 and together they had four kids. The couple divorced in 2008. After years of suffering many injuries through his various jobs, in 2011, Buss moved to Florence to be closer with his kids. 

He ended up in Eugene living off of his disability check. Being faithful to his child support meant there wasn’t much money left over to pay rent, Gregory says. After a year of living off of his 401(k), he became unhoused, living on and off the street for about eight years. It was during this time that he met and got a job with David Gerber, who had a street paper focused on art and written pieces by Eugene’s homeless community called Oregon Vagabond Motivator. 

Buss sold the paper from the Kiva parking lot until it stopped printing. In October 2013, he started up his own newspaper, Our Streets of Eugene, complete with a newsletter written by Buss himself. Our Streets of Eugene carried on OVM’s legacy. “He knew absolutely everything there was to know about what goes on downtown,” Gregory says. “He was so observant.” 

“We all enjoyed talking to him because he’s an interesting guy, nice person, and easy to talk to,” says Gregory, speaking on behalf of the flock of ladies who frequented Kiva at the time and befriended him. Poitra, who knew him from distributing another local newspaper, confirms his popularity. “People tended to bring him things, and he would usually ask for milk instead of any kind of coffee or anything. On a really hot day, he would ask for a Coke.”

“It was very interesting to talk to when he wasn’t your run of the mill houseless person. He was an interesting stand up guy,” Gregory says. “He always dressed well, he was clean and didn’t do street drugs or anything like that. He didn’t drink, either. He just smoked. But that was it. If he had half a chance, he could have done anything he set his mind to.”

One cold January day in 2020, Gregory ran into him on the street, and he told her he had just gotten out of the hospital for the second time in three months. Aside from various injuries he acquired over his storied career in the moving and warehouse industries, he also suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. “I thought to myself, ‘He’s gonna die out here, if he doesn’t get housing,’” Gregory says. “And so I remodeled and made my basement habitable.” 

He lived with her until October 2024, when his COPD, injuries and wounds got the best of him, and he was placed on hospice before eventually being moved to Valley West. He passed away on Christmas morning, leaving behind many people who loved him deeply. “Despite the fact that he’d been through hell and gone in his life, he tried his very best,” Gregory says. “I’m just really proud that he was our friend,” Poitra says. 

He is preceded in death by his parents, John and Anne Buss, and his oldest brother, Gary Buss. He is survived by his sister and brother, Vicki Sullivan and Doug Buss, as well as many nieces and also Jeremy. He is also survived by his four children, Michael, Tracy, Steven and Vincent. 

His memorial service was held Jan. 25, at the Eugene Mennonite Church.

A major California-based gas station chain seeks to build a regional fuel distribution “tank farm” next to the Eugene Union Pacific rail yard, drawing objections from neighbors and other activists who fear environmental and other impacts.

The proposal’s fate lies with Eugene planning staff who will decide whether the city’s land use code allows such a facility on the property, which is zoned for heavy industry. The city doesn’t have a decision timeline.

In its application, H&S Energy of Orange, California, said its “bulk plant” or “tank farm” would have above or below-ground storage tanks holding fuel that would be distributed by tanker truck to gas stations and government and business customers.

Bethel and Trainsong area neighbors are alarmed. The proposal “must be stopped,” says Lin Woodrich, co-chair of the Active Bethel Community neighborhood group. Residents are lobbying the Eugene City Council, although planning staff said the decision is based strictly on the city’s land use code.

The proposal comes just as activists succeeded in beating back an attempt by another company to build a fuels transfer facility next to the rail yard. In that case, Texas-based USD Clean Fuels said it wanted to build a fuels facility on Bethel Drive, at the south end of the sprawling rail yard. USD wanted to transfer fuels from rail cars to tanker trucks for regional distribution. Following community protests, the city decided Eugene’s heavy-industrial zoning rules don’t allow that use.

Scant Info

 Only a few details are available on the H&S proposal.

The facility would sit on a vacant seven-acre parcel at the end of pot-holed, unpaved Kintyre Street at the northern edge of the rail yard. The site is wedged between the rail yard and Highway 99.

It would receive fuels via rail, truck or pipeline, says the application. A major gasoline pipeline operated by the Kinder Morgan corporation has a terminal and large tank farm near the rail yard.

H&S has not yet designed the facility, says Jennifer Doty, H&S senior director of real estate.

The project is “a sort of if, sort of maybe sort of thing,” Doty tells Eugene Weekly. “It may or may not happen.” H&S is looking at other sites around the state, she says.

H&S, with more than 50 gas stations in Oregon, likes the site’s proximity to I-5, she says. The company has not yet settled on price with the landowner, Doty says.

Among the groups in opposition is Beyond Toxics, the Eugene-based environmental nonprofit.

“Our main objection to this proposal is that, similar to the [USD Clean Fuels] transfer station, this tank farm does not belong in the middle of our city,” says Lisa Arkin, Beyond Toxics executive director.

The proposed site is in a largely industrial/commercial strip along the west side of the rail yard. But it is close to densely developed residential areas in the Bethel, Trainsong and River Road neighborhoods.

Industrial Zoning

 The site is zoned heavy industrial. That’s the same zoning as the land the city rejected for USD Clean Fuels.

The company late last year submitted a zone verification request to the city, a procedure that requires the planning staff to formally confirm whether a particular use is allowed. The city doesn’t have a decision timeline, says Jeff Gepper, the planner handling the request.

Eugene’s zoning code says the purpose of heavy industrial land is to “serve a range of manufacturing uses, including those involved in the processing of large volumes of raw materials into refined products and/or industrial uses that have significant external impacts.” Lighter industrial uses are also allowed.

The land is owned by a corporation controlled by members of the Cole family in Massachusetts and Eugene, according to ownership filings. They bought the land in 1997 for $145,000, according to a deed. It is listed for sale by Campbell Commercial Real Estate of Eugene for $2,295,000.

The site is currently occupied by a caretaker in an RV. A few hens and roosters roam through the trees.

Privately held H&S has been growing rapidly. It owns several hundred convenience stores and gas stations under various brands along the West Coast, according to its website. Last year, it bought California-based Andretti Petroleum Group, which had nearly 170 convenience stores, gas stations and other fuel outlets on the West Coast, according to news reports.

Bricks $ Mortar is a column anchored by Christian Wihtol, who worked as an editor and writer at The Register-Guard in Eugene 1990-2018, much of the time focused on real estate, economic development and business. Reach him at Christian@EugeneWeekly.com. 

On Jan. 21, at the Churchill High School Auditorium, Eugene Opera partnered with the Eugene-Springfield Youth Orchestras (ESYO) for the “Opera is Instrumental” program. This initiative offered the Youth Symphony a unique opportunity to rehearse with professional opera artists under the direction of Eugene Opera conductor Andrew Bisantz. Only the most advanced musicians, ranging from high school students to those up to 21 years old, are accepted into the Youth Symphony after rigorous auditions.

“This is my tenth year with the orchestra — I started in third grade in Little Symphony,” Sroka says. “I think it’s a very valuable experience to work with professional musicians because they can offer great advice and insight into what it means to play music professionally. It’s really interesting and rewarding to explore different types of music. We usually play classical pieces, so it’s always fun to try something different.”

Elmira High School senior Lucas Bower, a cellist with the Youth Symphony who relocated from Ashland for his senior year, reflects on his experience. “You’re treated at the baton like a professional when we work with the opera,” Bower says. “The conductor acts as if we were professional musicians, and it’s a really different feeling. Opera is my least understood musical landscape, so it’s fun to explore a less-known realm of music. For me, it’s a new perspective — I’ve never really analyzed opera the way I have with orchestral and symphonic works.”

This year, students rehearsed selections from Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto, including the Act 1 aria “Caro nome” and the Act 3 classic “La donna è mobile.” The Youth Symphony performed these pieces alongside Eugene Opera professional artists tenor Esteban Zuñíga-Calderon and soprano Véronique Filloux, both of whom are featured in Eugene Opera’s full production of Rigoletto Jan. 31 and Feb. 2.

Zuñíga-Calderon, originally from Costa Rica and a member of Eugene Opera since 2021, highlights the importance of outreach programs like this one. “Community outreach is incredible because you get to share this amazing piece of art with people who don’t always get to experience it,” he says. “Sometimes opera has a reputation for being only for older people, but it should be much more democratized. Events like this open doors.”

Filloux, from Redwood City, California, and a freelance opera performer, reflects on her debut with Eugene Opera. “Folks are sometimes brought in for specific roles, so this is my first time with Eugene Opera,” Filloux says. “I love working with younger people who are coming up in the world of music. Being part of the music community means being a professional collaborator. I remember how much mentors meant to me when I was younger, and I didn’t have programs like this. Opportunities like this teach students how to collaborate in new ways, which is so exciting.”

The program features a multi-step rehearsal process. ESYO’s Youth Symphony began by preparing condensed musical scores under the guidance of David Jacobs, a conductor from the University of Oregon’s School of Music and Dance. After rehearsing individually and as an ensemble, students worked with the opera’s conductor, Bisantz. Professional opera singers joined the final rehearsal, giving students an immersive introduction to the complexities of opera performance.

“We are incredibly fortunate to be part of a community that values the performing arts,” says Cynthia Stenger Riplinger, ESYO executive director. “This program gives our Youth Symphony musicians an invaluable opportunity to learn from Maestro Bisantz and perform alongside world-class soloists from Eugene Opera.”

Launched in 2020, Opera is Instrumental has become a cornerstone of Eugene Opera’s outreach initiatives. The program not only enhances the educational experience of young musicians but also strengthens bonds within the local arts community.

Eugene Opera’s full production of Verdi’s Rigoletto will take place at the Hult Center for the Performing Arts. Directed by Fenlon Lamb and conducted by Bisantz, the production features the Eugene Opera Orchestra and a talented cast, including Grant Youngblood as Rigoletto, Filloux as Gilda and Bernard Holcomb as the Duke of Mantua.

Tickets for Rigoletto start at $36 and are available through the Hult Center for the Performing Arts at HultCenter.org. For more details about Eugene Opera’s programs, visit EugeneOpera.org.

Thanks to G. B. Lawrence for reminding and informing readers of the critical part the Mims family played in accommodating not only Black University of Oregon athletes but a succession of traveling non-white artists, entertainers and speakers during a period of racial segregation and exclusion (“Helping Preserve A Legacy,” EW, 1/16).

In 1980 I worked for Housing and Community Conservation (HCC), whose purpose was to provide low-interest loans to bring deficient housing up to code. We expected one loan to serve as a catalyst for others, and to a large extent that occurred, especially in the east butte area where the Mims property is located.

The affordable, federally funded loan on which I worked with the Mims family as a housing inspector literally provided the foundation and structure that helped preserve the architectural and cultural integrity and significance of both houses on the site. Many of the homes in east butte, and elsewhere in Eugene as well, were restored, directly or indirectly, with HCC loans.

Sadly, funding for the agency dried up in the early 1980s, but its legacy lives on, largely unrecognized, in housing throughout Eugene’s historic communities.

Robert Emmons

Fall Creek

An Idea for Punishment

“Baxter-Krause also faces up to two years in federal prison” (EW online, 1/22).

If corporate polluters were sentenced to a prison in a cancer alley, would their defense lawyers protest cruel and unusual punishment?

David Hoffman

Eugene

The Hidden Costs of Housing

The viewpoint — “Strengthening Democracy” by Diana Bilovsky (EW, 1/16) — misses key points of unaffordable housing.

Often ignored housing costs include excessive costs to buy or sell a home of 6 percent due to collusion and price fixing in the real estate industry. The 6 percent adds zero value to a home and is around 2 percent in Europe. If a person sells then buys, that is a cost of 12 percent.   

Big government expenses of excessive property taxes, building permit fees, costs of sewer and storm water as well as corruption in politics make home ownership unaffordable for many.

The solution is to reduce the size of our wasteful, inefficient big government funded by the above taxes and fees by ending the city manager type government and replacing it with a business with a board of directors voted on by taxpayers, similar to EWEB. We can achieve much greater services with much less cost with a business-oriented organization, and allow competition from other sectors in the private industry. Due to lack of competition and forced use of our bloated government and entrenched bureaucrats, we will not get anywhere until major changes are made.

And get politicians to allow a maximum of 2 percent real estate commissions and costs.

Gary Cook

Eugene

Choking on Emissions

I think it’s time that Eugene started emissions controls on all vehicles. The air here has gotten worse. What would it take to institute this?

Randi Briscoe

Eugene

A Decision in Poor Taste

The recent actions of the Eugene 4J school board regarding our current principal Nain Muñoz and his resignation has sparked some heated discussions in the community and has reminded people of past events where 4J has also not had the community in mind.

As a 12th grader at NEHS, I personally am not too surprised they chose not to reconsider his resignation because in my 12 years attending school in this district, they’ve never really impressed me with the choices they make. 

Regardless of my personal opinion, though, it is a little shocking that they would make this decision considering the uproar from staff and students retelling stories and sharing how he’s the best administrator our school has had in a long time, but also because that just leaves yet another school in our already understaffed district without a principal.

Unfortunately, 4J is known for making poor decisions regarding its students. For example, all the false promises they made regarding Japanese immersion school Yujin Gakuen and their building. In short, 4J promised them the old North Eugene High School building, but in the end they were pushed to a bunch of portables in the south hills.

In conclusion regarding our principal, I think 4J needs to open its eyes and realize leaving yet another school without a very loved administrator is just poor taste. 

Emily Harness

Eugene

Railyard Concerns

Union Pacific, a Class I railroad that currently owns/operates the railyard and tracks in Eugene, has filed for approval to lease this yard to Central Oregon and Pacific Railroad (CORP), a Class III operation.

Union Pacific’s Transportation Division union members expressed concern about this transition, and opposed the lease as it will impact the quality of maintenance of the railroad. Union Pacific employs highly skilled union workers, whereas CORP is not held to this same standard.

UP railroad employees handle railcars full of toxic materials on a daily basis. Union Pacific has also been responsible for ongoing groundwater cleanup efforts in Eugene for many years.

CORP’s mismanagement of the Coos Bay branch line shows a pattern of failure to maintain infrastructure and safeguard communities. A Class III railroad like CORP lacks the financial resources to prevent or respond to a disaster, leaving taxpayers to bear the costs and health risks. This is not acceptable!

Will the non-union CORP management take on the responsibility of protecting their employees, and Eugene’s citizen’s water and soil, or will they abandon these critical environmental protections like they did in Coos Bay, a much smaller operation?

It is critical that Class I standards be upheld at this railyard! This lease is dangerous. We must prioritize public health and safety while preventing future disasters and contamination in the middle of our city!

Robin Bloomgarden

Eugene

How to Restore Services

I am one of the founding members of Health Care for All Oregon, the group who gathered signatures to put Measure 23 on the 2002 Oregon ballot. If passed, that measure would have established a universal health care system for all residents of our state. Nearly everyone I know has had recent problems accessing medical care, even when insured. 

I am one of the majority of Eugene residents who are frustrated and angry at PeaceHealth for abandoning Eugene by closing the University District hospital and emergency department with a few weeks notice, giving no time for our community to explore how that resource for our residents could have been kept open.

Eugene Healthcare Coalition formed to explore how services could be restored. The coalition joined with several neighborhood associations to hold a health care forum in September to look at what might be done. This included, among others, Oregon Representatives Julie Fahey and Nancy Nathanson, who explained how the funding passed in the 2024 legislative session would help Eugene fill some of the gaps. 

The coalition and some neighbor associations, plus others, have planned a second forum to problem solve our serious situation. Please mark your calendar for Saturday, March 1, to attend the second health care forum from 2 pm to 4 pm in person or live-streamed. Check the Eugene Weekly calendar for location and link.

Charlotte Maloney

Eugene

We Need Better Signage

Some time ago, the city of Eugene made a traffic pattern change at Pearl Street and East 11th Avenue. For years, there were two lanes that allowed for turning right onto East 11th. The change resulted in just the original turn lane remaining, eliminating the other lane from turning.

There was no signage placed by the city to indicate this change, yet people have been accustomed to turning right from a lane that no longer allows it for years. It’s a habit.

On Wednesday, Jan. 8th, I was waiting in the turn lane for a pedestrian to cross East 11th when I was hit by someone turning right from the lane to my left.

His insurance denied my claim, stating Google maps indicates there are two lanes that turn right.

Google maps rarely updates, yet if the city had placed some signage indicating the change, the accident may not have occurred, and my vehicle would remain undamaged.

Bob Kennedy

Eugene

Deep Concerns about Language

While I have long been a supporter of Looking Glass programs for homeless youth and look forward to learning more about the mission of Scorpion Creek Ranch, I have deep concern about the language used in the article (“Not ‘A Band-Aid on a Bullet Wound,’” EW, 01/16).

Why are participants of this program referred to as “patients”? Homelessness is not in and of itself an illness. These children are residents, not “patients.”

And who are these “general contractors” entrusted with the protection and restoration of these vulnerable children to safe, sustainable homes?

It sounds dangerously like institutional care where homelessness is criminalized.

Katherine Knowles

Eugene

Editor’s Note: Patient was the language used by our reporter.

Judgement Rendered

Right on, Glenn Jones for the rewrite (EW letters, 1/2). Some others are feeling “Sadness, Despair and Anger” also (EW, 12/26), and you put it perfectly.

I have lived in Eugene for most of my 91 years. I can remember when it was actually a beautiful clean town. Now l drive by a stack of stolen grocery carts piled high with “stuff” and topped with a broken bicycle — Bailey Hill between the trail and Rexius. And this is only one of many rat inducing piles of detritus.

Is no one responsible anymore? Is it a human right to foul property? Not important? Is it the right of an angry person to hurl a bowl of chili at a city official who, I might add, has been working to try to solve this very problem? When do the rights of the citizenry get explored? When do we dare to use the word “choices”?

Yes, it looks like it is time to say, “OK, good luck with that, mister,” and I will add, “Move on.”

You bet I am judging. As will anyone reading this, judge in their own way.

Marjorie Harris

Eugene

Thrown Under a Bus

Why are huge, double buses driving around town with zero to three people riding in them? It saddens me to see this gross inefficiency. I see them every day on Coburg Road and leaving the station downtown. Three to six people would fit nicely in a smaller, more efficient van. Maybe someone thought “if we build it they will come”? Didn’t work in this case.

Bill Klupenger

Eugene

More About the Homeless

Rewrite had it right!

To be clear, my issue is not with Eugene’s generically referenced “unhoused” or “homeless” population as a group. Rather, it’s with Eugene’s drug/alcohol addicted campers. I believe that was the group Glenn Jones targeted in his letter “Rewrite!” (EW letters, 1/2). 

This segment of our unhoused has exhausted the majority of Eugeneans’ patience, including myself. Jones was not wrong when he referenced their behavior of “Smoking meth? Being disruptive? No attempt at self improvement? Stealing bicycles?” Jones forgot to mention stealing grocery carts, shoplifting and treating people like biological ATMs to support their habit(s).

You may remember the $1.2 million in tax dollars needed to remove soil contamination and restore Washington Jefferson Park after its resident tenting population was relocated in 2021. In February 2023, the city of Eugene hit Union Pacific Railroad with more than $216,000 in fines for failing to clear piles of trash from homeless camps along rail lines north of Franklin Boulevard for a half-mile stretch of the Willamette River. 

And now it’s Danebo Pond’s turn. The property owned by Levi Miller and reported on by KEZI, which they titled “Dumping Ground,” was a horrific example of what Eugenans have been putting up with. This group takes and gives nothing in return. It’s difficult to empathize with those who have no empathy for the impact they have on Eugeneans who work, pay taxes and just want a safe and clean city to live in. Is that too much to ask?

Ron Patton

Eugene

We’re Getting Warmer

2024 was the hottest year on Earth in human history, and the planet has warmed 1.6 C degrees, according to the World Meteorological Organization. We are experiencing a slow moving emergency! We know the obstacles to stabilize warming in the face of coming catastrophic disasters aren’t physical or technological — they are entirely political.

We know that climate-forward actions adopted by the U.S. will be reversed by the Trump administration. But we can still act locally. We find ourselves in One Fragile Moment, which is the title of climate scientist Michael Mann’s new book. 

We are faced with a choice. We can continue to increase planet-heating emissions or we can do what’s necessary to transition off of fossil fuels. One way is by increasing fees on the fossil fuel industry. Their product has caused the climate crisis and their astronomical profits should pay for our transition to clean energy. It is past time to make the polluters pay! 

Now, more than ever, local and state officials must confront this issue head-on. The stakes are high. The climate-fueled fires in L.A. are headed Oregon’s way. Time to get off fossil fuels and electrify our energy use — for everything. Tell your representatives you demand climate action.

Deb McGee

Eugene

Keep Muñoz at NEHS

I’m an 11th grader attending North Eugene High School. The issue I will be addressing is the resignation of our current principal, Nain Muñoz. I firmly believe that our 4J district should allow our principal, Muñoz, to rescind his resignation. 

The primary reason I feel strongly about this issue is because he is the best principal I have ever encountered. What makes Muñoz different from the rest is the amount of love and effort he puts into each and everyone of his students. He attends every sporting event, extracurricular and club we have, and he always shows his support. He has so much support and love from the students, staff and parents, and the district should let him rescind his resignation.

The district stated that it wanted our students, staff and parents to suggest qualities for our new principal. However, our oldest teachers like Brandy Wormdhal said, “We don’t want to talk about that. Here’s all the things, but he’s got them.” Another teacher, Clair Wiles, said more than focusing on specific qualities, she hopes 4J will have more conversations about retaining principals and supporting them in their roles. In conclusion, it’s clear that our district needs to listen to their students and staff and give us, and especially our principal, the support we need. I urge our district to first let Muñoz rescind his resignation.

Ava Brown

Eugene

Better Spend Tax Money

President Donald Trump is planning to cut funds to Medicaid to pay for his tax cuts for the rich. What’s next? Hand over the Medicare Trust Fund to Elon Musk?

 Wouldn’t it be great if we could designate on our tax forms what we want our taxes to pay for? Check the box for what percentage of your tax due you want to go to the military, education, environmental protection, health care, aid for Israel, for Ukraine, etc.

Jo Alexander

Corvallis

Outliers and Outlaws screens 2 pm Sunday, Feb. 2, at room 156 at Straub Hall on the University of Oregon campus. A Q&A session with some of the film’s participants and filmmaking crew follows. FREE. Outliers and Outlaws also plays 5 pm Friday, Feb. 28, and 5 pm Saturday, March 1, as well as 2 pm and 7 pm Sunday, March 2, at Art House, 492 East 13th Avenue. $8-11.

The multimedia I Lived to Tell the World exhibit is available Jan. 27 through March 1 in the Thomas W. Toomey Lobby at PRAx, 470 Southwest 15th Street, Corvallis. FREE. I Lived to Tell the World Live is 7 pm Saturday, Feb. 1, at PRAx — the pre-show cocktail hour and book signing begins at 6 pm. $5 for students, $20 for general admission.

Sadie Lincoln, Sonja Ungemach’s daughter, at 10 years old watched her mother stay up until midnight creating the newspaper and she even contributed to it in the early days. “My mom had me draw pictures to fill up ad space because for their first issues there wasn’t enough ads yet,” Lincoln says.

In 2008, Lincoln went on to create her own unique business, barre3, a fitness boutique with women’s bodies in mind. Created in Portland, barre3’s bright orange logo and natural lights are meant to be modeled after Eugene’s gray skies as a beaming, lovely place to work out in all weather types. 

“Community, connection, the value of being a local business I think is such the ethos of Eugene, and certainly my mom and my family,” Lincoln says. 

“It’s really a third place for women,” she says of barre3, “we welcome everybody but it’s designed around women and women’s bodies, and I think that was missing in most of fitness.” 

Lincoln began her love of group fitness during her time as an undergraduate at UCLA, taking and teaching classes at the university’s recreational center. However, despite her love for fitness classes she felt as though there was no place for people and their bodies to simply exist. 

“We wanted to create a place where people could be honest and good in their bodies just as they are in the moment, and I think women need that so much because we’re told every day through massive amounts of information that come our way that our bodies need to be shaped differently to be sexy, to be winning, to be achieving, to belong,” Lincoln says. 

Through the creation of barre3 Lincoln has implemented science surrounding women’s bodies to help them through inflection points throughout their lives. Through her research, Lincoln has found that women have different physical needs when going through fertility challenges, pregnancy, perimenopause or menopause as well as menstruation cycles. “We really design our workouts around that so women feel supported in our studios and also connected,” Lincoln says.

Lincoln focuses on how workouts make your body feel, instead of unattainable before and after ideals. “We cue people’s bodies in different layers so that your mind and your awareness isn’t jumping to a future ideal or going back and going ‘oh I used to be able to do this,’” Lincoln says. 

Barre3 is a franchise company, meaning that local owners use the brand, business model and knowledge for their studios. Jessica Neely, a Eugene barre3 owner since 2012, was pregnant while going through her instructor training, allowing her to experience first hand the way in which barre3 grows with women’s bodies through pregnancy and postpartum. 

“When I then finally did give birth to my son, my obstetrician commented that my labor was potentially a little easier because of all the core work that I had done,” Neely says. 

Prior to opening her barre3 location, Neely hadn’t lived in Eugene for very long, but her barre3 community grew quickly. “Folks really loved the workout, and they told their friends, and more friends came, and our staff started to grow, and it became this amazing community,” Neely says. 

With the new year starting, people are trying new fitness plans. Lincoln advises those who are trying barre3 for the first time that, “Usually the biggest friction point to starting something new is feeling like you’re going to look like an idiot, but we’re really good at making sure that with every new client we soften that worry right quick.” 

Eugene’s Barre3 location is at 301 Oakway Road. It has classes 6 am to 6:45 pm Monday through Friday and 7:15 am to 4 pm Saturday and Sunday. To sign up for classes go to Online.barre3.com/studio-locations/eugene. 

Cycling, or spin, is a cardio exercise that has a low impact on your joints — unlike running — while still ensuring you get a solid workout in. Doing all that on a stationary bike removes the risk of icy roads and unaware drivers, too. Throw in a spin instructor, and now you’re rolling.

Julie Kollmorgen, owner of StarCycle Eugene and franchisee of StarCycle, opened her studio in 2018. She grew up running track, she says, but grew to love cycling because it’s “low impact but high cardio.”

“You still get that endorphin rush, adrenaline rush, that you get when you run,” Kollmorgen says. “As we age, honestly it hurts to run. I love running — big advocate for it — but I can’t do it like I used to. This has been my substitution.” 

Nearly as important as the impact on your body is the ambience in the studio, and StarCycle achieves a nearly meditative effect by keeping all screens from the room (sans the instructor’s dimly lit monitor for music control) and lighting the studio with candles rather than LEDs.

Don’t let the concept of a candlelit room make you think you won’t be working hard.

Nate Boozer, studio manager of StarCycle Eugene and director of training with StarCycle, went from riding in StarCycle classes to teaching them and training new instructors.

One especially appealing aspect of StarCycle, Boozer says, is the lack of competition amid the students.

“We’re technology free, so in the studio, we have no leaderboards,” Boozer says. “There’s no computers on the bikes telling you what RPMs you need to do. There’s no competition, no cell phones.”

The dim light also fights off competition. Just wait until the candles get blown out — you can’t compete against your fellow cyclists if you can’t even see them.

If you’re not interested in cycling in the dark, check out the Eugene Family YMCA Don Stathos Campus instead. While in college, Danielle Ragan, a cycling instructor at the Eugene Family YMCA, was introduced to spin by her mother. 

“Initially it was a really soft landing space for me,” she says. “I was going through a lot of struggles at the time. So it was a great opportunity to be physically active without having to move anywhere or think too much.”

She fell in love with the classes, she says, and started teaching her own at the YMCA in January 2024.

While the cycle studio at the YMCA is brightly lit in comparison to the candlelight of StarCycle, Ragan still manages to tamp down the competitive spirit in other ways, such as teamwork. One may not expect to be working together on a stationary bike, but when Ragan divides the studio into teams, they’re not competing — they’re pushing each other.

“The highlight is when ‘Team 2’ cheers for ‘Team 1,’” Ragan says. It’s not uncommon for passersby to close the door of the cycle studio because the cheering gets too loud.

Spin classes are known for their messages of personal growth, empowerment and, frankly, getting through the day. 

“You can go, and you can sit, and you’re still working out,” Ragan says. “You really can just focus on yourself and just be in tune with where you are at a given moment.”

Visit StarCycleRide.com/Studios/Eugene-OR for more information on StarCycle classes. Find it at 535 High Street call 541-600-8860 or email Eugene@StarCycleRide.com

Visit EugeneYMCA.org for more information on YMCA cycling classes or go to 600 E. 24th Avenue, 541-686-9622.

It’s miserable to injure yourself doing something you love, and it’s infuriating to do it while exercising simply to take care of your body. Sports injuries are painful, inconvenient, frustrating, uncomfortable and another handful of negative adjectives, but they are also often avoidable.

Read on for advice from two physical therapists on preventing musculoskeletal injuries. Both emphasized that many musculoskeletal (muscle, joint and ligament) injuries are related to a lack of muscular capacity and to moving improperly.

First, “As a general rule, people need to get stronger,” says Dr. Ryan Wiser, a provider at Tensegrity Physical Therapy in downtown Eugene. 

The other major way to prevent and improve sports injuries is to improve the mechanics of how a person performs their sport, Wiser says. He says Tensegrity works with patients on both aspects.

When starting a new activity, it is best to start slow, says Dr. Jammie Hoberg, a physical therapist and orthopedic certified specialist at PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center RiverBend.

 “The most important thing to remember is that ‘no pain, no gain’ is a terrible thing to live by,” Hoberg says. “If something is hurting, then the person should stop.”

Working through pain makes injuries worse, she says. 

“If you’re trying to build muscle, then you should get the burning discomfort within your muscles,” she says. “But if you’re having sharp pain, if it’s radiating anywhere else in your body, or if it doesn’t go away within a few days, that’s not healthy.”

Anyone who moves is at risk of musculoskeletal injuries, but repetitive movements like running, or even using a keyboard all day, can make these injuries more likely, Wiser says.

That means people who play sports like soccer and basketball can be more vulnerable to sports injuries because of the repetitive stress of accelerating, decelerating and cutting, Wiser says.

Good mechanics are also essential for preventing injury in the gym, he says. Working out on machines is generally safer than free weights because they keep the body in alignment, he continues. With weightlifting in general, you need to be mindful of your muscle capacity and only lift a little bit beyond it if you’re trying to get stronger, Wiser says. 

People who are new to weightlifting can start by improving their muscular capacity on the machines and then move to free weights if they want to, Wiser says.

Many people have extremely weak hip muscles, he says, which contributes to a plethora of injuries, including low back, hip and knee pain. “One of the things we know is ankle sprains, for instance, which are very common, are highly, highly correlated with weakness in the hips,” Wiser says.

Most people’s hip muscles — which are technically their gluteal muscles — are so weak that they don’t even know how to engage them, Wiser says. “So we find compensatory movement, compensatory muscles to use,” he says. “For example, we’ll use our hamstrings instead of our glutes to move our hips.”

Part of this weakness comes from sitting too much, which is very common in the demands of everyday life, Wiser says. Wiser recommends that people stretch the front of their hips, the hip flexors. They’re the only part of the body that is hard to over stretch. 

There are exceptions to everything, but hamstrings and calves generally don’t need much stretching, depending on your sport, Wiser says. For sports that cause tissue strain, including ones that involve a lot of running, stretching after exercise puts further strain on the tissue, he says. 

Avoid static stretches before exercise as well. Instead opt for dynamic movements that get blood moving and warm up your range of motion, Wiser says. Static stretches are holding the same position for a set amount of time.

Static stretching your body can expand its motion, but that’s not always a good thing, Wiser says. For example a runner who stretches their calves a lot may end up with more motion in their calves. They will likely use that extra motion when running and risk exceeding their capacity, he says.

Overall, be gentle on your body. Don’t overlook rest days, Holberg says. The general rule is two days for each muscle group. After leg day, wait 48 hours before doing leg day again, she says.

 “If you don’t give your body time to recover, then you’re, again, more likely to get an injury,” Hoberg says.

• It’s Groundhog Day on Sunday, Feb. 2, and Donald Trump’s nonstop executive orders have been giving us that “This again?” feeling every morning. We were impressed by the community members who gave heartfelt public comments at the Jan. 28 Lane County Board of Commissioners meeting in response to Trump’s attacks on trans people. We applaud Commission Laurie Trieger’s response — she said, “Sometimes decorum is one of the most powerful tools of oppression, and it is not always OK to comply. And this is one of those times.” She calls this moment in our country’s history, “uniquely dangerous.” Board Chair David Loveall, on the other hand — WTF dude? Women, immigrants, trans and queer folks and their supporters told of their fears, and while he started off well, thanking the commenters, he moved onto things like, “Our president only indicates that he is reading his Bible as he should.” Find a link to the meeting at EugeneWeekly.com.

• You can also find on EugeneWeekly.com (with no paywall or login) a review of the Eugene Symphony performance with music director candidate and conductor Tania Miller, and Bricks $ Mortar columnist Christian Wihtol with the breaking news last week on J.H. Baxter & Co. and its president, Georgia Baxter-Krause, pleading guilty Jan. 22 to federal criminal charges of illegally boiling off hazardous waste into the atmosphere at the company’s now-defunct Eugene plant and lying about it to regulators. There’s also an interview with Commissioner Laurie Trieger — it’s one of several swan song pieces by now-former reporter Bentley Freeman who has moved into an ad sales position here at the Weekly. 

• Speaking of transitions — and the ad sales that keep this commie rag afloat — Eugene Weekly welcomes Dave Newman as our new advertising manager. Cuchulain Kelly (who somehow managed to sell ads and enter NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert contest multiple times) will be heading to the East Coast. Those who know him from Eugene’s music scene can follow him at CuchulainKelly.com. Newman has an extensive background in news and media (and not gonna lie, cannabis journalism) and has hit the ground running. You can hit him up at Dave@EugeneWeekly.com or give him a call at 541-484-0519.

• City Club of Eugene is meeting at the University of Oregon Many Nations Longhouse at noon Friday, Jan. 31 for its forum, “Preparing the Next Generation of Indigenous Leaders.” Three current Indigenous leaders will speak: Jason Younker, chief of the Coquille Tribe; Christina Thomas, member of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs and the the 2024-2025 cultural ambassador at UO; and Te’E Philips Brown, member of the Pauma Band of Mission Indians and the 2024-2025 Mr. Indigenous at UO. The three will speak about tribal governance and the opportunities UO offers for students to participate in and assume leadership positions on campus.

• Hey you book lovers! Literary Arts announced the finalists for the 2025 Oregon Book Awards. Among the finalists for the Ken Kesey Award For Fiction is Miriam Gershow of Eugene for Survival Tips: Stories (Propeller Books) and Charlie J. Stephens of Port Orford for A Wounded Deer Leaps Highest (Torrey House Press). Finalists for the Frances Fuller Victor Award For General Nonfiction include University of Oregon professor Courtney Thorsson for The Sisterhood: How a Network of Black Women Writers Changed American Culture (Columbia University Press), and in the running for Sarah Winnemucca Award For Creative Nonfiction  is Jaclyn Moyer of Corvallis for On Gold Hill: A Personal History of Wheat, Farming, and Family, from Punjab to California (Beacon Press). The winners will be announced April 28 at the 2025 Oregon Book Awards Ceremony. 

Rep. Fahey’s chief of staff, Scott Moore, says he’s relieved the session has started as they’ve been preparing for it since the previous short session in 2024. “It’s also daunting, because there is a lot of work that is coming our way, and it’s gonna be a full five months of running around.”

The 83rd Oregon Legislative Assembly officially convened Jan. 21, a little over a week after the pomp and circumstance of the Jan. 13 organizational day — as outlined by the Oregon Constitution. Every legislator must be sworn in, every committee appointment must be filled and every officer must be selected before any work can get done. 

During the opening session, several members of the audience wore Trump paraphernalia.

Fahey says this year, she will be working to pass House Bill 2587, which removes caps on extra funding for K-12 school districts with special needs students. “If a school district has needs for extra funding because five percent of their students are special ed students, then the state has a pool of money for that,” she says. “If the percentage of students in your district is 15 percent, the extra funding is capped at 11 percent piece [of the pie].”

The funding needs to be reallocated, but Moore says there needs to be evaluation. “It’s considerably more expensive to educate those students, but concurrent with just getting the funding right is making sure that we have mechanisms in place to make sure that our outcomes are what we need them to be.”

Fahey says housing has an enormous impact on the education outcomes of students. “If students are not safely housed, it’s very challenging for them to learn. I represent the Bethel School District, and the rates of students who qualify as homeless, homeless under McKinney-Vento, have generally been in the 6 to 8 percent range.” 

The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act is the federal legislation related to the education of children and youth experiencing homelessness. 

While Fahey is focused on improving life for the most vulnerable of Oregonians, she says the state is preparing to defend itself from legal attacks as convicted felon and President Donald J. Trump took office on Monday, Jan 20. “At the statewide level, we’re making sure the statewide offices: the executive branch, the [Oregon Department of Justice] and the Legislature, are communicating and coordinating when something happens, and coordinating our response,” she says.

On the Jan. 13 organizational day, Fahey moved to adopt the House rules of order, decorum and process for the 83rd legislative assembly. Although Republican lawmakers asserted these rules were made to their disadvantage, they received enough votes to pass. Since 2006, Democrats have held the majority in the House.

Moore says these rules dictate how legislators present their arguments on the floor as well as outlining what one can or cannot say. “We have always had a list of the things that you can’t do. You can’t swear, you can’t impugn the motives of anybody else in the chamber, you have to be respectful and basically, you can’t attack anybody,” he says. “You can’t wear jeans.”

However, there are no rules requiring all lawmakers be present for the first reading of the 1,300 House bills, all filed between the previous and current legislative session. Moore said there are already more than 100 bills filed to be introduced in the near future.

As the chief clerk’s office assistants — whose job is to read the legislation aloud — began verbalizing each bill faster than an auctioneer, the legislators got up to converse amongst themselves or left the room entirely.

The bills were read to a mostly empty floor.

Fahey’s legislative assistant John Prince says this is normal and happens every year. “There is not another day during the legislative session where 1,300 bills will be introduced right in one morning,” he says. 

During the week before the long session officially convened, Moore announced the speaker’s staff assigned each bill to one of the 15 House committees. “It is a group process,” he says.

To read through all 1,300 pre-session filed bills, go to OLIS.OregonLegislature.gov.

Miller is one of five finalists selected out of more than 175 candidates for the Eugene Symphony’s musical director role along with Alexander Prior, Farkhad Khudyev, Rory Macdonald and Taichi Fukumura. She has served as the artistic director and conductor of the National Academy Orchestra of Canada and the Brott Opera. 

The coveted musical director position, most recently filled by Francesco Lecce-Chong, involves selecting music, hiring new musicians, conducting performances and several other duties involved with the leadership of the symphony. 

The position has launched the careers of now-internationally known Marin Alsop, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, who went on to lead the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, and Giancarlo Guerrero, a six-time Grammy winner.

Miller began the evening by introducing the audience to Tarrodi’s “Birds of Paradise.” She invited the audience to start the movement by imagining soaring in the sky side by side with plummeting birds. The sounds from the strings and winds softly crescendoed, imitating the rapid fluttering of wings paired with delicate chirps. 

Miller encouraged the audience to embrace a sense of “suspension” in the final act of the movement as moments of stillness paired with dynamic bursts of melodies encapsulated the relationship between tranquility and anticipation.

Following “Birds of Paradise” was the standout of the evening, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4, with Harmony Zhu featured on the piano. Zhu’s playing and Miller’s conducting created a seamless, deeply connected relationship that was apparent throughout the movements. The musicians were attentive and clear, relying on each other just as the orchestra relied on the piano and vice versa. 

Piano Concerto No. 4 defies convention — rather than the orchestra opening boldly, the piano begins softly as if offering a private thought. This opening sets the tone for the rest of the concerto as the audience is prepared for the piece to defy expectations.

Throughout the piece, the piano encounters a tug-of-war match between the orchestra as there is a sense of conversation between the two. While the piano begins alone, the orchestra answers with an aggressive response as the strings radiate through the concert hall. Although the piano remained quiet and delicate, there was a feeling of power behind this delicacy. Each time the orchestra became prominent, the piano remained relentless as the audience was left with no choice but to root for the underdog. 

The final movement provides a sense of resolution — there was a feeling of joy in the exchange between the orchestra and the piano, serving as a celebratory release of the tension built up in the previous movements.

Miller’s direction of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 was a defiance of convention in and of itself. When Beethoven composed the concerto in the early 19th century, it was unfathomable that a woman would be conducting the piece. Now, over 200 years later, Miller stands as the only female candidate for the Eugene Symphony’s musical director, as she and the four other finalists conduct a Beethoven piano concerto.

The final piece of the evening was Sibelius’s Symphony No. 1. The piece opens with a haunting clarinet solo that creates a tone of longing and mystery, setting the stage for the dramatic melodies about to unfold. An engaging balance between the energetic strings and the interjections from the brass instruments made the piece a joyful and triumphant end to the evening. 

As the only female finalist for the role of music director, Miller not only showcased her exceptional artistry but also embodied the evolving landscape of classical music leadership. Her ability to bring each piece to life made her a stand-out candidate, leaving the Eugene community eagerly anticipating what her future with the symphony might hold.

The winner of the position is expected to be announced in the spring.

Shen Yun, which has performed at the Hult in the past, will return for three shows Jan. 25 and 26, with some tickets running from $80 to $150 per person on the Hult’s website. 

Shen Yun, a traditional Chinese dance organization, has been known for nearly two decades as a group dedicated to using dance to show people an idea of China beyond the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), according to a Shen Yun promotional video. 

But last summer, with a bombshell year-long investigative report from The New York Times, Shen Yun, which promotes the Falun Gong religious movement that is persecuted in China, has been accused of being a cult that abuses its dancers. Most of the performers are teenagers or young adults, and the NYT says they are subjected to a grueling schedule and endure injury all while faking a smile on stage and being discouraged from seeking medical care due to Falun Gong’s belief that healing comes from faith.

“Since 2006, Shen Yun has been reviving the essence of Chinese civilization, deeply rooted in ancient values, like compassion, honesty and faith,” the promotional video says. In it, dancers can be seen striking graceful movements, accompanied by an orchestra. There’s bright, traditional Chinese clothing, serene faces and a narrator saying, “Movement begins with the heart.” 

Their dancers are paid poorly, according to NYT reports, have limited access to the world outside of Shen Yun, and are pressured to spread the message of Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa — the message which includes beliefs, according to its founder Li Hongzhi, such as Li being the creator of the universe and that followers can develop powers, like levitation. 

In Shen Yun, dancers are regularly weighed in front of their peers, the Times investigation showed, and are ridiculed by instructors if they are deemed too heavy. They have limited interaction with their families, only being able to see them about a week a year — according to former performers.

Despite the Times’ revelations of how Shen Yun treats its performers, as well as Falun Gong’s links to right-wing extremist news source The Epoch Times, it’ll still be pirouettes and leaps at the Hult in January.

According to Rich Hobby, director of marketing for the Hult, since the city owns the performing arts center, it’s unable to censor who rents the space to perform. “As the venue, we don’t have any restrictions on rentals,” Hobby says. “It’s kind of a free speech view from the city in that we don’t censor who’s able to book or rent the space there.” 

This rental structure, according to Hobby, is standard among performing arts centers. Hobby, who has been with Hult for eight years, says he couldn’t recall any instance when a group was denied a space at the Hult. 

He says, “As the venue, we’re kind of between a rock and a hard place with how that operates. Adding from the public perspective, do they know what ‘Hult presents’ means versus what ‘Falun Gong presents’ means when they’re on our page.” 

Simply, Shen Yun rented the space from Hult on its own accord, and was not sought after by Hult itself. 

Shen Yun did not respond to Eugene Weekly’s requests for comments. But the group has responded to the NYT investigation on its website alleging that “their coverage seems to intentionally cherry-pick negative accounts from a few displeased former staff” and saying its themes overlap with CCP propaganda.

Notably, the car show had some spectacular offerings for attendees, such as a tribute Batmobile modeled after the 1966 Ford Futura concept and the show’s centerpiece, owner Bob Shaw’s “Bad 32” Ford Coupe. Additionally, on Saturday there was a model competition and vendors lining the walls selling toys, wearable merchandise and automotive paraphernalia to customers. 

Gorgeous cars filled the event space. Vehicles as rare as DeSoto Fluid Drive sedans — an early to mid 1940s sedan whose transmission was an early precursor to a modern automatic, where the transmission gears are actuated manually, but depressing the clutch is not required once the car is moving. 

Or even legitimate top fuel dragsters were present — long drag racing cars built for more than 300 miles per hour, and have built in parachutes. 

Most of the cars on the floor were American heritage vehicles such as ’40s mobster-styled sedans with suicide doors and ’70s muscle. However, even the mundane, typical car show, like the previously mentioned common American heritage cars,  regulars were shined to perfection, surrounded by smiling owners bustling around looking at each other’s pieces of art. 

Want to check out an upcoming car show? Willamette Valley Smoke House Car Meet is 7 pm to 9 pm Jan. 23, And Roseburg Cars and Coffee is 1 pm to 3 pm the 3rd Sunday of every month. 

• The events of the 2025 presidential inauguration have been tumultuous. Now-former President Joe Biden commuted the sentence of Native American activist Leonard Peltier, who will be spending the rest of his life in home confinement. Peltier, 80, who is Turtle Mountain Chippewa and was a member of Indigenous rights group the American Indian Movement, was part of a group of Native American men who traded gunfire with and killed two FBI special agents at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in June 1975. Peltier has maintained he did not shoot them, and two other men were found not guilty on self-defense grounds. Supporters greeted the news as a step toward reconciliation for Native communities.

Meanwhile, Trump granted clemency to the nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, including those who assaulted police officers and committed seditious conspiracy. Right-wing extremists and white supremacists were thrilled. 

He also signed an executive order declaring the U.S. would recognize only two sexes: male and female. Not that he’d care, but that’s not even scientifically correct, let alone morally. 

We’re not even going to get into the TikTok thing.

• Whoops! In last week’s issue a stray paragraph from the Palestine viewpoint snuck into the viewpoint on the Mims Houses. We apologize, and the online version was correct! But as long as we are talking about the Mimses, we had a caller who let us know she feels that Annie Mims doesn’t get enough credit when it comes to the tremendous legacy that C.B. and Annie Mims left in Eugene and to the Black community. She also expressed a desire that the Gordon Hotel’s C.B. Mims Sanctuary Room also recognizes Annie Mims’ work. 

• “Homelessness, taxes, transportation, health care and environmental protections” are a few of the things the Oregon Legislature will address in the 2025 session that kicked off Jan. 21. The state Legislature is dominated by Democrats, but sparks fly no matter what party has a majority. City Club of Eugene brings together Rep. Julie Fahey, the Democratic speaker of the House, and Rep. Lucetta Elmer, deputy leader of the Republican Caucus, to discuss their goals and priorities for the session ahead noon Friday, Jan. 24, at WOW Hall, 291 West 8th Avenue.

• On Jan. 16, after months of protest from local residents and environmental advocates, the city of Eugene denied a zoning application for a biofuel transfer station in Eugene’s Trainsong Neighborhood. Lisa Arkin of Beyond Toxics, which has led the charge on the issue, tells EW, “It’s a wonderful example of community and nonprofit organization partnership.” Read the story at EugeneWeekly.com. Trainsong still faces challenges — Arkin says there are plans for Union Pacific to lease local rail yards and tracks to Central Oregon & Pacific Railroad, raising concerns over rail yard operations and maintenance, and a loss of union jobs. There is a community meeting 2 pm Sunday, Jan. 26, at River Road Community Center Multipurpose Room, 1400 Lake Drive.

On Jan. 25, the collective hosts the Solidarity Share Fair at the Unitarian Universalist Church to connect people in need with resources they couldn’t otherwise get for free. While everyone is welcome, the fair is designed to provide resources and services from local organizations to the unhoused and working class members of Lane County. 

The event will feature food, live music, games and endless opportunities to mingle with fellow locals. For the first hour, to accommodate immunocompromised individuals, masks are required.

“A lot of why I am involved in the Share Fair is because I believe in building the community I want to see in the world,” says Olivia Goodheart, Neighborhood Anarchist Collective coordinator. “I believe that we can take care of each other and that, as an anarchist, I believe in taking responsibility for each other.”

The Neighborhood Anarchist Collective has hosted the Share Fair quarterly since 2018, connecting people with food, clothes, haircuts, massages, bike repair, local organizations, music and more, all for free. During the pandemic, the collective even switched to mobile distribution to continue providing support for individuals throughout Lane County.

“It’s beautiful to be able to have an event that’s completely free no matter what, no questions asked,” Goodheart says. “I think if people are looking for a way to get involved with their community, get to know their neighbors and think about the futures we want to build together as we stare down, you know, climate change, rising fascism, genocides across the world, a lot of what you can do can start locally.”

The Neighborhood Anarchist Collective accepts donations the day of the event.The Neighborhood Anarchist Collective’s free Solidarity Share Fair is noon to 4 pm Saturday, Jan. 25, at Unitarian Universalist Church, 1685 West 13th Avenue. NeighborhoodAnarchists.org/sharefair.

The single-story center will total more than 323,000 square feet, according to the building permit application filed late last month. That’s the size of two average Costco stores. In other words, big by Eugene standards.

The building will have the footprint of a typical Amazon “sortation center,” a regional hub where up to 300 workers use conveyor systems and other machinery to sort packages, and a truck fleet to deliver them.

Seattle-based Amazon did not reply to inquiries from Eugene Weekly.

The application doesn’t list the planned occupant, but the architect and contractor is Connecticut-based BL Companies, which specializes in building facilities for Amazon.

The site — 85 acres — is on the west side of Highway 99 North, two miles north of the intersection of Hwy 99 and Randy Pape Beltline. It is immediately east of the airport.

But city officials have known for months that a major development is likely on the spot. Last summer, the owners of the land alerted the city that their goal was to create “an industrial center, consisting of a warehouse, distribution facilities, delivery vehicle storage and associated parking.” 

Greg Evans, the Eugene city councilor for that ward, did not return emails and phone messages from EW.

Farmland no longer protected

The site is farmland — usually sacrosanct in Oregon. Until 2017, the parcel was protected from development. But that year, in updating its 20-year growth plans, Eugene expanded its urban growth boundary to include the site, and tabbed it for industrial use.

Last summer, the City Council approved the owners’ request to bring the property into the city limits, a formality allowing development.

The parcel is owned by a group headed by Lydia Lane Kulus of Sisters, Oregon, another Sisters resident, a Eugene resident and a Texas resident, land and planning records show. They appear to have owned the land for a number of years. The Weekly was unable to reach them.

The building permit application says the complex will cost $24 million and be an “ecommerce facility with parking, fleet storage and stormwater treatment facilities.” The land owners tout the proximity to the airport and Hwy 99.

Could it be Amazon?

The complex might be for Amazon — but who knows? The e-commerce behemoth has built distribution facilities in Oregon at a brisk clip. All the big ones are in the Portland and Salem areas.

Amazon’s biggest facilities, up to 1 million square feet or more, are “fulfillment and distribution centers,” where items from manufacturers are stored and sorted for shipping to sortation centers.

Amazon’s biggest site in Oregon is its soon-to-open fulfillment center in Woodburn next to Interstate-5, north of Salem. It sports 3.8 million square feet of space spread across five stories, according to published reports.

Amazon’s other Oregon fulfillment centers are in Multnomah and Marion counties. Amazon has sortation centers in Washington and Multnomah counties.

Some businesses other than Amazon are building super-sized distribution centers around the country — but typically not in Oregon, and not at 300,000-plus square feet.

This story has been updated.

 Bricks $ Mortar is a column anchored by Christian Wihtol, who worked as an editor and writer at The Register-Guard in Eugene 1990-2018, much of the time focused on real estate, economic development and business. Reach him at Christian@EugeneWeekly.com. 

 The conversation around needing a new municipal jail in Eugene has been gaining traction in local Facebook groups like Lane County Mugshots Uncensored. As the discussion grows, I find myself questioning whether we really need additional jail space when the existing facilities in the area are nowhere near full capacity.

As of mid-January, the Springfield Municipal Jail is holding just 54 inmates, out of a possible 98. Meanwhile, the Lane County Jail currently houses 277 inmates, with a capacity for 507. These figures raise a simple question: Why are we even discussing building a Eugene municipal jail when the county jail we already have is underutilized?

There’s more to this issue than just capacity numbers. A significant number more of the empty beds in Lane County Jail could be rented to the Eugene Police Department or used for county inmates, but there has been no taxpayer funding allocated to cover the costs of those beds. If we’re not even making use of the available space for county or Eugene municipal inmates, why should we commit to building a municipal facility for Eugene that we can’t afford to operate?

It’s also important to consider that a Eugene municipal jail would likely only house inmates facing municipal court charges, which, much like the Springfield Jail, excludes felons and those facing serious charges in Lane County Circuit Court. Those individuals would still be sent to the larger Lane County Jail. 

So, we’re left with the question: What exactly would we be gaining with a Eugene municipal jail? It seems to me that we should be looking more critically at how we approach sentencing guidelines, pre-trial detention policies and how long individuals can be held before trial. 

Perhaps it’s time to evaluate sentencing guidelines to see if we, as a society, feel convicted individuals should serve longer sentences. If we believe suspects are being arrested only to be quickly released before their trial, maybe it’s time to consider stricter pre-trial release laws, particularly for repeat offenders or those who fail to appear in court as required. 

We could be making meaningful changes in how the justice system handles these cases, instead of just expanding our jail system.

In my opinion, there is no urgent need for a municipal jail in Eugene, at least not until we can make full use of the beds we already have in the Lane County Jail. Why invest in new infrastructure when we can’t even afford to fill the empty beds that are already available?

Until taxpayers are willing to fund the use of the beds that remain unused, and until the county and the city can sit down and figure out a better agreement for the city of Eugene’s use of county beds, I don’t see why we should prioritize building a Eugene municipal jail space. Instead, let’s have a broader conversation about how we approach the justice system and whether changes need to be made to ensure fairness and accountability across the board. 

The debate over jail space is far from over online, but at this point, it seems clear to me that our resources would be better spent on reforming how we handle sentencing, pre-trial release and overall criminal justice policy, rather than building a Eugene jail we don’t yet need.

Michael Weber, known for his extensive coverage of crime news in Lane County, continues to provide valuable updates to the local community. He runs the largest crime watch group in Lane County, Lane County Mugshots Uncensored, which currently has over 84,500 members. Support for local journalism is essential, and donations can be made via Venmo to @Michael-Weber-379 (last four digits of phone number: 0825).

The concert starts at 7 pm at Maude Kerns Art Center as part of Zabala’s “Canciones De Invierno” [Songs of Winter] tour, which will take her throughout Oregon and California for the next few weeks. She will perform songs, give presentations and give master classes on the tour.

 Zabala, born and raised in Buenos Aires, has a long musical history deeply rooted in the country. The oldest of three siblings, she started playing the guitar at six years old before going into the first grade. She also joined a choir, where teachers not only saw her potential but also a lifelong career.

“The choir teacher asked me after this one show if I ever thought about music as a way of life,” Zabala recalls, “and I loved it. I like to play everything, it’s tremendous, the passion in it and how it awakens me.”

Zabala’s music touches on themes of self-reflection, folklore and multi-regional traditions of Southern American cultures. Her sound resonates lyrically and melodically, but she also combines classical methods with contemporary motifs throughout her songs and albums.

By the time she was 19, she went abroad to a conservatorio to study Brazilian music in Curitiba in southern Brazil. And this is where she started to find her sound and style.

She began to perform with artists such as Quique Sinesi, Silvia Iriondo, Juan Falú and Philippe Baden Powell, all well-known artists in South America who she studied with and played with in festivals. She would go on to record in studios and be a part of albums with these musicians.

Her first album, Agauribay, shows her skills with classical guitar paired with lyrics that are poetic and profound. You start to hear her expressions manifest and come alive as something real, something you can relate to, such as in “Dońa Ubenza,” where she sings “Ando llorando pa dentro/ Aunque me ria pa fuera/ Asi tengo yo que vivir /Esperando a que me muera.” [I’m crying inside/ Even if I laugh outside/ That’s how I have to live/ Waiting for me to die.”]

With nine albums, four singles and an EP, Zabala has not only made a name for herself in the industry but captured a new genre in Latin American culture, one that she voices with color, texture and harmony.

“My music is a dialogue and it communicates,” Zabala says. “As if it were a strange dessert or a sweet, something you wouldn’t swallow in the first take. But if you keep listening, then surely on the second or third time you will begin to understand what it is about.”

She gives space for creativity that looks past genre and language. Zabala has a range and volume you can’t lower or raise, but accept as a soul musician in the world of music. If this sounds up your alley, come and find her and her music Friday at Maude Kerns.

Comunidad y Herencia Cultural y Eugene Arte Latino present ¡Cecilia Zabala en concierto! 7 pm, Friday, Jan. 24 at Maude Kerns Art Center, 1910 East 15th Avenue. Free. Zabala also plays Axe and Fiddle, 657 East Main Street, Cottage Grove 8 pm, Thursday Jan. 23. Free. 

I don’t think Frog would mind if I stayed home to celebrate his life. I’d like to drive over to the WOW Hall and join the community. It would be nice to see and be seen in that group of people, but somehow, I got behind the clock.

I saw him frequently at community gatherings, sometimes out at the Oregon Country Fair, but mostly along 13th Avenue where it ends by the University of Oregon book store. He always had an amusing thing to say. And he was happy to make a connection. 

I’m sorry I don’t know where he lived. Did he sleep on the street? He was so insightful, I’m sure he worked it out. I depended on him to do so, so I never asked.

Today we are without him. For how long will we remember him and the loving contribution he gave to our community? I’m sure there are stories being shared today at the WOW. He would like that. 

How did he become known as Frog, anyway? He had other names; however, Frog fit him. Sometimes croaking in the background, he was present. Now we’ll just hear his song on the wind. Or when we’re down at the pond.

A beloved member of our lives will no longer be seen. But I know his song will continue to play in our hearts.

Fare thee well, Frog. Rivet.

Darlene Colborn

Springfield

Silence!

Does anyone else think that noise is escalating in Eugene? Leaf blowers are now the least offensive, if that is possible.

On our residential street, heavy rock hauling trucks use it as a shortcut to I-5 as the drivers wouldn’t want to take an extra 20 seconds to get on Delta. Naw, they figure at 5 am that they’re awake, so everyone else should be, too. There are uncountable huge black trucks, badly tuned small car engines and the really special yee-haw pretend racers who use our 20 mph curve as a chicane. Lack of mufflers only enhances their experience. We suggest they put a big hose over the muffler and pipe it into the driver’s window in order to get the full effect for themselves.

I now wear soft earplugs in the house along with headphones and have KWAX as background music. That makes living here tolerable.

Kim Kelly

Eugene

An Engineering Proposal

I feel that a South Bank multi-use path connection between the Knickerbocker Pedestrian Bridge and the Frohnmayer Pedestrian Bridge (both over the Willamette River) should be considered. The reasons are as follows:

The multi-use connection would make the Willamette River accessible to all in the Eugene city limits and would set a precedent for the city of Springfield to continue the multi-use path through Glenwood.

The multi-use path on both sides of the Willamette River from the Knickerbocker Bridge to the Owosso Bridge would create a 12.5 mile route (just short of a half marathon).

It would improve safety for bicyclists not having to end along Franklin Boulevard from the Knickerbocker Bridge heading west.

The city of Eugene has wonderful bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. The multi-use path connection between the Knickerbocker Pedestrian Bridge and the Frohnmayer Pedestrian Bridge would be a much-appreciated addition for the people of Eugene.

Peter Pagter

Eugene

Ignorance of the Homeless

Don French is an ignorant man who knows nothing about the reality of homelessness (EW online letters, 1/16). Most homeless are not criminals, except in the sense that our Eugene City Council has effectively made homelessness a crime, in spite of us telling them for years that their constant sweeps are destructive and accomplish nothing. I would support disruption to force them to change their policy. We need to organize.

Lynn Porter

Eugene

Care at PeaceHealth

I was happy to read the letter from Wendy Harris (EW, 1/16) about the free care she received from PeaceHealth. As a nonprofit hospital, PeaceHealth is exempt from paying federal and state corporate income taxes and local property taxes. In exchange for these savings, the IRS has an expectation that nonprofit hospitals provide “sufficient community benefit” to justify their tax-exempt status.

Sufficient community benefit can include free or reduced cost services, like Harris received, and contributions for community benefit, as exemplified by their investment in PeaceHealth Rides. A 2021 study found that the value of tax exemptions was greater than the value of charity care in 86 percent of nonprofit hospitals nationwide. The IRS doesn’t appear to have the bandwidth to ensure that communities served by nonprofit hospitals receive benefits equivalent to the value of their tax exemptions.

So while anyone who receives free or reduced-cost services from PeaceHealth can follow Harris’ suggestion to offer a “thank you,” we don’t really know as a community if those services outweigh the tax exemptions.

Bob Choquette

Springfield

It Gets Harder Now

Adjusting to the dystopian reality of having a climate denier (amid an embarrassment of other dreadful things) as president of the United States has made for a challenging start to the year. Pushing the burdensome boulder of climate mitigation and animal liberation up the mountain of complacency has always been difficult, but that arduous rock just came crashing down on our heads.

Donald Trump has pledged to revive the carbon emitting U.S. coal industry, create oil pipelines, roll back regulations protecting our air and water and kick Joe Biden’s meager but hard-fought-for climate protections to the curb. In Trump’s first term, he dismantled over 100 laws aimed at limited greenhouse gas emissions, combating air and water pollution and enforcing environmental safeguards.

Post-inauguration, I’m emerging from the fog of disbelief. Now is the time to stand up, shake it off and draw on the core strength of grassroots activism. We cannot depend on the government to heed the thunderous warnings of the climate scientists, it is up to us to save this planet and her animals ourselves, one person at a time, one plate at a time. Choosing plant based foods is one of the most impactful personal actions that you can take to significantly reduce your climate impact. Make empowered choices and climb out of the Trump slump! The animals and the planet are counting on us; take action and live vegan. 

Hope Bohanec

Eugene

Letters Policy

We welcome letters on all topics and will print as many as space allows, with priority given to timely local issues for print. Find more letters at EugeneWeekly.com. Please limit length to 250 words and include your address and phone number for our files. The deadline is 9 am Monday for Thursday publication. Email to Letters@EugeneWeekly.com or mail to 1251 Lincoln St., Eugene 97401. Read our letters policy at EugeneWeekly.com/contact-us.

There are few activities that transcend religion, politics and culture. Storytelling, which walks hand-in-hand with language, bridges those gaps.

Storytelling is more than literature; it’s conversation, it’s education, it’s the intrinsic human need to share.

“Not every story is a great work of art,” says Michelle Sugiyama. “Narrative is just one of the primary means that we use to communicate with others.”

Sugiyama, a University of Oregon anthropology professor, researches the origins of art, play and storytelling through the study of modern hunter-gatherer societies. According to her research, modern hunter-gatherer societies tell stories for “educational purposes,” she says. “It’s to teach their children.”

The information encoded within these stories can be vital for survival. The stories speak to social and societal norms, warfare and vulnerability, ecology and more, but they allow the consumer — the listener — to gain the information vicariously.

“Acquiring experience vicariously is cheaper in terms of energy and time and danger than acquiring it at first hand,” Sugiyama says. “Not all experiences are dangerous, but that’s one of the potential risks of acquiring experience directly. It’s much safer to learn how leopards attack humans from someone else than personal experience.”

Because humans are information-dependent animals, Sugiyama says, we’re “highly motivated to consume narrative, to listen to what others have to tell us about their experience.”

In industrialized societies, while less survival-dependent, the purpose of storytelling is largely the same.

We at Eugene Weekly tell stories every day, be it visually or textually. Oftentimes, those stories are your own. Stepping into the backroom of our office, we tried out a form of storytelling that was new to many of us: Dungeons & Dragons.

(No, no demons were summoned.)

D&D is similar in nature to the storytelling of ancient times. 

Oral storytelling, Sugiyama says, utilizes voice modulation, volume, repetition and even music to hold the listeners attention. D&D does the same to engage the player.

For those who don’t known, there are three over-simplified steps to D&D:

1. The dungeon master (the storyteller; in this case, calendar editor Emma J Nelson) gives the players a scenario.
2. The players (Camilla Mortensen, editor; Jody Rolnick, publisher; McKenzie Young-Roy, art director; Dan Buckwalter, copy editor; Bentley Freeman, news reporter; and JJ Snyder, advertising/office manager) tell the dungeon master how they’d like to react. Oftentimes, they roll a die to determine how well they react.
3. The dungeon master tells the players the result of said reaction.

Together, the dungeon master and the players tell a story.

This is the story we told.

…The Adventure Begins…

We open in Eugene, Oregon. Well, medieval Eugene, Oregon.

A small red shack stands alone on Lincoln Street, backlit by the glow of dawn. Inside, a team dedicated to the production of the city’s broadsheet is discussing what to print the following Thursday. It is a crisp, cool day, interrupted only by the occasional visitor, asking for news about town. As the team sits at their respective desks, scratching away at pieces of parchment, the air ripples before bursting with bright light. The shimmer produces a single, unassuming scroll. It hangs in midair, awaiting acknowledgement.

JJ, the office barbarian¹, is the first to move, taking the scroll and giving it a once over. (Roll an Investigation check.) Her eyes widen. It’s an editorial tip, and an unclear one at that. She hand delivers it to Camilla, the ranger²-in-chief, and Jody, madam sorcerer³, for review.

Camilla, scanning the wording of the message in depth, notes that the first letter of every sentence spells out A-R-C-I-M-O-T-O. Arcimoto? The rest of the note seems unrelated. The only way to confirm the tip is to follow its clues. 

As they plan to head to the Whiteaker neighborhood, a three-wheeled cart pulls up out front. A well-dressed figure steps out and approaches the building, slamming open the door. 

“Uh… JJ?” McKenzie, the art druid⁴, calls out. “Someone’s at the door.” 

JJ hurries out of her office, ready to welcome a visitor or, if necessary, intercept a threat. The man in the lobby is towering and thin, a scarecrow of a person. He blots out the light as he lingers in the doorway. “Who can I speak to about the future of Eugene Weekly?” he asks. 

An unfamiliar interloper in the Eugene Weekly lobby? This is a problem for Camilla.

“Yes, you can speak to me,” she says, holding out her hand for a shake. He frowns down at her hand, leaving it untouched. 

“Is Bob not available to speak to?” 

Camilla narrows her eyes at him as JJ, Jody and McKenzie brace against the man’s callous misogyny. As Camilla continues to impress upon him her authority, the room bristles, awaiting action. But who will move first? The room fills with tension and Jody, suspicious, takes a second look at what she first perceived to be a man. (Roll a Perception check.) His visage is flickering like an illusion. This isn’t a man at all. This is something much worse. 

…Let’s Fight…

“Attack,” Jody yells. “Defend the Weekly!” (Roll for Initiative.) 

JJ is the first to act, pinning the man against the wall as McKenzie swiftly transforms into a raven and divebombs him, shocking him out of his illusion once and for all. Towering over the office is a tentacled eyeball dripping with slime. A spectator has arrived at the Weekly. 

(As is the case with most D&D sessions, that escalated rather quickly.)

Spectator

Creature Type: Lesser Beholder
A medium-sized neutral-evil monster with a gaping maw, a central eye and four tentacles with eyeballs at the end. Each eye stalk emits a different harmful ray.

 While this office doesn’t normally host combat, this is turning out to be a very abnormal day. The ruckus has called the rest of the office down upon the creature, and as he struggles against JJ, Bentley, the news warlock⁵, emerges from the cavern in the back he calls his office. 

“Hey, what the hell guys, I’m trying to writ —” His eyes widen as he sees the struggle. Pulling his drinking horn from where it rests at his side, Bentley takes a deep gulp of something that smells suspiciously like very strong mead. His eyes focus as the magical drink powers him up. 

“ELDRITCH BLAST,” he bellows. (Note from the DM: You don’t actually have to yell the name of your spell.) Still, the effect is the same as it slams into the spectator, damaging its giant, glossy eyeball. 

It’s Dan’s turn to join the fray. The copy cleric⁶ walks into the room just in time to see Bentley’s attack and surmises that the eyeball is the largest threat. Powering up a spell of his own, Dan sends a blinding ray of energy at the creature. Just as it’s about to hit, the creature jostles against JJ’s grapple, causing the spell to ricochet back at Dan instead, blinding him in a cruel turn of events. (Dan rolled a one. Bad things happen when you roll a one.) 

As the battle rages on, magic spells and weapon attacks pummeling the creature at every turn, it powers up the worst of its own abilities: a paralyzing eye beam. McKenzie falls limp under its gaze, transforming back into her human form as she slumps against its eye stalks. The tide is turning against the Weekly; No one is coming to save them. 

Then, three burning rays of fire fly from the other side of the room, hitting the spectator and engulfing it in flames. Jody has dealt it the killing blow! McKenzie leaps from its back as she regains her movement and together the group recover in the ruined lobby of their building. 

…Rallying Allies…

The group is left with more questions than answers as they survey the damage. And they still have that mysterious tip to follow up on. It seems the only course of action now is to belatedly ask the spectator its plans. (D&D is often “kill first, ask questions later,” much to the DM’s chagrin. Luckily, there’s a spell for that.) 

Dan prepares to cast speak with dead⁷ on the creature. This spell must be used carefully, as a reanimated enemy will often speak in riddles and tricks. After much deliberation amongst the party, Dan casts the spell. The creature lifts from the ground, its deathly pallor remaining but its body now filled with just enough temporary life to cough up answers. 

“Who do you work for?” Dan asks.

“The Harbinger,” the creature breathes.

“What is the Harbinger?”

“One who beholds all.”

“How do we defeat him?”

“He cannot fight what he cannot see.”

“When will he arrive?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

“Where will he arrive?”

“The warehouse in Whiteaker.”

The Harbinger

Creature Type: Beholder
A large, evil monster with a gaping maw, a central eye and an array of tentacles with eyeballs at the end. Each eye stalk emits a different harmful ray. Illustration by McKenzie Young-Roy.

The tip! The spectator and the mysterious tip were connected after all. With its five questions answered, the creature falls limp on the floor. But the party has gotten the clues they seek. (Against all odds. “Speak with dead” can be a tough spell.)

While JJ sweeps up glass and Camilla feeds the body of the creature to Biggie Pitbull, Bentley slips out of the door, unnoticed. He soon finds himself at the mayor’s home. (Roll a Charisma check.) She answers the door and, seeing the frantic look on his face, allows him inside to hear his plight. 

Bentley relays the threat facing the city to the mayor, referring to it as an “eldritch horror,” the likes of which have never been seen. (Roll a Persuasion check.) The mayor is so moved by Bentley’s pleas for assistance that, rather than call in the cavalry, she decides to join them in their battle personally. 

…Saving the Day…

The following dawn, everyone — including the mayor, who arrived on foot — reunites outside the abandoned Arcimoto factory. The dusty, yellowed windows are boarded up, but Jody spots movement inside. The group of seven (and Biggie) sneak in through a side entrance.

They rush into the darkened, cavernous space, spellcasters charging up their powers, JJ brandishing her mace and McKenzie kneeling to make a quick piece of art. 

The Harbinger cackles as the party shows themselves; he rises above the dusty crates, revealing himself to be a beholder. (Classic D&D villain.)

Dan rushes into battle with a slightly scrambled rallying cry: “You live only once!”

Chanting “YLOO,” the party charges after him.

In the course of six seconds, JJ launches a javelin into the beholder’s central eye as Dan attempts his blindness spell once more. Success! Camilla sinks an arrow into one of the outer eye stalks and orders Biggie into battle. McKenzie completes her drawing — a grotesque half-panther-half-squid. The sketch, imbued with magic, allows her to wild shape⁸ into this form. Pulling back 20 feet, she pounces at the creature, backflipping to reveal her squid legs (DM Tip: Let your players have fun with descriptions. Otherwise, we would never have learned that the cat’s butt transferred over despite the tentacle-y lower half) and thwapping the beholder in the eyeball. 

The Harbinger bites blindly at McKenzie (Gotta admit, it feels weird calling her McKenzie when she’s a half-panther-half-squid.), ripping off a tentacle. 

The mayor casts enlarge⁹ on JJ, doubling her in size. JJ big, and JJ big mad. Coordinating with Jody and her fiery prowess, JJ deploys her mace — get it? — in a color spray¹⁰ through the blaze, creating a makeshift flamethrower.

The Harbinger shakes off his blindness and restraints, rising once more to shoot its death ray at the mayor. Bentley, who got her into this mess, dives in front of the oncoming ray, preventing the mayor from taking any damage. (Take care of your civil servants, folks. But, like, not with your body. Damn, Bentley.)

With Bentley down, and Camilla rushing to his side and providing him cover with her bow, JJ surveys the scene. The people of Eugene Weekly are tired, but JJ is huge. Her mace, set ablaze by the flagrant misuse of two melee weapons combined, serves as a fiery cudgel. 

Thus, she beats the Harbinger, so thoroughly defeated, into a paste.

The party — and the mayor — take in the dilapidated warehouse, now stripped of evil. Today, they have saved the city with their magical and martial expertise; tomorrow, they will save it with local news. 

Although people aren’t battling tentacled beasts with flaming weaponry in reality, the act of storytelling — of exaggerating and extrapolating on our own lives into the realm of fantasy — transforms information processing into a form of play. 

“In modern environments, storytelling is more of a play activity than a learning activity,” Sugiyama says. “It’s a combination of learning through direct experience and then sharing your experiences with others.”

That being said, roll for initiative.

Any similarities between characters in the story to real life individuals are purely coincidental. Except for the mayor. She was based on Mayor Kaarin Knudson.

D&D: A Brief History

The fantasy roleplaying game — the first of its kind — spawned from the minds of game designers Gary Gygax and David Arneson in 1974. Dungeons and Dragons was published the same year by the company Tactical Studies Rules, which Gygax co-founded.

When the Satanic Panic struck the brittle hearts of Americans in the 1980s, D&D was accused of teaching witchcraft and paganism to youth. The playing of the tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG) was deemed taboo, but nerds are nothing if not resilient.

Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of toy company Hasbro, purchased D&D from Tactical Studies Rules in 1997. In 2008, a whole new world of actual play podcasts — where people played TTRPGs for an audience — spawned with the creation of the Acquisitions Incorporated podcast. In 2014, Wizards of the Coast released the 5th edition ruleset, making the complicated game more accessible than ever. In 2015, a friend group of voice actors started Critical Role, which has grown to become the most successful actual play podcast and has since produced its own animated show on Amazon, Legends of Vox Machina.

Out of the ashes of President Donald Trump’s first term and the isolating effect of a global pandemic came a resurgence in people’s desire for fantasy. Suddenly, some sit-down escapism, where you could defeat the evil threatening your world, was rather appealing.It was appealing to us at Eugene Weekly, too.

D&D in the Media

Dungeons & Dragons has permeated media since its inception in 1974. Its Gothic horror reputation and subsequent cult following made it a go-to reference for everything from television to film to the YouTube and Twitch scene. 

While D&D has long been popular amongst the nerdiest of us, Stranger Things, a Netflix show that began airing in 2016 and is approaching its final season, brought D&D back to the forefront of the public zeitgeist. It explored the prevailing view of D&D in the ’80s as a game kids loved and parents didn’t understand and often utilizes classic D&D villains (see: Vecna) in its main stories. 

We would absolutely be remiss to skip over the importance of indie podcast creators like Critical Role and Dimension 20 who have utilized D&D’s Open Game License, allowing them to use content originally created by Wizards of the Coast, in their own productions and merch. Combined, this surge in media awareness of D&D brought us a feature-length film in 2023: Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. The film brought together all of the best parts of its titular game: quirky characters with tragic backstories, iffy magical systems and dumb sex jokes. Long-time fans of the game praised Honor Among Thieves for not taking itself too seriously while casual viewers began to search for groups to play with. Those of us sitting in the theatre felt the shift — D&D has reached an almost cool status. Gone are the demon rumors —the stories are here to stay.

Footnotes

1. Barbarian — One who fights with weaponry and rage rather than magic and tricks. ↩︎
2. Ranger — One who is skilled in tracking and fighting alongside natural beasts. ↩︎
3. ↩︎
4. Druid — One who is so in tune with nature that they can transform into the very creatures they covet. ↩︎
5. Warlock — One who made a pact with an ancient being in order to gain power. ↩︎
6. Cleric — One who practices the healing arts, often aided by their deity. ↩︎
7. Speak with dead — Clerics can briefly revive deceased creatures to ask five questions. However, the creature must still have a functioning mouth. ↩︎
8. Wild shape — Druids are able to use Wild Shape to transform into a creature they have seen before at will. ↩︎
9. Enlarge — A creature doubles in size, as does their weaponry. ↩︎
10. Color spray — A 15-foot cone of bright lights shoots forth, blinding a creature for a round (or 6 seconds). ↩︎

Velcro Wallets, Gayt, Stella and Tiny Dino perform 7 pm to 10 pm Sunday, Jan. 26, at Wandering Goat Coffee Company, 268 Madison Street. Doors open at 6:30 pm, alcohol served until 8:45 pm. $10.

Drag Me to Margaritaville: A Jimmy Buffett Drag Show is 9 pm Saturday, Jan. 25 at The Monkey’s Paw, 420 Main Street, Springfield. FREE, but tips are encouraged!

As all indoor gamers are aware, one of the prevailing obstacles in the gaming world is finding people to play with. One of the most important parts of playing games is the community itself, and not being able to find your people can make the idea of gaming — whether it is starting a new fantasy card game, or going back to a beloved RPG (roleplaying game) — daunting. 

With that in mind, here are the places that indoor gamers in Eugene and Springfield can find their fellow nerds (said with the highest regards). There are some local gaming hobby stores that hold tournaments, free play and even offer lessons for tabletop games, RPGs and fantasy card games. 

So for all the current or wannabe Wargamers, dungeon masters and commanders out there who are looking for your people, this article is for you. 

Card Game Stores

Addictive Behaviors

The Addictive Behaviors hobby store in downtown Eugene holds a variety of fantasy card game events every night Monday through Saturday. Magic: The Gathering, a collectible card game that allows players to cast spells, summon creatures and defeat opponents, is its specialty. Addictive Behaviors holds drafting tournaments, Commander nights (a Magic format in which players have a 100-card deck with one “legendary” creature serving as commander and dealing commander damage) and Legacy Nights weekly, meaning that they cater to everyone from beginners to veterans. 

“One of the hardest things about playing in a group for Magic specifically, is making sure that everyone is on the same wavelength about what they want,” says Addictive Behaviors manager Austin Brantely. 

With its variety of Magic events for differing skill levels, Addictive Behaviors hopes that people are able to find like-minded Magic players. Aside from Magic, Addictive Behaviors also holds weekly tournaments and league events for Pokémon, Star Wars, Lorcana and other card games. The icing on the cake is that they also offer store credit prizes. 

Find Addictive Behaviors on Facebook, head to CCGObsession.com or 26 East 11th Avenue and call 541-684-8547.

Mox Valley

Mox Valley holds a number of card game events in various formats. From Standard, Commander and Legacy Magic: The Gathering events, to Yu-Gi-Oh! Digimon and Star Wars, Mox Valley has solid ground covered in the card game realm, while also giving adequate attention to Beyblade (a game that involves metal spinning tops smacking together). 

Mox Valley holds bustling, competitive tournaments, as well as casual meet-up days to just sit, chat and play favorite games with favorite people all day long. Fridays and Saturdays are the busiest, and the best chance to meet new people. Evan Silverman of Mox Valley recommends that anyone interested in trying out a new game before heading to an event should show up at the store on Thursdays to learn how to play. He says Thursdays are the slowest days, which allows the Mox Valley team adequate time to teach anyone what they want to learn before a big game day. 

Silverman acknowledges the difficulties of finding people to play with, especially “if you’re not already entrenched in the community or have friends who already play the game,” he says. “Finding a nice, neutral, safe space to come learn, to play and meet new people, it definitely helps out a lot.” 

Silverman adds that Mox Valley has been a good space for him as well. “I’ve met quite a few friends here when several of my favorite card games were played in events. It helps me get out of the house.”

For more on fantasy card game events, cover charges and tournaments, find Mox Valley at 1843 Pioneer Parkway East, Springfield, check out MoxValleyGames.com and Mox Valley Games on Facebook or call 458-239-4112 .

Tabletop and Roleplaying Game Stores

Funagain Games

Aside from its game parlor — with a selection of 300-plus games — that is open to the public (and free on Saturdays), Funagain Games regularly holds gameplay events for card games, tabletop games and roleplaying games. The store prides itself on the amount of events it holds weekly, garnering 20 to 40 people for every event. It has events Monday-Saturday save for Wednesday. Funagain also hosts two gaming conventions every year, which attract 300 people each.

Among all of these events, however, the one that Funagain Games holds dearest is the legacy event it has held for 12 years. “We have Beginners Board Game Night every single Thursday, and it’s our most important event that we do, because bringing new people into the community is really important,” says Rick Scoville of Funagain Games. “We recognize that gaming and community go hand in hand, and we spend thousands of dollars every month to make sure that we have that space and put resources towards community gaming.” 

He says that “one of the biggest barriers to gaming, board gaming and card gaming is learning the rules,” so they hire hosts to help teach new games to newer players every week. “Everything about what we do is inclusive, and we go to great lengths to keep people safe, and it’s, for the most part, a casual and kind and supportive environment, and we’ve even accomplished that,” Scoville says. 

For more about gameplay events and tournaments, check out Funagain.com, find Funagain Games Eugene on Facebook, head to 2817 Oak Street or call 541-505-8207. 

Castle of Games

This independent hobby store has regular events for, and specializes in, miniature tabletop games and roleplaying games. Dungeons & Dragons and Warhammer are its greatest hits, but it regularly holds events for other games as well. For those uninterested in attending an event, a $5 drop-in fee allows guests to use the gameplay area and choose from Castle of Games’ large selection of tabletop and roleplaying games.

Castle of Games says it is unique because all of its events are community driven and hosted. The reason why is because owner Kimberly Buckmaster’s top priority is building the gaming community, and making sure that all gamers know they belong, regardless of skill-level. “We don’t believe in gatekeeping,” she says. “The only way to keep the games alive is to show other people.” 

If you’re new, Buckmaster promises a friendly and inviting atmosphere with community members who are eager to help first-timers learn. “Someone doesn’t have to come in and know everything,” Buckmaster says. 

Interested in hosting your own game night? Simply reach out to Castle of Games, either in person, or via phone or Facebook, with six to eight weeks notice and an idea of the type of game night you would like to host.

 Be sure not to miss Castle of Games’ grand reopening March 1, for an all-day Warhammer 40k event with raffles, prizes and giveaways. 

For more information on registering for or hosting events at Castle Games, go to CastleOfGames.com or Facebook, Castle of Games. Or head to 2100 Main Street, Springfield and call 541-654-5172.   

Warhammer

This is an official Warhammer store that offers all things Warhammer for everyone from experts to beginners. Any day of the week, the public is welcome to walk in and play any Warhammer game, but the store also offers free lessons for any aspect of the hobby, including gameplay or model building and painting. They also have occasional Warhammer events for both Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Age of Sigmar. All Warhammer stores have “figures of the month,” which is a free giveaway of a Warhammer miniature — paired perfectly with the aforementioned free model painting lessons. 

Check out Warhammer Eugene on Facebook, head to 440 Coburg Road, Suite 101 or call 458-261-4099. 

Baxter and her company have agreed to pay a total of $1.5 million in criminal fines, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Oregon says in a press release.

Baxter-Krause also faces up to two years in federal prison and three years of supervised release, prosecutors say. Baxter-Krause, 61, of Deschutes County, will be sentenced April 22, before U.S. District Court Judge Michael J. McShane.

It’s unclear where the company and Baxter-Krause would get the money to pay the fine. Baxter-Krause shut and walked away from the Eugene wood-treatment plant in 2022, leaving the environmental mess in the hands of federal and state regulators. J.H. Baxter is based in California but it is unclear whether it has any assets or ongoing business operations there or anywhere else.

Under the plea agreement filed in federal court, the company and Baxter-Krause agreed to disclose to the federal government all their assets. The deal sets Baxter-Krause responsible for $500,000 of the fine and the company responsible for the rest.

In allegations filed in federal court late last year, prosecutors said that in 2019, and at other times, J.H. Baxter had illegally used equipment at its Eugene plant to boil off large amounts of chemically polluted process liquids, sending the vapors into the air. On-site, the company had equipment it could have used to legally clean the liquids, but that equipment was either broken or inadequate to handle the large volumes of liquids, officials have said.

State investigators estimate Baxter illegally boiled off into the neighborhood’s air about 1.7 million gallons of hazardous liquid waste in 2019. That’s enough to fill about 114 standard 25-yard swimming pools.

The factory didn’t have a permit to boil off the liquids, and the Lane Regional Air Protection Agency and the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality were unaware of Baxter’s illegal boiling-off, federal officials said.

In 2020, when the DEQ twice asked Baxter-Krause about the practice, she lied in response, officials said.

The plea deal is the latest chapter in a yearslong saga in which the creosoting factory polluted the ground, groundwater and air at its property, infuriating neighbors who lived with the industrial stench.

Separately from the federal criminal case, the state last year filed a civil lawsuit in state circuit court against J.H. Baxter and real estate entities in Oregon that are headed by Baxter-Krause, seeking payment for more than $2 million that the state has spent cleaning up polluted soil at and around the abandoned Baxter factory. The state is seeking in effect to claim pieces of Oregon real estate it believes Baxter-Krause owns. That lawsuit remains in its early stage.

Also, before Krause-Baxter shut the plant, the DEQ levied fines that the company never paid. Those fines, plus interest, now total more than $350,000, the DEQ says.

Owned by USD Clean Fuels LLC, the proposed transfer station would have been located on Union Pacific Railroad property at 799 Bethel Drive. Community members said they feared that if approved, the station could introduce unwanted levels of noise, light and environmental pollution into the neighborhood.

“It’s a wonderful example of community and nonprofit organization partnership,” says Lisa Arkin, executive director of local environmental nonprofit Beyond Toxics. Arkin and Bethel community members had been fighting this proposed transfer station since June, when the Eugene Planning Division initially approved the zoning application. 

Beyond Toxics and community members appealed the city’s decision to the Land Use Board of Appeals on Sept. 30, 2024, and the city withdrew its verification for reconsideration less than a month later on Oct. 18. 

The city revoked the zoning verification for 90 days and opened a 14-day period for public comment. On Jan. 16, the Planning Division decided the site would create a significant regional disturbance and denied the application. 

“The main concern was that the facility itself was literally across the street from homes,” Arkin says. Community members submitted more than 229 written comments to the city expressing their concern and disapproval of the station.

In an email to Eugene Weekly, USD Clean Fuels representative Mary Kilpatrick wrote on behalf of “the USD Clean Fuels Team,” that “USD Clean Fuels is carefully following all state and local permitting processes, including air permitting and is committed to being a good neighbor and a valued business in the community.” 

USD Clean Fuels claims the facility would not produce any actionable noise levels and that a fuel spill of a reportable quantity is unlikely. 

“This truly does show the power of community coming together,” Arkin says. 

Community members say USD Clean Fuels failed to adequately communicate with impacted residents. The company distributed fliers and had a brief phone conversation with residents, but Arkin says it did not thoroughly address community concerns. “They never really answered our questions, and they didn’t care about our concerns,” Arkins says. 

USD Clean Fuels, however, claimed it was working closely with community members to ensure a beneficial relationship was maintained. “Since August 2024, the company has worked to inform community members about the proposed facility by answering questions and speaking with community leaders,” the email from the “team” says.

With the denial of the application, advocates say they are excited that the Trainsong community was able to come together, and defeat an industrial development they saw as harmful to the neighborhood. 

Arkin says Beyond Toxics and Trainsong residents will continue to fight against this transfer station if USD Clean Fuels tries to build this station elsewhere in Eugene or Springfield. “We would continue to fight this, anywhere in an urbanized area,” Arkin says, “This kind of facility has no place in a place where people live, work, play and go to school.” 

Clearly, full support from the University of Oregon’s Athletic Department for its athletes of color is no longer in question. However, that has not always been the case.

Take for instance Mack Robinson, older brother of sports legend and activist Jackie Robinson, and silver medal-winner, finishing a close second behind Jesse Owens in the 200 meters in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Mack was a track standout at the UO in the late 1930s. In spite of his performances on the track, however, he was prevented from living on campus due solely to the color of his skin. As a result, off-campus housing became an unfortunate necessity for many other nonwhite students.

Fortunately within a decade, a local family had established a sanctuary to accommodate not only nonwhite athletes, but a host of traveling entertainers, artists and speakers.                                                                                                             

CB Mims was a skilled millwright who had relocated his family from Texas to Vancouver, Washington, during the early days of the Second World War. Even as a Black man, he had no trouble finding work in the Kaiser Shipyards supporting the war effort. However, when the war ended, Mims and scores of other people of color were dismissed, leaving them to find work elsewhere. 

Unable to find a position in Vancouver or Portland, the promise of the timber industry and Mims’ skills as a millwright brought the family to Eugene. However, Mims was only able to find employment as a busboy at the Osburn Hotel.

At the time, the city’s strict exclusionary laws prevented nonwhites from owning or renting property within the city limits. With the backing from the hotel’s owner, Joe Earley Sr., Mims was able to buy two old and neglected houses on a piece of property on High Street near Skinner Butte. This misguided culture of prejudice persisted well into the 1960s.

When legendary coach Len Casanova arrived at UO to take the reins as the university’s head football coach in 1951, he sought help from the Mims family to provide accommodations for his Black athletes. While sitting at the Mims’ kitchen table, the initial arrangement involved at least two players, Leroy Campbell and Emmett Williams, according to Willie Mims, son of CB and Annie Mims.

Regrettably, CB Mims died in 1960, not knowing that 20 years later his family’s architecturally historical homes would qualify for Historical Preservation funds to begin restoration of the two houses sitting on his property. In 1980, the country was swept up in the movement to preserve architecturally and historically important structures. Previously, he had been denied by lenders funds to even make repairs. This time his widow, Annie Mims, was able to secure a loan, and today both houses are restored and listed on the National Register of Historical Places and referred to as The Historical Mims Houses.

The cultural importance of the Historical Mims Houses cannot be overlooked. They represent the longest Black-owned property in Eugene. Their history as a sanctuary for people of color and a tribute honoring the first Black families of Eugene is memorialized by a stone monument erected on site at 330 High Street for all to view. The local chapter of the NAACP occupies one of the homes, and they serve as a hub for many activities benefitting the whole community.

Keeping the spirit alive, Eugene’s Gordon Hotel continues to pay tribute by establishing the CB Mims Sanctuary Room in recognition of the shelter the Mims homes offered to people of color traveling through Eugene.

Today, the Mims’ homes remain an important landmark signaling a stand taken against racial inequity. In an effort to build on the legacy these homes helped establish, a collaboration of community nonprofits and private businesses, along with the Mims Family, have created the Mims Houses Project.

For more info, go to HistoricMimsHouses.org or Facebook.com/HistoricMimsHousesOurStory. 

G.B. Lawrence is a local writer and longtime friend of the Mims family.

Students in Lane Community College’s two-year drone program train there, and state aviation officials say the rural facility will also soon be upgraded to become the drone firefighting airport of the future. 

The LCC program, more formally called Aviation Unmanned Aircraft Systems, works with the Oakridge Airport to give its students on-the-job training as part of their instruction. And during wildfire season, the Oakridge Airport is also part of firefighting efforts across the region, says the director of Oregon’s Department of Aviation. 

Now ODAV wants to add firefighting drones to its emergency response system.

“It’s a dinky little airport,” says Kenji Sugahara, ODAV director, of the 3,565-foot runway with a paved width of 50 feet. But it’s “critical for fighting fires in the Cascade region.” 

Oakridge City Administrator James Cleavenger really likes the firefighting drone plan. “The terrain here is so steep and inaccessible in a lot of areas that we can’t get people up there to deal with it,” he says of the forests around the town, “and we certainly can’t get fire trucks in a lot of areas. But we could easily fly drones up there.”

The drones will be dual purpose, Sugahara says.

“What we want to do is be able to, if there’s lightning strikes, send out drones for long distances and just take a look at the area where all the lightning strikes happen, so we can figure out whether traditional aviation assets need to be sent out to put that fire out.”

During times of heavy firefighting, the small airport can be packed with helicopters and other equipment, plus crews and other staff. Outside of wildfire season, Cleavenger says “it’s a tight location so it’s not super popular. There’s a hangar there now with a couple of planes in it, but not a lot.”

Sugahara notes that the airport isn’t just used by wildfire fighters or local pilots, but by Lane Community College aviation students as well.

LCC drone technology and unmanned aircraft systems instructor Solomon Singer says the Oakridge Airport is the perfect place for his students to get experience. “Drone pilots need to know airport operations. It’s actually a really critical component of the training,” he says. 

Singer says LCC offers a two-year program that teaches students how to operate three different kinds of drones, including a vertical takeoff and landing drone, a small, fixed-wing model to initially train students on the basics and a larger, “more capable” fixed-wing drone that can fly for over an hour.

“What’s really amazing is that all of these have autonomous capabilities and all this is industry standard sort of equipment that they get familiar with as they build these and maintain them,” Singer says. “They actually bring that type of technology right down to the two-year level. And so I like to say that we really have a four-year degree in two years.”

Enrollment is currently maxed out, Singer says. Seventy students are currently being trained to be the drone operators of an automated avionic future. 

Drones won’t just be needed for firefighting, but for construction, infrastructure and powerline inspection as well. “Our graduates are just literally getting sucked up into the industry as fast as we can produce them,” he says.

“That’s also sort of what Oakridge ties into, a little bit is we want to really start pushing our UAS [unmanned aircraft systems] program as, specifically to more of a public service as well as an education role,” Singer says.

With Oakridge Airport the training site for a future generation of drone pilots, Sugahara says the state applied for a $2 million grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration to improve the airport’s infrastructure for communicating with aircraft. 

“The idea is to put the fires out before they become a problem, right? So that’s what we want to enable,” Sugahara says. “Utilizing long range drones to be able to do that, and to be able to do that, you need to be able to de-conflict with traditional aircraft.”

The airport needs upgrades to its runway, Sugahara says. This year, the Oregon Department of Transportation, through its Connect Oregon initiative, awarded the aviation agency a $2 million grant to fix cracks in the runway’s asphalt. Sugahara says ODAV will also contribute $1 million to the repairs. 

In total, Sugahara says ODAV will need $5 million to fix the runway and upgrade the communications systems. “It pretty much needs to be redone,” he says. “It’s in really bad shape.”

To learn more about Lane Community College’s Unmanned Aviation Systems program, go to LaneCC.edu.

Naked somehow captured, on film, what Kurt Cobain captured in music — a new species of wounded animal, lashing out in vulnerability and rage at a world gone mad. It was a movie for the zeitgeist, and it resonates now more than ever.

Fast forward more than three decades, and Leigh is offering us yet another singular portrait of despair and rage, this time in the form of a depressed middle-aged woman named Pansy (the excellent Marianne Jean-Baptiste). For the better part of Hard Truths’ relatively short run time (97 minutes), Pansy lumbers around unabashedly lashing out at literally everything and everyone around her: her shiftless son (Tuwaine Barrett), her emotionally vacant husband (David Webber), her long-suffering sister (Michele Austin), a grocery clerk, a dude in the parking lot, a tall white woman she calls an ostrich, it doesn’t matter.

If this sounds like a distinctly unlovely time to spend at the theater, I must confess that Pansy is indeed, at moments, a lot — irritating, cringey, abusive, even going so far as to pick fights with the pigeons in her backyard. The good news is that all of this hurly-burly is in the hands of one of our greatest living writers/directors in Leigh, whose control of his material has never been more masterful, or more sensitive. 

What threatens at first to become an unpleasant tour-de-force in pointlessly bad behavior becomes, slowly and intimately, a heartbreakingly human story about grief and loneliness.

Hard Truths, like Naked, is relatively plotless, at least in the traditional Hollywood sense: Pansy sees her beautician, Pansy goes to buy a couch, Pansy and her sister visit their mother’s grave on Mother’s Day. And yet the movie is so exquisitely structured and finely observed in terms of emotional undercurrents that we are carried along on an undeniable arc toward a revelation that is no less devastating for being understated, almost muted.

Leigh has a real genius for gently squeezing the grandest dramas from the quiet stuff of everyday life, and here he burrows down once again into the parochial, working-class reality of anonymous Londoners. Few filmmakers are so wonderfully attuned to the unspoken dynamics of class and social status.

On the surface, his films have an almost documentary feel, plain and neorealist in aspect, but his directorial choices reveal a deep artistry, as well as an implicit trust in the audience’s ability to follow along with the subtle stuff: transitions startle, juxtapositions jar, comedy undercuts tragedy, and vice versa. The editing in Hard Truths, by Tania Reddin, is impeccable; the film flows seamlessly, with an economy and confidence that is lacking in so many movies these days. There is not a moment of waste. Everything fits, everything resonates.

I fear that artful, quiet, downbeat indie films like this — about regular, ordinary people just struggling to get through life — are becoming a rarity unto extinction, and that makes me sad. In its own way, Hard Truths is as explosive and engaging as anything out there — more so, even, because it conveys a sense of grief and trauma that is so specifically human it seems to whisper to the universal in our experience.

I dare say we all have a little bit of Pansy in us.

Hard Truths opens Friday, Jan. 17 at Metro Cinemas; Metro-cinemas.com.

Minor Mirage Desert Howl EP release and music video screening is 8 pm Friday, Jan. 17, at Art House, 492 East 13th Avenue. $20, all ages.

The WE RIDE FOR HER screening is 6:30 pm Tuesday, Jan. 21, at Unitarian Universalist Church, 1685 West 13th Avenue. FREE.

The Oregon State Pinball Championship starts 11 am Saturday, Jan. 18, at Level Up Arcade, 1290 Oak Street; spectating is FREE. The Open Tournament begins at 1 pm; $5. Email EmeraldCityPinball@Gmail.com to learn more or join the Emerald City Pinball League.

The rage, the indignant insistence of privilege and power, of control — multiple nations of people already existing, be damned. History tells us that violence of many sorts were introduced to our budding culture. Deceit, murder, oppression and the pursuit for more, more of anything they could say was worth more than the next. 

The easier it was to steal and pillage, the more dominant they seemed to feel. The practice of domination came with prestige. The more you could resort to humiliation and violence the more reverence. This isn’t the narrative taught in American history classes. 

As I’m sure we all know by now, the victor writes the story. We have learned, if nothing else, that there are certainly two sides to a story. For everyone who didn’t believe the story of the oppressed, the oppressors are finally telling their truth. They stand on stage and spill vile, depraved lies and twisted truths. They reverse rhetoric, project and then gaslight. They are demonstrating their truest side of the story. It’s not a myth, it wasn’t a fabrication or dramatization. They are exactly who they say they are, and they have always been who they are. 

Now we have to think: How long did a nation not believe the abused? For how long did this nation placate the survivors and the victims, how long did we normalize this level of unhinged and unfounded hatred toward fellow citizens? 

Which part was the lie? Liberty and justice for all? Or was it the lie of “manifest destiny”? Whose destiny? Was it your destiny to glorify genocide in order to fulfill such perversion? Perhaps it is the part that is echoed —  all men were created equal — or was it the hero’s story of conquest and valor? 

Who we see now is their truth, naked and exposed. Do not look away, these are your people. This is our nation. 

We are at a precipice to discover who we will become. The truth of the oppressors or the courage of the oppressed. If history serves me right, the story of the oppressed, written by the oppressor paints a picture of a soul broken, not worth saving. 

Yet the second side of that story is we are still here. We held our ancestors’ pain and their warning. We stayed woke, we stayed vigilant, weaving courage and hope into our children’s hair. We kept music in our feet and held our joy close to our heart. We passed our lessons of family and unity forward. We look forward to our future for balance, not for conquest.  

A soul of a nation is not saved by the people without one. This nation is here because we are. Together, we are this nation. It is time for our story to be the story heard, to be respected, to be studied and understood. Our story heals. Now is the time, if there ever was one to ask, Where is our character? Where does this story of lies and grandiose and violence end? 

It is by choice that a legacy rot with anger and ignorance can end with you. It is a by choice, and as the pages of history write themselves, your choice is evident in the last words written.  

Ayisha Elliott’s podcast, Black Girl From Eugene, centers the perspective of the “othered,” where Black and Brown bodied people can feel free to express truths and release trauma without oppressive influence, but rather through our own collective intellect, humor and joy. Listen  11 am Sundays on KEPW 97.3 FM. Find it on all major podcasting platforms. You can support BGFE at Patreon.com/Blackgirlfromeugene_1.

With the dust settled on the 2024 election, the question becomes, how did a slim majority of American voters choose a candidate with authoritarian tendencies? Did the fault lie in Kamala Harris? Missteps of Joe Biden? Bad messaging? 

Compared to the other side, they all did fine. Did sexism and racism play a part? Sure, but that’s not news — those are always at play in America.

The “how” of the 2024 election boils down to James Carville’s dictum, “it’s the economy, stupid,” evidenced by the 75 percent of Americans who reported inflation had caused them financial hardships. But the biggest of these price bites came not from the cost of butter and bacon, but from the rise in everyone’s largest monthly expense — housing. 

On paper the economy was healthy with wages up, post-COVID inflation down, and full-employment. But on the ground what mattered was the rent raises of 30 percent or more in most metro areas between 2019 and 2023. What mattered was the 30 percent of Americans who earned $30,000 or less per year, allowing them a max rent of $750 — for rentals that no longer existed. What mattered was the 12.1 percent rise in houselessness in 2023, increasing the vehicularly housed, snaking through our towns.

So, in part, people stayed home or voted against democratic values because the government kept failing to deliver housing that was available and affordable. But neither the offered promises of first-time home buyer assistance, nor the scapegoating promises of immigrant deportation to free homes, could fully remedy our shortfall of 7.3 million low-income housing units. 

This is because the beef is decades in the making — and a set-up of our own creation. We did this by choosing to hitch our wagon to the neoliberal tenets of limited government and limited taxes. This choice transferred wealth to speculators who used it to hoover-up affordable housing, replacing it with luxury digs — while hobbling the government’s ability to replace the missing units.

And we forgot the inconvenient fact that the government could only provide housing when we were willing to live with a tax rate that never dipped below 70 percent, and were willing to put community needs above individual needs — and call it patriotism, not socialism. 

Yet this have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too attitude has led to our governing pickle. People are rightfully upset because “the government” can’t deliver lower rents and mortgages, nor make homelessness disappear. But they are also unwilling to acknowledge their complicity, and embrace the obvious cure: live with higher taxes, support regulations mandating low-cost housing preservation and creation, and walk the walk of personal sacrifices for the common good. 

The reality? On the national level, none of those above are about to happen, especially since the election. However, all is not lost. Through broad coalition building — housing affordability affects us all — great things can still be done on the state and local level. Washington state has now twice approved taxes on wealth to fund low-cost housing (funding for Vienna’s public housing for 60 percent of its citizens was through wealth taxes). And many states and cities are setting up their own nonprofit development corporations, cutting out fiscally wasteful for-profit investor involvement. 

Land is always a difficult get, but at the local level, it can be made available through the piggybacking of low-cost units onto other developments. And permanent affordability can be preserved with limited equity restrictions written onto each deed. Below are a few suggestions for these fixes:

 1. Require all commercial buildings to be built with second or third floors of dedicated rentals priced for those earning $15,000 or below; 

2. Require all new job creators to provide housing for all workers earning $40,000 or below; 

3. Revise middle housing laws to mandate the inclusion on each lot of one unit for those earning $30,000 or below. 

Working together to implement these changes will provide healing for ourselves and our cities as, in time, the inadequately housed find affordable stability. This also will boost, once again, our confidence in each other and our government. Is this all pie-in-the-sky? Perhaps. But we have no choice: neither our neighbors living with housing precarity nor the survival of our beautiful democracy are sustainable without hard changes that start with housing us all.Diana Bilovsky is a writer and affordable housing advocate living in Eugene. This essay is an adaptation from The Affordability Conundrum, a work in progress.

Forgive me if I have made light of the justice system by using it as a platform to condemn the genocidal aims of the United States in Palestine. I still do not comprehend how these proceedings relate to justice at all. 

How can the same state that is committing one of the worst genocidal atrocities in history be a purveyor of justice? How can the same state that is a pariah of international law, the same state that has cast away its own laws to supply the weapons of extermination and genocide be a purveyor of justice in this room?

The district attorney is acutely aware of the fact that my co-defendants and I did not intend from the start to seek justice here. If I had taken a plea deal back in April, I would have been done with probation and community service by now and my charges would already have been dismissed. By going to trial with my co-defendants, I did not seek to exonerate myself. 

The only –– the only –– reason why I am here is because the DA singled out three of my comrades, including my Palestinian American friend, Salem, for higher punishment. The same principles that lead me to struggle for the freedom of the Palestinian people in collective action also lead me to struggle here at home for my comrades in collective defense. I refuse to leave my comrades behind. 

If the DA were simply to have given the same “plea deal” to all of us equally, I wouldn’t be here today, the courts wouldn’t be wasting precious resources on these trials, and I wouldn’t be explaining my actions to you at this moment. But the DA repeatedly refused to even negotiate with us. So here I am –– ready to receive my punishment for standing up, not just for the Palestinian people, but also for my own comrades at home, including my dear Palestinian American friend. That’s not justice –– it’s political repression.

It’s the same political repression with which the U.S. has consistently used to maintain its hegemonic control over anyone who has ever dared to struggle for liberation against the violence it wields against the poor and oppressed of the world. It’s the same political repression that has lead to violent crackdowns on the student movement, sending in police thugs to brutalize students calling for their universities to divest from genocide. 

It’s the same political repression that has led the state to pursue felony charges and prison sentences against Palestinian actionists who have sabotaged U.S.-funded weapons manufacturers. It’s the same political repression that is currently being waged against the numerous political prisoners in U.S. cages who still fight for freedom. Why is it that we have stood by and let the genocide continue unabated? Why is Cop City still being built, the forests still being cleared, and 61 of our friends and comrades still facing spurious charges of domestic terrorism? 

Why did we let Tortuguita be murdered by the police? Why do we allow the police to continue to kill, evict and displace in our own communities?

If it weren’t the purpose of the courts to strip the political context away from political actions to leave just the objective facts of crime, I would have talked about being a child and asking myself what I would do if I was living under a state that was committing genocide. I would talk about how I no longer have to ask myself that because this is what I am doing under a state that is committing genocide. 

I would have talked about being a child and forcing myself to witness the horrors of the holocaust, thinking that by witnessing the atrocities I would help to ensure that they never happened again. I would have talked about how those same atrocities are happening again, and I would talk about witnessing them every day. I would have talked about death toll estimates approaching 200,000 Palestinians in Gaza, approaching 10 percent of the population. 

I would have talked about how cumulatively the U.S.-funded and manufactured and supplied bombs dropped in Gaza have exceeded in tonnage and destructive capabilities the nuclear bombs dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, how they have exceeded in tonnage and destructive capabilities the bombs dropped during WWII in Dresden, London, Hamburg. I would have talked about entire cities reduced to rubble, schools, mosques, aid convoys attacked, starving people in breadlines massacred, fathers holding their headless children, patients in hospital beds burning alive. 

I would have talked about how witnessing isn’t enough. How collective action might be. How we tried. How we’ll still try to stop a genocide.

No matter the sentence I will receive, I am proud to have answered the call from the Palestinian people enduring and fighting against their extermination in a moment of collective action and autonomy. My fight is their fight because all of us want to be free from the restricting confines of a system that causes so much pain and suffering. I am always on the side of freedom.

Always and forever.

Evan Quarles was one of the protesters who blocked I-5 on April 15, 2024. Quarles is a wildland firefighter, dedicated abolitionist, writer, distroist and organizer who has committed their life to struggles for liberation.

Salem Younes, a Palestinian American student, and K. Anton, a Lebanese American activist, will take the stand in a joint trial for their charge of disorderly conduct Jan. 17 at the Lane County Courthouse.

The band’s 2020 album, No Time for Enemies, topped the Billboard bluegrass chart, solidifying its unique sound. Its latest release, The Blackest Thing on the Menu, continues this innovative tradition, celebrating the contributions of Black musicians to bluegrass’ Appalachian roots while combining acoustic instrumentation with hip-hop elements. 

Emily “Sleevs” Messner, the group’s manager, says she is frustrated over the Grammy Awards’ classification of Gangstagrass as a rap act rather than bluegrass, despite the band’s significant contributions to the bluegrass genre and appearances at numerous bluegrass festivals. 

The band’s lineup includes founder Rench, vocalists Dolio the Sleuth and R-SON the Voice of Reason, instrumentalist Joshua Jimmerson and Sleevs. Their sound fuses traditional bluegrass elements like banjo, fiddle and guitar with hip-hop beats and rap verses.

“Growing up, I’d come home from school in the ’80s listening to hip hop and then hear my dad play bluegrass,” Rench says. “In college, I began producing music and eventually launched Gangstagrass. Once it was out there, the energy from the crowd brought it to life.”

Despite the acclaim, Gangstagrass often faces skepticism. “People don’t know what to expect,” R-SON says. “But once they see us perform, they’re blown away by how seamlessly these two styles come together.”

Sleevs highlighted the group’s broad appeal and the challenges artists face in the music industry. “Even with successful albums, making money in this industry is tough,” she says. “The system isn’t friendly to artists. But we’re not here to become billionaires — we’re activists at heart. It’s amazing to see people of all ages and multiple generations rocking out together at our shows.”

Sleevs emphasizes the inclusive nature of Gangstagrass’s music. “This is a show for everyone. If you’re a single parent juggling school and kids, bring them along — you don’t need a babysitter. Our music bridges generations and speaks to diverse audiences.” And she says, Gangstagrass’s music delves into the complexities of life in America today. “Our songs reflect what it’s like to navigate this country.”

Dolio adds, “It’s absolutely the responsibility of artists to be a mirror to society — showing what it is and imagining what it could be. Every movement needs a soundtrack, and we’re here to provide it.”

Rench says the band bridges cultural and racial divides through music. “American music, from country to soul to hip hop, has always been about collaboration among all kinds of people. As a multiracial band, we’re reclaiming that history and showing how we can come together.”

Dolio says music has the power to inspire hope. “In times like these, the loudest voices often belong to bad actors. But music can send a rallying cry, letting people know they’re not alone. Sometimes, joy is rebellion — and you can feel that in our music and lyrics.”

Gangstagrass performs 8 pm Jan. 23 in the Hult Center for the Performing Arts Soreng Theater. Tickets start at $25.50 and are available at HultCenter.org.

The city-owned parcel in question is prominent: nearly three-quarters of an acre, now used as a surface parking lot. It’s immediately north of the popular Farmers Market Pavilion on East 8th Avenue that the city opened in 2022.

City planning staff are figuring out steps that would include a Eugene City Council decision on how to dispose of the land, and solicitation of housing development plans “through a competitive process,” says spokesperson Lindsay Selser.

It’s unclear whether the housing would be market-rate — based on market value and demand — or subsidized and below-market.

“We are early on in this process and do not have a proposal yet for this site,” Selser tells Eugene Weekly. “We have not yet identified a housing type or mix,” she says, adding, “We are currently reaching out to stakeholders to understand the opportunities and challenges.”

Zoning change needed

 An initial step is to change the land’s zoning, so it can legally be used for housing, the city says. City community development staff recently filed a zone change request with the city’s planning staff to shift the zoning from the current “public lands” category to “major commercial,” which includes a provision allowing housing. The city’s long-range growth plans include the parcel in the city’s “major commercial” downtown core.

“The zone change is a first step in making the parcel ready for development proposals,” Selser says.

It’s unclear how many housing units could fit on the site or how tall the building could be.

A pending project on a similar-sized piece of land downtown gives a hint — and also suggests the project could take years. The city-owned former Lane Community College branch on downtown Willamette Street, an old department store, is tentatively slated to be given to a developer later this month, for demolition and replacement with a six-story apartment building with 68 rent-controlled units and 65 market-rate units.

But that project has lingered for years. The city picked the developer in 2021. Since then, the sides have haggled over subsidies and other terms to ensure some of the units are rent-controlled and affordable to people of average means. Under the latest agreement, the developer has until Feb. 1 to finalize financing and meet other terms in order to take title to the property.

Part of ‘butterfly lot’ 

The city has owned the site north of the market Pavilion since 2018, when it bought the entire so-called “butterfly” parking lot from Lane County.

At the time, city leaders wanted to build a small City Hall for executive staff, elected officials and public meetings on the north side of the butterfly parcel. But City Council members soured as the potential price tag jumped to $30 million. And they sweetened on a notion they had long rejected, of buying the old Eugene Water & Electric Board complex. The city bought the EWEB property and moved in last year, rendering the north butterfly lot surplus.

Before wanting to build a small City Hall on the butterfly parcel, city officials in 2006-07 spent more than $2 million to develop designs for a massive 300,000-square-foot new City Hall that would have cost up to $163 million. Councilors scrapped that idea after polling showed voters would reject the tax increases to pay for it.

No timeline is available for when the zoning application for the vacant parcel will be processed or when the council will broach the topic. 

Bricks and Mortar is a column anchored by Christian Wihtol, who worked as an editor and writer at The Register-Guard in Eugene 1990-2018, much of the time focused on real estate, economic development and business. Reach him at Christian@EugeneWeekly.com.

A week or two ago, I received a “to occupant” letter from Eugene Springfield Fire and opened it trepidatiously to find out quickly that they would like to come by, in person, to help a single old hippie in a 100-year-old home who seemed a match to a profile established by two recent fire deaths in low-ceiling old shacks that had fireplaces/woodstoves that leaked carbon monoxide and killed the occupants. 

I instantly recognized the danger if I pursued my course of restoring the ability to use wood heat in winter and fully agreed with their assessment. Rather than warn me of a future code violation, he came in and swiftly installed in my bedroom, in the best possible place, a new smoke alarm, free. I had not heard of the tragedies before, but all my experience told me his account was spot-on real. They had surveyed aerial photos of Bethel, found my place fit the profile, and acted in a timely fashion without drama. For me, a true “Best of Eugene” experience!

Rick Valley

Eugene

The Homeless are Us

A veteran who spent 10 years unhoused on the streets once told us, “No one wants to be out here on the streets.” Lane County statistics on homelessness back up that claim: 82 percent of unhoused persons in Lane County lost their housing here, according to county officials. They were not attracted to this area by services — 82 percent had housing but lost it here.

There are as many reasons for becoming unhoused as there are people — job loss, divorce, illness and staggering bills, a wage that cannot keep pace with rising costs, catastrophic events. Some of the kindest, most caring, talented and intelligent people you would ever meet are unhoused. They deserve our help, not our harassment. Sweeps solve nothing.  Since when does heaping trauma on top of trauma ever help or solve anything? Sweeps only make it more difficult for people to retain their health and find ways out of homelessness. As for so-called crime reduction, study after study show sweeps do nothing to reduce crime, just as harassing any arbitrarily selected or stereotyped group of people would not reduce crime in a given area. 

Across the U.S. homelessness is up 30 percent over the past 24 months and is at an all-time high. The unhoused are not “outsiders” or “the other,” they are us. Who’s next?

Martha and Peter Dragovich

Eugene

A Simple ‘Thank You’

I know that the decision by PeaceHealth to close the University District hospital was met with anger, disappointment and sadness by many in our community.

I want to share a positive experience with PeaceHealth. I am low income, have a chronic health condition and have OHP [Oregon Health Plan]. I often have tests, procedures and other medical needs requested by my PCP that are not covered by OHP. PeaceHealth has a “bridge program” that can cover up to 100 percent of out-of-pocket expenses for low income patients. I have accessed this program for almost two years now. I am so grateful to PeaceHealth for offering me financial assistance so I can focus on my health, not how to pay for it.  

A suggestion: If you use this program, how about calling the administration and saying, “thank you.” We are often so quick to complain about problems, and yet forget to say thank you.

Wendy Harris

Eugene 

Adding to a Good Point

Dan Bryant has a good point for solving homelessness (EW, 1/2). The only thing missing is how do you build these housing units in quantity? Relying on local and state alliances will always have limitations!

A better solution is to include, on the West Coast, all the states and recommend economical green natural disaster resistant manufactured modular units that can be stacked three stories high and placed in areas not being used, like railway and interstate highway right of ways. 

The modular must fit standard rail and truck transportation dimensions for quick delivery. The social and management services would be all the same in each state, hopefully reducing homelessness migration!

Don Strout

Eugene

A Path to a Sustainable Future

The fires in Los Angeles are a great tragedy, but as we mourn for those who lost their lives and belongings, along with the innocent animals, we must not be complacent. What happened in L.A. could happen here, despite the current “atmospheric river.” 

Does Eugene have a shared vision for a sustainable future? Don’t we need stronger brush and limb clearing laws, stricter water management and recycling, more community gardens (such as Atlanta’s urban forest), new green building codes (including grey water and underground power lines), fewer single-family homes and more mixed-use urban development, restrictions on living in the woods and building on the rivers. What about more efficient and convenient mass transit and safer bike paths, more community-wide solar and wind energy generation, a better climate change curriculum in the public schools, not to mention certain individual lifestyle changes, such as eating less meat, using far less plastic and walking more?

Jack Cooper

Eugene

Turning Off the Radio

I just heard on NPR news radio the president-elect (in his own words) threatening to acquire Greenland for the U.S. by any means, plus a reporter parroting that the said megalomaniac wants to annex Canada.

Why is NPR reporting this stuff deadpan, as though it’s normal news?

If his fantasies are worth reporting, where is the response from opponents?

If his opponents won’t dignify his fantasies with a response, might NPR report that as the opposition news?

Turning off the KLCC again, FYI. Perhaps our local station could offer some editorial comment instead of passing on this froth unexamined. 

Nancy Buffum

Eugene

Find Different Sources

Responding to Jerry Brule’s “Health Care Crisis” (EW letters, 1/2), I agree that our “system” is fatal (for patients and CEOs) and frustrating. However, don’t blame Donald Trump. Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act (based on Mitt Romney’s model in Massachusetts) was the first step in privatizing Medicare and Medicaid via the “Advantage Plans.” Joe Biden also has pushed privatization. 

Brule wrote: “We need many more doctors and nurses.” Locally, our Oregon Medical Group has been corporatized (allowed during the current administration), leaving patients doctorless. Have you tried finding a doctor lately? Ain’t gonna happen.

Biden also cut millions of people from Medicare that Trump had allowed during COVID. Biden said “COVID is over.” Many local people have long COVID while the rates of rare cancers among 30- to 40-year-olds are skyrocketing. 

Biden is neither different nor an improvement over Trump. Don’t even get me going on Syria, Palestine, Israel, Ukraine, Yemen, Somalia, Myanmar, Georgia (the country), Taiwan, Venezuela, etc. Did I miss any wars that Biden has us in?

Readers should move beyond Trump bashing, though it is fun as I am by no means a Trump supporter. I suggest avoiding the propaganda of NPR, NYT and CNN and support non-corporate news that don’t have CIA and FBI employees on their staff. Search out: Black Agenda Report; The Grayzone; The Duran; Naked Capitalism; FLCCC Alliance, etc. Listen skeptically, find source documents (not “authorities say”) and get off the cliché anti-Trump propaganda because there is no difference between Republicans and Democrats.

Derwood Potter

Eugene

Jan. 20 — A Mixed Bag

Jan. 20, 2025 will be the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. 

It will also be the inauguration of the insurrectionist who, on Jan. 6, 2021, sought to decapitate elected leadership to prevent congressional confirmation of Joe Biden’s election. Donald Trump will swear at the Constitution, not to it, in flagrant violation of the 14th Amendment, which states:

“Section 3:

No person shall … hold any office, civil or military, under the United States … who, having previously taken an oath … as an officer of the United States … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same.”

There have been countless indicators that America is no longer a constitutional republic. Inaugurating the insurrectionist puts us in uncharted territory. Even President Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal was minor in comparison.

Since Jimmy Carter died just before New Year’s, the traditional flying of the American flag at half-mast for 30 days means the flag will officially be in a state of mourning for Inauguration Day.

Trump’s presence in politics has been “sane-washed” by corporate media treating him as normal. MLK’s legacy has been “white washed” to ignore his evolution as a prophet who spoke against the “triple evils” afflicting America: racism, economic injustice and militarism.

For decades, the King family has said MLK was martyred because he expanded his advocacy beyond solely focusing on civil rights. MLK day is a federal holiday for a victim of the federal government. Read more at Jfkmlkrfk.com — Legacy of the Sixties.

Mark Robinowitz

Eugene

Forever Trapped by Wet Paint

In the old days if you actually painted yourself into a corner, you had to wait for the paint to dry. What if the paint would never dry? 

Our world’s move to all digital data over the last few decades has created such a situation. All our medical, school, legal, financial and even personal data is electronically stored in the “cloud” with no real paper trail. However, there is no actual “cloud.” All that data is stored in data storage facilities which are powered by fossil fuels primarily. 

We didn’t save trees by moving away from paper storage. We created huge data centers that each may require the same amount of water that a town of 50,000 would need in a single day. Large tracts of agricultural land are required to house these mega storage facilities, and the electrical needs are astronomical as well. With the emergence of AI all those energy, water and land issues will increase exponentially, and AI and crypto currency industries are already asking for less environmental regulation in order to expand.

  So, it looks like the paint will never dry as we stand trapped in that corner.

Hal Huestis

Eugene

Who We Are, Who We Are Not

Is it possible that the United States (historically the defender of freedom from tyrants) is to go beyond bluster and actually bully or menace two smaller and weaker countries for the sake of demonstrating to ourselves and the world we are capable of such a thing? Do the people of the U.S.  have enough of a memory of who we are so that they will rise up with a voice that must be listened to that this is not who we are?

Leo Rivers

Cottage Grove

But Will You Take Them In?

Kudos to the letter writer for pointing out that there is a large segment of the homeless that are criminals with no desire for self improvement (EW, 12/26). Will the Barefoot Defenders take his suggestion to invite them into their homes?  

Why aren’t the families of these individuals taking these individuals? Maybe not the majority of EW readers, but clearly the large majority of Eugene residents are quite fed up with their criminal behavior, blatant disrespect for any rules and their attitude of  “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine.” Disagree? Then start a Go Fund Me campaign or invite these individuals into your home (I’m sure you would have no concern leaving your children, wife, pet alone with them).

Don French

Eugene

Free Leonard Peltier

I’m urging citizens to call for the pardon and release of Leonard Peltier, an American Indian Movement leader, who has been in federal prison for almost 50 years. Amnesty International and others worldwide believe he is a political prisoner.

He maintains his innocence, and there are serious and ongoing concerns about the fairness of his trial and conviction. Tribal nations, Nobel Peace Laureates, former FBI agents and numerous others — and even the former U.S. Attorney James Reynolds, whose office handled the prosecution, has called for Peltier’s release.

Now 79 years old, he suffers from several chronic health ailments, including one that is potentially fatal. President Joe Biden should grant him clemency and release him before it is too late.

Scott Fife

Eugene

“Instead of leaving the kids on the streets or giving them what I call a ‘band-aid on a bullet wound,’” says Katie Brown, Scorpion Creek Ranch founder, “we’re going to be giving them a home like a safe bed every night, education, nourishment, guidance, security, safety and community.” 

Scorpion Creek Ranch hosts a Community Gathering Jan. 23 at Springfield’s Wildish Theater. 

The event is designed to inspire and unify the community to take steps toward implementing a long-term solution for the unhoused youth in Lane County, according to its press release. Dedicated to serving teens ages 14 to 18 who have faced adversity and lack the necessary resources to flourish, the nonprofit says it aims to break the generational cycle of disproportionate opportunity for youth throughout the community. 

Eugene Mayor Kaarin Knudson and Springfield Mayor Sean VanGordon will speak at the event at the Wildish, presenting their perspectives on addressing teen homelessness and Scorpion Creek Ranch’s plan for the future. Following their presentations, a youth panel will moderate a discussion, offering a glimpse into the challenging world of being a teen on the street. 

The goal is for the ranch to provide patients with a safe bed every night and access to project-based education. With assistance from trauma-informed care providers and general contractors, each patient will have the tools to build a new foundation to build their future brick by brick. Patients can stay on the ranch anywhere from six to 24 months to help them heal from deep-rooted trauma and gain a stable footing to move forward productively in their lives. 

According to Brown, once they graduate from the ranch, teens can stay in a transitional home in town, where they can reacclimate to society. 

Scorpion Creek Ranch’s Community Gathering is 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm Thursday, Jan. 23, at Wildish Theater, 630 Main Street, Springfield. Tickets are $10 at ScorpionCreekRanch.org. 

• Mayor Kaarin Knudson delivered her first State of the City address Jan. 13, and at minimum, it is clear that she has heard and is articulating Eugene’s crying need for affordable housing. The new mayor noted the lack of affordable housing is the “root cause of our homelessness crisis,” and she intends to make affordable housing a top priority with a goal of 1,000 new units in the next five years, 200 of which would be in the downtown core. Knudson also committed to providing shelter and supporting programs to assist those struggling with housing instability.

• Are you reading this in print right now? Yeah, you know who you are! We love print, too (and being free, no paywalls). How many pages the Weekly prints is determined by how many ads we have, so one, tell the advertisers you love them (or if you don’t love, then tell them you saw them in EW) and two, go online for the extras we didn’t squish into our pages! This week, read arts writer Will Kennedy’s interview with comedian Steph Tolev who performs at Olsen Run Comedy Club Jan. 16 and 17. She requests you Google her before buying a ticket to find out she uses words like “pussy” when she’s not talking about her cat. Also check out Will on Eugene spaghetti Western and lounge music band Minor Mirage’s album release Jan. 17 at Art House on EugeneWeekly.com.

• Inauguration Day is looming, but there are a couple of opportunities to publicly express your distaste for the convicted-felon-turned-president-elect Donald Trump this weekend. The People’s March to Defend Our Rights and Our Future on Jan. 18 takes you from Alton Baker Park to downtown and back again. Be sure to bring your own signs, carpool when possible and register ahead of time at Action.WomensMarch.com/Events. The We Fight Back rally and march kicks off at the Wayne Lyman Morse United States Courthouse (405 East 8th Avenue) on Jan. 19. Sponsored by the Party for Socialism and Liberation Eugene, the Pacific Green Party of Oregon Eugene Greens Chapter, Extinction Rebellion Eugene and Eugene-Springfield Democratic Socialists of America, the protest to make your voice heard starts at 1 pm. Visit WeFightBack.info for more details. For MLK events, check out the What’s Happening Calendar this issue.

•  At 9 am, Jan. 17, at the Lane County Courthouse, four experts will appear for a “choice of evils” hearing that will assert the A15 protesters who blocked I-5 April 15, 2024, had no choice but to take “bold action in order to prevent a worse harm from happening: genocide,” according to a press release. Salem Younes, a Palestinian American student, and K. Anton, a Lebanese American activist, are taking the stand in a joint trial for charges of disorderly conduct in relation to the global coordinated A15 protest against the Israel-Palestine War. This is the 16th of 20 jury trials for activists that were arrested during this action.

• That cold snap you’re feeling is real — and it’s even more real for unhoused and unsheltered folks in this community. The National Weather Service is predicting overnight lows in the mid to upper 20s through at least Jan. 20, and that means the Egan Warming Centers will activate. From the transportation hub at First Christian Church to facilities in Eugene and Springfield, the Egan Warming Centers offer food and shelter for the unhoused in the community during cold spells. The warming centers can always use volunteers. For more information about volunteering and when the centers will activate, go to EganWarmingCenters.org. And Eugene Weekly continues to collect warm clothing and other essentials for the homeless, 11 am to 4 pm weekdays at 1251 Lincoln Street. 

Tolev, a regular at the iconic Los Angeles comedy club The Comedy Store, has a loose, crowd-work-heavy style, known for roasting audience members and sharing dirty stories, in a tradition of hilariously foulmouthed comics like Delerious-era Eddie Murphy or Andrew Dice Clay. 

“Just click on my name and the first video that comes up, I’ll be talking about my pussy,” Tolev tells Eugene Weekly in a phone call from Southern California. “So I don’t know why people come and then they get upset. I didn’t force you to come here,” she says. Originally from Toronto, Canada, Tolev speaks with a New Yorker’s brisk, abrupt cadence and hoarse edge.

On stage, Tolev blends the physical humor of pro-wrestling — come for the jokes, stay for Tolev’s rib-splitting crabwalk — with laser-focused gotcha-riffing that has gone viral online. 

So much so, Tolev says she gets DMs before shows from fans asking her to unload on their partners, especially women wanting shots fired at their husbands. “People purposefully sit in the front and tell me that they’re there because they want me to fuck with them,” Tolev says. One time, she says, a mom messaged her and asked her to take jabs at her daughter in the audience.

During the show, Tolev adds, “I was like, ‘Hey, do you know your mom said that?’ She’s like, ‘No.’ I was like, ‘Well, time to roast your mom,’ and then I ripped her mom up a bit.”

But, even if that kind of comedy is not your style, she adds, “I can usually win over people. I have a way of getting to them.” 

In her crowd work, Tolev says never mean or too personal. For example, ”I never make fun of someone’s religion,” she says. “I’m not psychotic.”

Tolev started in sketch comedy in Canada with comedian Allison Hogg in an improv duo called Girlstache. These days, she hosts the Steph Infection podcast, and the weekend after her shows in Eugene, she emcees the AVN Awards, like the porn-industry Academy Awards, in Las Vegas, the perfect fit for Tolev’s ribald japes. Tolev says she’s never felt better suited for a gig.  

On a serious note, Tolev lives in L.A. but she spoke with EW from San Diego, where she evacuated after the recent devastating wildfires. With news like that, it isn’t easy to get on stage and make people laugh, she says. 

“It feels bizarre,” Tolev says, “but there’s still a part of me that’s like, I should do it because people need a distraction, even for a minute.”

On the appeal of dirty comedy for certain audiences, she adds, “I think they like to feel like they belong somewhere. It’s not like I’m saying anything that people don’t do or sure thought about doing. Lord knows the porn they’re watching when they get home.”

“It’s a good outlet for them to come and laugh at something that they find funny and they don’t have to feel ashamed,” Tolev says. 

Steph Tolev brings her Keepin `Em Hard tour to Eugene 7 pm and 9:30 pm Friday, Jan. 17, and 7 pm and 9:30 pm Saturday, Jan. 18, at Olsen Run Comedy Club & Lounge, 44 East 7th Avenue. $26, 21-plus. 

“It’s beautiful,” Peacock-Biggs says of her great-aunt’s death. “It’s beautiful,” she repeated. For many, the news would be disheartening, but Peacock-Biggs is well-acquainted with death; she’s made a career out of dying.

Before his passing, former president Jimmy Carter used hospice for his end-of-life care, bringing attention to the service, which for many is still something of an enigma. Eugene Weekly reached out to several hospice organizations for this story. Signature Hospice responded for interviews.

As a social worker for Signature Hospice, an at-home health care company,Peacock-Biggs’s workday could look like helping a patient write goodbye letters for their loved ones or assessing the needs of a family dealing with a dying loved one. 

Peacock-Biggs describes her job as being like a Bi-Mart. She helps provide whatever someone who is nearing the end of life may need, or whatever their family may need. “Social workers are like catchalls. We can do a lot of things because we have a lot of tools,” says Peacock-Biggs. 

Her career as a hospice social worker has created memories unique to her lines of work. Like the time she felt an urge to break from her schedule to visit a patient, arriving just in time to be there when he passed — which was one of his final wishes, along with having his bed face the ocean when he died. “It was beautiful because he got his final wish,” Peacock-Biggs says.

Most people seem to be unaware of the nature of hospice and assume it’s deathbed care and being pumped full of morphine, and they don’t know it’s by Medicare. 

In actuality, hospice can work with patients whose health has been declining for years. It often gives patients the choice between spending their last weeks, months or years in a hospital or long-term care facility or at home.

Some even improve and are taken off hospice. However, there is a golden rule of hospice: The sooner a patient is put on it, the easier the process of end-of-life care will be. 

“People do have a better end-of-life passing because they have that extra layer of support and eyes on them,” says Amanda Burrell-Chapman, a hospice nurse and director of patient services for Signature’s Eugene and Albany branches. 

Burrell-Chapman had started her medical career as a CNA who often worked with end-of-life patients in hospitals. However, she felt rushed in a hospital setting. Wanting to educate patients further, she often felt pressure to get them out the door. “I was like, ‘You know, that’s not good care. That’s not responsible care.’ To be like, ‘Okay, well, here’s your slew of new medications. Hope you do well. Get out the door,’” says Burrell-Chapman of the pressure she felt working in hospitals. 

“In hospice, you get to really work with the patient. If you need to take that extra half hour or hour, you can adjust that so you can, you really give them the care that they deserve,” Burrell-Chapman says. 

While many are aware of the medical aspect of hospice, they can be unaware of the social care, like Peacock-Biggs’s social work. There can be spiritual care wrapped into hospice as well. 

Sandra Waldron understands the power of silence. “Most people don’t realize the importance of that silence,” she says. “A hand to hold, a quiet hand to hold, can be more powerful than anything else — silence.”

Her role in hospice is that of a chaplain. There is no typical workday for Waldron. “Meeting patients, meeting families, there is no one-size-fits-all. Every time you go up to a door, it will always, always, always be different,” she says. 

“We offer prayer; we offer humor; we offer that listening ear, some counseling, if needed. It’s never the same,” Waldron says. 

Being a chaplain, it’d be easy to conflate Waldron’s role with that of a pastor, but while there are some similarities between the careers, their practices can diverge. Pastors are often educated from a religious perspective. Chaplains are clinically trained. 

A hospice chaplain won’t proselytize to a patient or his or her family. They won’t represent a religion. Their aim is to elevate what is important, what is sacred to the patient, according to Waldron.

She  once had a patient who was an avid fisher, and what she gleaned from him was that nature was his higher divine. Fishing was his practice of worship and the friends he went fishing with were his congregation, which she honored by realizing fishing was his spiritual practice. 

One memory close to Waldron’s heart is that of a woman who loved adventure and KFC. With the permission of the patient’s family, facility and nurses, Waldron met this patient at a park, bringing along the woman’s KFC meal. The patient, who had an adventurous streak, thought she was sneaking away, though her family and care team were aware of her “escape.”

“It just gave her a time of laughter, that sense of freedom, sitting outside in a park on a blue sky day, eating her beloved KFC,” says Waldron of being an “accomplice” to this woman’s breakout from her care facility. 

Another aspect of Waldron’s job is being a surrogate family member to those who have no one.

As Peacock-Biggs says, “Hospice gives people who don’t have people people.”

Candace Rodgers is a bereavement coordinator for Signature Hospice — a role that many might be surprised to learn exists. “I have this saying on my wall,” Rodgers says. “It says ‘There is no fixing grief because people aren’t broken.’ They’re in a place they’re meant to be in.”

Grief is natural and Rodgers has made a career in helping people manage their grief by helping them realize it’s a natural thing. “It’s an honor to support people through that time and to sit with people in their grief,” she says. 

Tasks of her job include checking in with families of deceased patients, sending out newsletters to aid bereavement and organizing annual memorials for passed loved ones, allowing them the chance to reconnect with the people who made their loved one passing easier. 

Hospice made everything easier for Doug Alexander’s late father. His father’s health had been declining First, he needed a cane; a cane became a walker; and a walker became a wheelchair. Eventually, Alexander was told by his father’s doctor that hospice would be best. 

For the four months his father was in hospice, Alexander says, “We were just amazed…You can tell they took a real interest in him as a person. It wasn’t just a job,” says Alexander.

That care even extended to his father’s passing. When Alexander’s father died, he informed hospice, which sent over the nurse who had watched over his father the night before. Realizing that in his final condition, his father was most likely not clean and undressed, the nurse cleaned his father and dressed his body so that he would be decent when the funeral home came to collect him. 

While hospice is seen by some as angels of death, Alexander views them in another light. He says “In the card that I wrote to them, I basically said ‘You people that are here, and what you’re doing, you are God’s angels on Earth.’”