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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (June 6, 2013)
NEWS ACTIVIST LERT • The Metropolitan Policy Committee meets and holds a public hearing on “Surface Transportation Program — Urban Funding Recommendation” from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm Thursday, June 7, at the Eugene Public Library. Contact is Paul Thompson, 682-4405. • Springfield’s first Conestoga hut for the homeless will be assembled at 9 am Friday, June 7, at First Baptist Church, 1175 G St. Hut designer Erik de Buhr will be on site. More information can be found at wkly.ws/1hl. • Affordable housing is the topic at City Club of Eugene at noon Friday, June 7, at the Hilton Ballroom. Speakers include Richard A. Hermann, Larry Abel and Terry McDonald. $5 for non- members. See cityclubofeugene.org. a n g y y n , s • A community forum on the South Willamette Street Improvement Plan, titled “Rank & Refine the Alternatives,” will be from 4 to 5:45 pm and 7 to 8:45 pm Tuesday, June 11, at the South Eugene High School cafeteria (at the back of the school). Organizers are asking people to pick a time and RSVP to chris.c.henry@ ci.eugene.or.us or call 682-8472. The later meeting is expected to be more crowded. More information and an online survey that will be available June 12-18 can be found at wkly. ws/1hm. • Lane County and the BLM are hosting a second open house on the Row River Trail Corridor Plan and are seeking community input before finalizing recommendations for safety improvements. Two cyclists have died at intersections of the trail with roads. An open house will be from 3 to 7 pm Wednesday, June 12, at the Cottage Grove Community Center, 700 E. Gibbs Ave. in Cottage Grove. Interested community members are encouraged to attend. See lanecounty.org/rowrivertrail. lighten up BY RAFAEL ALDAVE The local paper reported that a collector of Asian art was arrested and held in jail for five weeks before being released for “capacity-based reasons.” His crime was threatening to shoot a man he suspected of knowing about an art burglary. The art collector pled guilty and got three years probation. Lane County voters who approved a tax hike can now rest easy knowing that dangerous art collectors can hereafter be held in jail till the cows come home. 10 June 6, 2013 • eugeneweekly.com With thick fur and paws that work like snowshoes, the Canada lynx is a cat specialized for hunting in the snow. Already decimated by habitat destruction and overhunting, lynx are now facing the added danger of climate change, which may diminish their snowy habitats. Earlier this spring a Public Interest Environmental Law Conference panel, “Return of the Missing Lynx: Helping a Formerly Banished Wildcat Reclaim Its Birthright in the West,” detailed the challenges that face lynx conservation- ists, while also questioning why lynx do not yet have a fed- eral recovery plan, even after their Colorado listing as en- dangered in 1976 and their federal listing as threatened in 2000. “There needs to be a recovery plan in place to get the lynx off the endangered species list,” said Paige Singer, a conser- vation biologist with Rocky Mountain Wild in Denver, Colo. ELAINE WALTERS BY PAUL NEEVEL • The California film One Care on single payer health insurance will be shown at 6:15 pm Monday, June 10, at Cozmic, 8th and Charnelton. The free event begins with singing with Debbie McGee and Patti Hine and their musical friends. Lou Sinniger, chair of the Eugene chapter of Health Care for All Oregon, will provide updates on two bills in the Oregon Legislature. Call Ruth Duemler, 484-6145. LOOKING FOR LYNX HABITAT HAPPENING PEOPLE • TransPonder is a monthly gathering for trans-identified and questioning folks. “It is a place where we can socialize, share resources, and provide support surrounding the achievements and challenges we encounter from living the shared experience of transitioning genders,” say organizers. TransPonder meetings and potlucks happen from 3 to 6 pm on the second Saturday of every month at The Point Studio, 4325 Daisy St., Springfield. The next will be June 8. RSVP to transponder.together@gmail. com or call 914-1559. Singer described the Col- orado Division of Wildlife’s program to restore lynx in the Southern Rocky Moun- tains. Since the start of the program in 1997, 218 lynx were released to the wild, and from 2000 to 2009, 126 wild lynx births were re- corded. The Colorado Divi- sion of Wildlife deemed the program a success, and now they are shifting to a long- term monitoring program. Although the restoration is a positive step forward, Singer said that lynx still need protection. Of the rein- troduced lynx, 122 of them died, and 30 percent of those deaths were human- caused. In 2009, the Fish and Wildlife Service designated 39,000 square miles of critical habitat for lynx, but excluded the Southern Rockies from this protected land. “At Rocky Mountain Wild, we believe the Southern Rockies population is critical to restoration,” Singer said. Matt Bishop, an attorney for the Western Environmental Law Center (WELC), said that the federal mapping of lynx critical habitat resulted in “arbitrary distinctions based on Forest Service boundaries” not based on where the lynx ac- tually live. Lynx require specifi c types of forests for habitat. Unlike wolves, lynx are highly adapted to wintry, snowy conditions, making the selection of their critical habitat even more important. Bishop said he wants to compel the U.S. Fish and Wild- life Service to prepare a recovery plan for the lynx and re- vise its critical habitat ruling. WELC fi led a federal lawsuit in mid-March to force the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to fi nish its long-awaited recovery plan for the wintry feline. — Amy Schneider “My first attempt at college was a failure,” says Elaine Walters, who fled her unhappy family life in Santa Fe to enter college at University of New Mexico before she’d finished high school. “I had no study skills.” A year later, she was pregnant. She had a son, Kienan, and two years later a daughter, Nitara, but when the children’s father got violent, she gathered the kids again and ran off to another college. After a year at New Mexico State, she transferred to UO, where she earned a bachelor’s in sociology and, in 1992, a master’s in public affairs. “I was on welfare when I wrote my thesis about welfare,” says Walters, who found part-time work as rural outreach coordinator for Womenspace. “I loved the job. It was focused on ending sexism and sexist violence.” Later, she did consulting work with child abuse teams in nine counties, then took a job with the attorney general’s Oregon Sexual Assault Task Force, training nurses to give sexual assault exams. “The common thread is making things easier on survivors,” says Walters, who started the Trauma Healing Project 10 years ago. “I became passionate about healing as a path towards ending violence and abuse.” Since it gained nonprofit status and office space in 2007, THP has trained nearly 3,000 people. Its healing arts program provides group and individual support, including yoga, acupuncture and digital storytelling workshops. Learn more at healingattention.org.
