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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (April 24, 2014)
NEWS Family physician Alison Erde, M.D., has practiced medicine in Springfield for 12 years and is now relocating her solo Prevention Plus Clinic practice to south Eugene to be closer to home. The clinic is now at 3225 Willamette, Suite 1. She tells us she trained at UCLA and completed a women’s health fellowship. “I am something of an anachronism,” she says. “I have a holistic approach to wellness.” Her “special interests” are in menopause, mood issues, sports medicine and preventive health care. Her website is a work in progress, but she can be reached at 726-1865. Fletcher’s For Children is closing after 36 years, according to owners Judie and Ron Fletcher. The business first opened in 1978 at 133 W. Broadway next to the Bon Marche, but moved to Valley River Plaza across from Valley River Center in 1996. The store’s original motto was “We deliver everything but the baby.” The Fletchers sent out a notice last week saying the business had managed to “adjust its business model and product mix many times,” but “It is increasingly hard as a small business to compete against the internet and big box stores.” Edge of the World Games & Comics now has its first retail store at the corner of Hwy. 99 and Barger Drive, upstairs in the Farmers Insurance building. Grand opening was April 18. “This new location will truly be a geek’s paradise store,” says owner Paul Fong, “offering shoppers 1,800 sq. ft. of high-quality retail space, making it the only store in Lane County to get video games, comic books and soon collectable card games at one location.” Call 699-7529 or find the business on Facebook. Glenwood Place, an affordable housing project in the Glenwood area, has been approved by the Springfield City Council for state funding and tax credits. HACSA, the Lane County affordable housing agency, is partnering with the nonprofit Cornerstone Community Housing on the project. The $186,306 HOME grant will help fund phase one of the project development. When completed, Glenwood Place will be a mix of commercial ground floor space with 130 affordable housing units along Franklin Boulevard. The city of Eugene’s Business Commute Challenge is coming up the week of May 10-16, and it’s an opportunity for friendly competition among local enterprises to encourage employees to walk, bike, carpool or telecommute to work. Last year, 2,100 people representing 172 business teams participated. See commutechallenge.org for information and to sign up. A saved and restored Civic Stadium should prove to be good for business, as we mentioned in this column March 5, and local businesses are getting involved in raising money for Friends of Civic Stadium (FoCS). The group needs to raise at least $3 million for the renovation and other costs. Bagel Sphere was one of the first to pledge support through a percentages of sales. Now Tsunami Books (second Saturdays), Capella Market (May 7), The Kiva (every Sunday) and Arriving by Bike have joined the list. Any others to talk about? Meanwhile, FoCS has created an escrow account at Evergreen Land Title. All donations will be returned if the funding goal is not met. Find the growing list at savecivicstadium.org along with information about FCS and the escrow account. Terra Firma Botanicals is experiencing record high sales after 32 years in business and is expanding with a new production facility and warehouse in west Eugene. The new facilities are expected to be ready by June 1. Terra Firma was founded by River Kennedy and her daughter Shay Kennedy is acting production manager at the company. Vince Panero, formerly of Coconut Bliss, is now director of sales and marketing. See terrafirmabotanicals.com or call 485-7726. KLCC’s Spring Radiothon ended April 11 with a total of $281,000 pledged. About 2,400 KLCC listeners became members or renewed their membership during the campaign. The public radio station based in Eugene has continued its streamlined approach to Radiothon, asking for contributions only during “power hours,” and leaving the rest of the day free of solicitations. Listeners can still contribute. See klcc.org. The free Small Business Clinic “Ask the Experts” series will continue from 5 to 7 pm Thursday, May 1, at the Eugene Public Library. The focus at 6 pm May 8 will be on starting a restaurant, coffee shop or food cart, with Roger Wong. The focus at 6 pm May 22, also at the library, will be on marketing with Kathleen Gage. A third open session will be May 29. Space is limited and registration or appoints are required for these events and sessions. Call 682-5450. Tickets for the Oregon Country Fair are now on sale at TicketsWest outlets (Safeway stores and elsewhere), by phone at (800) 992- 8499 or online. No tickets will be sold at the fair site. OCF runs July 11-13 in Veneta and LTD will again be providing free bus service from Eugene and back each day. If bought in advance, ticket prices are $23 for Friday, July 11; $25 for Saturday, July 12; and $23 for Sunday, July 13. Tickets purchased the days of the event are $25 for Friday, $29 for Saturday and $25 for Sunday. OCF is a nonprofit organization that “demonstrates a commitment to sustainability and seeks to model sustainable living for other organizations, events and in the living of daily life.” See oregoncountryfair.org. 8 A pril 24, 2014 • eugeneweekly.com CLIMATE CHANGE UNITES UNIONS AND ENVIROS Labor unions have for years been pitted against conservationists in a jobs-versus-the-environment conflict. But now, a greater threat to the planet has paired members of the rival movements in a fight against a greater evil: global climate change. The Global Climate Convergence, a worldwide 10-day “education and direct action campaign” that started on Earth Day (April 22) and ends on May Day (May 1), is the first annual action that fuses several different movements into one common mega-movement with multiple goals, particularly stopping climate change. Lauren Regan, executive director of the Civil Liberties Defense Center, says to keep in mind that it’s not just labor unions and environmentalists that have joined the movement. Many others including immigrants and students have joined the cause as well. Some issues, such as the Keystone XL pipeline, have left unionists and environmentalists at odds, with one group touting jobs and the other pointing to climate disaster. “It’s my hope to see what we really have in common,” Regan says. “At the com- munity level we are starting to put that movement together.” Shelley Pineo-Jensen, the chapter chair of the Eugene-Springfield Solidarity Network Jobs with Justice, says that unions will have a big presence with the climate convergence. The UO’s Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation is hosting a May Day march, which starts on campus, with SEIU Local 49, a service employee union and others partici- pating. May Day is an internationally recognized (though not in the U.S.) labor holiday. “Everyday union members are just as aware of climate change as anyone else,” Pineo-Jensen says. The May Day march is just one of many events for the community to take part in during the 10 days of action. There will also be a free, family-friendly party on April 26. Musicians, guest speakers and dancers from all the different movements will be showcased during the event. The party will be pre- ceded by the “Awakening the Dreamer” symposium held at Lane Community College on April 25 and 26. Co-founder of the Eugene 350.org chapter Mary DeMocker says she is interested in finding a “com- mon ground” for fighting climate change. “I think, to be honest, it’s really important to have different organizations that concern different people,” DeMocker says. The party for the Global Climate Convergence campaign will be held from 6 to 10 pm Saturday, April 26, at 450 W. 3rd Ave. At 11:15 am Sunday, April 27, UO law professor Mary Wood will speak on “Nature’s Trust and the Heart of Humanity” at the UO’s EMU amphitheater. The GTFF march will start at Prince Lucien Campbell Hall at the UO starting at noon on May 1. For a full listing of events in Eugene and across the world go to global- climateconvergence.org. — Kevin Sullivan lighten up BY RAFAEL ALDAVE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS CASES COME TO THE FORE Two law briefs that attorney Lauren Regan of the Civil Liberties Defense Center says could af- fect whether constitutional rights in Eugene and across the U.S. are “silently but significantly” being eroded and “swept under the radar screen” were filed in courts this past week. The briefs involve participants from Occupy Eugene and SLEEPS (Safe Legally Entitled Emergency Places to Sleep) and preexisting cases that deal with the First Amendment right to protest and assemble in what Regan calls “our revered public forums.” The first brief, filed in federal court to be ruled on by U.S. District Judge Michael McShane is Oc- cupy Eugene, Florence Semple, & Terrill Purvis v. United States Government Services Administra- tion. That motion for summary judgement asks the court to rule “that the federal government’s per- mitting scheme for public use of the Eu- gene Federal Plaza and other federally managed property around the U.S. dan- gerously violates the First Amendment to — LAUREN REGAN, CLDC the U.S. Constitu- tion,” Regan says. The plaintiffs were charged with federal misdemeanor crimes for pro- testing in the federal plaza after 5 pm without a permit, but the government chose to dismiss the criminal prosecutions before the judge could rule on the constitutional issues, she says. Regan says that, in a nutshell, if a single per- son wanted to go hold up a sign or have a vigil or prayer in the federal plaza to protest something like the outbreak of war then he or she would have to fill out a permit and give the feds 10 days to rule on it. Regan says that the government’s poli- cies only allow for assembly and speech Monday through Friday, 8 am to 5 pm, and “nothing in the Constitution says our rights turn off at 10 pm.” The second brief, a motion to dismiss filed in municipal court, is the city of Eugene versus Larry James Brugh, and it involves the right to protest and assemble at Lane County’s Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza (or as the county has been calling it, the Free Speech Terrace of the Wayne Morse Plaza). In that case the county, under the leadership of the previous administrator Liane Richardson, shut down the public forum for more than a week to powerwash and clean it after its 24-7 occupation by advocates for the unhoused and for free speech rights. Regan says the court must decide whether that closure is a “constitutional time, place and manner restriction upon state and U.S. Constitu- tional rights.” Regan says the CLDC has prevailed in 25 other constitutional challenges involving the county plaza this year. EW has asked the city of Eugene for comment on the case. — Camilla Mortensen ‘Nothing in the Constitution says our rights turn off at 10 pm.’ If you are going to create a monopoly on beverage sales at the UO, Bigfoot is the right name for the company to run it.
