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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (April 23, 2015)
ALTERNATIVE EARTH DAY CELEBRATIONS POP UP WOW HALL MEETING EXPECTED TO BE ‘LIVELY’ If you’ve been sulking over the cancellation of Eu- gene’s traditional Earth Day celebration, then dry those eyes, because now you’ve got options. A community group cleared the regulatory hurdles and is holding Earth Day in the Park — an Earth Day al- ternative. The goal of Earth Day in the Park, says event organizer Sabrina Siegel, is to bring Earth Day back to a park and to emphasize the urgency of the issues facing the Earth. The event will feature a bike repair workshop by Paul’s Bicycle Way of Life, an assortment of live music, a planetary healing ceremony and more. Mayor Kitty Piercy is also scheduled to speak. Earth Day has been an “automatic exercise everyone goes through without paying attention to the seriousness of the issue,” organizer Jack Dresser says. The aim of the new event is to “celebrate what we’ve got and to try to figure out how to save it,” Dresser says. If the park isn’t your thing, then you can still help save the world by getting your reuse on at BRING Re- cycling’s 44th anniversary party, where most used items will be on sale for 44 percent off. The party will feature local marimba band Kudana as well as Hot Mama’s Wings food cart. The Science Factory will also be on hand, with Earth Day-themed children’s activities. “The best way to help the planet is to help consume less new stuff,” says BRING Recycling Executive Di- rector Julie Daniel, and people can help by buying the items for home improvement projects at BRING. “Every day is Earth Day here at BRING,” Daniel says. “We love the idea of celebrating Earth Day, but it shouldn’t be something you are doing one day a year.” Earth Day in the Park is 2 to 7 pm Saturday, April 25, at Alton Baker Park. More details can be found on the event’s Facebook page or by contacting Siegel at sabri- naseigel@gmail.com or 343-1913. BRING Recycling’s 44th anniversary party is 9 am to 5 pm Saturday, April 25, at 4446 Franklin Blvd. For more info, visit bringrecycling.org. — Mike Bivins Sparks could fly at the Community Center for the Performing Arts (CCPA), aka WOW Hall, annual membership meeting beginning at 6:30 pm Tuesday, April 28, at 291 W. 8th Ave. The agenda for the meet- ing includes board elections, a review of the year, the budget and likely a discussion of a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis that’s critical of the nonprofit’s organization and procedures. The 40-page SWOT report was prepared by a UO strategic planning class and has identified a number of inadequacies in the way the WOW Hall is currently being run. More than a dozen people involved in the WOW Hall were reportedly interviewed for the analy- sis and the highest number of comments (21) referred to weaknesses in organization, leadership, administra- tion and direction. Eight comments referred to “in- fighting.” One of the “threats” noted in the report was a con- cern that the WOW Hall could lose its tax-exempt sta- tus if changes are not made. Member Chico Schwall tells EW, “As a longtime CCPA member, a former board of directors member and a member of the arts community, I am concerned.” The board will meet this Thursday, April 23, in ad- vance of the membership meeting, says Aaron Dietrich, chair of the board. The board will look at the SWOT analysis and “review and vote on updated job descrip- tions for most of the staff,” Dietrich says, “along with a change in the overall organizational chart.” Dietrich expects the SWOT report to come up at the membership meeting April 28 and “it is going to create some lively conversation for sure.” The report is not currently posted on the WOW Hall website. Five out of nine seats will be open for re-election or new appointments. Completing their terms this year are board members Sean Cannon, Mayo Finch, Craig Lawrence, Mike Meyer and Sara Shmigelsky. Continuing on the board will be Aaron Dietrich, McK- enzie Goodwin, Jacqueline Hamer and Mike Janes. — Ted Taylor TRAP KILLS DOG HIKING NEAR LANE COUNTY PARK D2 the dog was killed by a beaver trap on Friday, April 17, while on a walk at Hileman Landing County Park off River Road. Mo Strader and Vonnie Willard have owned and loved the black Lab since she was rehomed to them 10 months ago, and they want people to know that there could still be traps out there. Strader says they walk the dogs at Hileman at least five days a week and have been going there for around three years. Not far from the trail, she says, is a creek and a pond where there has been beaver activity this year and last year. Returning from a 3-mile walk with Willard, D2 ran up a little hill and across a pond. Willard writes in a Facebook post, “All I heard was a yelp.” Strader says the trap, which appears to be a conibear trap, killed D2 almost instantaneously. Hileman, like many Lane County parks, is popular with dog walkers, hikers and families with children. The Oregon State Police investigated and say the trap that killed D2 was legal because it was on private land and the owner had “made attempts to fence and label this property as private in the past.” Willard says OSP also told her that she had violated leash laws. The Lane County and OSP investigations took several days. County Spokesman Trevor Steele says the county also determined the trap was on private land. Steele says the boundary was unclear in the area where D2 was killed, but the property owner has since posted “no trespassing signs” and put a fence across where the trail crossed out of the park onto private land. Willard says although Oregon law does not require trapping signs to be posted on private land, “He didn’t put up a sign knowing people use the park every day.” She adds, “He knew what it could do.” This is not the first dog in Oregon caught or killed in a trap set to catch beaver or other animals. According to advocacy group Predator Defense when an Australian shepherd mix named Fritz was killed in a conibear trap in January 2013, it was the third dog injured or killed on or very close to public lands in Oregon within a year. Brooks Fahy of Predator Defense says a dog was trapped and injured in Bend last month. Predator De- fense and the group Trap Free Oregon have been work- ing to change or end trapping in the state. Fahy says the laws on trapping “are a joke, they are like Swiss cheese, in so many ways no one is held accountable.” Strader and Willard are asking people to ensure D2’s death was not in vain and help them work to change Oregon’s trapping laws. “I want to protect people,” Willard says. Please see eugeneweekly.com/blogs for previous and updated coverage. — Camilla Mortensen • The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife is facing a $32 million deficit in the next two-year budget cycle, and cuts are looming. The agency is in a bind due in part to its reliance on revenues from fishing and hunting licenses. It’s a quandary. Fishing license fees have gone up while there are fewer fish to catch, so fewer people go fishing. And hunting is no longer such a big part of Oregon’s culture, at least not in urban areas. But ODFW is a key player in protecting Oregon’s fragile waterways that are under pressure from our growing population and climate change. It’s in Oregon’s best interest that we adequately fund ODFW and also the Oregon Water Resources Department, and the logical way to do that is a combination of increased commercial and recreation fees (they are still a bargain) and new general funds appropriated through the Legislature. If cuts are needed at ODFW, district and field biologists must be protected, along with programs affecting water quality and endangered species. A public hearing on the state budget is coming up in Springfield Thursday, April 23. See Activist Alert this week. • We share the jubilation in the newsroom of The Seattle Times for the Pulitzer Prize they just won for their tough and continuing coverage of the Oso landslide stories. That daily newspaper is not going away, unlike our disappearing Oregonian in Portland. It’s all about putting real resources into content and believing in the importance of print. • Jon Krakauer’s new book Missoula strikes fiercely, in the classic Krakauer style, at a crisis of sexual assault and the official response in this Montana college town with its beloved athletes. Sound familiar? Our concern is that the media response will once again ignore the universality of the problem, instead trashing only Missoula. The story could be “Eugene” or “Corvallis” or “Seattle” or “Tallahassee,” but maybe this is the route we have to take to see a societal response. ACTIVIST ALERT • The Oregon Legislature’s Joint Committee on Ways and Means is holding a public hearing on the state budget during its meeting from 6:30 to 8 pm Thursday, April 23, at Springfield City Hall Council Chambers. Find budget materials and meeting schedules at wkly. ws/20a. • A free lecture on “Framing the Torture Debate — How Narrative Influences Power” by Ajit Maan will be at 7 pm Thursday, April 23, at First United Methodist Church, 1376 Olive St. Sponsored by Women’s Action for New Directions. Mann is author of Counter-Terrorism: Narrative Strategies. • A free community forum on “Human Rights and the Crisis of Youth Homelessness” will be from 11:30 am to 3 pm Saturday, April 25, at First Congregational Church, 24th and Harris in Eugene. Keynote speaker will be Casey Trupin, coordinator of the Children and Youth Project in Seattle. His talk is tentatively titled “Young and Homeless: Human Rights and the Elimination of Child and Youth Homelessness.” Local advocacy groups and agencies will table, offering information on work they are doing with children and youth who are homeless. Call 485-1755 to pre-register or for more information. • The fourth annual Laughter for the Trees! event in support of Forest Web will be from 7 to 10 pm Sunday, April 26, at The Axe & Fiddle, 657 East Main St. in Cottage Grove. Alex Ihnat will serve as emcee of skits, songs and stand-up comedy. Free, but donations accepted. Email forestweb.cg@gmail.com for more information or to get on the mailing list. • The Coast Fork Willamette Watershed Council features biologist Jeff McEnroe of the Roseburg BLM talking on “Beavers: Education, Relocation and Restoration” at a meeting from 5 to 7 pm Tuesday, April 28, at Axe & Fiddle, 657 E. Main St. in Cottage Grove. McEnroe’s research suggests that beavers could be the single greatest tool for restoring watersheds and building resilience to climate change. Free with optional food and drinks. • April 30 is the 40th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War and one local event is the “Seed Walk” April 30 through May 3. Volunteers will place 58,183 sunflower seeds along an 11-mile route between south Eugene and Coburg. A seed will be placed every 12 inches and each seed represents one of the 58,183 Americans killed in the Vietnam War. The public is invited to participate and the event kicks off at 10:30 am Thursday, April 30, at the corner of Pearl Street and 11th Avenue. A website organizing and documenting the event can be found at wkly.ws/209 or call Bruce A. Hindrichs at 214-4797. “To include Vietnamese killed in the war, the trail would extend to the Canadian border,” Hindrichs says. eugeneweekly.com • A pril 23, 2015 7
