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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (May 21, 2015)
VERY LITTLE THEATRE AUDITIONS Lost in Yonkers Neil Simon’s acclaimed dramatic comedy Mon., June 1 • 6:30 pm CALLBACKS ON Tues., June 2 • 6:30 pm 2350 Hilyard St. Roles for 2 teenage boys; 2 men & 2 women, ages 30s-40s; and one grandmother, age 60s. For more information, contact director Chris Pinto at lkpinto@aol.com More details at VLT website: www.TheVLT.com • Community Rights Lane County will host a free workshop from 6:30 to 8:30 pm Friday, May 22, at the LCC Downtown campus, Room 105. The workshop will “explore provocative issues around democracy, the power of the corporate state and communities’ rightful role in local decision-making.” Speakers include advocates Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin from Washington, Cliff Willmeng from Colorado and Ann Kneeland, a local attorney working to get community rights initiatives onto the ballot in Oregon. • The annual March Against Monsanto will begin with a gathering at 1 pm Saturday, May 23, at Kesey Square on Broadway followed by a march to Alton Baker Park. Bring signs and banners. The local march is in solidarity with protests against Monsanto being held around the world. Contact Aaron at 606-7773 or find the event on Facebook. • A benefit for Nepal earthquake survivors will be from 4 to 6 pm Sunday, May 24, at First Christian Church, 1166 Oak St. Speakers include Mayor Kitty Piercy, Pastor Dan Bryant and Swamini Svatmavidyananda. Music will be by Forrest McDowell, Jeffery Dufty, Priscilla Dantas, Jessica Mendoza y el Taller de Son Jarocho, and classical Indian dance by Uma Goswami. Admission is free, and refreshments and fellowship will follow the program. For more information, email arun@skippingstones.org or call CALC at 485-1755. • The annual NAACP Memorial Day Celebration and BBQ will be from noon to 5 pm Monday, May 25, at Washington Park, 21st and Washington Street. The event will include a reading of President Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Speech, a kid’s corner with the HONEY organization, a basketball ultimate • Predictable results in the May Special Election. Disappointing turnout of only 35 percent. We didn’t expect the vehicle registration fee to pass, but we did expect the results to be closer. Lane County voters haven’t figured out that we are undertaxed compared to counties that haven’t relied heavily on federal timber payments. Measure 5 and other tax limits put us in a bind when timber payments dried up. How are we going to catch up now? Nobody loves new taxes and fees, especially ones that affect low-income residents, but the options are very limited. Will Lane County government be perpetually underfunded? The 4J School Board will get some new blood with Eileen Nittler replacing longtime board member Craig Smith who chose not to run again. We expect Nittler to be an effective addition to the board. Kevin Cronin lost in his energetic campaign against Jim Torrey, but we hope to see Cronin charging to reform Oregon’s flawed system for funding education. • Anybody want to buy a steam plant and 17 acres of riverfront land near the center of Eugene? The UO Foundation’s winning proposal to buy the prime EWEB land died this week. Here’s some pure speculation: The city is deeply involved in this project and rumblings around the UO Foundation deal hint at disagreement over how much public money vs. private money should go into redevelopment. It needs to pencil out for a private developer. It will be in interesting to see how other developers approach this puzzle. Or is it too early for such a project? Maybe downtown needs to fill in a bit more first and issues of railroad noise and access need to be addressed. • Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy and Ward 2 City Councilor Betty Taylor will be at the Mayor’s One-on-One community outreach meeting from 5 to 6 pm Thursday, May 28, at Haggen at 30th and Hilyard Street. • The Lane Regional Air Protection Agency Board has an opening for a Springfield position and the deadline to apply is May 29. Applications are available at Springfield City Hall or online at wkly.ws/20r. • The Register-Guard has been reporting on the UO’s $20 million public image campaign that is intended to build the academic side of the university. Duck athletics are top rated, but UO academic program ratings are embarrassingly low. Will millions spent on branding academics draw better professors and higher-achieving students? Maybe not. The problem is not so much UO’s image as Oregon’s archaic and flawed tax structure. Unfair, unbalanced taxation means public education is underfunded at all levels, from kindergarten to universities. Professors with families will hesitate to relocate to a town where academic salaries are low, public school classes have 40 students and high school graduation rates are low. That $20 million would be better invested in a statewide campaign to better fund all education in the state. • ODOT is currently spraying roadsides. Call Tony Kilmer at ODOT District 5 at 744- 8080 or call (888) 996-8080 for herbicide application information. Highways I-5, 99, 101, 105, 126 east of Springfield and Highway 36 from Highway 99 to 1 mile east of Blachly were sprayed recently, ODOT may spray the rest of Highway 36 soon. • Roseburg Resources and related companies, 679-3311, plans to spot spray their roadsides throughout Lane County with 2,4-D, glyphosate, triclopyr, metsulfuron methyl, Conquer and/or Crop Oil Concentrate. See ODF notification 2015-781-07654, call Jim Hall at 997-8713 with questions. Compiled by Jan Wroncy and Gary Hale, ForestlandDwellers.org, 342-8332. May 21, 2015 • eugeneweekly.com • The proposed Crossfire Church cell tower at 4060 W. Amazon goes to a city of Eugene public hearing on the conditional use permit from 5:30 to 7:30 pm Wednesday, May 27, at Harris Hall, 125 E. 8th Ave. • If you are a fan of VICE, the hot investigative reporting series on HBO, look for a Eugene Weekly cover from June 12, 2014, featured on an upcoming VICE episode on sexual assault on college campuses. The cover is a photo illustration of a basketball with the headline “Win, Drink, RAPE.” The story inside that issue is “Rape U” by Camilla Mortensen, and the cover was designed by Trask Bedortha in our Art Department. No date was announced for the showing of the episode, and no guarantee that our cover will be shown or our content discussed. But it’s nice to be noticed by this Emmy Award-winning show’s producers. LANE COUNTY AREA SPRAY SCHEDULE 10 bump tournament and a free barbeque lunch provided by Papa’s Soul Food Kitchen. CORRECTIONS/CLARIFICATIONS In our May 14 cover story, we stated that the new Hammered Lamb pub is “Eugene’s first queer-owned, queer-run bar.” We would like to clarify that The Hammered Lamb is not Eugene’s first gay bar. Eugene has a long and rich tradition of gay bars, which we discussed in part in the Nov. 26 cover story, “The Queer Conundrum.” However, many in the community say that The Hammered Lamb is Eugene’s first self-proclaimed “queer” bar. Upon its opening, it will be the only queer-owned, queer-run bar in Eugene. Discuss amongst yourselves.
