Eugene weekly., March 19, 2020, Page 9, Image 9

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• It’s trying times these days, to say the least. The cancellations and
restrictions resulting from the novel coronavirus outbreak are hurting
businesses and workers. Support them all you can — buy a gift card to your
favorite local eatery and store. Get takeout for lunch. Worried about shopping? See
if a local store can bring your purchases to the curb. In next week’s issue, Eugene
Weekly will provide a resource guide for surviving the outbreak. Please send us
information on where folks can go for help and places where folks can support
others in the community — from the locations of hand washing stations to how to
help your neighbors and businesses. Send info to editor@EugeneWeekly.com.
HAPPENING
PEOPLE
BY PAUL NEEVEL
Jeff Todahl
“Kids do better with their families,” says Jeff Todahl, an associate professor
in the Couples and Family Therapy Program in the University of Oregon’s
College of Education. He has spent three decades working with children in the
child protective services system. “Society has an obligation to help families to
support their children.” Growing up in small-town Nooksack, Washington, close
to the Canadian border, Todahl experienced abuse at home as a child. After
high school, he worked in a cement plant and studied health and education
at Western Washington University in nearby Bellingham. He went on to
earn a master’s in counseling at Seattle Pacific University, then returned to
Bellingham for an internship with Catholic Community Services. “I worked
with kids with disabilities,” he says. “It influenced my life and career moving
forward.” He completed a Ph.D. program in marriage and family therapy at
Florida State University, then took an academic assignment at the University
of Louisville, implementing a positive family engagement strategy in the city’s
child protection services. Todahl came to the UO in 1999. He directs a number
of research projects, including a child abuse prevalence study. “We did a pilot
study, asking direct questions to high school students age 16 and over in 12
Lane County classrooms,” he explains. “It was open to any student; only 5
percent said no.” House Bill 4112 never made it out of the Ways and Means
Committee in the Oregon Legislature during the 2020 short session due to
the Republican walkout, but Todahl says it has support from both sides, and he
is optimistic on its eventual passage. In 2013, he was instrumental in launching
90by30, a campus/community partnership that aims to reduce child abuse
in Lane County 90 percent by year 2030. One of its components is Roots of
Empathy, a program that brings a neighborhood infant and parent into a grade
school classroom every three weeks over a school year. Learn how you can
help, or how you can get help, at KnowMoreLaneCounty.org. Todahl is seen in
the photo with family black lab Brutus, a fetching fool who will be 10 on April 1.
• On that note, despite a loss in advertising due to all these cancellations,
Eugene Weekly is still writing, reporting and printing. We aren’t going to
leave you in the lurch without your stories, cartoons, Dan Savage, crossword
and Sudoku. That said, the impacts on local businesses mean they can’t take
out the ads that support this free weekly paper. Want to give us a helping hand?
Check out Support.EugeneWeekly.com and ponder a contribution. The owners
of this paper take no profit from it, so your money goes straight to supporting
the publication of this longtime community staple.
• Here’s some good news, maybe! Our source in Alabama tells us that Doug
Jones, its Democratic senator, could be re-elected. The Republican primary
puts Jeff Sessions, President Donald Trump’s much-maligned former attorney
general, against Tommy Tuberville, former Auburn football coach. Of course,
Trump is blasting Sessions and praising “Coach” Tuberville, who probably will win.
The hope is that voters will see what an idiot Tuberville is and turn to Jones, the
rational candidate on the ballot. If Jones is re-elected, that pulls the U.S. Senate
one vote closer to a Democratic majority. Long shot scenario, but we’ll take it.
• While folks are stuck at home, social media hits must be off the charts.
Personally, we like Jack Roberts’ recent wry Facebook post that the divorce
rate in America must be climbing because watching sports on TV is not
much of an option these days. Roberts, a Eugenean, former Lane County
commissioner and former leader of the Bureau of Labor and Industries, is one of
the country’s endangered species — a moderate Republican. He sends off great
posts, though we kind of wonder about the birth rate in nine months.
Correction/Clarification
In our Feb. 27, story on the Pedal Power timber sale in the Thurston Hills,
we referred to the sale as a land sale, when it is specifically the timber that is
sold. We also cited a February 2019 press release posted on the Seneca Family
of Companies’ website about their purchase of the timber but didn’t include
the date of the press release. EW updated the story online upon learning of
the issues. Seneca spokesperson Casey Roscoe objects to the timber sale
being referred to as a clearcut by those who protest the planned regeneration
harvest. She was not contacted for the story.
SLANT INCLUDES SHORT OPINION PIECES, OBSERVATIONS AND RUMOR-CHASING NOTES
COMPILED BY THE EW EDITORIAL BOARD.
HEARD ANY GOOD RUMORS LATELY? CONTACT EDITOR@EUGENEWEEKLY.COM
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