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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 13, 2025)
NEWS slant — Say it. Bricks $ Mortar BY EW EDITORIAL STAFF >> The most exciting thing in south Eugene continues to excite in a meeting of the icons! There’s no t just a Nick Cage fl ag or three hang- ing on Olympic Villa Apartments on Willamette, there’s a full-on Nick Cage mural by local artist Bayne Gardner. Check out Gardner’s video of his latest works at Instagram.com/baynegardner, and let’s root for a visit from Cage himself. Yeardley Smith, the voice of Lisa Simpson, came to town once to unveil a Simpsons mural and fell in love with a Springfi eld cop, so anything can happen! >> With all the furor about the Lane Commu- nity College Board of Education, the fact has been overlooked that not only the faculty union, the LCC Education Association, but also the classifi ed staff union, LCC Employee Federation, have been working without contracts since June 30. Let’s support all the educators and workers. Head over to LCC’s The Torch for updates on union and campus activities and even the Bigfoot strike that continues after more than a year. Find it in print or at LCCTorch.com. >> The attacks on immigrants keep coming. Go to EugeneWeekly.com for a story by Ysabella Sosa on a community meeting in Eugene about the arrests and how to respond to them. Then Eve Weston writes about a community vigil in Cottage Grove after a longtime resident and business owner of Juanita’s Latina Store downtown was pulled over and thrown to the ground by ICE — even as she carried her green card in her back pocket. Rep. Val Hoyle was present at the vigil and said, “The president says he’s going after the worst of the worst. That’s bullshit.” Go to meetings, go to protests, speak up — and support immigrant business like Juanita’s Latina Store. >> Probiotic pioneer Chuck Kesey of Spring- fi eld Creamery/Nancy’s Yogurt died Nov. 6 at the age of 87. Kesey was the brother of author Ken Kesey, and husband to Sue Kesey, who died in August, and he was known not only for his ties to the Grateful Dead and other ’60s icons, but also for creating the fi rst commercial yogurt in the United States to contain live probiotics. >> Elections are heating up locally! Spring- fi eld Mayor Sean VanGordon has announced he’s running for the Springfi eld seat on the Lane County Commission against gun-totin’ incumbent David Loveall, who has also announced he’s running. Now can someone reasonable please take on Ryan Ceniga in West Lane? Heather Buch (who is defi - nitely reasonable) is running to retain her East Lane seat and has two challengers in Bob Zybach, a policy advisor for climate-change denying Heartland Institute, and Jake Pelroy, who proudly features an endorsement from right-wing legislator Darin Harbick on his campaign page. >> This week in Flock cameras, Eugene police have reversed their position and shared the loca- tion of the automated license plate readers — with a janky screenshot of a map. The Register-Guard says it has made an actual map of the locations. 404 Media reports that a Washington judge ruled Flock surveillance images are subject to the state's public records law. OBSCURE ‘NEIGHBORHOOD MEETING’ WAS KEY FOR AMAZON PROJECT ANTI-AMAZON SIGNS WERE POPULAR AT NOV. 10 EUGENE CITY COUNCIL MEETING. Photo by Christian Wihtol Only two people showed up for the little-publicized event a year ago for the Highway 99 mega-warehouse O n Dec. 3, 2024, a worker from a Eugene consulting fi rm drove to two quiet sideroads near the Eugene Airport and, in close to freezing temperatures, stuck two plastic signs in a grassy fi eld. The 2-foot by 3-foot signs stated a public neighbor- hood meeting was set for Dec. 17 via Zoom to explain a plan to construct a huge building in the fi eld, and to solicit comment. Whether anyone read the signs on the thinly-traveled roads is unknown. The consultant also sent invites to adjacent property owners — mostly owners of hangars at the airport, some manufacturers and an auto junk yard. The Dec. 17 meeting was quick. It opened at 5:45 pm. Only two members of the public joined. A consultant took nine minutes to explain the project. Then it was question time. Only one attendee piped up: Would the building be served by a sewer line? It would, the consultant replied. And with that, the meeting was over. It lasted 13 minutes. Under the Eugene City Code, the point of the event was to alert the public and seek comment. It was the only public interface required by the city for the massive project. Yet no media and very few residents knew it was taking place. ABSURDIST THEATER Kafkaesque? Maybe. But it was a crucial part of the plan to build a 320,000-square-foot parcel-distribution center on 85 acres along Highway 99, for a company now widely assumed to be Amazon. Under the city code, the city could not process building permits until the consul- tant had put up the signs, sent the invites and held the meeting. The public didn’t fi nd out about the mega-warehouse plan until Eugene Weekly learned of it and published an article in late January. Subsequent EW articles expanded on the potential traffi c, air pollution and economic eff ects of the project. Now, many hundreds of area residents strongly oppose the development, even as the city is fi nalizing some building permits. The latest sign of community senti- ment: Several dozen people spoke out in frustration at the Nov. 11 Eugene City Council session. They don’t want an Amazon mega-warehouse in Eugene. And they’re steamed at what they see as a docile City Council, and a city administration that has provided minimal chance for meaningful public comment. If the council were serious about stopping the Amazon project and similar mega-warehouses, it could amend the zoning rules for the special industrial area around the airport and prohibit new businesses that are exclusively warehousing and wholesaling, speaker Anne Lardner said Monday. The city’s ho-hum handling of this huge and obviously controversial project highlights a dysfunction among city WE HAVE ISSUES FLOCK CAMERA MAP Courtesy Eugene Police Department 4 November 13, 2025 support.eugeneweekly.com
