OFF WITH SMART METERS
EWEB’s recent actions have made me really question what happened to compassion and clear thinking in our community. EWEB, Oregon’s largest publicly owned utility, which should be serving all of its customer owners without discrimination.
EWEB recently decided to revoke people’s right to opt out of having a smart meter on their home, a right that many citizens had worked hard to ensure. Many people’s worlds have been completely rocked by this. Some have severe reactions to any form of emf radiation; they cannot have smartphones or wifi in their homes, and yet now they are forced to have a smart meter or face having their power turned off?
At least four senior women had their power turned off — on Mother’s Day, no less — in spite of good faith efforts to inform EWEB (through doctors letters, testifying at EWEB meetings, etc) that they must keep their old meter for health reasons. I have a homebound senior friend who decided not to fight this because she simply couldn’t afford to lose power.
Why is EWEB insisting on 100 percent participation in this smart meter program? How does it and the city think they can get around the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA)? Sadly, this is now going to the courts, but what an expensive and stressful endeavor when EWEB could simply have shown some compassion and clear thinking.
Krista Morien
Junction City
RIGHT TO CYCLE
So I was westbound on 3rd Avenue Saturday afternoon approaching Lawrence Street, riding my bicycle. There was a train, and as I neared the intersection, a vehicle suddenly appeared heading south in the northbound lane of Lawrence, this clearly in an effort to spare the driver the inconvenience of having to wait his turn like everyone else.
I made my perfectly legal right-hand turn (see ORS 811.265) and intended to carry on with my day. Having taken my share of liberties with the rules of the road over the years, I felt it would be hypocritical to tell the driver that he was playing fast and loose with the vehicle code.
But as I turned past him he yelled, “You’ve got a stop sign there!” So I yelled back. “You’re going the wrong way!”
This inspired him to stop his car, now parked over a life-sized painting on 3rd Avenue of the “International Person On A Bike” sign with huge arrows indicating the direction one is expected to be traveling (not the direction of his choosing) and yell again.
So I yelled again — “This ain’t a parking lot, pal!” — as he drove away, finally managing to wrestle his rust heap over to the right side of the road.
Summer is here, and the time is right to cycle in all the new bike lanes here in Eugene. Please keep your wits about you. The law can’t help you until it’s already too late.
Leo Muzzy
Eugene
BUREAUCRATIC INEPTITUDE
If our “progressive” city of Eugene was genuinely committed to the liberal Shangri-La of “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion,” we’d have a right-wing radical as city manager, five more on City Council and another heading up our traffic planning fraternity. Alas, we’re saddled with bureaucratic ineptitude and bicycle activists masquerading as traffic planners.
Don Richey
Eugene
WHAT HAPPENED TO TRACK TOWN?
Except for time in the service, I went to every single Hayward track meet from 1974 until COVID, including the Martin Smith years.
In the ’70s, dual meets were still a thing and the Ducks would host up to seven duals a year at Hayward. Oregon was in the top ten national dual rankings for 20 consecutive years (11 times top three), and duals would draw 10,000 rabid fans with a crowd split 50-50 between students and older track fans.
Then things started changing, and now there are (maybe) three non-Pre meets a year (no duals), only one of which features first-line athletes (unless the U.S. Olympic Trials or NCCAs are here). Good seats at the Pre were $15 (now $125) and Distance Night was free (now $30). Loud music wasn’t constantly assaulting attendees (presumably to draw in students, and it hasn’t been working), and track fans (who do like to chat) could communicate without shouting at each other.
Except for national-level meets, Hayward-on-steroids is 85- to 90-percent empty, and most of the few spectators there are in their 60’s or older.
“Track Town?” Yeah, for the 1 percent who fly in for the Pre and National Championships. The old track fan base has been priced out.
Jamie Selko
Eugene
LACK OF COMPASSION
I am heartbroken over the plan to kill half a million barred owls in the Pacific Northwest by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Of course, I want to see the spotted owl protected, but there has to be a more ethical course of action. The barred owls are here because of human sprawl in the eastern U.S. and are now causing concern in the PNW because there is not enough habitat and trees left for both species.
This is a human-caused problem and the barred owl should not be punished for it. This proposal is barbaric. There must be other options, like perhaps temporary sterilization of some of the barred owl population in connection with ending the logging of spotted owl territory (how many decades do we need to demand this?) along with massive reforestation of carbon absorbing trees that would be beneficial to so many species, including our own.
I suppose that proposals like these are considered unrealistic, but I can’t believe that this plan to kill half a million owls is even under consideration as a “solution.” It feels like a lack of imagination and a terrible lack of compassion.
Hope Bohanec
Eugene
OF GREEN BOMBS
I enjoyed the Andy Singer cartoon “U.S. military goes carbon neutral” (EW 5/9).
I visited my aunt in Chandler, Arizona, last year. Across the street from her, the public lobby of Northrop Grumman, a major American bomb maker and a big gun in the economy down there, had a fancy display and audio recording promoting their greenness: recycled water, bombs shipped in recycled cardboard rather than plastic foam.
I tried to record this showcase on my phone, but the security guard waved me off. Not the green innovations — the bombs themselves must stay unphotographed and quiet for now.
Ralph McDonald
Eugene
ONLINE LETTERS
THE BOMBING CONTINUES
In 2024 Israel claimed a “record amount of West Bank [Palestine] land as State[Israel]-owned,” according to an April 11 article in Haaretz: Israeli News. The Nassar family farm and peace education institution, Tent of Nations, is one of these Palestinian farms that the Israeli government is trying to steal, despite the Nassar family’s complete ownership paperwork going back generations. Daoud Nassar talks about the ongoing court challenges in his 2023 book We Refuse to Be Enemies.
The U.S. needs to cut all diplomatic ties with Israel. As Colombian President Gustavo Petro said on May 1, when he cut ties with Israel on behalf of Colombia, “The times of genocide, of the extermination of an entire people, can not return before our eyes.”
Genocide is always wrong. There are no two sides to genocide. I need to stand up and say the truth so U.S. student protesters, who are stepping up in solidarity that is seen around the world, are supported. I know genocide is wrong so I stand up.
As an American citizen I feel a responsibility to speak up. The U.S. is Israel’s most important ally. The raising of American voices against this genocide will pressure U.S. President Joseph Biden’s administration to stop arming this genocide. We see that Biden heeded our call when he halted an arms shipment, as reported by Barak Ravid in Axios on May 5. Biden needs to use diplomatic pressure as well, because the bombing in Rafah Palestine continues.
Karen-jean Canan
Eugene
MEDICARE FOR ALL IS NEEDED
I was disappointed to read that the Congressional Progressive Caucus has not included Medicare for All in its new policy agenda for 2025. Caucus chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) said they are instead focusing on “what’s populist, popular and possible.”
I suppose you can’t really blame them, given the state of congressional politics. Republicans have not done much, but they have introduced the Refrigerator Freedom Act, the Liberty in Laundry Act, not to forget the Hands Off Our Home Appliances Act. (Yes, this is true.)
Meanwhile, in Oregon, without a lot of public fanfare, the Universal Health Plan Governance Board is working on a comprehensive plan to finance and administer a universal health plan for the state, which is due to the legislature no later than Sept. 15, 2026.
Want to learn more? Visit Oregon.gov/DCBS/uhpgb/Pages/about.aspx.
Jo Alexander
Corvallis
ON FOREIGN AID AND SECURITY
Congresswoman Val Hoyle recently emailed me an “April 2024 Congressional Update” in which she stated “on Saturday, April 20th, we held a historic Saturday session of Congress … I voted for three foreign aid packages [note totaling $95 billion] to support the United States’ role and responsibility … to address the immediate and long-term security of the U.S. and our allies.”
Since when did the immediate and long-term security of the U.S. depend on openly aiding and abetting a genocide committed by an “ally” and condemned by the global majority? On funding a (losing) proxy war against Russia using Ukrainians as cannon fodder? On crossing red lines with China over Taiwan? On cutting off U.S. funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees?
Hoyle is a textbook example of how there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to Congress funding wars and open genocide which not only put the vital security interests of Americans at risk but inflict (literally) unspeakable horrors across the world.
Trisha Driscoll
Veterans for Peace
Eugene
THE NEW NORMAL?
Last month the presumptive Republican nominee offered to reverse all inconvenient EPA regulations on the oil industry for $1 billion in campaign contributions. None of the four major news outlets even mentioned this.
The norm? Legal?
Frank Schnebly
Eugene
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