News Briefs

There will be no animals at this Saturday’s Bingo Beach Dance Party, the second-annual celebration of the Willamette Animal Guild (WAG), “just party animals!” says Vanessa Wells-Horner, outreach coordinator at WAG. She is hoping to get lots of tails wagging out on the dance floor as the nonprofit celebrates the more than 20,000 spay and neuter surgeries it has performed on pets and feral animals since January 2008. 

A lone maple tree remains near the 5th Street Public Market and the new boutique Inn at the 5th. But not for long. Cutting Eugene’s urban forest has long been a sore point in town, and once the orange signs were posted warning of the tree’s fate, people began to question why this tree has to go.

If you want to enjoy an inordinate amount of wildflower-frenzy this weekend, Mount Pisgah is the place to be for the Wildflower Festival Sunday, May 20. Not only can you look forward to a languishing in a splendor of earth-borne colors in peak petal form, you may also wish to wander the native plants sale or sniff out the food vendors while taking in a different bands’ set-list at the top of every hour starting from 10 am and ending with marimba beats at 4 pm. Parking will be free but a $5 donation from those over 12 will be asked at the entry. 

The UO’s Sustainable City Year Program (SCYP) will be continuing next fall with follow-up work on various projects under way in Springfield, Salem and possibly Gresham. The combination will fund the program for another year, says Robert Liberty, executive director of the Sustainable Cities Initiative that oversees the SCYP. This will be the first year the program has not had a single city focus.

North Eugene Commissioner Rob Handy is suing opponent Pat Farr. He alleges Farr is sending out false statements to voters and using false statements in his polls through the Lindholm Company.

 A colorful mailer that recently landed in voters’ mailboxes courtesy of a PAC supporting Farr’s bid for the seat on the Lane County Board of Commissioners accuses Handy of everything from being “named in a sexual discrimination lawsuit that cost taxpayers $244,000 dollars” to costing the county $1 million.

Here are our selected picks for the May 15 primary. We have not included uncontested races. See our endorsement write-ups and stories last week for more information. Ballots can be mailed in by May 10 or dropped off at white ballot boxes around town up until 8 pm Tuesday, May 15.

U.S. House of Representatives

Peter DeFazio (D)

Oregon Secretary of State 

Kate Brown (D)

Oregon Attorney General 

Dwight Holton (D)

A delegation of nine city officials will visit Eugene from Kathmandu, Nepal, May 13-17. The problems of Kathmandu are “a microcosmic view of what the entire planet is going to be facing before we know it,” says Dennis Ramsey, president of Eugene’s Kathmandu Sister City Association.

The visiting delegation will include the mayor of Kathmandu, its city planner and the director of Kathmandu’s environmental program. A photo exhibit featuring Kathmandu at New Zone Gallery on Monday, May 14, is also part of the visit. 

Lost Creek Rock Products has begun blasting at Parvin Butte, and neighbors say the noise is frightening people and their pets. The once-wooded land has been logged and the butte, which gives a scenic backdrop to boaters on the nearby Dexter Lake reservoir, is slated to be razed. 

Neighbor Pete Helzer tells of a neighbor’s dog that was so scared by the blasting noise that it ran through two fences before it could be stopped. He says destroying the butte harms not only the rural community but its history, as well as the water and environment.

Timber barons can speculate on trees, land barons can speculate on selling properties but the West is not supposed to have water barons. It’s illegal under Western water law to speculate on water. An Oregon administrative law judge has ruled a private company would be speculating on the waters of the McKenzie River if granted its application for 22 million gallons of water a day out of the river. 

On April 27, the judge recommended to Oregon’s Water Resources Department that Willamette Water Company’s water right application be denied. 

As the City Council’s vote on the 10-year Multiple-Unit Property Tax Exemption (MUPTE) for the proposed 1,200-student Capstone project nears, Eugeneans are piping up about potential impacts on the livability of downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods. 

The Oregon attorney general primary race between Dwight Holton and Ellen Rosenblum is fraught with complexity and nuance, but for some medical marijuana advocates, the race has boiled down to who’s better on pot.

“Dwight’s Not Right” reads the headline on a press release from Robert Wolfe of Citizens for Sensible Law Enforcement (CSLE), which is sponsoring Initiative Petition 24, which would legalize marijuana for personal use. If the initiative is approved, a ballot measure will go before voters in November.