• Trump Impeachment 2019.

• We keep hearing print is dead — but you readers keep picking Eugene Weekly up to the tune of 37,000-40,000 print copies a week. We’re realistic. We know it’s not just the fun reviews and in-depth news stories you are sitting down with — it’s also the Sudoku and the crossword. Recently our Sudoku supplier disappeared, and we switched to a letter-based rather than word-based puzzle. So far Elisha Young, our ever-patient classified manager, tells us we have had no fewer than 50 phone calls about the switch. 

• In 2012, attorney Marc Kardell was working for Lane County, and he was troubled by what he saw as misuse of county funds. He was fired after he raised concerns about that and the actions of then-County Administrator Liane Davis (at the time Richardson, and previously Inkster) that were causing “a multitude of problems” within the county, according to the tort claim he filed that October. Davis was spending thousands of dollars in investigations against two liberal county commissioners, Pete Sorenson and Rob Handy. Davis’ allegations — which included the commissioners’ voting against her, talking to the media and, in Handy’s case, having negative body language and facial expressions — were deemed unfounded by the outside investigator. Now, seven years later, Kardell (and his attorneys) received a check on Dec. 3 from Lane County for $705,779.24. That resulted from a March jury verdict in federal court awarding Kardell approximately $229,000, plus attorney fees.

• On Monday, Dec. 16, the U.S. Supreme Court declined hear a major case on homelessness, letting stand a ruling protecting the right of the unhoused right to sleep on the sidewalk or in public parks if there is no other shelter available. With City of Boise vs. Martin standing, the homeless have a right to sleep on Eugene’s sidewalks when they have nowhere else to go. We, as humane people, have a mandate to get our act together and provide shelter so there is respite for those in need, and we don’t just chase the homeless from one spot to the next. On Monday, Dec. 23, there will be a candlelight vigil, “Stop Death on the Streets of Eugene,” at 6:30 pm at the Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza at 799 Oak Street to say the names of and show respect for the people who have died on the streets of Eugene in 2019.

• Martha Walters, first woman chief justice of the Oregon Supreme Court, was honored Dec. 13 at a luncheon at the Downtown Athletic Club by lawyers, family and friends from Eugene, where she lives and where she practiced law before going on the court in 2006. It was a celebration put on by the Lane County Women Lawyers for one of their own stars in a state where much of the star power comes from Portland. Justice Walters spoke and was interviewed on stage by Circuit Judge Suzanne Chanti, who was a partner in the Walters firm before going on the Lane County Court. Asked about the future of the courts, the chief justice said she hopes the courts and the law will deal better with issues of mental illness.

• A former Eugene  Weekly intern is making huge waves with his investigative journalism. Kenny Jacoby got his start digging up data through the UO’s Catalyst Journalism Project. He went on to have bylines in Sports Illustrated, The Oregonian and more. He’s now a investigative data reporter for the USA TODAY Network. His current four-part series “Predator Pipeline” looks at how college athletes — including athletes associated with the UO — are “implicated in an outsized share of campus sexual assaults.” You can check his series out in The Register-Guard this week. 

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