• The Register-Guard posted on March 10 that Publisher Shanna Cannon is leaving and Executive Editor Alison Bath will assume leadership. Now that Gannett owns both the RG and the Salem Statesman Journal, we are guessing they are consolidating some positions. Remember readers, even if the RG is now owned by a big out-of-state company, the folks who report the news are still local and working hard. And over here at Eugene Weekly, we are still locally owned and vocally operated.
• And now for sports. In the vortex of bad and worse news that swirls around us, at least we get a small respite with the University of Oregon’s men’s and women’s basketball teams. The women stormed to the Pac-12 Tournament title in Las Vegas on March 8. The Duck women’s team, led by three-time conference player of the year Sabrina Ionescu, will certainly be a No. 1 seed in the upcoming NCAA Tournament and open tournament play at Matthew Knight Arena. The Duck men’s team, led by conference player of the year Payton Pritchard, won the Pac-12 regular season title outright and is the No. 1 seed in this week’s conference tournament in Las Vegas. At least for a couple of hours a day throughout March, there will be something for fans of these two teams to hang their hat on. They, all of us, need something. At least we can watch from TV from home as the COVID-19 virus swirls around us.
• The Oregon Republicans walked off the job, resulting in a waste of a legislative short session, because they were angry about the Democrats’ cap-and-trade bill. But on Tuesday, March 10, Gov. Kate Brown signed an executive order that will start the state’s transition to a clean energy economy. House Speaker Tina Kotek said in a statement that she will review the executive order to determine whether to pursue additional climate action in an upcoming special session. Brown’s order sets a 45 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2035 and 80 percent by 2050. She sets a number of ways to achieve those cuts, including the doubling of the Clean Fuels Program to increase biofuel in the transportation sector, higher efficiency for buildings and appliances, creating a statewide charging plan to increase more electric vehicles and more. A succeeding governor, however, can overturn executive orders, so hopefully the Legislature gets its act together and creates necessary climate action law.
• In the rarefied world of political forecasting, Rachel Bitecofer is a celebrity. Now a professor at Christopher Newport University in Virginia, she has the distinction of having very accurately called the 2018 congressional election in which Democrats picked up 41 seats in the House. She did it using a radical theory that says what wins elections is not swing voters changing their minds but simply changes in which voters show up to vote. Bitecofer, as it happens, is an alumna of both the University of Oregon and Lane Community College, where she enrolled while living in Eugene as a single mother who was working a dead-end job. Yes, folks, education matters. You can find the Feb. 6 article about her and her Eugene connections at Politico.com.
• Better Eugene-Springfield Transportation announced it will present Center for Appropriate Transport founder Jan VanderTuin with the Ruth Bascom Lifetime Achievement Award at its March 17 BEST Awards. The BESTies celebration is 5:30 to 8 pm at Lane Community College’s Center for Meeting and Learning and features 12 finalists competing for awards in three categories and an electric vehicle show. Check out BEST-Oregon.org/Besties. BEST seeks to promote transportation options, safe streets and walkable neighborhoods and the group says “CAT has been a hub for innovation and promotion of human powered transportation.”
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