From the fun of a parade to the sad death of local homeless woman Annette Montero, in Slant

Slant by Editorial BoardPosted on

America’s college football fans will look to Eugene at 12:30 pm Saturday, Sept. 23, when the Colorado Buffaloes visit the Ducks. Oregon and Colorado are both undefeated at 3-0 and ranked in the top 20. Colorado’s new coach, Deion “Coach Prime” Sanders, never met a spotlight he did not love, and the Ducks are not shy about drawing attention. 60 Minutes called Colorado the “unlikely epicenter of college football.” Can the Ducks steal the Buffs’ thunder?

• Ballots for that janky Portland-based Recall Paul Holvey campaign have been mailed. Vote “no!” We need solid voices and votes like Holvey’s in the Legislature, not petulant recall campaigns. 

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• What we’re reading: Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt is charming, funny and heartbreaking by turn. The novel, set in Washington state — and partially narrated by a giant Pacific octopus, bringing in a waft of magical realism — looks at family, love and second, and third, chances. The audiobook version is deftly narrated for those who prefer a listen. 

• Annette Montero, a homeless woman who died in 2019 under the wheels of a garbage truck as she slept on the pavement in an alley in Eugene, at last got a form of justice on Sept. 15 when a jury found Sanipac — owner of the truck — to be mostly responsible for Montero’s death. Sanipac’s initial evasions didn’t help its case, Montero’s lawyers said, and the company has been ordered to pay $360,000 to her family. Sanipac initially offered the family $9,999, the lawyers say. That sounds depressingly like a discount price for a human life. Read about the settlement at EugeneWeekly.com.

• The Wall Street Journal article, in print and online, “Inside Exxon’s Strategy to Downplay Climate Change,” should be required reading for every American. It tells how Exxon has known for a long time the damage that fossil fuels are doing to the climate but had a strategy to downplay it. The WSJ says that Exxon currently plans to spend $25 billion a year in capital expenditures through 2027, mostly on oil and gas. Ponder that the next time an unseasonable and unsustainable hot, dry day filled with wildfire smoke hits Oregon.

• We have been asking for a parade and there’s one being planned! At 7 pm Saturday, Oct. 14, there will be a “human and electric powered parade of Eugene’s unique quirk” from downtown Eugene to the 5th Street Public Market. Parade entries are being accepted through Sept. 30 and must be human or electric-powered and can include marchers, dancers, creative lighting, costumes, bicycles, strollers, wagons, animals and musicians. Find out more at ArtCityEugene.com.

• With Lucy Vinis’ recent announcement that she will not be running for mayor again, we should think about what we want our next mayor to do. Send us your ideas — Editor@EugeneWeekly.com  — and we will put them out there for all to see, and then see what the new mayor does about them. Kaarin Knudson has thrown her hat into the ring, and you can see our story on her candidacy at EugeneWeekly.com. An architect, city planner and former Oregon track star, she could get plenty done.

• On Sept. 15, the state Fish and Wildlife Commission voted unanimously to prohibit wildlife killing contests for coyotes and other species classified as unprotected mammals in Oregon. In wildlife killing contests, the participants compete for cash and prizes for killing the most, the biggest and the smallest coyotes and other wildlife within a set time period. Eugene’s Cascadia Wildlands and Predator Defense were among the groups advocating for the ban.

• Congratulations to Bill Rauch, former artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, whose vision helped New York City’s new $500 million Perelman Performing Arts Center — where he was named inaugural artistic director in 2018 — to make its glittery debut this week at Ground Zero. Rauch, who in his decade at OSF transformed that distinguished regional theater into one known nationally, had this to say when asked by The New York Times whether the Big Apple now has one too many big performing arts centers: “When every man, woman and child who lives in the five boroughs of New York City has a life that is saturated in performing arts, then we can begin to talk about whether there’s too much.” Way to go, Bill!