Slant — We have stuff

• We’re just back from the AAN Publishers (as the former Association of Alternative Newsweeklies is now called) conference, where longtime EW owner Anita Johnson was posthumously given a lifetime achievement award for her dedication to this paper. We also went to a dive bar with Tom Tomorrow and got his autograph. The EW Extra newsletter — where you can get even more deets on drinks with Tom (aka Dan Perkins) — got a second place award for its snark and fun, and we took home a couple honorable mentions for reporting and photography. Not bad, getting national recognition after coming back from an embezzlement. 

• For those of you following the EW embezzlement. Elisha Young, who was indicted by a Lane County grand jury on five felony charges in the case, was arrested, re-arrested and then finally extradited to Oregon … is now out of jail under monitored pre-trial release. It’s hard to both deal with the trauma of what happened, but also recognize the justice system needs to do its work, but there we are. According to court records, she has a pre-trial conference on August 7.

In these grim times, we celebrate the little things. Avelo, aka ICE Air, is leaving the Eugene Airport and the West Coast — shout out to KLCC in their story for noting in our roundup of nonstop flights from Eugene earlier this year, we snubbed Avelo. As long as we are shouting out, The Register-Guard had a nice little roundup of Oregon authors and a focus on downtown bookstore J. Michaels

• It’s getting near time for Best of Eugene, where you, the readers, tell us what you love best about Lane County (it’s called Best of Eugene, but we love the whole damn area). Check out last year’s winners at BestofEugene.com and then tell us what categories we are missing! Weigh in to Editor Camilla Mortensen at Editor@EugeneWeekly.com. Thanks to all you folks who gave us ideas for (and snarky comments on) our upcoming senior-oriented issue! 

Our Summer Guide issue in June featured a photo of paddleboarders with their dogs. A reader pointed out to us they should have been wearing life jackets and that reader was right — and we should have had a photo with life jackets. Recent tragedies on our local waterways involving paddleboarders and others are a harsh reminder of that. Don’t get on the water without a life jacket; don’t think pool toys are flotation devices for rivers. Our rivers and lakes are beautiful, but beautiful things are not always safe. 

Who has merch? WE DO! Local and Vocal T-shirts, I ❤️ Eugene Weekly T-shirts. I ❤️ Eugene Weekly (most of the time) shirts, mugs, stickers, water bottles and more. Find it all at EugeneWeekly.printful.me.

Get the Flock out of Eugene. That is what’s on the EyesOffEugene.org website that lists concerns with the new AI mass surveillance system being deployed in Eugene and Springfield. The site says 57 “automatic license plate reader” cameras from the company Flock Safety “are capturing every vehicle on Eugene’s roads. In Springfield, police are installing 25 of the same cameras.” Check it out, as well as the DeFlock website looking to identify all the cameras in the area via our story “DeFlocking the Cameras” at EugeneWeekly.com.