This Hurts

This week, over 750,000 Oregonians — including about 210,000 children and 130,000 seniors — will lose access to a program that puts food on their tables. 

The suspension of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) comes as Oregon in general — and Lane County, in particular — has seen a surge in hunger (twice as many residents visited FOOD For Lane County food pantries and distribution sites in 2024 as in 2021).

Neither the kid missing a meal or the elder choosing between essential medicine and going to bed hungry could care less whether you think Democrats or Republicans are at fault in D.C. 

What matters to them is where their next meal is going to come from. And what should matter to us, as a united community, is that our neighbors have the means to not only survive, but thrive. 

In that vein, we’ve seen an extraordinary outpouring of support to address this crisis over the past several weeks, from businesses like Market of Choice running matching programs at the register and community institutions running food drives, to a record-breaking auction fundraiser in October and the governor sending emergency funds to food banks statewide.

You can do your part to help, whether you’ve got a can of beans, a spare buck, or an hour to volunteer, we need all hands on deck to help our fellow Oregonians in their time of need.

Andrew Kalloch, chair

FOOD For Lane County

Eugene

Fear Won’t Work

It’s time to reshape the narrative around homelessness. Sanitizing visibility will not solve our moral or economic challenges, and the city of Eugene cannot sweep its way out of a humanitarian crisis.

For too long, fear has driven policy and public opinion — especially in privileged communities where “risk” is more theoretical than experienced. While fear is a convenient fundraising tool for the politically ambitious, our reluctance to address root causes diverts attention from our shared responsibility to protect the most vulnerable.

Statistically, the unhoused experience far more theft, sexual violence, rape, murder and assault than the public realizes. Yet the narrative still centers on the perceived threat they pose rather than the harm they endure. Making homelessness invisible through sweeps, displacement or design does not solve inequity; it merely hides human suffering.

People are being trafficked, assaulted and disappearing at alarming rates, yet society rarely recognizes this as the human rights crisis it is. We do not march for these displaced souls. Where are the cries of injustice? The belief that people experiencing homelessness are inherently criminal is a form of stigma and prejudice. It confuses being unhoused with committing a crime.

It’s time to confront these truths and build a compassionate city that values every life, rather than criminalize the heartbeats and humanity of our neighbors.

Sarah Koski

Eugene

Don’t Forget This

Our roadless public forests are some of the most valuable and most beautiful lands in Oregon. Millions of acres of roadless areas in our state provide some of our best recreation, our cleanest water, and give homes to Oregon’s most endangered fish and wildlife.

For decades, places like Hardesty Mountain and the Waldo Lake area have been protected by the Roadless Rule. Of course, Donald Trump would love nothing more than to sell these places off to loggers and developers. So he’s attacking the Roadless Rule.

Of course, our congresswoman, Val Hoyle, will be leading the charge to stop him, right?

Wrong! 

Not only is she refusing to join the dozens of co-sponsors of legislation to protect our nation’s roadless areas — including all the other Oregon Democrats in the House and Senate — all she could muster in response to my letter on the issue was that she’d “keep your thoughts in mind” when it comes to a vote. And this isn’t even the first time she’s joined Republicans to sell out our public forests.

Sounds like the thoughts of the timber industry and wealthy donors are taking up a bit too much of her mind.

When she gets primaried next year, let’s not forget this.

Tim Ream

Eugene

Troubles at LCC

The faculty union at Lane Community College, LCCEA, has recently called out the college president’s executive overreach, which is usurping the power of the democratically elected LCC Board of Education. 

Both faculty and students were surprised when the administration unilaterally suspended the 2025-2026 Licensed Practical Nurse program, without the usual board and public input. LCCEA also learned that board leadership asked to add items to their meeting agenda, but the request was denied. At some point LCCEA decided the public needed to know. I attended their online public meeting Monday, Oct. 27.

I am deeply concerned to see our democracy slipping away. I can see authoritarian takeovers happening at all levels of our public institutions. This is apparently a trend in higher education, to shift power from elected bodies to CEOs, sidelining the public process.

I retired from Lane Community College, and I know budgets are tight. In times like these we need to pull together. We need more public input, not less. 

Send an email to the college president and board, to demand representational democracy, conformance to open meeting law, the board’s authority to set its own agenda and adhere to existing board policy, practice and decades-long precedent of making decisions and voting on program and service cuts, reductions and suspension at President@lanecc.edu and   Boecomment@lanecc.edu. Come and express your views during public comment at 6:30 pm the first Wednesday of the month, in person or online.

Patty Hine

Eugene

ONLINE EXTRA LETTERS

About Ethics

I found it interesting that in your article about the Corvallis ethical investment campaign that you didn’t mention the similar Eugene ethical investment campaign that I spearheaded in 2024, which was referred by the City Council to our city manager, Sarah Medary (EW online, 10/16).

She sidelined it at the last minute by recommending an ESG investment policy, completely ignoring our recommendations, and embracing an investment policy that has deliberately carved out a hole for human rights-abusing Israeli companies (several Republican attorneys general and the ADL pressured Morningstar to revise their system of qualifications). 

It’s also worth mentioning that I am a Jew, and I literally wrote the ethical investment model city resolution and obtained endorsements from a dozen different local human rights groups on short notice.

Geoffrey Gordon

Eugene

Enough!

We all know from our history books that when the French people were starving, the empress famously said “let them eat cake.” We all know how that ended. Now that our joke of a president is building his beautiful ballroom, while 48 million people may go hungry, I see a possibility of history repeating itself. 

 I look forward to the day when the people rise up and enough.

Connie LaMorte

Eugene

Daydream Believer

What would anti-Donald Trump do? Anti-Trump would be for the people. They would be brash and rule breaking, the same as the current president. The first thing anti-Trump would do is replace the 40-hour work week with a 25-hour work week. This would leave the corporate world scrambling for workers, and suddenly society would need the homeless to fill job vacancies. Those working 25 hours a week but still not earning enough to get by would be provided food and housing subsidies. 

Next, anti-Trump would stop payments on interest paid for the national debt. This trillion dollars a year would go to funding health care, education and the food and housing subsidies for the working poor. Funds left over could then be doled out to bond holders.

Anti-Trump would give Ukraine tomahawk missiles and cancel sending offensive munitions to Israel. 

They would set up Ellis Island-style immigration posts in El Paso and San Diego so good people would have the opportunity to come to America, same as my great grandfathers from Ireland back in the 1890s. 

Finally, anti-Trump would give Rep. Val Hoyle funds to build the South Bank bike path along the Willamette River between Knickerbocker and Frohnmayer bridges. 

I am not a person of vision, yet I daydream.

Michael Ryan

Eugene

About Those Clocks

There’s one simple thing the vast majority of Americans want from our government: Stop making us change our clocks twice a year.

This isn’t partisan. It’s common sense. Nearly 70 percent of Americans — Republican, Democrat and Independent — agree that the clock-changing ritual serves no useful purpose anymore. It disrupts sleep, harms health, confuses schedules and accomplishes nothing.

Yet year after year, Congress can’t seem to get it done. The Senate passed the “Sunshine Protection Act” unanimously in 2022, but the House never acted. How hard can it be to pick one time — standard or daylight — and stick with it?

Americans are tired of government gridlock. If our leaders can’t even fix something this simple that everyone agrees on, what hope is there for solving the bigger problems?

Enough is enough. End the clock switching once and for all!

Michael Hinojosa

Drain

Zoning Madness

SASS, the admirable nonprofit sexual assault support services program, received a zoning variance years ago to be located at 591 West 19th Avenue in Eugene. They operated quietly there, with consideration for both neighbors and clients. Recently they moved to larger quarters.

The site at 591 West 19th is in an R-1 residential neighborhood and offers zero parking slots.

A chiropractic and massage outfit, Sunrise Healing, moved in, signing a lease which continued the variance. They erected a seven-foot fence next to the sidewalk on the front side of the building, and except for that intrusion, and the stress on parking and traffic, have otherwise been good neighbors.

For reasons unclear (though there was an alleged report that they wanted a bigger sign), Sunrise Healing wanted to change their zoning to C-1, commercial.

They won their zoning appeal. At the hearing, neighbors offered to support continuing the variance even though this operation is a for-profit business, rather than a nonprofit social service. Concerns about what might next inhabit a C-1 site were disregarded.

 Wanting to file an appeal, neighbors were told that it would cost $1,991 to do so! This certainly slants the process toward pockets deeper than those of neighbors affected by this decision. How can this be fair? Though it was undoubtedly not their intention, Sunrise Healing and the Eugene Zoning Department have spawned resentment and a sense of frustration and mistrust in their neighbors. Surely this is not a satisfactory outcome!

M.B. Barlow

Eugene

Why I Protest

After reading several viewpoint essays which seemed to not understand protesting, I felt the urge to answer why I protest. Being an outgoing person, when I participate in our larger Eugene protests, I always talk with a broad range of people. Everyone I have met has been compassionate about having a caring, anti-racial government which understands the needs of the working class, of LGBTQ and people of color rather than only supporting an all white and billionaire society. 

The speakers were excellent and taught me more than I thought I knew about worker unions, class, race, etc. When I attend a protest, I feel embraced by a more humane, loving community. It helps me at least to have some hope during this incredibly dangerous, divisive, cruel period of American history.

Saturday, Oct. 18, all over the USA, there were 7 million people out on the streets protesting No Kings Day! We cannot sit idly by while our democracy is fast becoming an autocracy. We must raise our dissenting voices in any way we can: through our writing, our art, our music, our giving hearts. Tears come whenever I hear “Imagine” by John Lennon, but it is my anthem and this excerpt sums up why I have to protest:

“Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too

“Imagine all the people
Livin’ life in peace

“You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one”

Victoria Koch

Eugene