SPS Cutting Off Its Own Leg
Public education in Springfield faces two major hits this year. Budget shortfalls have the city looking at a massive cut to library funding, while the school district just decided to fire dozens of teachers mid-school year. Why should one service or staff classification bear the brunt of ALL cuts? Why not take a little from admin, tech subscriptions, and other operations?
Nothing sensible operates this way. If I want to lose 25 pounds, I don’t cut off a leg and declare my goals met. If my personal spending needs reigning in, I cut back in multiple places: dining, entertainment, that used-book habit…
Both these cuts are exclusively to entities whose sole purpose is to serve our community. This isn’t logical from a community service or business perspective.
We already know the library brings extra foot traffic (and sales) to downtown small businesses. We also know that schools reducing class options and increasing class sizes discourages enrollment. That means both cuts continue a cycle of lower revenue and smaller budgets.
It’s a shame that educational services are being targeted. As we can tell from these decisions, Springfield is already educationally underserved. Thankfully, we’re periodically given the chance to vote for new decision-makers.
Ky Fireside
Springfield
Community College vs. Corporate College
I have taught at Lane Community College for over 20 years, and I have never felt so demoralized as I do under this current administration. The situation at Lane reminds me of all of those documentaries where a Big City Corporation comes to a small town in order to dismantle the local economy before taking away all the resources for themselves. To date, this administration has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of the college’s budget on slick anti-labor lawyers, been found guilty of email surveillance of the labor union, and misrepresented budget numbers. All of this in the name of an agenda aimed at stripping away worker protections, rights, and benefits while simultaneously increasing workloads and class sizes to the great detriment of the educational quality of the students. Trying to provide your students a high-quality education is hard enough without having to worry about losing your job at any moment in order to maximize output efficiency. I hope, for the sake of the students, we don’t end up striking, but I also hope, for the sake of the students, that a strike will show this administration we stand together in protecting our community college from hostile forces that only seem to care about their own agenda, and who seemingly refuse to listen to the voices of the very people who make up the community they are supposed to serve.
Jose Chaves
Lane Community College, English faculty instructor
Eugene
ICE ‘Loves’ the Constitution
My name is Ulises Demian Rivera Garcia. This is a really important topic that is important to me because I come from immigrant parents and other parents and families’ rights are getting violated or ignored. Recently, with our current administration, we have seen our government start to deploy mass immigration raids all over the country. With ICE deporting thousands of people, they have been ignoring their right to due process, which every person has a right to.
Due process is a right given by the 5th Amendment in the U.S. Constitution, stating that “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” ICE is ignoring this right, which every single person has, citizen or non-citizen. They are deporting people back to their country of origin without giving them a chance to a lawyer or fair court. Something needs to be done about this. The administration needs to be held accountable. The administration that supposedly loves the Constitution is constantly violating it and ignoring it in front of us and nothing is being done.
Ulises Demian Rivera Garcia
Eugene
Protect Watersheds, EWEB
We, the chief petitioners of Measure 20-373, are deeply troubled by EWEB Board member John Barofsky’s resolution opposing Lane County’s watershed protection ballot measure.
Barofsky has stated that he researched our measure and spoke with members of the community. However, neither he nor any other EWEB Board member contacted the Measure 20-373 campaign or the chief petitioners to discuss the substance, intent or implications of the proposed law. This is particularly concerning given that our campaign is not difficult to contact. We maintain a public website with a “Contact Us” page, and the contact information for all chief petitioners is readily available online.
As a public body entrusted with stewardship of our region’s water resources, the EWEB Board has an obligation to conduct thorough and balanced due diligence before taking positions on matters of such importance. Failing to engage directly with the authors of a watershed protection measure falls short of what the public expects from its elected officials.
We strongly believe that codifying increased rights and protections for Lane County watersheds will enhance the long-term health of these ecosystems and all life that depends on clean water. Measure 20-373 is aligned with the fundamental mission of EWEB: protecting watersheds and providing safe, clean drinking water for its customers.
We invite the EWEB Board to contact us. We are available to meet, answer questions, and address any concerns you may have regarding Measure 20-373. Constructive dialogue is essential when decisions affecting our shared water future are at stake.
Kunu Bearchum, Eron King and Michelle Holman
Eugene, Blachly and Deadwood
So Much for ‘No Child Left Behind’
America is now into its 25th year of the educational era launched in 2002 under the federal No Child Left Behind law. Its stated intention was equity for all students, but its effect has been the opposite. Kids in public school continue to face a narrowed curriculum, lockstep teaching, and over-testing. The joy of learning has been forgotten for students and teachers alike.
The pendulum can be pushed toward a better place if the public demands a rethinking of this top-down, standardized, one-size-fits-all mentality.
The Community Alliance for Public Education (CAPE) is holding a community forum to discuss a more balanced, more engaging public school experience on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 5:30 pm – 6:45 pm, at the Springfield Public Library’s large conference room. Springfield parents can learn more about this issue, ask questions, and talk about their kids’ K-5 education.
Parents in Eugene: What about your kids? Are they getting taught enough science, geography, history, art, health, civics? What about parents in Bethel: Are you satisfied with your children’s education? Please join us.
Larry Lewin
Eugene
ONLINE EXTRA LETTERS
Opposition to the Trump Regime
A seemingly non-partisan letter that you published (Dec. 31, 2025) tries to discourage public opposition to the Trump regime. In its writer’s view, groups massively demonstrating opposition to, say, ICE’s murder of a Minneapolis citizen observer, are just like old fogies insulting teenagers. That is so wrong.
Like Doyle Srader’s previous letter in the Weekly, this one ignores a chief value of our demonstrations. In fact, they galvanize opposition to the Trump regime. Perhaps some 30 percent of the public will always stick with the regime’s brutal actions and obvious lies. But increasingly, many who perhaps had not been paying attention have arrived at greater awareness. And it’s great if these previously detached citizens can see that there are already massive opposition groups, with whom they can stand.
He writes: “Leaders at all levels keep exploiting our deeply etched habit to enrich and empower themselves.” This is a wild generalization, but it is certainly true of Trump, his family and his associates, enriching themselves with cryptocurrency, foreign real estate deals, apparent insider securities trading.
Calling Srader misguided would do him a service, as if he were sincere in his efforts to persuade us. His letter is, rather, an attempt to loosen our grip from one of the few levers of power left to the majority of Americans, we who are appalled by the actions and lies of the Trump regime. The regime in its rush to autocracy, including military dictatorship in cities where Democrats prevail, must be called out.
Larry Koenigsberg
Eugene
Siphoning Public Programs
U.S. operations in Venezuela are pitched to the American people as a solution to cartel activity and mass immigration, but U.S. military interventions throughout the world have unfailingly had the opposite effect. They have destroyed political and economic stability, causing many to leave for the US, and many others to seek economic opportunity in criminal networks, leading to the formation of international cartels, which drive further immigration.
These immigrants will be scapegoated and presented as a threat that demands more of our money be used by the government to pay masked paramilitaries to roam our streets, empowered to abduct and kill us, as we’re now seeing with the murders of Keith Porter and Renee Good.
The impact of this is not only the direct immiseration of the American public, but the further siphoning of funds from safety nets and social programs to the arm of the state. In 2025, we saw a $170 billion increase in federal law enforcement spending, while Trump considers a $1.5 trillion military budget, and openly threatens Colombia, Cuba, Mexico and Greenland as well.
The General Strike will be our main tool of resistance. Jan. 19 (MLK Day) is the next day of action. MLK said: “The bombs in Vietnam explode at home; they destroy the hopes and possibilities for a decent America.” As we build towards a May 1 general strike, we must unite anti-war and immigrant defense movements against the imperialist system killing us.
Elijah Wilensky
Eugene
Greenland Obsessed
Trump’s obsession with Greenland is verification that he believes that climate change is real and that he has been lying about it to benefit the fossil fuel industry and Russia. How does this benefit Russia? Putin invaded Ukraine because he hates NATO. Invading Greenland would end NATO. By doing everything he can to accelerate global warming, Trump will turn America’s breadbasket into a dustbowl, and allow Siberia to become the next agricultural powerhouse. Melting the Arctic ice will also open up the Northern passage for Russia and make the theft of Greenland’s resources easier. But the melting ice will flood Florida and most coastal cities, costing trillions.
Trump has alienated our best friends and allies by imposing high tariffs on them and by withdrawing from 66 international agreements, treaties, and organizations. Meanwhile, he is giving Putin everything he could hope for.
Republicans used to hate Communists because of their oppression, but now they are complicit in allowing a power-mad tyrant to oppress and terrorize the lovers of freedom, and is turning America into a Russia-like totalitarian state. Billions of your tax dollars are being spent to hire masked thugs dressed for war to terrorize hard-working brown and black people who have been productive members of our communities for years. They work harder, start more businesses, and break fewer laws. Why are they demonized as the purveyors of all crime? Law enforcement is being diverted from real crime fighting, and the white-collar criminals who steal billions go free. If we were really interested in eliminating drug use and fighting crime, we would use those ICE agents to stop the weapons supplied to the drug cartels.
Jerry Brule
Eugene
ICE Arguments
I’ve been watching those Minneapolis ICE shooting videos. Hasn’t anyone noticed that moments before Mrs. Good was shot that she was turning the steering wheel of her car to the right?
The trigger-happy ICE agent was to her left! She was going to go around him to the right, but he shot her so quickly that he must have had his gun out and aimed towards her.
Manslaughter would appear to be the least he should be charged with!
All the people who knew her tell the same story that she was a gentle, pleasant woman, with no record of violence.
She was intent on running over ICE agents?
Puhlease!