Empty Buildings
Congratulations to Lane County for purchasing the old Wells Fargo building instead of building a new office building. Perhaps there are other office buildings in Eugene that are empty or badly underused.
Is there a way that the businesses or government agencies that own these buildings can “donate” them to the city or state to be repurposed as, let’s say, affordable housing. If there is a process, I’m sure it’s cumbersome and full of legal hurdles. Let’s have the governor and legislature come up with a simple process, like donating your old car to your public radio station.
John Kiely
Eugene
Reckless Trump Supporter Crashes!
A few weeks ago I was standing on the corner of 7th and Pearl expressing my First Amendment Rights by holding a sign that simply said, “ICE OUT.” All of a sudden a disgruntled MAGA (Make America Great Again) Trump supporter in a white truck entered 7th Avenue off of Pearl going east with his middle finger waving out his window. His head was also hanging out the window and I could hear him spewing “fuck you” in a very unkingly manner. The furious driver gunned his truck as he turned east on 7th off of Pearl Street and all of a sudden he lost control of the truck and jumped the curb crashing into the retaining wall of the Federal Building. It was a miracle there wasn’t a protester standing in that spot where he narrowly missed a light pole and tree. He got out of his truck unhurt, but his MAGA Trump ego was smashed like the front end of his truck. Once his truck is repaired he can now pull up to a gas pump and give it the “middle finger salute” thanks to his president’s war! All I can say to this MAGA dude, you better be damn grateful that nobody was standing on the sidewalk otherwise you would be reading this letter in jail facing vehicular manslaughter charges!
Frank Harper
Springfield
Watershed Bill of Rights Measure 20-373
It is ironic that the proponents and opponents of the Watershed Bill of Rights Measure 20-373 all want the same result for our county; clean and safe drinking water protections and effective management of our watershed and ecosystem.
This measure looks to secure existing laws that ensure the integrity of water resources that are being stripped and dismantled by the current federal administration as well as by local corporate pollution. Last year, the EPA removed Clean Water Act protection for millions of acres of wetlands and streams.
EWEB claims “the watershed measure bill of rights is vague and broad in language and that it poses unwarranted risks to efficient management of water resources, could hinder conservation efforts and detracts from the public’s trust.” That quote and “anticipated significant legal complications and increased regulations” from EWEB doesn’t get much broader and vague in scare tactic messaging than the claim EWEB has of the watershed measure.
Robert Macfarlane writes in his book, Is A River Alive, “I sometimes wonder if the Rights of Nature is just serving as a proxy in an asymmetrical power situation that already exists, irrespective of the river’s actuality. For it not be happening not just among Indigenous communities, or among artists and writers and fringe weirdos like us — but also actors, corporate actors, industrial actors, the whole cast. The power holders.”
We need to quit being actors, to work collectively and embrace the Watershed Bill of Rights.
Jim Neu
Eugene
Thanks Rep. Lisa Fragala
As a college student in Eugene, I want to thank Rep. Lisa Fragala and the rest of the Lane County legislative delegation for protecting funding for higher education in the 2026 state budget. That decision will directly affect students like me here in Eugene and thousands of others across Oregon.
Each year, students from campuses across the state travel to Salem to share our stories with lawmakers. We talk about working multiple jobs, navigating college as first-generation students and doing everything we can to stay enrolled while costs keep rising. By protecting higher education funding this year, our local legislators showed they were listening.
College can open doors, but only if students can afford to walk through them. For too many low-income and first-generation students, cost is still the biggest barrier. It determines whether college feels possible at all.
Oregon still has work to do. Our state ranks 46th in the nation for per-student public investment in its universities, which helps explain why tuition remains a heavy burden for many students.
This year’s decision provided important relief and stability for students and universities alike and my peers across Oregon are grateful for it. As the state begins planning for the 2027 budget, we hope lawmakers build on this progress and work together to strengthen long-term support for higher education.
Students are paying attention, and we are counting on our leaders to keep showing up for us.
Taliek Lopez-DuBoff
Eugene
ONLINE EXTRA LETTERS
Pete Hegseth Incompetence
Pete Hegseth should be held responsible for the recent mass murder at the Tehran school for children. He is a chucklehead lacking the seriousness to lead the Pentagon. Once again the principle of double effect is invoked making our military leaders only accountable for what they intend in war, not what happens on the ground.
Trump’s “four day war” is already a lie. We need to steel ourselves for the coming bonfire of human waste as we now know the conflict is being wildly mismanaged. Hegseth disbanded the Pentagon unit to minimize non-combatant death.
Bruce Balchen
Eugene
Poisoning our Water
Every glass of water in Eugene starts in the McKenzie. Timber companies legally spray herbicides over clear-cuts that drain into it. Those chemicals end up in the water you pour for your kids. Now a corporate front group called Protect Our County is lying to voters about Measure 20-373, which would give residents the right to protect that water. Their talking points collapse under the slightest scrutiny.
They claim it would “force cuts to critical services.” Lie. It does not redirect county funding. Fines go to Lane County for enforcement.
They call it a “blank check” for taxpayers. Lie. Polluters pay for damage they cause. That is not a blank check. That is accountability.
They say it is “vague and poorly written” with no public input. Over 16,000 Lane County voters signed to put it on the ballot. That is not a backroom deal. That is democracy.
They claim it “abandons science.” The precautionary principle is established in environmental law worldwide. We should not have to wait until damage is irreversible to protect drinking water.
They warn it is unconstitutional. Telling voters not to exercise their rights because corporations might sue is not a legal argument. It is intimidation.
Protect Our County is funded by the industries poisoning our water. They are not protecting our county. They are protecting their profits. Do not let them scare you out of your own rights.
Vote yes on 20-373.
Nick Squires
Eugene
Phrygian Caps and Liberty Poles as Symbols of Protest
Several weeks ago the New York Times published an article about hats being knitted in Minnesota as a fundraising campaign to assist immigrant communities and to serve as symbols of resistance to the federal occupation of Minneapolis. Known as “Melt the Ice” hats and made of bright red yarn, the designer shared that he had been inspired by the red-hatted Norwegians who resisted Nazi occupation during World War II. Yet the red hat’s connection to our own American history — along with the liberty pole — both powerful symbols of resistance to the perceived tyrannies of Great Britain and King George III — is a seldom told tale.
In ancient Rome, a manumitted slave was often issued a conical red-felt hat known as a pileus to show he had been freed, thus beginning the long association of red hats with liberty. Yet over the centuries, the Phrygian cap with its distinctive apex — long worn in the Middle East and Greece — would replace the pileus as a symbol of freedom.
Later to be known in colonial America as “liberty caps,” the red hat’s popularity is credited to Boston silversmith Paul Revere, who in 1766 introduced the Phrygian cap to the American public by his carved depictions of Libertas, the Roman goddess of liberty, holding aloft a Phrygian cap in celebration of the Stamp Act’s repeal.
The “liberty pole,” long used in Europe as a symbol of freedom, had been introduced to English political culture by King William III and quickly became associated with England’s 1689 Declaration of Rights. As such, during the years preceding the American War for Independence, many North American towns began erecting liberty poles to openly display their community’s support for American liberty and defiance to Great Britain. These poles were nearly always festooned with ribbons and other colorful adornments and topped with a red Phrygian cap before being raised to the huzzahs of citizens. In addition, these liberty poles served as sites for citizens to gather and hear the latest news concerning the American struggles with Great Britain and to rally their collective patriotic spirits.
Erected from Maine to Georgia, these majestic poles were rightfully considered acts of defiance by the royal authorities who simply tolerated their presence, but to the British troops stationed in the American colonies, their erections often became a game of cat-and-mouse as the soldiers would often destroy a pole, only for the colonists to plant another in its place as the American colonies descended toward war.
Today, in 2026, there are few reminders of liberty poles and their symbolic importance to our nation’s early history. Yet the Phrygian cap remains. Depicted on government seals, statues and in the artwork of the United States Congress — the red liberty cap remains a symbol of freedom for people in the United States, around the world.
Raymond M. Brown
Author of From the Parent Stem: England and the Making of America
Eugene
Congress has become the King’s Parliament
Our U.S. Congress is acting today like the captive Parliament did in the time of absolutist monarchy in England.
The purpose of the national legislature during medieval times in England was to serve as the “pretend” servant of the people. In reality, it served only as a front for the wishes of the dynasties of kings there.
Listen to Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md), chair of the House Freedom Caucus, discussing the work of the Republican party’s annual policy retreat in South Florida. He said, “We have to discuss exactly how we advance the President’s agenda for the last eight months before the election . . . and set those plans in motion.” (“House of Representatives’ meager majority faces big problems ahead of the midterms,” Politico, March 9)
Another proof of the Congress’ abject servility to its single-minded political boss is that its principal remaining function is to raise the money the President wants for his personal national budget. That is what Congress obediently did recently in the Big, Beautiful Bill sponsored by the White House.
Congress is now a slave to one man and is no longer the servant of a diverse nation of 335,000,000 citizens.