• Your little community rag is, as we like to say, one of the most Eugene things about Eugene, and it’s staying that way! After the deaths of longtime owners Anita and Art Johnson and Fred and Georga Taylor, their children have passed Eugene Weekly’s ownership to longtime editor Camilla Mortensen. Read the details in the letter from publisher Jody Rolnick in this issue and know that nothing changes — not the snark, not the staff and not the tradition of not taking a profit from the paper — every cent this paper makes goes back into the paper. Locally owned, locally written, EW is a community paper and always will be as we begin an eventual transition into community ownership.
• As smoke rolls in over the Willamette Valley and the temperature rises, news reports of the devastating fires in Spokane and on the Warm Springs Reservation, as well as still more wildfires in the U.S., Canada and Europe also roll in. There are so many things we can do to fight climate change — and one of them is vote. The Trump administration has set back the fight to save the environment in so many devastating ways. Protest. Vote. Repeat.
• To add insult to injury, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek’s requested Federal Emergency Management Agency aid as more than 80 fires — including for what at the time were the four largest wildfires in the nation — burned across more than 1 million acres here in Oregon. FEMA denied the request for two of the fires — East Evans Creek Fire and Rowe Creek Fire Complex — even though they met the criteria. A petty move against this blue state by the Trump administration that will hurt people and their livelihoods.
• This week in online extras! We love staining your hands with our ink, but for you digital lovers you can get the whole paper and more online — for free! Snowden intern Aishiki Nag continues to birddog the negotiations between the University of Oregon and its graduate student union (spoiler alert, it’s slow going). Of course there’s Activist Alert — the extended version, and stories about former Glitterfox bassist Eric Stalker performing with his new ’70s country-inspired band at Art House, and ’90s rock cover band Seeking Saturn continuing their “Turning Music into Meals” concert series benefitting Food for Lane County as part of our What’s Happening events coverage. And those of you who love a good movie review — you know who you are! Check out Kellan Quinn’s rollicking review of Gregg Araki’s I Want Your Sex, all at EugeneWeekly.com.
• A 26-year-old man is suing the Eugene Police Department for excessive force, battery and negligence in Lane County Circuit Court and asking for more than $1 million in damages. The dashcam video from the 2025 arrest shows Officer Stephen Lahm repeatedly punching Jehoshaphat Commandest as well as grabbing him by the neck and Tasing him. Commandest was being arrested for suspicion of trespassing, the suit says. He was also charged with resisting arrest, which was later dropped.
• The kids call it the Dirty Eug, but the city of Eugene calls it art! The new $45,000 EUG sculpture (that’s literally three colorful letters spelling out EUG) near the Hult Center is definitely a source of chatter! Do you love it? Is it Eugene’s answer to PDX airport carpet? Hate it? Don’t care? Let us know at EugeneWeekly.com in answer to this week’s EW Asks!