An Honorary Pulitzer
If Pulitzer Prizes for investigative reporting are awarded to local weekly reporters, Christian Wihtol deserves top honors for his second in-depth exposure of Kathleen Jones-McCann’s “Floodway Folly,” Oct. 15. Thanks to Wihtol’s vigilance, we Lane County residents can follow the money from Jones-McCann’s political contributions to Commissioners Loveall and Ceniga’s re-election campaigns for their votes in her favor to putting Commissioner candidate Jake Pelroy in her pocket in an shameless attempt to replace the ousted Commissioner Loveall on the Board of Commissioners with another “yes” vote.
Reading this saga of grift and illegal activity is like watching a sordid local enactment of the Trump saga of epic corruption and arrogance. And what delicious irony permeates David Loveall’s admiration for Jones-McCann’s behavior in his comment at a September commission meeting: “This is a person of means. It takes a person of means to set precedent and policy for those who don’t have means.” Translation: If you’re rich, you can do whatever you damn well please and buy the votes to do it.
But who knows, perhaps Jones-McCann will make amends for her sins and take some of the “freaking fortune” she’s spending on lawyers and Pelroy’s campaign to increase her food stores that she says “could feed half of Eugene” to donate that food to the half of Eugene that doesn’t have the means.
Karen Myers
Eugene
Letter from a Former Mayor
It’s time to vote, and it’s important. Much about our future hangs in the balance.
In these times, we often feel the challenges are so large there is little we can do locally. One of those issues is our changing climate, bringing floods, drought, hunger, hurricanes and fires at great economic and human cost to our families.
To our credit, we’ve been working to mitigate climate change over the years. When I served as your mayor, it was my priority, and with community and council help, we implemented many important changes including the Climate Recovery Ordinance, codifying legally binding targets to reduce fossil fuel use by 50 percent by 2030 and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions use to zero by 2050. We were leaders in the nation!
In this current crisis, we are unfortunately falling behind, but we can do something about that. A huge coalition of organizations and individuals you can trust have worked to put before you Measure 20-388, which would require huge billion-dollar corporations to pay their fair share to mitigate their impact on our community. It’s simply accountability to you! It’s well thought out and reasonable and it will move us toward our community climate goal commitment.
Kitty Piercy
Former mayor of Eugene
Eugene
Who Pays?
Wait! We are being urged to tax big box stores like Walmart and Target. Aren’t those the same stores placed near the dense areas of apartments, because, you know, what a blight for the nice parts of town? And didn’t we just finish changing all those lanes so that the EmX buses can get the folks to Walmart with less dirty energy than the folks who drive their cars from the south and east? But why would they go to the tacky stores clustered out west? It’s the poor and working folks who like those stores. So tax the big box stores — and ultimately, who cares? The tax just gets passed on to the poor folks in the cheap apartments.
It will be so nice for the homeowners who get to access those funds to retrofit their homes.
Find someone else to tax.
Hilary Anthony
Eugene
UO’s Abundance of Money — and Difficulties
In her article “More money, More problems,” Eve Weston raises an interesting question through University of Oregon’s recent $1 billion donation: Is expansion really the best use of UO’s resources when the university is already struggling with financial difficulties?
As stated in the article, UO is facing a projected $65 million budget deficit that is already threatening existing programs. While I’m sure the university will make use of the donation, I have doubts about whether expanding is the right decision over addressing the financial deficits the university is already facing.
This is especially concerning given that students and employees already face uncertainty about existing programs. I understand that a donation of this size represents the possibility of growth for the university, but that should not come at the expense of pre-existing programs that the staff and students have put so much effort into maintaining.
I think UO should really consider the costs of this expansion alongside the needs of existing programs. While I’m sure many students would appreciate new opportunities, those benefits should not come at the cost of students’ current educational resources or employees’ livelihoods.
Odin Livingston
Eugene
ELECTION LETTERS
Yes on Clean Energy Fund
Those who fail to learn history’s lessons will repeat them. Given recent history, the November referendum on the Eugene Clean Energy Fund (ECEF) means our mail and local media will be flooded by slickly produced corporate propaganda and misinformation.
In May, opponents of the Lane County Watershed Bill of Rights, including Big Timber and corporate PACs, spent record amounts, about $400,000, to defeat the initiative. Another lesson can be learned from the fate of the Oregon Climate Resilience Superfund Bill (SB1541) that was killed by a handful of petroleum and chemical industry lobbyists despite overwhelmingly positive public testimony.
Expect similar heavy hitters to line up against the ECEF, which would levy a 2 percent city tax on billion-dollar-a-year corporations with $500,000 in local revenue. ECEF would exempt profits on sales of food, medicines and prescription drugs, healthcare services and waste removal. Contractors, utilities, co-ops and credit unions are also exempt. The law decrees that revenue will be overseen by a nine-member community committee and the city council and distributed, by law, 60 percent to renewable energy and energy efficiency, 25 percent to clean energy jobs and workforce development, 10 percent to green infrastructure, and 5 percent to future innovation. No more than 10 percent can be carved out to pay administrative costs.
This will be obscured by the affected corporations, which include multinational banks, big tech and retailers. Learn history lessons. Read the measure before you vote. Make greedy corporations pay their fair share of the damage they incur. Vote yes on 20-388!
Bernard Cowen
Eugene
Vote! (But for Clean Energy)
There appears to be plenty of opinions about the Eugene Clean Energy Measure 20-388 that fail the facts, which is perplexing as they are clearly spelled out on the ballot. It is not a “hidden sales tax” or will be “unaccountable funds.”
As written in the measure, the 2 percent fee on big box stores is based on corporate profits, not sales or costs of goods sold. Big box stores price goods nationally, not locally. If this weren’t true, a Springfield Walmart would under-sell a Eugene Walmart. Portland, which passed a successful clean energy fund several years ago, receipts reflect no added cost to customers.
A committee of nine will oversee the dispersal of funds generated by the clean energy measure. Two city council members, one EWEB commissioner, one city sustainability commission member, one city human rights commissioner and five citizens chosen by council members will decide where the funds will best be spent on energy-related aspects of the measure. This oversight by elected representatives insures accountability in monies generated and where the measure states it will be used.
It is important for voters to read the statements in their ballots to ensure they make a proper and unbiased decision on voting in November. There is a lot of disinformation by corporate and political entities wanting to stoke fear into your decision on voting. Make sure you have the facts, nothing but the facts before you vote. But do vote!
Jim Neu
Eugene
Vote for Hoyle
For decades, I’ve been an advocate for education, for workers and for youth and families in Lane County.
I have seen firsthand that Val Hoyle takes care of our community with meaningful strength and compassion.
It really matters “who” is in leadership. We need leaders who understand the social and economic struggles that so many of us face in our daily lives.
We need leaders who treat everyone with dignity, and who know that all youth need access to opportunities.
Hoyle is an experienced, committed leader with a proven history of prioritizing programs that provide young people with a sense of purpose and a path to success.
Hoyle helped lead the fight to raise the minimum wage, and she will continue to lead the way towards improving the quality of life for all.
Hoyle is not afraid to stand with professionalism and integrity for the people she serves!
Please vote for Val Hoyle for Oregon’s 4th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Linda Hamilton
Eugene
Support for Cuadros
As a longtime supporter of the Springfield Public Library, I believe a strong library is an important part of a strong community. I support Jill Cuadros for Springfield City Council and appreciate her work to keep the library on the council’s agenda.
Springfield faces an ongoing structural deficit, and there is a finite amount of money available for library services and other essential city needs. Cuadros joined the council as it faced those difficult budget decisions. She voted for the budget, understanding that the council must make choices within the resources available.
As a library supporter, I want the strongest services we can sustain. I appreciate that Cuadros has continued asking questions about library funding and seeking information and community input to help the council revisit the issue.
That follow-through matters. Adopting a budget should not mean closing the conversation about the people affected by it.
Any expansion of library services will require sustainable funding and honest discussion about competing community needs. I want councilors who listen, ask difficult questions and keep working after a vote is taken.
Cuadros has shown me that willingness. I support her continued service and encourage Springfield voters to vote for Jill Cuadros for City Council.
John Wayland
Springfield
Let’s Lift Oregonians Up, Not Tear Each Other Down
I am an Oregonian who is tired of watching political campaigns spend enormous amounts of money attacking opponents while so many people in our state struggle to afford food, housing, health care and basic necessities.
Seniors, people with disabilities and working families are struggling to make ends meet. Imagine what we could accomplish if political candidates made helping these people a priority.
I propose a new voluntary standard for Oregon politics: for every dollar spent on negative political advertising, candidates should pledge an equal dollar toward programs that help Oregonians in need.
I understand that campaign finances are subject to election laws. I am calling for a voluntary commitment, not suggesting that campaign funds can simply be redirected without regard to those laws.
Candidates can disagree without tearing one another down. Tell us what you stand for. Tell us how you will improve our state. Give us reasons to believe in you rather than reasons to hate your opponent.
We are better than this.
If we have the money to attack one another, surely we can find ways to help one another.
I challenge Gov. Tina Kotek and every political candidate in Oregon to lead by example. Let’s spend less time tearing people down and more time lifting people up.
For every dollar spent tearing people down, give a dollar to lift someone up.
That is the kind of Oregon I want to live in.
Kristi Myers
Elmira
Do Better
Following two recent congressional candidate forums, one hosted by the Rotary Club of Reedsport and another by the City Club of Eugene, I have been troubled by one campaign’s repeated declarations of victory through celebratory posts on its own social media platforms.
Public candidate forums are not sporting events, nor are they competitions with trophies to be awarded. Organizations like Rotary and City Club provide an important civic service by creating spaces where candidates can answer difficult questions, articulate policy positions, and demonstrate an understanding of the communities they hope to represent. These forums exist to inform voters, not to validate a candidate’s assessment of their own performance.
When campaigns turn these opportunities into self-proclaimed victories, the emphasis risks shifting from public accountability and constituent concerns toward political competition, personal validation, and campaign optics.
This concern transcends party affiliation. As an unaffiliated voter, I value meaningful discussions about affordability, housing, public safety, and infrastructure — not political theater.
Show us substance, not bravado. Do better.
Sarah A. Koski
Eugene
Vote for Ackland
Is Springfield working for you? I think staff and workers there are great, but the council has just been rubber stamping every hare-brained development scheme that shows up. They’ve gone for $700,000 spent on plans for a never built “mass timber” parking structure, then $2 million for a never built “mass timber Blue McKenzie” high-rise apartment at the old Buick dealership downtown, a proposed $2.5 million subsidy for a never built Glenwood high rise hotel and a zoning change for another never built hotel/conference center in Gateway that would have displaced 80 senior citizens from their homes. These schemes don’t just cost up-front money, they eat up valuable staff and attorney time and spend a bunch more on consultants. They’re also trying to keep building roundabouts all over the place and are thinking of tearing up Gateway/Beltline again, want to tear out and replace the river protection berm along 42nd St and propose a multi-million dollar indoor sports facility. The costs for these proposals are massive.
Meantime, we are falling short on road maintenance money, housing support, library budget and many other services that we really need.
Let’s move away from a council that bends over backwards for the latest slick out of town developer. Let’s elect Callee Ackland for Council Ward 4. She will work for all of us and will move Springfield in the right direction, for now and for future residents.
Mike Koivula
Springfield
ONLINE EXTRA LETTERS
Love Taxes
Since 1997, two-thirds of ballot measures increasing taxes were approved. Twenty-five percent of offices had two or more candidates, while 9 percent had zero. This November election has 10 percent with none paying the $10 fee. Our representatives constantly increase taxes like the Corporate Activity Tax, a sales tax of 0.57 percent on sales receipts. It continues to get harder living here — or is it because of our love for more taxes? Taxes exist to pay for public agencies to manage public property, law and order.
Merchants get revenue through voluntary exchange of goods and services for currency. Unless offerings keep improving and expenses are reduced, it’s closing time. Employees are also businesses, trading time and skills for currency with similar demands to improve or go hungry.
Public agencies are a business form where profit is extracted in salaries, worker benefits and influence peddling. The merchant is motivated to find voluntary ways to stay profitable, but public agencies can’t go out of business. When more revenue is “desired” for higher payroll, agencies use propaganda to create the illusion of a need so either your representatives or you directly authorize giving more. We have the highest cost per school pupil yet the lowest educational outcomes among industrial nations.
Public agencies are a force; either pay up or lose your property, liberty and in some cases, life. They are notoriously wasteful. I have been a public worker, managed public departments, held public office, operated successful businesses and have yet to find any public enterprise responsibly spending taxes.
Keith Stanton
Florence
Medicare Part B
This week, like 20.8 million others enrolled in original Medicare, I received an unwelcome attempt to buy my vote in the form of a one-time $90 rebate on my Medicare Part B premium (35 million on Medicare Advantage and 12 million on disability and low-income assistance do not get the “rebate”), along with an email detailing what Trump has done to bring down the cost of health care in the U.S. This reduces my average monthly by a bout the price of a fancy coffee. Certainly not going to get much in the way of healthcare for $90!
So, in an effort to counteract this bribe, I am donating that $90 to an organization working to bring real relief to the millions the Trump administration has removed from the ACA, Social Security, SNAP, WIC, and other social services. I am also matching that amount with a $90 donation to an organization working to defeat the Trump administration agenda.
I encourage other beneficiaries of this pre-election stunt to donate their $90 “windfall” as well. Let’s use this money to make a real difference by helping to defeat the would-be dictator who is destroying our country by dismantling our government, prosecuting his political opponents, dividing us with lies and propaganda, misappropriating taxpayer funds, waging illegal wars, alienating our allies and courting our enemies. We can turn this “desperate attempt by a failed president to escape Americans’ revulsion with his failed agenda” (Sen. Ron Wyden) into some good.
Robin Spaziani
Cottage Grove
The American Nightmare
The American Dream for young people has become the American Nightmare.
Youngsters are uncertain about college education because, with or without college, they face a daunting job market.
Many are driven to live in their parents’ homes after schooling because they cannot afford their own housing.
When they find employment, they seem unable to hold a job for long.
Young folks have difficulty finding sturdy partners to form a marriage with, but when they do, they are unable because of financial reasons or unwilling for selfish reasons to bring children into this life.
There is an overall decline in ethics and declining religious knowledge and faith in their ranks.
Young adults are addicted to social media, have little interest in picking up a newspaper to learn about the community, and many or most have not read a serious book since their school days, if then.
Kimball Shinkosky
Woods Cross, Utah
The 2024 Election
Trump was not elected President in 2024. That theft happened electronically. See the 2025 book Jormungandr: A study in Global Human Trafficking by CIA agent turned-whistleblower Adam Zarnowski. The Elections Systems and Software (ES&S) electronic ballot, used by 95 percent of precincts in the USA, was fraudulent, claiming that a last-minute change to its ballot was minor. That permitted “minor” change was where the 2024 theft occurred. Zarnowski claimed that the CIA murdered his wife.
Electronic election theft has been occurring for decades. See the Columbus Free Press periodical, Dec.11, 2013, in the article that begins, “The ghost of rigged elections past…” Professor Bob Fitrakis, then editor of that newspaper, when I asked who was responsible for this electronic election theft in Ohio, that put George W. Bush in office in 2004, simply said, “The CIA.” Michael Connell was in charge of counting that vote for the Ohio Secretary of State. Connell was on his way to meet with the news media, including Fitrakis, when he was murdered.
In a 1988 Republican Party primary, I think in New Hampshire, Bob Dole was leading George W. Bush by eight points. When the votes were counted in the first major use of e-voting, Bush won by eight points. That 17-point turnaround proved e-voting theft. We have private and secret control, without secret ballots, over what are supposed to be the opposites.
Kevin Russell
Eugene
Livid at Congress
Federal and State Congresspersons in both Oregon and Washington state have conducted congressional oversight visits to the NW Detention Center in Tacoma. Often, they are either not let in to inspect or can only view certain parts of the facility. The purpose is to gather info so Congress will ensure detention centers are protecting immigrants’ civil and human rights.
GEO is not protecting immigrants’ civil and human rights! They are denying detainees timely medical care, serving spoiled food and charging exorbitant fees for everything from bottled water to phone cards. They frequently move migrants to other detention centers, interfering with legal representation. Detainees languish for indeterminate amounts of time, worse than for incarcerated persons who at least receive a sentence and know when time is served. The cruelty with which ICE and detention contractors treat human beings is beyond understanding.
ICE agents will now be wearing shock gloves when making arrests for civil crimes. No trace, no accounting for the pain they inflict, issued to inadequately trained enforcement hires as another tool for their violent presence on our nation’s streets.
I am livid at Congress for funding this police state. I am appalled by elected officials who go through the motions of Congressional Oversight, which does nothing to bring justice to the immigrant community. Where is the judiciary backing to stop this mass roundup of minorities who immigrated to make a better life? Civil law violations don’t equate with endless detentions, family separations, terrorizing children and bankrupting families.
Barbara Reuter
Springfeild
Crazy Talk
I’ve got some news for ya. The “crazy talk” ain’t crazy anymore.
The COVID “vaccine” was, in fact, a poorly designed genetic concoction based upon an inorganic, computer-designed and lab-produced sequence of supposed “genetic” material that killed, injured and maimed millions of people worldwide. And I can provide personal examples of all three outcomes from my own family and friends. And this ain’t “crazy talk”!
The liberal bourgeoisie love to complain about our crazy talk “Mad King” Donald Trump, but have nothing to say about Oregon’s Zionist senator, the geriatric Ron Wyden, and the slaughter of what’s left of the Palestinian people in Gaza. Not to mention the crazy talk of our self aggrandizing carpet bagger travel agent governor, Tina Kotek, who came out west from some podunk town in Pennsylvania to show us western folks how to live our lives. The good Lord willing, she’ll be sent packing soon enough. Or is that just “crazy talk.”
National news is now reporting on gas stations that are, somehow, “out of diesel.” Not much news to me since it was a month ago that I happened to see a Lane County gas station in just such a condition. You might want to consider the fact that “no diesel” means “no food” at your favorite grocery store. And if you are not currently preparing for the possibility of an economic downturn similar to the Great Depression of the 1930s, you might want to consider doing so. Because the “crazy talk” ain’t crazy anymore.
The Lane County commissioners spent $150 million on a worthless piece of wetlands property for some garbage transfer trip to save the earth or something and then got busted for having special non-public meetings to discuss the issue. There’s an old saying, “when the money’s gone, the party’s over.” Now the commissioners are closing down or limiting the operation of Lane County transfer stations due to “budget constraints.” Is it “crazy talk” to say that the commissioners are incompetent to a person and should be thrown out of office forthwith?
Finally, do you have some cash around the house should you need it due to an emergency bank holiday resulting from crazy talking “I’m the House” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent trying to save the Japanese yen? Not to worry. Go ahead and normalize it and just say: “Ain’t gonna happen.”
That’s just crazy talk.