• We are still reeling at the news of the school shooting at Silver Rail Elementary in Bend. That children and teachers were once again murdered in their classroom where they should have been safe is beyond tragic. The 911 call came in at 12:59 pm and within five minutes, the shooter was dead and police were on the scene. Three heroes intervened to stop the shooting: the passerby in the truck who called 911, the father with the legal concealed weapon who shot and killed the shooter and the teacher in the special education classroom who tackled the shooter all put their lives on the line. There should have been no lives lost and none on the line.
• We are inundated with enthusiastic viewpoints and letters about Measure 20-388, the Eugene Clean Energy Fund. Read a viewpoint from incoming Eugene City Councilor Jennifer Smith and a slew of letters on the topic (spoiler alert, most of them are pro the fund). Also online is an election viewpoint from local attorney Zach Klonoski on Rep. Val Hoyle in the face of the Trump administration. Also, because there’s an election on the horizon, read about the Heather Buch versus Jake Pelroy race for Lane County Commission and an in-depth article on CleanLane.
• The Cottage Grove Sentinel, established in 1889, announced it will cease publication Oct. 28, due to lack of advertising revenue. It’s the third small rural Lane County paper to shutter this year. Another sobering reminder of the economic pressures threatening longtime community newspapers — and what we stand to lose when they disappear.
• The decade-long dispute over a proposed gravel quarry on TV Butte, just outside of Oakridge, came before Lane County Board of Commissioners again at an Oct. 20 public hearing. All of the testimony was in opposition to the proposed quarry, with James Cleavenger, Oakridge city administrator, telling right-leaning commissioners David Loveall, Ryan Ceniga and Pat Farr, “You should be ashamed of yourselves, and I have no idea how you sleep at night.” Five days earlier, the Oakridge City Council passed a resolution prohibiting the use of city resources to support mining operations on the butte and Westfir has a similar plan. The commissioners voted to leave the public record open for three weeks.
• Back to the Eugene Clean Energy Fund. Typo alert! In our print story we said that the 2 percent fee would be on large retailers with gross profits exceeding a million dollars nationally and $500,000 in Eugene. Yeah, that would be a billion not a million. Zeros matter. Also in whoopses, we wrote in Slant that the city had stepped up to help White Lotus Gallery transition to online-only sales by arranging the Jacobs Gallery show, but White Lotus says nope, it was already arranged. What was that slogan again? A great city (not the greatest) for arts and outdoors?
• In case you have not noticed, flu, cold and COVID season is here — and there’s something you can do about it. (And no, that something is not to take ivermectin. And if you are a neti pot fan, you do you!). Get a flu shot, get a COVID vaccine, and if you are sick, take a break and if you are out and about, wear a mask. It’s about health, not politics.