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Camilla Mortensen is the longtime local editor of Eugene Weekly, the area’s alternative newspaper. The paper, which has been in print since 1982 (originally as What’s Happening) continues to print more than 27,000 copies a week in addition to its popular email newsletters and website. Camilla has a masters degree in folklore and mythology from UCLA and a doctorate in comparative literature from the University of Oregon. She has been a reporter and editor at EW since 2007 and teaches journalism at the UO in the mornings before heading to the Weekly’s office. She also teaches newswriting at Lane Community College and advises The Torch student newspaper.
Mark Frohnmayer is tired of feeling like he has to vote for the “lesser of two evils” in the Oregon elections process, and he’s out to change our primary process to a more open process called “approval voting.” Continue reading
The upper level Lane County Public Service Building is going through a $750,000 remodel; this includes the area around where the county commissioners work, though not, according to County Spokesperson Anne Marie Levis, their actual offices. Work began last week and is expected to wrap up on Jan. 25, according to a Sept. 30 email from Capital Projects Manager Brian Craner to Commissioner Pete Sorenson. Continue reading
Months after county administrator Liane Richardson was fired over changes she made to her pay, Lane County citizens still don’t know the whole story about what happened. Various news organizations, including Eugene Weekly, made public records requests for copies of the outside investigation by USO Consulting that examined the circumstances surrounding the compensation changes, but the county hasn’t released it in an unredacted form. The investigation found that Richardson violated county policy, but the county never gave any more details. Continue reading
Sen. Ron Wyden released his long-awaited company bill to Rep. Peter DeFazio’s O&C Trust, Conservation and Jobs Act on Nov. 26, shortly before the Thanksgiving holiday. Environmental organizations such as Oregon Wild and Cascadia Wildlands immediately greeted the bill, which calls for “ecological forestry” on the controversial public lands, with disappointment and criticism. Continue reading
Duck confit, duck charcuterie, duck-fat ice cream … sometimes you have to break a few duck eggs and eat a few fowl in order to protect ducks and their habitat. On Dec. 11, local restaurant Party Downtown is teaming up with conservation group McKenzie River Trust (MRT) for an evening of duck feasting and river saving, along with celebrity hunter, gardener and cook Hank Shaw. Shaw is on tour promoting his new book, Duck, Duck, Goose: The Ultimate Guide to Cooking Waterfowl, Both Farmed and Wild. Continue reading
Attempts to move megaloads of Canadian tar sands extraction equipment are being met with strong resistance in Eastern Oregon. On Dec. 1, two opponents of the loads locked themselves to the transport vehicles, while still more of the more than 50 protesters from anti-climate change groups 350.org and Rising Tide as well as Oregon tribes “held down a ceremonial line” in front of the truck, according to Kayla Godowa Tufti, a Eugene resident and Warm Springs tribe member who participated in the action. On Dec. Continue reading
I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't realize Oregon had 185 state parks. Not only do we have that many parks, The Weather Machine has filmed its new music video for "Back O'er Oregon" in all of them. Here's the list of parks from The Weather Machine's website, in order of appearance (*indicate not a state park): Portland, OR 0:01* Continue reading
"I don't want to see duplexes in center field," said a young Eugenean back before Civic Stadium stopped hosting events in 2009. The kid who appears in a video about Civic on ArcheologyChannel.org was prophetic — the two main proposals from the Y and from Fred Meyer for Civic involve tearing it down. Continue reading
The Hanford Site, also known as the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, or most often, simply Hanford, is home to the nation’s largest nuclear waste dump. The 586-square-mile site on a plateau near the Columbia River is also the location of the Pacific Northwest’s only commercial nuclear reactor. Hanford was started in 1943 as a result of the Manhattan Project and America’s attempts to develop the atomic bomb. Continue reading
On Nov. 24 massive loads of tar sands equipment — some as long as a football field — will hit the roads of rural Eastern Oregon, traveling from Umatilla through the small towns of Prairie City and John Day to Homedale, Idaho. Activists, Native Americans, rural dwellers and more have been fighting the so-called megaload shipments for three years now in Idaho and Montana, and now the fight has come to Oregon. Continue reading