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• Reality Kitchen, a nonprofit bakery that employs young adults with learning disabilities, is holding its inaugural “Dough Raiser” 3 pm Sunday, June 5, at Rye restaurant, 444 E. 3rd Ave. Reality Kitchen founder Jim Evangelista says the fundraiser will include a raffle and live music, as well as free hors d’oeuvres, beer and wine. For more info, call 541-337-1323 or email realitykitchen@gmail.com. Continue reading
Growing up in Nevada City in Northern California, Lisa Shea-Blanchard got her start in community theater at age 9 with the Foothill Theatre Company. “It was a big part of my childhood,” she says. “My sister and my parents were involved.” Shea studied for a degree in theater at UC Davis and an MFA at the University of Wisconsin, then moved to Seattle and took a job at the Museum of Flight, where she met exhibit manager Ken Blanchard. They got married and moved to Eugene in 1995. Continue reading
“I’m quite comfortable now talking about menstruation,” journalist and author Jonathan Eig tells EW. Eig is the author of New York Times bestseller The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution, and he came to Eugene May 25 as the keynote speaker for Planned Parenthood of Southwest Oregon’s annual gala. Continue reading
According to a 2015 article in Business Insider, the median sale price for a home in Silicon Valley is $1.05 million, and you’d have to make $212,800 a year just to afford the mortgage. Nationwide, technology has been a double-sided coin for communities, but here in the “Silicon Shire” we haven’t yet seen those kinds of astronomical leaps in the cost of living. Continue reading
As summer nears, people start heading for wineries like King Estate to sit on the patio, drink wine and admire the view of the hills out Lorane Highway. However, out in Oakridge, some residents worry their views and summer days will be spoiled if a gravel mine, an investment of Ed King’s Crown Properties LLC, begins to bite into 46 acres of a hillside known locally as TV Butte on the edge of town. Continue reading
Initiative Petition 28 is either a savior for Oregon schools or a doomsday tax that will ruin Oregon’s economy, depending on what you’ve read. As it turns out, it’s not so simple. IP 28 is a proposed “gross receipts” tax — a tax on a corporation’s sales without deducting costs and expenses — on businesses making $25 million or more in Oregon sales. It would generate $3 billion per year, and the petition to get it on the ballot asks that the money be used for education, health care and senior services. Continue reading
Oregon Department of Transportation is spraying roadsides. Call (503) 986-3010 to talk with a vegetation management coordinator or call 1-888-996-8080 for recent herbicide application information. Hwys. 36, 101 and 126 were recently sprayed. Continue reading
• The city of Eugene received an application for a 10-year property tax exemption under the Multi-Unit Property Tax Exemption (MUPTE) Program and it is taking public comments on the proposal. According to the city, “The Olive Lofts in Eugene is a proposed 5-story, 36-unit housing with ground floor commercial space at 844 Olive Street. Continue reading
At the University of Oregon, if a student is sexually assaulted and tells her or his instructor, then the professor or graduate teaching fellow must report what happened, whether or not the student wants it reported. This is required reporting, also known as mandatory reporting. Reports go to the UO’s Title IX coordinator. The UO's University Senate voted May 18 on new required reporting rules, with proposed rules narrowly defeated. Continue reading
In May 2013, when Lane County was attempting to pass a jail levy — a tax to increase the number of open beds at the Lane County Jail — the focus was on incarceration. Criminals were being released due to a lack of capacity, proponents said. Opponents to the levy pointed out that jail beds don’t stop the revolving door of drug abuse or mental health issues that often land people in jail. The levy passed, and three years later it was so successful in raising funds that the budget committee has voted to reduce the tax. Continue reading