Biz Beat 7-24-2014

The local real estate market appears to be doing well with residential sale prices improving in all areas, many by double digits, according to a flyer sent out last week by broker Sally Nunn. Nunn’s numbers compare June 2013 with June 2014 and show the biggest gains in the McKenzie Valley (16.9 percent) and Springfield (13.4 percent). West Eugene home sales went up 10 percent with other parts of Eugene showing single-digit growth. The number of closed sales in the metro area increased 3.7 percent and the number of new listings grew by 6.5 percent.  Continue reading 

Nancy-Diane Mannelli Brewer

Nancy-Diane Mannelli Brewer.

“New York didn’t resonate with me,” says Nancy-Diane Mannelli Brewer, who grew up in Northport, on Long Island. “It’s too fast-paced and competitive. I left when I was 18.” Mannelli studied for a year at West Virginia University in Morgantown, where she discovered Transcendental Meditation, and spent three years of quiet spiritual practice at an ashram in the Catskills, where she met her husband-to-be Bill Brewer, an artist. She taught TM for a while in Annapolis and in Bermuda, until she and Brewer got married, moved to Seattle and had a daughter, Rhice. Continue reading 

EPD’s ‘Sustained’ Rate Of Misconduct Grows

The Eugene Police Department (EPD) finds that in approximately 44 percent of the cases investigated for serious misconduct, the officer investigated has committed serious misconduct. That is a rate higher than many other cities, according to the city of Eugene Police Auditor’s 2013 Annual Report. The report, released May 31, shows four other cities with “sustained” rates ranging from 2 to 20 percent. Continue reading 

Gravel Mining Laws Overdue For Updates

All around Oregon exist areas of land that were zoned for mining back in the 1970s. These mines are sometimes nearly unused or lie dormant for a decade. Homeowners who thought they bought country property in an agricultural area wake up to discover a gravel mine as their loud, new next-door neighbor, and there is often little they can do to stop it or reduce the effects of truck traffic, noise and dust. State Sen. Floyd Prozanski says current mining laws are out of date in Oregon and need to be modernized.  Continue reading 

Pollution Update 7-24-14

Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) followed up on the pre-enforcement notice it sent to Hollingsworth & Vose Fiber Company (H&V) in May for hazardous waste law violations at its Corvallis facility (see EW 5/22, goo.gl/yde2bm) with a $10,400 civil penalty on July 16. The most serious of H&V’s multiple violations concerned failure to clean up releases of crushed brick dust containing barium, cadmium and chromium. Continue reading 

Fundraising for injured Rob English of English Cycles

Rob English, who makes custom cycles here in Eugene as English Cycles, was injured riding in the Tour of Aufderheide last weekend and is still in the hospital with broken bones and other injuries according to a GiveForward page that was created to fundraise for him and his wife Misha Dunlap English as he recovers. You can read about Rob English's work in a recent EW Bikes issue. Continue reading