News: Page 379

Kidnapping In Laos Affects Civil Society

News

Sombath Somphone is “one of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic’s most respected civil society figures,” according  to a December 2013 press statement from Secretary of State John Kerry on the one year anniversary of Sombath’s disappearance. Sombath was kidnapped from a police checkpoint in Laos and has not been heard from since. Sombath’s wife, Ng Shui-Meng, will be speaking about her husband’s disappearance and the challenges to free speech and human rights in Laos and in the rest of Southeast Asia while in Eugene on Monday, April 21. Continue reading →

This Easter Consider the Bunnicula Side of Things

News
Don’t give your kids a bunny for Easter, give them a rat. Photo credit: wikipedia.org

The Easter Bunny is bouncy, fuzzy and lays eggs. Bunnicula, the vampire, vegetable-sucking rabbit, is reserved, misunderstood and has razor sharp fangs. While both of these sets of characteristics are (almost) all true, real rabbits are made up of a complex combination of the two, something that the holiday Easter Bunny character glosses over. Continue reading →

Pollution Update 4-17-14

Pollution Update

Oregon Department of Environmental Quality sent San Mateo-based J.H. Baxter & Co. a warning letter on March 31 for various hazardous waste law violations discovered by DEQ during an unannounced inspection on March 25 at Baxter’s wood treatment facility in Eugene’s Trainsong neighborhood. Violations included failure to label hazardous waste, failure to conduct required hazardous waste inspections, failure to provide up-to-date contingency plans to first responders and failure to clean up spills. Continue reading →

Lane County Area Spray Schedule 4-17-14

Spray Schedule

• M Three Timber Company, LLC, 767-3785, plans to spray Accord XRT and Element 3A on their timberlands countywide in Lane County. See ODF notice 2014-781-00342, call Stewardship Forester Brian Peterson at 935-2283 with questions.  • Giustina Resources, 485-1500, plans to hire Strata Forestry, Inc., 726-0845, to spray glyphosate, hexazinone and/or sulfometuron methyl on 71 acres near Dexter Lake tributaries. See ODF notice 2014-771-00336, call Stewardship Forester Marvin Vetter at 726-3588 with questions.  Continue reading →

Biz Beat 4-10-2014

Biz Beat

What’s happening with the LUCiA development on Friendly Street? Construction on the second row of townhouses is expected to wrap up by June 1 and one of the units has already been sold, says Mel Bankoff, who is in partnership with architect Jan Fillinger of studio-e architecture and  project manager Teri Reifer (see our 2013 story at wkly.ws/1q3). Bankoff says he plans to have open houses in mid-April. The third phase of residential development will begin in June with a completion target of March 2015. Continue reading →

Eric Schiff

Happening People
Photo by Paul Neevel

After high school in Cleveland, Ohio, and a year at Case Western Reserve, Eric Schiff followed his older brother to Eugene and the UO. “We had done summer trips out here with the family,” says Schiff, who learned metalsmithing from Max Nixon, made jewelry, played fiddle in a few bands, studied computer science and worked as a pre-school teacher at the UO Child Care Center, on his way to a bachelor’s in sociology in 1977. Continue reading →