Eugene Weekly

• Will the status quo hold? Lots of nail gnawing as we watched the local election results Tuesday night. As we go to press Wednesday morning, incumbent Jay Bozievich is only 45 votes ahead of Dawn Lesley in the West Lane County commissioner race and Faye Stewart has only a 33 vote margin to avoid a November runoff with Kevin Matthews for the East Lane County commissioner race. More ballots are yet to be hand counted. If the Bozievich-Lesley contest gets any closer in the final count, it could trigger an automatic recount. Continue reading →

• Election turnout is likely to be awful for the May 20 Primary since there’s not much on the ballot other than County Commission races, so if you’re ever wanted to make a difference, this is your time to shine. Every vote is bigger and badder when the turnout is small. Only about 12 percent of the ballots were in as of May 12. It’s peculiar that Lane County has more Democrats than Republicans and yet we’ve elected a right-wing, anti-environment majority to run the county. Continue reading →

• Look for our election issue and endorsements next week. Ballots will arrive in mailboxes soon for the May 20 Primary Election. You might not find a lot of sexy stuff on the ballot until the November General Election, but the primary has potentially a big impact. For those new to voting in Oregon, nonpartisan races, such as Lane County Commission positions, can be decided in the May Primary if one candidate gets at least 50 percent plus one vote. The commission races, of course, are anything but nonpartisan. Continue reading →

• Big development plans are brewing for Glenwood and huge tax breaks and concessions have been demanded by developers. But why shortchange our schools, public services and infrastructure in order to entice for-profit developers? Glenwood has an attractive riverfront and central location. It will evolve and develop just fine without tax breaks and subsidies. Continue reading →

• Oregon’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage passed in 2004 and since then we’ve seen a steady shift in public attitudes on gay rights. On April 23, a federal judge will hear oral arguments in a lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Oregon and Basic Rights Oregon. If the plaintiffs prevail, Oregon’s obsolete ban will be struck down. The legal arguments for upholding the ban have withered under scrutiny in other states and we hope the Oregon court will agree. Continue reading →

• It’s hard to calculate what it cost the city of Eugene to shut down Whoville last week, but it had to be a lot, figuring overtime for EPD and maybe others of the 60 or so city employees who were called to participate. Regardless of whether the coordinated action at this scale was justified or not, it gives the city administration a black eye. We noticed a “Fire Jon Ruiz” Facebook page is up as of April 6. The page has lots of posts but as we go to press it only has 59 “likes.” Continue reading →

• The death toll is still rising in the massive landslide in Snohomish County, Wash., that has killed an estimated 24 at last count with more than 100 people still unaccounted for. As the search for bodies continues, so does the search for answers — what triggered the massive slide that crumpled homes and blocked a river? And for Oregonians, we wonder, could it happen here on such a scale? The area in Washington had unstable soils and a history of slides, had been logged in the past and experienced heavy rains recently. Continue reading →