News Briefs

One of our intrepid summer interns took her camera and notepad to the streets of Eugene last week and asked people, “If you could compete in one Olympic event, what would it be and why?”

Quinn Barraza

I would do gymnastics, because my older sister did gymnastics and it holds a special place in my heart.

Cornucopia’s Maize Lounge at 13th and Oak closed down without notice this past weekend and all future music gigs were canceled. Moving trucks were seen outside Monday morning, hauling off furniture and equipment for storage in a rented warehouse. Maize offered food, a full bar and a stage for live music. We hear a big hike coming in lease payments was behind the decision; Cornucopia’s other two restaurants are doing fine. Alison Albrecht and Nils Stark are owners of the business, but not the old building, which used to be a Cadillac dealership.

Cougar Mountain Farm is holding its seventh annual farm benefit, the Tayberry Jam, Aug. 3-5, to help fund advancements toward the farm’s development of a sustainable living center to further empower what has become its very own sustainable living movement. 

The “little blue school” has been empty for 10 years. The community of Noti, 16 miles west of Eugene in the foothills of the Coast Range, saw the historic building close down in June 2002 due to budget shortfalls. But this year, it’s opening back up, according to Leontine Winters Krohn, president of the Noti Community Center. The school’s inaugural fundraiser is a production of Cinderella by Ballet Fantastique accompanied by live ’60s music from singing duo Shelley and Cal and their band at 2:30 pm Saturday, Aug. 4.

Have some pasta and honor a soldier: The nonprofit Honor Flight of Oregon is putting on an “all-you-can-eat spaghetti feed” Sunday to raise money to send World War II veterans from Lane, Lincoln, Benton and Linn counties to see war memorials in Washington, D.C., before the soldiers pass on. In 2011, the average age of a WWII vet was 92. 

Timber Town growls and belches mostly outside of Tree Town’s collective consciousness.

Conscious of it or not, we find our air is fouled by biomass burners, wood and paper processing gases and log treatment vapors. The surrounding forest that feeds the mills, hidden largely behind locked gates (but not from Google Earth), is fragmented with huge clearcuts and freshly sprayed plantations. Our precious water, bleeding out of these heavily logged watersheds, is contaminated by eroded soil and toxic forest chemicals.

The grand opening of the Sweetwater Farm Stand at Centennial Dari Mart, 1243 Rainbow Drive in Springfield, was July 25. The mobile organic farm stand “brings farm fresh produce to the neighborhood convenience store,” according to Claire Syrett, the new manager of policy and advocacy initiatives at Lane Coalition for Healthy Active Youth. LCHA is one of the partners of this initiative, along with Willamette Farm & Food, Neighborhood Economic Development Corporation and Sweetwater Farm. The stand will be open from 4 to 6 pm every Wednesday through September.

In the ongoing debate over whether people are smart enough to learn to use reusable bags, the Eugene City Council will continue exploring a ban on single-use plastic bags in grocery stores at a public hearing Sept. 17.

If this sounds familiar, Eugene postponed past discussions of a bag ban to see if a 2011 statewide ban would pass. It didn’t, and in the meantime individual cities including Portland and Corvallis have implemented local bans.

If you want to prepare a raccoon before cooking it, consult the 1970s edition of Joy of Cooking, which says “remove all fat, inside and out,” and then soak it in saltwater overnight in the refrigerator. But a more likely conundrum in Eugene these days might be: What if one bites you without being provoked?

Lane County has called in the USDA’s controversial Wildlife Services to trap a bear out of its Rattlesnake Road waste disposal site. But Brooks Fahy of Predator Defense questions why Lane County is spending the money to trap a bear when it’s letting criminals out of its jail. 

Oregon has an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 black bears according to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, and bears showing up around human habitation is not uncommon. 

• A free screening of Bag It!, a documentary on plastic bags, will be at 7:30 pm Thursday, July 19, at Cozmic, 199 W. 8th Ave. in Eugene. Sponsored by OLCV, Surfrider Foundation, Sierra Club and Environment Oregon. Plastic bags will be on the agenda of a work session of the Eugene City Council Monday, July 23, and a draft ordinance can be read at www.Eugene-or.gov

Oregon isn’t the only place on the West Coast fighting polluting energy pipelines. The Unis’tot’en and Wetsu’wet’in First Nations have blockaded the pathway of five proposed pipelines collectively called The Northern Gateway leading from the tar sands out through ancient forests and native lands to the coast of British Columbia.