Slant

• It’s a unique Eugene honor to be selected as a Turtle by the City Club of Eugene  willing to stick your neck out for a good cause. The 2020 Turtles would have been introduced May 8 at the City Club meeting but COVID-19 interfered. Instead, introductions and Turtle responses will be virtual at noon on the City Club’s Facebook page and on YouTube a few days later. The 2020 Turtles are: Derek Johnson for his work on Civic Stadium; Kaarin Knudson for her work with Better Housing Together; and Our Children’s Trust, Julia Olsen, attorney, and Kiran Oommen, plaintiff, for environmental litigation. Presenters are former superintendent for Springfield Public Schools Nancy Golden for Johnson; retired real estate agent Jean Tate and Brittany Quick-Warner of the Eugene Chamber of Commerce for Knudson; and former mayor Kitty Piercy for OTC. Attorney John VanLandingham puts this all together, including ordering little cast-iron turtles with names engraved on them.

• New COVID-19 side sickness: Zoom fatigue. New 2020 fear: Murder hornets. Please don’t freak out on every bug you see, but if you think you see an actual Asian giant hornet, don’t let it sting you, document it and get away!  

• We are about eight weeks into COVID-19. Two months from when the reality of the virus hit Oregon and businesses were hit by shelter in place. The bulk of the advertising that pays to keep Eugene Weekly afloat tanked, but with the help of you amazing readers and your contributions, we have hung in there. A Small Business Administration Paycheck Protection Loan is paying salaries, but it’s the advertisers who have been able to take out ads and the wonderful contributions from you readers that are paying to print these pages. Thank you. 

The Register-Guard sank closer to oblivion last week with the paper’s May 1 announcement that it would no longer be running local editorials, not even from that opinion for hire place the paper had been using. A brief announcement on May 1 said the paper would run opinion pieces by “citizens and community leaders,” but on May 3 the RG ran, verbatim, a New York Times editorial without crediting the NYT online, though it did in print. The shift in editorial policy followed by days the departure of the RG’s executive editor, Alison Bath, and the elimination of her job; the RG’s  managing editor, Michelle Maxwell, is now supervised by Salem Statesman Journal Executive Editor Cherrill Crosby. How much longer can the remaining staff keep going under the business model of vulture capitalism? Eugene needs — and deserves — a high quality daily newspaper. A strong, clear editorial voice is part of community leadership.

Congrats to both Cydney Vandercar and the Eugene District 4J School Board for putting her in the interim superintendent slot for the next year. Starting as a substitute teacher in 4J, she was a math teacher, a principal and one of the two top women to work with Superintendent Gustavo Balderas, who is leaving Eugene this summer. She’s only the second woman to be 4J superintendent. Her big challenge will be working amicably and effectively with this fractious board, if only for a year. The search for the permanent superintendent will start in the fall. We wish Vandercar well.

• Don’t forget to check us out online at EugeneWeekly.com. We have stories on how Eugene will be one of 60 locations that has Ballette machinery that can decontaminate used N95 masks, the Lane County Board of Commissioners postponing a new courthouse, up-to-date news on COVID-19 stuff — and more.