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Gifts to the City 2021
December 17, 2021
At the end of every calendar year, City Club of Eugene hosts a program called “Gifts to the City.” An array of people whose community involvement gives them unique perspectives on Eugene are invited to reply to this prompt: “Imagine you have a magic wand. You can use it to …
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Measure 11 Mandatory Sentences: Repeal, Revise, or Retain
December 10, 2021
Measure 11 is a state law that sets minimum mandatory sentences for certain crimes. It was approved by ballot referendum in 1994 by a nearly two-thirds majority of Oregon voters, and went into effect on April 1, 1995. It was reaffirmed by the voters in 2000, but has also undergone several revisions in its nearly 30-year history. Legal scholars and lawyers have long debated what …
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Understanding the Local Labor Shortage
December 3, 2021
“Help wanted” signs seem to be permanently affixed to the doors of local establishments. The nightly news headlines focus on the acute lack of skilled workers for good-paying jobs in the region. Hospitals offer top dollar to tempt traveling medical workers to relocate temporarily and beef up woefully short-staffed wards …
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Hate Crimes: Facts and Fixes
November 19, 2021
No one is born with hate, but it seems more and more people are learning to hate. In the last two months, The Register-Guard, Eugene’s newspaper, had these headlines: “Eugene has spike in bias crimes and incidents;” “Eugene still leads state in reported hate crimes;” “Police arrest man suspected of …
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Finding Fairness in Wages
November 12, 2021
Mainstream and social media are full of critiques of wages. Prominent among them is the claim that wages are too low, especially in Lane County, and that the gap between what basic survival costs and what a person can earn grows ever larger. Furthermore, the distance between the incomes of …
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Seeking Solutions: The State of Our Homelessness Crisis
November 5, 2021
In August 2021, the number of homeless people in Lane County was counted as 3,115—but in that month, only 42 people were moved into housing. The local shelters could provide an additional 851 beds, but 2,222 people had nowhere to go. A circumstance in which 70% of a crisis goes …
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TrackTown Meets the World: What Oregon22 Can Mean for Eugene
October 29, 2021
There is no other place in sports quite like Hayward Field, and no city more in love with the human drama of track and field than Eugene…Every morning it seems this town awakens, puts on its running shoes and heads for the trails that wind through and past the city. …
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Responding to Fires in the Western Cascades
October 22, 2021
2020 was yet another incredible year for wildfires in Western Oregon, with over 1 million acres burned, at least 11 deaths, and the loss of most of the towns of Detroit, Blue River, and Vida. The fires of 2021 are still burning over hundreds of thousands of acres. What has …
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A State of Immigrants: A New Look at The Immigrant Experience in Oregon
October 15, 2021
Take another look at the immigrant experience in Oregon in this City Club of Eugene program.
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The Aftermath of Great Loss: The Modoc People Persevere
October 8, 2021
The Modoc War, a conflict between the US government and the Modoc people, took place during 1872-73 in northern California near the Oregon border. The war was hard fought. The Modocs achieved initial victories despite being vastly outnumbered and outgunned, but in the end the US army won. The surviving …
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