Jefferson Journal | March/April 2023

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6 Mail Tribune Owner’s Push To Reshape Local News Cost Medford Its Daily Newspaper

By Janet Eastman & Jeff Manning

The Rogue Valley’s largest newspaper, the Medford Mail Tribune, ceased all operations on Friday, January 13. The Tribune’s publisher, Steven Saslow, made the announcement on Wednesday, January 11 citing industry-wide advertising reductions, rising costs of producing content, and difficulty hiring staff. Oregonian staff reporters Janet Eastman & Jeff Manning take a deep dive into the issues associated with the demise of the Mail Tribune

Crystal Rogers

Raymond Scully

Shanna Simmons

Lars Svendsgaard

Traci Svendsgaard

Robin Terranova

JEFFERSON JOURNAL (ISSN 1079-2015), March/April

2023, volume 47 number 2. Published bi-monthly (six times a year) by JPR Foundation, Inc., 1250 Siskiyou Blvd., Ashland, OR 97520. Periodical postage paid at Ashland, OR and additional mailing offices.

POSTMASTER: Please send address changes to

The Jefferson Journal, 1250 Siskiyou Blvd. Ashland, OR. 97520

Jefferson Journal Credits:

Editor: Abigail Kraft

Managing Editor: Paul Westhelle

Poetry Editor: Amy Miller

Design/Production: Impact Publications

Printing: Oregon Web Press

The

Oregonians are generators of abundance. For 50 years, we’ve helped each other thrive. From safe shelter to art supplies, we’ve stepped up when someone needed support. Leaned in when they needed help. Dug deep when they needed food. Gave back, when given the chance. And we’re getting better at doing it all more equitably. The past few years have been some of our most challenging. And what did we do? We helped each other. We marched, fought fires, dropped off groceries — and gave. We gave more than ever before. Which tells us that in our next 50 years, Oregonians helping Oregonians, through thick and thin, will continue to lift us all. Cheers to you, Oregon. As your statewide community foundation, we celebrate our 50th anniversary in honor of you.

SINCE 1973

A New Day For News

The recent shakeup of the newspaper business in the Rogue Valley has created quite a stir. In January, Rosebud Media announced on two days’ notice that the Medford Mail Tribune was going out of business (it discontinued its print publication in September 2022 and has been publishing online only since then). Soon after Rosebud’s announcement, the Grants Pass Daily Courier announced that it would increase news coverage in Jackson County and expand its circulation in the county. A few days later, EO Media Group, a private Oregon-based company which publishes the Bend Bulletin and the Eastern Oregonian in Pendleton along with more than a dozen other newspapers and publications in Oregon, entered the field saying it would launch the Rogue Valley Tribune to fill the void left by the shuttered Mail Tribune

The closing of another newspaper was not a surprise to many, especially one serving a non-urban metropolitan area. According to the 2020 report The Expanding News Desert by Penelope Muse Abernathy, the former Knight Chair in Journalism and Digital Media Economics at the University of North Carolina, the United States has lost one-fourth of its newspapers since 2004. And today, more than 200 of the nation’s 3,143 counties have no newspaper and no alternative source of credible information on critical issues—with two-thirds of all counties lacking a daily newspaper. What was surprising was that multiple family-owned publishing companies jumped in to replace the Mail Tribune so quickly. Abernathy told the Seattle Times, “I’m not aware of any other situation like this, where you’ve had both a journalistic and business commitment made this swiftly, when a daily has closed.”

While the commitments by both the Daily Courier and EO Media are extremely positive developments for the civic life of the Rogue Valley, the economics of sustaining high-quality local news through existing business models will be a challenge. The next generation of news consumers has little affinity for the nostalgia of print publications. And the existing system that allows big tech companies to monetize the digital content of journalists and local news organizations without sharing any of the revenue that content generates will continue to be a significant hurdle.

In addition, the paywalls that have now become commonplace for most newspapers pose real philosophical and equity problems for our democratic society. Under the current model, if a newspaper is successful, it may achieve a combined print and digital circulation of 20% of adults living in a community, according to circulation estimates published by Pew Research. This would mean that, under the existing subscription/paywall structure, 80% of adult citizens would not have access to much factbased local news content, with many of those citizens belonging to lower socioeconomic groups. In the old days, that would mean that most people would simply be uninformed, but today social media enthusiastically fills that vacuum with propaganda, opinions and misinformation that generate “clicks” while sowing the seeds for a polarized culture and a dysfunctional political environment.

Here at JPR, we welcome the new revitalized local news ecosystem in the Rogue Valley and look forward to working with our new journalism colleagues. Thanks to you, we’ll also be expanding our own newsroom in the coming year with the goal of providing deeper local journalism and telling stories that bring people together through public radio’s unique voice.

Paul Westhelle is JPR’s Executive Director.

By Janet Eastman & Jeff Manning

Damian Mann, longtime reporter for the Medford Mail Tribune, remembers the moment he realized there might be no place for him in the media world envisioned by the newspaper’s new owner, Steven Saslow.

A local television station had asked Mann to appear on camera to discuss a recent story.

Next thing he knew, makeup was being applied to his face and he was being instructed to simplify and energize his script.

“OK, this is not the same world I knew,” the veteran reporter remembers thinking. “I almost quit that day.”

Saslow, an East Coast media entrepreneur, came to Jackson County in 2017 convinced he could transform a daily newspaper into something better and more relevant. The vision he laid out was of a hybrid source of local news combining the best of print journalism and the compelling visuals of broadcasting — packaged with the reach of social media and streaming video.

How exactly he settled on a small-town daily in Southern Oregon was a riddle the Mail Tribune journalists never figured out. Some speculated that if he could pull it off in Medford, it could be a template for other markets nationwide. And newspapers certainly could use a lifeline: Hundreds were closing as print ad revenues plummeted.

“I think he liked the idea of having a property that was remote, free of competition,” said Bob Hunter, a longtime editor at the paper. “He wanted this isolated newspaper that could be like a lab experiment.”

The Medford experiment lasted nearly six years. Then, in 2022, Saslow put the paper up for sale. It’s unclear whether anyone submitted a bid. “He had made such a mess of things, it was irredeemable,” said Steve Forrester, chief executive of EO Media Group, which owns the East Oregonian in Pendleton and 13 other Oregon newspapers.

On Jan. 11, Saslow informed his staff he was throwing in the towel. The paper closed just two days later.

Saslow’s supporters said Rosebud Media was a good-faith effort that just didn’t work out. If the pandemic had not struck when it did, they said, the outcome may have been much different.

Others felt the abrupt closure cemented his legacy in the Rogue Valley as a right-wing carpetbagger who didn’t much care that his misguided theories killed off the paper.

“I am beyond sad to see this paper shutter,” said Sanne Specht, a former Mail Tribune columnist. “I am angry. It didn’t have to happen. She should have been nurtured and supported. Instead, her bones were picked as her staff was overburdened and betrayed by outside sources.”

“I can’t even tell you the void it left in my life when it went under,” said Rep. Pam Marsh, D-Ashland. “I don’t know that Saslow ever had the community’s best interest at heart. He diminished the news coverage. So many of his decisions seemed so ‘shoot from the hip.’”

Saslow has left the area and is not granting interviews. He also threatened to sue any of his top managers if they didn’t keep quiet about company inside information, sources with knowledge of the situation said. They said Saslow made severance packages contingent on signing non-disclosure agreements.

Saslow did reach out to The Oregonian/OregonLive, apparently in response to a reporter’s efforts to learn more about him. “Maybe you can be of assistance with (job) openings,” he wrote in a message on the LinkedIn professional networking

website in reference to the laid off Mail Tribune employees. He did not respond to a request for an interview.

Saslow, 70, was more familiar with Madison Avenue than the Rogue Valley. He sold advertising for big-city radio stations and founded or cofounded several media companies.

One of those companies, SJS Entertainment, was acquired for $62 million by SFX Broadcasting in 1997. In documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, SFX explained the $62 million deal included a second company and multiple sellers. It’s not disclosed how much Saslow got.

Saslow became friends with Lee Abrams, a Chicago-based broadcasting industry veteran. Together, they would form a number of companies.

“He was the salesman, I was the guy creating content,” Abrams said. “He was driven.”

Saslow’s most recent venture with Abrams was called TouchVision, which called itself a digital broadcast and in-

ternet video-on-demand television network. “There were no anchors, no clichés, a complete and total reinvention,” of the traditional news station, Abrams said.

“Sales did not go well,” Abrams said. TouchVision “was ahead of its time.”

The company went offline and off the air on Jan. 14, 2016.

Saslow was undeterred. Sixteen months later, he made his next move.

Staffers at the Mail Tribune, many of whom had survived years of painful layoffs and budget cuts, feared the worst when they learned that its owner, GateHouse Media, had sold the paper.

GateHouse, an arm of a New York-based private equity firm, had become the largest owner of newspapers in the country. It was notorious for its strategy of slashing payrolls and other costs.

Instead of another austerity campaign, the Mail Tribune got what seemed like a miraculous reprieve. A GateHouse official introduced Saslow as the paper’s new owner. His company, Rosebud Media, reportedly paid $15 million for the paper.

Saslow vowed to invest in the operation, and he proved good on his word. In subsequent months, he brought in more than 10 videographers and purchased high-end video cameras and other equipment.

Incorporating video into newspaper websites was not a particularly innovative idea. GateHouse had already instituted a new policy requiring reporters to produce one video a week.

But under Saslow, video became a major component of every story. He brought in Bill Carey, a Tampa-based media

Questions about Saslow’s politics were fueled by Rosebud Media’s close ties with a local news affiliate owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group.

consultant to help make it happen. Carey was an imposing figure—“loud and large,” as one reporter described him. Carey declined to comment.

Video production is a long and painstaking process. “This was not about chasing stories anymore,” Mann said. “Now, we were chasing these videos. As a result, the story count dropped.”

Saslow explained his rationale in a Feb. 28, 2021, column.

“I did not come here to ‘save a newspaper,’” he wrote. “No one can. But rather to evolve this organization to a 21st century news, information and entertainment source, one that this valley can be proud of and can rely on.”

In the same column, Saslow promised the Mail Tribune had undergone a profound metamorphosis to political neutrality. “The change in this organization’s reporting led by Editor Justin Umberson has been successful,” Saslow wrote. “We present an unbiased cache of fact-based reporting. We will continue on that path.”

Saslow added a threat: “I have told reporters, if they put their bias into a story, I will reconsider their continued employment with this company.”

Questions about Saslow’s politics were fueled by Rosebud Media’s close ties with a local news affiliate owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group.

Sinclair is one of the largest operators of local television stations in the country. It has been widely criticized by journalists and media analysts for what they consider its right-wing slant. It commonly features conservative columnists and in one notorious incident required many of its local news anchors to read a canned statement warning viewers about “false news” from other news outlets.

Sinclair’s local affiliate, KTVL, moved its studio into the

Mail Tribune building at 111 N. Fir St. in 2019, occupying about half the building. The newspaper and television station began working together on a handful of projects.

But the business relationship began even earlier. A 2017 Uniform Commercial Code financing statement filed in Delaware indicates that Rosebud had put up much of its assets as collateral for a debt. The secured party listed on the form is Sinclair Television Group.

UCC statements are a way lenders can legally register a debt that is not secured by real estate.

On Jan. 14, 2021, Rosebud sold the Mail Tribune building to WSMH Inc., a Maryland-based company licensed to operate a local television station in Flint, Michigan. WSMH 66 is a Sinclair affiliate, and the Jackson County property files state that all tax statements should be sent to Sinclair’s corporate headquarters in Hunt Valley, Maryland.

The demanding style of Saslow and Carey, took its toll on the editorial staff. The paper went through four editors in the six-year Saslow era.

For Hunter, the last straw came in the fall of 2018. He had sent an email to senior managers questioning the coverage of a local political race. Both Saslow and Carey heatedly rejected Hunter’s criticism.

Hunter decided he’d had enough.

“I was really uncomfortable with the tone of those messages, I thought they were hostile and disrespectful,” he said. “I resigned that day.”

Saslow was also protective of what he considered his. In May 2022, Zach Urness, the outdoors writer for the Salem Statesman Journal, received a “cease and desist” letter from a

The Medford Mail Tribune, established in 1909, ceased publication on January 13, 2023.

ROMAN BATTAGLIA/JPR

New York city law firm demanding that he stop using the phrase “Oregon Outdoors” as the title of an email newsletter.

A recreational industry trade group calling itself the Oregon Outdoors Coalition got a similar letter. The Coalition’s parent organization is the Mazamas, the prominent mountaineering nonprofit known for its volunteer rescue efforts.

The Rosebud lawyer said his client had obtained a trademark on the phrase from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The Mail Tribune’s outdoors writer Mark Freeman used the same phrase in his own work. Freeman was so successful, the phrase “Oregon Outdoors” had become “universally associated with the Mail Tribune and its outdoor recreation-related content,” Saslow’s lawyer wrote.

The lawyer threatened to sue if the others continued to use the phrase.

Gina Binole, spokesperson for the Mazamas, confirmed the group received the threatening letter. The controversy fizzled because the coalition was being dissolved. But the Mazamas agreed not to use the phrase Oregon Outdoors should the trade group be resurrected.

Urness declined to comment.

By 2022, there were abundant signs that Saslow’s dreams were withering.

In September, the Mail Tribune stopped publishing a print edition and went online only. The high-priced talent departed.

Saslow quietly tried to sell the paper, approaching several other operators of Oregon newspapers. Adams Publishing, which owns the Klamath Falls Herald and News and several other smaller papers in the state, reportedly did submit a bid, though leaders at Adams declined to comment. Others said they wanted no part of it.

The shutdown came in January.

And then came an entirely unexpected potential happy ending. EO Media Group announced it will start up a new newspaper in Medford. The company has hired Dave Smigelski, editor of the Mail Tribune when it folded, to lead its new newsroom. The Rogue Valley Tribune expects to publish its first edition on Feb. 18, said Heidi Wright, EO chief operating officer.

There is one possible hitch in the plan. Saslow has threatened to sue EO Media Group, Wright said. Saslow claims only he and Rosebud have the rights to use of the name “Tribune.” Wright said EO has no plans to alter the name of its new publication.

At the same time, the Grants Pass Daily Courier said it will move aggressively into Jackson County. It has hired three former Mail Tribune staffers.

Two weeks since the shutdown, it’s not just the Mail Tribune that has disappeared. Several former employees of the paper said the 1934 Pulitzer Prize medal that for years had been on display in the Mail Tribune’s office has also gone missing. The Pulitzer, the highest prize in American newspapering, was the first won by any paper in Oregon.

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A new bill is attempting to bridge disagreements between local elected officials and Governor Gavin Newsom over public spending on homelessness and an apparent lack of progress.

California Legislation Would Tie Homelessness Funding To Local Results, A Newsom Priority

Despite more than $15 billion in state spending on homelessness over the past two years, the number of unsheltered people has risen considerably. An annual point-in-time count in 2022 found more than 170,000 people in the state experiencing homelessness.

A new bill by Assembly member Luz Rivas (D–San Fernando Valley) follows months of tension between local officials and Newsom over the growing homelessness crisis, despite billions in state spending.

The governor has pushed for stronger results from local governments, going so far as rejecting every application for homelessness funding grants last October before eventually approving the funding.

But city and county leaders have called for an ongoing funding source, saying inconsistent appropriations make it difficult to plan for long-term solutions.

“Funding alone will not solve homelessness,” Rivas said Tuesday. “The lack of accountability and inconsistent funding has caused a public policy feedback loop.”

That loop is “resulting in homelessness response systems that are unable to meet the challenges of rising housing costs and insufficient affordable housing availability.”

Rivas said her AB 799 would tie grants from the state’s Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention (HHAP) program to “successful programs that have tangible results.” It seeks to make grant funding ongoing, though there is not a specific dollar amount requested in the bill yet and the state is facing a budget deficit of up to $24 billion.

Mari Castaldi with Housing California, an advocacy group supporting the legislation, said they are asking for $3 billion in annual funds.

Continued on page 13

A tent near the Sacramento County Recorder's Office on Thursday, May 19, 2022.

JPR News Focus: Poverty & Homelessness

Continued from page 11

The bill would also require the state to take on a greater role in setting goals and coordinating between jurisdictions to reduce homelessness.

In a recent interview, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria said getting ongoing funding from the state would help his city plan years ahead and lower costs for shelter options, such as leasing hotel rooms.

“The price point that I get would be different if I could make not a one-year lease, but a three-year lease or a five-year lease” or even acquiring a building, he said.

Gloria said while the HHAP funding has helped in San Diego, the city cannot keep up with the rate of people falling into homelessness. For every 10 people the city was able to help off the streets last year, 13 more became homeless, the mayor said.

“While the state’s investment is transformational and truly helpful, we have to actually size it to the crisis that we’re currently experiencing,” he said.

Rivas and other lawmakers acknowledged the intractable nature of the problem and lack of visible results despite billions spent in recent years.

“It’s very frustrating for the general public when they hear that in the state, we’re spending billions—and that’s billions with a B—of dollars on homelessness and housing. And yet they don’t feel that they’re seeing enough of an impact in their communities,” said Assembly member Laura Friedman (D-Burbank).

While many communities and local leaders are “incredibly dedicated,” Friedman said, “there is often a lack of communication and a lack of coordination that’s very visible to the public.”

Graham Knaus, CEO of the California State Association of Counties, said while he had not yet read the bill in detail, he is “supportive of the efforts to seek more accountability and transparency for homelessness at all levels of government.”

Knaus added that the state should begin treating homelessness the way it treats other social programs.

“When you look at child welfare, transportation, criminal justice, health care, education, it’s clear who’s supposed to do what and how it’s funded,” he said. “Not with homelessness.”

Newsom’s office declined to weigh in on the proposal, but the governor has increasingly called for greater accountability and transparency regarding HHAP funds.

When asked recently about local officials’ demands for ongoing funding, Newsom grew visibly frustrated and said he was “exhausted” by “these stale arguments I’ve been hearing my entire life.”

The governor is proposing another $1 billion for HHAP funding grants, which would match funds from each of the previous two years. Though he warned grants would be prioritized for local plans that would reduce unsheltered homelessness.

“We’re not just going to hand out another billion dollars of brand-new discretionary money unless it aligns with our goals and we see real progress,” he said when he unveiled his budget proposal in January.

Nicole Nixon covers politics and government for CapRadio.

Oregon Scientists Are 3D Printing Their Way To A Healthier Future For Us All

Haylie Helms’s cells are stuck to the side of a clear plastic bottle like thousands of invisible barnacles.

“If you stick them in one of these flasks and give them the right [nutrients], the cells continue to grow and they will spread out on the plastic,” she explains as she starts to tap the bottle with the side of her palm.

The shallow pink liquid in the bottle ripples under the impact. As the cells pull away from the side, the liquid becomes slightly hazy. Helms transfers the solution to a test tube and spins it down in a centrifuge.

When it comes out, the liquid is clear again and there’s a faint whitish smudge in the bottom of the tube.

“So it’s not the easiest to see, but… there’s a little clump there at the bottom,” she says. “There’s about a million cells in that little pellet.”

Cells are the tiny building blocks of life, and these cells are key to the Oregon Health and Science University researcher’s cutting-edge work in a medical science field called biofabrication—essentially building with biology. One of the long-term goals for biofabrication is creating transplantable human organs.

Over the course of many months, Helms has developed a way to 3D print individual cells. It’s a technique that may bring the field closer to this goal.

“Kind of like how an inkjet printer works—you have all of your different colors. I can just put different cell types in each of the channels,” she says.

The printer she uses for her work is commercially made, but what she’s doing with it — printing one tiny cell at a time to understand how they interact with each other — is very new.

“I print all types of cells. And the goal is to take all the cells that make up a tissue and put them together in the proper pattern,” she says.

The technique is so new, that when representatives from the printer company visited the Portland lab where Helms works, they were amazed.

“Even when I told the company that this is what I’m doing, they told me that that is not possible. And I said, ‘Please watch,’” she said.

Cancer interactions

Loaded in her printer cartridge on this day are prostate cancer cells. Helms grabs a video game controller and uses it to move the printer head.

“Move up and down, left, right, and then tell the cells when to come,” she says without taking her eyes off a computer screen that shows a highly

magnified image of the printing surface. “Because when what you print is like a fraction of a millimeter, it’s hard to find it later.”

She presses a button, and suddenly a white dot appears against the grey background of her screen.

“This little dot is one individual cell,” she says.

She moves a few microns to the left and deposits another — now two prostate cancer cells placed with incredible precision.

“Everyone teases me that I don’t actually work. I just sit here and play video games all day,” she says.

But the stakes here are much higher than in your average video game.

“It’s not just the genetic mutations within the cancer that caused it [to form]. It’s also how the cells are arranged. If one cell type is next to a different cell type, that can actually indicate if you’re going to have a better or worse prognosis,” Helms says.

Helms is using her printing technique to figure out how different configurations of cells behave.

“I will take a cancer cell and I’ll put healthy cells around and I will see: How do these cells communicate?” she explains. “Does the cancer keep growing? Do the healthy cells act more cancerous? And we keep changing

Continued on page 17

The pellet at the bottom of this tube contains about 1 million prostate cancer cells.

World-Class Musicians, Thrilling Performances

2022–2023 SEASON

Academy of St Martin in the Fields Wind Ensemble with Caroline Palmer, piano

“…an ensemble of first-rate musicians, technically superb, generously expressive, and obviously enjoying themselves.”

Dallas Morning News

Friday, April 14 – 7:30pm

“When a pair of genuine artists explodes on the stage, exuding not only glamour and theatrical flair but also superb musical insight, the audience’s thrill is twofold.”

Washington Post

Friday, May 5 – 7:30pm

Saturday, May 6 – 3pm

Presenting world-class ensembles in the Southern Oregon University Music Recital Hall in Ashland, Oregon.

David Finckel, cello and Wu Han, piano

JPR News Focus: Science & Environment

Continued from page 15

the patterns and the cell types to find out: How are these cells talking to each other?”

And ultimately, it may reveal what makes one person’s cancer more aggressive than another’s — and that information is very valuable. Because once they understand the interactions between the cells, researchers have the information they need to develop new treatments.

“[Cancer] drugs are targeting the specific interactions and the mechanisms of how the cells work,” Helms says. “If you don’t know what that mechanism is, you can’t create a drug for it.”

Starting small, thinking big

While Helms’ research focus is currently on cancer, OHSU associate professor Luiz Bertassoni is excited about what could soon be possible because of the new cell-by-cell printing work.

“You know, we’re really laser focused on precision,” he says.

Bertassoni heads up the lab where Helms works.

“Every single cell in your body is there for a reason — quite literally,” he says. “We are particularly interested in replicating that level of precision that nature brings us because we think that that is the key to actually recreating the function that the body has.”

Plainly put, Bertassoni’s goal is to be able to 3D print complex human organs that function in people.

According to the Health Resources and Services Administration, more than 100,000 people in the United States are waiting for organ transplants. Seventeen people waiting for transplants die every day.

Printing transplantable organs is a challenge many labs around the world are tackling. There’s been huge progress in building tissues and simplified versions of organs, but Bertassoni says no one has gotten them to fully function like those in living organisms.

He thinks that being able to precisely replicate an organ — cell by cell by cell — is the way to get over this hump.

Helms’s 3D-printing technique may provide the means to achieve this.

“With the other methods of tissue engineering that are out there, we can create the structures. We can lay down the proteins and the scaffolding that makes the shape,” she says. “But now with this we can also then add in the cells in the arrangement that they need to be.”

Scale and speed

But there’s a lot that needs to happen before being able to create transplantable lab-grown/fabricated organs is possible.

“It is a potentially promising solution. … In principle, that is possible,” says University of Utah engineer Yong Lin Kong, who specializes in biomedical 3D printing, but is not connected to the OHSU work. He has closely tracked developments in the field.

“Of course, there will also always be … unanticipated challenges,” he says. “Because we still have a lot to learn from biology on how cells and tissues come together. And that missing information could be the next hurdle once they have built those systems.”

But even before that, Bertassoni says, the challenges of building something as large as a human organ are considerable. And getting the needed level precision cell construction at a scale that’s meaningful for the human body is a big one.

“You’re able to put three cells close to one another — yeah, that’s cool. That’s important. But can you [place] three or four cells, four million times? Which is really what it would take to build an entire liver,” he says.

And this is the direction the OHSU lab is going.

“This is just the beginning. We’re refining our processes. We’re scaling up. We’re making this quicker, reproducible, says Helms.

Bertassoni acknowledges there’s a long road ahead for precision printing technology. But the implications of this approach for personalized healthcare are nothing short of astounding.

“If you walk into a hospital and say, ‘I have liver failure, I need a new liver,’” Bertassoni says, imagining a scenario in the not-so-distant future.

“[And you say,] ‘Wait a minute, I’m going to print you a liver.’ And you bring a liver that is specific for that patient.. Then, you change medicine forever.”

This story was produced as part of OPB’s science series “All Science. No Fiction.” which focuses on solutions-based research happening in the Pacific Northwest. Interested in learning more about the incredible biofabrication research happening at OSHU? Enjoy your science in video form? Check out the latest episodes of “All Science. No Fiction.”

Jes Burns is a science reporter and producer for OPB’s Science & Environment unit.

BRANDON SWANSON / OPB

Instead of printing with ink, OHSU scientists have figured out how to print individual cells. In this cartridge being loaded into the printer are about one million prostate cancer cells.

Connecting to Opportunity

Across the valley, RVTD helps people save money—like Maya. By riding the bus and not owning a car, Maya saves almost $1,000 a month in gas, car payments, and insurance—enabling her to invest in her bright future as an RCC transfer student at Oregon Tech.

Way to go, Maya!

Connected & Protected

As Oregon’s first land trust, we have conserved more than 12,400 acres in the Rogue River Region, with support from a broad, committed community of people. Together, we are leaving a legacy of open spaces, clean water, and healthy, extensive spaces for wildlife. Protected—and connected—in perpetuity, these exceptional natural areas make our communities more desirable places to live and work, sustaining Oregon’s distinctive landscape and character. Can you help?

DONATE TODAY

Help protect more grasslands, forests, ranches and rivers. For people. For nature. Forever.

Photo by Harry Brindley

What Is The Rogue Valley’s Public Square?

What are the physical spaces where people come together and share information in your community?” That’s one question from a new report about access to information in Southern Oregon. It’s being published in April by researchers and students at the University of Oregon’s Agora Journalism Center.

If you don’t have a clear answer to that question about where you’d go to physically learn about your community, you’re not alone. While the final report came out after the printing of this issue of the Jefferson Journal, I had a chance to look at some of the initial responses from people in the Rogue Valley. They ranged from: “public libraries?”, “coffee shop,” “YMCA,” to “I have no idea,” “Not sure,” and “I still do not meet in groups after Covid.”

I asked Agora Journalism Center Director Andrew DeVigal, who is leading the Southern Oregon report, why he asked this question. “It reinforces this idea that a gathering place can constitute how people share information and learn about each other’s world and the news around there,” DeVigal said. As an example, he brought up another traditional information hub, this time from rural communities in Kentucky, affectionately called “liar’s tables.” It’s another name for the local cafes or gas stations where residents swap community news. “They call it the liar’s table because they push on each other’s beliefs and ideas,” DeVigal said. “It’s a way for them to engage with each other and share information.”

That idea of pushing on each other’s beliefs in a civil environment feels a little rare today. It’s a reminder of how unusual it is in our digitally informed lives to gather in person and create a shared sense of community; a place where we might even change our minds.

It would be unrealistic today to think that we will have a literal physical space where people debate ideas. The notion of the public square has long-since been taken over by Facebook and other online platforms. But, DeVigal notes that there are places that still emphasize the exchange of ideas in person, like the City Club of Portland which hosts debates and forums “about the future of Oregon.” Locally, the Jefferson Center in Ashland holds similar events.

This idea of respectfully pushing on one another’s beliefs is also a long-standing role of journalism. The Rogue Valley is in the midst of unexpected growth of local news. The demise of the Medford Mail Tribune in early 2023 created an opening for local journalism from the new Rogue Valley Tribune. Josephine County’s Grants Pass Daily Courier also moved into Jackson County to fill the gap. At their best, newspapers provide a place to debate ideas in the public square with editorials that hold up a mirror to communities and challenge established beliefs.

Public radio generally avoids airing editorials since it’s hard for listeners to distinguish between opinion and reported stories over the radio, without the “editorial” headline that’s printed in newspapers. But along with discussing local events and interviewing local thought leaders, JPR’s Jefferson Exchange is also a part of this public square by providing a venue to discuss what’s happening in our communities.

The UO report about the media ecosystem in Southern Oregon will come out in early April, so you’ll have to read it for yourself to learn what they found. The Agora Journalism Center has produced other similar studies of the information landscapes in La Pine and Hermiston, Oregon. For a small town, DeVigal says, Ashland has lots of potential for vibrant civic spaces. There’s the university, Oregon Shakespeare Festival theaters, Lithia Park and Ashland’s inviting downtown.

Between holdover pandemic isolation and our modern ease of working remotely, it’s easy to avoid the physical spaces that have historically served as the public square. But maybe there’s a venue in the Rogue Valley, physically or not, that can expand that role to move our communities forward while learning about each other’s worlds.

This idea of respectfully pushing on one another’s beliefs is also a long-standing role of journalism.

JPR's Erik Neumann is JPR’s interim news director.

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AMELIA TEMPLETON

Researchers at Oregon Health & Science University are contributing to an international study exploring possible treatments for and the true cause of Alzheimer’s — and regular Oregonians are helping.

At OHSU, Researchers Test A Promising Alzheimer’s Drug — And Search For A Cause

Drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease have been in development for decades. But almost every clinical trial has ended in disappointment.

One theory is that we’re treating people too late and not long enough.

Now, Oregon Health & Science University is participating in one of the first studies that tries to intervene earlier, with healthy 55- to 80-year-olds who are at risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease as they age.

It’s an international clinical trial called the AHEAD study, funded by the National Institutes of Health and the pharmaceutical company Eisai.

While clinical trials happen all the time, this one comes at a moment when the scientists focused on Alzheimer’s research are questioning whether the dominant theory of what causes the disease, known as the amyloid hypothesis, might be wrong.

The AHEAD study is both a test of a single promising drug and an effort to uncover more evidence about how Alzheimer’s starts.

The main focus of the study is a drug called lecanemab. It’s just been given accelerated approval by the FDA for use in patients with early or mild Alzheimer’s. And it’s the first drug backed by reliable data that shows it may slow down the progression of Alzheimer’s disease — not a lot, just a little.

It’s called an anti-amyloid antibody. Some scientists think lecanemab and other anti-amyloids under development will work better if they are given to people before they begin to display typical Alzheimer’s symptoms, like memory loss.

Barbara Klausman is just the kind of person the AHEAD researchers are looking for to participate in their study. Klausman lives in Vancouver. She’s 76. But on a November day last fall, wearing jeans and stylish dark green tennis shoes that matched her sweater, she looked a lot younger.

“I look forward to waking up every day because there’s always something to do,” Klausman said that day, sitting in a small medical office at OHSU and getting ready for an infusion of what might have been lecanemab. It also, she knew, might just be saline solution — a placebo.

She has a very personal reason for volunteering to get these infusions.

“It was in 1989, my brother was in the Army as a dentist in Europe and I wrote him letters saying: ‘There’s something wrong with Mom,’” Klausman said.

Klausman watched as Alzheimer’s disease slowly took more and more of her mother’s mind. Klausman did what she could

to be there for her mom. If she was having an episode of agitation in the middle of the night, her dad would call.

“And I’d just go pick her up and take her for a cup of coffee, and then she’d forget she was upset and I’d take her home,” Klausman said.

The disease progresses slowly for most. As neurons in the brain die, patients experience memory loss, then dementia and ultimately death. Alzheimer’s is one of the leading causes of death for people 65 and older.

Klausman’s mom died in 2003. But she felt she’d lost her mom years earlier.

“It’s just difficult to see somebody you love going through that,” Klausman said last fall, nearly 20 years after her mother’s death. “Probably the last eight years it wasn’t her anymore. But she still needed to be loved.”

Klausman’s aunt also had Alzheimer’s and possibly her grandfather too. Klausman wondered if her family history put her at risk as she aged. That question led her to the team of researchers at OHSU who were part of the AHEAD study.

“It’s most likely the case that with Alzheimer’s, as with other diseases, that if we can detect it early and treat it early, we’ll have a better chance of fighting it,” said Dr. Aimee Pierce, a geriatric neurologist and the study lead at OHSU.

Pierce and her team are using brain imaging to look for two distinct markers of the disease: amyloid plaques and tau tangles. We’ll come back to tau later. First, amyloid.

No one knows for sure what causes Alzheimer’s disease, but for a long time scientists have thought a

JPR News Focus: Health

Continued from page 21

protein fragment called amyloid beta looks suspicious. It forms unusual plaques in the brains of patients. And there’s some genetic evidence from families with early-onset familial Alzheimer’s and people with Down syndrome that points to this particular protein.

Anti-amyloid antibodies, like lecanemab, can clear the plaques from patients’ brains. But in clinical trials, those drugs haven’t slowed down the progression of patients’ dementia much, if at all.

That’s why they’re trying to give them to people many years earlier, when the plaques are just starting to develop.

“We know that these plaques are found in patients with Alzheimer’s disease,” Pierce said. “But we think that they form many, many years before the symptoms of Alzheimer’s develop.”

Right now, Klausman doesn’t have symptoms of Alzheimer’s, no unusual memory loss or anything else that would make most general practitioners suspicious. But brain scans confirmed she has amyloid plaques already developing in her brain and could be at risk for the disease.

Important caveat here: Not everyone with the plaques will develop Alzheimer’s; it’s just a risk factor.

As a participant in the study, Klausman has been getting infusions at least once a month at OHSU.

“It’s never that bad. It’s never that bad,” she reassured the therapist setting the IV in her arm last October.

“Well that’s good,” he quipped. “When you show up with needles, you don’t want people to hate you.”

This approach — testing a preventative treatment in a long trial with a drug that needs to be given through an IV and can have very serious side effects — it’s a lot to ask of study participants.

Klausman joined this trial a year ago. She’s got three more years of infusions ahead of her.

She also comes in periodically for two different types of brain scans. And, to help the scientists see if getting lecanemab protects against memory loss, Klausman has to take a lot of cognitive tests.

“It’s not my favorite thing,” she said of the tests. “I like to ace a test.”

And, to protect the reliability of the research data, she doesn’t know what the tests have found. The study is what’s called double-blinded and placebo-controlled. That means half the participants are getting a placebo, not the real drug. To avoid any bias, neither Klausman nor the researchers know what group she’s in. She won’t find out until the study is over.

“You know the choices, between what will be revealed — one could be a real downer,” she said.

This is science in progress, so there’s no guarantee that even if Klausman is getting lecanemab that it will work.

Here’s one big reason for skepticism: Amyloid plaques, the thing lecanamab clears from the brain, might not be the underlying cause of Alzheimer’s after all. They’ve been the focus of most research, but some scientists think the plaques are a red herring, or are even a part of the body’s effort to protect

brain cells from damage. Essentially, the plaques may not be the wound, but the bandage.

So some scientists think the real culprit is something else. Possibly, it’s tau. That’s the other protein fragment that’s a signature of this disease. In the brains of Alzheimer’s patients, tau shows up as tangles inside neurons. They have been hard to see on brain imaging scans of living patients until relatively recently.

For a long time, the prevailing theory has been that the buildup of amyloid somehow triggers the damaging tau tangles. But as anti-amyloid treatments have failed to work, scientists have increasingly questioned that theory, Pierce said.

She said the question now is: “Does the amyloid plaque truly accumulate before the tau tangles develop? And that is actually surprisingly hard to determine,” she said. “It takes quite a long-term study.”

The AHEAD study is one of the first to capture images of both amyloid and tau in the brain scans of more than a thousand older adults.

Pierce and the rest of the team will be able to compare those images to how the participants are performing on their cognitive tests. And that might help crack the central mystery of how Alzheimer’s starts.

For Klausman, the reason for participating is very clear. She can play a part in finding a cure for the disease that claimed her mother. She also has two daughters, so when she thinks about her family history and the risk of the disease, she’s also thinking of them.

It would be nice if a cure became available in her lifetime, but she’s not counting on it.

“By having studies like this one, by the time they have to worry about it, which would be about 20 years from now, there won’t be a worry anymore or there will be a treatment,” Klausman said of her daughters. “So yes, I am doing this for them and for future generations.”

Amelia Templeton is OPB’s health reporter, covering COVID-19, health inequality and Oregon’s unique approach to health care.

The AHEAD study is one of the first to capture images of both amyloid and tau in the brain scans of more than a thousand older adults.

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POLITICS

Ashland Appoints Councilor Tonya Graham As Its New Mayor

Ashland has a new mayor. Tonya Graham was appointed from within the city council on February 7. The council also added two ballot measures to a special election in mid-May.

Graham was unanimously selected by the council to serve through the next election in 2024.

She had unsuccessfully run for mayor in 2020. She lost to Julie Akins, who abruptly resigned from her mayoral post last month.

After being appointed by the council on Tuesday, Graham said Ashland is undergoing a period of major change.

“Now we have this transition that’s before us when we have a whole lot of work in front of this council,” she said. “And so I just want to say that I appreciate the support of my fellow councilors and I will do everything in my power to help us move through that work in the very best way possible.”

Graham has served on the city council since 2018. She was previously the interim chair while a new mayor was appointed.

The council still has one open seat, left by council member Shaun Moran, who resigned the day after Akins. Moran cited dysfunction within the city. The council is accepting applications to fill that seat through Feb. 14.

During the same meeting, the city council approved two ballot measures for an upcoming special election on May 16.

One will let residents vote on a change to the city’s food and beverage tax.

The city nets around $2 to $3 million per year from the tax on prepared food from places such as restaurants.

The proposed change would allocate nearly all of the tax money to the parks department, with a quarter of it dedicated solely for capital improvements like renovations and buying land.

“I see that our community is very passionate on this item on both sides,” said Council Member Paula Hyatt. “And I think it is for that reason that it should be ultimately the voters’ decision.”

The city tried to alter the food and beverage tax last November. That measure would have instead given most of the tax to the city’s general fund, but residents voted it down.

Additionally, council members approved a measure asking for approval for a monthly $900 stipend for the mayor and other members of the council.

The mayor and council members currently receive just $500 and $350 a year respectively, approved by a city charter amendment in 1954. Any change to the council members’ compensation needs to be approved by a public vote.

“I appreciate the opportunity to bring this forward so that other people can be councilors also,” said Council Member

Gina DuQuenne. “I would love to see more diversity all the way around in city council.”

This change could actually save the city around $70,000 a year, according to Council Member Tonya Graham.

Council members previously received health insurance from the city until last year. In late 2022, the city manager cut those benefits because original records outlining them could not be found. The council was considering revisiting health benefits this year.

DuQuenne said since many people already get health insurance through another employer, a stipend is a better option to help supplement the income for council members who may be working another job.

Graham said the stipend is also optional for council members, she said they’d be free to donate it to a charity if they prefer.

After graduating from Oregon State University, Roman Battaglia came to JPR as part of the Charles Snowden Program for Excellence in Journalism in 2019. He then joined Delaware Public Media as a Report For America fellow before returning to the west coast where he now serves as a regional reporter for JPR’s award-winning news department.

After being appointed by the council on February 7, Graham said Ashland is undergoing a period of major change.

Ashland’s City Council unanimously chose Councilor Tonya Graham on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023, to become the city’s new mayor, holding the office until the 2024 election. Graham will take over for Julie Akins who beat Graham in the general election but abruptly resigned from her mayoral post in January.

Thousands of students haven’t returned to public schools as part of a ‘concerning’ trend.

ELIZABETH MILLER

Oregon School Enrollment Worries Officials As It Continues Dropping, Though The Decline Is Slowing

After two years of students leaving Oregon public schools by the thousands, enrollment declined again this year but not nearly as much, a sign that enrollment is stabilizing. Yet the state doesn’t know where a lot of those students who left went.

Before 2020, enrollment in Oregon’s public schools had been growing for nine years straight. That trend changed as most Oregon schools closed for more than a year before slowly reopening, according to a December 2022 analysis of Oregon school enrollment during the first years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the 2020-2021 school year, enrollment declined 3.7%. The next year, it fell again by 1.4%. The Oregon Department of Education analysis notes that Oregon’s ongoing decline set the state apart from most neighboring states, where enrollment either grew or leveled off in 2021. Only California experienced a continued decline, but officials point out that enrollment has been declining there since 2017.

This year, statewide enrollment data released last week shows another decline in enrollment, but a smaller one. The number of Oregonians enrolled in public schools dropped 0.1% from the previous year, a net loss of 632 students.

In an email to OPB, ODE officials said they consider this year’s enrollment as a “stabilization.”

Oregon officials find lack of enrollment recovery ‘concerning’

The drop in enrollment shows Oregon schools have shrunk by thousands of students over the last four years. In October 2019, Oregon public schools enrolled 582,661 students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

Student enrollment as of October 2022 statewide stands at 552,380, a loss of more than 30,000 students.

Enrollment at Oregon’s largest school districts varied. The state’s three largest—Portland, Salem-Keizer, and Beaverton—all lost students this year. But two of the next biggest districts— North Clackamas and Eugene—gained students.

Of the largest districts, Medford had the largest change, with enrollment dropping two percent from the previous year.

School district funding is tied to the number of students served—fewer students generally means fewer state dollars. A decline in the number of students comes at a time when students are returning to school with greater needs. Schools are also starting to face financial reality with the deadline to spend pandemic relief funds a little more than a year away.

In the December brief, ODE officials said the move to distance learning may have led to a decline in enrollment in the

Oregon schools have experienced three consecutive years of enrollment declines, a trend state officials find ‘concerning.’ Many students have left to be homeschooled, but thousands more haven’t been conclusively tracked to another learning situation.

early years of the pandemic, but “it is concerning that Oregon has not yet experienced any enrollment rebound after largely returning to in-person instruction.”

In a message to OPB, ODE officials said the state remains concerned about every young person in Oregon.

“We are aware and vigilant in trying to work with districts and communities to understand what have been pandemic impacts and what are longer-lasting impacts to where students are engaged and enrolled in school,” said the message from ODE Communications Director Marc Siegel.

The most recent national enrollment data available show an enrollment decline from 2019 to 2020, but enrollment ticks back up in fall 2021.

State officials said that the decline in Oregon was due to several factors including families leaving the state, as well as families finding other schooling options.

Mystery surrounds thousands of school-aged children who are still in Oregon, but not in public schools

Oregon officials estimate that more than 20,000 students in Oregon are not in public schools. While some may be doing school another way, officials say there may be other reasons— including “discipline practices, disengagement, inflexibility, or other structural factors”—that drove them away from the public school system.

ODE said homeschooled students make up most of that 20,000, but that still leaves thousands of students unaccount-

KRISTYNA WENTZ-GRAFF / OPB

ed for. They may be in private schools, but state officials don’t collect that data.

State officials say it’s the responsibility of school districts to keep track of the students they serve, including “attempting to contact those who have left enrollment without a documented transfer to another educational setting.” The state does provide school districts access to information about students who leave one Oregon district and enroll in another.

Though Oregon public schools are no longer losing students at the same rate, data over the last four years show who is leaving or not enrolling, and who is coming back.

Over the last four years, officials say the decline in enrollment has been “concentrated” among white students and kindergartners.

Among white students, the steep enrollment drop from 2020 has slowed—from a 5.5% decline among white students in 2020-2021 to a 1.2% decline in 2022-2023.

At the same time, Oregon schools are getting more diverse as the number of students of color in schools has stabilized. There are more Latino, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, and multi-racial students now enrolled in Oregon public schools than there were in 2020-2021.

As for where students have gone, past conversations have focused on virtual schools, homeschooling and private schools.

Virtual school enrollment jumped in the first year of the pandemic, boosting enrollment in districts with an online school, but state officials say the increase was “short-lived”.

ODE does not keep “comprehensive data’’ on students who attend or have moved to private school. While ODE has previously shared numbers of homeschool students statewide, officials now say that number is only available by contacting individual education service districts.

Siegel said legislators are considering whether to require the state education department to collect data on students attending private schools or homeschooling.

According to the ODE report, homeschooling accounted for a large part of the decline in public school enrollment, with a reported 70% increase in homeschool enrollment in 2020-2021 compared to the previous year, or a rise of roughly 13,000 students.

Oregon homeschool enrollment for the 2021-2022 school year was 29,162, according to the Associated Press—a slight decrease from the year before.

Other families may have moved out of Oregon.

The problem of students not returning to school is not unique to Oregon. A recent Associated Press story highlighted the high numbers of “missing” students nationwide, calculating that 230,000 students in 21 states, including Washington, are not accounted for and did not enroll in private school or start homeschooling. The AP’s analysis didn’t include Oregon because of incomplete state data.

Elizabeth Miller is OPB’s education reporter.

Theater Never Recovered From COVID — And Now Change Is No Longer A Choice

Many of the problems facing the nonprofit theater industry in the U.S. right now — from scant resources to the lack of diversity — have been around for ages.

But before the pandemic, performing arts groups were so focused on raising the curtain each night it was easier to ignore long-standing problems than fix them.

Now, thanks to a combination of lackluster ticket sales and an end to government relief, they have no choice but to try out new things in order to secure a future.

“The key question is, what are the things that are being done in order to emerge from the pandemic in a sustainable way?” said Teresa Eyring, executive director and CEO of Theatre Communications Group, a support organization for the nation’s performing arts sector.

No one has the answer. But organizations around the country are at least trying to find creative new solutions.

Overhauling Systems At Oregon Shakespeare Festival

At Oregon Shakespeare Festival, securing a future means focusing on the stuff that most audience members don’t see, much less think about: overhauling systems behind the scenes.

At a recent company meeting, interim executive artistic director Nataki Garrett explained how Oregon Shakespeare, founded in 1935, planned to correct years of deficits and declines in revenue.

“I have to change the way we do development, the way we market, the way we do finance, the way IT functions, instead of sort of plugging in the holes and filling in the gaps, which is what we’ve been doing,” Garrett said at an all-staff meeting

recently. “We didn’t want to disturb the art. We have to disturb the art now.”

The company recently slashed its expenses. It laid off and furloughed about 10 percent of its staff and cut two productions from the upcoming season. But the kind of ambitious reset Garrett imagines actually takes more money.

The company hopes to launch an $80 million fundraising campaign and it reached into its endowment for $4 million to cover emergency operating costs. Garrett told NPR she now wants millions more unlocked.

But endowment board chair Eric Johnson said that for legal reasons, his hands are tied for now.

This endowment has already done a huge amount to help rise to the occasion of this crisis,” Johnson said. “Additional distributions at this time of any substantial magnitude become extraordinarily difficult – if they’re even possible.”

Garrett said even if additional funding does not come through from the endowment, she plans to do whatever she can to save her institution.

Working Toward Diversity At Control Group Productions

For many performing arts groups, the future means diversity. That’s true at the Denver-based Control Group Productions; which is why the theater company recently acquired an old school bus.

“It’s a 2006 Thomas HDX 32-foot freightliner,” artistic director Patrick Mueller said. “We actually bought it on Craigslist from a guy in Ontario, Calif. Flew out and drove it home.”

Mueller said his nomadic company had performed in plac-

“We didn’t want to disturb the art. We have to disturb the art now.”

— Oregon Shakespeare Festival Interim Executive Artistic Director Nataki Garrett

A repurposed school bus from Control Group Productions’ climate change-focused immersive theater experience, The End.

es like warehouses, theaters and even an old slaughterhouse. But the social justice reckonings of the past few years propelled Control Group to try to make more of an impact — and that means reaching new, more diverse audiences.

“We are a small grassroots organization,” he said. “It’s hard to get beyond our friends of friends of friends.”

Staging plays on buses or trains or horse-drawn carts is nothing new. But the company’s associate director Caroline Sharkey said that for the company, the bus isn’t just a novelty. It’s fully integrated into the action.

“We’re taking people to places that they know,” Sharkey said. “And we’re shifting their expectations for those places. So that every time they go back, the memory of the art is still there.”

Much of The End, Control Group’s immersive production about climate change, unfolds on the bus. It visits some of Denver’s most toxic hotspots, like the SunCor oil refinery and a polluted part of the Platte River, on its way to a fictional safe harbor known as “The Refuge.”

Artistic director Mueller said for the Denver run of the show last summer (he’s planning a version for San Diego audiences later this year), Control Group wanted to engage people who live in places like Commerce City, where the oil refinery is located. The company enlisted local environmental activists to help with outreach.

But one of those activists, Harmony Cummings, the founder of the Green House Connection Center, said the people who live in the shadow of the refinery often don’t have the bandwidth to think about attending an experimental physical theater show on a bus.

“The problems in these communities – where am I going to live? Do I have enough food? – are so large, that it’s hard to even talk to people about any of the environmental injustices,” Cummings said.

Mueller understands this. He said Control Group is currently developing partnerships with theater makers in underrepresented communities aimed at supporting those companies’ production efforts. But diversifying audiences will take time.

Sharing Resources At West Village Rehearsal Co-Op

In expensive New York City, small performing arts organizations are putting their energy into sharing resources.

“As we saw during the pandemic, arts organizations that

were working on their own were struggling on their own,” said Randi Berry, executive director of IndieSpace, a nonprofit that provides support to New York City’s sprawling indie theater community. “When we have an amazing resource for the community, the more people that can get their hands in it, the better.”

IndieSpace is one of the main forces behind the West Village Rehearsal Co-Op, a rehearsal studio located in the Meatpacking District, one of the most upscale neighborhoods of Manhattan. (Louis Vuitton is a fellow tenant.)

IndieSpace, together with several downtown theater companies — Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, HERE and New Ohio Theatre — worked with the local community board, politicians and property owners to secure a 99-year lease on the basement of the building, exclusively for the use of small, local performing arts organizations.

“We love a good basement — it’s quiet, dark and cool,” said Berry. “And those spaces aren’t generating a tremendous amount of income for the owners anyway.”

In a city where it’s not unusual to pay $50 or $60 an hour for rehearsal space, the co-op costs just $10 an hour. Selected Black and indigenous theater-makers have access for free.

“Not a cent! Which is great, because we have not a cent right now!” said Nedra Marie Taylor, the co-founder of The Grove Theater, a new endeavor using the co-op for community events, with the goal of eventually building a complex for Black theater artists in Midtown Manhattan.

Taylor said the West Village Rehearsal Co-Op is vital to her group’s larger effort.

“Having a physical space in which people can share story, just say hi in passing, it’s going to boost morale,” Taylor said. “Especially for the indie theater community, who’s been so hard hit in the past few years.”

IndieSpace’s Berry said brokering the real estate deal for the West Village Co-Op took years, and there’s already a waiting list of theaters that want to use it. She wants to see the model replicated throughout New York City.

“We have to commit to doing this over and over and over again,” Berry said. “That’s when the real impact is felt.”

Looking To The Future

Theatre Communications Group’s Eyring said it’s this kind of long-term thinking that will secure the future of the non-profit theater industry, albeit that it’s not how cash-strapped arts organizations are accustomed to operating.

“I would advise any company to have a three-to-five year plan for rebalancing their organizations, to get away from the urgency of the moment, even though it’s there,” Eyring said.

Yet, she added: “When we get there, our theater ecology, it’ll be in a place of vibrancy, where people are excited to be working in it.”

©2023 National Public Radio, Inc. NPR news report “Theater never recovered from COVID — and now change is no longer a choice” by Chloe Veltman as originally published on NPR.org on February 6, 2023, and is used with the permission of NPR. Any unauthorized duplication is strictly prohibited.

Chloe Veltman is a correspondent on NPR’s Culture Desk.

Oregon Shakespeare Festival leaders prepare to share their sweeping recovery plan with staff at the company’s headquarters in Ashland on Jan. 10, 2023. Pictured, from left to right: Alys Holden, Director of Production & Solutions; Anyania Muse, Interim Chief Operating Officer; Nataki Garrett, Interim Executive Artistic Director; Troy Freeland, People & Culture Director.

CHLOE VELTMAN/NPR

The plan to address the structural deficit involves a total reduction of nearly 83 full time equivalent positions, or 13% of the university workforce.

SOU President Announces Campus-Wide Cuts During University Town Hall

On February 16, Southern Oregon University President Rick Bailey announced significant proposed staffing cuts and program reductions in the face of a structural deficit.

SOU faces a $1.3 million deficit this year that is forecast to grow to $14.6 million in the 2026/27 academic year. The university is attempting to reduce costs by $3.6 million this year.

“The challenge for us is also an opportunity. And that is, what can we do structurally to actually fix the problem so that we’re not here two years from now having this same conversation,” Bailey said before an auditorium of faculty, staff and students.

The plan to address the structural deficit involves a total reduction of nearly 83 full time equivalent positions, or 13% of the university workforce. Twenty-four of those reductions will take place by employees losing their jobs. The rest are a combination of current vacancies going unfilled, early retirements, voluntary departures and non-renewable contracts.

“I think there are people in this room who have helped save this university long-term,” Bailey said, addressing staff members who chose to leave voluntarily.

Since the plan is not final, cuts to specific departments and individual staff have not been made public, according to SOU spokesperson Joe Mosley. However, changes include eliminating the portions of the theater arts program, discontinuation of the master’s degree in environmental education, and the departure of Vice President of Enrollment Management and Student Affairs Neil Woolf. SOU’s current seven academic divisions will be shrunk to four, which will reduce administrative support, according to Mosley.

One SOU student at the town hall expressed concern about the proposal to merge departments, which could translate to unrelated small degree programs like the Gender Sexuality and Women’s Studies Department, Native American Studies, and the Ethnic and Racial Studies Department being lumped together for programmatic efficiency.

“I know that right now we’re not looking at consolidating those degrees, but down the future, if they’re already in the same department, then we’re already going to be looking at ‘Well, we could just make it the minority studies degree.’ And so, there’s a huge fear of that,” they said.

The theater arts program is facing significant cuts. Theater faculty member Eric Levin said the university has hired more administrators in recent years, while his department has had empty theater tech positions while faculty members are being

moved to other departments, despite his program’s strong graduation rate and success in placing students in theater jobs.

“You can’t do productions with just actors unless you want to have crayon-colored sets,” Levin said.

“What we want to hear as faculty are specifically what [President Bailey’s] plans are that are going to raise revenue,” he said.

Specific positions being eliminated will be shared prior to a March 17 SOU board of trustees meeting, Bailey said. The proposed cuts will be approved by the board on April 21.

SOU has gone into retrenchment twice before when university employees, including tenured faculty, can be fired. However, Bailey said he was not announcing that the university was going into exigency, the process by which retrenchment is declared.

According to Bailey, state funding for SOU has remained stable while student enrollment has dropped by 30% over the past decade. Tuition accounts for 50% of the university’s revenue. The university is facing additional staff retirement obligations and health care costs in the coming five years.

Full time enrollment of students at SOU dropped from 4,350 in 2013 to 3,264 in 2022, according to the Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission. The most dramatic losses came in 2019 during the onset of the COVID pandemic. Full time attendance dropped from 4,030 in 2019 to 3,512 students in 2020.

Southern Oregon University President Rick Bailey discussing the realignment plan on February 16, 2023.

JPR News Focus: Education

Continued from previous page

SOU is not alone in facing stiff headwinds related to enrollment. According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, while national undergraduate enrollment in fall 2022 was better than in previous years, it has not returned to pre-pandemic levels.

“Post secondary enrollment remains well below pre-pandemic levels, down about 1.23 million undergraduates and 1.11 million total enrollment, both undergraduate and graduate, compared to fall 2019,” the organization wrote in a February, 2023 report.

The current financial management plan is the first of four steps in the SOU administration’s proposal to close the structural deficit and improve the university’s financial position. The others include “reimagining grants, leveraging philanthropy, and diversifying revenue,” according to the university plan.

Erik Neumann is JPR’s news director.

ashland parks & recreation commission

Photo courtesy Bob Palermini AWMF (Ashland World Music Festival)

Oregon Lawmakers Once Again Debate A Ban On Foam Food Containers

Agroup of Oregon lawmakers is hoping that new blood in the state House and Senate help make this the year the state outlaws food containers made from plastic foam.

Under Senate Bill 543, food vendors would be banned from offering prepared food in single-use containers made of polystyrene foam — often known as Styrofoam — beginning in 2025.

The bill got its first hearing before a Senate committee on February 14, with an array of environmental advocates lining up in support — even as restaurant representatives and industry players argued the bill is overkill.

Similar proposals have been floated repeatedly in Salem, where lawmakers have shown an appetite for curbing the use of plastics products that often wind up as litter and can find their way into the food chain. But while cities throughout the state have enacted their own bans on foam food containers, state lawmakers have yet to set a policy for all of Oregon.

In 2019, a bill to outlaw the products saw repeated setbacks. First it failed to pass the state House — in a vote taken on Earth Day. While that defeat proved temporary, the bill was rejected a second time in a vote in the state Senate.

A major sticking point four years ago was a Tigard company called Agilyx, which recycles plastic foam. Foam products are not eligible for curbside recycling, but the company’s presence in the Portland metro area convinced a number of Democrats

to oppose an outright ban; they hoped the state could create a better system for recycling foam food containers. Those Democrats joined with Republicans — who broadly opposed the bill — to tank the proposal.

But the state Legislature looks very different this year than it did in 2019. More than a third of the House’s 60 members are

State Sen. Janeen Sollman, D-Hillsboro, has introduced several bills aimed at curbing plastics pollution this year.

A proposal to prohibit the to-go containers failed in 2019. Supporters hope fresh faces in Salem will make a difference this year.

KRISTYNA WENTZ-GRAFF / OPB

Full or partial bans of expanded polystyrene foam, like many other single use plastics, have been enacted nationwide in many countries around the world.

brand new to the building, while the 30-member Senate includes seven new faces (most of them former state representatives).

Those changes could make a difference as SB 543 moves forward — even as the broad outlines of debate over the policy have changed little.

“For many birds, fish and many other forms of marine life, foam particles can resemble plankton and even eggs of other animals and are mistaken for food,” Charlie Plybon, the Oregon policy manager for the Surfrider Foundation, wrote in supportive testimony. “From the very bottom to the top of the food chain foam particles are all too often ingested, carry toxins up the ocean food chain, toxins that can also be found in humans.”

Groups like Environment Oregon, Metro, the Oregon Environmental Council, and the Oregon State Public Interest Research Group have all offered support of the bill. They argue that foam products like cups and food containers are especially pernicious, because they break down into small pieces very easily.

Meanwhile industry groups say that a ban would add another unneeded layer of regulation onto a 2021 law, which will require producers of plastic packaging to take responsibility for their products — and fund programs to safely dispose of them.

“The Legislature should allow [the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality] and stakeholders to complete the…

rulemaking process first before proposing sweeping packaging policy changes that will undoubtedly add state administrative costs and be unduly burdensome for the regulated community,” testimony from 12 industry opponents said.

SB 543 would apply only to containers that carry prepared foods and drinks — not to products like foam egg cartons in grocery stores. The bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Janeen Sollman, D-Hillsboro, initially included language in the bill that would have set guidelines for containers that vendors could use instead. After pushback from business groups that those guidelines were unreasonably burdensome, Sollman is proposing to delete the language and instead create a task force to study viable replacements.

While Oregon has no statewide ban on Styrofoam food containers, roughly 10 cities in the state have adopted their own—including Portland, Medford, Eugene, Ashland and Florence. Eight states, including Washington, have adopted some rules prohibiting plastic foam containers, according to legislative analysts.

Theadore Scuitto, Grants Pass · 1978 Ford F-150

“I remember driving with my dad… we were coming back [to Talent] from Jacksonville and he was talking about needing a truck. We drove by this [1978 Ford F-150] with a for-sale sign and he said ‘Something like that ’ … and came back later to buy it. In 1999 he started building a house in the mountains above Talent and needed a truck to haul materials. It was 20-year project designed and mostly built by himself with the help of 3 generations of family who — by the way — all listen to JPR. It was a big two-story house on a full basement… all concrete and steel. There was a lot of material being hauled. [My father] wanted to donate it to JPR. Whenever I’m driving around, I have JPR on the radio too. And it’s always playing in the house.”

Hassle Free · Tax Deductible · Free Pickup

Dirk VanderHart covers Oregon politics and government for OPB.

The agency is Oregon’s third-largest source of revenue, after income taxes and the lottery.

DIRK VANDERTHART & LAUREN DAKE

Kotek Selects Corrections Watchdog To Take Over Oregon Liquor Commission Amid Bourbon Scandal

Awatchdog who examines complaints within the Oregon Department of Corrections is Gov. Tina Kotek’s pick to lead the state’s scandal-bitten liquor agency.

Craig Prins, inspector general for the Corrections Department, will be put forward as an interim head of the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission, the governor’s office confirmed. If he is approved by the agency’s seven-member board, Prins will take the place of outgoing Director Steve Marks, who is resigning under pressure.

“Craig Prins brings the necessary experience in change management to correct the course of the commission and support the employees doing the work every day,” Kotek said in a statement. “He shares my commitment to accountability and transparency, and his appointment will create an opportunity to strengthen oversight, improve customer service, and begin to rebuild the public’s trust.”

A former prosecutor and head of the state’s Criminal Justice Commission, Prins has served as an internal watchdog within the DOC since 2016. It’s not the first time he’s been considered to lead a troubled agency recently. Prins was among those considered to take the helm of the Office of Public Defense Services when its director was fired last year. Willamette Week first reported Kotek’s decision to hire Prins to run OLCC.

If confirmed, Prins will lead an important agency that is in major flux.

The OLCC distributes all liquor sold within the state and brings in a lot of money doing so. The agency is Oregon’s third-largest source of revenue, after income taxes and the lottery.

But Marks and five top OLCC managers have now been implicated in a scandal. According to an internal agency investigation last year, they all used their position to reserve bottles of hard-to-find bourbons, which they purchased for themselves or saved for others. The Oregon Department of Justice has launched a criminal investigation into the matter.

Kotek had already called for Marks to step down before the bourbon-hoarding practice came to light last week. His resignation became effective on February 15.

Kotek has also signaled she will look to fire other top managers involved: Deputy Director Will Higlin, Budget Manager Bill Schuette, Distilled Spirits Director Chris Mayton, Chief Information Officer Boba Subasic and Information Services Director Kai Nakashima.

Such personnel decisions are typically left to an agency head, and Prins is expected to follow Kotek’s lead in cleaning house.

“If appointed, I will implement the changes in leadership requested by the Governor, fully cooperate with the Department of Justice, and work collaboratively with OLCC’s dedicated workforce,” Prins said in a statement.

An unusual system

Wholesale change at the top of the OLCC raises concerns for some observers.

“This is an exceptionally important business for the state of Oregon,” said Danelle Romain, who lobbies on behalf of beer and wine distributors. “You’re probably going to have an entire change of the executive leadership team including the people who know how to do the daily operations of the business. That’s a major threat. What needs to happen now is to get competent people.”

State liquor retailers in recent days have also credited Marks and his team with fostering positive change.

For about 20 years, Saleem Noorani has owned several liquor stores in the state. It wasn’t until Marks’ tenure, Noorani said, that he felt like retailers had an advocate at OLCC. Marks worked with liquor agents to lobby state legislators to update the contracts between liquor stores and the state to increase the percentage liquor agents get to keep on their sales.

“In the past, we felt unheard,” Noorani, president of the Associated Liquor Stores of Oregon, told members of the OLCC board of commissioners last year.

FILE – In this Thursday, June 7, 2018, photo, bottles of Kentucky straight bourbon whisky are displayed at Old Forester Distilling Co. in downtown Louisville, Ky. Bottles of the label’s “Birthday” bourbon, not pictured, can draw more than $1,000 each.

BRUCE SCHREINER

But others believe the bourbon scandal shows it’s time to rethink Oregon’s state-controlled liquor distribution model entirely.

In the fall of 2021, Scott Nelson won one of the OLCC lotteries. His prize was the right to buy a bottle of Old Forester Birthday Bourbon, which can retail for upwards of $1,000. Nelson’s price: $149.

Nelson, a former business editor at The Oregonian, tweeted about his victory, but wound up feeling conflicted about the lottery system, believing the process highlights how hard it is to actually obtain certain rare bottles. Oregon, he said, sets artificially low prices.

“That, by default, creates a black market and an opportunity for corruption,” he wrote to OPB. “It happens at all levels, from top OLCC administrators to store clerks, on bottles worth more than the OLCC-designated prices. As a result, most sought-after bottles don’t reach store shelves for ordinary consumers.”

Nelson said there is an entire spectrum of ways different states can control liquor distribution and believes Oregon is extreme in its control and monopoly.

“That has its consequences,” he said.

Mike Marshall, director of the group Oregon Recovers, said Tuesday it is time to scrap the state’s business-oriented approach to selling liquor.

“The original mission of the OLCC was to regulate alcohol sales to protect consumers,” Marshall said in a text message. “The alcohol industry, with Steve Marks and the current commission’s

tacit support, shifted the narrative to suggest the purpose of the OLCC is to promote alcohol sales and Oregon’s alcohol industry.”

Marshall and his allies are planning to push an increase of alcohol taxes in this year’s legislative session, a move they say will help deter drinking.

Oregon voters are likely to be confronted with the question of whether to keep a state-run liquor distribution system in the near future. Large grocers, who want the right to sell hard liquor themselves alongside beer and wine, have repeatedly signaled they will look to do away with the model via a ballot measure.

Beyond day-to-day business, the OLCC is also in the middle of a major undertaking: building a new headquarters and warehouse in which to store the liquor it distributes statewide. That project has garnered criticism, after the expected price tag rose by 133% between 2019 and 2022 — from an estimated $62.5 million to $145.7 million.

Agency leaders have explained the increase as a mixture of costly land prices and soaring construction costs, and have defended what critics say was a disastrously expensive land deal. Those same leaders now appear to be on their way out as the project creeps forward.

Dirk VanderHart covers Oregon politics and government for OPB. Lauren Dake is a political reporter and producer for OPB.

JANE VAUGHAN

ENVIRONMENT & ENERGY

“This is an unnecessary and it’s an unwanted project. It does the opposite of what we’re trying to achieve in Oregon.”

Rogue Valley Residents Call For More Input On Northwest Pipeline Expansion

Climate activists hosted a “People’s Hearing” in Phoenix, OR, on February 13 to record video testimony opposing a potential natural gas pipeline expansion in the Pacific Northwest.

The event was hosted by Southern Oregon advocacy nonprofit Rogue Climate and is one part of a plan to oppose the pipeline expansion that’s being considered by federal regulators.

The Gas Transmission Northwest pipeline has been in operation since 1961, transporting Canadian natural gas to Washington, Oregon and California via a system that is over 1,300 miles long and runs from British Columbia south to Malin, OR, near the California border.

Now its owner, Canadian company TC Energy, wants to upgrade the system to increase its capacity by 150 million standard cubic feet per day. These changes would include a software upgrade in Idaho, uprating compressors in Washington and Oregon so they could handle a higher horsepower and installing a new compressor in Washington.

TC Energy said this expansion is necessary to meet growing demand for natural gas.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission accepted written comments on the project, but Maig Tinnin, Rogue Climate’s Rogue Valley coordinator, said the regulator didn’t do any “meaningful outreach” about it.

“There hasn’t been a process in the past where they’ve done hearings, and really that needs to change,” Tinnin said. “We’re trying to kind of set a new precedent with FERC.”

So activists plan to send this recorded testimony to FERC to demonstrate their opposition to the project. There were a handful of attendees in person and over 100 attendees online.

“It’s really hard to hear that people in D.C., a commission of individuals, is going to make a decision about our future without our opportunity to even say what we think about that and give direct feedback,” Tinnin said.

According to a spokesperson for FERC, “the project is pending before the Commission, we are prohibited from discussing this matter ... We cannot speculate as to when the Commission will make its decision.”

U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley also spoke against the expansion during the community hearing, saying, “The last thing we should do is continue building more fossil fuel infrastructure.”

“This is an unnecessary and it’s an unwanted project. It does the opposite of what we’re trying to achieve in Oregon,” he said.

Merkley and U.S. Senator Ron Wyden have also written about their opposition, saying the expansion would “undermine efforts by Oregon to lead the fight against climate chaos.”

FERC hosted previous in-person hearings for the proposed

Jordan Cove LNG pipeline that would have spanned southwest Oregon and which was eventually abandoned in late 2021.

A November Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) from FERC found that the project’s impacts on the environment would not be significant. The report stated that “Climate change impacts [from this project] are not characterized in this EIS as significant or insignificant.”

But the Attorneys General from Oregon, California and Washington have all voiced their opposition to it. They estimate the expansion will add 3.47 million metric tons of CO2 emissions to the atmosphere per year, for at least 30 years.

“If it’s approved, it would be a huge barrier to Oregon or Washington or California meeting the climate goals that we have,” Tinnin said.

TC Energy is known for its Keystone XL pipeline, a project that drew massive protests and was eventually abandoned. The southern portion of the Keystone pipeline spilled thousands of barrels of oil in Kansas in December.

Jane Vaughan is a reporter and producer for JPR.

– U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley

This map depicts the GTN pipeline and the proposed expansions.

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RECORDINGS

DAVE JACKSON

Advocacy, Insight & Balance

Here’s a look at new releases by a public defender turned singer, a would-be Nashville star drifting into rock and roll, and a singer/songwriter known for folk-punk overcomes the odds.

Danielle Ponder – Some Of Us Are Brave

Public defender turned singer Danielle Ponder released Some Of Us Are Brave in the fall of 2022, but I feel like it will make my 2023 best of list The title came from an anthology of stories by black women authors, All The Women Are White, All The Blacks Are Men, Some Of Us Are Brave. Ponder credits it with helping to guide her in work and life and in helping her make the decision to devote more time to music. As with her work as a public defender, her music carries on her tradition of advocacy, now for social justice as a musician. She says that early in developing her voice she tried to emulate some of the rock, blues and gospel singers she was hearing like Koko Taylor, Big Mama Thornton and Susan Tedeschi. Those influences shine through in the power and passion of her voice. Musically she balances gorgeous ballads with occasional trip-hop beats (she was a fan of the Portisehead classic Dummy) and soul, fronting a tight 3-piece band On Some Of Us Are Brave, I hear the vocal prowess of Yola and Adele with the kind of arrangements you might hear on a Michael Kiwanuka album and the emotional, poignant songwriting of all three of them. Though it’s a debut, you’ll think you’re hearing a seasoned veteran. Some Of Us Are Brave, is a rare gem. The more you hear it, the more you’ll like it.

Margo Price – Strays

Coming off the release of her memoir Maybe We’ll Make It in late 2022 Margo Price started 2023 on a strong note. She was on Morning Edition and World Café on January 13, the day Strays, dropped. Like several other musicians recently, Price found inspiration for her new album when she and husband Jeremy Ivey (you heard his release Invisible Pictures last year on Open Air) went on an extended psilocybin trip. Though she used the experience to expand her sound and find some personal insights for songwriting, this isn’t an attempt to recreate Pink Floyd or Phish. Instead it finds her edging further away from her country roots and experimenting within rock and roll. It’s a good vehicle for her to express herself. She’s always been a little too edgy for Nashville and with this release seems to be parting ways altogether. During their psilocybin experiment, she and Jeremy played records including Hypnotic Eye by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. That sound weaves its way through Strays, especially on the song Been To The Mountain, which starts with a psychedelic flourish and works its way into an edgy rock song a with a bit of a nod to Shadow People from Hypnotic Eye. Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell appears on Light Me Up, and as if to emphasize the point, Strays was produced by Jonathan Wilson. In Wilson’s studio, from a previous session, was a piano and organ owned by Benmont Tench of the Heartbreakers. With Strays (as well as the new memoir,) the uninitiated will find a solid rock and roll album that plays middle ground between the future and the past as well as in-

Danielle Ponder

Margo Price

Recordings

Continued from previous page

sights into the mind of a musician we will be hearing a lot from in the coming [missing text?].

Sunny War – Anarchist Gospel

Sunny War says that she is often in conflict with the two sides of her personality. One is self-destructive, the other tries to provide balance. The Los Angeles based singer/songwriter has battled addiction and been on the brink of suicide as she watched friends die, all while trying to survive and make music. Her new release Anarchist Gospel describes that inner conflict. The first single, No Reason begins “Good intentions that you keep, don’t change the fact that you’re a beast. Better than most to say the least, imperfect manmade masterpiece. You’re an angel, you’re a demon, ain’t got no rhyme, ain’t got no reason.” Described as folk punk, Sunny War was intrigued by bands like AC/DC and Motley Crüe when she first learned to play guitar and later by bands like X, but found her niche playing acoustic punk largely because acoustic instruments were what she had to play. Sometimes described as a virtuoso, her guitar style is a lot like that of a claw hammer banjo player - expertly plucking bass notes with her thumb while her forefinger sweeps up to strum notes and chords. It’s a style that goes back to the early blues of Robert Johnson and works well with the acoustic punk meets roots sound of her original music. Anarchist Gospel stretches musical definitions in a good way. Punk

has always been another form of folk music (just not always as polite) and a lot of former punk rockers are now playing folk. Sunny War has always split that difference and now has a style all her own.

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Dave Jackson curates the music on JPR’s Rhythm & News Service and hosts Open Air, JPR’s hand-picked house blend of music.

Sunny War

Extreme drought conditions have dried up parts of the lake bottom, exposing more relics and human remains to looters.

Long-Term Rules Limiting Access To E. Oregon Lake Sought As Worsening Drought Exposes Indigenous Relics

Oregon state officials are considering changes to stop people from looting graves and cultural sites in a Lake County wetland desiccated by years of drought.

On Tuesday, the state Land Board took a step toward permanently closing public access to Crump Lake when water levels dry up. The lake and surrounding wetland has a 15,000-acre footprint in a sparsely populated stretch of Lake County, an area that has been inhabited by Indigenous people for more than 10,000 years.

Police and officials with the Burns Paiute Tribe and Klamath Tribes have long documented theft and vandalism at Crump Lake. In more recent years, extreme drought conditions have dried up parts of the lake bottom, exposing more relics and human remains to looters.

It’s against state law to disturb burial sites, or alter archeological sites without a permit.

Oregon enacted temporary emergency closures to stop looting at Crump Lake in 2014, 2021 and again last summer. The latest closure restricted all public access until it expired last month. Now, the Department of State Lands is seeking permanent rules about how and when it will close the lake during low water levels.

Department Director Vicki Walker told the state Land Board it makes sense to permanently ban all recreation during closures.

“You cannot manage the lake bed if there are some recreational purposes. You have to ban them all and then the state police will be able to cite persons for trespass,” Walker said.

The land board voted unanimously to begin a rulemaking process, which Walker said will include two more public hearings. A final draft of the proposed restrictions would go back to the board for approval.

Public records show a leader from the Burns Paiute Tribe pushed for stronger state intervention.

“This breaks my heart,” Burns Paiute Tribal Chairperson Diane Teeman wrote to tribal and state officials in a September 2021 email.

A couple of months later, Teeman told state land managers that the tribe was spending “an average of $1,000 a day to send out a set of monitors to patrol the lake.”

Teeman called the cost “unsustainable,” but said the Burns Paiute Tribe was “compelled to incur [it]” because Oregon wasn’t doing enough to stop the theft and vandalism.

“We have Ancestral human remains at Crump Lake as well as along the shores of the other lakes managed by the [state of Oregon],” Teeman wrote.

“I look forward to better days ahead.”

below: Crump Lake in 2021. The lake has been periodically closed to the public by order of the Department of State Lands, aiming to protect cultural objects and natural features of the lake bed and surrounding areas, now exposed due to drought and low water levels.

Emily Cureton Cook is OPB’s Central Oregon Bureau Chief.

EMILY CURETON COOK

CHELSEA ROSE

The Allure & Danger Of Pseudo-Archaeology

There is a lot we don’t know about the past. In fact, one of the most exciting things about being an archaeologist in this day and age is how much we are learning, rewriting, and expanding our understanding of the ancient world. But we are able to do this now because of how much we have grown as a scientific discipline. That not only includes technological advancements such as DNA, isotopic analysis, remote sensing and other whizzbang tools, but is also because we have learned to listen to and center Indigenous knowledge about the places under study. We were joined by Carl Feagans on a recent episode of Underground History to discuss the uproar in the archaeological community about the new Netflix show Ancient Apocalypse, which has ignited a rather passionate discussion about the allure and dangers of pseudo-archaeology.

While TV shows like Ancient Aliens, The Curse of Oak Island, and the Erich Von Daniken books before them, have been crediting extraterrestrials, Atlanteans, or the Knights Templar with building the cool monuments of the ancient world for decades, in today’s post-truth era, anti-science conspiracy theories are becoming increasingly alarming to archaeologists. What once prompted an eye roll or chuckle, is now being recognized as a threat to the credibility of our field. This prompted a public letter from the Society for American Archaeology (SAA), the largest professional archaeological organization in the U.S., asking Netflix and the show’s producers to more accurately categorize series like Ancient Apocalypse as entertainment or science fiction, rather than allowing them to misleadingly be presented as documentaries. This request, unsurprisingly, was not followed; however, it was successful in gaining media attention and raising the profile of the conversation.

While thinking outside the box, revisiting hypotheses, and being open to new interpretations are important for archaeologists and other scientists, many of the fringe theories that are being presented in shows like Ancient Apocalypse about so-called “advanced civilizations” of the past are built on cherry picked data and theories that have been extensively debunked. Even worse, stories about a lost advanced civilization rob Indigenous communities of their history. Many of the sites used to bolster conspiracy theories have not been lost or misunderstood, but the descendants of these communities have been ignored or discredited in the interpretation. While modern proponents of these theories might not see the racism in them, they are unequivocally rooted in white supremacism and undermine the agency and lived experiences of Indigenous people that created the very monuments that fascinate modern audiences.

While watching slick shows like Ancient Apocalypse, and the like can seem like innocuous entertainment, the continued erosion of trust in scientists through the vilification of “mainstream archaeologists,” is alarming. As Feagans noted in our recent conversation, there is no such thing as a “mainstream archaeologist,” you are either a doing archaeology scientifically or you are not. Part of the problem is that science is messy. Archaeology is time consuming, and our understanding about the complex history of human society is nuanced. That can be difficult to package for a TV audience, and that is why most archaeological and historical content on TV is bolstered by aliens, ghosts, battles, or gruesome crimes to up the entertainment value. John Hoopes, an archaeologist who has spent much of his career challenging pseudo-archaeology, notes that many of these conspiracy theories seek to simplify something that is not simple at all. That can be appealing. And there is nothing wrong with entertainment, as long as you are understanding the type content you are ingesting.

The SAA will be hosting its annual archaeological conference in Portland this spring, during which the discipline will be engaging in serious conversations about how we can best confront the rise of pseudo-archaeology. Better communication with the public is certainly one way, but better transparency and media relations has a role too. And, so do you! Ask questions, be curious, and please, trust your local scientist. The vast majority of archaeologists will be quite happy to talk your ear off about their research, as long as you don’t try to peek into their secret desk drawer where all the evidence on Giants is kept (JOKING!).

If you are curious about the pseudo-archaeology presented in Ancient Apocalypse, you can visit Feagans’ website www. ahotcupofjoe.net/ which offers a breakdown of the show, the misrepresented data, and its problematic antecedents, episode by episode. For a great overview of the origin and rise of pseudo-archaeology, you should check out a fascinating episode of Ideas with Nahlah Ayed titled “Atlantis and the Apocalypse: the world of Pseudo-Archaeology,” made by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation featuring Hoopes and other experts in the field: www.cbc.ca

In today’s post-truth era, anti-science conspiracy theories are becoming increasingly alarming to archaeologists.

Chelsea Rose is an archaeologist with the Southern Oregon University Laboratory of Anthropology (SOULA) and co-host of Underground History, a monthly segment that airs during the Jefferson Exchange on JPR’s News & Information Service.

MILK STREET

CHRISTOPHER KIMBALL

Cauliflower With Spiced Tahini And Garlic-Chili Oil

This recipe melds the best qualities of two Middle Eastern–style cauliflower dishes we tasted at two restaurants in London—Berber & Q Shawarma and The Barbary. We start by steam-roasting a whole head of cauliflower until tender, then slather it with a mixture of tahini and spices that caramelizes under a hot broiler. Grated fresh tomatoes and a pungent garlicchili oil finish the dish, along with parsley and toasted pine nuts. To serve, cut into wedges as if serving a cake.

TIP: Don’t bother opening the foil packet to test the cauliflower for doneness. It’s fine to insert the skewer through the foil. When making the garlic-chili oil, be careful not to overcook the garlic and pepper flakes or the flavors will turn acrid. When the mixture starts to sizzle gently, transfer it to a small bowl; if left in the skillet, the residual heat may cause scorching.

MAKES 4–6 SERVINGS

1 HOUR, 10 MINUTES · 30 MINUTES, PLUS COOLING

Ingredients

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for brushing

2 pound head cauliflower, trimmed

½-1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

2 medium garlic cloves, finely grated

Kosher salt and ground black pepper

2 ripe but firm tomatoes, halved

¼ cup tahini

1 tablespoon lemon juice, plus wedges to serve

2 teaspoons ground cumin

2 teaspoons ground sumac

¾ teaspoon ground cardamom

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ cup lightly packed fresh flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped

¼ cup pine nuts, toasted

Directions

Heat the oven to 475°F with a rack in the middle position. Line a broiler-safe rimmed baking sheet with foil and lightly brush the foil with oil. Place the cauliflower in the center, then draw up the edges of the foil; drizzle 2 tablespoons water onto the cauliflower, then enclose the head, folding and crimping the edges of the foil to seal. Bake until a skewer inserted into the cauliflower meets no resistance, 40 to 50 minutes.

Remove the baking sheet from the oven and let the wrapped cauliflower cool for 10 minutes. Carefully open the foil but leave it in place under the cauliflower; set aside to cool.

While the cauliflower cools, in a 10-inch skillet over medium-low, cook the oil, pepper flakes and garlic, stirring, until the mixture sizzles lightly, 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer to a small bowl, stir in ½ teaspoon salt and set aside. Grate the tomatoes on the large holes of a box grater set in a medium bowl, pressing the cut sides against the grater, until only the skin remains; discard the skins. Stir ¼ teaspoon salt into the tomato pulp and set aside. In a small bowl stir together the tahini and lemon juice. Then stir in 2 tablespoons water, adding more as necessary 1 tablespoon at a time until the mixture is a smooth, spreadable paste. Stir in the cumin, sumac, cardamom, cinnamon and ¼ teaspoon each salt and black pepper; set aside.

Heat the broiler. Spread the tahini mixture onto the entire surface of the cauliflower, then broil until deeply browned, 3 to 4 minutes. Transfer to a serving platter and cool for about 5 minutes. Spoon the tomato pulp over the top, drizzle with the chili-garlic oil and sprinkle with the parsley and pine nuts. Serve with lemon wedges.

Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street in downtown Boston—at 177 Milk Street—is home to the editorial offices and cooking school. It also is where they record Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street television and radio shows. Milk Street is changing how we cook by searching the world for bold, simple recipes and techniques. For more information, go to177milkstreet.com. You can hear Milk Street Radio Sundays at 3:00pm on JPR’s News & Information service.

POETRY

DAVE MOODIE

Corn Crop

Twelve stalks is all that stand in two rows

At the south corner of my garden

Early lettuce bolted

Leaving space for second chances

So I thought of corn

Planting late, I chose starters some other hand had set

Dave Moodie is a retired English teacher who found work at Grants Pass High School and Rogue Community College. Retired now, he continued to write articles for The Sneak Preview, an arts and entertainment newspaper in Southern Oregon.

They looked no more than grasses as I bedded them in their appointed places like napping children

Watching daily— the wind the spying bugs

the reaching leaves

They grew

Now, turning sideways

I can walk between the rows

To be a part of what they are

“Twelve rows ain’t much,” my neighbor says His pipe critical, clamped between his teeth

“A lot ’a work for so little a crop,” he adds.

Wise to matters of yield.

I nod for his sake

I know of vast fields of corn, rolling acres of green

Tall in the Midwest sun

Where harvesting machines large as elephants

Crawl and clank and clamor

Over miles of corn

Separating cob from stalk

But I tend these twelve stalks by hand

With the help of my fellow gardener the calico cat

Who flops between the manicured rows

Staring up at me through slit, yellow eyes

Pruning Time

The long handled pruning shears wait on the stone bench

Their steel jaws ready

Hand clippers rest heavy in my pocket

An unsteady ladder with drunkard’s legs

Points skyward

It’s pruning time for fruit trees

And last year’s growth must be trimmed

Air and sun and space are needed

Room must be made

My feet test each rung in my ascent

I am eye level now with the tallest branches.

I am seldom here

Among the company of my trees

To share with them this view

Of neighbors’ yards and rooftops

It seems I’m only here to take from them

Their offerings of fruit and limbs

It’s good, I tell myself;

It’s needed for a healthy tree

But I hesitate each late winter day

When I climb my ladder

To prune these trees of mine

Writers may submit original poetry for publication in Jefferson Journal.

Email 3–6 poems, a brief bio, and your mailing address in one attachment to jeffmopoetry@gmail. com , or send 3–6 poems, a brief bio, and a selfaddressed, stamped envelope to:

Amy Miller, Poetry Editor Jefferson Journal

I wait before each violent stroke

And wonder what will come of my decision

And yet

I must not waste the day with wondering

It’s late and there are trees to prune

Such foolish thoughts are those of poets and dreamers

Who see a tree and sigh

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