Monday Mailing - February 1, 2021

RARE Monday Mailing Year 27 | Issue 20 01 February 2021 1.

Poem of the Week: 2.

Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly.

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Hold fast to dreams For when dreams go Life is a barren field Frozen with snow.

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- Langston Hughes

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Oregon Fast Fact Oregon’s most celebrated rodeo, the Pendleton Round-Up, began in 1910 and included African American competitors from the beginning.

Learn more about Oregon’s Black cowboys.

Health Workers, Stuck in the Snow, Administer Coronavirus Vaccine to Stranded Drivers (Peter Cohen & Morgan Murray) Wither Eastside Screens? New Guidelines Allow Cutting Larger Trees East of the Cascades (Bree Cubrilovic) How to Effectively Give Feedback to Your Boss New Connector Transit Service in Lane County Survives COVID-19 Battle Lines: The Future of Farming in the Klamath Basin Oregon Heritage Reflects on 2020 Oregon Explains Why It is Redistributing COVID-19 Vaccine From Some Counties to Others Oregon’s $13.2M PEAK Project Bolsters Rural Internet People Are Donating Their Stimulus Checks to Communities in Need Libraries Supply Patrons With Internet During the Pandemic PODCAST: Fixing Sustainability in Tourism with Kevney Dugan

Health Workers, Stuck in the Snow, Administer Coronavirus Vaccine to Stranded Drivers The New York Times The public health workers were driving back from a vaccination site in rural Cave Junction, Ore., on Tuesday when they got stuck in a snowstorm on the highway.

They knew they had only six hours to get the remaining doses of coronavirus vaccine back to people who were waiting for their shots in Grants Pass, roughly 30 miles away. Normally, the trip takes about 45 minutes.

But with a jackknifed tractor-trailer ahead of them, the crew realized they could be stuck for hours and the doses would expire.

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So the workers made the decision to walk from car to car asking stranded drivers if they wanted to be vaccinated, right there on the spot.

Read the full story.

2. Wither Eastside Screens? New Guidelines Allow Cutting Larger Trees East of the Cascades

Oregon Public Broadcasting New federal guidelines allow cutting large trees that have been off-limits to logging for nearly three decades across 8 million acres of Eastern Oregon.

The U.S. Forest Service last week approved amendments to what’s known as the Eastside Screens, a plan to manage old-growth forests, rivers and streams, wildlife habitat, and more for six national forests east of the Cascades.

The amendments do away with the “21-inch rule,” which prohibited cutting trees larger than 21 inches in diameter and safeguarded many of the oldest trees.

Rob Klavins, Northeast field coordinator for the conservation group Oregon Wild, said axing the rule removes “the only real meaningful protections for old-growth forests in Eastern Oregon.”

Read the full story.

3. How to Effectively Give Feedback to Your Boss Fast Company Lots of decisions that are made in the workplace have unintended consequences. Adopting a new software system may make some tasks harder to do than they were in the past.

Selecting a new preferred vendor may make it harder to reach a sales associate. In each of these situations, it’s critical to be able to provide feedback to the decision-makers in a way that will allow you to be heard.

When something goes wrong, or you feel something is about to go wrong, it is natural to alert others to the problem. This is particularly true when a decision is made that you disagree with and would have done differently.

In these moments, it is important to remember that you probably have only a narrow view of how a decision was made. That is, you may not have all of the context to know what trade-offs were considered. What you do have is a perspective from lower down in the organization that those in leadership positions might not have. Ask yourself, if you were the one who had made the decision, what information would be most helpful for you to have to evaluate the success of that decision?

Read the full story.

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4. New Connector Transit Service in Lane County Survives COVID-19 ODOT Transportation Insights The timing almost couldn’t have been worse. On Feb. 18, 2020, a small, enthusiastic group of public transit advocates celebrated the launch of a new bus service connecting Eugene to Florence and Yachats – a twice-per day run going from the busy Willamette Valley to the beautiful central Oregon coast.

And then COVID-19 hit.

“That first month, we had 188 riders, and then the restrictions were put in place,” explains Kelly Clarke, planner with Lane Council of Governments, which manages the Connector service and Link Lane, LCOG’s public transit program.

Naturally, the numbers dropped in April and May. Per protocol the rides were free but the pandemic was in full swing. Would the bus have any riders when summer came around?

In fact, they did, 316 riders took the Connector service in June, 316 in July and even in August – when fares went back in effect – they had 305 riders.

“The services are still afloat,” Mark Bernard, ODOT Regional Transit coordinator happily noted. “In fact, the Eugene to Florence service actually experienced ridership increases through September.”

Read the full story.

5. Battle Lines: The Future of Farming in the Klamath Basin Oregon Business A cloud hangs over Klamath Basin in Southern Oregon. In a literal sense, the sunless sky is low and gray when I arrive in Klamath Falls on a December afternoon. With snow piled 3 feet high through the mountain pass north of here, it is easy to forget this region is in a drought. But the weather is only one part of a complicated water crisis plaguing the area.

I am here to talk to people about the worsening challenges farmers and ranchers in the region are facing; how the convergence of drought, COVID-19 and community infighting have coalesced into a figurative cloud of frustration for those who work the land.

When COVID-19 shutdowns first started in March, Scotty Fenters’ father had just undergone heart surgery. “That month is a blur,” he recalls. But Fenters, a third-generation farmer in the Klamath Basin, had to regroup quickly when restaurant shutdowns ripped the rug from under the family business. Suddenly he had a lot of potatoes with nowhere to go.

Read the full story.

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6. Oregon Heritage Reflects on 2020 Oregon Heritage To say this has been an unprecedented year would be an understatement. Typically in our end of year message we would summarize the highlights, include several statistics and numbers, and celebrate all the heritage efforts accomplished this year by all of you. In short, it would be a message filled with positivity and cheer. To not acknowledge the challenges we have all faced this year personally and professionally would be remiss of us.

While positivity may seem in short supply these days, we cannot express how much we admire each and every one of you for how you are weathering the storms that have come rolling through 2020 and will continue into 2021. This year made it so clear to us the value of heritage resources and the importance of a statewide heritage network to support each other during these turbulent times.

Upon reflection of the past year, Oregon Heritage staff has learned a lot about responding to emergencies and the importance of preparation, how to navigate the fine line of celebrating wins while respecting those that have lost so much, and how to continue serving all of you the best we can while managing working from home, layoffs, and travel restrictions that forced us to move our technical assistance online.

Read the full story.

7. Oregon Explains Why It Is Redistributing COVID-19 Vaccine From Some Counties to Others Oregon Public Broadcasting The Oregon Health Authority took pains Friday to explain why it’s taking COVID-19 vaccines expected in some counties and delivering them to others.

Eighteen Oregon counties have been told they’ll receive less vaccine than expected next week. Those that will see a reduction are Baker, Clatsop, Crook, Deschutes, Gilliam, Harney, Jefferson, Josephine, Lake, Lincoln, Linn, Malheur, Marion, Morrow, Sherman, Tillamook, Wasco and Wheeler counties.

Some Republican lawmakers have called the redistribution troubling.

Rep. Christine Drazan, R-Canby, and Sen. Fred Girod, R-Lyons, issued a statement saying the Gov. Kate Brown appears to be prioritizing Portland and urban Oregon over rural parts of the state.

Read the full story.

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8. Oregon’s $13.2M PEAK Project Bolsters Rural Internet Government Technology More than 5,600 rural residents of Linn and Polk counties in Oregon will soon have access to high-speed Internet, thanks to $13.5 million being invested by PEAK Internet.

Funds will be divided between a $6.6 million grant and a $6.6 million loan through the U.S. Department of Agriculture and part of $550 million Congress has allocated to the ReConnect Program.

"This will allow PEAK Internet to install fiber optic lines and expand their network in rural areas," explained Erin McDuff , a spokeswoman for the USDA in Portland. "There are many rural areas of the country that don't have high-speed Internet or sufficient access."

Read the full story.

9. People Are Redirecting Their Stimulus Checks to Communities in Need Here & Now As Congress debates whether to issue a third round of direct checks to millions of Americans in need, some are asking what to do with the check if they don’t need the money.

Well, one man in Oregon has an answer.

A few weeks ago, Allen Schauffler noticed a bump in his bank account. The news anchor and storyteller for the Central Oregon Daily News says he “just didn’t feel right” when he saw the direct deposit from the federal government.

“I just don't need that money right now,” he says. “And you look around the community, you know, almost any community right now, and you see people who are in dire need, who need help now.”

So Schauffler sat down and wrote a pitch to the people of Central Oregon. If you are in a financial position to do so, please think about redirecting your check to someone who needs the money more, he wrote.

Read the full story.

10. Libraries Supply Patrons with Internet During the Pandemic East Oregonian By the time the COVID-19 pandemic had started, Kathy Street already knew how crucial internet access could be.

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Street, the director for the Oregon Trail Library District in Morrow County, had moved during the previous year into a new home, located on a new street with three other newly constructed homes inside Boardman. When she tried calling local internet providers to purchase service, she said, she was shocked when they told her that the infrastructure didn’t exist to serve those four homes with internet or landline phone service. It took an appeal to the state’s Public Utility Commission to rectify the problem.

“That took six months, so we were one of those people sitting in the parking lot (of the library) on weekends to Facetime with our grandkids,” she said.

Some law enforcement officials and neighbors of the Oregon Trail Library District’s three branches (Boardman, Irrigon and Heppner) have pushed back on the policy of 24-hour access to Wi-Fi in the libraries’ parking lots, Street said, complaining about people loitering there. But given her experience of not having home internet access for six months, she felt it was important for people in those small communities to have round-the-clock access to an internet connection.

Read the full story.

11. PODCAST – Fixing Sustainability in Tourism with Kevney Dugan Fix It! Kevney Dugan, CEO of Visit Bend, speaks about making tourism more sustainable to ensure the long-term preservation of natural recreation spots.

Listen to the full story.

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