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Monday Mailing

Year 21 • Issue 28 30 March 2015 1. Oregon Senate Passes Bill Allowing Bicycles, Motorcycles to Run Red Lights 2. Gov. Kate Brown to Declare Drought Emergency in Lake, Malheur Counties 3. New Hazards Related Web Resources 4. Webinar: Funding Your Food Policy Council's Work 5. Egyptian Theater Almost Ready for Its Close-Up 6. Snow Dragon: Mount Hood’s Best Known Glacier Ice Cave Partly Collapses 7. Costa Rica Powered With 100% Renewable Energy for 75 Straight Days 8. Webinar: NCI Charrette System 2015 9. Eugene Makes Moves For Bike-Share Program 10. 9th Annual Child Nutrition Program Conference 11. Why Parking Spaces Shouldn’t Always be Wasted on Cars 1. Oregon Senate Passes Bill Allowing Bicycles, Motorcycles to Run Red Lights In the Portland area, few things stir road rage as much as bicyclists running red lights. So how would you react to an Oregon bill making the practice legal across the state?

Quote of the Week: "The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny" ~ Albert Ellis Oregon Fast Fact: The state of Oregon is approximately 350 miles from east to west. Also, from north to south, which is from Washington to California, it is between 250 and 300 miles.

Well, there are probably the obvious snide observations. ("Pfft! A lot of bicyclists apparently already think blowing a red is legal.") Sorry, pedaling commuters, but that's deserved.

Or there's the shrug, chuckle and head-shaking response: Sounds like another crazy bill with no chance of passing in the Legislature. Right?

Wrong.

Earlier this week, the Oregon Senate unanimously approved SB 533, permitting a "bicyclist or motorcyclist to proceed at stop light under certain conditions.

To access the full story, click here.

2. Gov. Kate Brown to Declare Drought Emergency in Lake, Malheur Counties Perilously low snowpack levels in two southeastern Oregon counties have Gov. Kate Brown ready to declare a drought-related emergency.

The state's Drought Council has decided conditions are so dry in Lake and Malheur counties, a crisis is underway. After receiving pleas from both counties to recognize a drought, the council has sent recommendations to the governor to make it official.

"It is likely that she will sign them upon receipt," probably on Monday, Brown's spokeswoman Melissa Navas said in an email Friday.

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Declarations for Harney and Klamath counties likely aren't far behind, said Cory Grogan, a spokesman for the state Office of Emergency Management.

The news comes hours after Washington Gov. Jay Inslee declared a drought in three regions of the state, including the Olympic Peninsula, the east side of the central Cascades and the Walla Walla region.

To access the full story, click here.

3. Hazards Related Web Resources Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network Sometimes it helps to start small before you go big. That’s the concept behind the Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network, which implements strategies for wildfire resilience in pilot communities and uses hub organizations to spread the word about how they worked. Whether you want to be a participant or just check out what they’ve learned, visit the Web site for more information, resources, and updates.

Beyond the Basics: Best Practices in Local Mitigation Planning If you’ve been procrastinating on putting together a hazard mitigation plan, there’s no time like the present—especially since this new Web site will walk you through it step by step. The site, which was created by the DHS Science and Technology Coastal Hazard Center of Excellence and the of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, also contains a self-assessment tool, sample community plans and place to share experiences and lessons learned. iRevolutions This blog features short thought pieces on how innovation and technology are revolutionizing the power of the individual by increasing self-sufficiency, self-determination, independence, survival, and resilience. Masterminded by Patrick Meier, it covers a wealth of topics such as big data, drones, humanitarian technology, disaster resilience, and crisis mapping.

United Nations Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction The fourth edition of the United Nations Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction is now available online. The report is a resource for understanding and analyzing global disaster risk and explores large potential losses from disasters that many countries face. Among its conclusions is that Disaster Risk Management should be integrated with development to better raise awareness that managing risk is less costly than managing disasters.

Youth Creating Disaster Recovery & Resilience Youth experience disaster differently than adults and this Web site has collected a myriad of examples of the realities of that dynamic. Using art, video, and story telling, young people affected by disasters such as the Calgary Flood, the Joplin Tornado, and the Slave Lake Wildfire identify what they need for recovery, challenges they have faced, and ways in which they can contribute to recover from disasters.

The Guardian Climate Crisis Series

While the debate about human contribution to climate change still rages, The Guardian is planning a series of articles to explore how humanity can solve it. The first installment is an excerpt from Naomi Klien’s This Changes Everything. In it, Klein argues that if climate change is treated as the crisis it is, society can be improved in the process, and disasters averted in the process.

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Changing the Atmosphere: Anthropology and Climate Change

This report from the American Anthropological Association’s Global Climate Change Task Force represents several years of wrangling with questions of how anthropological contributions can inform issues related to global climate change. The report articulates new research directions and suggests actions and recommendations to help promote anthropological investigation of these issues.

Themes such as the human causes of climate change, lessons learned about human adaption, and the importance of local and community engagement are addressed.

Bracing for Impact This reader-funded journalism project will focus on various aspects of climate change, including how race, class, and ethnic differences influence recovery from extreme weather; food security strategies; what makes species resilient; and how communities are preparing for emerging diseases.

4. Webinar: Funding Your Food Policy Council's Work March 31, 2015 10:00 AM - 11:15 AM PDT Most food policy councils cite fundraising and a lack of resources as one of their biggest challenges.

Join us for this webinar and hear from two funders and a food policy council about how to overcome those challenges. We’ll examine how policy and advocacy fit into a foundation’s mission; indicators of financial sustainability that funders want; and steps to develop and maintain relationships with funders. Learn how one council has worked with funders and attracted support.

There is no registration and no fee for attending this webinar.

To register for the webinar, click here.

5. Egyptian Theater Almost Ready for Its Close-Up Back in 2011 the Egyptian Theatre (built in 1925) was placed on Restore Oregon’s Most Endangered Places list. It had been shut down by our theatre’s owner, the Urban Renewal Agency of Coos Bay, because of structural concerns. In 2012 the City of Coos Bay and the Egyptian Theatre Preservation Association (ETPA) embarked on an intense campaign to raise the funds needed to implement structural repairs and re-open the Egyptian. A seed grant from Restore Oregon funded a market study that demonstrated the economic viability of the theater, which gave our campaign credibility.

With strong support from our local community, the City of Coos Bay, and many wonderful foundations, we were able to raise the funds required, perform the needed construction, and celebrate our Grand Re-Opening in June of 2014. Along the way the ETPA board decided that we should extend our restoration efforts to include exterior restoration of the theatre as well.

To access the full story, click here.

6. Snow Dragon: Mount Hood’s Best Known Glacier Ice Cave Partly Collapses The Northwest's warmer-than-average winter is taking its toll on the Sandy River glacier caves.

One of the major ice caves know as Snow Dragon collapsed recently, said Brent McGregor, the cocoordinator of the Sandy Glacier Cave Project. McGregor talked on OPB's Think Out Loud about how melting snow and warm winds accelerated the cave's deterioration.

McGregor says it's only a matter of time before the remaining caves disappear.

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The caves -- formed by melting glacial water and warm winds -- are eerily beautiful, evanescent and dangerous. Just getting there requires the skills of a mountaineer and the guts of a daredevil. The spectacular ice caverns were documented on OPB's Oregon Field Guide in October 2013.

For more information, click here.

7. Costa Rica Powered With 100% Renewable Energy for 75 Straight Days Well done Costa Rica, well done.

The Cental American country has achieved a major clean energy milestone, meeting 100 percent of its power demand with renewable energy for 75 straight days.

“The year 2015 has been one of electricity totally friendly to the environment for Costa Rica,” the state-owned power supplier Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) said in a press release.

The ICE says the country's zero-emission milestone was enabled thanks to heavy rainfalls at four hydroelectric power facilities in the first quarter of 2015. These downpours have meant that, for the months of January, February and so far March, there has been no need to burn fossil fuels to generate electricity.

For more information, click here.

8. Webinar: NCI Charrette System 2015 April 7, 2015 11:00 AM PDT Join us for a free hour-long webinar to learn about the latest high tech/high touch version of this collaborative process for innovative design. Register here.

Architects and inventors have known for centuries that the most creative way to work is to immerse themselves in a problem for an uninterrupted period of time. The charrette brings specialists and stakeholders together for an uninterrupted period to break through to a creative solution. What normally takes months is accomplished in a fraction of the time.

In this webinar we will discuss how the NCI Charrette System™ can be used to cut project timelines in half, gain broad stakeholder support and develop out-of-the-box creative solutions.

Presenters: Bill Lennertz, Executive Director, National Charrette Institute Ken Snyder, CEO, PlaceMatters After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

9. Eugene Makes Moves For Bike-Share Program Oregon’s first public bike-share system is coming closer to reality. But it won’t be in Portland, which has been trying since 2011 to create a city-run program.

The City of Eugene will soon receive $909,000 to develop a citywide program from the Oregon Transportation Commission as part of the ConnectOregon fund.

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Eugene plans to install 28 stations with 210 bikes. Four would be owned by the University of Oregon, the other 24 would be city-owned, but users can park the bikes at any station.

Rob Inerfield, transportation manager for Eugene, said the fund will be combined with a match fund of nearly $227,300 from the Riverfront Urban Renewal District and a contribution from UO. In the near future, Inerfield said the city will be looking into the different suppliers and launching a local nonprofit to maintain the bike-share system.

To access the full story, click here.

10. 9th Annual Child Nutrition Program Conference April 2, 9:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m.

Sprout! in Springfield, OR The 9th annual Child Nutrition Program Conference brings together education, nutrition, nonprofit professionals and hunger-prevention advocates to a day of planning, professional development, networking and innovative strategies in child nutrition programming. It’s also a chance to share ideas and challenges with a vibrant professional peer network that can provide support and expertise across a wide variety of issues. This conference supports strong, sustainable child nutrition programs that serve kids during in-school and out-of-school time.

Space is limited, and registration is required. Register here. Morning refreshments and lunch will be provided.

Topics will include: Grant Opportunities, Increasing Breakfast Participation, Community Eligibility Provision, Advocacy and Child Nutrition Reauthorization primer, and Summer and Afterschool Meal Program topics. One session of the day will be one-on-one technical assistance time about grants, opportunities, and prgram model strategies and will include representatives from ODE Child Nutrition Programs, Oregon Dairy Council, Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon, USDA FNS, FRAC, and Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

For more information about this event, click here.

11. Why Parking Spaces Shouldn’t Always be Wasted on Cars Conventional wisdom says that businesses need parking spots. If would-be customers can’t pull up out front, how will they come inside?

This is a powerful idea, and it invariably animates the opposition any time cities threaten to redesign roadways, replacing parking spots with bus lanes, cycle tracks, bike racks or wider sidewalks. Remove parking, the argument goes, and business will wither.

The reality, though, is more complicated. Consider one illustration: For the last few years, Philadelphia has converted a handful of parking spots in front of neighborhood businesses into temporary "parklets" no bigger than the space that might fit one or two cars (these tiny interventions are now popular in a lot of cities). Records from adjacent businesses show sales went up about 20 percent immediately after the parks were installed, relative to right beforehand.

To access the full story, click here.

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