Monday Mailing - May 11

Monday Mailing

Year 26 • Issue 35 11 May 2020 1.

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Quote of the Week:

“It is failure that guides evolution; perfection provides no incentive for improvement, and nothing is perfect.”

- Colson Whitehead

Oregon Fast Fact

Adopted in 2005, the pear is Oregon’s state fruit. The pear ranks as the topselling tree fruit crop in the state and grows particularly well in the Rogue River Valley and along the Columbia River near Mt. Hood.

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Oregon Counties Can Begin Reopening as Early as May 15 Under New Framework (Katie McFall) Oregon Will Begin to Reopen Some State Parks May 6, More Expected to Follow (Michael Hoch) Making Apartments More Affordable Starts with Understanding the Costs of Building Them The Threat Below Mount St. Helens Thirsty Future for American West, as “Megadrought” Grips Some of the Fastest-Growing U.S. Cities Reopening Main Street Connecting the Dots Between Environmental Injustice and Coronavirus Las Vegas Mural Project Brings Color to Businesses Closed by Coronavirus As Major Meat Producers Buckle Under COVID-19 Crisis, Busy Smaller Competitors Fight Red Tape Milan Announces Ambitious Scheme to Reduce Car Use After Lockdown How Pandemics Spurred Cities to Make More Green Space for People PODCAST: Starving the Watchdog: Who Foots the Bill When Newspapers Disappear? (Hannah Fuller)

1. Dozens of Ways You Can Help NW Communities During the

Coronavirus Pandemic

Oregon’s grand reopening now has a date. Maybe.

Restaurants, bars, gyms and salons in some Oregon counties could open as early as May 15, under a framework unveiled by Gov. Kate Brown on Thursday. Residents of those counties could gather in groups of up to 25 without facing potential consequences.

In addition, the governor announced, some retail stores that had been shuttered statewide can reopen as of May 15, child care centers will be allowed to operate under reduced restrictions around Oregon, and summer school and youth camps will be allowed to resume.

To access the full story, click here.

2. Oregon Will Begin to Reopen Some State Parks May 6, More Expected to Follow

Oregonians are about to get more access to the outdoors, more than a month after parks and trails closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

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Oregon Gov. Kate Brown announced Tuesday that the state will begin to allow outdoor recreation areas to reopen this week, including select state parks, outdoor recreation facilities and all ski resorts.

The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department followed up shortly after the governor’s office with an announcement that eight state park sites will partially or completely reopen to the public May 6, including popular park sites like Tryon Creek, Willamette Mission, The Cove Palisades, Pilot Butte and Prineville Reservoir.

An additional six park sites in eastern and southern Oregon were announced Thursday, including the boat ramp at Wallowa Lake and nearby hiking trails at Iwetemlaykin State Heritage Area.

Limited day use will slowly return to other state parks starting the week of May 11, the parks department said, depending on the readiness of local communities and how prepared each park is with staff, supplies and equipment.

To access the full story, click here.

3. Making Apartments More Affordable Starts with Understanding the Costs of Building Them

During the decade between the Great Recession and the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. experienced a historically long economic expansion. Demand for rental housing grew steadily over those years, driven by demographic trends and a strong labor market. Yet the supply of new rental housing did not keep up with demand, leading to rent increases that outstripped gains in household income.

Policymakers and researchers have identified a number of barriers to building more—and more affordable—housing, including restrictive land use regulations, increasing costs of construction labor and materials, and greater market concentration in the homebuilding industry. Notably, residential construction has not benefitted from improved productivity, as many other industries have.

Construction will likely slow down until the COVID-19 pandemic abates and economic conditions improve. But the public health crisis has highlighted the extent of housing insecurity among millions of U.S. renters—a problem that can only be solved by building more housing at lower costs.

To access the full story, click here.

4. The Threat Below Mount St. Helens

The Pumice Plain in southwest Washington’s Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument is one of the most closely studied patches of land in the world. Named for the type of volcanic rock that dominates it, it formed during the mountain’s 1980 eruption. Since then, ecologists have scrutinized it, surveying birds, mammals and plants, and in general cataloging the return of life to this unique and fragile landscape.

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Now, the depth of that attention is threatened, but not due to the stirrings of the most active volcano in the Pacific Northwest. The problem is a large lake two miles north of the mountain: Spirit Lake. Or, more specifically, the Spirit Lake tunnel, an artificial outlet built out of necessity and completed in 1985.

After nearly four decades, the tunnel is in need of an upgrade. At issue is the road the Forest Service plans to build across the Pumice Plain despite the scientific plots dotting the plain’s expanse. In this, Spirit Lake and its tunnel have become the de facto headwaters of a struggle over how best to manage research and risk on a mountain famous for its destructive capabilities.

To access the full story, click here.

5. Thirsty Future for American West, as “Megadrought” Grips Some of the FastestGrowing U.S. Cities

In 2002, Utah was reeling from four years of dry conditions that turned the state ‘’into a parched tinderbox,’’ as the Associated Press reported at the time. “Drought Could Last Another 1-2 years,” the headline proclaimed. Right on time, in 2004, the Salt Lake Tribune ran a similar article, on “Coming To Terms with Utah’s Six-Year Drought,” that was “believed to be the worst to strike the Southwest in half a millennium.”

Almost two decades later, the drought has raged on. In October 2019, the water supplier for St. George, a rapidly growing resort and retirement community in southwest Utah, released a statement declaring the city’s longest-ever dry spell: 122 days without rain.

A study published last month in the journal Science identified an emerging “megadrought” across all or parts of 11 western states and part of northern Mexico—a drought likely, with the influence of climate change, to be more severe and long-lasting than any since the 1500s. The area includes Utah, Nevada, Arizona, California and portions of Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas.

To access the full story, click here.

6. Reopening Main Street

Bringing people back downtown and to shopping streets will require confidence that the health crisis is abating, and a future outbreak will be minimized. States are now starting to re-open retail, and California Governor Gavin Newsom announced this week that California is moving to Phase Two of the State’s re-opening strategy, which includes some retail stores, with restrictions.

A vaccine is perhaps many months (or even years) away, and widespread testing infeasible in the near future. Cities and communities will need to adjust public space to allow customers back in with distancing in mind. Restaurants present an opportunity that already has many indicators of success: repurpose sidewalks, street-side parking, and parking lots into outdoor dining areas.

Alfresco dining offers the community a way to enjoy the outdoors while supporting restaurants.

There is evidence Coronavirus does spread while airborne, but it may lose strength with sun and Page 3 of 6

warm weather. Outdoor dining areas could be popular as the warmer summer months approach, and they would provide the area needed for establishments to enact social distancing while maintaining feasible occupancy levels.

Main Streets are critical parts of our cities’ economies and social culture, and they will need support during recovery to bring people back. More outdoor dining will send a signal to consumers that it's safe to go back out, with people being the biggest attractor of people.

To access the full story, click here.

7. Connecting the Dots Between Environmental Injustice and Coronavirus

While cities and towns across the United States are wrestling with the devastating impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, none have been hit harder than low-income and minority communities. Places like Detroit, Chicago, and St. James Parish in Louisiana, plagued by decades of economic inequality and pollution in impoverished neighborhoods, have experienced some of the country’s highest mortality rates from the virus. Recent studies have shown a link between high levels of pollution and an increased risk of death from COVID-19.

Sacoby Wilson, an environmental health scientist at the University of Maryland, believes the coronavirus has cast a spotlight on largely unnoticed segments of society, from low-income people in polluted neighborhoods, to residents of nursing homes and prisons, to workers in the nation’s meatpacking plants “One thing that COVID-19 has done, it has made a lot of populations we made invisible, visible,” Wilson says in an interview with Yale Environment 360.

To access the full story, click here.

8. Las Vegas Mural Project Brings Color to Businesses Closed by Coronavirus

Boarding up wasn’t an easy decision. But Derek Stonebarger, the owner of ReBar, a downtown Las Vegas pub and antique shop, knew it had to be done. In the days following Nevada governor Steve Sisolak’s mandate that all gaming establishments, restaurants and bars close their doors by noon on March 18th, two neighboring businesses were broken into.

“That’s when I was like, that’s it. I’m boarding up,” Stonebarger said. But something about the plain plywood covering up the once-vibrant space didn’t feel right to him. So he called up Geneva Marquez, a gallery owner and art producer at ReBar, and they formulated a plan.

Stonebarger started by hiring an artist to paint the Dude, Jeff Bridges’ iconically zen character in The Big Lebowski, on the plywood boarding up his bar. “The dude abides,” said Stonebarger.

“And we were abiding.”

A wave of interest followed as other businesses and artists asked Stonebarger how they could do the same. Within days, the City of Las Vegas Redevelopment Agency (RDA) caught wind of the project and started a program offering up to $2,000 for businesses to board up in the city’s economic development zones — as long as their boards feature some kind of artwork. Other cities have murals going up on boarded-up buildings: Seattle’s project is a grassroots-led effort, while Austin’s is partially supported by the city’s Cultural Arts Division.

To access the full story, click here.

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9. As Major Meat Producers Buckle Under COVID-19 Crisis, Busy Smaller Competitors Fight Red Tape

As Covid-19 ravages the workplaces of America’s largest meat processors, many of these giant facilities, which supply the vast majority of the nation’s beef, pork, and chicken, have shut down or reduced capacity. Securing some protection from liability concerns—however unspecified— via President Trump’s recent executive order to remain open during this pandemic, the country’s big processors are nonetheless coping with myriad existential threats to their business model. Employees aren’t showing up. Livestock farmers are culling their herds. Productivity is down.

Unlike their larger competitors, though, many smaller meat-processing plants in the United States report brisk business. These small- and mid-sized processors face some of the same workplace challenges as the big processors. But the real obstacle that’s preventing ranchers and farmers that utilize these facilities from supplying more meat to more Americans is an outdated federal law that props up the large processors while preventing local meat producers from selling steaks, roasts, and other cuts of meat to consumers in grocery stores, at farmers’ markets, and elsewhere in their communities.

To access the full story, click here.

10. Milan Announces Ambitious Scheme to Reduce Car Use After Lockdown

Milan is to introduce one of Europe’s most ambitious schemes reallocating street space from cars to cycling and walking, in response to the coronavirus crisis.

The northern Italian city and surrounding Lombardy region are among Europe’s most polluted, and have also been especially hard hit by the Covid-19 outbreak.

Under the nationwide lockdown, motor traffic congestion has dropped by 30-75%, and air pollution with it. City officials hope to fend off a resurgence in car use as residents return to work looking to avoid busy public transport.

The city has announced that 35km (22 miles) of streets will be transformed over the summer, with a rapid, experimental citywide expansion of cycling and walking space to protect residents as Covid-19 restrictions are lifted.

To access the full story, click here.

11. How Pandemics Spurred Cities to Make More Green Space for People

Cholera tore through New York City in the summer of 1832, leaving its victims with sunken eyes, blue skin, severe diarrhea, nausea and vomiting. It had swept from its origin in Asia and then made its way across Europe before arriving at New York’s shores. It only took a matter of weeks for cholera to claim the lives of more than 3,500 of the city’s 250,000 citizens (at a similar death rate, the fatalities in New York City would top 118,000 in 2020).

When cholera returned for a second round in 1849, the death toll exceeded 5,000 in the city.

Throughout the 1800s, recurring cholera outbreaks left an indelible mark not only in terms of Page 5 of 6

death counts but in spurring urban design elements such as wide boulevards and parks that transformed New York and other major cities into the iconic metropolises we know today.

To access the full story, click here.

12. PODCAST: Starving the Watchdog: Who Foots the Bill When Newspapers Disappear?

There are plenty of ways today to pay little—or nothing—to read the news. There are free blogs.

There's Facebook and Twitter. Who needs a subscription to a local newspaper?

Millions of Americans have decided they don't. But new research suggests this strategy may have costs in the long run. That's because newspapers are not like most things we buy. If you decide not to buy a watch or a cappuccino, you save money. But if you decide not to pay for a police department, you might save money in the short run, but end up paying more in the long run.

Whereas most of us treat newspapers like consumer products, new research from Paul Gao, Chang Lee, and Dermot Murphy suggests that they might be more like police departments. Gao, Lee, and Murphy looked at how newspaper closures might affect the cost of borrowing in local governments. What they found is a price tag that may give many taxpayers sticker shock.

To listen to the full story, click here.

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