Ashland Community Connections | June 2021

A SPECIAL EDITION OF THE ASHLAND TIDINGS ❘ FREE

INSIDE THURSDAY June 3, 2021

JUNE 2021

OSF RETURNS

Performances of ‘Fannie: The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer’ begin July 1 in the Allen Elizabethan Theatre. This electrifying, immersive call to action is inspired by the life of a famed civil rights activist.

SEE PAGE 10

Oregon Shakespeare Festival heads back outdoors with a special presentation and a series of one-night shows.

Revels E. Faye Butler as Fannie Lou Hamer.

PHOTO BY LIZ LAUREN

An Ashland family garden has made a tradition of raising vegetables ... and future generations.

Page 26

Stalled search for city manager, open hostility force adoption of code of conduct. Pages 2,4 5

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A CITY COUNCIL IN CRISIS

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Ashland Community Connections | Revels

COUNCIL IN CRISIS

Strife delays search for new city manager

Hostility prompts code of conduct

By Damian Mann for ACC

By Damian Mann ACC ASHLAND TIDINGS / FILE PHOTO

A lack of trust and increasing hostility prompted Ashland city councilors to adopt a code of conduct last month to regain their lost civility.

“It was not my intention to make anyone feel bad, criticized or feel uncomfortable,” said Councilor Gina DuQuenne.

“I could have chosen my words more carefully.”

Some recent exchanges between councilors appear to have contributed to the recent resignation of city attorney Dave Lohman and a Gold Hill recruiting firm announcing recently it would no longer help the city find a new city manager.

Councilors acknowledged they had been less than civil in their remarks to each other, city staff and the public.

Councilor Stephen Jensen said councilors need to keep the hyperbole out of their remarks and avoid inflammatory words while still remaining free to speak to the media.

He said criticism about a policy difference is appropriate, but councilors need to avoid personal remarks.

Exchanges between Ashland City Council members appear to have contributed to the resignation of the city attorney Dave and a Gold Hill recruiting firm announcing it would no longer help the city find a new city manager.

Failure to abide by the code of conduct could place the city of Ashland in legal and financial risk, jeopardize the productivity and efficiency of the council, and harm the working environment of staff who are tasked with ensuring the effective and safe operation of the city.

“It has become clear that we absolutely need this declaration,” Jensen said.

The council voted unanimously to adopt a two-page code of conduct that states the council should, “Practice respect, professionalism and decorum during discussion and debate. Assume good intentions and refrain from impugning motives or professional competency of any meeting

participant, including city staff, presenters and the public.”

The code of conduct requires councilors to avoid negative personal comments and “casting aspersion either directly or indirectly. One may speak in opposition but do so without personal rancor.”

Councilors should refrain from derogatory or misleading statements about each other, city staff, contractors or other stakeholders.

Failure to abide by the code of conduct could place the city of Ashland in legal and financial risk, jeopardize the productivity and efficiency of the council, and harm the working environment of staff who are tasked with ensuring the effective and safe operation of the city.

Ashland resident Nancy Boyer emailed councilors asking them to avoid the harsh rhetoric and deal with “the huge deficit that looms over all of us.”

SEE CODE, A5

The Ashland City Council decided last month to take a timeout in its city manager search after a second recruiting firm severed its relationship with the city.

“Having two firms walk should alarm us all,” said Councilor Stephen Jensen.

He said the council could do a better job collaborating with staff and with each other as well as with the public and outside groups.

Jensen said he fears the actions of the council may have exposed the city to legal and financial jeopardy, without specifying what those actions were.

The council voted 5-1 to put the city manager search on hiatus until after Aug. 1 to allow the council time to figure out how it wants to proceed.

The two recruiting firms are Pekham McKenney in California and WBCP Inc. of Gold Hill.

“At this time, WBCP, Inc. respectfully declines to move forward with assisting you with this recruitment process,” said Wendi Brown, president of the company, in a May 6 email.

“My team and I are committed to meeting our clients’ needs and place great candidates to secure a long-term relationship with council, and I’m not sure under the current environment we are able to do either.”

Councilors indicated it will

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become increasingly more difficult to hire a recruiting firm if the the word gets out that Ashland is difficult to deal with.

“There are significant concerns about other firms willing to work with Ashland,” Councilor Paula Hyatt said. “We cannot afford to have a third firm step away from our city.”

But Councilor Gina DuQuenne said, “The first recruiter didn’t have a license to work in the state of Oregon.”

Other councilors indicated they hadn’t heard of that reason but instead said there were a half-dozen other factors that prompted the first recruiting firm to stop working with the city.

Many Oregon cities hire recruiting firms because of the highly competitive nature of city manager searches.

In 2020, former City Administrator Kelly Madding resigned to take a job as deputy city manager in Medford.

Ashland voters last year approved the creation of a city manager position to replace the position of city administrator. A city manager form of government is more common in Oregon, and the position carries greater executive authority, including the ability to hire department heads.

Medford is an example of a local city with a city manager form of government.

SEE MANAGER, A5

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Thursday, June 3, 2021 |

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Ashland Community Connections | Revels

COUNCIL IN CRISIS

“... I was treated rudely, my ethics were questioned, and I felt I was being asked to do something that may have not been in alignment with the full council’s decision.”

— Wendi Brown, president of the second recruiting firm to back out, in writing to the mayor and council

Recruiter says Ashland posed ‘too great a risk’

By Allayana Darrow ACC

The withdrawal of two recruitment companies from the search for an Ashland city manager has opened a debate among city officials about whether to press on — facing a fast-approaching expiration date on the interim city manager’s contract — or pause the search and take a closer look at why those two firms fled.

The snafu came as the city attorney announced he would also leave the city to retire.

In May 2020 voters approved the creation of a city manager position to supplant the post of city administrator.

During a May 13 special council meeting, Councilor Paula Hyatt made a motion to suspend the city manager recruitment process until Aug. 1 to investigate why Peckham & McKenney and Wendi Brown Creative Partners severed their contracts.

The motion passed 5-1, with Councilor Shaun Moran voting against.

Mayor Julie Akins initiated a veto on the council decision, claiming that continuing a search on the previous timeline might reduce the city’s administrative vulnerability.

The veto is null because an approved motion is not subject to the rules associated with formal resolutions, which the mayor may overturn and place on a future city council agenda for another vote, requiring two-thirds in favor to pass, according to Robert’s Rules and Resolutions.

In an email to the City Council, Akins said her effort to veto “didn’t pass muster” with the legal department.

According to Human Resource Director Tina Gray, recruiting firm Peckham & McKenney withdrew because the recruiters were “concerned about the

significant hurdles this recruitment presents.”

Their concerns included the city’s transition to a new form of government in a strained financial environment, failed fire chief recruitment (two candidates turned down the job before acting Chief Ralph Sartain assumed the post), high turnover in the city administrator position, failure to consider the city manager pro tem as a candidate, and “differing viewpoints on experience and education requirements among the council.”

In an email to the council dated March 8, Gray wrote that the circumstances would cause any professional recruiter to be wary, and together presented too much of a risk for the firm.

Wendi Brown, president of the second recruiting firm to back out, said she had never before released a contract in 20 years of work.

“During the time of this recruitment I was treated rudely, my ethics were questioned, and I felt I was being asked to do something that may have not been in alignment with the full council’s decision,” Brown wrote to the mayor and council.

Councilor Gina DuQuenne, who initially voted in favor of delaying the search for city manager, asked the council to reconsider its decision. The motion failed 4-2, with DuQuenne and Councilor Shaun Moran voting in favor of reconsideration.

“After a lot of thought, I would like council to move forward with the advertisement and information already in place,” DuQuenne said before the vote. “We can begin to receive applications now, allowing Adam Hanks, city manager pro tem, the opportunity to apply for city manager if he’d like.”

SEE RECRUITER, A5

Ashland council suffers from lack of leadership Ashland Tidings Editorial Board

At least this time, they’re not spending $37,000 of taxpayers’ money to learn how to act like grownups.

That was the price tag in 2007 when the Ashland City Council hired a professional counselor for five months of training sessions to help them work together constructively.

This time, the council adopted a code of conduct that requires members to avoid negative personal comments, and provides for public discussion at the next council meeting if a member feels the code has been breached.

Meanwhile, the council’s dysfunction has spilled over to other city positions and the all-important search for a permanent city manager. Two separate executive search firms have withdrawn from their contracts with the city, and City Attorney David Lohman has announced he will retire July 1 for “professional and personal reasons.”

The second recruiter said she was withdrawing because she was “treated rudely, my ethics were questioned, and I felt I was being asked to do something that may not have been in alignment with the full council’s decision.”

Lohman’s retirement announcement was preceded by an email exchange with Mayor Julie Akins after Lohman urged the mayor and council to adhere more closely to Robert’s Rules of parliamentary procedure. Akins responded that she followed the Ashland Municipal Code, and declared that “If you’re trying to thwart the will of the people, launch a recall and take your chances.” She suggested Lohman’s advice was intended to “undermine the office of the mayor,” and said “I consider these behaviors as part of a pattern of harassment.”

Akins tried to veto a council vote to put the city manager search on hold, saying Ashland voters approved changing the city government to a council-manager system from the previous strong mayor model, and the council should honor that by pushing ahead with the recruiting process.

Akins is right that the voters wanted a change, but she seems to have missed

the part of that vote that limited the mayor’s role to conducting meetings and breaking ties. Her attempt to use the veto power she does have fell flat because she apparently did not understand that it did not apply to the vote to delay the search.

What Akins does not understand appears to outweigh what she does comprehend. She served as a council member before running for mayor, and should have had a thorough grasp of Robert’s Rules of Order before taking on the responsibility of presiding over council meetings.

When it comes to council members treating each other disrespectfully, there is plenty of blame to go around.

There are factions on the council that strongly disagree over the city’s direction, and they don’t always behave in a collegial manner.

But the presiding officer — in this case, the mayor — bears ultimate responsibility for ensuring meetings are productive and the participants remain civil to each other. Assuming a defensive posture, daring those she sees as critics to launch a recall and claiming a “pattern of harassment” does not inspire confidence in her leadership abilities.

Akins also has a pattern of airing criticism of other council members on social media — not the most professional way to handle council business.

The code of conduct the council adopted May 13 says members should “Practice respect, professionalism and decorum during discussion and debate. Assume good intentions and refrain from impugning motives or professional competency of any meeting participant, including city staff, presenters and the public.”

That really shouldn’t be difficult for adults to manage, especially those elected to positions of civic responsibility. But it’s harder to accomplish that goal without strong leadership.

The presiding officer — in this case, the mayor — bears ultimate responsibility for ensuring meetings are productive and the participants remain civil to each other. Assuming a defensive posture, daring those she sees as critics to launch a recall and claiming a “pattern of harassment” does not inspire confidence in her leadership abilities.

Ashland Community Connections | Revels

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Thursday, June 3, 2021 |

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COUNCIL IN CRISIS

CODE

From Page A2

Boyer said the current situation is reminiscent of 2007, when the city of Ashland spent $37,000 to hire a therapist to restore civility to the council.

Ashland resident Dean Silver sent the council an email stating, “Regarding the code of conduct, I urge you to censure Councilor Stephen Jensen in response to egregious and inappropriate comments in the local press attempting to discourage citizens from attempting to contribute to the public discourse.”

Councilor Tonya Graham said, “It is my hope that some of the ways in which people in this body have engaged will change.”

She said councilors need to be pulling in the same direction even if they disagree.

Councilor Stefani Seffinger said the council has a lot of work to regain trust that has been lost.

“Even this meeting feels like there is not trust,” she said.

She said the council needs to be a functional group to effectively represent the people of Ashland.

“I’d like this personally to be a time of healing,” she said.

MANAGER From Page A2

Ashland’s interim city manager is Adam Hanks.

Several councilors expressed a lack of trust in what’s going on behind the scenes that has helped erode trust among the councilors in regards to the city manager search.

Some ire appeared directed at Mayor Julie Akins, who said, “I feel like I’m in the wood shed.”

Councilor Shaun Moran, who cast the sole “no” vote, said he understands taking a breath in the city manager search may help, but he said the will of the voters is to get a city manager as soon as possible.

“I don’t think a two-month break here will miraculously repair a reputation that has been tarnished,” he said.

Reach freelance writer Damian Mann at dmannnews@gmail. com.

“If you’re trying to thwart the will of the people, launch a recall and take your chances. At this point, I consider these behaviors as part of a pattern of harassment.”

— Mayor Julie Akins, in an email exchange with City Attorney David Lohman and the City Council

RECRUITER From Page A4

Without a recruiter at the helm, Hanks said several questions remain unanswered, such as a new timeline, who will review applications, final selection criteria and city staff’s role in advertising the post.

Hanks’ interim contract expires Sept. 1.

Hanks previously declined to comment on whether he intended to apply for the position and directed questions about the position to HR. In support of maintaining the delay approved by the council, Councilor Stephen Jensen repeated a call to take the time “to get our act together” and “judiciously consider our way forward as a unified body in order to not make the mistakes that we made in the past.”

Moran’s response — a demand for clarity about Jensen’s meaning — prompted Akins to remind councilors of the newly approved code of conduct.

At a May 13 special meeting, the council unanimously adopted a code of conduct that states the council should, “practice respect, professionalism and decorum during discussion and debate. Assume good intentions and refrain from impugning motives or professional competency of any meeting participant, including city staff, presenters and the public.”

The code of conduct requires meeting members to avoid misleading or negative personal comments and “casting aspersion either directly or indirectly,” under risk of placing the city in legal and financial jeopardy. “One may speak in opposition, but do so without personal rancor,” the code says.

On May 5, City Attorney David Lohman announced that he planned to retire after 10 years with the city “for both professional and personal reasons,” according to a letter he sent to the mayor, council and commissioners. His last day with the city is July 1.

Lohman said he intends to transition the role to Assistant City Attorney Katrina Brown in the interim.

Two weeks prior, Lohman sent an email to Akins and the City Council, CC: Hanks and City Recorder Melissa Huhtala,

City Attorney David Lohman announced that he planned to retire after 10 years with the city “for both professional and personal reasons,” according to a letter he sent to the mayor, council and commissioners. His last day with the city is July 1. encouraging a closer adherence to Robert’s Rules of parliamentary procedure during meetings.

Lohman summarized five procedures he said may have been “used to good effect” at the April 20 meeting and prompted six questions for the council to resolve. The questions included procedure for voting on items pulled from the consent agenda, vetting and approving commission applications, handling “perceived lapses of civility or respect,” wrap-up when items do not end with a motion, ensuring staff directions not codified in law are supported by a council majority, and standard agenda item routine.

Akins wrote that she adheres to mayoral duties that are clear in Ashland Municipal Code, and alleged Lohman’s message undermined and added confusion to the interpretation of established council rules and city laws.

“If y’all want to undermine the office of

the mayor, that will affect all who follow,” Akins wrote.

“If you’re trying to thwart the will of the people, launch a recall and take your chances. At this point, I consider these behaviors as part of a pattern of harassment.”

In response, Lohman said Akins’ characterization skewed his intent, and his message fell within the bounds of his role as parliamentarian per the city code — a responsibility to “be alert to any problems that are developing and advise the presiding officer on proper procedures.”

On April 27, Akins posted on social media that veteran councilors seemed perpetually confused about clear-cut city code.

In response to a comment on the post recommending a new city attorney, Akins pointed to Ashland’s legal woes and said the former mayor called Lohman his “consigliere” — something former mayor John Stromberg said is being improperly portrayed to discredit Lohman’s expertise and value to the city.

Stromberg said he used the term because he sought Lohman’s counsel ... informed by a career specializing in Oregon politics, law and economic development.

“He had connections all over the place and he was very well respected, so that’s what I meant: ‘A consigliere is a counselor,’” Stromberg said. ”He was a great person for helping a mayor who was trying to figure out what’s going on find his way.“

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Ashland Community Connections | Revels

PIONEER HALL

Community group takes GET BACK lead on engineering phase TO DOING ACC

By unanimous Ashland City Council approval, a citizen group of construction professionals will take the lead on the engineering phase of a project to reopen Pioneer Hall and the Community Center on Windburn Way. The city issued a request for proposal in fall of 2020 after the council directed city staff to address structural “deficiencies” in the roof and floor systems of both buildings.

At the April 20 business meeting, the City Council elected not to approve a contract with Marquess and Associates Inc., the engineering firm initially selected for the project.

City Manager Pro Tem Adam Hanks sought councilor suggestions on alternative paths forward — the most popular of which was formation of an ad hoc committee, Hanks said.

According to council documents, engineering and cost-estimating services for the project will cost $11,048 for Pioneer Hall and $35,720 for the Community Center.

Historian and committee organizer George Kramer applauded the council for taking a “wise and cost effective step” by considering other options, including formation of the ad hoc committee.

With the support of Councilors Shaun Moran and Stefani Seffinger, a group of construction professionals with a combined 100 years of experience, including Kramer, an architect, an engineer and contractor reviewed engineering reports on the buildings, Kramer said.

A donor has offered to supply financial support for the project as well, he said.

“We all agreed that there may be ways to address the issues that closed [the buildings] in a cost-effective manner,” Kramer said at the May 18 council meeting. “They were closed for very specific reasons and addressing those problems should be enough to reopen them.”

“We’re not asking you for a contract,” Kramer continued.

“If you want to call us an ad hoc committee, I’m OK with that, but I really think we’re overthinking this. We’re offering our expertise as a community service.”

Kramer said the city could contract with builders to see the group’s pre-construction work through to fruition. If the group's assumptions about limited necessary improvements to the buildings are proven incorrect after one month, the city may hire an engineering firm to continue the original plan, he said.

The city would start anew with the RFP process in such a case, Hanks said.

Public Works Director Scott Fleury said a solicitation package for engineering services would come back in front of the council for approval within three to four months after release — preceding a solicitation package for construction.

“This is a very important way to move forward with bringing the community together, working with our new councilors and our older council members in a project where we could work together,” Seffinger said. “I have a lot of confidence that this way of moving forward provides some new energy.”

Moran said his support for tapping the expertise of a citizen group was guided by public feedback, which centered around a desire to fix the two buildings at a low cost and reopen them. All group participants will be vaccinated, wear facial coverings and sign a waiver protecting the city from legal trouble if an injury occurs on site, he said.

The community group will review existing reports, evaluate the buildings and provide feedback and recommendations on next steps to the council, according to Seffinger’s motion, which passed unanimously.

“There’s an emotional part to this, of trying to get the community feeling like a community again, and something like Pioneer Hall and the Community Center, having them help be part of that solution, I think that makes something wonderful in our city,” Seffinger said.

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LAW ENFORCEMENT

Jackson County steps up citing pot, hemp violations

Matt Carpenter, Ashland Police Department, left, and Cooper Kamps of the Talent Police Department, walk through downtown Ashland. Ashland police were set to begin patrolling in Talent June 1.

By Vickie Aldous ACC

PHOTO BY JAMIE LUSCH

Ashland police to provide patrol services for Talent

By Allayana Darrow ACC

The city of Ashland will soon provide police patrol services to the city of Talent through an intergovernmental agreement.

City Manager Pro Tem Adam Hanks described the proposal, approved unanimously May 4 by Ashland City Council, as a “short- to medium-range partnership solution” that provides necessary services to the city of Talent and establishes partnership flexibility going forward.

Ashland will provide 12 hours of police coverage per day for the city of Talent, adding to a long-standing supportive relationship between the two law enforcement agencies, backed by shared community character and ideology, Ashland police Chief Tighe O’Meara said.

The arrangement is slated to begin June 1.

“Because of some staffing shortages that the Talent police department experienced in 2020, we started talking about whether or not it would be mutually beneficial for us to take over a chunk of their policing,” he said.

Preliminary discussions have begun about combining police services for both communities into one agency — something for consideration farther down the road, O’Meara said.

Talent will pay Ashland $375,000 per year for 12 hours of patrol services per day — generally 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.

To manage the workload, the Ashland Police Department will add two police officers, raising the force to 30, bringing an additional position to the city of Ashland’s patrol capacity in the process, O’Meara said.

One Talent police officer APD planned to recruit prior to the agreement is wellsuited to take up one of the roles, O’Meara

said. The second will be an entry-level officer.

“In a way, the downturn in our work from COVID has lent itself to our ability to do this,” O’Meara said. “We’re uniquely positioned to cover this as we inevitably get back up to the crime load and the caseload that we saw before COVID.” The hiring of two officers will account for about $253,000 of Talent’s annual bill. The remaining amount will cover Talent’s access to APD detectives, training, on-duty supervisors and to make it “financially beneficial for the city of Ashland to participate in this endeavor,” O’Meara said.

The city of Talent has shown amenability to increasing the annual charge to $400,000 if their financing allows and services are proven adequate, he said.

APD can absorb equipment costs, O’Meara said, though vehicles and equipment are not specifically outlined in the current intergovernmental agreement.

Having 24/7 public safety coverage is especially important during the Almeda fire reconstruction period, said Talent interim City Manager Jamie McLeod-Skinner.

Some grant funding related to rebuilding has been earmarked for the police services agreement, she said.

“One of the issues that has come up is theft of construction materials,” McLeod-Skinner said. “Part of this partnership would not just be a mutual commitment to the good police work that both Chief O’Meara and Chief Snook do, but also an opportunity to help our region rebuild and regrow after the fire.”

All Ashland city councilors and Mayor Julie Akins highlighted the agreement as a positive step toward regionalization of public safety services, a strong example of collaboration after a crisis.

Jackson County code enforcement officers will start issuing citations more quickly against marijuana and hemp operations that violate codes, rather than continuing with a drawn-out voluntary compliance approach that has proven ineffective against the seasonal crops.

By the time code enforcement officers get through the monthslong process of trying to help people get in compliance, growers have often harvested their crops, pocketed the cash and moved on without facing consequences, county officials said.

The cycle repeats itself the next year as neighbors watch in frustration.

Complaints about marijuana and hemp operations have skyrocketed along with the proliferation of the crops in Jackson County. With its ideal growing environment, the county has the most marijuana and hemp grows in the state.

Since January, 61% of complaints to county code enforcement officers have been cannabis-related, said Jackson County Development Services Director Ted Zuk. Cannabis is an umbrella term that includes marijuana and hemp.

Zuk said in the first five months of this year, code enforcement officers have investigated more cannabis cases than in all of 2020.

Last year, the county’s three code enforcement officers averaged 162 active cases each.

“Right now, they’re at 320, and it’s only May,” Zuk said. “So that’s the extent of the problem. Everybody is getting more phone calls about how ineffective code enforcement is. There’s a reason for that — because the workload is just daunting.”

Jackson County has asked the Oregon Legislature to allocate money so the county can hire three more code enforcement officers and an office assistant to handle the workload.

Oregon voters legalized recreational marijuana in 2014, and the federal government legalized hemp as an agricultural crop in 2018. Marijuana contains compounds that get users high and it’s more closely regulated, while hemp is grown for medicinal or industrial use. It’s difficult to tell the difference between the two crops in the field without testing.

Jackson County has long had a softtouch policy when it comes to code enforcement. But that approach was

adopted before the legalization of recreational marijuana and hemp, said County Administrator Danny Jordan.

“People wait us out until they can harvest their product,” he said.

Code enforcement issues cover a range of problems such as garbage and broken down vehicles accumulating on a property, people building greenhouses for cannabis without permits, or workers living alongside cannabis grows in recreational vehicles. The issues are less severe than criminal activity handled by law enforcement, but they can harm the environment and hurt the quality of life for neighbors.

Jackson County’s policy has been for code enforcement officers to inform people about the rules and help them get into compliance.

Code enforcement has also been complaint-driven, meaning the county had to first receive a complaint before a code enforcement officer could take action.

For example, a code enforcement officer could be driving out to investigate a cannabis case after receiving a complaint about a property and see a half-dozen properties violating codes along the way.

But the officer couldn’t take any action against those other properties without first receiving a complaint, said Jackson County Counsel Joel Benton.

Jackson County commissioners agreed to change the policy so code enforcement officers can initiate an investigation into a cannabis operation without first receiving a complaint. Officers can also issue citations in cannabis cases without first going through the long process of seeking voluntary compliance.

Commissioner Rick Dyer said cannabis legalization has created new realities and new impacts that require a more proactive code enforcement approach.

The faster and more proactive approach won’t solve all of neighbors’ frustrations with marijuana and hemp operations. Much of the activity is legal, Benton noted.

Some agricultural operations such as legal slaughterhouses generate complaints, but they are permitted agricultural uses. The same is true for many cannabis operations, he said.

Jordan said property owners who lease their land for cannabis grows and processing facilities should make sure those operations are legal.

Unscrupulous growers could abandon property owners to face the consequences of citations alone, which include fines and potential liens and foreclosures.

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Ashland Community Connections | Revels

JACKSON COUNTY

Assessor missed error on fire survivors’ tax bills

By Vickie Aldous ACC

Jackson County Tax Assessor David Arrasmith missed an error that caused fire survivors to underpay their property taxes by $466,000 — leaving county workers with the overwhelming task of recalculating thousands of tax bills and telling survivors they owe more money.

The tax assessor’s office is being reviewed by the county’s internal audit department and the Oregon Department of Revenue.

Arrasmith has been working primarily from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, except on Mondays and for short afternoon visits to his office on other weekdays, according to staff members.

He earns an annual salary of $116,646, which is slated to increase to $124,966 in January 2022 once a summer cost-ofliving raise and a winter raise for gaining experience on the job go into effect.

Arrasmith was appointed tax assessor in 2016 to fill a vacancy, then won election for a fouryear term that started in January 2017.

As an independently elected official, he does not answer to the county administrator or the elected Jackson County Board of Commissioners.

County workers across many departments have been putting in long hours responding to the COVID-19 pandemic plus the Almeda and South Obenchain fires that wiped out nearly 2,500 homes and more than 170 business buildings.

In a public video teleconference, Jackson County Administrator Danny Jordan said workers in the tax assessor’s office and the finance department have been putting in long hours as well, especially after the mistake affecting fire survivors was discovered.

Jordan said Arrasmith has not been providing oversight and leadership for the tax assessor’s office. He failed to check and catch the incorrect property tax billing for fire survivors.

“It was a complete disaster,” Jordan said.

The tax assessor’s office used an incorrect form to pro-rate the taxes of fire survivors who lost

buildings on their land. tax bills for fire sur- Committee members said they homes is on top of the work that vivors but could also were concerned Arrasmith needs to be done to eventually Pro-rating their taxes reduce the amount of doesn’t have a plan and isn’t correct the errors in the prolowered the amount property taxes headed asking for more money to boost rated tax bills of fire survivors. they had to pay, but the to a wide range of local staffing in the wake of the fires. amounts were in error.

Jackson County Commistaxing districts, from A s n e w h o u s e s a n d sioner Dave Dotterrer said “I do apologize for the the county government businesses are built and man- Arrasmith lacks a plan to avoid mistake,” Arrasmith to the library district to ufactured homes are placed making mistakes in the future. said during the teleconArrasmith fire districts. in cleaned up manufactured ference meeting.

Jordan said Arrasmith previJackson County is in charge of home parks, the tax assessor’s ously balked at even informing Arrasmith said his office processes thousands of pieces of assessing and collecting taxes for office will have to reassess the fire survivors that they were dozens of local taxing districts. property value of thousands eligible to have their damaged paperwork a year.

Arrasmith has a history of not of sites, placing a major new “I don’t micromanage. I don’t property pro-rated. check every piece of paper- catching errors in the tax asses- burden on existing workers “You were resistant to that sor’s office. unless they get more help. work,” he said. until the very end. Something In 2018, the Jackson County Budget Committee members Arrasmith said he was folbasic,” Jordan said he told lowing COVID-19 protocols to Budget Committee decided decided to give Arrasmith the Arrasmith.

“You know why, wear a mask, practice physical not to give Arrasmith a merit summer cost-of-living and distancing and work from home raise after he failed to catch January 2022 experience raises Dave? Because you don’t have two mistakes that affected tens because his office hasn’t yet to do it. But in a situation like when possible.

Arrasmith said he has been of thousands of property tax made mistakes from the crush- this, you should do it. In a siting workload of reassessing uation like this, you should not responding to emails and phone accounts.

Those mistakes led to massive replacement homes. Commit- be sitting at home. You should calls, reviewing documents from tax districts and participating in amounts of additional work for tee members said it wouldn’t be at your office helping your teleconference meetings from county workers, plus frustration be fair to withhold raises in staff who are there working anticipation that Arrasmith overtime and busting their home. He said he tried to take and headaches for taxpayers.

During this year’s budget would make more blunders. behinds to help our citizens some of the burden off his staff process in the spring, Budget That work to reassess new through all of this.” by handling tax appeals.

Jordan said other county workers have been working in THE MORE NEWSPAPERS person, especially after the September 2020 fires.

Jordan said Arrasmith should have been checking the proTHE MORE MONEY rated property tax bills for fire survivors.

The county doesn’t plan to immediately reach out to fire survivors about the error. A bill under consideration by the Oregon Legislature would give a tax break to fire survivors.

ROUTES AVAILABLE Of the $466,000 that fire THROUGHOUT THE ROGUE VALLEY: survivors owe, they could owe MEDFORD, ASHLAND, WHITE CITY, about $100,000 less if the bill passes. Jackson County plans EAGLE POINT AND CENTRAL POINT to recalculate bills once it knows the outcome of the legislation.

Jackson County Finance Department Director Shannon Bell, who has to help clean up the mess over the incorrectly pro-rated tax bills, said county workers dread having to tell fire survivors they owe more money.

“This is a big deal. These SIGN ON BONUS people lost their homes,” Bell said.

The pro-rating billing error WORK AT NIGHT, HAVE YOUR DAYS FREE only came to light when Jackson County submitted data to MAKE UP TO $1,500 PER WEEK DELIVERING THE NEWS the state about the financial impacts of the legislation that CALL TODAY TO APPLY: 541-776-4393 aids fire survivors. The Oregon Department of Revenue caught OR EMAIL: EROSE@ROSEBUDMEDIA.COM the mistake.

Jordan has concerns about the legislation, which could lower

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THURSDAY June 3, 2021

OSF RETURNS

Performances of ‘Fannie: The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer’ begin July 1 in the Allen Elizabethan Theatre. This electrifying, immersive call to action is inspired by the life of a famed civil rights activist.

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E. Faye Butler as Fannie Lou Hamer.

PHOTO BY LIZ LAUREN

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Ashland Community Connections | Revels

COVER STORY

THE SHOWS WILL GO ON

Play and concerts in Elizabethan, holiday season in the Bowmer

By Jim Flint for ACC

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival will be up and running for in-person audiences earlier than planned when the curtain lifts July 1 on the Allen Elizabethan Theatre.

In addition, there will be weekly Wednesday outdoor concerts at the Elizabethan from July 21 to Oct. 6, and OSF’s first-ever holiday season, Nov. 28 to Jan. 2, 2022, in the Angus Bowmer Theatre.

Cheryl L. West’s “Fannie: The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer,” a musical play inspired by the life of the civil rights activist, will run from July 1 to Oct. 9, starring two luminaries of the American stage — E. Faye Butler (July 1 to Aug. 28) and Greta Oglesby (Sept. 1 to Oct. 9). An onstage band will provide backup music for the one-woman show.

Performances are 8 p.m.

Wednesday through Saturday.

Concerts take over the Wednesday slot once they begin on July 21.

The creative team includes director Henry Godinez, music director Felton Offard, costume designer Michael Allen Stein, lighting designer Xavier Pierce, sound designer Bernard Johnson, and stage managers Gwen Turos and Quy Ton. “Fannie” is a co-commission of the Goodman Theatre and Seattle Repertory Theatre, where it will open in October and early 2022, respectively, after the OSF run.

Asolo Repertory Theatre of Sarasota, Florida, launched the rolling world premieres of “Fannie” earlier this year.

The “utterly unstoppable” (Chicago Tribune) Butler performed “Fannie” in the Asolo Rep premiere.

Oglesby, an actress and singer of “earth-shaking vocal prowess” (Minneapolis Star-Telegram), has been featured in five previous seasons at OSF, most recently as Motormouth Maybelle in “Hairspray” and G. K. Marche in “How to Catch Creation.”

“Fannie” tells the story of the

PHOTO BY KIM BUDD

After being closed for more than a year, Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Allen Elizabethan Theatre will reopen July 1 with a production of a musical play, “Fannie: The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer,” playing through Oct. 9.

Mississippi-born civil and voting rights activist (1917 – 1977), painting a portrait of courage, humor, and grit. The play provides a first-person account of Hamer’s remarkable life, alternating between autobiography and song, just as Hamer herself incorporated art into her activism.

She organized the Freedom Summer, which in 1964 recruited racially diverse college students to assist with African American voter registration in the segregated South. At the Democratic Convention later that year, Hamer’s Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party challenged the all-white control of her state’s delegation.

She also established the Freedom Farm Cooperative, which purchased land for Black people to own and collectively farm in Mississippi.

And she lifted spirits through song, as captured on the 1962 recording of “Songs My Mother Taught Me,” a collection of spirituals that she helped transform into civil rights anthems.

Although OSF offers Shakespeare programming on its digital platform, nothing of the Bard’s will be performed live in 2021 because large casts are out of the question as the pandemic winds down.

“Because it is manageable in scale, ‘Fannie’ is the perfect show with which to return to in-person performance,” said OSF spokesman Blake Zidell. “The cast is just one singer-actor and provides what live theater uniquely can deliver: an intimate, in-the-moment connection with a virtuosic performer in a show full of live music.”

For financial, public health safety

reasons, and in accordance with union guidelines, OSF says it needs some time before it can produce plays with sizable casts.

Holiday season On the heels of “Fannie,” OSF will move indoors for its first-ever holiday season with performances in the Bowmer Theatre of “It’s Christmas, Carol!”

Performance dates and times will be announced later.

Written by beloved OSF performers Mark Bedard, Brent Hinkley and John Tufts, the story follows three ghosts who take the miserly Carol Scroogenhouse through time and space to reckon with how she’s abandoned love and artistry for capitalism.

SEE SHOWS, A11

Ashland Community Connections | Revels

SHOWS From Page A10

“From the twisted minds of your favorite OSF clowns, this show promises to be a silly and uplifting way to mark the holidays and celebrate the festival’s return to live performance,” Zidell said.

The trio may be best known to OSF fans for their appearances in the Marx Brothers comedy romps “Animal Crackers” in 2012 and “Cocoanuts” in 2014.

Wednesday concerts Throughout the run of “Fannie,” OSF will present outdoor concerts on the big Elizabethan stage at 8 p.m.

Wednesdays from July 21 to Oct. 6.

Kicking off the concert season will be the Bay Area’s Urban Jazz Dance Company, which will perform two nights, July 21-22.

Other bookings so far include Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Phoenix and Four Directions, Hollis Peach, Brother Angus, Ballet Folklorico Ritmo Alegre, Chic Street Man, The Singer and The Songwriter, Dancing Spirit Drum, and Flamenco Pacifico.

David Schmitz, OSF executive director, is relieved that state guidelines will permit the festival to resume, albeit on a limited basis this year. “We couldn’t be more excited to open our beautiful Allen Elizabethan Theatre this summer,” Schmitz said.

“Our theatres closed March 12 of 2020 and we have been yearning for live theater since then.”

OSF Artistic Director Nataki Garrett echoed Schmitz’s comments.

“We are tremendously moved to have artists back onstage,” she said, “performing work that speaks to the moment.”

She looks forward to welcoming back locals and travelers to Ashland “to join us in this joy.”

August Wilson’s “How I Learned What I Learned,” Mona Manson’s “Unseen,” and Dominique Morisseau’s “Confederates,” previously anticipated for fall of 2021, will take place in future seasons.

Tickets and protocol

Throughout the run of “Fannie,” OSF will present outdoor concerts on the big Elizabethan stage at 8 p.m. Wednesdays from July 21 to Oct. 6.

Kicking off the concert season will be the Bay Area’s Urban Jazz Dance Company, which will perform two nights, July 21-22.

They can be purchased at osfashland.org or by calling the OSF box office at 800-219-8161.

As a gesture of appreciation, OSF will announce special ticketing offers for wildfire first-responders and COVID19 essential workers.

The OSF board expressed its appreciation for the continued support of donors who made it possible to invest the more than $1 million required to reopen the Elizabethan for the summer.

There have been significant upgrades to the HVAC systems for indoor portions of the venue, funded in part by a grant from Travel Oregon.

While the State of Oregon has loosened its requirements for outdoor performances, audiences must wear masks and seating is planned to allow for social distancing as required by OSF’s union partners. Those requirements may shift during the run as circumstances change.

Audience members must present proof of full vaccination completed at least 14 days prior to performance date, a negative PCR COVID-19 test taken within 72 hours of performance time, or a negative rapid antigen test taken within six hours.

Each patron’s exact seating location will be determined by the box office, and the patron will be notified of that location prior to the performance.

Tickets will include a specific section. Masks are required and will be provided if a patron does not have one. Face shields will also be available for patrons unable to use masks.

Tickets will be digital only, and will be scanned with no-contact scanners. No concessions will be served.

For more information on the 2021 season and OSF digital offerings, go to osfashland.org.

Tickets for the summer season will go on sale June 18 to the general public. Pre-sale for OSF members and donors starts June 15.

Tickets are $35 for “Fannie” Reach Ashland writer Jim Flint at and $15 for the summer concerts. jimflint.ashland@yahoo.com.

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Thursday, June 3, 2021 |

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Ashland Community Connections | Revels

THE FOURTH WALL

THE STATE OF OUR STATE SONG

I CAN NAME THAT TUNE ... NOPE B efore we begin, how about we all gather ’round and sing the Official State Song of Oregon?

No? Forget the words? OK, maybe just hum a few bars?

Still stumped? Hmmm … let’s start simple: Name the Official State Song of Oregon.

Oh. Don’t fret, I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard it performed either.

Truth is, “Oregon, My Oregon” was barely a blip on the horizon until a month or so ago.

That’s when the state Legislature took up a resolution to revise the lyrics to Henry Bernard Murtaugh’s march in F major to rid it of what Rep. Sheri Schouten, D-Beaverton, called “outdated, racist and White Supremist language.”

Wait … an Official State “Rock” Song?

It’s not the only one.

Original: The State Rock Song of Land of the Empire Builders, Washington state is “Louie, Land of the Golden West; Louie” — the most famous verConquered and held by free sion of which is by an Oregon men, band … wake up, people! — Fairest and the Best while the State Rock Song of Ohio is “Hang On Sloopy.”

Revision: The derivation of that song, Land of Majestic Mountains, frankly, isn’t as interesting for Land of the Great our purposes as the wording of Northwest; House Concurrent Resolution Forests and rolling rivers, 16 in the Ohio Legislature back Grandest and the best in 1985, which reads in part: The emphasis clearly moves “WHEREAS, “Hang On from the historical, and in Sloopy” is of particular relesome respects regrettable, vance to members of the baby actions of those who founded boom generation, who were the state to the natural beauty once dismissed as a bunch of of the land — which is somelong-haired, crazy kids, but thing that would seemably not who now are old enough and find many detractors, although vote in sufficient numbers to be the change from “fairest” taken quite seriously …” to “grandest” might raise a And ruckus.

Meanwhile, in the second “WHEREAS, Adoption of this verse (which is not the same as resolution will not take that the first), the dramatic phrase long, cost the State anything, or “blessed by the blood of mar- affect the quality of life in this tyrs” is changed to “blessed State to any appreciable degree, by the love of freedom.” and if we the Legislature just Such changes to objecgo ahead and pass the damn tionable lyrics have occurred thing, we can get on with more before in the arcane world of important stuff.”

Official State Songs.

Oh, that’s only the scratchBack in 1997, for instance, ing the surface of what you Virginia stripped official status from “Carry Me Back can find on those dust-bunnyladen shelves. to Old Virginny” and went Montana has a State Lul18 years before naming its replacement … “Our Great laby. New Mexico has a State Cowboy Song. Connecticut Virginia.” And in 2008, (where the Official State Song Florida revised the lyrics is “Yankee Doodle”) has a State to “Swanee River” just to Cantata. Louisiana has a State keep the Stephen Foster Environmental Song. Wisconperennial on the books. sin has a State Waltz.

In 2011, meanwhile, Then, there’s Massachusetts.

Oklahoma took back the The Commonwealth of my designation of Official birth has — in alphabetical State Rock Song from order, all official — a State “Do You Realize??” by Anthem, a State Ceremonial The Flaming Lips after objections by some state March (although why you’d want a State March that legislators over the comportment by mem- wasn’t ceremonial is open for debate), a State Folk Song, a bers of the band.

State Glee Club Song, a State I would have done Ode, a State Patriotic Song … so for the use of the double question mark and a State Polka. in the song title … but They don’t call us Massholes no one asked. without reason, you know. who rewrites the offending first verse as follows:

ROBERT GALVIN

Murtaugh wrote … what was it again? … oh yes …

“Oregon, My Oregon” for a song contest back in 1920.

And the state bestowed its official okee-dokie to it in 1927 — where it mostly has been gathering dust bunnies ever since, on a shelf next to the Official State Dance of Oregon, the square dance.

Rep. Schouten’s resolution passed the House and includes new lyrics by singer-songwriter Amy Shapiro, also of Beaverton,

New Jersey doesn’t have an Official State Song, which seems incongruous for a state that produced, among other legends, Frank Sinatra, Whitney Houston and Bruce Springsteen.

Heck, nothing from The Voice, The Boss or The Chairman of the Board … and yet Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. co-wrote the Official State Song of two different states???

(That really was worth three question marks.)

Better known, of course, as John Denver, his oeuvre has been mined twice — “Rocky Mountain High” in Colorado and “Take Me Home, Country Roads” in West Virginia, the latter at one time in its creation (on a car trip in Maryland) almost was written about Massachusetts.

If Oregon ever gets around to deciding on an official State Rock Song — I’m fearing a contest for State Environmental Polka is in our future — I’m partial to either “Stuck in the Middle With You” from Stealers Wheel or The Temptations classic “I Wish It Would Rain.”

I could go on, ad nauseum (too late), but let’s just say that no Official State Song in my opinion is better chosen and more appropriate than the definitive Ray Charles version of “Georgia on My Mind.”

It’s certainly better that “South Carolina on My Mind” which, you might be surprised to learn, is no relation to “Carolina on My Mind” ….

OK, all right, enough with the nauseum.

Suffice to say, whatever happens with “Oregon, My Oregon,” let’s hope that it won’t affect the quality of life here to any appreciable degree, and it can just F major march itself back in the Official State Vault of Things We Rarely Think About.

Until the next time.

Mail Tribune news editor Robert Galvin changes his tune weekly at rgalvin@rosebudmedia.com

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LIVE EVENTS

LOCAL MUSIC, OUTDOOR MARKETS & MORE Editor’s note: Because of changing COVID-19 restrictions in Jackson County, please call businesses or check their websites to confirm all listed events. All Jackson County library branches are open, and in-branch browsing will be available with certain restrictions. COVID-19 vaccine registration assistance is available at each branch.

Limited computer sessions will be offered on a first-come, firstserved basis.

Mike Pugh and drummer Nick Brosio will play a mix of blues and Texas rock at 5 p.m.

Wednesday, June 9, at RoxyAnn Winery, 3285 Hillcrest Road, Medford. See roxyann.com or call 541-776-2315.

Aaron Reed: Aaron Reed, member of the duo Brothers Reed, will perform original acoustic pop, blues and folk at 6 p.m. Wednesday, June 9, at South Stage Cellars, 125 S. Third St., Jacksonville. $15 cover charge. See southstagecellars.com or call 541-899-9120.

Thursday, June 3 Medford Growers Market: Fresh and organic seasonal produce, crafts and food carts are available from local farms and vendors from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Thursdays through Nov. 18, in Hawthorne Park, corner of East Jackson and Hawthorne streets, Medford.

Masks are required. Social distancing and safety measures are in place. See rvgrowersmarket. com.

Saturday, June 5 Walk through History: Take a walk though Jacksonville’s history during a one-hour guided tour at 10 a.m. every Saturday through Sept. 4. The tour leaves from Jacksonville’s Courthouse Square, in front of City Hall, 206 N. Fifth St., Jacksonville. Visit government and commercial buildings, fraternal lodges and homes.

Admission is free, reservations required. Call 541-245-3650 or email info@historicjacksonville. org.

Jeff Kloetzel: Singer, songwriter and guitar player Jeff Kloetzel will play an acoustic mix of pop, folk and soul, along with original songs at 1 p.m. Saturday, June 5, at Augustino Estate at The Big Red Barn, 16995 N. Applegate Road, Grants Pass.

See augustinoestate.com or call 541-846-1881.

Dan Doshier: Guitarist and vocalist Dan Doshier will perform old country and soft rock favorites spanning several decades at 3 p.m. Saturday, June 5, at Aurora Vines Winery, 2287 Pioneer Road, Talent. See auroravines. com or call 541-897-0592.

Sasha Rose: Singer-songwriter Sasha Rose will perform acoustic original songs on guitar and African djembe, along with a fusion of vocal looping with simple electronic beats,

Thursday, June 10

123RF.COM

Introduction to birding Learn to identify the birds at North Mountain Park and gain insight into their behavior and sounds with Shannon Rio, board president of the Klamath Bird Observatory, from 8 to 11 a.m. Saturday, June 5, at North Mountain Park, 620 N. Mountain Ave., Ashland. All ages and experience levels are welcome. Bring binoculars; some sanitized binoculars will be available. Masks and physical distancing are required. Admission is free, registration is required. For more information or to register, see Ashland. or.us/register or call 541-488-6606.

at 5 p.m. Saturday, June 5, at Wild Wines Winery, 4550 Little Applegate Road, Jacksonville.

See enjoywildwines.com or call 541-899-1565.

Carla Bauer: Guitarist and vocalist Carla Bauer will perform a mix of light rock and pop at 5 p.m. Saturday, June 5, at Stone River Winery and Vineyard, 2178 Pioneer Road, Talent. Call 541-631-9583.

Nick and Shae: Multi-instrumentalist Nick Garrett-Powell and singer Shae Celine will perform covers of popular music at 5 p.m. Saturday, June 5, at South Stage Cellars, 125 S. Third St., Jacksonville. $5 cover charge.

See southstagecellars.com or call 541-899-9120.

Sips & Songs: Troon Vinyard will host a dinner with live music by the 18-piece Southern Oregon Jazz Orchestra from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. the first Saturday of each month. Tickets are $50 with dinner; $25 for admission only.

All admissions include either a complimentary flight or glass.

Reservations are required. Email

at faith@troonvineyard.com or call 541-846-9900 ext. 1.

Sunday, June 6 Bim Jeam and the Sadness: Hear country, folk and blues acoustic music you can groove to when Bim Jeam and the Sadness performs at 3 p.m. Sunday, June 6, at Walkabout Brewing Co., 921 Mason Way, Medford. See walkaboutbrewing.com or call 541-734-4677.

Mercy Duo: The soul, pop and R&B duo — singer Lynda Morrison and guitarist Dave Day — will perform at 3 p.m.

Sunday, June 6, at RoxyAnn Winery, 3285 Hillcrest Road, Medford. See roxyann.com or call 541-776-2315.

Alice DiMicele & Rob Kohler: Singer-songwriter Alice DiMicele, along with bassist Rob Kohler, will play a mix of Americana, soul and folk-rock at 4 p.m.

Sunday, June 6, at Grizzly Peak Wiwnery, 1600 E. Nevada St., Ashland. Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 at the door. Tickets can be purchase online at

eventbrite.com or alicedimicele. com or in person at the Music Coop, 268 E. Main St., Ashland.

See grizzlypeakwinery.com or call 541-482-5700.

Tuesday, June 8 Social Security presentation: Linda Clarkson, Melissa Mlasko and Chris Donica of Futurity First Insurance Group will give a free presentation, “Maximize Your Social Security,” at 5:30 p.m.

Tuesday, June 8, at the Santos Center, 701 N. Columbus Ave., Medford. Presenters will discuss how to maximize Social Security benefits. Admission is free. To register, call 541-973-2100.

Wednesday, June 9 Shae Celine: Singer Shae Celine will perform covers of popular music, jazz standards and torch songs at 5 p.m. Wednesday, June 9, at DANCIN Vineyards, 4477 S. Stage Road, Medford. Admission is free. Call 541-245-1133 or see dancin.com.

Brisbaine Project: Lead guitarist Michael Ian Brisbane, bassist

Local History Lecture: The Jacksonville Community Center will host local historian Jeff LaLande, who will present “Southern Oregon History: Its People and Places — The Many Ethnicities of Southern Oregon Gold Rush Era” from 1:30 to 3 p.m. Thursday, June 10, in the Great Room at the Jacksonville Community Center, 160 E. Main St., Jacksonville. During the early gold-mining days, this region included miners coming from many different places on the globe. The Gold Rush period was the most ethnically diverse in local history. LaLande will offer insights about these people, why they came here and how they fared. Admission is a $5 donation; registration is required. For further information and to register on or before 10 a.m. Sunday, June 6, see jacksonvillecommunitycenter.org/ eventer. This program is part of the series, “Southern Oregon History: Its People and Places;” participants do not need to attend all of the programs in the series to participate. For questions, call 541-702-2585.

Thursdays at the Farm: Historic Hanley Farm will host open house from 4 to 8 p.m. every Thursday during the month of June at 1053 Hanley Road, Central Point. The farm will be open for picnics; self-guided Hanley and Shakespeare Garden tours; a farmers market; as well as COVID-free “hybrid” Hanley House tours. The outside portion of each tour will be in-person, with a video of the inside tour.

On Thursday, June 10, see an early 1900s fashion show, with models representing Hanley SEE LIVE, A22

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Ashland Community Connections | Revels

LOCAL THEATER, LIVESTREAM PLAYS Editor’s note: Because of changing COVID-19 restrictions in place in Oregon, please call businesses or check their websites to confirm all listed events.

Ashland High School Theatre: Mountain Avenue Theatre, 201 S. Mountain Ave., Ashland. For details call the AHS Main Office 541-482-8771.

‘Our Place’: The Ashland High School Honors Acting Ensemble will present the 40-minute dramatic comedy “Our Place” by Terry Gabbard. The unassuming location of a dock extending out onto a small lake serves as the backdrop for five different stories, which come together in the final scene. In a poetic epilogue, all the characters discover the true meaning of “Our Place.”

Performances are scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, June 7-8. Admission is $5 donation at the door. Seating is limited in compliance with state health guidelines.

Barnstormers Theatre: 112 Evelyn Ave., Grants Pass. See barnstormersgp.org or call 541479-3557 for showtimes, tickets and further information. Group

discounts are available.

‘Arsenic and Old Lace’: This play is a hilarious comedy hit about the Brewster sisters, two seemingly innocent old ladies with Victorian charm, who populate their cellar with the remains of socially and religiously “acceptable” roomers. The antics of two of their nephews, one of whom believes that he is Theodore Roosevelt, and the other whose psychopathic ways and multiple plastic surgeries make him resemble Boris Karloff, contribute to the dynamics of this unique family. Written by Joseph Kesselring and directed by Brianna Gowland. Performances are set for 7:30 p.m. Saturdays, June 12-26, and at 2 p.m. Sundays, June 13-27. In accordance with COVID-19 guidelines the show will be performed to a limited capacity of 28 people per performance and masks will be required while in the theatre.

Tickets are $18, $60 for groups of 4. For questions or ticket purchasing assistance call the box office.

Camelot Theatre: 101 Talent Ave., Talent. Tickets and information

available at camelottheatre.org or 541-535-5250.

Camelot will announce its 39th Season (2021) on June 2. The theatre is now airing their show “Rogue Lives,” which features presentations and stories from four notable local actors, who share real stories from their extraordinary lives both on and off the stage, on Southern Oregon PBS. The first episode aired on Thursday, May 6.

SO PBS will repeat a compilation program of all four episodes, scheduled for 8 p.m. Thursday, June 3. Camelot partners again this year with the Oregon Conservatory of Performing Arts (OCPA) to offer an in-person, conservatory training program for children and young adults ages 7 to 19. The program focuses on theatre history, playwriting, acting, musical theatre, dance and stage confidence. For more information or to register a student, see OregonConservatory.org.

Collaborative Theatre Project: 555 Medford Center, Medford.

Tickets and information are available at ctpmedford.org, on

Facebook, by calling 541-7791055. Group rates are available.

‘Into the Breeches’: It’s 1942 and all the men have shipped off to war.

The Oberon Community Theatre is struggling to stay alive, and something must be done.

Maggie, the wife of the director-turned-soldier comes up with a plan. She decides to produce Shakespeare’s “Henriad” with women instead, assembling an increasingly unexpected team united in desire, if not actual theatre experience. This play is a hilarious, touching and inspiring story of community, the power of theatre and friendships. This new script, by George Brant, is a regional premiere and is directed by Todd Nielsen.

Performances are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays through June 5, and at 1:30 p.m. Sundays through June 6. Tickets are $30, $25 for students and seniors 60 and older. Masks are required in the theatre and must cover your nose and mouth. Seating is limited in accordance with all pandemic restrictions and regulations All actors and staff

undergo routine testing.

Oregon Cabaret Theatre: 241 Hargadine St, on the corner of First and Hargadine streets, Ashland. Tickets and information are available at oregoncabaret.com or by calling 541-488-2902. Reservations are required for pre-show dinner and brunch. Appetizers, beverages and desserts are available without reservations. Student rush tickets are $15 and can be purchased 30 minutes before curtain with valid ID, subject to availability. Group discounts available.

‘The Great American Trailer Park’: Note: All performances of “The Great American Trailer Park” are currently sold out. The theatre is encouraging people to call the box office to be added to a wait list, in the event Jackson County drops to “moderate risk level” and allows for future performances.

There’s a new tenant at Armadillo Acres — and she’s wreaking havoc all over Florida’s most exclusive trailer park.

When Pippi, the stripper on the run, comes between the Dr. SEE PLAYS, A19

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DINING

ALCHEMY RESTAURANT AND BAR

By Sarah Lemon

THOUGHTFUL COURSES WITH DEPTH & BREADTH

for ACC

A

s so many local restaurants reduced staff last winter, Drew, Michael and Laurie Gibbs recruited a new chef to help stage their comeback.

Warm weather and dozens of well-appointed outdoor tables collaborated last month on Alchemy Restaurant and Bar’s reopening at The Winchester Inn, 35 S. Second St. A four-month closure at this Ashland institution added another chapter in the Gibbs family’s 38 years of owning and operating the historical property.

Alchemy’s cuisine made history in 2016, when thenchef Billy Buscher won the title of Iron Chef at Portland’s Bite of Oregon. The previous year, Alchemy was named one of OpenTable Diners’ Top 100 Best Restaurants for Foodies in America.

It perhaps comes as little surprise that another chef who’s proven himself in cooking competitions — and even television’s culinary reality shows — took the helm at Alchemy. Michael Bryant relocated with his family from Los Angeles, where he staffed such notable establishments as Cliff’s Edge, Bin 8945 and Joe’s, He also appeared on “Chopped,” “Knife Fight” and “Chef Wanted With Anne Burrell.”

Inspired by his French immigrant mother to favor high-quality ingredients in season, Bryant emphasizes that ethic at Alchemy, where spring’s bill of fare is strong on mushrooms, greens, peas and artichokes, interpreted with global spices. Bryant also demonstrates versatility and commitment to freshness by occasionally swapping some items listed on the menu for

PHOTOS BY SARAH LEMON

Mushrooms flavor both the broth and custard, covered with more mushrooms, in this appetizer at Alchemy Restaurant and Bar in Ashland.

“Cacio e pepe” pasta has a sea urchin butter sauce.

others on the plate. While a few redundancies creep into Bryant’s cooking, his courses largely confirm thoughtful construction showcasing a depth and breadth of flavors and textures.

A dish that epitomizes earthy savor, against a delicate yet decadent backdrop, started my meal at Alchemy.

“Mushroom, Mushroom” ($15) is an unfortunately uninspired name for the sublime dish that Bryant crafted as an appetizer. Porcini mushrooms played a duet in

Plenty of well-appointed outdoor tables host diners at Alchemy Restaurant & Bar at The Winchester Inn in Ashland.

both silky custard and rich broth, smothered in yet more locally foraged and cultivated fungus, although no morels.

The first bite was like an umami bomb going off, activating every one of my taste and smell receptors.

“Yuuuuuummmmmmm!”

I exclaimed as the flavors intensified and I tried to curb my enthusiasm enough to handle the custard more carefully, lest it crumble into the broth.

Our other appetizer, burrata and cucumbers ($15),

Burrata cheese with cucumbers is an appetizer at Alchemy Restaurant & Bar.

Duck leg confit is prepared with Moroccan spices.

capitalized on this popular cheese served with heirloom tomatoes before it’s, strictly speaking, the season. A springtime theme characterized the dish, however, in a salad of vibrant, juicy pea shoots rather than the arugula listed on the menu.

I anticipated a bit of punch from the black garlic vinaigrette and pop from crispy quinoa. But flavors and textures both were subtle, the most notable being the cucumbers’ crunch, ensured by sizable chunks accented with a few roasted baby tomatoes. Long, thin ribbons of cucumber would be a more

suitable companion, on my palate, to the creamy cheese.

Also understated, bucatini prepared as the Roman classic “cacio e pepe” ($26) boasted a sea urchin butter sauce. If not for the peachy hue, however, I could have mistaken the sauce’s luxury ingredient for anything indulgent and unctuous.

I didn’t exactly expect a heady seafood aroma, but I didn’t get much whiff of brine, either. And despite myself — and the pasta’s garnish of pecorino Romano cheese — I wanted a bit more salt. Microgreens finishing the dish imparted a hint of bitter astringency that cut through the dairy.

A glass of Cotes de Provence rose ($10) lent acid that didn’t overpower the pasta. Next time, I’d order the wine with harissa-seared scallops ($22), sauced with Hollandaise and listed under the menu’s starters, for my entree.

For our second entree, lamb “osso bucco” ($30), Moroccan-spiced duck leg confit ($30) and the French bistro staple “moules frites” ($32) were all strong contenders, SEE ALCHEMY, A17

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Ashland Community Connections | Revels

DINING SKOUT TAPHOUSE AND PROVISIONS

JUST SHOW UP AND ‘HAVE FUN AGAIN’

By Sarah Lemon for ACC

T

om and Lisa Beam’s restaurants — “like Madonna” — reinvent their personas with each decade.

The Ashland couple’s latest venture is Skout Taphouse and Provisions, in the coveted location facing Lithia Park that served customers as Sesame Asian Kitchen for about 12 years. Contrary to assumptions that the coronavirus pandemic caused the sea change, Lisa characterizes the new casual eatery with 60 taps as a way “to have fun again.”

Fun with food does come across in Skout’s menu, strong on perennially popular plates with a nod to health-conscious habits and a wink at brew pub favorites.

The fare belies stereotypes of drinking food in its thoughtful construction and options to accommodate just about any dietary persuasion. It’s clear the Beams know their audience’s appetites after 17 years of operating Ashland’s Pie + Vine, previously Pasta Piatti, and lending their expertise to Ashland’s Falafel Republic and Burrito Republic.

Browsing Skout’s Instagram feed, however, one may anticipate just another lineup of burgers, tacos and fish ’n’ chips. I did — before paying a visit and trying some of the dishes that confirm the Beams’ commitment to creativity in a genre that rewards many industry counterparts for keeping the bar low.

To go with the de rigueur burger ($12) and bratwurst ($13.50), Skout serves an intriguing grilled cheese that layers Swiss-style raclette, lingonberry jam and bacon on sourdough ($8). The smoked brisket ($13) that constitutes Skout’s other sandwich extends its appeal on a bowl of housemade chili. The vegan or vegetarian recipe costs $8.

There’s more for plantbased diets in a grilled

PHOTOS BY SARAH LEMON

The smoked trout dip is served with housemade potato chips at Skout Taphouse and Provisions in Ashland.

Chili can be ordered vegetarian or vegan at Skout Taphouse and Provisions

The Buffalo-style cauliflower is garnished with Gorgonzola cheese.

“Mustard custard” is one of the pretzel’s accompaniments at Skout.

Romaine salad with tomato vinaigrette ($9) and a kale salad with chickpeas and avocado ($8), its main ingredients repurposed in a quinoa bowl ($9). Chicken breast can be added to those dishes for an additional $4.

While the menu’s avocado toast ($8) and truffle fries ($5) do betray the Beams’ susceptibility to dining trends that have become almost ubiquitous locally, Skout redeems itself with smoked trout dip, served with housemade chips ($9), and elevates its soft pretzel with additions of roasted beets and sauerkraut ($16).

I was powerless to pass up that pretzel although I knew the portion — aptly titled

My partner also ordered a 10-ounce pour ($5) of pFriem Big IPA, a likely pairing with the “Happy Camper” chili, Seating at Skout Taphouse and Provisions extends onto Calle Guana- topped with shredded cheese and sour cream, lavishly garjuato in Ashland. nished with fresh cilantro and served with corn tortillas on “Go Big” — would challenge the side. Our friend declined three diners, two of whom ordered their own meals. Ever a drink to accompany her enamored of appetizers — and “slab salad,” which cozied typically tempted by trout — I up bacon, heirloom tomatoes decided to make my own meal and Rogue Creamery blue cheese to a wedge of organic from the dip, accented with iceberg lettuce. She added an order of Buffalo caulichicken, bringing the salad’s flower ($7.95).

Among Skout’s diverse cast price to $13.

A fan of both beets and of beers, ciders and other sauerkraut, my partner made brews on tap, I homed in on Chimay Grande Reserve — the a heroic effort to eat his blue label, for fans of Trappist portion of the pretzel, pillowy ales. Given the Pacific North- but dense enough to absorb a bit of cheese sauce without west’s pride in its own craft beers, imports like these seem becoming saturated. The less represented on restaurant whole-grain “mustard custard” packed a punch while lists. Skout serves Chimay the beets could have used a and several other styles in a touch of acid and the sauertraditional, 10-ounce tulipkraut tasted pickled, rather shaped glass ($9).

than fermented, as I expected.

I would have had no quibble if Skout doubled its portion of housemade cheese sauce, the dregs of which I tried to lick from its paper cup.

I dipped to my heart’s content in the creamy trout, its ratio to the thick-cut, fresh-fried potato chips nearly perfect. The appetizer’s lemon wedge wasn’t superfluous, and the sprinkle of capers spot-on. Celery sticks provided another clean counterpoint to the chips’ and dip’s richness.

Also served with the quintessential celery sticks, the Buffalo-style cauliflower didn’t skimp on blue cheese, which could hardly temper the sauce’s heat. I loved the spice against my beer’s slight bitterness, but I was alone at our table in that assessment. I do think the dish represents a good value, and the leftovers transitioned easily at home to a stir-fry dish.

My partner mopped up his chili with tortillas while our companion was less impressed with her salad’s somewhat dry proteins and minimal produce. Recalling that the electronic menu board above the bar is a bit challenging to decipher, I wondered if she didn’t see the other salads, which I found SEE SKOUT, A17

Ashland Community Connections | Revels

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Thursday, June 3, 2021 |

Oscars set next show date for March 2022 The Associated Press

Planning is already underway for the 94th Oscars, which will be held on March 27, 2022, the film academy and ABC said this past week.

After a year of disruption, innovation and catastrophically low ratings, the Academy Awards are getting back to business as usual. The show will return to the Dolby Theatre for its ABC broadcast and the eligibility window will once again close at the end of the calendar year.

This past year, the academy extended the eligibility window

ALCHEMY From Page A15

edging out more costly smoked halibut ($36) and dry-aged ribeye steak ($39).

In the end, the duck emerged the winner, and my partner was gratified in the choice, although it meant more mushrooms, this time roasted maitake. A glass of the Willamette Valley’s Libra Estate Reserve Pinot Noir ($12) paired just as well with that fungi as it did with the porcini broth.

I wondered if preserved lemon and olive tapenade would be too assertive for my partner’s liking. But those bright, salty notes shone through intermittently, instead of being dispersed throughout the dish.

The duck’s impeccably crisped skin stood in delicious contrast to the tender flesh underneath, and the generous portion of meat represented one of the evening’s best

SKOUT From Page A16

more enticing. In defense of the “slab,” it does indeed come with a hefty wedge of blue and a decadent chunk of chicharron, which isn’t to every diner’s liking.

It’s evident diners do love Skout’s convenience to Lithia Park, Ashland Creek and Calle Guanajuato, all offering

into February and canceled non-televised events like the Governors Awards and the Nominees Luncheon because of the pandemic. All those trimmings are now back on the schedule, with the Governors Awards set for Jan. 15 and the luncheon to be held on March 7. Nominations will be announced on Feb. 8.

The audience for the 93rd Oscars, which were held at Los Angeles’ Union Station in late April, was less than half of its previous low, with only 9.85 million viewers tuning in to watch “Nomadland” win best picture.

Leadership Begins at Southern Oregon University.

values. I had no qualms about gnawing the leg’s toothsome cartilage and claiming the last morsels from the bones.

We weren’t so stuffed to decline a look at the dessert menu. But we did eat heartily enough to deem the most interesting dish, caramel date bundt cake ($12), too heavy.

Under ordinary circumstances, I would have eagerly requested either the passionfruit panna cotta ($12) or lavender creme brûlée ($10) — or both! But after commencing the meal with custard, I somewhat reluctantly resisted finishing it in similar fashion.

I won’t be able to resist checking Alchemy’s online menu to see what’s in store for seasons ahead. And perhaps with summer’s advent, hours will expand beyond the current Thursday through Monday, beginning at 4 p.m. Make reservations at alchemyashland.com or call 541-488-1115.

Precious Yamaguchi Associate Professor, Communication

prime perches, particularly as the weather warms. Neither reservations nor phone-in orders are accepted, and Skout’s website is an online placeholder for the time being. The Beams encourage guests to just show up at 21 Winburn Way — and “have fun” —between 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, until 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

“SOU encourages leadership that starts with being inclusive.

Diverse people and ways of thinking create and nurture innovative leadership.”

sou.edu • 855-470-3377

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Ashland Community Connections | Revels

BOOKS

BOB DYLAN

A SHAPE-SHIFTING GENIUS IN HIS EARLY YEARS The Double Life of Bob Dylan: A Restless, Hungry Feeling (1941-1966)

By Clinton Heylin Little, Brown. 528 pp. $30

By David Kirby The Washington Post

O

n July 29, 1966, Bob Dylan threw his leg over his Triumph motorcycle, revved it up and set off down a road in Woodstock, N.Y. Then something happened, though it’s not quite clear what. A two-sentence article appearing four days later in the New York Times said only that the singer-songwriter had been involved in a “cycle mishap” and was “under a doctor’s care.” No official police report was filed, and years later, Dylan wrote in his memoir “Chronicles” simply that “I had been in a motorcycle accident and I’d been hurt, but I recovered. Truth was that I wanted to get out of the rat race.”

Regardless of what exactly happened, according to Clinton Heylin’s “The Double Life of Bob Dylan,” one Bob Dylan got on the motorcycle that morning and another emerged from the wreck — if there even was a wreck. Sometimes it’s the littlest thing that makes a person say, “OK, enough of that — time to do something else.”

Certainly, Dylan’s life before the mishap was frenetic beyond the most fevered dreams of the boy who was born Robert Allen Zimmerman 80 years ago in May in Duluth, Minnesota. While most of his high school classmates were still in college or working first jobs, he had changed his name, taken the New York folk scene

LITTLE, BROWN

by storm and signed his first record deal.

By the time of the accident, he had put out seven albums, toured globally and been roundly booed for electrifying his folkie sound. He appeared to be going without sleep for long periods and, according to more than one witness, had developed a serious dependence on amphetamines. One thinks of what a journalist wrote about another hard-living star: “Keith Richards doesn’t so much burn the candle at both ends as apply a blow torch to the middle.”

To Heylin, what happened before and after the motorcycle mishap is enough to require two volumes. This first installment, which covers 1941 to 1966, ends with the accident, after which Dylan looked different, according to his biographer, wrote different songs, sang differently.

Talk about a cliffhanger.

Who will the second Bob Dylan be? Even as a youngster, he seemed to be crafting his persona, as illustrated by an anecdote about his reputation as a chess hustler during his first days in Greenwich

Village. He would loudly exclaim, “I don’t know what I’m doing,” followed soon after by, “Er, checkmate.”

Genius always appears inscrutable, but maybe what Dylan was doing during these early years wasn’t that complicated. Fellow musician Pete Stampfel recalls: “He was doing all traditional songs, but it was his approach! His singing style and phrasing were stone rhythm & blues.”

Meanwhile, the shape-shifting continued. At 12, he had modeled himself on Hank Williams, but he was soon playing the piano standing up like Jerry Lee Lewis. Within days of arriving in New York, he was patterning himself after folk singer Ramblin’ Jack Elliott (“he imitated him, he looked like [him], he dressed like him,” according to one observer). He learned Woody Guthrie’s songs word for word.

Then he put all the pieces together and became the Dylan we know today, a replicant who is always enigmatic and, as Heylin says, sometimes downright nasty. One early observer recalls him as “a square boy” with a “regular haircut and business suit,” but

by December 1961, his New York girlfriend Suze Rotolo told a friend that the Dylan she knew had begun to develop an “uncontrollable egomania.”

Dylan’s self-absorption became legendary. You can find a short outtake on YouTube of a grainy movie (D.A. Pennebaker’s 1967 documentary, “Don’t Look Back”) that shows Joan Baez and Marianne Faithfull singing “As Tears Go By.” The lilting melody is interrupted by the clacking of a typewriter, as Dylan hammers out lyrics, smokes a cigarette and chats with manager Albert Grossman. Anyone else would have been in awe,

but Dylan doesn’t even turn his head.

Later, Dylan was not remembered entirely fondly

by Baez, though she had helped jump-start his career by asking him to appear with her at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival and, after they became lovers, even sent him a letter saying she wanted to have his baby. She’s not the only one. Others who were friendly with him began to see someone they no longer recognized. Intimates of his recall a switch flipping, the transformation of the artist into someone who could “pull strips of skin off people, verbally,” who “just went nuts and started yelling.”

Then again, he was Bob Dylan. We want our artists to be best-friend material, and some are. But we also want great art, and not all great artists are great human beings.

It’s to the much-published Heylin’s benefit that we extend a similar tolerance to the biographer. If anyone is entitled to write this exhaustive biography, it’s the man who was described by Rolling Stone in 2016 as “perhaps the world’s authority on all things Dylan.” And if he is as jaw-droppingly good at his job as his subject is at music, Heylin can also be just as prickly. He takes delicious pleasure in throwing darts at Dylan’s other chroniclers, calling one a “minor writer,” another a “largely unloved scribe.”

In other words, this first installment of “The Double Life” is a twofer: not just one but two big, colorful egos are on display.

David Kirby is the author of “Crossroad: Artist, Audience, and the Making of American Music.”

Ashland Community Connections | Revels

PLAYS From Page A14

Phil-loving, agoraphobic Jeannie and her tollbooth collector husband—the storms begin to brew. The musical is filled to the brim with irreverent comedy and show stopping musical numbers like “This Side of the Tracks,” “Flushed Down the Pipes,” and “Storms A Brewin.”

Directed by Michael Jenkinson.

Performances are set for 8 p.m.

Thursdays through Saturdays, Mondays and select Wednesdays, through June 19, and 1 p.m. Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, through June 20. Tickets are $43, $39 or $29. COVID-19 safety measures include masks being worn at all times when not eating, temperature checks at the door, tables 6 feet apart and 12 feet from performers, and limited capacity (maximum of 42 patrons to adhere to Jackson County’s “high risk” status).

Upcoming performances include ”Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story,” July1-Sept. 5; “Poirot: Murder on the Links,” Sept. 18-Nov.7; and “Christmas, Contigo,” Nov. 18-Dec. 31. For questions or ticket purchasing assistance call the box office.

Oregon Shakespeare Festival: 15 S. Pioneer St., Ashland. Showtimes, ticket prices and information available at osfashland.org or at 800-219-8161. Group discounts available. OSF’s interactive and immersive digital content platform, O!, can be accessed for free at osfashland.org/digital. Some content will be accessed for a fee. Other content available or in development includes interviews, digital storytelling, online classes, podcasts, audio plays and more.

‘The Comedy of Errors’: The archived play “The Comedy of Errors”

by William Shakespeare will be available for streaming Tuesday through Saturday through June 26. Antipholus and his servant, Dromio, go looking for family they lost years ago. Traveling from the rural South, they journey to the big city and find themselves in the heart of the Harlem Renaissance. And, surprise: suddenly there are two identical Antipholi and two identical Dromios, which has everybody in town (including significant others) seeing double.

To make matters worse, another family member is about to be executed for breaking local law.

Laughs fly in this jazz-filled, visually delightful production as the clock ticks in Shakespeare’s farce

about the craziest family reunion ever. Directed by Kent Gash and choreographed by Byron Easley.

Tickets are $15.

Live Performances: See story, Page 10 Randall Theatre Company: 115 E. Main St., Medford. See randalltheatre.com or call 541-690-8810 for showtimes, tickets and further information. Group discounts are available.

‘Stream-a-Thon’: The Randall Theatre Company will hold a fundraising event featuring both in-person and livestreaming elements spanning 24 hours and two locations in downtown Medford, Friday and Saturday, June 4-5. The “Stream-a-Thon” will feature live music by David Pinsky and Phil Newton and others, comedy by Nick Lanier, Ty Boice and Dustin Wood, and performances from Randall Theatre Company shows, including a preview of the Randall’s upcoming show, “Broadway or Bust — The 1970s.” Performances will take place in both the Ghostlight Playhouse, 115 E. Main St., and the future Ghostlight Eatery, 16 N. Front St. (the former Howiee’s on Front). Also look for raffles, a silent auction and the opportunity to sample menu items crafted by the Ghostlight’s Chef Brandt Nakamura. For more information, see randalltheatre. com or call 541-690-8810.

Teen Musical Theater of Oregon: Craterian Performances’ youth theater program stages professional productions at the Craterian Theater, 23 S. Central Ave., Medford. Tickets and information are available at craterian.org, at the box office, 16 S. Bartlett St., or by calling 541-779-3000.

‘Into the Woods’: Expect the unexpected in this Grimm fairytale mashup crafted by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine, and directed by Stephen and Cailey McCandless. In the woods, we find the Baker and his Wife trying to reverse a witch’s curse so they can have what they wish for most in life: a child. But they’re not alone in the woods and soon cross paths with Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Jack (of beanstalk fame) and two hapless princes all searching for their own “happily ever after.”Performances are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, June 4-19, and at 3 p.m. Sundays, June 6-20.

Tickets are $25. Masks must be worn in the building at all times, and all COIVD-19 safety guidelines will be enforced.

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SIP & SAVOR SUMMER 2021 IS ALMOST HERE! Our Summer 2021 Sip & Savor will be publishing June 18 in both the Mail Tribune and Ashland Tidings, featuring the best places to wine and dine in Jackson & Josephine Counties.

THERE ARE TWO WAYS TO ADVERTISE IN THIS PUBLICATION: 1. Purchase an ad at cash price 2. Purchase your ad with gift cards in increments of $25 If you choose to pay with gift cards, your cards will be available to consumers for purchase at SOGiftCards.com, giving you additional exposure and driving more customers to your business!

PUBLICATION INFORMATION Advertising Deadline: Wednesday, June 9 Publication Date: Friday, June 18 Reach over 40,000 Mail Tribune & Ashland Tidings readers!

CONTACT YOUR MARKETING CONSULTANT TO ADVERTISE TODAY: 541-776-4422 MF-00139061

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Ashland Community Connections | Revels

BOOKS

A COLLECTION OF FABULOUS STORIES

PROLIFIC WRITERS FIND THEIR VOICES

A Writer Prepares

By Lawrence Block LB Productions. 284 pp. $24.99

P.G. Wodehouse’s Early Years, His Life and Work 1881-1908

By John Dawson GRP Publications. Online at madameulalie.org

By Michael Dirda The Washington Post

S

ometimes a reviewer just can’t wait to write about a book. Lawrence Block’s memoir, “A Writer Prepares,” is available in early June, but I was recently sent an advance proof. Quite innocently, I started reading it — and couldn’t tear myself away. So consider what follows more a preview than a review of the pleasures awaiting in its pages.

A Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America, Lawrence Block began selling short stories more than 60 years ago when he was still a student at Antioch College. That alone is remarkable, but a summer work program in Manhattan changed his life: He landed an editorial job at the Scott Meredith Literary Agency.

What Block learned there and the people he met there form the heart of this conversational, irresistibly entertaining account of a literary apprenticeship in the late 1950s and early ‘60s.

Notorious in multiple ways, the Scott Meredith agency didn’t just represent authors, it would also — for a fee — review manuscripts and supposedly help would-be Hemingways and Colettes understand where they’d gone wrong. These “fee reports” were essentially a scam. Let Block tell it: “Every letter we wrote was designed to manipulate, and was dashed off with a cavalier disregard for the truth.

THE WASHINGTON POST

My fee reports applauded the talent of writers who showed no talent, condemned the plots of stories with perfectly satisfactory plots, and were written with the singular goal of getting the poor mooch to submit another story and pony up another fee.”

During the nine months he worked for Scott Meredith, Block managed to sell a story of his own to Manhunt magazine, which led him to concentrate his youthful energies on crime fiction. To familiarize himself with the market, he tells us, “I bought every copy of Manhunt I could find, and sought out its imitators as well, digestsized magazines with titles like Trapped, Guilty, Pursuit, Murder, Keyhole, Off-Beat, and Web. ... I put together a near-complete run of Manhunt along with dozens of copies of its fellows. And I read my way through just about every story.”

Before long, Block was knocking out his own short mysteries, generally around 4,000 words long, all typed in one sitting without a second draft. He also began to produce made-up nonfiction for men’s adventure

magazines. Basically, there were three kinds of articles, endlessly recycled, which he sums up as “Reinhard Heydrich, Blond Beast of the SS,” “Grovers Corners — Sin City on the Wabash,” and “Migrating Lemmings Ate My Feet.” Block actually wrote the Heydrich piece using his best-known male pseudonym, Sheldon Lord.

Note that I said “male pseudonym.” From cranking out men’s adventure fantasies, it was just a short step to writing what Block now somewhat wryly refers to as Classic Midcentury Erotica, much of it using female pen names. He began with a cheapy paperback titled “The Strange Sisterhood of Madam Adista,” followed by a more serious lesbian novel, eventually published as “Strange Are the Ways of Love.” Block finished it two days before his 20th birthday.

At this point, young Larry decided he could do just fine without a college degree.

Soon, he was providing Midwood or Nightstand Books with a 45,000-word sleaze novel every month. Using the name Benjamin Morse, M.D., he also wrote “Sexual

Surrender in Women,” and as John Warren Wells he produced “Tricks of the Trade: A Hooker’s Handbook.” He made up all the case histories.

Astonishingly, Block was still only in his mid-20s, though by now supporting a wife and two very young daughters — and not doing badly at all. In 1962, “the total amount I received from Scott Meredith, after commission, came to $32,000.”

The equivalent buying power for 2021 is roughly $250,000.

There’s a lot more to “A Writer Prepares,” which is chockablock with pen portraits of fast-buck operators, eccentrics and fellow writers (notably Donald E. Westlake).

It ends — far too soon — when Block finds his real “voice” in the first of his Tanner novels of international intrigue.

From there, he would go on to write many more books under his own name, including lighthearted capers about burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr and a much-admired series about ex-cop and recovering alcoholic Matt Scudder. He would also win every major award in crime fiction.

While few writers can match Lawrence Block

for sheer professionalism, Pelham Grenville Wodehouse actually outdoes him.

John Dawson’s exhaustive and detailed “P.G. Wodehouse’s Early Years, His Life and Work 1881-1908” — available at the Wodehouse website madameulalie.org — opens by strongly chastising previous biographers, who without evidence presented their subject as a neglected and unwanted child. Not true.

Subsequent chapters feature Wodehouse family history, a survey of the authors Wodehouse admired and learned from (Barry Pain and W.S. Gilbert, in particular), lots of illustrations and, most importantly, brief summaries of all the newspaper squibs, columns and stories — many set in boys’ school — that the young writer turned out.

Like Block, Wodehouse was nothing if not professional. He networked, kept notebooks of plot ideas and a ledger of his earnings, studied the top magazines until he was published. He never let up. “From 1901 to 1908,” notes Dawson, “P.G. Wodehouse wrote nine books containing close to 600,000 words; he published 170 items of short fiction, 162 articles, essays and columns, and close to 600 poems in London periodicals; his By the Way paragraphs”- casual humor for a newspaper column — “run into the thousands.” All this by the age of 27.

Just as Block’s memoir ends when he discovers his true “voice,” so Dawson concludes with Wodehouse about to create his first great comic character, the languorous, dandyish and resourceful Psmith. He first appears in one of Wodehouse’s many schoolboy stories, but he will enjoy several grown-up adventures in the years ahead, culminating in that 1923 masterpiece, “Leave it to Psmith.” The “P,” it goes without saying, is silent.

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BOOKS

A ROMANCE WITH THE CONSTITUTION

HOW A YOUNG COUNTRY WAS SHAPED The Words That Made Us: America’s Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840

By Akhil Reed Amar Basic. 817 pp. $40

By Kenneth W. Mack The Washington Post

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khil Reed Amar’s “The Words That Made Us: America’s Constitutional Conversation, 17601840” is the rarest of things — a constitutional romance.

Amar, an eminent professor of law and political science at Yale, has great affection for his subject as a text that is worthy of loving engagement by scholars and the public at large. His 700-page narrative covers the “main constitutional episodes” that Americans faced as they revolted against Britain, created a Constitution and Bill of Rights, and built a new nation.

Amar argues that the rebellious British subjects sparked a decadeslong “constitutional conversation,” which eventually drew in men such as John Adams, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Chief Justice John Marshall. His book appears at a time when the Constitution has been criticized for its suppression of the revolution’s popular impulses, its undemocratic features such as the electoral college, its embeddedness in slavery and its deliberate exclusion of so many from its iconic invocation of “We the People.” Amar’s story is more celebratory, but the strength of his argument depends on whether his central metaphor of a conversation accurately captures what is at stake in this book.

“The Words That Made Us” starts on the familiar ground of Massachusetts, and with equally familiar figures such as the young Adams, Massachusetts Bay Gov. Thomas Hutchinson and Boston lawyer James Otis Jr. as they became important characters on differing sides of the coming revolt. These figures were part of a transatlantic conversation between Britain and its North American colonies that emerged from the French and Indian War, a debate whose participants grappled with whether and how Parliament

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could tax the colonies. Amar argues that the colonists learned they were a nation by conversing with one another — writing letters, arguing in pamphlets and newspapers, coming together in the Continental Congress, and eventually writing the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation. It was “America,” he argues, not Jefferson, that wrote the declaration and authored independence, as former colonists refined their arguments in countless conversations.

Yet, recent scholarship has unearthed many other origin stories for the forces that unsettled British and North American hierarchies and made revolution possible. Native Americans defended their land in what was then the West. Enslaved people revolted in the British Caribbean (around the same time as the familiar Massachusetts events).

Farmers rebelled against taxes in the North Carolina Piedmont region. All these actors forced questions onto the agenda of the British and the colonists, but few of them produced the kind of epistles that this book examines. Oddly enough, Amar notes that 10 percent of the Continental Army was Black at the close of 1776, without further explication. He is partly aware of these deficits and argues that the voices of Blacks, women and others entered the conversation only

in the 19th century (the subject of his next book), when figures such as Frederick Douglass finally appear.

During the era of Constitution-making, by contrast, “Indian tribes were not active and effective participants in the emerging system of constitutional discourse” — at least as he defines it.

“USA 1.0” morphed into what Amar calls “USA 2.0,” as Americans used the constitution-making process for the new states to revise the software for their emerging system and eventually craft the 1787 Constitution. Along the way, Amar delivers brilliant chestnuts of interpretation, arguing for instance that revolutionary Americans experimented with ideas that anticipated some elements of the British dominion system. Amar stresses the democratic aspects of their process, including that the federal Constitution was concise enough to be reprinted in newspapers — at least for those who could read.

(Literacy was comparatively high but quite unevenly distributed.) States like Massachusetts also modeled democratic values when they began to write their own fundamental charters by consulting the citizenry at large. Amar is fair-minded in assessing the deficits of the new document, noting for instance that the threefifths clause buttressed enslavers’ power in the House and enabled Jefferson and a succession of enslavers to win the presidency on the backs of the enslaved.

Yet these deficits, for him, are mere contradictions — irritating bugs in USA 2.0 that would be worked out eventually, rather than features of the system. He curtly dismisses those who disagree, at one point railing against “radical-chic intellectuals” who argue on MSNBC, “with barely suppressed smirks, that Americans revolted in 1776 mainly to protect slavery” — when in truth well-respected professional historians have engaged in a spirited debate over the role that slavery played in the revolution. Amar loves his subjects — perhaps a bit too much.

The voluminous third part of “The Words That Made Us” narrows the conversation to historical actors such as Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, Marshall and Andrew Jackson — the kinds of figures who

populate constitutional-law professors’ worlds — as they argued over how to interpret the new document.

There are quite illuminating discussions of, for instance, Marshall’s famous opinion in McCulloch v.

Maryland concerning the national bank, where Amar shows how the chief justice modeled constitutional interpretation for the nation using the document’s text, structure, history and a pragmatic awareness of the needs of the past and present, in contrast to present-day constitutional originalists’ search for the abstruse “public meaning” of 18th-century words. But the questions resolved here tend to be those such as who was the better constitutional interpreter (Hamilton beats Jefferson and Madison), or who best saw the logic of the new system (Hamilton and Washington), or whether the court invented judicial review in Marbury v. Madison (no).

Amar notes that these men argued in a style that might be easily read by the people, but the populace at large, it appears, has dropped out of the conversation entirely.

“The Words That Made Us” is intended to be a big book, not just in size. Amar freely confesses that he hopes his book will take its place alongside classic works by historians such as George Bancroft, Charles Beard and Gordon Wood. It is too early to make such predictions, but one should note that these classic authors attained their influence and staying power in part by capturing something that characterized their era, as well as something less timebound. In a moment that has produced profound debates on such topics as America’s place in a larger world and its racial, ethnic and religious composition, it is open to question whether a book that traverses, often brilliantly, such a delimited range of conversation can capture what was truly at stake for Americans of the founding generation, as well as for ourselves.

Kenneth W. Mack, a historian and a professor of law at Harvard, is the author of “Representing the Race: The Creation of the Civil Rights Lawyer” and a co-editor of “The New Black: What Has Changed — and What Has Not — With Race in America.”

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Ashland Community Connections | Revels

LIVE

From Page A13

friends and family showing costumes of the age and talking about the farm and Alice Hanley’s history. Admission to the farm is free; Hanley House tours are $5, $3 for kids ages 12 and younger. See sohs.org.

Friday, June 11 Rogue Valley Chorale: The Rogue Valley Chorale Association will perform Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana,” a visceral musical setting of secular medieval poems from the 11th and 12th centuries, at 7 p.m. Friday, June 11, and again at 3 p.m. Sunday, June 13, at Grizzly Peak Winery, 1600 E. Nevada St., Ashland. The Rogue Valley Chorale, Youth Choruses and Chamber Orchestra will join together with soloists to present this performance. Tickets are $23, $7 for students and children under 12; children under age 2 get in free. “Carmina Burana” will be presented in an outside setting and follow social distancing and OHA mask requirements.

See roguevalleychorale.org to purchase tickets or find Rogue Valley Chorale on Facebook for further information and updates on future performances.

Shine Swing Trio: The jazz trio will perform vintage jazz and classic swing at 5 p.m. Friday, June 11, at South Stage Cellars, 125 S. Third St., Jacksonville. See southstagecellars.com or call 541-899-9120.

Living Loving Led: Led Zeppelin

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tribute band — singer Natasha Lee Neece, guitarist Anthony Cusenza, bassist Mike Thompkins-Pugh and drummer Michael Saint John — will perform at 6 p.m. Friday, June 11, at RoxyAnn Winery, 3285 Hillcrest Road, Medford. See roxyann.com or call 541-776-2315.

Saturday, June 12 Joshua Paul: Guitarist and singer Joshua Paul will perform a blend of Americana, rock, country, and blues at 3 p.m. Saturday, June 12, at Aurora Vines Winery, 2287 Pioneer Road, Talent.

See auroravines.com or call 541-897-0592.

Ambrose & Galfano: The guitarist and composer Jon Galfano along with singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jen Ambrose, will perform classic rock and pop tunes at 5 p.m.

Saturday, June 12, at Stone River Winery and Vineyard, 2178 Pioneer Road, Talent. Call 541-631-9583.

Rogue Suspects: Rock, funk and blues band The Rogue Suspects — singer Shae Celine, guitar player Dirk Price, bassist Greg Frederick, drummer David Bolen and keyboard player Don Harriss — will perform at 5 p.m. Saturday, June 12, at South Stage Cellars, 125 S. Third St., Jacksonville. $10 cover charge. See southstagecellars.com or call 541-899-9120.

Sunday, June 13 Mercy Duo: The soul, pop and R&B duo — singer Lynda Morrison and guitarist Dave Day — will

perform at 3 p.m. Sunday, June 13, at Walkabout Brewing Co., 921 Mason Way, Medford. See walkaboutbrewing.com or call 541-734-4677.

Tuesday, June 15 Estate Planning Presentation: Linda Clarkson, Melissa Mlasko and Chris Donica of Futurity First Insurance Group will give a free presentation, “Estate Planning, Wills and Trusts,” at 5:30 p.m.

Tuesday, June 15, at the Santos Center, 701 N. Columbus Ave., Medford. Admission is free. To register, call 541-973-2100.

Wednesday, June 16 David Cahalan: Singer, songwriter and guitarist David Cahalan will perform at 5 p.m. Wednesday, June 16, at DANCIN Vineyards, 4477 S. Stage Road, Medford.

Admission is free. Call 541-2451133 or see dancin.com.

Nick and Shae: Multi-instrumentalist Nick Garrett-Powell and singer Shae Celine will perform covers of popular music at 5 p.m. Wednesday, June 16, at RoxyAnn Winery, 3285 Hillcrest Road, Medford. See roxyann.com or call 541-776-2315.

Southern Oregon Strong Songwriters Night: Seth Brown, Dustin Clark and Sam Kovic of Fogline, Casey Parnell and Clayton Joseph Scott will perform original songs, accompany each other and tell stories of how they create music from 5:30 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, June 16, at Hummingbird Estate Winery, 1677 Old Stage Road, Central Point. Tickets are $20.

For tickets and further details,

see hummingbirdestate.com or call 541-930-2650.

Jeff Kloetzel: Singer, songwriter and guitar player Jeff Kloetzel will play an acoustic mix of pop, folk and soul, along with original songs at 6 p.m. Wednesday, June 16, at South Stage Cellars, 125 S. Third St., Jacksonville. $15 cover charge. See southstagecellars. com or call 541-899-9120.

Thursday, June 17 Local History Lecture: The Jacksonville Community Center will host Larry Mullaly, co-author of “The Southern Pacific in Los Angeles, 1873-1996,” who will present “Southern Oregon History: Its People and Places — Chinese Labor and the Southern Oregon Railroads ” from 1:30 to 3 p.m. Thursday, June 17, in the Great Room at the Jacksonville Community Center, 160 E. Main St., Jacksonville. Mullaly will blend photographs and contemporary accounts into the story of the Chinese workers who helped bring railroads to Southern Oregon in the 1880s.

Set against a social background of anti-Chinese sentiment, two major railroad companies employed thousands of Chinese workers in an effort to join the Pacific Coast’s rail lines at the Oregon/California border. This epic five-year struggle was among the last of the great Chinese building projects of the Far West. Admission is $5 donation; registration is required. For further information and to register on or before 10 a.m. Sunday, June 13, see

jacksonvillecommunitycenter. org/eventer. This program is part of the series, “Southern Oregon History: Its People and Places;” participants do not need to attend all of the programs in the series to participate. For questions, call 541-702-2585.

Friday, June 18 Marshall Stack: Singer and guitarist Marshall Stack will perform American folk songs at 5 p.m.

Friday, June 18, at South Stage Cellars, 125 S. Third St., Jacksonville. See southstagecellars.com or call 541-899-9120.

Blue Lightning: This high-energy dance band — Sue Lundquist on keys and guitar, Rhonda Loftis on drums, Trish Cook, Dianne Strong-Summerhays on vocals, Crystal Reeves on electric violin, Brent Norton on lead guitar and Cedrick Buckingham on bass — will perform at 6 p.m.

Friday, June 18, at RoxyAnn Winery, 3285 Hillcrest Road, Medford. See roxyann.com or call 541-776-2315.

John Craigie: Portland singer, songwriter and recording artist John Craigie will perform Americana, folk and original tunes at 7 p.m. Friday, June 18 , at Fry Family Farm, 2184 Ross Lane, Medford. Tickets are $25, children 12 and younger get in free.

Tickets can be purchased online at johncraigiemusic.com. Doors open at 6 p.m. The Saturday and Sunday shows are sold out. For more information, see ashlandfolkcollective.com.

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PROFILE

YO-YO MA

SPINNING LP’S AND THE UNITY OF HOPE

By Goeff Edgers

The Washington Post

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ike so many, national arts reporter Geoff Edgers has been grounded by the coronavirus shutdown.

So he decided to launch an Instagram Live show from his barn in Massachusetts.

Every Friday afternoon, Edgers hosts an hourlong interview show he calls “Stuck With Geoff.”

Recently, Edgers chatted with cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Here are excerpts from their conversation.

Q: So, you must have a record player, right?

A: I do. I haven’t played it in a long time, but I would like to because being a tactile, multi-sensate person, and a person of a certain age, taking a record out of a sleeve and looking at the grooves and putting it on and having the stylus touch — there’s a whole thing about it that’s very, very attractive. And I haven’t had that feeling in years, in decades.

Q: Well, if you set it up and you just tell me what you want me to bring over, I’ll bring you whatever you need.

A: Sure. And you pick the beer or, you know, your coffee bean or whatever you want.

Q: I think I would drink beer with you and listen to records.

A: A good IPA or something.

Q: I like that listening to a record is very deliberate. You put on the record and listen to it, and it’s not background music anymore. And when it ends, you have to probably pick it up and move the needle off it. This is what old men talk about. And you’re a young man. I am an old man.

A: Well, I’m an old man, too, but I aspire toward the condition of an even older man.

Q: The last time we spoke, it almost felt like I would never get out of this barn.

THE WASHINGTON POST

Geoff Edgers and Yo-Yo Ma on Edgers’s weekly Instagram Live show, “Stuck With Geoff.”

I’m interested in hearing how you’re feeling now. You seemed hopelessly optimistic back then.

A: I tell you, Geoff, I think I believe in being philosophically optimistic. Maybe I have an optimistic bent, but I think it’s so easy to get down. All I need to do is read the paper or turn on the news and I feel like, “Oh, my goodness, the world is falling apart,” and maybe the world is falling apart. I’m not sure. The point is, I want to live in a world where there is hope. So I choose to do that because the alternative is untenable.

Q: You know, Woody Guthrie had his guitar and it said, on the body, “This machine kills fascists.”

You’ve been walking around with your cello, and maybe you can put your own message on the neck, “This instrument brings peace.”

Because you seem to pop up everywhere. Playing after getting your second vaccine shot. At a restaurant that’s struggling. Is this normal for you? How have you learned “Boy, I can really be of help during a terrible moment like this”?

A: For the first time in my

life, I have a sense of what a regular life is. I’ve never had a regular life. I’ve been gone most weekends. I was gone eight months out of the year for 42 years of marriage. So this is the first time in my life with my wife that I’ve been able to live a life where I am not stressed. Because I’m not recovering from a trip and getting nervous and stressed out about to leave. There’s the other stress of the pandemic, which is a much more serious, tragic and global stress, but the personal stresses are fewer.

I’ve spent my life trying to be efficient about practicing, about learning things, about getting as many things done as quickly as possible when I’m on the road. But it’s funny that the things that bring the greatest meaning actually are the things that are not efficient. When you’re cooking a great meal or you’re enjoying the meal, you’re not eating as fast as possible. You’re savoring, you’re having a conversation. And the years that I was stressed at home, it was sort of like, “OK, do you know what you can do with the kids? Let’s produce life. We’ve got five minutes,

we’ve got to make 17 decisions because I’m sorry, I’m late, I have to go now.” That does not lead to enjoyment or meaning. So during the pandemic, I have been able to sort of say, “Wait a minute, I can actually afford to take time to think about something through,” and not say, “OK, I’ve got 20 minutes, I have to make a decision.”

That’s great.

Q: You’ve just produced this Audible Original, “Beginner’s Mind.” But you’ve never written a memoir. Why not? I’m sure that people have been begging you to do that for years.

A: You know, my life is not so interesting to me, and in some ways, I may have been trying to escape, to just kind of move and have experiences and whatever. I don’t think this Audible Original is a memoir, so to speak. But it does cover what I call “beginner’s mind.” Encounters. For me, as an immigrant from France to my first encounter with the United States as a 7-year-old. What is that like?

Is it scary? Is it wonderful?

First encounters with certain people, with Emanuel (Ax), who might be calling at any moment. And what I mean

by a beginner’s mind is a kind of openness without judgment. That’s something that I actually, as a performer, try to get to every time before I perform. It’s a very sacred, communal moment, But also in my practice, I have to go through all the process that moves fear out of my mind, because if I’m fearful, my body language and my sound that comes out of the cello will show it, people will feel it. My wife says that if she feels I’m nervous onstage, from the first note, she immediately knows, she gets it and she gets nervous. And so if she feels I’m confident, she will actually relax and enjoy something.

Q: As we move into another part of this pandemic, this thing that has kept us inside for so long, what are you thinking of doing? I don’t want any more fire pits. I don’t want to stand around in 10-degree weather with my parents anymore.

A: I want to leave you with one idea. Maybe it’s obvious to people, but it was not obvious to me until more recently.

If we’re thinking about a reset for people post-pandemic — what can give everybody legitimate hope that we could hold on to and work like crazy to go toward something in common — for me, it is about working our tails off toward an equilibrium between nature and human nature.

And I mean, not that nature is an inert thing and we just appreciate it, it’s beautiful. But rather working with nature so that we in all things, whether it’s in journalism or in music or in science or in government or economics, actually join forces in finding a way to be in equilibrium so that we not only survive, but thrive. And I don’t care what kind of government you’re under. If we all work toward that from whatever system you’re in, just do it. And so that’s my thought.

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ASHLAND EMERGENCY FOOD BANK

Support for Uncle Food’s Diner will continue “We are excited to step up our commitment to them in the same way that Uncle Food’s Diner has risen to meet the unprecedented challenges of this moment.”

By Allayana Darrow ACC

ASHLAND — By a board of directors vote in early May, the Ashland Emergency Food Bank will continue providing food and financial support to Uncle Food’s Diner, a community meals service hosted by Peace House and Ashland First Methodist Church since 1993.

The AEFB has represented an “irreplaceable source of food” for the project during the worst times of the COVID-19 pandemic and throughout Almeda fire relief, said Peace House Executive Director Elizabeth Hallett.

Support from the food bank allowed Uncle Food’s to increase its meal program from one to four days per week in March 2020, absorb food and supply expenses and distribute about 70,000 meals since January 2020. AEFB’s monthly grant will also fund cleaning and packing supply purchases and help cover transportation costs, Hallett said.

Uncle Food’s Diner is currently preparing meals and delivering them to Ashland locations for pickup.

More information may be found at peacehouse.net/ uncle-foods-diner.

“Our partnership with [Uncle Food’s Diner] has primarily involved supporting them with storage space, food, and some modest financial support during the pandemic,” said AEFB Executive Director Isaak

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Isaak Oliansky, executive director, Ashland Emergency Food Bank ACC FILE PHOTO

Support from the Ashland Emergency Food Bank allowed Uncle Food’s Diner to distribute 70,000 meals since January 2020.

Oliansky. “We are excited to step up our commitment to them in the same way that Uncle Food's Diner has risen to meet the unprecedented challenges of this moment.”

The continued support bolsters the food bank’s broadening reach around Ashland and Talent, including contributions to the Southern Oregon University student food pantry and Little Free Pantry at 1615 Clark Ave. Oliansky said the food bank offered a small grant to Jackson County Library Services in support of a food pantry pilot

project starting at the Ashland branch. Increasing popularity of the little free pantry format opens opportunities for the food bank to help put food in the hands of more people, he said.

“If there’s an organization in Ashland, Talent or surrounding rural areas that has a better relationship with a segment of the community that can’t make it to south Ashland, those are people we want to support,” he said.

Olianksy said the AEFB’s central location at 560 Clover Lane does not reach the

unhoused population with the effectiveness that Uncle Food’s achieves, and he is pleased to offer support to cover more ground.

The food bank has resolved an excess of food in the early spring with community distribution and doubling of the monthly amount of food given to recurring clients, Oliansky said.

Clients can shop twice per month or take double the amount at once — the format will continue for a one-year trial period, he said.

Donors responded to the

pandemic with “unbelievable” generosity, which placed the food bank in the rare position to offer support to other community organizations, he said.

“Right now, we’re moving so much food out the door and we have increased our food purchasing budget to reflect that,” Oliansky said. “It’s a new position for the food bank — usually we’re grantees and not grantors.”

The vast majority of food bank staff and volunteers are vaccinated against COVID-19 and the site maintains a face mask requirement for staff, volunteers and clients, Oliansky said.

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Ashland Community Connections | Revels

LITERARY GARDENER

‘IT’S AN ABSOLUTE JOY FOR ME’ A family garden in Ashland keeps three generations growing together

“Some gardeners will remember from their own earliest recollections that no one sees the garden as vividly, or cares about it as passionately, as the child who grows up in it.”

— Carol Williams, “Bringing a Garden to Life,” 1998

RHONDA NOWAK

Carlyle’s love for gardening began when f (when!) I retire, I want he was in the Peace to live as zestfully as Corps with Barb, teaching Carlyle Stout. I met Carlyle, a former real estate/business school teachers in attorney, when he invited me Guatemala how to grow to visit his vegetable garden food organically with and orchard in Ashland.

However, we scheduled our their students. When he meetings around a surf trip to and Barb later bought a Costa Rica with his wife, Barhome in Ashland, he made bara, a jaunt to the Northern sure there was enough California coast, and a fishing day out on Jenny Creek room to raise vegetables, inside the Cascade-Siskiyou as well as the kids.

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National Monument. Carlyle is definitely not sitting around wondering what to do with the rest of his life.

Yet when Carlyle is at home in Ashland where he and “Barb” raised their four children — Kevin, Trina, Michael and Brian — he can usually be

found in the vegetable garden out back that includes about 40 raised beds. Either there, or he may be roaming down the orchard paths lined with blueberry, raspberry, marionberry and boysenberry bushes on one side and apple, pear,

PHOTOS COURTESY OF CARLYLE STOUT

Carlyle Stout is fully in his element when he’s with his granddaughters in the Stout family garden.

peach, plum, cherry and fig trees on the other. He might be with one of his granddaughters — Nora, Viviana or Lucia — pointing out this or that about the plants growing in the garden. That’s when Carlyle is fully in his element.

Hoops on Carlyle’s raised beds can be covered to offer protection to plants when needed.

Stout uses an automatic drip system to irrigate the raised beds.

“For me, gardening is spiritual, physical, mental and emotional,” Carlyle told me.

“It’s an absolute joy for me to be out there working with my hands, growing my own food without chemicals or pesticides.”

Carlyle’s love for gardening began when he was in the Peace Corps with Barb, teaching school teachers in Guatemala how to grow food organically with their

students. When he and Barb later bought a home in Ashland, he made sure there was enough room to raise vegetables, as well as the kids. Gardening became a family activity that made a big impact on the Stout children, now grown, who have all returned to Ashland to pursue their careers, raise their own kids, and continue the family tradition of gardening together.

Ashland Community Connections | Revels

Kevin, especially, has become involved in the family garden.

After graduating from law school in 2009, he moved back to Ashland and took on the project of expanding the number of raised beds in the family garden and adding features that make the garden operate efficiently.

He grows tomato, pepper and melon starts in his own greenhouse so they have a good head start before planting them out in the beds.

Like his dad before him, Kevin uses his hands-on work in the garden to relieve some of the stress of his job as a lawyer.

Kevin represents children in deportation and domestic violence cases.

Kevin said, “Another thing I like about the garden is being able to cook with fresh ingredients.” He mentioned that his sister, Trina, just recently moved back to Ashland, and the family garden was one part of her decision. “Growing, harvesting and cooking food from the garden is a way of bringing the whole family together,” Kevin said.

He and his wife, Ali, are building a house next door and converting an old shed on the property into a greenhouse.

They’re excited that their daughter, Viviana, will be able to grow up in the family garden like Kevin did.

The Stout family garden spans two-thirds of an acre with a neat grid of raised beds, most of which are 4-by-8-feet wide and long and 15 inches tall.

Some of the beds are positioned facing east-west and others positioned facing north-south.

A wide grassy area separates the vegetable garden from the orchard. The entire area is open, so all of the plants in the garden receive plenty of direct sunlight throughout the day. The beds are watered from a creek that runs across the bottom of the property; driplines installed in the beds run on automatic

timers. Overhead sprinklers are used for the berry bushes.

The beds are not tilled; instead, Kevin bought a broadfork to break up compacted soil before adding compost and planting in the spring.

The Stouts use shredded plant debris and kitchen scraps to make compost, and they supplement what they make by having compost delivered from a local supplier. To eliminate varmints from getting into the compost, bins were built with hardware cloth and a cover.

A cold frame is useful for hardening off starts after they leave Kevin’s greenhouse and for overwintering some of the plants.

Carlyle attributes the productivity of the garden to healthy soil. He said the Jackson County Master Gardener Association’s “Garden Guide for the Rogue Valley” (2017) helps them figure out what and when to grow. In fact, he and Kevin agree that the OSU Extension Service provides a wealth of information that helps them keep improving their gardening practices.

Recently, they’ve started planting pollinator-friendly flowers in the raised beds and are beginning to experiment with companion planting.

“Successful gardening is not all intuitive. I’ve learned a lot (from the OSU Extension) about soil health and orchard management,” Kevin told me.

Carlyle noted that a successful garden doesn’t mean a pest-free garden, but he doesn’t let the challenges stress him out. He said, “A wise gardener plants three seeds: one for the bugs, one for the weather and one for himself.”

I bet Carlyle has taught his kids and grandkids that very same lesson.

Design Your

Dream Kitchen!

New Showroom in Medford 632 Crater Lake Ave, Shamrock Sqr, Medford “I am very pleased with the whole project! Thank you!” Janice S.

Watch it Monday at 6pm on News 10 KTVL.com/news/ripple-effect

Thursday, June 3, 2021 |

Let us

Rhonda Nowak is a Rogue Valley gardener, teacher and writer.

Read it Sunday in the Mail Tribune MailTribune.com/e-edition

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“Quality of work is incredible! The whole staff is very professional and wonderful to work with.” Joseph Z. MF-00138043

(541) 441-0997 1470 SE M St, Unit 2E Grants Pass

(541) 955-4884 www.kadesigns.net

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Ashland Community Connections | Revels

ASHLAND HIGH SCHOOL

A CLASS RING REUNION Returned ring sparks effort to preserve family history

By Allayana Darrow

A

ACC

SHLAND — Matthew Shorack’s daughters never met their great-grandmother, but with her 1931 high school ring returned to the family, the girls have come to know her through retellings of her years as a teacher, singer, artist, grandmother and truly terrible cook.

What began as a genealogical treasure hunt to return a lost piece of jewelry became the catalyst for uncovering a love story shared by Shorack’s grandparents, and then, a mission to understand the chronicle of a whole family by peering into the past.

In the spring of 2019, Allen Walters received a metal detector as a retirement gift from his wife and located his first treasure within 30 minutes of his inaugural expedition in a field behind Burger King — later discovered to be the former site of a horse arena and the Valley View Speedway, according to Ashland historian George Kramer.

Sifting packed soil through his fingers, Walters revealed a small ring, suited for a woman’s hand, dated 1931 from Ashland High School and marked with the initials MRN. As a result of thorough genealogical research guided by the late Ashland Tidings journalist John Darling, the ring was identified as the property of Ruth Newbry. Darling died Jan. 6 after a battle with cancer.

Since his first discovery, Walters has uncovered coins, wedding rings and more, some with historical significance and others without, but the search intrigues him all the same.

Over the past two years, Walters’ metal detection skills, dedication to learning people’s stories and returning what they have lost earned him nicknames like “the ring guy” and “lord of the rings” among Rogue Valley-based metal detection and rockhounding enthusiasts.

While journalists and genealogists furthered his initial research, Walters kept the ring prominently displayed on his bulletin board at home, determined to return the piece of history to surviving family members.

The COVID-19 pandemic delayed Walters’ plans to return the ring once a family member was tracked down,

Ruth Newbry’s class ring

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Allen Walters and Matthew Shorack fist bump to celebrate the return of a family heirloom.

building up anticipation month by month. Shorack said he is immeasurably grateful to have had it resting in his home in Renton, Washington, since April — a centerpiece for sharing the family story with friends and relatives.

Once Walters brought Shorack news of the ring’s existence, accompanied by his own bit of historical discovery about Ruth Newbry, Shorack reached out to extended family to fill in some blanks about his grandmother’s life.

“When you’re growing up with your grandmother, you just think of her as grandma, that’s about as far as it goes,” he said. “You never think of her when she was a young woman and some of the things she went through and experienced.”

Born in 1912, Ruth Newbry moved to Ashland in 1924. She obtained a bachelor’s degree from the University of Oregon and taught elementary school in Ashland and Grants Pass.

She relocated to Eugene in 1944 and continued teaching for 32 years.

Her funeral in 1995 was the first service Shorack ever performed as a pastor, at his grandmother’s request.

“You have to be so strong emotionally and mentally when you’re doing that, that I actually didn’t have a chance to grieve at the time,” Shorack said.

About a year after the funeral, he picked up the phone to deliver his grandma exciting news, as he often did during her life. The pair were close. As the line rang, realizing no one would answer, a wave of grief washed in, finally allowing him to mourn her passing and reflect on her role in his life.

Re-meeting his grandmother through the lens of history has inspired Shorack to invest more into preserving a greater family story, from his Yugoslavian ancestry to tales of his childrens’ adoption from Uganda.

Through lessons learned in his own life and marriage, Shorack has come to better understand the love his grandparents shared, the challenges they lived through and a fierce dedication to their children — deepening his connection to them with every story passed on.

Shorack and his wife, Julie, served as missionaries in Uganda, where they adopted three of their four children.

When they became foster parents to seven orphaned infants, the children had never seen “muzungu” (white people) before and cried in fear, except Isaac, their first adopted son, whose smile graced an unsupported head and whose legs bowed inward at 1 year old.

Over six years in Uganda, Shorack survived malaria 28 times. Only one of the three children was considered healthy at the time of their adoption.

On a long journey back to the U.S., with Isaac, Thomas and Alexia in tow, Julie unexpectedly became pregnant with their youngest child, Tessa.

One day, doing away with Shorack’s concerns about bringing a natural-born white child into the family, Thomas, age 4, came to his father and said, “Daddy, this is going to be our only white baby. We’re going to need to give her a lot of extra love so she doesn’t feel left out.”

“We have always told the kids their story, even before they could fully understand what it meant,” Shorack said.

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Asante named among the top 15 health systems nationwide Staff report

Asante has been named among the top health systems nationwide after making it on the IBM Watson Health 15 Top Health Systems list for the ninth year in a row.

“This past year has brought unique challenges. Our employees, nurses, medical staff, leadership and volunteers have met those challenges with great resilience,” said Asante President and CEO Scott Kelly in a press release. “This award recognizes their hard work and ingenuity to find new ways to provide safe, great care that supports our patients and community.”

This year’s study evaluated 324 health systems and 2,522 hospitals across the nation. The annual list identifies the top 15 health systems with the highest overall achievement in clinical outcomes, operational efficiency and patient experience.

IBM Watson Health established the 15 top list to identify performance benchmarks that may

help other health care organizations achieve consistent, balanced and sustainable high performance, according to the organization.

The health care systems making the 2021 list reported:  Lower inpatient mortality rates and fewer patient complications when the severity of patients' conditions is taken into account  Fewer health care-associated infections  Lower 30-day readmission rates  Shorter lengths of stay  Faster emergency care  Higher scores on patient ratings of their overall hospital experience  Lower expenses for care Asante was the only health system in Oregon to make the top 15 list. Other health systems were in Minnesota, South Dakota, Colorado, Virginia, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Idaho, Wisconsin, Iowa and Utah. Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Idaho had multiple health systems make the list, according to IBM Watson Health’s report.

MAIL TRIBUNE FILE PHOTO

The Rogue Valley Bike Swap will be held as a drive-by bike donation drive this year.

Rogue Valley Bike Swap will take place with some changes

By Allayana Darrow ACC

ACC FILE PHOTO

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From Page A28

It turns out, the family has a history of loving and raising adopted children.

As an adult, Shorack learned that his mother was the child of his grandmother’s first marriage. When Ruth married Cyril Crabtree in 1946, Cyril — the man who was “grandpa” to Shorack and his siblings — adopted Ruth’s daughter as his own.

The investigation into Ruth’s life continues. Despite the pieces Shorack has fit together thus far, no one in the

family knows much about her first marriage or why they separated, he said.

“I didn’t realize how much this would spur me on, personally, to find out as much as I could not just about grandma but more and more about our family,” Shorack said. “It has spurred on this whole learning of and appreciation for the past.”

Cyril’s formal education only reached eighth grade, yet he was a skilled jack of all trades, said Shorack, who spent a month every summer on his grandparent’s farm in Eugene as a child.

Shorack remembers his

The Rogue Valley Bike Swap will be held as a drive-by bike donation drive this year. Bike donations may be made from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. June 18 and 9 a..m. to noon at The Grove, 1195 E. Main St. Donors will be asked to remain inside their vehicles.

In previous years, bike donations have been accepted at the annual bike swap in April and sold to fund education programs, said Sulaiman Shelton, volunteer and event coordinator for Ashland Parks and Recreation. The bike donation event responds to an increase in demand for outdoor recreation equipment during the pandemic, and the challenge of finding an affordable ride.

grandmother as a “hopeless romantic,” who always had a romance novel on her side table. Over their childhood summers, Shorack and his siblings played card games and board games with grandma, then fished and hunted with grandpa.

Grandma loved to cook for the family. No one had the heart to tell her that cooking was not her best skill, Shorack said. The meat was always overcooked. Grandpa would smile and give a nod to the young ones, confirming that silence was the most gracious choice.

The couple thrived in a traditional marital arrangement of the

Bikes donated at this year’s event will be given to the Rogue Valley Transportation District for distribution through RVTD’s bike distribution program for veterans, and local organizations with connections to people affected by the Almeda fire and low-income community members. Some bikes will be given to Familia Unida Bike Builders and the Teresa McCormick Center, Shelton said.

“We are hoping that this bike drive will help facilitate some movement of used bikes in the community,” he said. “Bikes are most useful when they are in rideable condition, but bikes that need minor repairs are welcome.”

More information may be found at RVTD.org/bikeswap.

time — Ruth managed the home and Cyril took care of anything outdoors.

Humor always livened the household.

“She had a sparkle about her,” Shorack said of his grandmother. “I could tell, every time [grandpa] talked about her, he would talk about her like she was still the young woman that he first met.”

Now married nearly 30 years to his high school sweetheart, Shorack said he understands the sentiment. He can recall in vivid detail how his wife looked when he first saw her in 1984, standing in line at a youth leadership camp with natural light shining down on her like a spotlight.

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FIRE SEASON

Night-vision helicopter ‘a real game-changer’

By Vickie Aldous ACC

Conditions are ripe for a bad wildfire season in Southern Oregon, but a helicopter with night-vision capabilities will be among the weapons in the arsenal this year.

The Oregon Department of Forestry expects to sign a contract to bring the helicopter to the area this summer. Pilots will wear night-vision goggles and have other technology to help them fly at night, said Dave Larson, district forester with ODF’s southwest Oregon region.

“That’s going to be a real game-changer for us here in the valley — being able to utilize aircraft at night with night-flying capabilities.

We’re pretty excited about that,” Larson said.

Fires tend to slow down during cool, moist nighttime conditions, making efforts to snuff them out more effective.

Night aerial firefighting is more common in other fireprone areas like California and Australia.

Pilots have to avoid crashing into terrain, watch for firefighters and equipment on the ground, be able to hover and suck up water into their tanks and make precise drops on fires under difficult night conditions.

But advances in night-vision technology have given them a clearer view, according to the aerial firefighting magazine Aerial Fire.

Larson said working out all the safety and operational details for the night-flying helicopter means it will probably be fully ready in August.

“This year is going to be a trial year,” he said.

The night helicopter crew has to learn to coordinate with ground firefighters, and heliwells, which look like above-ground swimming pools, need to be stationed around the county to provide quick access to water, Larson said.

But other time-tested resources will be in place well before August, including

COURTESY PHOTO

A helicopter capable of tackling fires at night will join the Southern Oregon arsenal this summer.

traditional helicopters, airplanes and a large air tanker, he said.

ODF, the U.S. Forest Service and local fire districts are all on the same page that fires need to be attacked quickly before they can grow into infernos that threaten people and send smoke into the air, said Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest Supervisor Merv George.

“We are going to be as aggressive as we can to get our fires out as soon as possible,” he said.

Current conditions and forecasts show firefighters and communities could face a tough battle this year.

ODF declared the start of fire season May 12 in southwest Oregon.

The snowpack is only 31% of normal in the Rogue and Umpqua basins, which is worse than 2020, Larson said.

The western half of Jackson County is in severe drought conditions, while the eastern half is in extreme drought conditions. The area has seen a dry, warm spring, with little precipitation to ease drought conditions, Larson said.

Flammable vegetation has dried out, with fuel moisture levels worse than in 2020 and mimicking typical July conditions. It would take a month of rain to soak those fuels enough to significantly reduce fire danger, Larson said.

“This is very concerning,” he said.

Although the 2020 fire

season saw the most destruction of homes in Oregon history — including 2,500 in Jackson County — Oregon saw relatively little lightning activity.

A streak of unseasonably hot

weather in September and high winds whipped ignition sources into conflagrations.

Monsoons predicted the deserts of the American Southwest this year could send lightning-prone

clouds drifting toward Southern Oregon, Larson said.

Jackson County Fire District No. 3 Chief Bob Horton said work is underway to remove flammable vegetation along the Bear Creek Greenway, and fuels-reduction work is going on in communities around the county.

Fire agencies will call in all firefighters to maximize their staffing if the area faces red flag weather conditions that boost the risk of fires, Horton said.

Still, the area’s firefighting capacity is strained during high demand, and the fire season forecast is not favorable, he said.

The 2020 Almeda fire showed that the water supply and hydrant system aren’t adequate, and first responders are feeling fatigue from the challenges of last fire season and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Horton said.

when issues impact our community we all feel the ripple effect A weekly in-depth look at important issues and the ways they influence our community.

Read it Sunday in the Mail Tribune MailTribune.com/e-edition

Watch it Monday at 6pm on News 10 KTVL.com/news/ripple-effect

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FIRE SEASON

Wildfire forecast: ‘Nothing looks good’

By Andrew Selsky The Associated Press

SALEM — Wearing sootsmudged, fire-resistant clothing and helmets, several wildland firefighters armed with hoes moved through a stand of ponderosa pines as flames tore through the underbrush.

The firefighters weren’t there to extinguish the fire.

They had started it.

The prescribed burn, ignited this month near the scenic mountain town of Bend, is part of a massive effort in wildlands across the U.S. West to prepare for a fire season that’s expected to be even worse than last year’s record-shattering one.

The U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management have thinned by hand, machines and prescribed burns about 1.8 million acres of forest and brushland since last season, officials from the agencies told The Associated Press. They typically treat some 3 million acres every year.

All that activity, though, has barely scratched the surface.

The federal government owns roughly 640 million acres in the U.S. All but 4% of it lies in the West, including Alaska, with some of it unsuitable for prescribed burning.

“All these steps are in the right direction, but the challenge is big and complex,” said John Bailey, professor of silviculture and fire management at Oregon State University. “And more needs to be done to even turn the corner.”

The efforts face a convergence of bleak forces.

Severe drought has turned forests and grasslands into dry fuels, ready to ignite from a careless camper or a lightning strike. More people are building in areas bordering wildlands, expanding the so-called wildland-urban interface, an area where wildfires impact people the most. Invasive, highly flammable vegetation is spreading uncontrolled across the West.

“I’m seeing probably the

KYLE KOSMA / HIGH DESERT MUSEUM

U.S. Forest Service firefighters on May 14 carry out a prescribed burn at the High Desert Museum near Bend.

worst combination of conditions in my lifetime,” said Derrick DeGroot, a county commissioner in southern Oregon’s Klamath County. “We have an enormous fuel load in the forests, and we are looking at a drought unlike we’ve seen probably in the last 115 years.”

Asked how worried he is about the 2021 fire season, DeGroot said: “On a scale of 1 to 10, I’m a 12. Nothing looks good.”

In other prevention measures in the West, utility companies are removing vegetation around power lines and are ready to impose blackouts when those lines threaten to spark a fire.

Armies of firefighters are being beefed up. And communities are offering incentives for residents to make their own properties fire-resistant.

Still, much work remains to change the region’s trajectory with fire, particularly in two key areas, said Scott Stephens, professor of wildland fire science at the University of California, Berkeley.

“One is getting people better prepared for the inevitability of fire in areas like the wildland-urban interface. That includes new construction,” he said. “And the second is getting our ecosystems better

prepared for climate change and fire impacts.”

On the local level, individuals and communities need to create defensible spaces and evacuation plans, he said. On the government level, more resources need to go toward managing forests.

“I think we’ve got one to two decades,” Stephens said. “If we don’t do this in earnest, we’re frankly just going to be watching the forest change right in front of our eyes from fire, climate change, drought, insects, things of that nature.”

Part of the issue is that increasing wildfire resilience often requires trade-offs, said Erica Fleishman, professor at Oregon State University’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences.

Cities or states could require defensible spaces around homes.

Building codes could call for fire-resistant materials. That would drive up construction costs but also mean homes would be less likely to burn and need rebuilding, she said.

“The insurance industry and the building industry and communities and lawmakers are all going to need to have the will to create these changes,” she said.

Fleishman also believes more

prescribed fires could be conducted in the wildland-urban interface, but said “society is risk averse.”

“Right now, there’s not, in many cases, a whole lot of will to do it,” she said.

Prescribed burns target vegetation that carries flames into forest canopies, where they can explode into massive wildfires.

Planning and preparing for them can take two to five years.

And carrying them out is a never-ending task, said Jessica Gardetto, spokeswoman for the National Interagency Fire Center, in Boise, Idaho.

While targeting one forest, other forests continue to grow, creating “this vast buildup across the landscape,” she said.

Besides overgrown forests, the West faces a newer threat: cheatgrass, which grows prolifically after a wildfire and becomes incredibly flammable.

Gardetto said trying to get rid of the invasive grass is like the endless toil of Sisyphus, the Greek mythological figure who was forced to roll a boulder up a hill, only for it to roll down as it neared the top, over and over again.

After a fire is put out, the first thing to come back is cheatgrass.

“It starts this horrible cycle that is really difficult to

combat,” she said.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom and U.S. Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen signed an agreement last August committing the state and the federal agency to scale up treatment of forest and wildlands to 1 million acres annually by 2025.

They have a long way to reach that goal. Cal Fire, a state agency responsible for protecting over 31 million acres of California’s privately owned wildlands, treated some 20,000 acres with prescribed fire and thinning from last summer through March.

Meanwhile, California increased the number of seasonal firefighters by almost 50%, according to Lynne Tolmachoff, spokeswoman for Cal Fire.

With the fire season getting longer each year, Colorado lawmakers last spring allocated about $3 million to increase staffing at the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control, said Mike Morgan, its director.

“Historically, wildland firefighters were college students.

They’d get out of school on Memorial Day, they’d go fight fire, and they’d go back to school on Labor Day,” Morgan said. “Well, now we’re having fires every month of the year, and so we need firefighters year-round.”

The Bureau of Land Management is transforming its seasonal firefighting force to full time with a $13 million budget increase, Gardetto said.

Despite all these efforts, warnings are going out telling people to be ready for the worst.

The Oregon Office of Emergency Management advised residents on Monday to have a bag packed and have an evacuation plan.

“Abnormally dry conditions and pre-season fires on the landscape are causing concern for the 2021 wildfire season,” the agency said.

“Now is the time for Oregonians to prepare themselves, their families and their homes for wildfire.”

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Ashland Community Connections | Revels

FIELD TEST Candidates Wanted URGENT NOTICE: You may be qualified to participate in a special Field Test of new hearing instrument technology being held at a local test site.

An industry leader in digital hearing devices is sponsoring a product field test in your area next week and they have asked us to select up to 15 qualified candidates to participate. They are interested in determining the benefits of GENIUS™ 4.0 Technology in eliminating the difficulty hearing aid users experience in difficult environments, such as those with background noise or multiple talkers. Candidates in other test areas have reported very positive feedback so far.

We are looking for additional candidates in GRANTS PASS and the surrounding areas.

Product Test Site:

Medford:

1380 Biddle Rd. Suite C, Medford, OR 97504 541-725-3494

Klamath Falls:

905 Main St. #515, Klamath Falls, OR 97601 541-255-1993

Grants Pass:

953 SE 7th St. Grants Pass, OR 97526 541-716-0535

In an effort to accurately demonstrate the incredible performance of these devices, specially trained representatives will be conducting testing and demonstrations during this special event.

In addition to an audiometric hearing evaluation, candidates will receive a fiber-optic otoscope exam, a painless procedure that could reveal common hearing problems such as excessive wax or damage to the eardrum, as well as other common causes of hearing deficiencies.

Must call before June 25th, 2021 Qualified Field Test Candidates: • Have experienced some level of hearing difficulty, • Live in GRANTS PASS or the surrounding area or currently wear hearing aids • Are at least 55 years of age or older • Don’t currently work for a market research company TO PARTICIPATE: We have a limited supply of the GENIUS™ 4.0 test product currently on hand and ready for testing. We have also been authorized to offer significant discounts if you decide to take the hearing instruments home. If you choose not to keep them, there’s no risk or obligation of any kind.† 1) You must be one of the first 15 people to call our office

FIELD TEST PARTICIPANTS Will be tested and selected same-day.

Mention Code: 21JunField 2) You will be required to have your hearing tested in our office, FREE OF CHARGE, to determine candidacy.

3) Report your results with the hearing instruments to the Hearing Care Specialist over a three week test period.

Qualified candidates will be selected on a first-come, first-served basis so please call us TODAY to secure your spot in the Product Field Test.

Participants who qualify and complete the product test will receive a FREE $100 Restaurant.com Gift Card* as a token of our thanks.

AVOID WAITING – CALL AND MENTION CODE: 21JunField *One per household. Must be 55 or older and bring loved one for familiar voice test. Must complete a hearing test. Not valid with prior test/purchase in last 6 months. While supplies last. Free gift card may be used toward the purchase of food at participating restaurants where a minimum purchase may also be required. See restaurant.com for details. Not redeemable for cash. Promotional offer available during special event dates only. †Pursuant to terms of your purchase agreement, the aids may be returned for a full refund within 30 days of the completion of fitting, in satisfactory condition.

See store for details.

MF-00139094