(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Save the Eugene Weekly [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-12-31 The Eugene Weekly is in danger of going under. They are a weekly alternative paper in Eugene (OR) that has published continuously for 20 years. However, they are now in danger of going under after it turned out that a former employee had allegedly embezzled at least $90,000 from the paper. Money was missing from peoples' 401(k)3 accounts and creditors, including the printer, were unpaid. Now, the printer is demanding to be paid upfront before they will print their paper again. As a result, they have been forced to lay off all 10 of their employees. The Eugene Police Department and a team of private forensic accountants are investigating. They are a free paper that is supported entirely by print advertising. Before the recent turn of events, they printed 30,000 copies that they circulated in bright red boxes around Eugene. They are trying to rebuild. Several of their staffers are showing up to keep the paper going online. So why am I doing this? I don’t even live there, but I got a tip from someone who lives in Oregon. But I publish a small newspaper myself, I almost went under twice, and I had help to get back on my feet. I know what it’s like to struggle to make ends meet. So what can you do? You can visit the link to donate to their nonprofit arm. That way, all donations will be tax deductible. If there is a favorite non-profit that you like to support, you can advertise on their behalf here. They offer ads both in print and online. So what do they cover? A few examples: They are known for their obituaries for homeless people like this: Growing up in Southern California, Gloria Pfund lived a charmed life in an upper middle-class family, with horses, nice clothes and caring parents. On the night of Saturday, Jan. 28, she was found dead in the entryway to a care center in Eugene, apparently from a drug overdose, hypothermia or the physical costs of living unhoused for decades, her family says. She was 66. Beauty and privilege didn’t protect the young Pfund from mental illness. She began taking drugs such as LSD at the age of 16, says her older sister, Angela Andre, and became increasingly erratic in her behavior, eventually leading to a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Pfund was twice institutionalized for care after suicide attempts, one of which left scars on her wrist that she used to cover with scrunchies. Each time, she was released without any support program, the family says. Money was not the problem in finding treatment for Pfund, Andre says; her father left her a trust fund when he died. Instead, the problem, she says, was a mental health system that no longer provides care for seriously ill people who will not consent to treatment. Sad story of a woman who is trying to fight eviction: Candice King and her children live in an older red house just minutes away from downtown Eugene. The house is lived in: There’s artwork scattered across the outside, a TV set up in the garage, and so much stuff. Everywhere. Chairs on the lawn, tents in the backyard for unhoused neighbors, slacklines, lamps, toys, forts and kids playing in the yard. “When I hear all of my neighbors’ wind chimes hum at night it sounds like temples in India,” King says. “It’s that beautiful. It’s my home.” King’s abundant decorations scattered across her yard indicate that this is her home; her landlord, Sharon Prager and R&R Properties, beg to differ as they are the out-of-state owner and the management of the property. The fight between working class citizens who can’t afford to own homes and the property management companies and landlords who dominate the housing market goes on. How the City of Eugene is refusing to comply with the law requiring them to notify a local social service agency whenever they serve an eviction notice on homeless people. This is the sort of thing that gives Democrats a bad name. In the past five years, the city of Eugene has used 72-hour notices to evict unhoused people camping on public property more than 7,000 times, ordering them to move under threat of losing their possessions or paying a fine in court. Oregon law requires cities like Eugene to seek help for the people they send packing. The law directs cities and counties to alert a social service agency each time they issue a notice and force a homeless camper to move. It’s been state law for nearly 30 years. Yet Eugene ignores this law daily and shows little signs of complying any time soon. And the Letters to the Editor will be an important resource going forward. At the same time that the Eugene Weekly was forced to suspend publication, the competing paper, the Eugene Register-Guard made the decision to stop publishing any opinion pieces, including letters to the editor. If the Eugene Weekly continues to publish, even online, and there is sufficient interest here, I will post regularly here with updates and stories promoting the paper until they have paid off all their outstanding debts. If these efforts by ourselves and by many others succeed, and there is a Eugene Weekly for many years to come, then this will be an opportunity for us. If God (or Flying Spaghetti Monster) forbid Donald Trump wins again, we can help turn Eugene (OR) and many other places into hotbeds of resistance against Donald Trump. But if Joe Biden wins, then we can turn Eugene (OR) and places like it into the place where we finally decided that everybody matters and the place where we eradicated Trumpism once and for all. 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