Hey everyone, just a quick PSA: Oregon ballots are in the mail as of today. (Oct. 16th, 2024).

Go to https://OregonVotes.gov/MyVote to find out when yours will be in the mail!

Go to https://OregonVotes.gov/Counties if you have any issues or concerns to bring up with your county elections office!

VOTE!

Just spotted that we made this list on Forbes last week. We're famous!

Where could I find a CRT Monitor in Eugene?

I picked up an old Amiga 500 recently and unfortunately no display that I currently have works with it. If any of you know where I could pick up a CRT locally, ideally one that's around 14", that would be great.

@eugene

#Eugene

YouTube recommended a video about the Klamath river being rewilded after the removal of all the dams. I thought it was pretty cool to see the progress so far.

If anyone is interested, I have Egyptian walking onion bulbs for sale https://eugene.craigslist.org/grd/d/eugene-beautiful-egyptian-walking-onion/7785624808.html

These are my absolute favorite garden superstars-- a PERENNIAL ONION that is versatile and thrives in our area. You can harvest the topsets to use like onions or garlic, use the stems like chives/green onions, or harvest the whole bulbs like a yellow onion. I'm selling my fall harvest of topsets for less than half the price you get 'em for at Territorial

Is it just me or do a LOT of cats seem to go missing in Eugene?

I just feel bad for all the poor cats 🥺

@eugene

I hate the fact that it's almost fall now, and we're seeing temperatures around 100 degrees fahrenheit and smoke from first fires. In September.

Just a heads up, there's a severe thunderstorm alert right now:

https://g.co/kgs/7NQdqAJ

Many of you are probably familiar with the CW series iZombie, which is set in Seattle. But less people are aware of the comic book that inspired the series, which is set right here in Eugene.

I instantly fell in love with this comic for many reasons: the art. The characters. The world-building. But my favorite part is that the artists have clearly done their homework: they use actual locations in Eugene (Shelton McMurphy House, Yah-Po-Ah Terrace, the university, etc.) Not only that, but there are constant references to urban legends across the state, like the Portland Shanghai Tunnels and the Devils Lake monster in Lincoln City.

If you haven't read this comic, I'd highly recommend it. It's not every day Eugene, Oregon is the setting for an epic urban fantasy series. And it's not every day that such locations are depicted so accurately.

Just saying.

Rent in Eugene is high for one simple reason: it's a highly desirable place to live and the people who want to live here are all competing to rent the same units. There is more demand than supply, by a lot. Period. We have under-built for decades despite consistent net migration into our city. Landlords can charge the rent they do because somebody will pay it. The only way to get lower average rents is to reverse migration into Eugene or increase the housing supply.

Why have we under-built for decades? Because city council is an elected position. Homeowners vote, tenants tend to not vote. And to make this worse, homeowners benefit from this supply & demand mismatch because it causes their property values to go up. Politicians don't listen to blocks of voters who don't vote. Eugene homeowners, the neighborhood associations, etc have all lobbied successfully for "single family only" zoning and kept development out. City Council members also tend to be homeowners because at 15K a year you basically need a second source of income to even scrape by on that salary. Tenants and homeowners have opposite goals when it comes to land value.

So tenants, if you care about rent prices, make sure you vote, and make sure your city councilors hear from you that you want more units. If you don't like the options you get at the ballot box in general elections or think there aren't enough, vote in the primaries where your vote will have an even greater impact since you'll be choosing who other people get to vote for. All you need to do in order to vote in the primaries is select a party and your ballot will be mailed to you automatically. The whole process takes less than 5 minutes, can be done online, and you can change parties whenever you want. Selecting a party doesn't mean you have to vote for that party, only that you get the chance to vote in their primary. And vote YES on Ranked Choice Voting which is a measure that will be up for vote in the November election.

What about private equity? Blackrock? "Price-fixing software"?

I know it's popular to point the finger at private equity, AirBnb, or price-fixing software or whoever, but they are drops in the bucket compared to the massive supply and demand mismatch we have. And many urban areas in America have. Price fixing software won't enable you to charge more for rent than the market will allow, because another landlord without said price fixing software will just rent at a more reasonable price and get the tenant while your unit sits vacant and burns a hole in your pocket.

What about rent control?

Rent control will just advantage people in existing units while disadvantaging anybody who moves here from elsewhere or even from in-town. It also gives your landlord great incentive to constructively evict you and means whenever you move, your rent will take a very steep hike. It just polarizes the rental market. The total amount of rent being paid stays roughly the same, it's just no longer equally distributed among the entire renting population. Rent control doesn't work. Yes, it freezes rents for some segments of the population, but it prejudices in favor of whoever happens to be in a unit right this very moment and never moves and screws over everybody else w higher rent, especially those trying to get off the street!

What about expanding the Urban Growth Boundary?

This would make more cheap land available for development at the expense of nature being harder to access and farther away. We can build up without building out. I'm not in favor of expanding the UGB personally, but it would probably help.

But I hate all these new luxury condos!

K be mad then, but it's more supply. Now people who can afford luxury condos will rent them instead of out-bidding you for other units.

But the condos are all empty?!?

As a tenant, you want vacant units. Vacant units mean landlords have to live with the threat of their units not being rented, which means they will lower prices to make sure they stay occupied. Vacant units mean more negotiating power for tenants which turns up in things like pet-friendly complexes. Every market has inefficiencies and vacant units, this is normal. Trust me, those vacant units are costing them money. If they remain vacant long enough, the price will drop. That only happens if they actually remain vacant though, which our supply & demand mismatch won't actually let happen sustainably.

What about banning corporations from owning homes?

The legal structure of an entity owning a property doesn't matter, they can't actually set prices, the market does. Just like you can't buy a $1 million house and sell it for $2 million tomorrow, neither can blackrock. If they are sitting on property, they are losing money, but that's only true if the real estate market doesn't going up because we keep refusing to build more real estate. You need corporations to build apartment complexes, they require tens of million dollars to build, which means you need investors, which means you need a legal structure for investment to occur through safely. Most single home landlords are also LLCs.

What about forcing developers to make "affordable" units?

How do you make low and medium income housing? You build new, luxury housing and wait 20 years. This is similar to rent control where it just shifts around the rent to different parts of the market. Additionally, doing this makes this place less attractive to developers. Developers want to build units that are actually going to make them money, the more red tape and regulations, the more money they waste fighting or complying with them. And it's not just the developer's decision: they have to answer to investors. Investors don't want to invest in things which don't make money. Apartment complexes cost tens of millions of dollars, you need people to invest to make that happen, so you need to make investment attractive. Investors have the luxury of investing wherever they want. Unless Eugene is "investable", they will go elsewhere and you get no units.

These lots will sit empty while 12,000-plus people try to attend the event,” Eugene Pride President Brooks McLain writes in an emailed statement to Eugene Weekly. “Parking is being blocked starting before our festival begins.”0

Pride’s parking needs are “superseded” by an August 10 Ween concert at the Cuthbert Amphitheater, which is owned and operated by Kesey Enterprises, according to a press release from Pride organizers.

Per a 2006 concession agreement — a contract — between Kesey Enterprises and the city of Eugene, the private entertainment company has first right of refusal for parking around Cuthbert between May 1 and Oct. 31 annually.

If you're attending, you can read the Peach Pit online here. I'm not going to be able to make it this year, but hope Eugeneans who can have a great time.

And stay hydrated! It's still going to be beastly hot out!

“Ten dollars is what you need on average to live a day on the street, and so that’s about two bags of cans. If you’re saying you can only bring one, you need two bags, (so) that’s two trips on the bus. How do you protect that one bag of cans while you’re going and canning on another?”

On missing redemption facility hours:

“If you don’t make it and you have to keep them,” she said, “if you’re homeless that means you don’t get to sleep that night. You have to stay awake and babysit your cans or someone’s going to come along and steal them from you.”

This town with the bumper stickers

If you're like me, you loathe doing meal prep every week and often end up making food choices that are bad for your health or expensive because you once again neglected to keep your stash of fridge food going. And so maybe you have come to the conclusion it would be better to pay somebody else to do the prep so you always have tasty meals ready for you. I did some research on local places that do this, sharing this in hopes that somebody else finds it useful. If anybody has experience with these places or other places they suggest, I'd love to hear about them.

Prices shown are approximate. Note that I am using "serving" like the USDA uses it. A chipotle burrito, for reference, is around two "servings".

Ivys Cooking ($6-$15/serving, free delivery, minimum spend $14) http://www.ivyscookin.com

Pickup weekly (Wed) or get free delivery (Thurs), “home-cooked meal” vibe but still very professional. Minimum order of one meal (two servings). Great vegetarian options. Also offers additional "product boxes" you can add to your order for $10 and some items like jam, jellies, etc.

$28 for Entree of 2-4 generous servings ($7-$14/serving)

$38 Family Size (4-6 servings) - $38 ($6-$10/serving)

Sprout Kitchen (willamette and 25th) sprout-kitchen.com ($6.50/serving, minimum spend $13)

New restaurant w/ meal plan option focus on modern/gourmet. Each meal is around 2 servings. $13 each so $6.50 per serving. While food has some focus on being healthy, surprisingly no vegan or vegetarian options when I looked. Pickup weekly.

Glenwood Restaurant (25th and Willamette) ($5.25/serving, $21 minimum spend) https://www.glenwoodrestaurants.com/

Choose from one of two meal combos each week, with vegetarian option available.

$21 and designed to ‘feed a family of four’ so let’s assume that’s $5.25/serving.

Chipotle Catering (several locations) ($4.50/serving, minimum spend $90)

Thought I'd consider this one as well for fun. Good veggie options. $8.50/burrito if you order 10. Each burrito is two servings. So that’s 4.50 per serving. Or you can order a bunch of ingredients and put them on tortillas of your choice (taco or burrito). This is $12.00 “per person”, which I’m going to assume is two servings, so $6/serving. Minimum order is a $90-$120 depending on which boxes you get. Of course, a single burrito is $9.85 so you're not really saving much with their catering options. With some creative use of gift cards you could probably get yourself a 10-20% discount here as well.

Honorable mention:
Erin’s table (local meal kit service) https://www.erins-table.com/faq

This bill has passed the US house with rare bipartisan support and is now headed for the senate.

Axios article about the bill:

https://www.axios.com/2024/05/22/crypto-legislation-fit21-house-passes

Some other relevant background info:
https://www.dlnews.com/articles/regulation/us-house-passes-sweeping-crypto-fit21-bill/

Vote record if you want to look up your rep:
https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2024226

Among other things, the bill establishes:

• Clear ways to determine if a crypto asset is a security or not, and a process for making that determination. If a crypto is a security, it is subject to many more regulations and laws which are needed to protect investors.
• Clear ways to determine is a crypto exchange is actually an exchange, money transmitter, or other entity subject to regulation and what those regulations are
• Which federal agency even has jurisdiction over crypto assets
• That sufficiently decentralized cryptos (like Bitcoin) are exempt from many securities regulations. This is because a decentralized cryptocurrency can't rugpull you or otherwise collude to harm whatever investments one has made in them. When you think about bad crypto scandals like FTX, exchange collapses, and other rug pulls, they are all a result of centralized actors taking advantage of the trust of others. Decentralized, trustless systems like Bitcoin do not have this flaw as one does not need to trust a select set of centralized actors to faithfully and transparently administer the system. There is no single entity or set of entities, for example, who can make new Bitcoin which is not meant to be minted according to the Bitcoin protocol or force the transfer of funds from one user to another.
• Likewise would exempt "decentralized exchanges" from securities regulations as there is no trusted centralized intermediary who can rugpull investors. One might use a decentralized exchange, for example, to swap BTC to ETH or another cryptocurrency. They are fast, transparent, and efficient.