SOCAN grateful for Medford council passing climate plan

On behalf of Southern Oregon Climate Action Now, especially the SOCAN Medford Climate Action Team, I would like to express tremendous gratitude to the Medford City Council for its unanimous approval of the draft Medford Climate Change Adaptation and Resiliency Plan.

This plan was masterfully developed by the staff in the city’s Planning Department with assistance of other departments and an advisory committee of experts from science and business. With its action component, the city of Medford now has a plan to adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change/crisis as our region experiences it. 

The various city departments can look to this document (CCARP) when they are considering issues and proposals in their work. The action portion of the plan includes means for community residents to get involved with education about weatherizing assistance for your home, means to access community solar projects as well as other actions for individuals and the city to take.

This is a wonderful first step for Medford. Kudos to the City Council for this action. If you are interested in the Climate Crisis and want to take action with others in the area, please consider getting involved with Southern Oregon Climate Action Now. 

The best place to start is the website for Southern Oregon Climate Action Now: SOCAN.eco.  Come to a meeting, learn what we are facing together and what we can do individually, as a group, as a region and as a city about it.

Ro Lewis / Medford

Upper Rogue River has become an amusement park ride

For thousands of years, the upper Rogue River has provided people with water, food, transportation and recreation. It’s been a magnet for those yearning for peace, quiet and spiritual renewal.

The river has been a safe home for spawning salmon and thriving trout. A bountiful variety of birds has built nests along its banks. Mammals like otter and beaver call it home. Deer and bear rely on it.

Our valley is named in its honor.

Now all this has changed. We have altered the life-sustaining role this iconic waterway has played for many millennia. This has not happened because of measured thoughtfulness.

This has not been a conscious decision.

Instead, little by little, the upper Rogue River has become an amusement park ride. A 25-passenger tour boat provides 360-degree thrill turns and is authorized to roar up and down 24 times in an eight-hour period — that’s every 20 minutes. What used to be a “multi-use” area of the river is now single use: only truly safe for one commercial company.

Why has this been allowed to happen? One reason is what four powerful state agencies acknowledge as their “overlapping jurisdictions.” Each agency oversees a small set of responsibilities that blurs into the next agency’s set.

No one is tasked with looking at the big picture, with taking responsibility for the environmental health of the Rogue and safety for its non-motorized users.

I hope this changes when these agencies engage in the public process your front-page article described.

Anne Batzer / White City

Allowing jet boats on Rogue conflicts with ODFW’s goals

I’m reflecting upon 2023’s dilemma for those of us who live on the Rogue River near Shady Cove.

The Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife asks landowners to provide a healthy environment for fish and the river. Their 2019 manual for landowner goals includes:

1: Ensure sufficient shade to moderate water and air temperatures.

2: Ensure adequate native vegetative exists cover to reduce stream bank erosion, provide organic matter input, enhance water quality.

3: Ensure sufficient in-channel large wood is present to promote complex stream habitat conditions, such as pools and riffles.

4: Provide habitat for native fish and wildlife.

Jets boats rapidly transit our area. In 2023, this escalated to several boats at a time traveling into Shady Cove for dinner and a cocktail. They pass at a high rate of speed through narrow channels and the Glass House hole (see goals 3 and 4), weaving their way to their destination.

In the spring and summer, they are dangerously close to families rafting through these tight areas. Their wake affects these rafts, angles and paddle boards. It reaches the bank causing erosion (Goal 2) and affecting the trees (Goal 1).

In 2024, will ODFW regulate this? Will they continue to ignore landowners, guides, recreational rafters, tourists and their own goals?

When someone is hurt — and that risk is increasing — who is liable? Will ODFW choose jet boats or common sense?

Tim Gilman / Shady Cove

Oregon should follow the Constitution on ballot eligibility

Former Speaker of the U.S. House Tip O’Neil famously observed: “All politics are local” He reminded us that even issues appearing national are really local.

Questions about applying the Constitution may seem national, but may be local. For example, if someone is locally prevented from carrying a fully licensed and certified firearm, they would reasonably appeal to the second amendment to counter that restriction.

So it is with Section 3 of the 14th amendment clearly precluding anyone who has taken an oath to protect and preserve the constitution but has then engaged in an insurrection from holding state or federal public office again. This restriction is no more complex than restrictions dealing with age or place of birth.

Across the nation, those who support the Constitution should demand that the insurrection restriction be applied to any candidate seeking to regain state or federal public office.

Anyone who seeks to undermine democracy or the Constitution while in office should, as the Constitution clearly dictates, not be permitted to serve again. The Constitution is not optional. We all have a duty to abide by it, especially those who, through their office, have sworn an oath to do so. The former president is no different.

Oregon’s Supreme Court should prevent anyone who is too young, born out of the country, or has taken an oath to support the constitution and then engaged in insurrection, or supported those engaged in insurrection, from appearing on the ballot. Defending democracy should be a top priority.

Trish Vigil / Medford