The University of Oregon’s space observatory, Pine Mountain Observatory, was evacuated on Saturday, August 20, due to threat from a wildfire east of Bend, Ore.

No damage to the observatory was reported but, “one to two” people were evacuated from the center according to Lisa Clark, Information Officer at the Central Oregon Interagency Dispatch Center.

The fire burned about 2 miles from the observatory, prompting the evacuation.

East of the Cascade Mountains, wildfires tear through hundreds of arid acreage every summer. But this year has been milder, with fewer storms and lightning strikes this season compared to past years, according to Clark.

Oregon has been fortunate so far. According to the Oregon Department of Forestry, Oregon has suffered 559 fires that have consumed 3,583 acres of ODF protected land this year. A fraction of the 705 fires that devoured 32,627 acres of ODF land by this same point in 2015.

Pine Mountain Observatory not offering tours tonight they’ll start up their normal Fri-Sat tours next weekend; road and campground are open.

— Central OR Fire Info (@CentralORFire) August 21, 2016

The cause of the Pine Mountain Wildfire is being investigated, Clark said. She also told the Emerald the alert was triggered by the observatory itself.

On Sunday, the fire was 95 percent contained, according to Clark, bringing the total burned area to 243 acres, according to COIDC website.

UO Physics professor Scott Fisher, who manages the Pine Mountain Observatory, could not be reached by The Emerald on Monday August 22.

The observatory has been important in Fisher’s work, viewing infant solar systems from the facility. It opened for research in 1967, discovered by professor Russ Donnelly and E.G. Ebbinghausen in 1965.

The site has been serving the local community with a strong educational aspect, providing programs to local high school students for observation and analysis of data. The observatory also hosts professional projects such as the research on white dwarf stars and examination of the large-scale structure of galaxies.

From May to September, Pine Mountain Observatory welcomes visitors with tours of a 15-inch telescope. The institute also has 24-inch telescope and a charge coupled device camera attached to a “piggybacked” 8-inch telescope to create wide-field images. It attracts around 3,500 to 4,000 visitors each year, according to its website.

In addition to astronomy visitors, the public is also able to use the adjacent Forest Services campground for a number of activities, such as bird and wildlife watching, mountain biking, hang-gliding, hiking and horseback riding.

The U.S. Forest Service shut down Forest Road 40 and Forest Road 45 (River Summit Road) and the Besson Day Use Area because of the wildfire. The locations opened again on Monday morning at 8 a.m.

Clark said the fire season should last until mid to late October.

On Monday, 104 new students started classes at the University of Oregon’s law school. They’ll be following in the footsteps of these defining UO law school alumni.

Ellen Rosenblum made history when she became Oregon’s first woman Attorney General in 2012.

She earned her undergraduate degree in 1971 and her law degree in 1975 — both from the University of Oregon. After school, Rosenblum practiced law for 14 years, worked as a federal prosecutor then served a combined 22 years as both an appellate and trial judge.

The transition from a judge to politician allowed Rosenblum to contribute to society in a new way, said Kamala Shugar, assistant attorney in charge at the Oregon Department of Justice and one of Rosenblum’s mentees.

Rosenblum was prohibited from being political as a judge; when she was elected Attorney General, she was allowed to start voicing her positions on policy.

“She felt like all of a sudden she could speak her mind and be political,” Shugar said.

She took strong stances for medical marijuana and against predatory lending practices. Before marijuana was legal, Rosenblum promised in her campaign to make marijuana enforcement a low priority and protect the rights of medical marijuana patients.

Rosenblum will be in Eugene for the UO Law Alumni weekend to receive the John E. Jaqua Distinguished Alumnus Award.

Rosenblum has been “tireless” in mentoring young lawyers all her career, Shugar said and she also helped establish Oregon Women Lawyers.

Two years after he graduated from UO’s law school, Minoru Yasui walked into a Portland police station on March 28, 1942, and demanded to be arrested.

In Dec. 1941, the U.S. government had made it illegal for Japanese-Americans — US citizens or not — to be outside between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m.

Yasui wanted to change that.

He was arrested, and his case eventually reached the Supreme Court in Yasui v. United States, which resulted in a unanimous ruling that restricting civilian lives during war is unconstitutional.

In 2015, Yasui posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest award a civilian can receive in the United States. Recipients of the medal include Martin Luther King Jr., Caesar Chavez, and Rosa Parks.

Yasui, who died in 1986, spent his life fighting for citizenship rights for Japanese-Americans.

“A military order distinguishing one citizen on one hand, [and] another citizen on the basis of ancestry [on the other hand] was absolutely wrong,” Yasui said.

Lauren Kessler, author and journalism professor at UO, wrote and published a book on Yasui and his family in 1993 titled Broken Twig.

During her research, she met Yasui, and described him as quiet, deeply intelligent and selfless.

“You knew you were in the presence of somebody who was important. He was all the more important because he didn’t think of himself as important,” Kessler told the Emerald.

He attended UO for his law degree, graduating in 1939. This year, UO established a fellowship in his honor. UO law student Weston Koyama is the first to receive the fellowship.

Koyama has spent time studying Yasui and believes he was a patriot, despite his country’s mistreatment of Japanese-Americans.

“It was precisely because of his loyalty to the United States that he felt he could basically bring himself forward as a test case,” Koyama said.

Greg Dotson, who graduated from the University of Oregon School of Law in 1995, is best known for his work with energy and environmental policy.

He participated in the investigation of the BP Deep Horizon oil spill and is the vice president for energy policy at the Center for American Progress, a public policy think tank in Washington, D.C.

But his post-graduate success hasn’t made Dotson forget his roots. Students such as Chad Marriott, who graduated from the UO School of Law in 2009, owe their first professional opportunities to Dotson.

Dotson called UO in 2007, setting up an internship for Marriott with the House of Representatives’ Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

“He didn’t reach out to any other school,” Marriott said. “It was him personally who reached out to the law school.”

Marriott has built a successful practice representing energy development projects.

Helping students get their start in the field is only a fraction of what Dotson has accomplished since his graduation from the UO School of Law in 1995. He and Marriott contributed to the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, which is trying to reduce petroleum use by 20 percent each year until 2020 — which would have a similar impact to taking 28 million cars off the road.

Marriott describes Dotson as thoughtful, soft-spoken and measured.

“If you bring him into a room where […] the people there are really interested in environmental issues,” Marriott said, “they listen.”

Democrat Ron Wyden has served as Oregon’s U.S. senator since 1996. Before his career in Washington D.C., Wyden graduated from UO’s law school in 1974.

A free and open internet is important to Wyden. He was one of the first to speak out against the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, which was designed to crack down on pirated content, however, Wyden argued, it was a tool for government overreach. After an Internet backlash, SOPA was voted down in 2012.

“The Internet has become an integral part of everyday life precisely because it has been an open-to-all land of opportunity where entrepreneurs, thinkers and innovators are free to try, fail and then try again,” Wyden wrote in an open letter on his website.

Wyden also prioritizes transparency in the US government: He partnered with Senator Rand Paul, pushing to declassify the CIA Inspector General’s 9/11 report.

The Senator also co-introduced the Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance Act, which is set to go on the floor in Congress this legislative session. It limits government surveillance use, including cell-phone GPS signal locating.

Wyden has also worked to protect the Northwest’s wilderness, writing laws that have extended Wilderness protections to more than 400,000 acres. He has served as the chair of the Senate Energy Committee and the Senate Finance Committee during his tenure in the Senate.

Contributions made to this report by Max Thornberry

This report has been updated to clarify the date that Yasui was arrested and Senator Wyden’s title.

Students will soon have the opportunity to shape downtown Eugene as part of an on-going effort by the Eugene City Council to improve the downtown experience.

Last Thursday and Friday, Eugene residents expressed opinions for the future of downtown’s public spaces to a consultant group. The group, Project for Public Spaces (PPS), is a “nonprofit planning, design and educational organization,” according to their website, that was hired by the City of Eugene this year.

Will Dowdy, City of Eugene urban design planner, works along side PPS and plans to reach out to University of Oregon students in October to collect their opinions of how downtown should change–all as part of an on-going survey to spend a $5.2 million ordinance for urban renewal passed by the Eugene City Council in June, according to the City of Eugene website.

“For students, we are trying to engage them and understand what they want,” said Dowdy. Dowdy and PPS will focus on gathering input from UO student groups, such as ASUO, with an online survey.

Downtown Eugene draws many University of Oregon students like Bree Nicolello, who is looking to see downtown Eugene continue to improve.

“I’ve seen downtown blossom in the last five years,” she said.

Nicolello is a Planning, Public Policy and Management major, works at a planning firm called Schirmer Satre Group located downtown, and serves on the City of Eugene Planning Commission.

Nicolello frequents downtown for meetings, restaurants, library visits, and the bar scene. She envisions the future of downtown to have more benches and places to sit and relax.

Another UO student, Kentaro Hoeger, wants to see “more buskers and less beggars.” Busking is performing or playing music for money. Hoeger, a physics grad student, said he is often asked for money when he goes downtown, but usually just says no.

Comparing other cities to Eugene, Hoeger said, “It feels like there’s a higher proportion of wandering vagabond-types”: something he’d like to see less of.

The city has been working on improving the experience of downtown Eugene for years. A plan to create 20 murals in downtown by 2021 is part of their ongoing revitalization effort, according to Nicolello. A bike share program is also in the works—-a way to “make it easier for people to get from the University to downtown,” Nicolello said.

“The question is, ‘Is downtown a place where someone as young as eight and as old as eighty can find something they like to do?’ and I think that we’re on our way there,” she said.

A new problem has faced grocery shoppers recently at the checkout: should they swipe or insert their credit card?

The fingernail-sized chips on credit cards require users to insert their cards instead of swipe them. The new card readers, known as EMV–EuroPay, Mastercard, and Visa — are increasingly popping up in retail stores, but the new technology has caused some confusion.

keep trying pic.twitter.com/cqa7VlNTXK

— Nathan W. Pyle (@nathanwpyle) July 27, 2016

The chips are designed to be safer than the traditional black magnetic bar, according to the official EMV website. They are better at preventing fraud and counterfeit cards. With the new technology, each transaction generates a unique pin number, which is sent to and responded by the user’s bank.

But the chips take longer than the swipe, according to Marc Carlson, store director of Safeway on 18h Ave.

Carlson said they have the necessary technology, but still accept the swipe.

“People are still going through the motions,” he says while making a card-swiping motion with one hand. Carlson is not sure when Safeway will make the transition.

When the new system is turned on, shoppers without the chip will still be able to swipe, but the swipe will be able to tell if your card has a chip—in which case it will make you insert your card, according to Carlson.

“It’s basically going to force consumers to use the system,” Carlson said. He he thinks the transition won’t be difficult for customers.

I think 75% of chip card readers are broken at stores. Seems like this tech is failing early on.

— David Wade (@davidwade) August 5, 2016

Katie Conway is the marketing team leader at the Duck Store, which has multiple locations on the University of Oregon campus. Conway is unsure when the chip reader inserts will be available, although the technology has been installed.

“I think the technology is great for better security,” she said, “Customers have to learn the new system, but it will be similar.”

The Duck Store has put a card in the chip reader slot to indicate that it is currently unavailable.

Since October 1, 2015, merchants like Safeway and the Duck Store would have been responsible for fraudulent charges if they didn’t have the chip readers, according to the EMV website. However, both businesses are waiting for processors, the banks and firms that oversee each transaction, to approve the technology so that their chip readers will start working.

Two pin oak trees between Columbia Hall and Friendly Hall were removed on Wednesday. The area has been blocked off since Tuesday.

The trees have been damaged from a grade change—flattening of the land—when University Street changed to the brick plaza that currently sits between 13th and University St, and from foot traffic since the landscaping, according to John Anthony, arborist for UO facility services.

“[The trees] have suffered from soil compaction from hundreds and thousands of footfalls,” Anthony said. “As a result, all the trees have been in decline.”

The project involves removing two pin oaks in that area per year. The last two will be removed next year, according to Anthony. Two northern red oaks will be planted in their place.

The area should be reopened on Thursday, according to UO Landscape Supervisor Phil Carroll.

Anthony said most of the wood will be recycled, but two 8-foot pieces will be given to the University of Oregon Clark Honors College for a building renovation.

Hennebery Eddy are in charged of the remodeling, according to Renee Dorjahn, director of finance and administration for the Robert D. Clark Honors College. Dorjahn said the architects don’t know what the reclaimed wood will be for specifically, but mentioned possibly conference room tables or benches.

The wood must first be sent to Urban Lumber in Springfield, Oregon to be cured and dried for about a year, according to Caitlyn Kari, director of communications for the Robert D. Clark Honors College. Renovations for the Honors College are set to be done December 2017.

“Using reclaimed materials as much as possible … is definitely a priority,” Kari said.

When a column of black smoke rose from Ian Hill’s burning pickup truck on the side of the Sacramento highway, the former University of Oregon student had a sudden realization. The sight of the flaming fossil fuel backdropped by the agricultural scenery made him think, “I’m going to start my own company.”

Hill is the co-founder and managing partner of SeQuential Biofuel in Eugene. SeQuential collects used cooking oil from hundreds of locations, including UO, to be processed into biodiesel fuel – a non-fossil fuel that burns 75 percent cleaner than traditional gasoline, according to Hill. Producing about 5.5 million gallons of biofuel a year, SeQuential is Oregon’s only biodiesel processing plant and it also sells biodiesel at two retail locations in Eugene.

Hill had been considering starting his biofuel company long before the moment his truck began to smoke.

He discovered biodiesel at UO while studying environmental sciences — a major that Hill says was un-optimistic and depressing.

“I came out of it desperately wanting there to be some concrete thing I could get my hands around that was moving toward positive change,” Hill said. He eventually dropped out in 2000.

He found that concrete solution when working as a librarian in college. The job gave Hill enough free time to study biodiesel on forums.

“It meant I had many hours to sit in front of the Internet with nothing to do,” Hill said.

Hill used online forums to collaborate with likeminded biofuel visionaries in Japan, Africa, Europe and South America about how people were making their own fuel.

The simplicity of creating biofuel was intriguing to Hill and his friends. The process involves filtering the oil, adding a chemical catalyst and the oil separates into gasoline and glycol.

“A villager in the remote … Himalayas could make fuel for a diesel generator by doing a simple chemical reaction with their animal fat,” Hill said.

Hill’s garage held his first fuel processing operations, making enough to fuel six cars. They were not selling it yet.

“It was enough to prove to us that it was very doable, and that the technology was simple and it worked,” he said.

Now, UO sells all their used cooking oil to SeQuential, which then drives it to Salem and processes it into gasoline, according to Tom Driscoll, director of dining services at UO.

“[SeQuential] had come to us some years ago interested in what we were doing with our used frying oil,” Driscoll said. “We ended up making a deal with them.”

Six kitchens at UO sell their used frying oil to SeQuential for about $200 a year, according to Driscoll. Driscoll said that the UO used to have to pay to remove their used cooking oil before arranging the deal with SeQuential, making the current situation a win-win.

SeQuential sells its processed fuel to Chevron, BP, Texaco or to retail stations, according to Hill.

UO was interested in building its own biodiesel converter last year at their new kitchen, located at the corner Columbia Street and 17th Avenue, when it opened last spring. The idea fell apart when Driscoll realized the scope of the operation would be too big and too dangerous because it would require housing 55 gallons of flammable methane gas on campus.

At the time that Hill began looking to sell his product, biofuel wasn’t commercially available in Oregon. The lack of competition and the opportunity to provide consumers with an environmentally friendlier option contributed to SeQuential’s success, according to Hill.

“We were kind of right at the beginning of biodiesel,” Hill said. “Our timing was just right.”

A vibrant crowd of about 150 trickled into Kesey Square for the “Goodbye July” concert on Saturday night. The free concert aimed to raise money for White Bird Clinic in Eugene.

Next door to Kesey Square, Voodoo Doughnuts offered custom doughnuts, donating a portion of the proceeds to White Bird. The cherry-filled, chocolate creations topped with white frosting in the shape of a bird will be available through August.

The musical talent for the evening included acoustic band STEEL WOOL, Gumbo Groove, and Musekiwa Chingdoza.

Nel Applegate, a percussionist and singer for STEEL WOOL, said she hoped to raise $1,000 during the concert to be donated to White Bird.

“Working collaboratively and collectively is the best way to get things done,” Applegate said.

Socks, snacks, toothbrushes and toothpaste will be bought with the money collected at the concert and distributed to White Bird’s clients, according to Cahoots program coordinator Kate Gillespie. Cahoots (Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets) is a mobile care service that provides assistance to the Eugene homeless.

Gillespie stood in front of the crowd in a black angel costume and told her story of the time she was called a “street angel.” While out in the Cahoots van during a rainy night, Gillespie had woken a man sleeping in the street to bring him to the White Bird Clinic. When she wrapped a blanket around his shoulders, Gillespie said that the man told her, “‘You’re like an angel. You’re like a street angel.’”

Halfway through the concert, the Lane County Human Trafficking Task Force passed through the crowd carrying neon picket signs, handing out free popsicles. The sex trafficking awareness group marches in Eugene four times a year to raise awareness about human trafficking around the world and hand out cards for other available resources.

The Goodbye July concert is the first that STEEL WOOL has hosted, but lead singer and guitarist Tim Mueller hopes to make it an annual event.

A new website proposes a bid for the 2028 Summer Olympics that would take place in three Oregon cities—Portland, Eugene, and Corvallis—and suggests using Hayward Field, Matthew Knight Arena and Autzen Stadium for events.

The website, oregon2028.com, has laid out the costs, revenues, potential venues, and other suggestions detailing how and why Oregon could, and should, be the next host.

“It might seem like Portland and Oregon are too small to host the summer Olympics, but we’re actually the perfect size. We’re already bigger than many of the most successful Olympic hosts were when they hosted,” the website states.

A new high-speed railway is also included in the proposal, along with five new venues to house the Olympic events.

The cost, according to the website, would be “$10B in total costs, but only $1b from city and state funds.”

The website is owned by Pepper Foster Consulting in Portland, a “strategy and project execution consulting firm,” according to their website.

No information is available on who Pepper Foster’s client is. The Emerald reached out to Pepper Foster, but as of this publication no reply has been received.

Eugene band STEEL WOOL, fronted by singer and guitarist Tim Mueller, features a special statue in their 2014 music video of their song “Fat Jesus Riding a Bicycle.” The statue, a tribute to author Ken Kesey, sits on a plot of land that many refer to as the heart of Eugene—Kesey Square.

Kesey Square, an area known for gathering travelers and transients, is being eyed for sale and re-development for apartments and retail locations. In February, the Eugene City Council held a public forum to discuss options, which many voiced against.

This Saturday night, STEEL WOOL will host a concert called Goodbye July at Kesey Square aimed at raising awareness for the effort keep the location a public area.

“If that was a private space, we might have been required to get a permit [for the music video], “Mueller said, “We may have ran into red tape.”

Mueller, 65, fears that privatizing the square would degrade Eugene’s culture and gentrify the area. “I believe that gentrifying a space so poor people can’t use it is just not the right thing,” Mueller said.

“Eugene prides itself on its diversity,” Mueller said.

The eclectic lineup of bands scheduled to be at Saturday’s event include Gypsy-style American Jazz group Cardboard Caravan, Zimbabwe marimba artist Musekiwa Chingodza, and fungrass-genre artist Gumbo Groove.

After stumbling across the band Cardboard Caravan at the Eugene Saturday Market, Mueller was impressed by what he heard. Their “gypsy-style” jazz prompted Mueller’s request to invite them to play at the concert.

“I bought one of their CDs and asked of they wanted to come,” Mueller said. They agreed, and will be the first band to play on Saturday.

The Goodbye July concert will also raise money for the White Bird Clinic, a collective human services non-profit agency in Eugene that benefits low-income and homeless residents.

Moose Andresen, a Whitebird employee, will be collecting donations at the event. “We are very excited about it,” he said.

Andresen said Whitebird is working with Voodoo Doughnuts to create a custom chocolate doughnut for the event. The doughnut features “a little white bird on it,” and is available through August. A portion of the proceeds will go toward Whitebird and their mobile crisis intervention team, CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets).

Mueller expects a full crowd to appear at the concert. This is the first Goodbye July hosted by Mueller and STEEL WOOL. Mueller hopes to make it an annual event.

The concert is at 10 E. Broadway in Eugene, and will run from 6-10 p.m. on July 30 and admission is free.

In May 1999, a University of Oregon student said to his class that Hispanic people have a poor work ethic. In the arguments that ensued, one student said to an Asian classmate over email that if she didn’t shut up, “you will see what racism truly is.” After the university president didn’t expel him, campus exploded in a controversy that led to a protest, a sit-in and the arrest of 31 students.

This upheaval gave birth to what is today the Bias Education and Response Team. Now, if you see or hear something offensive on campus, you can report it to BERT; their mission is to start a conversation before a situation like what occurred in May 1999 happens again.

BERT is a team of staff that receives and reviews reports of bias or racism on campus by “offering support, referral and opportunities for dialogue,” according to its mission statement. Administrators designed BERT as a team of educators, but faculty leaders are worried BERT is interfering with free speech. After 17 years of operation, faculty members are trying to change the way BERT operates.

Students with the university’s Bias Education and Response Team and others protest Campus Ministry USA and Jed Smock’s appearance on campus on May 21, 2015. (Shelby Chapman/Emerald)

The History of BERT

BERT was created in May 1999, when a comment made by a student sparked a protest that resulted in the arrest of 31 students, according to an Emerald article from 1999. The ignition point was a presentation on Hispanic communities in which a UO student said Hispanic individuals have poor work ethic and blamed their culture.

In the heated discussion that followed, students took to email to criticize or defend the statement. Eventually, a student threatened three women in the class, saying to one that she deserved to be sexually assaulted.

Former president Dave Frohnmayer didn’t expel the student. A rally at the Erb Memorial Union followed, and 75 protesters went to Johnson Hall to stage a sit-in. When they stayed after-hours on the floor of Johnson Hall, 31 were arrested for trespassing.

Students demanded action after the arrests. One demand included the formation of a “discrimination response team” that would “notify authorities, provide victim support and ensure due process for the accused discriminator.”

This discrimination response team evolved into the Bias Response Team, which was recently renamed the Bias Education and Response Team.

Racism is not as blatant today, said Quantrell Willis, the assistant dean of students at UO and chair of BERT.

“Racist organizations have figured out, ‘Maybe we don’t need to do this on TV and in public,’” Willis said.

Controversy arose when BERT released its 2014-15 public report, UO spokesman Tobin Klinger notes. The report includes over 80 case summaries ranging from offensive posters to sexist comments to physical assault. None of these reports named specific people or departments — only where the incident took place.

On each of these cases, the report describes how BERT responded; many reports were simply submitted so there could be a record. But on some, BERT sent case managers to meet with both sides. In one case, when graduate students said there was a lack of “cultural competency” in their department, BERT set up a conversation between 12 students and 14 staff and faculty members.

Discussions and trainings aren’t obligatory, Willis said. However, there are situations listed in the BERT report where departments hosted cultural competency trainings because of a complaint. It’s unclear if these were required; Willis could not discuss specific cases.

These are reports from actual students, staff and teachers to the Bias and Education Response Team. This illustration took student submissions from BERT’s 2014-15 public report at bias.uoregon.edu and adapted them into first-person statements (Mary Vertulfo/Emerald).

Points of contention

The task force has not yet held a meeting but is in the process of recruiting members. The first meeting will be held before the start of fall term, Sinclair said. After an investigation —however long it takes — the task force will make recommendations to the office of the Dean of Students.

Willis says administration will be as transparent as possible when changing BERT. He says he wants to hear ideas from the community.

“This is not something we’re trying to hide,” Willis said.