West Eugene Crime Impacts Local Businesses  

Eugene, Oregon, is home to over 170 thousand people. Streets are usually filled with students, business owners, bikers, children, and older couples of all genders and races. People laugh with each other, thrift new clothes, explore trails, attend football games and get coffee from hole-in-the-wall cafes. Rain or shine, people will be outside in Eugene.  

These are things that people see on a day-to-day basis. But what isn’t usually seen is the crime that those business owners endure.  

Robbery, theft, arson, assault, vandalism, and burglary are a few of the things that business owners, and other people in Eugene have experienced in the past years according to Eugene Police Department incident reports. 

Multiple businesses on Highway 99 in West Eugene expressed concerns about the crime that is happening in that area. 

Putter’s Pizza and Family Entertainment Center, a 23-year-old mini golf business, is located on Highway 99 right near Fairfield Ave. Employee Ned Brayden said, “I know about a year ago we were having a problem with some guys climbing on our roof stealing copper wire. Every year there's always a handful of things going on.” 

Brayden explained that car break-ins were a problem in their parking lot but that their security cameras can only do so much.  

In 2023, the EPD incident reports recorded over 1,300 thefts from motor vehicles from Jan. to Dec. This number decreased by about 300 from the 2022 report.  

“As you're driving down the road, you feel a little bit concerned that folks are going in front of you,” said Brittany Quick-Warner, CEO of the Eugene Chamber of Commerce. “I've been driving, and people have kind of jolted or bolted out into the street crosswalk and you know, it's concerning to drive.” 

The Classic Smoke Shop located on highway 99 has had similar concerns as Quick-Warner. “We had someone get hit, Misty. She got hit by a car a couple of months ago and died. And it was right outside,” said employee Aiden Tibbetts. 

Hit and run felonies decreased by about 18% from 2022 to 2023. City Rating put together a projected incident report for 2024 with violent crimes being 804 compared to 675 in 2023.  

Quick-Warner expressed her frustration with the crime situation in Eugene and how it is affecting businesses. “Frankly, this issue is so challenging. But all of the low hanging fruit ideas have been exhausted,” said Quick-Warner. “But if there was an easy solution, we would have already pursued it.” 

The Eugene Chamber of Commerce is, “a catalytic leader in creating a vibrant and diverse economy that drives economic opportunity and well-being,” according to their mission statement posted on their website.  

Quick-Warner explains that the Chamber of Commerce does not possess any real power when it comes to local law changes but that their advocation for businesses is never ending.  

Placing a police station that is accessible to the people in West Eugene and Highway 99 is something the police department and the Chamber of Commerce want, but how that will happen is still up in the air according to Quick-Warner.  

Craig Rounds, an employee at Ace Buyers located on Highway 99, has worked at the pawn shop for 11 years. Rounds lived in an apartment complex nearby ten years ago and stated that he would keep his kids there then, but not now.  

“I don't even like walking down here,” said Rounds.  

Public safety, by google definition is, “The prevention of and protection from events that could endanger the safety and security of the public from significant danger, injury, or property damage.” 

Quick-Warner defines public safety as a personal feeling and an experience. She believes that public safety is subjective in the sense that everyone feels differently about certain situations. “People have their own sense of self safety when it comes to public safety.” 

Laws need to be enforced to hold people accountable for what they are doing according to Quick-Warner. “We are willing to hold them accountable and accountability does not just mean arresting people and putting them in jail. Because frankly, we don't have public resources to do that. We have to find ways for people to find long term wellness and that means obviously holding them accountable and hoping and helping them move into a place of wellness.” 

Although crime is still very active in Eugene, the number of crimes has decreased over the years. “Our community is in a challenging place,” said Quick-Warner. Even though on paper it says that the Eugene community is slowly progressing, people are still struggling. 

Confronting Death with Cake and Tea 

Every person in the world shares two major events: life and death. Gatherings all over the world known as death cafes, are group discussions about a person’s mortality, with the assistance of tea and cakes.  

Mandala Journey Works, a psylocibin service center, held a death cafe at their house on Garden Ave. in Eugene, Oregon, on Sept. 3 at 6 p.m. 11 women, men, and those who identify with neither, sat on the ground, in chairs or on couches in the main living room downstairs of the two-story house.  

Jon Underwood and his mother Sue Barsky Reid formed Death Cafe in Sept. 2011 in East London with the goal of increasing “awareness of death” along with a “view to help people make the most of their finite lives” according to the official Death Cafe website.  

Some attendees at Journey Works were barefoot, had teacups filled and in hand, or were snacking on the treats placed on a table. With only natural light coming through the windows and gathered in a circle, everyone was talking about death. Not about the grief that comes from death, or a counseling session to assist people in accepting the end of life, but rather a discussion simply about death.   

The guidelines to assemble a death cafe, listed on the website, are that it is held on a not for profit basis, in an accessible, respectful and confidential space, held with no intention of leading people to any kind of conclusion about death, and that it has, “refreshing drinks, and nourishing food—and cake.”  

Katie Markely, center owner, is a psychotherapist and psychedelic facilitator who specializes in trauma therapy with adults. Markely attended the University of Oregon during a tough grieving period after she lost her dad, stepmother and brother. Shortly after that tragedy she explored in psychedelics and the concept of death.  

Markely had attended her first death cafe earlier this year with facilitator Amy May, a death doula, which is someone who assists a dying person or their loved ones before, during, or after death. “It’s a place where we can celebrate death and life by being able to give voice to our fears,” says Markely when asked what a death cafe is to her.  

In 2012, Lizzy Miles, a hospice social worker, brought the idea of death cafes to the U.S. Miles wrote in OMEGA – Journal of Death and Dying in 2017, what a death cafe is and why people would want to come to it. The main sections included processing a loss as it relates to one’s mortality, the want for academic or philosophical conversations, the desire to help others and professionals wanting a deeper insight, such as hospice nurses.  

Brie Huling was the facilitator at the Sept. 3 meeting. Huling is a school social worker, yoga instructor, business owner and a death doula. The Eugene native left for a couple decades but decided to return to help her mother die about 10 years ago. “I think that it would be important to name that a relationship with death isn’t linear,” said Huling. She has been facilitating death cafes for about six years all around Eugene.  

Death cafes can vary each time they are held. Number of participants, meeting places, times, frequency and who runs them are the details to pay attention to when deciding which cafe to attend. Mandala Journey Works hosts a cafe the first Tuesday of every month. Their next meeting will be October 1, 2024, and specifics will be posted in the Eugene Weekly Calendar.  

Healthcare: Public Good or Private Profit? 

Hundreds of people in Eugene, Oregon have lost healthcare as medical professionals quit, and clinics have been overrun by private investors this past year.  

The City Club of Eugene, an open inquiry social club, held a Friday Forum on Aug. 30 discussing the state of healthcare in Oregon. Two state representatives, a lawyer and a doctor spoke during this forum on the issues that involve private equity and corporation takeovers of medical clinics in Eugene.  

The University District Hospital closed on Dec. 1, 2023, and 32 doctors left the Oregon Medical Group, due to Optum, a healthcare company, taking ownership. 

Doctor Nicholas Jones, one of the doctors that left OMG, now works at Clear Health, where he is advocating to expand physician control over medicine. Jones describes the clinic takeover issue as a “growing trend of vertical integration where insurance companies seek to control every step and transaction of the health care system.” 

People in Eugene lost access to primary care and specialty care such as medication refills, annual wellness check-ups and immunizations. Rationing prescriptions, calling 911 for medication advice and showing up at Emergency Departments were some of the things that people resorted to when they were dropped from their care clinic with no warning. These are some of the reasons doctors like Jones left the clinic. 

According to Ben Bowman, a State Representative from Washington County, there is a law in place that requires “physicians or other advanced care providers to be in charge of medical practices.” The Corporate Practice of Medicine Doctrine is supposed to prevent these corporate takeovers. Oregon has a 51% ownership requirement but corporations like Optum have found loopholes in getting around this rule.  

Management service organizations have created a model that physically shows a physician owner on paper, but said physician doesn’t have to be involved, present, or step foot in a clinic according to Bowman. The physician owner that is on paper sometimes delegates all decision authority over to a private equity firm and usually receives payment to do so.  

Private equity firms can take control over clinics, deny Medicaid patients, only see patients that increase clinic profit, fire staff members, cut down on doctor visitation time and change the type of providers that are employed. 

“Oregon requires doctors to be licensed and nurses, teachers, truck drivers, plumbers, and barbers. But not the companies that control our health care,” said Nancy Nathanson, a state rep. in District 13. 

Bowman, Jones and Nathanson want CPOM to be in full effect with no room for loopholes. Bowman introduced House Bill 4130 in Oregon’s last legislative session that says, “No corporation can overtake control of a medical practice.” The bill passed out of the House Healthcare Committee and House of Representatives but was not put to a vote. In 2025, Bowman and his team plan to bring this bill back and get it into law.