The Jefferson Exchange

We're taking risks if we get to the end of July in our region and we have not prepared a "go-kit" in case of evacuation. The dry landscape is actually on fire in many areas, bringing firefighters in and forcing nearby landowners out.

Local and state governments have put in some work in recent years, identifying evacuation zones and distributing information about which zones people live in, and what routes to take if an evacuation is ordered.

It's a lot of information to convey, and still a work in progress. We take some extra time with both the Oregon Department of Emergency Management (OEM) and with Jackson County's emergency operation. Patience Winningham from OEM and Holly Powers, the Jackson county's emergency manager, are our guests.

Signing up for alerts:
Oregon: https://oralert.gov/
California: https://calalerts.org/signup.html

Finding your evacuation zone is trickier, because it is county-by-county and city-by-city.
In Jackson County:
https://www.jacksoncountyor.gov/departments/emergency_management/know_your_zone.php

Not every part of our region is as flammable as the next. There is some variation, meaning wildfire risk is just higher in some places than in others. And when the state of Oregon said so with the release of a wildfire risk map in 2022, landowners in high risk areas complained, loudly.

The state withdrew the map until just recently, offering in its place the Wildfire Hazard Map. It does not differ greatly from the previous map, but the state has put more work into contacting landowners and holding public meetings. And input will be taken until August 18th, input that could lead to changes in the map.

Tim Holschbach from the Oregon Department of Forestry joins us for an overview, with input from Blair Moody at the Chamber of Medford & Jackson County, which has some concerns about the process and outcomes.

There are many places on the map where people once lived and worked that faded into history. But Maxville, Oregon may be one of a kind. It was a timber town, and there were plenty of those, but Maxville was integrated: Black and white workers inhabited the town and worked in the mill.

The Maxville Heritage Interpretive Center works to preserve, interpret, and enhance the historical record. And Southern Oregon University sociology and anthropology program gives a boost to MHIC's efforts.

We revisit the Maxville story, with guidance from SOU Professor Mark Tveskov and Gwen Trice, MHIC Executive Director.

We expect things to move on highways; that's what they're for. But not the highway itself, which has long been the problem at Last Chance Grade on U.S. 101 in Del Norte County.

The highway is located in a landslide-prone area, and frequent work is required to keep the highway from sliding down the hill. Caltrans, the state department of transportation, chose a permanent fix. It'll be long and expensive, requiring a tunnel more than a mile long, and potentially a couple of billion dollars.

Jaime Matteoli is the Project Manager for Last Chance Grade, and our guest for an exploration of the steps that led to the decision.

Any community of a reasonable size has a few people with some dollars to give, and some places that will gladly take them. Josephine County--and western Jackson County--have an entity that helps collect givers with receivers.

The Four Way Community Foundation is closing in on its 50th birthday, having spent nearly half a century now helping givers make philanthropic donations, and helping guide those donations to organizations that can use a few bucks.
Kate Dwyer is Executive Director at the Foundation; she visits with details of who gives and who gets.

[Tue 9 AM | Keeping journalism alive by staying truly local in coverage] Staying in business in the journalism field has grown tougher in recent years, with newspapers taking the loss of paid subscriptions and classified advertising especially hard.

For some journalism entities, the key to survival has been to go hyper-local: focus heavily on the news created in town or nearby. Case in point: Ashland.news, which local news consumers created to take the space created by the end of the Daily Tidings newspaper. There are other examples in the region, including The Chronicle, which describes itself as "HYPER-LOCAL NEWS for Springfield, Creswell, Cottage Grove, & Pleasant Hill."

We hear about the approach and the results in a chat with Editor Bert Etling of Ashland.news and Chronicle owner/publisher Noel Nash.

The recent saga of the efforts to protect the forest around Pipe Fork Creek in Josephine County ended with a whimper, not a bang. But it may not be over.

Fans of the forest, led by the Williams Community Forest Project, worked to protect the land currently owned by Josephine County. They even lined up a buyer in The Conservation Fund, which planned to buy it from the county and then sell it to the Bureau of Land Management, which owns adjacent forest land.

But Josephine County commissioners, after attaching several additional conditions to the sale, left the property unsold by a deadline to commit. Chas Rogers and Cheryl Bruner, board members at WCFP, talk about next steps.

Maybe it's a rare writer who gets rich at the craft... but writers can find other kinds of rewards like inspiration and technical growth in their work by taking part in residencies and retreats for writers.

The Lost in Place Nature Writing Intensive, held at Summer Lake Lodge in the Lake County (Oregon) backcountry is that kind of opportunity. It includes both sessions devoted to writing better and excursions into nature around the lodge.

Renowned poet Ellen Waterston is the organizer of the event, and the High Desert Museum in Bend is a partner. We get further details on the event (August 8-11) from Ellen Waterston and Hayley Brazier, curator of natural history at the museum.

He's the Republican candidate for Vice President now, but last time we talked to JD Vance, he not only had his doubts about Donald Trump, he did not think Trump would win the election.

That was in 2016, and many things have changed. The occasion for Vance's appearance on the JX was a conversation about his highly-regarded book, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis.

It's the book that made him famous, the tale of his upbringing in Ohio's Rust Belt, by parents who had left Appalachia in search of greater economic opportunity.

We provide a rerun of the Vance interview, for comparison with the current statements of a man now on the cusp of great power.

Activism and community organizing are generally about getting people to move: move to demonstrate on an issue, move to vote on an issue, move off dead-center in thinking.

One way to move people is by inspiring them, through art. And there's a long history of the intertwining of art and activism, a story told by Ken Grossinger in his book Art Works: How Organizers and Artists Are Creating a Better World Together.

Maybe you remember the words from older campaigns, but the pictures may have stuck with you as well. We get examples from the author in a visit to the JX.