In the past five years, Oregon has given developers more than $1.4 billion to build low-income housing. That seems like a lot of money, right? Now, it’s not as if we suspect anything untoward is going on (although it does seem a little odd that the state has made so little progress toward sheltering its citizens), but wouldn’t it be nice to comb through some of the financial details just, you know, to be sure? Too bad we can’t do that: As Rob Davis reports for ProPublica, “Oregon is one of the only states in the country with a carve-out in its public records law that prevents disclosing the financial details of subsidized housing projects, thwarting researchers and journalists who have tried to examine their costs.” 

This exception dates back to 1997, and is one of hundreds of carve-outs to Oregon’s public records law that legislators have created since the law (once considered the nation’s gold standard) was enacted. This should be an easy fix for legislators in the 2027 session. Davis has done the state a service in reporting this. 

It’s possible that I might have written before about the Trump administration’s campaign to sow confusion and doubt about elections in the United States (a campaign that includes efforts, without evidence, to discredit mail-in voting). A key claim in the Trump attack is that thousands upon thousands of people who are not U.S. citizens are illegally voting. Our friends at The Associated Press took a detailed look at the claim. Perhaps you will be surprised to learn that it’s not true. 

Your slate of candidates for Corvallis mayor and City Council was finalized last week, as the deadline passed for candidates to get their names on the November ballot. In all, four candidates are in the field for Corvallis mayor, which lengthens the odds that ranked choice voting will play a role in the results. That race features a pair of veterans, Mayor Charles Maughan and former Councilor Andrew Struthers, along with two newcomers, Kimi Gatherum and Kasey Haxton. My thinking is that the two newcomers on the ballot may siphon away enough votes from Maughan and Struthers to ensure that no one gets a majority of the No. 1 choices on the ballot. In that case, the No. 2 choices could become critical. (I assure you that I will go into additional tiresome detail about how this works as the November election draws closer.) 

One thing is for sure: When the dust settles in the elections, six new faces will be serving on the City Council. It’s hard for new councilors to learn enough to offer effective and productive oversight of city government in the two-year terms they serve – and this leads to the possibility that Corvallis could have an all-new council every two years. That doesn’t lend itself to good governance, which is why I’m intrigued by a proposal on the November ballot to amend the city charter so that councilors would serve four-year terms. The council would shrink to six members, and half of them would be up for election every two years. More on this as November nears – and, really, we’re not even at Labor Day yet!

In the meantime, if you (or anyone you know) truly relies on online “influencers” to help make decisions about which candidates to support – well, I fear for the future of the Republic. In a bit of not particularly surprising news, The New York Times shows how many of these influencers are getting paid by the politicians they support, but don’t get around to divulging that in their political posts. But give them a break: It’s got to be hard to cram all the important content into a 60-second TikTok video. 

The aisles at the South Corvallis Food Bank are bustling these days – as they are at food banks nationwide – as hungry Americans try to find ways to keep food on the table. And every indication is that the nation is going to get hungrier, as newcomer Joshua Perry reports for the Gazette-Times. 

Do I seem a little agitated so far this weekend? I do feel a little agitated. Let me see if I can calm down a bit. 

A federal judge has rejected a challenge to Oregon’s new statewide recycling law, which requires producers to pay fees based on the packaging used to distribute their products; that money helps fund the state’s recycling program. In this OPB story, April Ehrlich reports that the producers are pondering their next step, which could involve an appeal to the Ninth Circuit – and then, perhaps, to the business-friendly Supreme Court.

Oregon State University officials are pondering the fate of Gill Coliseum, the historic 77-year-old arena that houses OSU’s basketball, gymnastics, wrestling and volleyball teams. Options include renovating Gill or building a new facility, James Crepea reports for The Oregonian/OregonLive.

NASA has a lot riding on the success of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which is scheduled to launch Sunday morning. NASA scientists believe that, if everything goes well, the Roman will be able to capture the first direct images of distant planets in natural light. If everything doesn’t go well, it could be a big hit to the science side of NASA, as Ross Andersen writes in The Atlantic. 

If you’ve been following this summer’s hubbub over “The Odyssey,” you might be surprised to know that Emily Wilson (whose translation of Homer’s poem inspired Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster) is now at work on another translation of “The Odyssey.” No, not another edition of her previous translation to allow her to clean up an error here or there: She’s just diving back in and translating the whole thing again from scratch. As you might imagine, this is the talk of the translating world. The Associated Press’ Hillel Italie has this surprisingly fascinating Q-and-A with Wilson. (I know, I should see the movie, but I can’t even find time to see “Coyote vs. Acme” or “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” – both of which are New York Times Critic’s Picks. Of course, so is Nolan’s film.)

Midway through Donald Trump’s second term, the comedians who cashed in on Trump’s first term worry that the shtick is getting tired, The Atlantic reports. Hey, comedians: Imagine how the rest of us feel. Now, make us laugh again! 

Rest in peace, Dolly Parton – one of the very few figures in American public life who truly earned the adjective “beloved.” Like every other media outlet in Oregon, Lookout Eugene-Springfield retold the story of how a 1972 concert in Eugene helped inspire Parton’s song “Eugene Oregon.” But the reporter who worked with me on the story, Grace Chinowsky, actually tracked down a Corvallis man who attended the concert – and remembers most of it! (I can barely recall what I had for breakfast. Wait – did I have breakfast?) 

I did. I’m a little calmer now. Thanks for letting me vent. Let’s meet here again next week, when it just might be possible that I’ll have more vent-worthy issues.