 * “I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.”
—Helen Keller
 Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86755362925?pwd=RXBmVTF4RjdBUlVsWmxpN2pPWmlCUT09
If you have a particular question about the Rogue Valley’s water future, send it to us in advance to: sen.jeffgolden@oregonlegislaure.gov so that we can share it with our panelists.
 In 2021’s closing days I’m thinking about 2022. What could change, other than the pandemic ending—highly unlikely right now—or a rebound in climate stability that suddenly makes our forests more fire resistant—not going to happen—to make it an easier and less punishing year than 2020 and 2021? What’s within our power to move it in that direction?
These questions come to me after reading thousands of e-mails from you and many others, many of whom don’t read this newsletter. Together you make up what’s probably Oregon’s most politically and socially divided legislative district, Senate District 3, covering Medford, Phoenix, Talent, Ashland, the Greensprings, Jacksonville and the Applegate Valley. Safe to say that people across that map don’t quite see things quite the same way.
 Senate District 3
That’s been clear for over thirty years, at least back to Spotted Owl days. The consequent challenges of serving this district have been obvious since I set foot on the campaign trail in 2018. That was midway through the Trump presidency. I remember thinking then that we’d become as polarized, in the country, the state, and in this district, as we could possibly get.
I was wrong. Twenty months of COVID experiences—the losses, pain, fear and frustrating endlessness of it all—have enraged people who contact me in ways I’ve never seen before. People supporting vaccine mandates tell me I’m obligated to ignore people who oppose them, since those people are all under the spell of deranged conspiracy theories—which is not what they’d think if they read all my email. Same thing in the other direction: pay no attention to mandate supporters, vaccine-hesitant folks write me, because they’ve fearfully bought in to a tyrannical agenda that suppresses any criticism or contradiction...which also falls short of reflecting what people are actually writing me. The underlying message from both sides is the same, and I never heard it before COVID: WE’re so clearly right and THEY’re so clearly wrong that your duty as our elected representative is to ignore them. That’s not how I understand a state senator’s duty.
I’m not neutral in this argument. I’m fully vaccinated and boosted, and urge everyone without specific medical challenges to do the same. I land there after weighing all the quality information I can process. At the same time we’d do well to remember the long and winding road that information has traveled, upending the experts’ expectations again and again. That naturally makes people push back on the notion that the science is perfectly clear, and if you challenge or doubt it you’re either ignorant or nuts.
As far as I can tell, the net effect of all the noise is to harden resistance and make COVID defiance a point of pride. The battle escalates. We hear more and more comparisons to the Third Reich; according to a prominent national blog post sent my way this week, “the orchestrated ‘COVID pandemic’ is the most horrible mass crime ever committed in human history.”
It’s time to get a grip. Whatever you think about this disease, and even if you’re inclined to blame unvaccinated people for new variants and infection spikes, I hope we can at least agree on that, and that absolute certainties don’t fit these times very well.
I do have one certainty. To those of you who’ve said that your personal liberty is the only thing that matters in this debate—that all COVID rules should be up to you to follow or ignore—I’m certain that you’re wrong. And I’m pretty sure that insisting on that is one reason that people favoring mandates can’t hear you. To them it sounds more like an adolescent tantrum than an opening for conversation that’s worth the effort. Yes, there are some serious threats to our liberties these days—the strategic collection of just about every piece of our personal information comes to mind. But if we can’t grasp that the complexity of modern-day crises, pandemics among them, call on us to balance personal liberty with responsibility to the larger community, I don’t know where to look for optimism about the future.
And I’m looking. It might help to revisit how we think about those on the other side of the COVID divide. I recognize that there are dangerously selfish and uninformed people out there. Some of what comes my way is malicious. But that’s not what stands out in my Senate inbox. There I find people who are exhausted by the length of the pandemic, with a desperation to protect their loved ones and free up their children, a desperation that sometimes bends towards anger and blame of the unvaccinated. I find people whose personal experience with the medical or pharmaceutical establishments has drained them of trust and, at times, made them prey to claims that don’t all have roots in planet Earth. And I find people deeply worried that we’re reached a moment where wandering outside of a narrow zone of public health thinking can ruin the reputation and career of deeply credentialed scientists and practitioners.
 What I find is regular people doing the best they can to figure out how to navigate brutally hard times. That’s what I want to remember in 2022. What helps me is to remember the piercingly true final line of Mary Gautier’s classic song.
In the end this isn’t about the importance of kindness or some random attempt to be better people. It’s more practical than that. The tone of the COVID battle—a disregard, and something close to hatred, for opposing views—is fueling a civic rupture that we might not be able to heal. The timing is terrible, because the biggest challenges ahead—climate change, staggering economic inequality, maybe the next pandemic—will call on all the cooperative solidarity we can muster. Dealing with these problems in communities full of unreachably hostile people...that’s when optimism really seems naïve.
I hope we find ways to make it more realistic in 2022. Here’s to a year of purpose, connection, fulfillment and mercy for you and yours. I’m grateful for the opportunity you’ve given me to represent you in Salem. Please keep doing what you can do.
 Senator Jeff Golden, Oregon Senate District 3
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Warming Shelters in Jackson County:
OHRA Ashland Emergency Winter Shelter
611 Siskiyou Boulevard #4, Ashland 97520
Intake: Call 541-631-2355
Hours: Open November 1, 2021-March 31, 2022. Intake: Call between 9am and 2pm. Shelter: 7 days per week 6pm-9am.
Serves: Single adults and families with children. Well-behaved pets allowed.
Navigation Center Winter Shelter
685 Market Street, Medford, 97504
Intake: Walk in
Hours: Open 5:30pm-8:30am on nights when temperature is below 25 degrees or below 32 degrees with additional factors such as wind or precipitation.
Serves: Single adults age 18 and older and families with children
First Methodist Church Temporary Warming Shelter
175 N Main Street, Ashland, 97520
Intake: Walk in
Hours: Monday, December 13, 2021 - Wednesday, December 15, 2021 from 7pm-7:30am
Serves: Adults age 18 and older
The Grange
1050 Tolman Creek Rd, Ashland, OR 97520
Open until January 2nd
 Volunteering at warming shelters:
Ashland: call 541-220-7307
Medford: email volunteer@accesshelps.org
COVID Resources
- Jackson County Health and Human Services has moved its COVID vaccine and testing site from the Expo to the Merrick at 200 N. Riverside Ave. in Medford. It will be open 12-7pm Monday-Saturday and 11am-4pm on Sundays.
- If you are interested in receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, visit this Jackson County Public Health page for locations.
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