In a city like Eugene, where many candidates may agree strongly on high-level issues, it’s important to understand why one candidate believes their approach to governing will succeed.
Stay Focused
It’s true that city council should be a body representing its constituents, but the reality is that that constituency is not a monolithic block, and city council must lead accordingly.
Niche or special interest movements in Eugene can often make a big splash at city council meetings, or lobby effectively behind closed doors. The feedback that councilors get in these situations is important, but as leaders, they have to prioritize issues. Too often, initiatives in Eugene are picked up and dropped without being seen through to the end. Council goes away for a strategy retreat and comes back without a clear plan. Or the plan that is established gets thrown out the window when a niche interest group makes a big enough fuss, derailing progress on important work. Committees, third-party consultants, and listening sessions are organized and disbanded without any clear resulting action. City staff are subsequently just trying to keep up.
I don’t believe we, as a city, are unclear on what our most pressing issues are. But we often lack the laser focus required to move the needle on those issues. We can’t get bogged down with niche interests or minutia. I’m bringing focus to city council to address our biggest challenges.
Pragmatism
My approach to a role on Eugene’s city council is a pragmatic one, in search of solutions, rather than an ideological approach. The perfect can’t get in the way of the good – a phrase first introduced to me by state representative, now Speaker of the Oregon House, Julie Fahey.
By understanding our diverse range of constituents and balancing their needs, we can develop policies and incentives that move us toward the goals we want to achieve without undo burden on our community, the climate, our future children, or our business community. It’s often hard, and not always sexy, but it’ll get results.
Engage
I’m running for Ward 1 to help the city arrive at solutions through good faith engagement across constituencies. Too often, national stereotypes are projected onto our neighbors, and folks get lumped into monolithic groups, or shouted down in settings that should be collaborative. “Business owners are this!” and “Activists are that!”
But most of us hold more nuanced views than these buckets and slogans can capture. And most of us share the same goals. It’ll take all of us working together to reach those commendable goals.
I was a Bernie Sanders delegate in Polk County Iowa in 2016, so you can guess where I might stand on “big business”. So it was with a certain degree of skepticism that I began attending the Local Government Affairs Council (LGAC) at the Eugene Chamber of Commerce in 2023.
But between LGAC meetings and Business Leaders Task Force meetings (another Chamber initiative, this time around understanding and addressing homelessness in Eugene), I found a surprisingly diverse, and often open-minded group of individuals. I met a group of folks who reliably endorse parks and library bonds. I heard business owners remark how being a part of these meetings had changed their viewpoints and understanding of issues. I saw folks step up to support stable and sanctioned camping and workforce programs for our homeless neighbors. It’s these open, inquisitive, and solutions-oriented attitudes that I keep coming back for.
That’s Eugene at its best.
Of course, I’ve also been in meetings with individuals – business owners, non-profit workers, activists and more – who showed up with something specific, potentially inflammatory, to say, and not to hear what anyone else had to say. While I think it’s important to look past their outrage to try and understand their experience with more objective eyes, I’ll also say in no uncertain terms that I’m uninterested in catering to bigots, bullies, and people who type in all caps on semi-private Google Groups to get their way. These individuals represent the worst of us, and we can’t let them skew our understanding of our neighbors.