Affordable housing, walkable neighborhoods and a healthy natural environment are important issues to people in Eugene this election year.
The candidates are veteran Eugene city councilors Alan Zelenka, Mike Clark, Greg Evans and Jennifer Yeh.
In Eugene, there are eight city council members for each ward of the city. They work part-time, hold weekly meetings and make less than $15,000 per year, according to Yeh.
Yeh said she’d like to see Eugene work on eliminating barriers for people to serve on city council. “So whether that’s support staff or increasing pay or maybe council needs to think about being full time,” Yeh said.
City councilors set the trajectory of the city, make policy decisions and do high-level strategic planning, she said. On the other hand, staff do the work to implement those decisions, Yeh said.
The election comes after the results of the 2022 City of Eugene Community Survey taken in September. The survey revealed that 37% of participants had some confidence in the city council when it came to handling issues in the city, 35% had little confidence and 20% had none. Less than 5% had either “a great deal of confidence” or did not know.
“We had a lot of folks who said they didn’t know. It should be a wake-up call that people should know what their city government’s doing,” Yeh said.
Affordable housing was ranked one of the most important attributes Eugene should have on the survey. Around half of the participants said the city was not headed in the right direction regarding homelessness.
University of Oregon Junior Hazel Black said the city should use funds to create resources and housing that is no-barrier and addressing the needs of homeless communities “rather than putting efforts towards harassing and incarcerating the homeless population of Eugene.”
“And the first step in doing that is going into those communities and asking people what they need,” Black said.
People without housing in Eugene has been a major issue for the city, sparking the creation of five safe sleeping sites — monitored areas where people can legally stay — over the past year and a half. Around 3,000 people live without housing in Eugene.
Having biking and walking infrastructure, such as bike lanes and safe sidewalks, was another topic of importance to people in Eugene in the survey.
“I would like to see us find ways to better invest in acts of transportation in ways that aren’t just adding bike paths — that actually create bike and pedestrian infrastructure. I’m thinking of things like the 13th Street bikeway that are not just creating a space for bikes, but creating a space that is equally safe for the bikes as it is for the cars,” Yeh said.
Black said she thinks good city planning is improving public transportation and getting cars off of roads.
“It’s really looking at what we call walkable neighborhoods or 20 minute neighborhoods. The idea being that you can walk to a grocery store, entertainment, health, church, school, all the things that we need,” City Councilor Emily Semple said.
Black said she normally hates voting, but she thinks it is important to recognize that it can still make some change.
Ballots must be returned in person or postmarked by Nov. 8 at 8 p.m.
