In a lighthearted debate Friday afternoon, the four candidates running for mayor of Eugene showed off their personalities and their platforms.
The two front runners, Mayor Kitty Piercy and former Mayor Jim Torrey, exchanged jabs while the two lesser-known candidates gave the nearly 300-person crowd a number of jokes to keep the 75-minute session friendly.
Piercy opened the debate in a packed Downtown Athletic Club room by wooing audience members when she listed off the accomplishments of her first term, including settling the Lane Transit District strike, bringing the next two Olympic Trials to the city and making Eugene one of the greenest cities in the nation.
She went straight on the offensive, however, when she said she has spent her term fixing “old problems left from the Torrey years.”
She went on to criticize Torrey for his support of President George W. Bush, his campaign funding that has come primarily from big industry and reminded the crowd of the scandals the city was involved in during his tenure as mayor.
The majority of the crowd showed its overwhelming allegiance to the incumbent when it gave her the loudest applause of the day after her opening statement.
Torrey restrained from taking any low blows in the opening round, instead thanking past leaders of Eugene. However, he later went on to say that Piercy is just building on what he had accomplished as mayor.
He tried to sully Piercy’s term in office by asserting she has let businesses leave the city and at the same time failed to bring new companies in, leaving the city in a poor financial state. He went on to criticize her for biased, partisan appointments, not addressing basic city infrastructure needs, letting the West Eugene Parkway project die and failing to find a site for a new hospital.
While Piercy was the most eloquent speaker of the afternoon, it was the underdogs who are entering Eugene’s political landscape for the first time, Jim Ray and Nick Urhausen, who stole the show.
Both of the newcomers used their time to point out the lack of media attention they have received.
Ray held no reservations when he specifically pointed out The Register-Guard’s recent front page spread where Piercy and Torrey were given large pictures on the page but Ray and Urhausen had much smaller pictures.
“I’m the guy with the little picture in the paper,” Ray said introducing himself to the crowd.
Urhausen joined in Ray’s sentiments of neglect when he said the media have portrayed Piercy and Torrey as “political giants,” and he and Ray as “political pygmies.”
Humor aside, several audience members felt the two candidates did add some significant substance to the debate.
“They brought some levity, but also brought some real issues that people in the political realm don’t always address,” said Secretary of State candidate Rick Dancer.
Ray said he entered the race because “there are a lot of things that are being overlooked in this campaign,” and wants to make public safety his main priority as mayor. He said street gangs and drug use are plaguing the city, and he wants to add more police presence.
Ray drew a roar of laughter when he combined his public safety goal with a response to a question of how each candidate plans to support the arts in Eugene.
He said he would replace all the homeless people and panhandlers with musicians and artists. He added that he would put Torrey in front of the Eugene Public Library to sing, after the former mayor broke out in song earlier in the debate.
Urhausen also received some laughs when he said the types of questions the audience asked showed that he was obviously in “Kitty country.”
Individual candidates were asked eight questions from the audience, but seven of those were directed to either Piercy or Torrey, leaving only one question for Urhausen and none for Ray.
Uthausen said his main reason for running is to fix the city’s pothole problem, he said. If he became mayor, Urhausen he would do everything in his power to declare Eugene a “pothole-free zone.”
The debate was hosted by the City Club of Eugene, and the group will be holding a meet-and-greet style event Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. at the Downtown Athletic Club, located at 999 Willamette Street. The event will give voters an opportunity to meet all of the mayoral candidates as well as candidates from other elected city and county positions.
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