A new gang started operating in Eugene this summer.
But it doesn’t claim certain colors or break the law. Its members are a group of local citizens who say they want people to become more interested in local city politics. They also say the Eugene City Council does not always act in the city’s best interest.
The self-named Gang of 9 criticized council decisions and bought advertising space throughout the summer to run a series of editorial cartoons lampooning city council members. For most of the summer, the gang remained anonymous. Because the gang’s identity was not known and because of the cartoons’ pro-development nature, many residents expressed outrage at the gang’s message. However, some residents rallied to the gang’s defense.
Now, after a brief hiatus, the gang is back.
On Sept. 4, a week before the city council returned to session, the Gang of 9 once again started taking out large daily ads in The Register-Guard and running a variety of editorial cartoons.
The first cartoon this summer appeared on June 24. Controversy abounded as cartoons ran in the same spot in the newspaper everyday for the next month, while the identity of the Gang of 9 remained unknown.
Almost every cartoon focused on the decisions and actions of the left-leaning city council, as well as poking fun at individual council members. The anonymity angered and confused some citizens, while others supported the Gang of 9, who also call themselves “Eugene’s True Friends.” Letters to the editor poured in to The Register-Guard and Emerald, both supporting and denouncing the Gang of 9.
On July 26, the last day the cartoons appeared in The Register-Guard before the hiatus, the Gang of 9 revealed themselves in a front-page article. Six men and three women, most of them business people, comprised the gang.
They are: Liz Cawood, owner of a local public relations firm; Otto Glausi, retired gasoline distributor; Ed Anderson, retired linen company executive; Bob Mylenek, owner of a Mercedes-Benz dealership; David Hilles, president of a construction company; Susan Selig, self-described visual artist and businesswoman; Chuck McGlade, radiologist at Sacred Heart Medical Center; Jennifer Solomon, community volunteer; and John Musumeci, real estate developer. Musumeci later resigned from the gang in August for personal reasons.
City Councilor David Kelly, a frequent target of the ads, was one of many who felt the choice to remain anonymous detracted from the Gang of 9’s goal of creating awareness in the community. He said, since going public, the group has not yet been able to stir people up about issues.
“Since they have identified themselves, dialogue has still been very difficult,” he said.
Cawood said the gang decided to remain anonymous for some time because they wanted people to judge the cartoons by themselves and not by who the gang was.
“We didn’t want there to be a focus on us individually,” she said.
Many of the cartoons described the council as being “anti-development” and as being interested in a “no-growth community,” which struck a chord with many citizens who feel that it is extremely difficult to start a business in Eugene, or to keep one successfully going, due to stringent business laws.
The decision by the Gang of 9 to use cartoons to voice their viewpoints about serious issues and to spoof individual council members raised some criticism in the community.
“The gang takes complex issues and tries to make them simple,” Kelly said. “I think it makes dialogue and serious discussion of the issues very difficult.”
Kelly said he appreciates criticism, but because of the inflammatory nature of the cartoons it “turns things into a shouting match instead of a discussion.”
Cawood said the gang used cartoons because they felt they crystallized the issues better.
“They were much more successful than we had anticipated,” she said.
Cawood said the group’s success is reflected on the Gang of 9’s Web site, which now has more than 1,800 members.
Kelly said he isn’t so sure the gang has been that successful in raising the local political awareness in Eugene.
“They may have gotten some number of citizens to pay some more attention to the city council, but I’m not sure that the number is very big or that the attention is very serious,” he said.
Campaign Finance Manager Fred Neal with Oregon’s Secretary of State office said he received a complaint this summer that the gang was acting as a Political Action Committee, in which case the Gang of 9 would be subject to other restrictions, such as reporting their spendings.
In August, the Secretary of State’s office ruled the Gang of 9 could not be considered a PAC because the gang’s cartoons did not urge people to take a specific position or vote in a certain way.
However, the Gang of 9 decided to register themselves as a PAC at the beginning of September, primarily so they can fight the proposed city measure on preference voting, which will be on the ballot for the Sept. 18 special election.