The relationship between the ASUO Executive and the University area’s new city councilor has gotten off to a less-than-cordial start.
The Eugene City Council approved an ordinance two weeks ago that will hold home owners and tenants financially responsible for police response to parties, and councilor Bonny Bettman, whose ward encompasses the University and downtown, sided with five other councilors and voted for the ordinance.
Since the Eugene Police Department drafted the ordinance last November, members of the Executive have said the proposal unfairly targets students, who will likely make up the bulk of those slapped with the fine, which can be as high as $1,500.
The Executive’s disappointment over the passage of the ordinance has broadened into a larger concern that Bettman isn’t representing her younger constituents and that the student voice isn’t being adequately considered in city hall.
“Is she representing students? No, she’s not,” ASUO President Jay Breslow said.
Christa Shively, the ASUO community outreach director, said Bettman seems to have “strong negative feelings about students.”
“She thinks we’re disruptive in the community, that we don’t care what goes on in the greater community and that we don’t do enough outreach,” Shively said. “And what’s worse, she thinks student government is defending students’ disruptive behavior.
“I’m not sure it would be a good use of our energy to try to work with [Bettman]. It would be better to work around her with other councilors. We have a voice on the council, but it’s not through our city councilor, ironically.”
But Bettman said she is supportive of students and that the ordinance strikes a fair balance between students’ right to party and their older neighbors’ desire for peaceful neighborhoods.
“Because I support the ordinance, I’m not anti-student — that’s quite a leap,” she said.
Bettman was elected to the council last May and took office in September to replace councilor Bobby Lee, who spent two terms in office. Student leaders and other city councilors had often praised Lee for representing the student voice in council, and at his departure, most said that the council would miss his perspective.
“After Bobby Lee left, I don’t think the energy around [representing students] is as high as it was,” Mayor Jim Torrey said. “But councilor Bettman is new and hasn’t had a chance to learn the needs of students.”
Members of the Executive said their concerns about Bettman began when she visited the ASUO office for the first time on Oct. 19 to discuss the ordinance.
“I was really frustrated in the meeting because she came into it with an attitude that ‘students are a bunch of drunkards and I don’t have to represent them,’” Breslow said.
The Executive proposed several amendments to the council that would have made the ordinance more lenient. Bettman supported some of the amendments but opposed two key proposals, which the council ultimately shot down.
“Other city councilors were really jazzed up over our proposals, but she wasn’t really supportive of them,” Breslow said. “To me, it seems like she’s not interested in solving anything, but is interested only in punishing students.”
Bettman said that she considered the ASUO’s input but didn’t support all of the proposals because she felt they would have rendered the ordinance ineffectual.
She said she hopes this conflict won’t sour relations between her and the ASUO.
“I invited them to stay in touch with me and let me know what their issues are so we can be mutually supportive,” she said. “Certainly we didn’t agree on some fundamental things, but there may be other issues we agree on.”
Shively, however, wasn’t so optimistic about future relations between the ASUO and Bettman, and said that the Executive will continue working closely with other councilors, including David Kelly, Gary Papé and Betty Taylor, as well as Mayor Jim Torrey. Taylor was the lone vote against the ordinance, which she said “went far beyond deterrent.” Torrey, at the request of the Executive, convinced the council last spring to postpone a vote on the ordinance until this fall, when students returned from summer vacation and were available to address the issue before council.
But Shively pointed out that the passage of the ordinance was fresh and that the Executive was still “peeved.”
“I don’t know [Bettman] very well, and she doesn’t have much of a voting record yet,” she said. “We’ll see what happens.”