Traditionally, taxes, especially ones on the verge of increasing, produce heated discussion within the community on which they are imposed. But in a Friday afternoon debate about a proposed local gas tax increase, the mood was friendly, the conversation jovial, and more people were laughing than fuming.
Eugene City Councilor Chris Pryor opened the event by saying, “If anyone has a gas problem, this is the day to talk about it,” gathering laughter from the crowd at the Downtown Athletic Club where the event took place. Nearly 60 people showed up for the debate, but that is only half the amount that attended a similar function earlier in the week, a debate on the proposed expansion of Eugene’s urban renewal program.
If attendance is any indicator of public interest, then the city’s downtown appearance trumps taxes on citizens’ priorities.
But following Pryor’s opening joke, he stressed the importance of the issue. During a campaign for his city council position, Pryor noted that many concerned voters pleaded for him to fill the city’s potholes and fix its roads. Pryor said other Eugene city councilors heard the same concerns from residents during their campaigns, and it is a top priority for the city council.
To address these concerns, the council held a series of committee meetings focused on repairing Eugene’s roads. But time is money in politics, and Pryor said, “the backlog of street repairs went from $125 million to $170 million just while we were sitting in our committee meetings.”
One of the answers that came from these meetings was to increase Eugene’s nickel-per-gallon gas tax, pushing it up to eight cents per gallon, and effectively raising an additional $2 million annually to address the backlog gorilla hanging on the city’s back.
This three-cents-per-gallon increase passed an approval vote by city councilors, but was ultimately transformed into the upcoming Ballot Measure 20-132, which was the focus of Friday’s debate.
Paul Romain, attorney and lobbyist for the Oregon Petroleum Association, opposed Pryor in the debate, but threw a curve ball by saying the OPA is not against gas taxes.
“What we are against is a local gas tax,” and a “local gas tax is absolutely the worst option we have right now,” Romain said.
He stressed the best answer to the city’s street repair and maintenance needs will come from a state-wide gas tax increase, preferably adding 14 cents per gallon. Romain said there is a “perfect storm brewing” right now for a statewide tax increase to be passed. He added that for the first time, a Republican senator, Bruce Starr, and a Democratic senator, Rick Metzger, are “sitting down with us” to work on the issue.
But there is more than just bipartisan support adding to the whirlwind forces of this perfect storm, Romain said. Other usual enemies such as the “truckers sitting down with AAA,” which is “like getting an Arab-Israeli peace” accord, and “big oil and little oil” coming together are making this the right time for a statewide increase, Romain said.
Pryor agreed that a state option is good, but rebutted by saying any state option also has to be passed by the legislature, which doesn’t convene for another two years.
“How much higher will our backlog be in two years? We need the tax now,” Pryor said. Why not pass the city fuel tax and “if something should happen at the state level, we can rescind the (city) gas tax,” he added.
Responding to a question from the audience asking if there is anything in the ballot measure that will allow the rescind should a state increase pass in the future, Pryor laughed and said, there’s nothing in the measure right now, but asked the crowd to “trust me” because “we don’t want to double dip,” causing an uproar of laughter from the crowd.
Romain turned somber, and said rushing to the ballots and passing the local tax increase will politically kill the statewide gas tax effort. Such a tax will make the state a little Balkan area where nobody is together anymore, he said.
“Who in their right mind is going to vote for a 14-cent increase on top of a 8-cent tax?” Romain said. “A local tax … will actually not get you where you want to go.”
If the measure passes, Eugene will raise the highest gas tax in the state, which is almost three times higher than any other local area – Springfield has a 3-cents-per-gallon tax, and Lane County has no fuel tax.
He noted that over the past two years in Eugene, the average amount of money each penny of a fuel tax garners has gone down, suggesting consumers are going outside of the city to fill up. There will be a decline in revenue for local station owners due to a migration elsewhere because “people are very conscious of gas prices,” Romain said.
However, when one guest asked if the tax will hurt the local station owner, Pryor said “my sincere hope is that this will not have any negative impact of any small gas station owners.”
And when another guest asked what he would say to any employee that may lose his or her job because of a tax increase, Pryor responded, “I would say sorry to anybody that would lose money in their business,” but there are many things that can lead to a loss of money in business, and it may not necessarily be from the increased tax.
Answering the same question, Romain simply retorted, “I’d tell them to vote no.”
Closing out the debate, Pryor kept his remarks lighthearted but frank.
“I know no one in this room likes to pay taxes, no one in this room likes to pay fees or money, but that’s how we got into this pickle, by not being willing to pay,” Pryor said. “But now we’ve got ourselves in a pickle. We have a gas problem, we have a street problem and we need to fix it.”
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