Dimmed lighting, a room with double glass doors, red wine and fried calamari – things more commonly associated with romantic dinners than city meetings – helped to establish a comfortable atmosphere Wednesday evening at Davis’ Restaurant for citizens to voice their concerns about Eugene’s form of city government.
The event, known as the City Government 101 Brewhaha, was the brainchild of the Eugene Weekly and Eugene Bus Project.
The Bus Project and Eugene Weekly have sponsored other events to discuss the police auditor and downtown renovation, but the Brewhaha was centered around discussions on how much power the mayor has and whether she should have more.
The evening began with Steve Candee, a Lane Community College instructor, informing the audience that there are more than 80,000 forms of city government used across the country. Candee discussed the brief history of the city of Eugene, from its early days, when it had only a city council and was better known as “Skinner’s Mud Hole,” to the more sophisticated city government Eugene has today.
Candee said Eugene has a council-city manager system under which the city manager holds significantly more power than the mayor in making citywide decisions. The system was created in the early days to prevent the mayor from running the city autonomously, but more recently the government system’s flaws have come under scrutiny.
“I don’t know if we need an entirely new system of government, but we do need more oversight of the city manager,” University student Josh Foster said.
A five-person discussion council, including Foster and former city councilor Bonnie Bettman, gave their opinions on why Eugene’s current system of government is unbalanced.
“Many people call our form of government a city manager and city council government, but it is not equal. What it should be called is a manage-the-council form of government,” Bettman said. “It is difficult to go against city hall when they have an entire staff of paid employees and we are paid a stipend.”
The panel’s suggestions included paying the mayor a living wage and increasing city councilors’ pay to more equally balance power between the manager and the mayor.
“The current system is bogged down with bureaucracy,” Foster said. “The mayor needs to be paid more and allowed to vote on everything instead of just policies that are wrapped up in a council tie.”
Other suggestions included hiring an in-house attorney, whose sole responsibility would be to cover cases for the city. Currently, the city attorney is allowed to take cases that are not city related.
“It was a collaboration between us,” said Ted Taylor, editor of the Eugene Weekly. “The Bus Project usually comes up with the topics and location and we provide free advertising for the event.”
The Eugene Bus Project is a branch of the non-partisan grassroots organization that tries to get ordinary people involved in local politics.
“Our goal is to add a little more brew and a little more ha ha to city politics in order to make people see it is relevant to them,” Alan Waxman, the event coordinator, said.
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Mayoral power discussed at local forum
Daily Emerald
January 22, 2009
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