Drix Rixmann, a West University Neighbors board member, received an honor from the city of Eugene at the neighborhood association’s meeting last night for his two years of service as the organization’s chair.
Neighborhood Services gave Rixmann a Certificate of Appreciation, an award for outgoing neighborhood association leaders. Steve Norris, neighborhood liaison for the city, presented Rixmann with the framed certificate, signed by Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy.
“The city really supports volunteers,” Norris said after the meeting, “and we like to recognize them.”
The award made the normally loose-tongued Rixmann speechless.
“I was just overwhelmed,” Rixmann said. “Just to have all of this validated is great.”
After the presentation, current WUN chairman and ASUO President Adam Walsh attempted to discuss adding ground rules to streamline the normally unstructured WUN meetings.
Walsh suggested adding a speaker’s queue and a one-minute time limit on comments, ideas he said he got from attending a recent Far West Neighborhood Association meeting.
“It gives the meeting structure and flow,” Walsh said. “It creates an environment where everyone feels they can be heard.”
But community activist Zachary Vishanoff thought adding structure to the meetings wouldstifle discussion.
“If you have to wait 20 minutes to respond to someone, it’s hard to have a back-and-forth,” Vishanoff said.
When board members continued to support the idea of a queue, Vishanoff became agitated and began shouting.
“Vote me banned,” Vishanoff said. “It will show what a real conspiracy this is.”
The WUN members refused to ban him, reminding him they were a public group and open to any neighborhood residents.
“This is a great argument for structure,” Norris said. “This is turning into a shouting match between you and nobody else.”
Vishanoff left the meeting after the board decided to follow the new rules for the night’s meeting.
The board then turned its attention to future meeting agendas.
It laid out the topics and speakers they would like during the next six months. Possible meetings
included a city night in March that would feature the mayor and police chief and a candidate forum in April for the open Ward 3 city council seat.
The WUN is also considering inviting local landlords to the February meeting to discuss housing issues with neighborhood residents.
WUN secretary Marie Valle said a housing meeting could help educate residents about the city’s new renters code.
“If you’ve just moved here, you may not know we have this system,” Valle said.
The group also discussed changing its charter in order to allow it to meet on days other than first Thursday of the month, as is required in the charter.
“It’s archaic,” Norris said. “We’d be behind you if you wanted to say just meet regularly.”
The group needs at least 20 people to vote officially, and with only four people present, the group will discuss the matter further at later meeting.
With the low turnout, something Walsh expected because of Dead Week, the focus turned to how the group could bring in more people.
A media committee, made up of Rixmann and board members Ben Fousek and David Wallace, was created to organize mailings and newsletters for the group. The neighborhood has 3,551 address, making the media effort difficult for the small group.
“I know there’s an efficient way to put a flier on every apartment complex in the neighborhood,” Fousek said. “If we can get lots of people here and have a good, lively meeting, we’ll be more successful.”
Walsh agreed but suggested the group use mailings instead of flyers.
“One thing about being able to mail it is that everyone gets it,” Walsh said. “We always get a bigger turnout for a mailing.”
Fousek is also spearheading the creation of a WUN Web site to increase awareness of the group.
“If we just put a lot of data in one place, 95 percent of the people in this neighborhood have access to the Internet,” Fousek said.
The WUN’s next meeting will be Jan. 12, where members plan to discuss a possible neighborhood watch program and further discuss changes to the group’s charter.

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