On April 9, the Eugene City Council delayed potential action on the referendum to bring the fire service fee to a public vote, opting to revisit the issue for further discussion at a work session on April 21.
The council’s decision follows City Recorder Katie LaSala’s certification of the referendum petition on March 24. Prior to LaSala’s certification, Lane County Elections verified that petitioners, who submitted more than 8,400 signatures, met the 5,817 required for the ballot. As established in Eugene’s city code, LaSala’s certification triggered a mandatory presentation to the City Council outlining the council’s potential options under the code.
At the meeting, LaSala laid out the potential options that the City Council could take to address the referendum petition. Absent any council action to repeal the ordinance or to move the election to an earlier or later date, city officials said the fee will be on the ballot in the November general election.
Before opening the meeting to council discussion, Mayor Kaarin Knudson offered a few thoughts about the situation.
After talking with community members about the referendum, Knudson said “more work” and “information” are needed to “build understanding about the really challenging pressures that our community is under.” Knudson also expressed “sincere hope” that the City Council can continue to work together toward outcomes.
City Councilor Randy Groves echoed a similar sentiment.
“I think we all need to be looking at how do we bring our community together? … What is a reasonable path forward?” Groves said at the meeting.
Groves, though, cautioned that the City Council needs to be careful about how it addresses the referendum. He said the council should not disrespect the process that petitioners took to refer the fire service fee to the ballot box.
City Councilor Eliza Kashinsky concurred with Groves. “I agree with Councilor Groves,” Kashinsky said at the meeting.
City Councilor Alan Zelenka spoke critically of the petitioners who organized the voter referendum.
“I’m super disappointed in the forces of self-interest that care so little about our community … that they want these services to go away … putting us in the position of making these cuts that will be very hard to recover from,” Zelenka said at the meeting.
City Councilor Mike Clark, on the other hand, spoke critically of the February five-to-three council decision to effectively reject a May 2025 public vote on the fire service fee by attempting to implement the fee without a prior public vote.
“I made the motion I did on the amendment to put this forward for a May election because it seemed pretty obvious to me we’d be caught in this box,” Clark said at the meeting. “I wish we had done that instead.”
The “box” Clark referred to is the fiscal and procedural bind the City Council now finds itself in. Because the council declined to send the fire service fee to voters in May and there was a successful referendum petition, the city must build its 2025–2027 Biennial Budget with the assumption that the fee won’t be implemented. This means accounting for a larger $11.5 million general fund gap instead of a smaller $3.5 million general fund gap.
Had the council opted for a May election, the result would have been known in time to inform budget decisions. If the fire service fee passes in November or an earlier or later special election after May, city officials say they will adjust the budget in a supplemental budget afterwards.
At a Budget Committee meeting on April 30, City Manager Sarah Medary will present a proposed 2025-2027 Biennial Budget that assumes $11.5 million in annual general fund budget cuts. The 2025-2027 Biennial Budget, which starts in July, will likely be adopted sometime in June. The City Council previously adopted the city’s 2023-2025 Biennial Budget on June 26, 2023.
City spokesperson Caitlin Wallace said the city’s General Fund has been in “a state of structural imbalance for over a decade.” She said that the city has implemented more than $67 million in budget strategies since 2010.
The 2023–2025 Biennial Budget included an $8.3 million placeholder in its second year (fiscal year 2024–2025). In June 2023, the council voted to adopt the budget with this gap with the intention of solving the gap later to achieve balance. Wallace said the city has been working to close the budget shortfall.
Wallace said the work to close the gap includes the fire service fee and another ordinance the City Council adopted in June 2024. That ordinance expanded the definition of stormwater service to include Parks and Open Space operations and maintenance. Wallace said this change allowed the city to shift approximately $1.1 million in general fund costs to the Stormwater Fund.
To help support the increase in stormwater fees, Medary approved a 5% increase in stormwater fees in October 2024. The rate increase went into effect in November 2024.
In February, the City Council voted unanimously to direct Medary to prepare a council budget retreat on long-term budget stabilization strategies.
Despite Clark asking if they could do the retreat earlier, perhaps before the first budget committee meeting on April 30, Medary told councilors that it is not practical to do a budget retreat until later this year. Medary said the retreat would be “a pretty significant staff effort,” which is not possible to prepare for while city staff are working on the 2025-2027 Biennial Budget.
Medary said the earliest realistic timeframe for the retreat would be late fall. If the fire fee goes to voters in November, Medary said the retreat would likely need to wait until after the election.
