Lane County looks to stretch every dollar by teaming with cities, agency partners

Presenter: With all local governments looking for ways to stretch budgets, it’s more important than ever to team up. With comments after taking the oath of office Jan. 6, Lane County Sheriff Clifton Harrold.

[00:00:11] Clifton Harrold (Lane County, sheriff, Jan. 6, 2025): Frankly, our biggest challenge is one that’s been around for 40 years and we don’t have time to get into it this morning. But we once were funded well with timber revenue and we no longer are.

[00:00:21] We’re so thankful for the community support of the levy that funds our jail function. But our patrol function is significantly underresourced. And when I say significantly, I mean that we have 30 (three-zero) fewer deputy sheriffs today than we had in 1979 to patrol unincorporated Lane County.

[00:00:40] And the population of Lane County has increased well over 100,000 people since then. That’s a significant challenge.

[00:00:45] Presenter: During the election remarks Jan. 6, Commissioner Pat Farr.

[00:00:49] Commissioner Pat Farr (Election remarks, Jan. 6, 2025): One brief thing I’m going to say is, as Lane County government, we have to work effectively with our adjacent jurisdictions, with the cities, with the state, and with the federal government.

[00:00:58] And if we don’t work effectively, and if we don’t time and coordinate our efforts with those jurisdictions, we’re not going to make the most of our resources. That’s what this year is all about.

[00:01:08] Sheriff Harrold, you mentioned public safety. You mentioned the underfunding that we’ve suffered through for many, many years. We do have a public safety funding committee that is meeting right now, ongoing. Hopefully we’ll find some answers in the first quarter of this year that will help us move forward with public safety. That committee is chaired by Courtney Griesel and, vice-chaired by former County Commissioner Faye Stewart.

[00:01:28] Look forward to their work, Sheriff Harrold. Thank you very much.

[00:01:30] Presenter: During the state of the county address Jan. 6, Commissioner Laurie Trieger:

[00:01:35] Commissioner Laurie Trieger (State of the County, Jan. 6, 2025): We continue to be seen as a leader among counties across the state, the region, and nationally for the many ways that we collaborate and partner to meet diverse needs of Lane County residents. You will hear some echoes of some of the comments you heard earlier, particularly from my colleague, Commissioner Farr…

[00:01:54] Many of our partner agencies, municipalities, and other entities face similar challenges to ours: Those of rising cost, increased and more complex need in the community, and fewer dollars available to meet those needs. And this makes it all the more important that we continue to work together to be thoughtful, to be strategic, and efficient in how we steward our public assets while delivering the services that our communities need and deserve.

[00:02:24] Presenter: During the morning meeting Jan. 7, County Administrator Steve Mokrohisky:

[00:02:29] Steve Mokrohisky (Lane County, administrator, Jan. 7, 2025): Next week is our leadership team kickoff on the budget. One of the topics will be budget challenges that all of us are facing.

[00:02:37] Both Commissioners Trieger and Commissioner Farr yesterday in your comments at the State of the County and your comments on your election talked about the importance of partnership with our city partners in particular, and other agencies.

[00:02:48] I want to share with the board that once a month we, this is a long standing meeting, it’s called SEL, and SEL is an acronym that stands for ‘Springfield, Eugene, Lane.’  This was a group that was in place before I came to Lane County in 2014. Long history of bringing our metro city partners as well as Lane Transit District and LCOG together.

[00:03:12] So the city managers and staff of Eugene, Springfield, and Lane County, LCOG in Lane Transit District, meet once a month for breakfast, and we just talk about particularly in the metro area, and as larger public service organizations, how we can partner and work together.

[00:03:29] This Friday, we will be meeting at Lane County’s Delta Campus. We’re hosting it at our emergency management, at our EOC, because we wanted to share, particularly with our cities, LCOG, LTD, that physical space, and if we can look back to just the ice storm of, just about a year ago that happened, how critically we rely on our regional partners, particularly our metro partners.

[00:03:55] All of our cities are important partners, but our metro Eugene and Springfield have resources. They have staff. They have large law enforcement agencies, fire agencies, public works departments, staff resources, emergency management professionals that we can and should leverage to be able to support all of our communities outside of the metro area that don’t have those same resources.

[00:04:17] So it’s really important. So I just want to share that with you all, that our partnership with our cities, particularly in the metro area around those areas where we can support the entire county at times of emergency is really important. And so we’ll be hosting that meeting on Friday at our Delta campus, and we’ll keep you posted on those those things.

[00:04:34] We’re hosting a Lane Regional Resilience Collaborative partners project retreat next week to coordinate with two other grant-funded resiliency projects for grid and transportation resilience. The Resiliency Collaborative is a larger group of public and quasi-public agencies that are all partnering on that.

[00:04:54] Presenter: With questions about the infrastructure grants, Commissioner Laurie Trieger.

[00:04:58] Commissioner Laurie Trieger (Sept. 7, 2025): One of the big concerns that we often hear from folks on this side of the river is in the event of a large seismic event: ‘We won’t have a hospital now.’ The point, however, is that building would be a pile of rubble in the event of a large disaster. A lot of roads will be impassable, so we focus a lot on bridges to get across rivers in seismic events but the grid impacts and access to basic care and hospital services.

[00:05:24] I imagine that’s some of what will be discussed, right? That’s sort of how you bring the services to where people can get them rather than can people get to the services because in the event of a major seismic event, it’s not just going to be everything standing except the bridges are down and now we can’t get to and from the hospitals, right?

[00:05:41] So I am, I’m really excited to hear what this group discusses, particularly around access to medical care and treatment in seismic events. Because we’ve now had experience with ice and fire, but that’s a big missing piece.

[00:05:57] Presenter: Policy Director Steve Adams.

[00:05:58] Stephen Adams (Lane county, policy director, Sept. 7, 2025): I’m Steve Adams. I’m the policy director and Commissioner Trieger, to the point of who are the participants in the Lane Regional Resilience Collaborative:

[00:06:05] And so that has been a longstanding effort that began prior to the pandemic. University of Oregon has been a participant in that. City of Veneta has been a strong participant. EWEB has been a participant in that. City of Florence has been a strong participant in that. That collaboration was actually a critical baseline component and a building block of our pandemic response.

[00:06:28] So that joint kind of incident command structure, when we were able to form that unified command, it was really helpful. At the conclusion of the pandemic, the Resilience Collaborative actually kind of changed its mode of operations to focus on the recovery funding that the (Biden) Administration and Congress were pushing out.

[00:06:50] And so we’ve been working pretty closely with a lot of our partners to look at the opportunity to secure funds and LCOG was a key partner there as well. And so of the grants that we’re looking at, the $19.5 (million) for the EPA grant is being paired with about $5 million, $6 million or so for LCOG to do transportation resilience, which is looking at our metro area, but also rural Lane County, and then our grid.

[00:07:16] We got a separate technical assistance grant from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory that’s worth about $5 million as well. So in total, it’s about a $30 million package for us to look in concert at how to take care of our transportation, how to take care of our power supplies, and how to take care of our people. That really will form the core. And this will be a big piece of work with all of those partners and more over the next three years.

[00:07:43] Presenter: Commissioner Pat Farr:

[00:07:44] Commissioner Pat Farr (Jan. 7, 2025): That’s a great example of how the county can coordinate with cities on essential services that we all provide, making certain that we’re doing them in uniformity as much as possible, with the different approaches that cities have to have than the county has.

[00:07:57] This is a great moment in time: This moment, today, Jan. 7th, 2025, is a great moment for us to declare that we will be working more closely with our cities to make sure that every resource that we have is maximized to the best of our ability. That is a great report you just gave to us, Steve. Thank you very much.

[00:08:13] Presenter: The newly-elected chair of the Lane County Board of Commissioners, Commissioner David Loveall.

[00:08:18] Commissioner David Loveall (Jan. 7, 2025): I’d like to leave us with a hopeful thought as we leave here today, as we had some switching around and some new things, new faces, I’d like to leave us with this hopeful thought: 2025 can be a year of hope and potency. Let us be focused on doing the important and the impactful.

[00:08:32] Presenter: Lane County commissioners look to build on a long tradition of teaming up. As Commissioner Trieger suggested:

[00:08:39] Commissioner Laurie Trieger (State of the County, Jan. 6, 2025): If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.