The unbearable weight of massive arrogance

by Ted M. Coopman

The letter from the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce to City Council was unambiguous: A vote to approve a “fire services fee,” as written, would draw a challenge via a petition drive.

Once again, city leaders ignored a clear warning and forged ahead, approving the fee 5-3, instead of placing a referendum on the ballot themselves.

This was just another in a long list of tone-deaf and costly moves by out-of-touch city leadership who not only refuse to listen to critics, but roundly defame them, all while ignoring credible threats of response by those willing and able to challenge the city in court or at the ballot box.

Their MAGA-level need to ignore and attack dissenters and always be right has eroded public confidence, cost taxpayers millions in staff time and legal fees, and delayed needed policy initiatives.

Here are a few examples:

• City Council sandbagged a successful petition drive for an independent auditor by placing a confusing and competing initiative on the ballot – a classic move to ensure neither would pass.
• Claire Syrett (Ward 7) was recalled over her failure to take seriously her constituents’ feedback on the River Road EmX expansions (since abandoned). It cost Syrett her seat, but city leadership apparently learned nothing.
• ADU (Accessory Dwelling Unit) ordinance. Staff far exceeded the state mandate. Critics pointed out serious issues that could have been fixed easily. Staff negotiated with critics and came to an agreement, which they reneged on at the last minute. Critics appealed and the city lost – three times – before fixing it.
• Middle housing: Again, staff far exceeded the state mandate. Critics pointed out serious issues that could have been fixed easily. Mayor Vinis broke a tie vote to approve. The city has now lost two appeals, and could lose a third appeal.
• Natural gas ban: City Council voted not to send a natural gas ban to the ballot. After a ballot initiative qualified in record time, the city repealed its ban, citing a federal court decision.

Red flag warning

When the former fire chief votes against a fire services fee and firefighters oppose it, you have a problem.

City Councilor and former Eugene Springfield Fire Chief Randy Groves, joined by Councilors Mike Clark and Greg Evans, pointed out the obvious – the fire services fee was destined for the ballot. The city might as well jump than be pushed and put it on the ballot themselves.

The three councilors made the same argument for the natural gas ban: Better to put the fire services fee on the ballot and then make the case in support of it. As Councilor Clark observed:

“It’s patently obvious to me that the public will vote on this, whether we like it or not. And so there is a much safer outcome for these programs if we vote in favor of this amendment [to add a new Section 6 that states, ‘This ordinance shall take effect only if approved by the voters at the May 2025 election’] rather than have it thrust upon us. Because then the manager has no choice but has to make the cuts because the election will be later.”

That is, Council could put the new fee on the May ballot and councilors would know before the new budget goes into effect in July if the fee was approved or not. However, if a petition places the fire services fee on the ballot, councilors will have to wait until the results of an (expensive) special election in August were in—after the budget goes into effect.

Groves, Clark, and Evans had specific and general concerns about this new fee. Specifically, the way the fee is named and presented, it appears to be dedicated to funding and expanding fire services. (I supposed a dedicated fund, or separate fire district, with its own funding outside the city budget process in a previous column.)

However, that was not what was on offer. Instead, as proposed on and approved, there was a modest $2 million for expansion of services with the remaining $8 million going into the general fund – an offset for the current Fire Department budget. There are no guarantees that the money would be used for fire services or that fire services won’t face future cuts.

Sleight of hand

At issue, and the main complaint for Chamber, is that the fire fee, similar to the increase in the stormwater fee for parks, is not transparent. It seems reasonable on its face but is disingenuous.

While the rationale for the stormwater fee increase was that parks are significant sources of stormwater remediation, the additional revenue can be used for anything related to park services. And as an aside, the stormwater runoff fee you pay is not for the run-off on your specific property, but for citywide stormwater run-off mitigation.

EWEB is not too happy with the city tacking on another fee onto its bill. EWEB Commissioner John Brown has expressed concern about the consequences for customers getting service shutoff if they can’t pay their bills, an increasing portion of which has nothing to do with power or water. EWEB, not the city, gets the blame and ire of the public for these additional fees.

Commissioner Brown views these added fees as a bug, but the city clearly sees them as a feature. The city’s own 2022 survey indicated that a whopping 60% of residents had ‘not much’ or ‘no confidence’ in City Council. Having fees appear on a utility bill allows councilors to avoid blame.

Zero to hero

What many critics of city spending, including Councilors Groves, Evans, and Clark, as well as the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce, are advocating for is zero-based budgeting (ZBB). It is a budgeting method that starts from scratch for each budget period. You must offer a rationale for every expense, rather than just starting with the previous budget and adjusting it.

All expenses must be justified for a new fiscal period starting from zero. With ZBB, you start with must have, move to need, and then to want. ZBB helps combat what often happens In a bureaucracy—once something is created and funded it is almost impossible to eliminate. Everything has its own constituency, patrons, and staff. In most cases, it is simply easier to maintain the status quo.

Eugene’s budgetary problems are less about having enough resources and more about the allocation of those resources. You can’t squirrel away funds for pet projects or direct them to favored nonprofits if you must justify why you are spending money on it every budget cycle.

With ZBB, programs that have outlived their utility are eliminated and patronage gets a dose of sunlight. This is exactly what city managers, selected elected officials, and Eugene elites, especially those with their nose in the public money trough, don’t want. It is why the independent auditor was sandbagged and why fees get tucked into your utility bill.

Democracy is supposed to be about making your case to the electorate and them deciding if that is the direction to take. However, the city seems to think that they know best, always, and that elections absolve them of the need to listen to, let alone heed, input that contradicts their plans. Instead, they try to “polish the turd” of unpopular ill-informed policy while denouncing any opposition.

Vote ‘Yes’ or we’ll shoot the dog

Once it became clear that the new fee might go to a public vote, a new group, Save our Services, emerged to counter the petition signature drive with a “Decline to Sign” campaign.

This represents another disturbing and consistently used tactic – preventing a vote instead of trying to win a vote on merits (see also the city’s natural gas ban). The “Decline to Sign” pitch rests on the long list of popular services such as the library, animal welfare services, and homeless outreach that would face the axe if the city does not get its fire service fee – a fee that is not directly related to any of the suddenly-proposed service cuts. As with similar tactics the city has used, there is a villain: this time it’s the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce. 

This is the classic Eugene “Vote Yes or We’ll Shoot the Dog” strategy to gain compliance, which rests on the assumption that The Plan is the only option and if you do not go along terrible things will happen (and it will be all your fault).

This strategy involves city management cooking up The Plan. The Plan is presented along with a list of other options which are all unworkable, improbable, or ideologically unpalatable. Only The Plan will avoid dire consequences.

The key for this approach work is taking a long time and running out the clock, so a problem becomes a crisis and crisis an emergency. This tactic sidesteps the “how we got here” question and is always portrayed as a hair-on-fire need to act immediately to avoid impending disaster.

The causes are never in city leaders’ control and consequences of mismanagement are deflected. So, it is not their fault we find ourselves in this dire predicament that no one could see coming (despite the fact that everyone saw this coming) or that now we must act quickly to approve The Plan, or else. Critics are demonized and preemptively blamed.

The city had options that could have ensured the success of a fire district fee (or something similar). But instead, as usual, city leaders had to make it seem like the fee was dedicated to fire services while maintaining their control (and it is all about control) of the money and the option to use it for anything they want.

They could have done a complete budget teardown using zero-based budgeting to allocate the money we have to the services we need, but they absolutely do not want to have that conversation. For example, do we really need two highly-paid assistant city managers? City leaders do not want to try and justify specific expenses and instead resort to threatening the most popular programs.

Ad nauseum

People outside the system, and plenty within it, simply do not trust city management and City Council. From tearing down City Hall with no replacement, wasting tens of millions on plans for a new City Hall that would never get built, paying to lease office space that enriched favored landlords, to sandbagging an independent auditor, to the travesty of the middle housing public process, a majority of Eugenians have lost faith in the city’s ability to solve problems to meet community needs.

Rebuilding that trust should be a priority. But arrogance, entitlement, and a “we-know-best-stay-in-your-lane” attitude make it impossible. It would be sad that we would need a budget meltdown and draconian cuts to popular services before city leadership would get its needed shakubuku moment.

Earn our trust, start from scratch with a zero-based budget, and let’s see where the money is really going.

How did we get here and why is the city so uninterested in the public will? Read my forthcoming column on the farce of the “nonpartisan” city council election.

Image: From the iconic cover of the January 1973 issue of National Lampoon.

Western Exposure is a semi-regular column that looks at issues and challenges from a West Eugene perspective – a perspective that is often ignored or trivialized by city leadership and influential groups and individuals largely based in south and east Eugene. 

Western Exposure rejects the fauxgressive party line, performative politics, and “unicorn ranching” policy in favor of pragmatism focused on the daily experiences of residents and small businesses in Eugene—and West Eugene in particular.

Ted M. Coopman has been involved in neighborhood issues since 2016 as an elected board member, and now chair, of Jefferson Westside Neighbors and has 30+ years experience as an activist and community organizer. He earned a Ph.D. in Communication (University of Washington) and served on the faculty at San Jose State University from 2007 to 2020.

Ted’s research on social movements, activist use of technology, media law and policy, and online pedagogy has been published and presented internationally and he taught classes ranging from research methodology to global media systems. He and his spouse live in Jefferson Westside with an energetic coltriever and some very demanding and prolific fruit trees.