Dan Bryant asks neighborhood leaders to save our services

Presenter: To maintain its current level of services, the city of Eugene needs to spend $11.5 million more than it has. So in February, the City Council approved an annual fee on buildings based on square footage. Over 8,400 residents signed petitions to force a vote of the people on that fee, and that vote is currently scheduled for November.

Last month, the Neighborhood Leaders Council heard from Brittany Quick-Warner, who explained why the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce opposes the fee in its current form. April 22, the neighborhood leaders welcomed the chairperson of Eugene Save Our Services, Dan Bryant:

[00:00:41] Dan Bryant: Let me just tell you briefly how I got into this. Some of you know me as a pastor of a downtown church, First Christian Church, 29 years, head of a nonprofit doing work on homelessness and housing another 10 years.

[00:00:54] I was asked by our city manager at the end of ’23 to serve on a revenue committee. And so I got on that committee and got an incredible education of the challenges of the budget, and the structural problems of Measure 5 and 50.

[00:01:11] And basically, it’s just real easy to understand, I think most people probably here understand it, you know, the primary source of income for cities’ general fund is our property taxes.

[00:01:20] Property taxes can only grow 3% a year, and thus any year your expenses are more than 3% because of inflation, because of health care costs, you know, what have you, you get farther and farther behind. So that has created the structural problem where the city just has less and less funds to work with to fund our services.

[00:01:42] When the city manager made the City Council aware that we were looking at $11.5 million deficit, they said, ‘Well, we’ve had enough cutbacks. Enough is enough. We need to figure out a way to create more revenue.’ So, created this revenue committee.

[00:01:57] And we went through about 40 different possibilities of different revenues and basically came down to this one. It wasn’t my favorite. I would have preferred one a little more progressive that was based on income, but it’s sort of income-based, because if you think about it, it’s based on the size of the building. The larger the building, whether you be a homeowner or a business, the more income you’re going to have, right?

[00:02:20] …$3 for the tiny homes, $10 for an average size home, and on up from there, same with businesses. It goes on to your EWEB bill, as I’ve described it to the different businesses. For instance, mine, I said I wouldn’t even notice that on my EWEB bill, right?

[00:02:36] Presenter: Without that fee, services will have to be cut. The city manager offered a sample. Dan Bryant:

[00:02:42] Dan Bryant: She named things like reductions in library hours, possibly closing the Amazon Pool, reduction of funds for animal welfare services to Greenhill (Humane Society), a reduction in funds for homeless services—a long list of services that are all at risk, basically saying that we don’t have any efficiencies that we can gain by reducing the number of paper clips, you know, and things of that nature.

[00:03:09] The new budget the city manager proposed with this fire service fee just came out last week and she says (and this is something you can easily find if you just Google City of Eugene budget 25-27), in her memo, she says, ‘This year’s budget stands out as one of the most challenging in my career. After so many years of pursuing efficiencies, consolidating services, and making difficult reductions, the room for further cuts without significant service impacts has narrowed considerably.’

[00:03:42] And so a group of concerned citizens got together and began strategizing: What can we do to defend this fee?

[00:03:51] Presenter: He said he supports the vote as an opportunity to learn about the city budget, and to hear residents talk about their favorite city services. Dan Bryant:

[00:04:01] Dan Bryant: In many ways this is a good thing because it provides us an opportunity to educate the public about how the budget works and why it is that the city has this problem and to give the public a chance to say, you know, these are all services that are important to us.

[00:04:14] So at any rate, we formed this political action committee to basically defend this basic concept. And I know the city, the mayor in particular is working very hard, to come up with a compromise of some kind that will satisfy the Chamber. And if one can be found that supports those services and avoids the kind of reductions that we’re talking about in critical services like library services, support for unhoused community members—fine and good, I’m all for it and I actually agree with the Chamber on that.

[00:04:43] And by the way, I’ve worked with the Chamber very closely the last three years on issues related to homelessness and consider many of the folks in the Chamber good friends.

[00:04:51] You know, so I think this is the kind of issue that we need to figure out as a community a way to come together and to solve it. But our point, from our political action committee, is simply that we have to fund these essential services. So whatever compromise can be worked out, there still has to be enough funding that we’re not going to have cutbacks in those critical services.

[00:05:14] So that’s basically what we’re doing. We’re collecting signatures for that. We want to back up the mayor in her negotiation efforts to say there’s strong support in the community for these services or whatever’s worked out. Either we keep the fire fee as it is, or we work out some kind of compromise that’s still going to support these services.

[00:05:32] We’ve collected over 2,800 signatures already. We’d love to have support from neighborhood groups to show the support from our community.

[00:05:40] Presenter: From Laurel Hill Valley, Tom Bruno:

[00:05:43] Tom Bruno (Laurel Hill Valley): I just find it hard to say it’s a fire fee (Yeah) when one-fifth is going to the fire department and four-fifths is going to other things.

[00:05:55] Presenter: Dan Bryant:

[00:05:56] Dan Bryant: Technically, that’s not true, but that’s the perception. It all goes to the fire department, it’s just it frees up money from the general fund that would otherwise go to the fire department that now can be used… Does that make sense?

[00:06:08] We’re giving the fire department $10 million, we’re reducing the budget out of the general fund by $8 million, so they have a net gain of $2 (million). But from here on forward, the fee only goes through the fire department, it just frees up that.

[00:06:20] Tom Bruno (Laurel Hill Valley): (It’s) a marketing tool. I think the other question is, how confident are the lawyers that you’re really going to be able to bill the county and Eugene for their property? The county is about $80,000, which is chump change for the county. But for the University of Oregon, it’s pretty sizable.

[00:06:44] Presenter: Dan Bryant:

[00:06:45] Dan Bryant: Yes, and, but that was one of the selling points because the University pays no property taxes.

[00:06:50] Presenter: Neighborhood leaders hear from Dan Bryant of Eugene Save Our Services, as the city prepares to share details about proposed budget cuts April 25. The city manager’s proposed budget, incorporating cuts totaling $11.5 million, will be released April 30.

Unless community leaders can reach a compromise, residents will have to pay another $250,000 for a special election to ask voters: Should Eugene impose a $10 million annual fee on buildings?

This story produced by John Q and sponsored through the Whole Community Time Bank by generous listeners at KEPW 97.3, Eugene’s PeaceWorks community radio.