Unlike closed city revenue meetings, PSL opens budget discussion to all May 18

Presenter: Three organizers from the Party for Socialism and Liberation critique Eugene’s political and business leaders, and one city councilor is praised for speaking out against corporate giveaways. At the Budget Committee May 14, Bob Moland:

Bob Moland (PSL Eugene): My name is Bob Moland. I’m an organizer for the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

[00:00:19] I am a working-class person. I work eight hours a day, five days a week, to earn my daily bread. I’ve got a car I can’t afford to fix, rent, bills, and groceries I can barely afford to pay for, an economy in shambles. Prices have been increasing for months and no politicians are coming to save us.

[00:00:36] I had to lose an hour of work just to attend this meeting and with times being so tough every minute that I’m not on the clock earning money is a future sacrifice in some area of my life.

[00:00:46] Regardless, I still made it here this afternoon because on top of all the difficulties working-class people are facing, I am now being threatened. Threatened by the City Council to cough up $10 million or I will lose my basic services. This is an insult, a slap in the face to all the people who give up the precious moments of their lives to make this town run.

[00:01:05] For the City Council to hold our essential services hostage is unacceptable. Why should regular people have to foot the bill for the very services that we run? Why are property developers and people like Phil Knight given tax exemptions and cushy deals?

[00:01:19] Workers build the apartments and live and raise their families in them. Workers build the stadiums. We run the concessions. Student athletes provide the talent that draws the crowds. Regular people do everything, while the owner class acts as nothing but fat little piggy banks only seeking to grow fatter off our lives and labor.

[00:01:36] We demand that the City Council find another way to pay for the services besides the outrageous fire fee, a tax that puts even more stress on folks that are already overworked.

[00:01:45] Workers run this town and so at the bare minimum, workers should have a seat at the table to decide how this town ought to be run. If the City Council continues to act against the interests of the working class, against the poor and unhoused, against our librarians, our health service providers, our animal welfare providers, just remember this: Actions have consequences.

[00:02:05] And those consequences are that people like me and thousands of others like me get hurt. Workers, students, librarians, professional caregivers, animal lovers, and everyone else being threatened by the loss of our basic services will not stand for this. We have been pushed far enough already.

[00:02:20] Presenter: PSL organizer, Rob Fisette:

[00:02:22] Rob Fisette (PSL Eugene, former Southeast Neighbors board member): Hi, my name is Rob Fisette. I’m an organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, former Southeast Neighbors board member.

[00:02:30] The amended proposed budget submitted two weeks ago has people rightly angry. Whenever the developer and business owner class want something in the city, they get it—as evidenced by their speaker who was up here talking about all the things that they’re doing behind the scenes with the City Council all the time.

[00:02:46] The ‘Riverfront’ vanity project to build so-called market-rate housing you need $150,000 to afford, including land giveaways, tax giveaways, and at least $35 million for streets and utilities to benefit those MUPTE-approved luxury waterfront properties.

[00:03:03] Even assuming the current budget levels without the additional funds lost by these corporate giveaways—which Councilor Zelenka has consistently and rightly identified as such—the proposed amended budget is not a good-faith effort to address the budget issue in a meaningful way.

[00:03:17] When I say good-faith effort, I mean an effort to prioritize and expand services for the regular working people of Eugene in a way that would reasonably expect most people would support, instead of threatening to gut the services that matter most to working people at the expense of the things that matter to the wealthiest business owners, the developers, the vanity projects of elected officials.

[00:03:37] The budget cut scenario proposed prioritizes maintaining ‘core functions and public safety,’ which as always are narrowly defined to serve the interests of the few and the property owners.

[00:03:48] Maintaining and expanding open hours for the library is a public safety issue. Maintaining community centers is a public safety issue. Expanding, funding and expanding CAHOOTS sustainably over the last decade would have been a public safety issue.

[00:04:02] So I understand that much of the politics implicit in this budget proposal that’s been made is to make a threat, in the context of the ongoing dispute between city government and the Chamber of Commerce over the fire service fee. And again, we’ve seen them show up here to kind of deflect some of the responsibility, their responsibility, and the role they play in that.

[00:04:19] Respectfully, that kind of politics of threats against the people is not the kind of politics we need in this moment. We need a politics that meets the scale of the need in our city, using public money, our money, to fund positive programs that support our working people.

[00:04:34] So I encourage this committee, especially the citizen members who don’t share the same responsibility in creating the crisis, to maintain a strong line against every cut to the library, recreation services, and cultural services in this proposal.

[00:04:46] Presenter: Kamryn Stringfield:

[00:04:48] Kamryn Stringfield (PSL Eugene): My name is Kamryn Stringfield and I’m with the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

[00:04:52] Our community’s needs are being cut. Four out of the top five years with the most days over 90 F in Eugene were in the last four years, with over a month of extreme temperatures each year. The Amazon Pool is a community need.

[00:05:07] Sheldon Community Center and Eugene Library are places that provide many services especially for children and youth, including childcare. This is a community need.

[00:05:18] Greenhill is regularly packed to the brim with animals that would have otherwise been stray, abused, or killed. Greenhill Humane Society is a community need.

[00:05:28] CAHOOTS, a godsend for our most vulnerable, getting cut is obviously shameful and dangerous. Cutting animal welfare and public records reporting is also shameful. Meanwhile, EPD will continue to be armed with the most advanced equipment to surveil our community, harass our unhoused, and crack down on mutual aid programs, labor struggles, and protest movements, all of which I have personally witnessed recently.

[00:05:54] Multiunit property tax exemptions gave $47.5 million in handouts to ultrarich corporations like Obie Companies and Atkins Dame by eliminating taxes on their buildings for 10 years. You don’t talk about that in the context of this supposed budget shortfall. What could just those handouts to the rich have done to fund these services?

[00:06:18] Why is it that you cut all the things the working-class people of Eugene need, but make sure to pay for all the things to protect and profit the business interests here? It’s because you serve the business interests, and you will put their profits over the people of Eugene every time, because that’s what this system you serve is built to do. We need a new system.

[00:06:40] What would a people’s budget of Eugene look like? What if the people had the power to make their own budget and spend money on the things that they want and that they need?

[00:06:51] We will be holding an event to talk about that at the Tykeson and Bascom Rooms of the Eugene Library on May 18 at 1:30 p.m. We call on the frustrated people of Eugene to join us that day and to continue to articulate our class interest in these city meetings.

[00:07:09] And I don’t expect that you’ll restore funding to the services that you’re wanting to cut, but maybe in the interest of democracy, you will.

[00:07:17] Presenter: At the budget committee meeting May 14, members of the PSL praise one city councilor for speaking out against corporate giveaways.

[00:07:24] In contrast to the private and behind-closed-doors meetings of the city’s Revenue Committee, the PSL is conducting an open budget meeting at the library this Sunday, May 18. Come share your ideas on how to align city spending with our community’s values.

This story produced by John Q for Whole Community News, KEPW 97.3, Eugene’s PeaceWorks community radio.