Council repeals fire fee, marking end of an era
6 min read
Presenter: The City Council officially ended the Lucy Vinis era July 14, repealing a fire fee ordinance that even a firefighter’s mom had called ‘not quite honest.’ Council President Greg Evans:
Councilor Greg Evans: The motion is to repeal the ordinance and cancel the fire service fee election that was going to be set for sometime this fall.
[00:00:24] Presenter: Councilor Jennifer Yeh:
[00:00:26] Councilor Jennifer Yeh: I’m in favor of repealing it. You know, I want to thank all the people who were willing to come to the table to work out a compromise. It is never easy to admit that you need to think about things differently or you need to take a second shot at things. And folks from all different perspectives were willing to take that step.
[00:00:45] And the solution we have is not perfect, but I think it’s something we can all live with while we move on to the next steps in this process. And to me, continuing to fight this out at the ballot box is taking away time and effort that all sides could be putting in: to this committee, to these conversations, to the next step in this process to get to something better.
[00:01:10] So for me, it makes no sense to continue wasting time and money—any of us spending time and money on this—when we can be spending that time more wisely.
[00:01:19] Presenter: The compromise was to replace the permanent $10 million fire services fee with a temporary six-year $4.7 million stormwater fee. Councilor Matt Keating:
[00:01:31] Councilor Matt Keating: The compromise that’s been alluded to was, in my opinion, good-faith efforts by everyone at the table tonight, a great many people who are in the audience tonight, to find common ground and to find a middle ground that not only preserved vital services, but didn’t use the fire department as the vehicle to do so.
[00:01:53] This vote tonight (that I’m in favor of) sends a strong signal to the community: Wherever you were on the fee, whether you signed the petition or you didn’t, whether you were adamantly opposed or you weren’t, that we hear you. I encourage a repeal.
[00:02:09] Presenter: The next step will be to appoint a technical committee. City Manager Sarah Medary:
[00:02:15] Sarah Medary (Eugene, city manager): You’ve had a longstanding goal to be really transparent and interactive with the community, to involve the community pretty broadly, to be equitable and to build stronger partnerships.
[00:02:25] As we went through the budget process, I heard a lot from you and from the public about a need for broader, deeper communications. Some of you have talked about even doing your own series of videos to help educate people on the budget—not just one of you, multiple of you.
[00:02:40] We’ve talked about the need for really getting more information out about what we learn in the community survey. So we know that there’s going to be a lot of need to help educate people on where we’re at, why we’re here, and kind of what we’re doing to solve the problem in a long-term way.
[00:02:56] One aspect of that (not the only aspect of that) is pulling together a group of, I’m starting to think of them as technical advisors on financial issues. So we’ve talked a lot about this, but not really deep into the hopes and dreams.
[00:03:13] But as I’ve been meeting with folks, it’s been feeling like it really needs to be a group of experts, people that really understand finance and operations; have some expertise in revenue, development; could be that there’s somebody on the group that understands government finance, but not a current city employee.
[00:03:32] Folks that join this, they’re really going to need to be able to commit to a pretty significant amount of time if you want to do that work this fall.
[00:03:40] They’re committing to doing a lot of learning and being open to learning and also being open to doing outreach and helping be part of our communication strategy.
[00:03:50] Presenter: Councilor Randy Groves:
[00:03:52] Councilor Randy Groves: I want to emphasize that this group we’ve asked for is a technical group. I think we’re looking for people with particular skills as you mentioned, where when we get to prioritization, that would be a broader group, broadly representing the community. I think it’s Step 1 leads to Step 2, leads to Step 3.
[00:04:10] Presenter: Councilor Alan Zelenka:
[00:04:12] Councilor Alan Zelenka: Yeah, I agree. I think this is a phased approach. Step 1 and Step 2 are in sequence. So Step 1 is the investigation for Step 2, which is about priorities in setting city budgets.
[00:04:24] Presenter: During the fire fee deliberations, former Mayor Vinis cast the tie-breaking vote to conduct secret meetings closed to the public. On June 14, several councilors suggested a different approach. Councilor Randy Groves:
[00:04:39] Councilor Randy Groves: I would like to say, when we get the report out, I would like the whole committee, ad hoc committee, to be available for questions from us. And that’s not that we don’t trust you or it’s not that I don’t trust you, it just, I think it’s important, when we start getting into the recommendations, that people understand kind of where they have come from and why.
[00:05:02] And so in the interest of transparency, I think it’s important that the report out and our questions of this group are done in a public meeting. So, I’m really looking forward to this process. I think we’ve needed it for some time.
[00:05:16] Presenter: With a question for City Manager Sarah Medary, Councilor Lyndsie Leech:
[00:05:21] Councilor Lyndsie Leech: Is that able to be publicly broadcast? Like Councilor Groves, I think the community needs to be able to see and hear what it is that’s being discussed.
[00:05:30] Sarah Medary (Eugene, city manager): Yeah, there’s pros and cons both ways. I think we talked about this the last time: Are we able to? Yes. Is it the right direction? I’m not sure.
[00:05:39] Councilor Lyndsie Leech: Yeah, I think, I mean, we had a revenue committee almost two years ago, and I really did appreciate the ability to not have it publicly broadcast so we could get into these like nitty-gritty conversations without kind of this fear of, you know, talking about specifics when you’re discovering a lot of different information.
[00:06:00] But in this process, I think it’s important to be public with that.
[00:06:05] Presenter: Councilor Greg Evans:
[00:06:07] Councilor Greg Evans: At every step of the process, we are going to be involved. It’s not like we’re going to back off and back away from this, but that we will be able to look in and see and watch what’s going on, and then when this particular stage ends, we can be informed, involved, and engaged in how we begin to move forward with the other parts.
[00:06:35] Presenter: One noted that the secret meetings were also closed to some of the city councilors. Councilor Alan Zelenka:
[00:06:42] Councilor Alan Zelenka: We just did a city manager process, and what we saw was the councilors not involved in that ended up objecting to the outcome of what we saw. And we’ve seen that before, where the people not on the committee didn’t agree with what we did. I’ve seen that several times over my tenure as a councilor.
[00:07:01] So I think we all need to be involved in this, I think, and we need to be fully engaged and involved in this process from the get-go.
[00:07:10] Presenter: July 14 marks an official end to the Lucy Vinis era, as the council repeals its fire fee ordinance. During a rocky second term for Mayor Vinis:
- A fossil fuel ordinance was also passed and then repealed.
- Nearly 60% of residents reported little or no confidence in city leaders.
- Ward 7 recalled the first city councilor in Eugene history.
- The city lost its only hospital.
- The city lost its minor-league baseball team.
- The city lost its homegrown and nationally-acclaimed mobile crisis service, CAHOOTS.
- There was also aggressive criminalization of homelessness
- Harassment of volunteers feeding the homeless, and
- The (now-infamous) 2024 decision not to tell the public that the city would be acquiring and installing an AI-powered surveillance system.
[00:08:00] There were city decisions to approve a fuel transfer station adjacent to developed neighborhoods, to embrace top-down state mandates, to scrap thousands of Northwest Eugene volunteer hours, to neglect a growing crisis in Bethel, and to start managing services that, one councilor pointed out, are actually the county’s responsibility by law.
We’ll have all of that plus more, produced by John Q for Newsday at Night with Sam Broadway right here on KEPW 97.3, Eugene’s PeaceWorks Community Radio.
