City report on restoring CAHOOTS due Friday

Presenter: The Eugene City Council is asked to bring back CAHOOTS—its nationally-recognized mobile crisis response. With public comment Oct. 27, Kamryn Stringfield:

Kamryn Stringfield: EPD claims they don’t have enough officers to address public safety issues and crime in Eugene. How much of that is because of the loss of CAHOOTS in April? Please, if you’d actually like to address public safety and free up officers to tackle more serious criminal activity, schedule a work session to get Willamette Valley Crisis Care fully funded and back on the streets of Eugene.

Eugene was brought up in the New York City mayoral debate by Zohran Mamdani, not because of our magical Flock system that captures a handful of criminals, but because of CAHOOTS and its real proven effects for our community.

[00:00:48] Crime is prevented with well-funded social services, education, health care, housing, community, and culture, not dragnet surveillance. Cancel Flock, fund Willamette Valley Crisis Care and rebuild community trust. Thank you. 

[00:01:04] Presenter: A candidate for mayor of New York City mentioned Eugene during the candidate debate Oct. 16. WNBC reporter Melissa Russo: 

[00:01:15] Melissa Russo (WNBC News 4): We need to move on to a crisis that is very important to a lot of voters, and that is people struggling with mental health problems. Roughly 500 times a day someone calls 911 about an emotionally disturbed person, and in a limited number of those cases, when the person is not believed to be violent, social workers are dispatched instead of police. Mr. Mamdani, you want to do that on a much larger scale. So we want to know how will this work? When will you send police versus social workers?

[00:01:48] You have one minute. 

[00:01:49] Zohran Mamdani (NYC mayoral candidate, Oct. 16, 2025): You know, we have a program here in New York City called ‘Be Heard’ that is attempting to do this kind of work, but we’ve had a mayor who has ensured that it’s been unsuccessful to the extent that even when there was an assessment of about 60% of calls that could have been addressed by Be Heard instead of the NYPD.

[00:02:06] Be Heard was not actually responsive to it, and that’s because we haven’t had the political will to deliver on what is a crisis that affects so many New Yorkers, which is the mental health crisis. What my plan will do, an innovative plan of the Department of Community Safety, will take what has worked elsewhere in the country:

[00:02:21] A program in Eugene, Oregon where they took 24,000 911 mental health calls out of the police department, they were able to respond to all but 311 without police assistance. When there is a concern for safety or of violence, absolutely you would have the police there, but what we are doing today is actually ensuring that every single call is going to the police, (so Mr.) and not allowing them to do the work that they signed up to do. 

[00:02:46] Melissa Russo (WNBC News 4): How? How will you determine whether there is a concern for safety or violence? What is the line between the calls in which police will be dispatched and the calls to which social workers will be dispatched? 

[00:02:58] Zohran Mamdani (NYC mayoral candidate, Oct. 16, 2025): The line is also going to be one focused on violence and the threat of violence, and I also trust the operators who will be receiving those calls to make that determination as they do every day today for so many emergency services. 

[00:03:10] Melissa Russo (WNBC News 4): And just two really quick points, please. There has been a lot of discussion that you would send social workers to domestic violence calls which police are concerned about? (No.) So you’re saying no. Okay. And then the other question is: How can you be sure that a situation that does not sound violent when someone calls 911 does not become violent in the moment? Would police be assigned as backup? 

[00:03:33] Zohran Mamdani (NYC mayoral candidate, Oct. 16, 2025): I think what you do is you actually follow the experts that have shown us this can work when you’re willing to ensure that you’re trusting the mental health experts who have been doing this work elsewhere in the country, where they call for the police when they need the police, but their initial impulse when there’s no violence in that call is to actually address the mental health at the heart of it. 

[00:03:52] Presenter: Speaking before the Eugene City Council Oct. 27, Jeremy Ray: 

[00:03:57] Jeremy Ray: I want to see the city do what they can to reengage and reboot CAHOOTS. I think it’s extremely unfortunate that that resource is, is no longer available in our community. so I ask you to do whatever you can to, to get that resource going again. Thank you. 

[00:04:14] Presenter: Ky Fireside: 

[00:04:15] Ky Fireside: Every issue that people bring up here to you is related. We speak out against Flock and Chief Skinner says he needs it as a force multiplier because the police department is understaffed. We tell you that we need CAHOOTS or Willamette Valley Crisis Care. That entity would handle some of the calls for service that we don’t need a police response to. 

[00:04:37] Presenter: Wyn Manselle:

[00:04:39] Wyn Manselle: The ideas around bringing CAHOOTS back— sounds pretty good.

[00:04:42] Presenter: Brennan Fitzgerald:

[00:04:43] Brennan Fitzgerald: Hello, my name is Brennan Fitzgerald. I’m also a graduate student at the University of Oregon and a member of the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation, but I’m speaking to you as a resident of Eugene. And I urge you in the strongest terms to cancel Flock now. I really do appreciate that y ‘all have turned the cameras off. Now I am urging you to cancel Flock for good and remove the cameras from the streets. I also urge you to get workers like CAHOOTS back providing the indispensable services that make our city safe. And I am in support of the tenant option to purchase. Thank you.

[00:05:15] Presenter: Jacob Trewe: 

[00:05:16] Jacob Trewe: Hi there. I’m Jacob Trewe. I just want to say that of all the public safety priorities that we have facing us, number one in my mind is the lack of CAHOOTS.

[00:05:24] We’re coming up on six months now. The Budget Committee passed a measure that by the end of October, we’d have a presentation from the city manager about how we’d fund $2.5 million worth of alternative response funding such as CAHOOTS, including from the community safety payroll tax.

[00:05:41] We have no more city council sessions scheduled through the end of October. So it appears that that has not been followed, and I’m disappointed to see that. We do have a work session coming up that has not been decided on, on Nov. 10. So if there is any plan for the dire lack of CAHOOTS services, planned for in the immediate future, I would like to know as soon as possible.  

[00:06:00] Our community——the workers, the CAHOOTS workers (former) stand ready. WVCC, we’ve been preparing them. They’re all ready to go, six months without remuneration though, we’re facing, we’re facing the loss of quite a few people. So, any sort of indication from the City Council that y’all intend to stick with getting CAHOOTS back on the roads, would be greatly appreciated.

[00:06:23] (Would) love any indication from anybody, city manager, city council, to see if y’all still support the nationally-recognized and keeps getting called out in mayoral elections across the country, and people keep following it. It just seems a real shame that we’ve lost it here in Eugene and right now it doesn’t look like we’re on track to get it back.

[00:06:42] I’d really like to see it back in Eugene, so thank you now.

[00:06:45] Presenter: Andrew Simrin:

[00:06:46] Andrew Simrin: My name is Andrew Simrin.  I’m here to speak against Flock Safety. I think it’s important that we immediately cancel the contract, and instead focus on something like CAHOOTS, or Willamette Valley Crisis Care that can help with public safety response, from our limited police resources. 

[00:07:10] Presenter: JoJo Breslin:

[00:07:12] JoJo Breslin: I’m JoJo Breslin. I work in health care. I work in cancer care, here in Eugene. And since the closure of the University District Hospital on Dec. 1, 2023, it’s been almost nightmarish a lot, like, every week to hear about the care that people get. We don’t have a hospital in our city limits, so it forces folks from West Eugene to go over the Beltline all the way, to go to RiverBend or they’re going to McKenzie Willamette.

[00:07:37] It’s hard every week. There are horror stories that are disheartening and hearing more things happening in our community, like PacificSource pulling out of OHP, leaving about 90,000 people potentially uninsured to go to Trillium or who knows where. Kind of just putting some context for where we’re at health-carewise here in Eugene.

[00:07:58] I know that none of this is really lost on you all here. There’s been lots of discussions about trying to find alternatives and solutions to those.

[00:08:06] With that being said, I think a major one that can be put forth by this council that doesn’t involve like our for-profit healthcare system—that goes way beyond what this chamber can do—is putting in an RFP (Request for Proposal) for the Willamette Valley Crisis Care and trying to get CAHOOTS back on the streets.

[00:08:22] By getting people care where they are at and not clogging up our hospital systems or our Urgent Cares, it can really do a ton of help and get people what they need, immediately.

[00:08:32] And to also just make sure that we are taking care of our community in the best ways and standards forward.

[00:08:38] It was absolutely amazing to see Zohran Mamdani name-drop Eugene and CAHOOTS, but it was very sad, thinking about where we are at here currently. 

[00:08:47] Presenter: Councilor Randy Groves:

[00:08:49] Councilor Randy Groves: Alternative response: I know you probably don’t have the detailed answers now, but is that something we could get an update on?

[00:08:56] Because it does feel like it’s just kind of hanging out there and I, I know it’s, it’s more involved and I know we’re doing some things right now. I know the Fire Department’s working on it. I know LCSO’s working on it. But I don’t understand how all those connect and I’d like to know what we are doing. So…

[00:09:13] Kristie Hammitt (Eugene, assistant city manager): Are, are you specifically speaking to kind of the alternative responses that re, re, uh, regarding the mobile crisis change, mobile re, mobile crisis response changes? 

[00:09:23] Councilor Randy Groves: Yes. And, you know, including CAHOOTS or CAHOOTS-like (Yeah. Yeah.) service. 

[00:09:29] Kristie Hammitt (Eugene, assistant city manager): That is in progress and it, uh, (Fire) Chief (Mike) Caven is leading that effort and working on pulling all of that information together.

[00:09:35] Councilor Randy Groves: Right. Yeah. And even if we could just get a short email on it, kind of where we are on that. I mean, so we all are on the same page. I assume my colleagues are interested in that. 

[00:09:47] Presenter: Councilor Alan Zelenka:

[00:09:48] Councilor Alan Zelenka: Just for clarity’s sake, the motion that I made at the Budget Committee was to have the city manager do an investigation into CAHOOTS and CAHOOTS-like services and bring that back to us by the end of October. It was not to have a work session. So apparently, the city manager is going to bring us back a report this week, which would be by the end of October, which is Friday.

[00:10:08] So, the work session would follow that information. (The) thought in my head was always, let’s get the information and then have a discussion. And I think that’s the path we’re going on, I’m sure we’ll have a follow-up conversation about that information that we get from the city manager. 

[00:10:23] Presenter: The city manager’s report on how to restore CAHOOTS services to the streets of Eugene is due this Friday.