Councilor responds to criticism after public excluded on budget, Flock, Amazon

Presenter: One councilor responds to public comment and growing criticism of the Eugene City Council by sharing his resume as a Shakespearean actor. During public comment on Oct. 13, Danny Patch:

Danny Patch (Oct. 13, 2025): I have two side questions. I’m still wondering what happened to the close to $15,000 that was raised this summer for the SOS organization that some of the councilor members actually spearheaded themselves. What happened to the money?

[00:00:26] And also I thought that we had an ordinance in this town, outlawing reader boards, especially these new LED bright ones. We have a brand new one outside the city police station. It looks a little bit like Las Vegas meets Hunger Games, and it really destroys your night vision. And I thought we had a city ordinance against such trash. Can you imagine what our city will look like in 20 years? Disgusting.

[00:00:53] You know, I’m sure you’re all really tired of us coming up here and whining and yelling at you, but maybe if you had a little bit better sense of how we feel before you do things, you wouldn’t find so many people in this room.

[00:01:09] You’re not doing a very good job of reading your audience, reading your public. Your intuition is horrible. You spend millions of dollars on yourselves, you take away our right to vote on financial matters. Then you put up spy cameras and you think that we’re going to be happy with you?

[00:01:30] Wouldn’t you actually think about some of these things before you do it? I mean, you, you just sound like we’re always trying to play catch up with your stupidity, and I don’t understand why you’re not a little bit more on top of your game. Some of you are educated. And I’m just wondering why we always have to come back here after the fact and scold you for doing nasty things and stabbing us in the back.

[00:01:56] You’ve destroyed the financial community with your summer antics because you’ve used all your money to buy this piece of garbage (indicating City Hall), and then you put up cameras to spy on us and then record it.

[00:02:10] And then you take away our right to vote, and that is the primary number one thing that we’re missing here. Without our right to vote, we can’t help you control your spending habits. Give us back our right to vote, you scamming losers. You! 

[00:02:32] Presenter: Oct. 27, Danny Patch:

[00:02:33] Danny Patch (Oct. 27, 2025): I think it’s really fair to ask why you hate us so much. All you do is take things away from us. You take our money by the tens of millions of dollars. You take away our right to vote on financial matters–which is our right, not yours. You spy on us with your cameras. And you eliminate our roads so we can safely efficiently work in this town. And that’s a silent killer– the accidents, the property damage. You’re eliminating our ability to drive in this town. You hate us. You constantly take things away from us.

[00:03:15] And I think the city manager needs to be fired immediately. I’m told by the city staff that she pioneered this little plan with these cameras. What other debacle, what other thing is going to cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars to get out of, that she caused? The whole financial mess this summer, these cameras–she’s a total mobile dumpster fire. That’s all she is. And you’re going to let her stay around because I know she’s leaving soon but she can do a lot of damage in what time she has left.

[00:03:49] And I think we’re surrounded by a bunch of incompetent people who don’t have the guts to do the right thing. The camera thing was a no-brainer. I mean, anybody in Eugene would have said ‘no.’ So here we are. How much is it going to cost to get out of that contract? 

[00:04:06] So I ask why you hate us so much. You constantly stab us in the back. You think that somehow we’re a plague that you have to listen to. So you’re trying to figure out ways to cut our ability to speak to you.

[00:04:20] And I’m still asking for an answer of what happened to the money that was donated this summer for the SOS program that you sat up there and acted like a clown and got all this money, almost $15,000, where’d it go? What happened to it? No one’s ever answered that question.

It’s time for you to start working for us instead of working for yourselves and building yourself stupid buildings that we don’t even fit into. I mean, how long have you had this building and we’ve already outgrown it? Bunch of losers. And fire the city manager. She’s a disaster.

[00:04:57] Presenter: On Nov. 10, Danny Patch:

[00:04:59] Danny Patch (Nov. 10, 2025): Why is everyone so angry with you? All summer long we had to fight you, all fall, we’re fighting you, we’re going into the winter. You seem to have a real problem with doing things that people appreciate. I want to remind you that a accident on Beltline is usually fatal. And you go down Beltline anywhere from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. and you try to add an ambulance to that zone and you see what happens.

[00:05:27] You try. Now you’ve, you’re choking us off over by campus on Broadway and, I mean, it’s just disgusting. I drive for a living. Try to go north and south in this town. It’s insane. And you want to know why people don’t go downtown is because it’s mental chaos to drive downtown.

[00:05:46] And you’ve created this. Your decades of car-hating and adding a bike lane and a curb or a projection to every single intersection there is. It’s insane. You’re literally telling us what your mind is. You’re mentally not capable of anything that’s makes sense, and why are these people here every week? Why don’t you start doing something for us instead of sitting there in your silence?

[00:06:14] Madam Mayor, I’d like you to explain to us why we still have these dang cameras up and why they’re not removed. And I want you to show us how we’re going to deal with all this traffic from this one single rich man who’s going to employ very few people.

[00:06:29] And I want to remind you: Most airports have infrastructure around them, and ours isn’t very developed yet, but someday it might be. But if you eat up all the land and give it to some bozo, there’s no place to put the hotels, the gas stations, the rental car spots, the things that normally go around an airport.

[00:06:50] Start thinking in the future and get rid of the dang cameras. What’s wrong with you?

[00:06:56] Presenter: After public comment Oct. 27, Councilor Matt Keating:

[00:07:00] Councilor Matt Keating: I normally wouldn’t single out one person in this manner, but to the gentleman that came at us with so much ire, not just this week, but in previous weeks: Nobody here wants to take away your vote and nobody here hates you.

[00:07:20] And since I was singled out and pointed out and (I think) called a clown, you may have seen some of my most memorable Shakespearean performances as Shakespeare’s The Fool in King Lear or the Constable Dogberry, in Much Ado About Nothing, some of his greatest clown creations. 

[00:07:43] Presenter: Councilor Keating is also renowned for this Shakespearean introduction for Bernie Sanders. 

[00:07:48] Councilor Matt Keating: To Bern or not to Bern? There is no question.

[00:08:00] Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the huff and bluster of the far right wing, or to take on the status quo and organize against it.

[00:08:15] To vote by mail for Bernie and by a vote to say we end the big banks and take on the 1%. To vote–to Bern. To Bern, perchance to dream.

[00:08:38] Presenter: On Oct. 27, Councilor Keating responded to questions about  Eugene Save Our Services, the group lobbying for the so-called fire fee. 

[00:08:46] Councilor Matt Keating: To answer your question point-blank, the Oregon Secretary of State site has a most transparent system of reporting financial transactions to campaigns. The political action committee that you alluded to raised $18,691 in calendar year 2024, and they now are sitting on $7,299.

[00:09:06] If you’d like to learn more, you’re welcome to go to the Oregon Secretary of State website ORESTAR for more campaign finance information.

[00:09:14] Presenter: Campaign finance records for Eugene Save Our Services show over $8,000 went to Nicholas Royal, $500 plus to Zach Mulholland and over $300 to Jesse Maldonado. AFSCME was the biggest single contributor at $6,500.

[00:09:30]  Councilor Keating tries to defuse anger, after the city prevents the public from voting on a fire fee, and does not tell the public in advance about Flock cameras or the Amazon megawarehouse.