Eugene to promote economic development for Clear Lake Road, OSU-UO corridor

Presenter What’s coming up in the short legislative session? At the Intergovernmental Relations Committee Jan. 7, Eugene Mayor Kaarin Knudson:

Mayor Kaarin Knudson Flying up to, say, 60,000 feet, if you were wanting for our community to understand, like, ‘This is what the meat of the short session is about in 2026 in the state of Oregon,’ what would you want to be sure that we are effectively communicating—as we talk with any from 150 to 1,000 people in any given week?

Presenter Eugene IGR Manager Ethan Nelson:

Ethan Nelson (Intergovernmental Relations, manager) Thanks, Mayor. I think that I’ll answer in two different ways. 

One is that, related to the city of Eugene as an organization and the work that we do, I would say the economic prosperity efforts are likely number one. The second will be, then, the public safety omnibus elements.

Then outside of the city, right, so just what the legislature is going to be focusing on: They have a budget gap. Once the forecast comes on out, the next forecast, that gap may be smaller, but they’ve been asked to reduce programs and cut programs, cut staff and services. And then the legislature has to balance the budget that they’re in right now. And so that will be a discussion. 

There’s impacts from loss of federal funds and changes in federal programs related to health care, related to SNAP benefits, that the state government is going to be struggling to fix. Additionally, you know, with that change, there’s going to be a lot of people coming off of OHP (Oregon Health Plan) and/or a lot of people who have been doing private-pay who will not be able to have a tax benefit from private-pay insurance. And so people will be, the state’s going to be struggling and trying to take on: How do we keep people insured and have health benefits and health care?

With the referendum of the transportation tax, the state has to come up with hundreds of millions of dollars for ODOT in this biennium. And if they can’t figure that on out, then there will be service cuts and layoffs that will impact statewide. If we don’t get that state money, then we at the city level have to reduce services, reduce projects, or come up with other revenue sources. 

The Portland Trail Blazers are going to be coming forward with a large multi-million-dollar bond request from the state to renovate the Moda Center. They’re going to bring that forward during the short session with a lot of leverage.

I share that because those are really, really big, thorny, almost unsolvable issues in 35 days. 

And you also have, the politics that have been seen at the national level will play out, at some level, at the state level. We’ve got a very tight agenda. It’s pretty aggressive. but I think we’re positioned to be successful in what we’re asking for.

I think the takeaway is this: The state agencies, the governor, and the legislature are dealing with really big problems.

Presenter One of those thorny issues involves Automatic License Plate Readers. Eugene IGR Manager Ethan Nelson:

Ethan Nelson (Intergovernmental Relations, manager) Automatic License Plate Reader regulations: This will likely be part of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s public safety omnibus. And it’s being, currently in a workgroup, Sen. (Floyd) Prozanski, I believe, (Eugene Police) Chief Skinner, has been involved in these conversations on a daily, if not weekly, if not daily basis with the senator, but also with the executive director for the Association of Chiefs of Police. 

But in initial conversations with Sen. Prozanski, his interest was to look at it from a contracting standpoint: The state sets the procurement standards, the public procurement standards, and then the city adopts those. 

And so it could be something that the state adopts a new procurement policy that has guidelines related to data storage and protection and sharing and authorization for these types of systems. We’ll see what happens when we get closer and we have more information to share. And also Council will have—is it in mid-February?—a scheduled work session to come back and discuss ALPR at the same time. 

So there will be kind of concurrent efforts happening, one at the state and one at the (City) Council. So we’ll hopefully be able to inform, for that work session (what’s occurring at the state level).

Presenter Councilor Randy Groves:

Councilor Randy Groves I think this is actually a good thing that they’re taking this on. I think there’s enough communities that are kind of where we are, scratching their head trying to figure out—because it’s great technology, but, you know, it can be abused. And for obvious reasons, we separated from Flock Safety. But it doesn’t mean, despite what we hear in public comment periods, it does not mean that the ALPR-type system is dead.

Presenter Mayor Knudson:

Mayor Kaarin Knudson Our staff and (Police) Chief (Chris) Skinner, over the months of conversation when ALPR was active at City Council, there was a lot that our city learned about the contracting process with other entities.

I just wanted to offer my encouragement that we share all that we learned from those months of work. I’m already presuming that that would be happening through just the excellence of our staff. But in hearing from other mayors around the country, other communities grappling with similar challenges in terms of use of technology and engagement with new, entirely new arenas of work, that some of the things that we learned that were hard lessons—I don’t know how that fits into this puzzle, but there was a lot of work done to address the concerns that were brought forward to the Council. But we learned a lot through that.

Presenter Councilor Greg Evans:

Councilor Greg Evans I noticed the memo on Governor Kotek’s economic development package. Ethan, can you give us some more information or some clarity on how that impacts the current developments that we are engaged in, both on Clear Lake (Road) and along Highway 99 and the economic development corridor between U of O and OSU—which is right smack-dab in the middle of my ward.

Ethan Nelson (Intergovernmental Relations, manager) Great questions, Councilor Evans. I’ve been able to have more conversations with state officials, and during some of my conversations, specifically with the governor’s economic advisor, who many of you may know: Sarah Means, who used to work for Lane County and Obie and was our regional solutions contact through the pandemic. She is now an advisor to the governor.

We sat and caught up and chatted, and I said, we would really love to be able to provide testimony in support of the industrial site readiness funds and tell our story related to Clear Lake Road and the investments that we’re making, and really try to add some energy behind that and also keep that project as a forefront in legislators’ minds.

Sarah really liked that. And we are now on the 13th scheduled for the House Interim Committee on Economic Development, Small Business and Trade… Draft testimony for the mayor incorporates investments that we’re making into the Eugene airport and the impact that has on our regional economy, and then additionally adding information related to the South Willamette Valley Innovation Corridor.

Councilor Greg Evans Do we need to, in terms of formalizing the Southern Willamette Valley corridor either as an entity or as a vehicle for doing collaborative work with the surrounding counties—with Linn, Benton, Lane County and us to be able to maximize those kind of investments in infrastructure development—to realize the end goal, a robust economic development corridor along Highway 99 between OSU and U of O?

Presenter Mayor Kaarin Knudson:

Mayor Kaarin Knudson I think the work you’re describing is work that’s on deck for 2026. I’m a part of an advisory committee that gets together locally to talk about this work. And there’s a steering committee that’s also gathering as part of the Southern Willamette Valley initiative that’s related to OBI’s (Oregon Business & Industry) work. And I think that having a structure that allows them to be connected and coherent, you know, before everything starts—that’s a benefit to us, I think. So, that’s the work that’s on deck for this year.

Presenter Councilor Randy Groves:

Councilor Randy Groves I was actually going to raise the Muni (Municipal) Court situation.

Mayor Kaarin Knudson  A lot of people have learned a lot very quickly about the implications of this one section of a bill passed into law last year. But the I think good news being that, the complexity of moving to a ‘court of record’ may be not quite as high and heavy as a bar as was feared, even just a month ago, which is good news for Drug Court and others. (Yes.) It’s been very effective. 

Councilor Randy Groves Very effective. And all it’s going to do is just jam up process in Circuit Court and the cases are never going to get there because they’re going to drop them because they have higher priority cases going on.

Ethan Nelson (Intergovernmental Relations, manager) (Eugene Municipal Court) Judge (Greg) Gill and I talked a few different times prior to the holiday, and then we were able to talk with Sen. Prozanski directly and walk through a lot of the moving pieces on this. 

And the senator had offered to say, ‘Okay, well,’ he saw that there was an issue that would be impactful statewide and so he said, ‘I want to start working on a potential legislative fix for this issue.’ 

And meanwhile, we’re also having internal conversations about what the administrative aspects of becoming a court of record and what the council discussions would need to be. It will be a comprehensive conversation with the interim city manager, the city attorney, council leadership, and (Municipal Court) Judge (Greg) Gill and Mia Cariaga, executive director for Central Services, which oversees the administration of the court apparatus.

Councilor Randy Groves That makes me feel a lot better. Plus, knowing that Mia and Kristie Hammitt both have been past court administrators, I think that helps as well.

Presenter During the short legislative session, the city will promote its economic development corridor and share hard-won lessons on automatic license plate readers.