At halfway point in Salem, Eugene sees hope for shelter, Clear Lake, airport funding

Presenter: The 2026 session is at the halfway point. How is Eugene faring with its top priorities? Intergovernmental Relations Manager Ethan Nelson:

Ethan Nelson (Eugene, Intergovernmental Relations, manager): It’s the short session, 35 days. We are in week three right now,  midpoint. So we’re smack-dab in the midpoint of the legislative session. On Monday was the first chamber deadline and a lot of bills didn’t get moved out of the committees on the 16th. And so then—they’re considered dead.

So I’m just going to jump on in here at the top of the list. ‘Protect OHCS Shelter program funding.’

There was a financial forecast that happened earlier in the month of February. That was a kind of ray of sunshine in terms of that the state was looking at for this biennium not having a large budget reduction requirement. 

As many of you know, the state gave Lane County half of what they had received the previous year, and it impacted our shelter funding across the county. And so Lane County continues to seek additional funds and with the positive revenue forecast for the remainder of the biennium. There might be a sliver of hope that there could be those funds allocated.

I think that later this week there’s going to be a request for partners to help weigh in. So Commissioner Pat Farr from Lane County might be reaching on out. And so Mayor, you may be asked to join in a request.

I talked with Vanessa Cornwall (my counterpart at Lake County) yesterday a little bit. And we’re getting the details, but it’s fluid and it’s evolving currently.

The second piece: ‘Protect $6 million for Clear Lake Road infrastructure.’

Again, we don’t see that our $6 million allocation from the 2025 legislative session is in jeopardy. We actually are asking for more money. We’re asking for an additional $5 million for the Clear Lake Road Project.

It’s a $80 million total project, $14 million in Phase 1, and we received $6 million. We asked for about $10 million last year. And so we received less than what we requested, which is understandable. And so we’re going back and seeking additional funds through the lottery bond process.

And Mayor Knudson gave testimony on Friday and on behalf of the city for both projects in (the Joint Subcommittee on) Capital Construction, which is the $5 million for the Clear Lake Road project. And then additionally, there’s a $1 million request for the airport that Speaker (Julie) Fahey asked that we put that in the process as well. And she submitted that proposal for us.

Presenter: Here is Mayor Knudson speaking  Feb. 13 before the Joint Subcommittee on Capital Construction:

Mayor Kaarin Knudson: I’m Mayor Kaarin Knudson from the City of Eugene, and I’m requesting your support for Eugene’s two economic development priorities, which are an industrial site readiness project and gate improvements at the Eugene Airport.

The 650-acre Clear Lake industrial area includes 11 large sites with the potential to add up to 6,000 new jobs in this region. With good highway access and proximity to the Eugene Airport, this area offers much-needed flat industrial parcels in the Southern Willamette Valley, and we are requesting $5 million for industrial site readiness infrastructure improvements.

The second project, the Eugene Airport is currently being redeveloped, and when completed will create over $3 billion annual regional economic impact.

Our second funding request is to replace and relocate the passenger boarding bridge at Gate A6 to align with the new airport lobby, which will increase operational efficiency, improve passenger experience, and modernize the airport to support future growth. We are seeking $1 million in state lottery bonds for this project.

The prioritization of these two projects by the Eugene City Council and local partners, including the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce, illustrate the strong local support for expanding existing companies and to attract new trade and sector businesses to our state.

Both of these projects implement Governor Kotek’s and the legislators’ economic prosperity initiatives, as well as the Southern Willamette Valley Innovation Corridor’s vision to strengthen regional competitiveness, deepen university and industry partnerships, and build the foundations of a world-class innovation ecosystem.

And so I want to thank you for the opportunity to share these projects with you today, for your time and consideration, and to reinforce the importance of these investments in the Southern Willamette Valley, which indeed do benefit our entire state.

Presenter: That was Eugene Mayor Kaarin Knudson at the Oregon Legislature, testifying on behalf of the city’s top economic development projects, Clear Lake and the airport. 

Continuing through the list of council priorities, Ethan Nelson:

Ethan Nelson: The third point: ‘Support increased protections related to threats to public officials.’ (SB) 1530 became the vehicle for threats to public officials. And there was a work session on Monday the deadline and it got out of committee.

Unfortunately we didn’t get a unanimous vote. It was a split vote, 4-2, and it was on party lines. The two Republicans on the committee voted against it, and the discussion was based upon protected speech, which we had been addressing last year and this year.

And so we’re hoping that—I provided some draft talking points for Senator Manning about free speech and protected speech—and so we’re hoping to address any opposition and hopefully it’ll get through. 

And then the fourth point, ‘Support state and federal financial support for Eugene Airport expansion.’  I’d mentioned just briefly that there’s a $1 million request—capital construction lottery bond request—that’s current and has been submitted to the subcommittee for Ways and Means.

And again, Mayor Knudson gave testimony on Friday on in support of that and so we’ll continue to—and I met with Speaker Fahey’s staff yesterday, and we chatted a lot about this as well. And it’s continued to move forward and be part of the process.

Traditionally, during the longer session, the Eugene delegation gets together,  kind of closer to the end of the session and has a kind of a regionwide discussion on what projects are going to be funded and what’s going to be each member’s ‘take home.’

I asked about that with a couple of the senior staff members, and it hasn’t happened. It kind of happened prior to the session, there was a discussion of what what each member knew what was coming forward, but they haven’t really settled on what they’re going to be requesting at the end.

So we’re staying engaged and responding to any requests for information.

The ‘Support increased state investment, behavioral health systems.’ I spent some time talking with Vanessa Cornwall from Lane County, and they are seeking really clarity and flexibility within ORS 430 related to the operations of the crisis stabilization center.

Last point: ‘Support statewide property tax reform.’ No updates from what I provided earlier this month. There’s not a lot of property tax reform initiative being considered during the short session.

The main focus has been on navigating what portions of the federal tax code updates that the state wants to disconnect from. And so there’s bills that are moving through with that. They don’t, none of those really have any impact on cities. They’re mostly what would impact state revenue.

And the property tax reform efforts that Rep. Nathanson started in 2025 related to HB 2321—those are on pause and we’ll circle back and continue to engage her.

Presenter: Councilor Randy Groves:

Councilor Randy Groves: Ethan, do you have any thoughts on how we can raise the interest of the legislature on local governments? You know, really, we need effective state and local governments for our communities to work and for our state to work.

And it feels like, well, there’s no consideration at all for the situation that we’re dealing with, like every other city in the state.

Presenter: IGR Manager Ethan Nelson:

Ethan Nelson: Yeah. Councilor, it’s a great question. We’re trying to get interest and awareness from the legislature to work with us on a very large revenue reform discussion.

I mean, (Measures) 5 and 50 were put in place in the Oregon Constitution in the ’90s, and they’ve been at play for roughly 30 years, and we’re now really seeing the impacts of that at the local level.   

Incoming City Manager Jenny Haruyama has been engaged in statewide discussions, has been one of the members of what has been called the ‘Oregon 7,’ these seven medium-sized to larger-sized communities. And I think that she can really engage as Council is getting on into the TAC and how to integrate that within the revenue reform work group and then this task force that Rep. Nathanson is doing. So I think all of that stuff’s going to come together in the next nine months.

Moving forward: Automatic License Plate Reader regulations, ALPR. There was two amendments that were being discussed on Monday.

One was a heavier data restriction that a lot of community advocates were asking for. That did not move forward. There was one that was more of a compromise with law enforcement. And so the Association of Chiefs of Police and Sheriffs were more supportive of that.

That was the amendment that then was adopted. It’ll be moving forward in the Senate this week for floor votes, then my assumption is it’ll get moved out of the Senate and over onto the House and the House Judiciary. And we’ll see what happens there.

On the revision of the transient lodging tax: This is in HB 4148. There was strong opposition from lodging and tourism stakeholders, and then also just strong support from local government statewide. And it’s been called the Local Act. It’s in-house revenue. 

We gave our logo onto the League of Oregon Cities’ letter of support. And a lot of cities came on out in support of that bill. There’s also a lot of opposition from a lot of Eugene stakeholders, in the lodging, tourism area.

Presenter: Councilor Jennifer Yeh:

Councilor Jennifer Yeh: Real quick, Ethan, so this is the one that is going to give more flexibility to how we can spend our lodging tax dollars, correct? But it doesn’t preclude us from continuing to do what we do now, how we’re spending them now. 

Presenter: Ethan Nelson:

Ethan Nelson: So there’s two things. One, the local government can move more of the percentage of local TRT funds, TLT, however you want to call it  into non-tourism marketing items. And so a lot of communities came out and were talking about public safety and transportation needs.

Given the budget discussions the Council has over the past couple years, having those options and that decision-making at the local level seemed to be the most important thing, whether or not you as councilors utilize that, we thought it would be good to have that ability.

Councilor Jennifer Yeh: Great. 

Ethan Nelson: There’s two economic development packages, HB 4084 and SB 1586. We’ve given testimony on both. Mayor Knudson gave testimony prior to the legislative session beginning on 4084 for Gov. Kotek’s Oregon Prosperity Roadmap.

And so on 4084, there’s a component, part of it that’s requesting the state to allocate $40 million to Business Oregon into their industrial site readiness fund. That’s the only thing that our support was, because it’s aligned with what Council direction is, their policy direction.

Similarly on (SB) 1586, the only elements that we weighed in on in support of were for the tax incentives for local governments. And it’s an additional economic development tool that the Council would be able to utilize. So those two are moving forward.

Presenter: At the IGR meeting Feb. 18, Eugene Mayor Kaarin Knudson: 

Mayor Kaarin Knudson: There is concern regarding the possibility of data center development as a component, and I do not know, Ethan, I’m curious if you’ve heard if that is actually based in reality or if it is information that is just circulating through the world of lobbying at this point in time.

Ethan Nelson: Mayor, data centers have come on up and the bill has been amended to clearly articulate that data centers are not eligible. They’re not considered advanced manufacturing,

Mayor Kaarin Knudson: Thank you for that clarification. I wanted to just raise that because it seems like an area of significant confusion at this point in time. and the amendment that specifically addresses them not being included. Thank you.

Presenter: At the halfway point in the short session, an update from Eugene’s Intergovernmental Relations Manager Ethan Nelson.