Meet the candidate: Alexi Miller for EWEB commissioner

Presenter: Meet The Candidate welcomes Alexi Miller. Please tell us about yourself and why you’re running for the at-large seat on the Eugene Water and Electric Board (EWEB) Board of Commissioners. 

Alexi Miller (EWEB, at-large): Yeah. I’m Alexi Miller. I am a native Eugenian, born and bred here, and I’m really lucky to be raising my kids right in the same town—and home—where I grew up.

Conversations around local politics and governance and policy at the dinner table were not unheard of when I was a kid. I have three parents, if you will, that were local politicians. My father was a city councilor. My mother was a city councilor, and longtime member of the Human Rights Commission, among other things. And my other mother was a EWEB commissioner and also was the county public health officer for a while.

So, yeah, public service has been a tradition in the family, actually. My Eugene roots run deep and my care for the community runs deep, and I want to see our city sustainable in the long term. That means environmental, that means economic, that means social.

I want to have a vibrant community, a vibrant Eugene with the beautiful nature that’s all around us still available for us humans and for the rest of the planet, long into the future.

I’ve spent my career working on energy efficiency and technically-sound, actionable, realistic solutions to the climate crisis. I’m a licensed engineer in the state of Oregon, mechanical professional engineer, and in my day job, I’m the director of building innovation at a national nonprofit called New Buildings Institute, basically a technical think tank, working on advanced energy efficiency, emerging technology, and high-performing buildings.

And so I’ve been doing this energy policy stuff for 10-20 years now. And a leader on the national stage doing that for a good decade. And so I’ve done a lot of waving my hands in the air at conferences and writing white papers and talking about best practices and: ‘How can we do this energy policy stuff?’

And this is a chance to bring it to bear right here at home, to help out the people of Eugene. Of course, EWEB, it also has the water, so it’s not all about energy. And it’s kind of a crown jewel of Eugene. I want to make sure we keep that municipal water and power by the people, for the people, healthy and strong for years to come. 

Presenter: What’s the most important issue facing EWEB and how would you address it? 

Alexi Miller (EWEB, at-large): Well, I’ll give two pieces. One is setting the course for the future. We are in a really—we’re in a time of transition. We’re already seeing impacts from the climate crisis, like more intense heat domes, warmer winters, ice storms, heat events and wildfires.

These things are getting more intense and more frequent and we can expect that to accelerate, right? More stuff to deal with. And that has knock-on effects that are really challenging for our municipal utility to handle.

Sometimes it’s pretty simple. An ice storm knocks over trees and they hit the power lines. You’ve got to get the power back up. It’s not that it’s easy, but it’s like a straightforward concept, but sometimes it’s a little more complicated.

For example, if we get a big wildfire up the McKenzie River, that ends up burning off the ground cover. It increases erosion when the fall and winter rains come, and then that silt washes down into the river and when it hits the water treatment plant, it takes a lot more filtration. It gums up the works.

And so we have to work a lot harder and sometimes it may be too hard to deliver clean water months after a big wildfire upriver. So we’re dealing with some interesting challenges. It’s going to cost money and investment. It’s going to take time and effort, and we want to make sure we position ourself right to be strategic about this stuff.

At the same time that’s, like, many years out, it’s starting now. And so we have to get ourselves set up to be able to handle these increasing challenges and maintain a clean, resilient, reliable, and affordable grid water and power, both.

But also, EWEB just hired a new general manager, replacing Frank Lawson, who’s been there for a long time. His name’s John Hairston, the new guy. He’s been heading the Bonneville Power Administration for some years. And he’s starting in May. So he’s coming up pretty soon. By the time I begin my term in early 2027, he will be about six months in. He’ll have his legs under him. But still, that’s pretty early.

And I expect that the board is going to be working closely with EWEB’s GM to help think about those things and set that long-term vision and decide on some of the shorter-term stuff.

And there’s some important short-term issues coming up. For a city of our size, we don’t have a secondary water source. It all comes out of the McKenzie. And EWEB is considering building a second source that would pull water out of the Willamette River over in Glenwood.

That adds a lot of resiliency. And if something happens on the McKenzie wildfire or a fuel truck spills right by the water intake—who knows, whatever may happen—if that McKenzie source over at Hayden Bridge gets knocked out, a Willamette source would let us pivot and be resilient in that emergency situation and keep supplying water to the people. But it’s going to cost—I think the last I saw was like $160 million. 

And I bet it will be more by the time we get there because it gets more expensive every time you blink. And so we’ve got to be really careful and intentional about: What’s our long-term plan? What investments are we making? How much are they going to cost us?

And let’s make the right choices, thinking about now as well as decades from now.  

Presenter: How do you differ from your opponent? Alexi Miller:

Alexi Miller (EWEB, at-large): Yeah. And so in terms of difference between me and my opponent, his name’s Eric Dziura. Eric is a good guy and he’s thinking about this stuff.

I think we are coming at this from a different point of view. I want to be setting a long-term vision of where we want EWEB to be decades from now. And then thinking about: How do we get there in the most strategic, cost-effective and meaningful way in terms of the goals we’re trying to hit—like full decarbonization, like excellent reliability and resiliency, like maintaining affordability and access to energy and power for low-income people.

I think I offer a more comprehensive and informed strategic vision in getting that done. And I also think my background as a professional engineer and someone who’s been living and breathing energy policy for a long time will position me to be able to dig into some of the really technical information that gets presented to the board by EWEB staff and others, and be a resource to help decode that stuff, figure out: What’s the really important part here? What is this trying to tell us? What are the choices that we should be making? And communicate that.

I think I’m pretty good at taking complex issues and breaking them down into a good overview and a summary of: What’s the key part here? What’s the important thing?

So I expect to bring that experience to bear in terms of reading the technical stuff and the approachability to bear in terms of taking that information and talking to the community, talking to other members of the board, communicating with EWEB staff.

Another big difference: I am proud to say that I am endorsed by the Labor Council, the Lane Central Labor Council, and I’m the first board candidate ever to be endorsed by the IBEW Local 659. That’s the EWEB Workers Union, and so I think that’s a pretty significant difference. My opponent has been endorsed by the Chamber of Commerce and you can kind of tell a little bit about the differences in our priorities between the Labor council and the Chamber of Commerce.

That’s not to say I’m anti-business by any means or I’m anti-growth. I think we need a vibrant economy to protect our community. It’s a critical part of our community. We need jobs. And I think a lot of how we get there is by having a really strong local workforce and lots of support for small business.

And EWEB provides that: We have relatively low compared to the rest of the nation rates, although it doesn’t always feel low when you pay your bill.

And I want to make sure that we keep that electricity and water available for the people of Eugene. Nobody should be cut off from essential water and energy because they can’t afford to pay. So, I want to make sure that we’ve got great programs in place to pull that out.

Presenter: Is there anything else that you’d like to add? Alexi Miller:

Alexi Miller (EWEB, at-large): Thank you. Getting a lot of good feedback. It’s been very exciting campaigning for this, actually, so I welcome people’s support. I have a website, it’s FriendsOfAlexiMiller.com. So that tells you all about me. There’s a link there to an ActBlue page where I can accept donations.

Donations are welcome, but if it’s not money, then time is is certainly helpful. 

And I’m also set up, if people want to go out and communicate directly with people, go knock on doors and go to events: We’re trying to make sure everybody’s registered to vote. This is a May 19 election, and as ever, Oregon’s entirely vote-by-mail. So you’ve got to be registered in advance to get your ballot, and this will be likely decided in the primary, in the May 19 election.

So there’s email on there: There’s the FriendsOfAlexiMiller@gmail.com and then I’m also reachable at AlexiMillerEugene@gmail.com. And I would be interested in talking to people. When people reach out to me, I want to call ’em back and see what they have to say.

And I’m running for the at-large position, which is the entire city of Eugene. And I’m really conscious that this position represents the whole city and we have a wide diversity of opinions and viewpoints in Eugene. I just want to be very clear, I’m running to represent the whole city, in all its diversity.

Presenter: That is Alexi Miller as we ‘Meet The Candidate’  for the at-large position on EWEB’s board.