Mayor emphasizes that ‘upstream’ services are as essential as Fire, EMS

Facing a deep budget gap, Eugene joins other Oregon cities in funding services with fees. On June 24, the council approved using stormwater fees for operation and maintenance of city parks and open space. Now the City Council is calling for a public hearing on a proposed fire service fee, which could appear on your EWEB bill. It was among the top ideas submitted by a revenue committee, and would raise $10 million dollars each year, to start. On Oct. 23:

Sarah Medary (Eugene city manager): I’m giving you this pitch a little bit because I’m hearing it in the community. We have more wildfire threats than we did before. We have far more density, higher buildings, things that require a lot of resource. And if we have an issue at one of those places, if, you know, we draw a lot of people to those buildings, that creates an issue in other parts of the city.

[00:00:51] We haven’t added a firefighter/paramedic since the early ‘80s.

[00:01:01] Councilor Randy Groves: As I’ve shared before, I do have some consternation about this. I realize our back is up against the wall and we need to figure this out.

[00:01:09] I want to make it very clear to the public. This is not a Fire Department problem. It is a citywide department problem, and you could pick any department and put this fee on it, and it wouldn’t be their problem, either.

[00:01:23] I know that we have not grown and, you know, watching this for over 44 years now, from a Fire perspective, it’s not that we haven’t made the case in the past for the flat staffing levels that we’ve had with increasing calls and complexity. But, you know, I constantly heard when I was at the exec table about, ‘Well, the survey comes back and nobody says anything about Fire.’

[00:01:46] Well, nobody’s going to say anything about Fire when there’s not even a question about Fire on the survey. And so, to me, that’s a really important point.

[00:01:55] Where I get a little frustrated on this is, as I’ve said before, Fire is a foundational service. And it’s something that most people feel that that’s, you know, some of their first dollars in their tax fees are going to support the foundational services, the things we need to be safe and function as a city. So I want to make that point.

[00:02:16] And again, you know, this is not a Fire Department-specific problem. It’s nothing the firefighters have done. In fact, to the contrary, our fire department and our firefighters have worked hard on this. They’ve been innovative. They’ve made personal sacrifices to try and keep things going and they truly care about the public they serve.

[00:02:36] So, I want to make sure that that’s clear from my perspective.

[00:02:39] With that said, and the fact that we do have our back against the wall, I’m ready to vote ‘Yes’ on this to move it to this next level and to hear from our public what they think about it.

[00:02:53] I also appreciate what the mayor said about the frequently-asked questions and the information on the city’s website. I think we all should be turning our constituents towards that site because it does have a lot of good information and it’s succinctly put, it’s not page upon page after page, it’s just a really concise, well-defined way that we’re approaching this.

[00:03:19] Councilor Mike Clark: I join my friend Randy, I suppose, in using the word ‘consternation.’ That’s a good word for how I’m feeling about this. The long-term solution is to grow our tax base, rather than add additional fees. We need more housing, and we need to see business development in our community, and manufacturing in our community expand for a number of reasons, but not the least of which is: Our tax base locally in Eugene compared to other cities hasn’t grown at the same rate. And we need it to, in order to afford this stuff.

[00:03:54] Mayor Lucy Vinis: The problem is that no matter how much we increase the tax base, the tax revenue does not increase proportionally to the cost of serving that increased tax base. And that’s why we’re in this hole.

[00:04:06] So yes, we could bump out the urban growth boundary and build more housing, but we have to service that housing. And the way the property tax system works, we’ll never recoup the money that we need to recoup in order to fully service. That’s why we’re in this hole. That’s why other cities, all cities across Oregon are in this hole.

[00:04:25] Councilor Randy Groves: Mayor. I agree with you. If we only build single-occupancy detached housing, we all know from prior work sessions that there’s a net drain on the system. But if we do this responsibly and grow our economy, and help business expand, and hopefully attract new business that fits into our community, that’s a different part of the scenario.

[00:04:47] And that’s part of the problem we have now: We’ve grown our housing, we’ve grown residential (even though we’re still short), but we haven’t grown business to the same extent.

[00:04:56] Councilor Mike Clark: I just wanted to make one clear distinction, and it’s important to me. When I say grow the tax base, what I’m talking about, as Randy alluded to, is new businesses that come into being in our community, whether they move here or whether they’re grown here in the first place.

[00:05:14] Those are new taxpayers, not the same taxpayers, as well as new residences. And I believe when I say we need to grow our tax base as a long-term solution, I’m talking about adding more taxpayers and a bigger pie rather than arguing over the slice of it.

[00:05:33] I’m going to vote in favor of the public hearing, but I’m not yet in favor of the fee. And I didn’t want that confused by anyone. I want to hear from the community, but I still have very strong concerns about moving forward with this idea…

[00:05:49] Sarah, you mentioned in 1988 was the last time we added positions for Fire. Since then, we haven’t added any new positions for Fire and EMS… Here’s my question. Have we added personnel and positions to Library, Recreation, and Cultural Services since 1988?…

[00:06:09] For me, there’s a little bit of mission creep in some areas, and I’m not saying it’s Library, Recreation and Cultural Services, but I do have an issue with what you showed about general fund percentages where Fire and EMS, a mandatory—in my opinion—service of the community compared with the Library, Recreation and Cultural services, which is nice to have, an important part of quality of life, but it’s not emergency services.

[00:06:34] Councilor Matt Keating: This afternoon we heard fire services described as a benefit. And I would respectfully push back on that. They’re life-saving services. They’re not a benefit. They’re critical services that, as Councilor Groves called them, foundational services.

[00:06:57] So while I will vote ‘Yes’ today to advance this conversation to the next level to hear from the widest array of community members possible, I am uncomfortable disproportionately loading the burden on middle-income families. What signal are we sending when we balance the budget, essentially, on the backs of the middle class, or middle-income families in our community?

[00:07:28] Mayor Lucy Vinis: I’m just going to make a few comments based on what I’ve heard..sort of a reminder, that, you know, I often say of this city that we deal with the emergency on our streets…

[00:07:39] This council had a retreat during the pandemic, an all-virtual retreat in which the theme of that retreat was the difference between investing in upstream solutions and downstream solutions.

[00:07:51] And so much of the time, certainly with Police and Fire, we’re looking at downstream solutions. We’re not preventing a problem. We’re addressing a problem after it’s occurred.

[00:08:00] When this council thinks about Library, Recreation and Cultural Services, or thinks about Public Works, really what we’re after is upstream solutions. We’re trying to build the landscape that we will need, that will be safe, that will reduce accidents, that will address climate.

[00:08:17] And when we think about LRCS, if you just think about what the library did during the pandemic, it’s not just a nice-to-have. It was essential that we were providing hotspots to people who didn’t have internet service.

[00:08:29] We were helping students stay in school because they had internet service. This is not just a nice to have, it’s an upstream solution to help people live better lives, access services that they need to address their well-being, that hopefully, will reduce their demand for those sort of emergency responses at any point, but certainly later in life.

[00:08:50] And this council has to do both, not just emergency services, but also that long-range view of well-being. So I would not compare these two as if one is more important than the other. They’re both essential services and they’re both embraced within your strategic plan.

[00:09:07] John Q: The mayor emphasizes the need for upstream funding and for considering the Library, Recreation and Cultural Services as essential. Learn more about the fee-for-fire-services proposal at the city’s website, and share your opinion with your elected officials.