City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the June 22nd, 2026 city council meeting. Thank you for joining us in this hybrid meeting format. Anyone wishing to access the meeting remotely can do so by watching the live stream on our website, the broadcast on Comcast channel 21, or by following the access instructions listed on the city of Eugene's public webcast and meetings materials webpage. Tonight's meeting will include a public comment period, and if you wish to speak, please fill out a request to speak form on our public webcast and meetings materials webpage or at the entrance to this room. We will accept request forms until 7.35 p.m., and these forms will be used to generate the order of speakers and accurately enter speakers' names into the record. The public comment period will be limited to 90 minutes or conclude by 10 p.m. this evening, whichever occurs first. And if the number of speakers exceeds the time that we have allotted, we encourage speakers to consider abbreviating their remarks so that the maximum number of speakers can be heard. For those joining the meeting remotely, you are welcome to email your comments to the city council, and that is of course true of anyone giving public comment. And as a reminder, council's meeting rules of conduct apply to all attendees, both in the chambers and in the lobby, and include no flags, signs, loud or disruptive language, noise or conduct that obstructs the business of the council. Please keep the room quiet and respectful for all speakers and address your comments to the mayor and council. You are welcome to wave your hands in silent support. We encourage all those who are ill to join our meetings remotely rather than in person, and we have masks available in the lobby if you need one. And in case of a medical emergency, an automated external defibrillator, an AED, is located on the counter behind the staff on the west side of this room. And emergency exits are through the double doors located at the back of the room and the double doors located at the front of the room. The doors to the patio can also be used as needed. And with that, I call the June 22nd, 2026 meeting of the Eugene City Council to order. We'll begin this evening with a land acknowledgement. Since time immemorial, the Kalapuya people have been the indigenous stewards to our region, building dynamic communities, maintaining balance with wildlife, and enacting sustainable land practices. This land acknowledgement is a way of resisting the erasure of indigenous histories and to honor native communities by inviting truth and reconciliation. Following treaties between 1851 and 1855, Kalapuya people were dispossessed of their indigenous homeland by the United States government and forcibly removed to the Coast Reservation in Western Oregon. As we consider the impacts of colonization, we also acknowledge the strength and resiliency of displaced indigenous people. The city of Eugene is built within the traditional homelands known as Kalapuya-Ilihi. Kalapuya descendants are the citizens of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde Community of Oregon and the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians of Oregon, and they continue to make contributions in our communities here and across the lands. We express our respect for the inherent political sovereignty of all federally recognized tribal nations and indigenous people who live in the state of Oregon and across the nation. Our first item on tonight's agenda in recognition of the Fourth of July and Independence holiday is the Pledge of Allegiance, which we will open tonight's meeting with. To lead us in the pledge this evening, we are joined by Susan Bann and Morgan Verheuler of the League of Women Voters of Eugene. The League was formed in 1939 with Miss Genevieve Turnips-Speed as president. In 1969, the Eugene and Springfield chapters merged, and in 1984, they adopted the name of LWV of Lane County, League of Women Voters of Lane County. The League of Women Voters of Lane County currently has 308 local members, and the League is an all-volunteer, grassroots, nonpartisan political organization. We are part of a large network. League of Women Voters is part of a large network of League of Women Voters in Oregon and the National League of Women Voters across Oregon. the United States. Susan and Morgan, would you like me to introduce you both or would you like to introduce yourselves? I would love to. Thank you for that opportunity. Susan Bann is the co-vice president of the League of Women Voters of Lane County. She joined the League after retiring in 2025, and she appreciates that the League's mission to educate, engage, and empower voters to preserve and promote democracy. Prior to her retirement, she worked for 35 years in Lane County's human services programs, first at the nonprofit ShelterCare and later in the Lane County Rent Assistance Program. Welcome, Susan. Morgan Verheuler is the Chair of the Advocacy Committee of the League of Women Voters of Lane County, and Morgan joined the League in 2024, and focuses on developing and advocating for policy issues based on League principles and positions. The League conducts advocacy on issues only after thorough study and research, followed by member consensus. and the League never takes positions on candidates or political parties. Morgan also taught civics in high school to juniors for 20 years. Thank you so much for that work. And I will now ask you to lead us in the pledge and ask everyone to stand, who are able.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible,

This evening, as we prepare for the July 4th holiday, thank you everyone, the League will also recite for us the Declaration of Independence. Though high school juniors have heard this recently, many others have not, and we appreciate the opportunity for this refresher.

Thank you, and I appreciate your patience, because it's not limited in words.

We were asked to read the whole thing, so please indulge us. In Congress, July 4th, 1776, the unanimous declaration of the 13 United States of America. When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another. and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them. A decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men, are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Prudence indeed will dictate the governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes. And accordingly, all experience has shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, invinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government and to provide new guards for future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, and all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. And to prove this, Let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused to assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained, and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people unless those people will relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

he has dissolved representative houses repeatedly for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people

He has refused for a long time after such dissolutions to cause others to be elected whereby legislative powers incapable of annihilation have returned to the people at large for their exercise, the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without and confusions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states, for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judicial powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their offices and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislatures.

He is affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He is combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, And unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation. For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us. For protecting them by a mock trial from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states. For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world. For imposing taxes on us without consent. For depriving us in many cases of the benefits of a trial by jury. For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses.

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit the instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies.

For taking away our charters. abolishing our most valuable laws.

altering fundamentally the forms of our governments, for suspending our own legislatures and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts,

burn our towns, and destroy the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us and has endeavored us to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress in most humble terms. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting inattentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity. And we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations. which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence, and they too have been deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity. We must therefore acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace, friends. We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in general Congress, assembled, appealing to the supreme judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies solemnly publish and declare that these united colonies are and of a right ought to be free and independent states, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British ground, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved, and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. And I give you thanks for listening to all of that. Thank you.

Thank you, Susan and Morgan, and thank you to the League of Women Voters for joining us this evening. That concludes our first agenda item. And our second item on tonight's agenda is Committee Reports and Items of Interest. I'll now open the floor to Counsel for Committee Reports and Items. Counselors? Reports, Items of Interest? Counselor Keating.

Thank you, Mayor. Wow. Thank you to the League of Women Voters. Refused laws that benefit the public good, fatiguing into compliance, invasions of the rights of the people, obstructing the laws of the naturalization of foreigners, obstructing the administration of justice, cutting off our trade across the world. sent hither swarms of ICE officers, oh excuse me, swarms of officers to harass without, oh and to harass our citizens and sending armies without the consent of Congress. Thank you for the history of repeated injustices. It's sad to say that history is repeating, or history repeats. So I so thank you so much for sharing such a powerful document. I attended Mayor Juneteenth on Friday and was wowed by the energy. It's great to see you there. Thank you for reading the powerful proclamation. What a great turnout. Inspiring words that were shared at the farmer's market at the Juneteenth celebration. I also ran into a volunteer from Green Hill Humane Society. at the Juneteenth celebration who remembered Vince, my dog, from when he was brought in way back in March. Vince was there for 150 days. And this volunteer remembers taking him out on the Pet of the Week, and the whole staff were rooting for him, and he was elated to hear of Vince's many adventures at Camp Keating. We love our little puppers, and we're thrilled to make that connection. This Saturday, Mayor, I will be attending the first ever Eugene Pride celebration at the Lane Event Center. Second, second, second. Thank you. I was not at last year's. I was out of town, so it's the first for me. Sorry. I'm thrilled that our Pride is now in Pride Month. That's cool. And while I'm saddened there's not a rally or march, I understand the complications, and I have nothing but great things to say. about city staff who have been so supportive of the pride effort to ensure we have a peaceful, well-orchestrated pride event. I'll see you this Saturday at the Lane Event Center. Thank you, Mayor.

Councillor Zelenka.

Thank you, too, for that. That was well done. It was my idea that we have this read every year on an annual basis. And I've heard it many times, none better than what you guys just did. But until this year, I thought this was kind of an ancient document without much relevance to what was happening. And I was struck when I was listening to it unfortunately, how relevant those words are today that our founding fathers put forth 250 years ago. And unfortunately, we find ourselves in a circumstance where history is trying to repeat itself, but hopefully it will not.

Thank you, Council. I have just a few items that I want to raise from a couple of conversations. Two of them related to our recent Poverty and Homelessness Board meetings. I sit as a part of that board and also have joined two subcommittees, one on cross-sector collaboration and also another on advocacy and wanted to highlight a couple of things and certainly the first of which connects to the work session that this council Just held and this is a few summary remarks from a recent update that our city of eugene staff gave to the poverty and homelessness board One of those updates is just a tally Sort of current current tracking and metrics that our current city of eugene affordable housing pipeline. They're currently 817 873 Almost 900 units from 14 different developments funded with a mix of local system development charge exemptions, city fee assistance, local affordable housing trust fund contributions, federal entitlement home funds, and City of Eugene land banking sites. Almost 900 units of affordable housing. I wanted to highlight this because presently this year and looking into next year, we are accomplishing something that has been a goal for a long time, which is significantly increasing. the number of affordable housing units that we are constructing in our community. There are 493 affordable housing units that are currently under construction across six developments and 329 affordable housing units that are seeking financing to begin construction across seven other proposals. This is really good news for a community that is doing everything that we can with the resources we have available and some really excellent staff alignment with the state resources that we're able to access to deliver housing for our community that is affordable across a whole variety of different projects. And I just want to be sure to highlight and thank that staff working on affordable housing, our grants management team, our team leading the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, but also our community development and planning team because they are doing a lot of work. And it is great when we can update our poverty and homelessness board on the ways in which we are building housing that is in fact the solution to the experience of homelessness. In our more recent Poverty and Homelessness Board meeting, we unfortunately received another, I'll call it sort of salvo or wave of challenging information that relates to the changes in how our federal government is positioning itself both through housing and urban development through HUD and through Health and Human Services. And the two shifts that are similar but through different agencies are shifts towards work requirements and volunteer time or work requirements to qualify for certain types of housing, and also work requirements to qualify for Medicaid. So one of those sets of requirements is through HUD, the other is through Health and Human Services, two different federal agencies, but both operating, it appears, with not a lot of information, or certainly with not a lot of concern for consequences when establishing 40 hours of new work requirements related to certain types of housing where that seems quite unlikely to be attainable. It does present a particular type of challenge to our community and I just wanted to flag it because this is important work that we are doing across jurisdictions, among jurisdictions to try to mitigate these newly created harms in our community. Very quickly, lastly, I just wanted to share that this week, right now, beginning today, we are welcoming to the City of Eugene a group of scientists who are visiting from the country of Nepal. And some of you might remember that in February, I was able to share a really fantastic connection between our zebrafish facilities and science's work at the University of Oregon. We are the scientific home of the zebrafish, which is the vertebrae that so much of genetic study is based upon. And Nepal is one of the few wild homes of that species. And this week we are welcoming scientists to the university for essentially a mini symposia on wild zebrafish. I'll have an opportunity to meet with them.

What I came here today to speak to you about was affordable housing. You spoke about the need to be inclusive. Mayor Knutson, you spoke about the projects that you have in the works where you're trying to build more affordable housing. This citizen right here in the red shirt, she mentioned the idea of building accessory dwelling units and subsidizing those. I'm a general contractor. I build accessory dwelling units. We charge about $200,000 to build those. The affordable housing project that you guys approved today is about $300,000 per unit. If we include smaller contractors in some of these programs, such as you have suggested, with bigger diversity, I believe the city of Eugene has an opportunity to significantly save money on building more affordable housing and providing roofs for more people. I would suggest that as these new affordable housing units come online, that you figure out ways to include more contractors in those so that we can provide more housing for people. Thank you.

Thank you, Roman. Our next speakers are Peter Dragovich, followed by Bill O'Brien.

Good evening, Mayor and Councillors. Peter Dragovich, residing in Ward 5. Eugene Wheatley recently published a letter from a resident who wrote, I have watched the slow changing of the land around me. The old Douglas firs on my property are showing signs of stress. During one brutal drought and heat wave, the creek near my home stopped flowing for the first time in 60 years. Tree frogs that fill the evenings with sound have nearly vanished. Even bats that flickered through the dusk catching insects are rarely seen. Watching the slow unraveling of a living ecosystem feels like losing old friends. Michael T. Hinojosa. These observations are not surprising. Oregon has now broken our record for the lowest snowpack in recorded history. The director of the Oregon Climate Service said a few weeks ago, we are anticipating big water shortages for irrigation. Seventeen Oregon counties are now under a declared drought emergency. Five were added last week. Eighty-one percent of Lane County is classified under severe or extreme drought presently. Fifty-two and twenty-nine percent respectively. A Statesman Journal headline last month, Douglas fir die-off spreads into Willamette Valley amid drought. Average summer temperatures have increased locally by 3.1 degrees Fahrenheit. The frequency of hot summer days has doubled in Eugene. Nighttime temperatures in Eugene have risen by nearly two degrees over 30 years. Fortunately, the city of Eugene is proactive on climate. You have an accomplished staff. Much has been done, much remains. The city as an organization is halfway to the target of 50% greenhouse gas reduction by 2030, achieving 24%, and the community-wide target also of 50% has only been achieved to 11%, so there's 39 points there to make up in four years, because the ordinance was originally adopted in 2014. The Climate Recovery Ordinance is not a resolution, a general plan, or an aspirational statement. It has hard targets and uses the word shall nine times. There are no mays, coulds, or shoulds in the ordinance. As such, it is open to court review and enforcement. But let's not amend our way out of this. Let's achieve the 2030 reductions for the thousands of Eugenians who expressed support for climate action over the years for succeeding generations and for a healthier and more prosperous future. Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

Thank you, Peter. Our next speakers are Bill O'Brien, followed by Ember.

We'd have to say two people that I look up to is Dan Taylor and Tim Lewis. I consider them state treasurers, Eugene Treasurers. I consider someone like Tim Lewis on the same level as Steve Prefontaine. Why? Because he ran around that track, Haywood Field, shortly after they blew it up. So congratulations, Nike. You know, last Monday, who could you blame? No one wants to take any responsibility. They don't want to. But in other cultures, they say, they'll bow humbly and say, I screwed up. It's really hard to put blame on this, you know? I mean, they were frying in the heat. They were collapsing. So they moved over to where else but Hayward Field. And then you have a distinguished faculty member or collapses in the heat, makes a speech at 4 o'clock. Then they all go home. You know, the parents, graduates, and... You know, it's like the frog. When you put the frog in water, the frog likes water. You heat up the water slowly, the frog likes the water slowly. And the frog dies. It's comfortable. It dies. That's kind of like what we're going through now. And basically, I just see right here from Daily Emerald, 59% of this University of Oregon income out of state. I'm not certain it's $56,000 a year for out-of-state. That probably doesn't even include the housing, you know, dorms, building all these massive skyscrapers. And what do you got? You're going to have a housing bubble crunch very soon if that's happening already. So maybe these best and brightest of all of us They're going to say, my God almighty, I can't, why did I even come here? I mean, I'm getting priced.

Thank you, Bill. Our next speakers are Ember, followed by Jan Bowman.

My name is Ember and I live in Ward 7. And before the fence around the Federal Building went in, myself and a lot of people gathered tonight worked gathering signatures for a proposed pedestrian promenade project on Pearl between 6th and 7th because we had hoped that that would be an opportunity for our city government to do, you know, something. And when I brought those signatures to the council, my councilwoman emailed me to say that city projects take time and hearings and budgets, which is true. So I'm sure glad you found a bunch of money in the local road fund to put a sidewalk in next to that fence. A sentence that I wrote earlier today before we got the injunction. So a fence that is now coming down, I assume also at taxpayer expense. So question, was this sidewalk planned before the fence? Because if not, then the city can in fact move quickly when it is convenient for you. And if it was planned, that's the sort of opaque leadership that gets counselors recalled. How are we, the taxpayers, going to be recouped for the local tax money that was spent on the sidewalk that we no longer need because the fence is coming down? And for the record, as always, I am not speaking tonight because I believe that this council will save us. If we want Eugene to fight fascism, corporate power, and federal occupation, we're gonna have to build that power ourselves. Because we know who protects us, and it's not EPD, and it's not DHS, it's not you, it's us. So with that, hey friends. Come find fascism with us at the building. It's fun.

Speaker, would you please address the council with your remarks? There is, of course, time to speak with the public, but this is to speak with city council.

Great. Thank you. Come hang out at the building with us. There are snacks. And of course, there are many reasons we haven't seen as many people at the building recently. And, you know, knowing that our city government doesn't have our backs doesn't really help with that. But if you are here because you care about Eugene, then do not let your counselors, EPD, or DHS tell you not to believe your eyes. We protect us. Also, I've read the Declaration of Independence like three times in the last couple of months to the Fed, so if this is your first time hearing it in a while, you can come hear it more. We protect us, and I look forward to continuing to protect us in the plaza. Thank you.

Thank you, Amber. Our next speakers are Jan Bowman, followed by Wynne Mansell.

Good evening, Mayor, City Councilors, and City Manager. My name is Jan Bowman. I live in Ward 2, and I'm active with 350 Eugene. Something exciting and wonderful has happened in my extended family recently. We have four new babies in the last three months. I'm happy, grateful, and honestly a little surprised that the intelligent, thoughtful young adult parents are optimistic enough to venture into parenthood at this time that we face such huge challenges. It gives me great hope, and it also renews the urgency of some big questions. What kind of world are we leaving for our children? Can't we do better? What is holding us back? Much groundwork has been laid in our local efforts to make the transition off of fossil fuels. We have a great climate recovery ordinance and climate action plan. We have new reporting tools to track progress on our goals. We have great staff and a dedicated sustainability commission. And we have a motivated community. The Yale climate opinion maps show that 69% of adults in Eugene Springfield are somewhat or very worried about climate change. And yet we seem a little stuck, unable to accomplish actions to make enough impact. We used to be a leader. Now other communities are surging ahead. There are opportunities before us right now that can shift us into higher gear. This week you'll consider the Home Energy Score program. When implemented in other communities, more homeowners have pursued energy upgrades and taken advantage of existing incentives. Please approve the next steps to establish this program. We started some great collaborative projects like getting more solar at the Eugene Airport and adding solar at the YMCA. These hit some snags, but we can get them back on track. And let's pursue more solar pilot projects in collaboration with E-Web. Let's also put concerted effort into decarbonizing public buildings and demonstrate by example how others can do the same. Perhaps most exciting of all, let's get the Eugene Clean Energy Fund on the November ballot and pass it. This measure would put a 2 percent surcharge on big box stores that make more than a billion nationally and 500,000 locally and use the estimated 15 million in annual proceeds to fund renewable energy and efficiency projects, clean energy jobs and more. Let's have the big polluters and national chains help pay for these programs. Portland passed a similar measure a few years ago and has made great progress. The clean renewable energy transition is here and we need to get on board. Let's do it for the kids. Thank you.

Thank you, Jan. Our next speakers are Wynne Mansell followed by Blair Hickok.

Good evening, Council and city staff. Wynne Mansell, Ward 7. I came here tonight to talk to you about the city's still in process AI policy. In the process of getting that together, I happened to listen to your guys' work session on mass surveillance. I want to say I appreciate the fact that Multiple counselors, some who I did not expect to come together on this, are starting to take seriously the issues of transparency and public engagement on software and products like this. Very quickly I want to say, The idea of getting an inventory of what you guys have together and making that publicly available is very important. When I worked with city staff on my PRRs around AI policy, they were very gracious and were very helpful and made it very clear that it was a lot of effort for them to even get together the contracts that they were able to share with me, which tells me that having an inventory of that stuff available just helps everybody. The other thing I wanted to mention is I heard the bit about the grandfather, the grandfathering idea. I want to encourage you to take a look at San Jose's, which I've included, AI policy and guidebook, and look more seriously at a sunset policy. Review the software and products that you have in line, and if they do not meet your quality, sunset them, get rid of them. The two big things I want to bring to mind when you guys are working on AI policy, though, that you'll find that there's plenty of prior art from our sister cities in Bend, Portland, Woodburn, San Jose, that will be very useful. Where I want you guys to raise the bar is to look at the ethics of utilizing these products, specifically AI products. They will be part of any mass surveillance product that is brought before you and ask whether the city is comfortable using products built off of stolen data and abused workers. Also, take very seriously the human computer interface components. I saw that the city didn't have a good feel about those. Take in mind the effects on your city staff of using these tools. I've included an article that formulated a lot of the policies I brought to my employer about not forcing.

Thank you, Ann. Our next speakers are Blair Hickok, followed by David Igle.

Hello, I am Blair Hickok, Ward 2. So I'm a Treo McNair Scholar. I did research on housing policy. I'm also a grad student entering the, sorry, Masters of Public Administration. So I have a lot of both lived experience on the streets and academic experience trying to figure out why that is happening so frequently here. So there's some things that have been going down for quite a few years and I chatted about some of them last time I was here. But one of the things that I forgot to mention is some of the myths that we need to bust. A lot of folks are under the impression that we are busting folks in from out of state and things like that. But if you look at any of the point in time counts, that's just not the case. We're looking at less than 2% of people who are on the streets here are not from here. They were priced out of housing here. So that being said, a lot of these folks are also working. A lot of these folks are working full time. A lot of these folks are entering homelessness, like I said last time, disabled, elderly. The other demographic that's really alarming is women escaping domestic violence with children. So again, we've got these really vulnerable populations that we're supposedly gonna make housing for. but these are the folks that are severely rent burdened. Their rent costs are over 50% of their income if they have an income at all. They are going to be imminently priced out of housing. So my question is, is this middle mix housing that's going in and all of this low income housing and thinking about the fact that the chronically unhoused population is exponentially increasing every year, is any of it supportive? Is any of it supportive housing? Because like I said last time, people's skills, their life skills devolve the longer that they're on the streets, and these folks are getting on the streets for longer. I was out there 10 years ago. People are still there. They are still there when I go out and serve them food. They are still there. I was lucky enough to have a hand up in certain situations. People took chances on me, and here I am now today to speak at you as an academic and a scholar, with lived experience. So all that being said, can we stop focusing on the students because I also served on the Tuition and Fee Advisory Board and our enrollment is down significantly and all the housing that's being put up from them is going to be empty. Thank you.

Thank you, Blair. Our next and final speaker is David Igle.

David Igle, Ward 1. Does any member of the city council or the mayor believe that Eugene was a sundown town? That was the question I posed in an email to our mayor and the members of the city council recently. No one emailed me back that they do, and that the documented record I provided makes incontrovertibly certain that Eugene was not a sundown town, it makes sense that no one would It would make sense that no one would want to raise their hand to make a public fool of themselves. Anyone can ask Google AI about the census records for Eugene during the decades of 1900 through 1960 and other public sources that will confirm our 135 proud years of black residents. That being the case, time for the mayor and the city council members to act responsibly and acknowledge that they've been scammed by Talisha Brown and her associates. We all make mistakes, but adults are supposed to act responsibly to correct known mistakes. You haven't so far. If you don't act, I will. I can assure you that, come the fall, that enough of the public will be aware of this fiasco and your lack of taking responsible, redemptive action that this will become a widely known scandal, possibly attracting national attention. I would rather donate money for scholarships and school enrichment programs than take out ads advising the public of how certain public officials are letting them down, but I will if I must. Eugene City officials need to act now. The public will be informed one way or another. I can cite conclusive primary source documentation that is available to support what I am saying. Alicia Brown hasn't, and she and city and county officials won't be able to. The mayor or any city council member wants to consult with me, I'm available to you. Thank you.

Thank you, David. Mayor, that was our final speaker.

Thank you, staff. I now close the public comment. Are there any comments from city council? Seeing none, I'll say thank you to everyone who joined us this evening for public comment. Sorry, Councillor Keating, I can't see. Sorry, it didn't come up on my screen. I jumped in late. Go ahead, Councillor. My apologies.

Mayor, I just want to say thank you as well, and I want to go backwards. There's a few notes I have. Blair Hickok from Ward 2 in South Eugene asked about housing connected to services, and I would invite anyone interested in that topic to look at our work session this afternoon when we passed unanimously which has 133 units, 68 of which are for folks who are making 80 percent of the area median income, 65 of which are market-rate housing, 10 units designated for survivors of domestic violence connected directly with the Hope and Safety Alliance, formerly Women's Space. Those units-of all those units, they're all-the 133 that will be right connected to transit right here downtown, pedimentities, all electric utilities, and the project is pro-labor with prevailing wages. So please check out our work session prior to tonight's forum on the 1059 Willamette project. Roman, thank you. Roman, right? Thank you for joining this marketplace of ideas tonight and sharing your enthusiasm for broadening the opportunities for a more diverse. When I was elected to this council and sworn in on January 6, 2021, of all dates, we had in front of us the issue of expanding ADU's accessory dwelling units throughout this And I proudly was in the affirmative, allowing for more flexibility to keep families together and to reduce the cost of housing in our community. So thank you for your work in the ADU space. I'm pleased to announce colleagues and citizens and constituents and residents. We floated a work session last week, I believe it was, June 11th, it was announced, seven in the affirmative, no in the negative, to advance a work session on the subject of, quote, expanding, I'm not quoting directly, excuse me, this is off the top of my head. expanding on the timeline for complaints to the police auditor's office. As I understand it right now, it's a 60 day window for certain complaints and a six month window for others. I'm thrilled that we're gonna have that conversation to hopefully expand the ability for the citizenry to complain or complain. provide accommodations either way to the police auditor. What's the city's, oh, gas powered leaf blowers. Question city manager, and I don't need it right now, but I'm curious on what percentage of our city's fleet are gas powered vehicles, and for our parks team, what's the percentage of leaf blowers that we have are electric versus gas powered and if there's a plan to advance electrification. I'm out of time. Can I get just 30 seconds a second round without objection?

Please, Councillor.

Traffic on Hilliard was brought up. Thanks, Councillor.

But there are no others in the queue.

Thank you. Thank you. Traffic on Hilliard was brought up, and I've reiterated my enthusiasm seeing white-knuckled stopping and waving people over. I've reiterated my enthusiasm to the city manager. We've all been there on Patterson and Hilliard and stopped for a pedestrian, and there's not a crosswalk. You wave someone over and the vehicles in the next lane are whizzing by and it's dangerous, it's madness. There is a no-cost effort to just simply put up cones as an experiment and move those lanes to one lane rather than a two-lane highway. And we can realize, I think, that more vision zero approach. For communities that are threatened, harassed, Bullied or intimidated by federal agents I would love to see mayor if it's not there already if we can put those resources on the city's website for constituents who Clearly are in need of said resources.

Thank you councillor groves Thank You mayor for the city manager. Are we doing any work at all on amplified? Sounds and in the downtown area. This has been an issue for quite a while and I know it's very disruptive to the farmers market and the Saturday market and it's sometimes very inappropriate things are being said I've heard it myself Not to my knowledge, but we certainly can look at that We've addressed amplification near the University and have done some clarifying language online But I'm happy to work with staff on that and take a look at see the root of the problem I appreciate that. I just want to make a general comment. Earlier tonight, one speaker was comparing a municipal city council to a federal judge with regards to the fence. We're not equal. City Council does not control the federal government. A federal judge can have input unless it's appealed, but it's just not a fair comparison. Thank you.

Thank you, everyone. Council, any other final comments that you'd like to share in response to the public comment that we heard this evening? Appreciate you all being here with us this evening. And with that, we've concluded our final agenda item and I'm now going to close the June 22nd, 2026 City Council meeting and we are adjourned.