VOTE411 Voter Guide

Eugene is facing a housing shortfall. I'll work with developers, advocates, and everyone in between to create new and diverse housing, bridging divides and spurring new housing inventory in ways that our current programs aren't.

Eugeneans currently feel a lack of safety, especially in our public parks and spaces and on our downtown streets. I'm not willing to ignore quality-of-life crimes that impact Eugene's livability. I also support alternative criminal justice and enforcement response models that allow us to connect folks who enter the criminal justice system with the most appropriate resources.

Finally, we need an economy that supports our growing city, yet honors our responsibility to our environment and future generations.

The challenges facing Eugene are not new. A lack of decisive action and failure to engage in good faith with segments of our community leave us without progress. As a small business owner, one that intentionally put my business downtown, I'm bringing a new decisiveness and willingness to engage all stakeholders to arrive at solutions that move the needle for Eugene.

My profile may frame me as a business candidate, and we need local business owners in our corner if we're going to face these challenges and fund solutions. But I also know we need to balance business interests against the interests of the rest of our community and our climate. I'm bringing a pragmatic progressivism to city council as we pursue a Eugene we can all be proud of.

The City of Eugene, in my experience, is very good at hosting listening sessions and getting the requisite folks in the room as we discuss new policies for our community. Yet many of our community members seem to leave these listening sessions unsatisfied with the outcomes. This suggests that stakeholders are gathered to check off boxes rather than be truly engaged in the policy-making process.

I intend to get diverse viewpoints into rooms together so that traditionally adversarial parties in Eugene can see the vision and goals that they truly share. And by consulting these folks in the earliest stages of our work, we can weigh their concerns genuinely in the development of policy.

Housing:We must build affordable homes, not destroy existing ones. I worked with Homes for Good and other allies to create Ollie Court, 80 affordable housing units in Ward 1. Homelessness: The city, county, and state must work together. I support expanded managed campsites, effective services, and permanent supportive housing while progressively restricting street camping.

Community Safety: Everyone deserves to feel safe. We regain control of neighborhoods, streets, and open spaces by enforcing boundaries and meaningful consequences. Climate: Eugene must safeguard trees and prioritize high-return strategies such as home weatherization and repairing leaky gas infrastructure.

I have decades of experience as an activist, building national coalitions and working with volunteers, so I know how to motivate and work with folks. As a faculty member, I designed, proposed, and implemented a university wide peer academic technology training program. I served on the executive boards of several international academic associations. I was first a board member and then chair of Jefferson Westside Neighbors. In those roles, I spent years listening to and meeting the needs of neighbors and working with the city and county. This included establishing park groups, improvements such as crosswalks and traffic calming, working with Homes for Good on permanent supportive and affordable in our neighborhood, and helping local business.

I will advocate for an independent auditor. I favor changing the city charter to put accountable and elected officials in charge, not appointed managers. We need better and more expedited public process where the city not only listens, but changes policy based on pubic feedback. I am a strong advocate for neighborhood associations as great way to build civic engagement and engage with neighbors. This sort of small "d"democracy infrastructure is under utilized and under funded. As a neighborhood leader, I am known for my accessibility and will regularly communicate with and meet with the public. This outreach includes meeting with stakeholders as policy is being developed and leverage their expertise and experiences to improve outcomes.

Homelessness and related issues such as shelter, housing, safety, mental health treatment, is the most serious challenge facing Eugene right now. Addressing homelessness and its impacts will require work with partners in the community, at the County, and at the State; and looking both at short-term solutions to address immediate needs, and the structural issues that have led us here, such as our housing shortage. Climate change is already impacting Eugene. We need take action to prepare for those impacts, and make it easier for our residents to make climate friendly choices. Eugene has a large budget gap. We need to ensure that we are able to continue to provide critical services, and not loose sight of community priorities.

My experience has given me the tools and relationships I need to hit the ground running as Ward 1’s City Councilor. I have served seven years on the City’s budget committee, which has given me an in-depth understanding of the work that the City does, and how to navigate city processes to affect change. I’ve been advocating for small-scale housing options in Eugene, with a focus on zoning and land use, for almost a decade, and I’ve been on the Lane County Planning Commission since 2021. I have almost 20 years of professional expriance in non-profit and public sector management and administration. The work I’ve done over the past decade has helped me build the knowledge and relationships necessary to confront Eugene’s challenges.

The City releases a large amount of information, but it can be challenging to keep up or understand it all. As a budget committee member, I on many occasions would get questions from community members about where particular things were in the budget or what something they had read in the budget meant. Even if the issue they were advocating for was not one that I agreed with, I would work to point them in the right direction or help them find the answer to their questions. Being honest and straightforward is necessary for accountability and transparency, and I can commit to not just living up to that myself, but also to questioning publicly where I think we may not be living up to the standards of accountability or things may be unclear.