Eugene, Amazon and the perils of principled protest

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Where that phrase originates is unclear — maybe the Roman poet Virgil, or possibly a 12th-century French saint, an 18th-century German theologian or a 19th-century English writer.

Probably safe to say its author was thinking about something loftier than property taxes at the time of writing. But I’ve been thinking about taxes and the peril of good intentions ever since Amazon’s plans for a large distribution center near the Eugene Airport spilled out into the public.

And I’ve reached the conclusion that, despite Amazon opponents’ good intentions, derailing the project would do more harm than good for the majority of Eugene residents.

The reason isn’t in the warehouse itself, which at a reported 318,000 square feet would be roughly three-quarters the size of Matthew Knight Arena. Nor does it have anything to do with Amazon, whose reputation as a corporate villain pursuing rapid growth at the expense of its workers is well deserved.

My defense of the Amazon project lies not in enthusiasm but in fear of the alternative: a continuation of the budgetary hell Eugene leaders can’t seem to dig the city out of.

Journalists learn early in their careers that budgets tell stories. The Annual Comprehensive Financial Reports that the city of Eugene publishes each year tell plenty. Those stories have been pretty bleak lately. A few anecdotes:

• Eugene’s 10 largest property taxpayers in 2025 generated less tax revenue for the city than they did in 2006.

• During that 20-year period, the total amount of property tax revenue collected by the city of Eugene increased by 45 percent. But expenses rose by 54 percent. Property taxes are by far the largest source of revenue collected by the city to fund services.

While the details are technical, the outcome is clear. Eugene’s structural budget deficit, the annual battles over library funding and swimming pool hours, too little money for mobile crisis response and public safety — all stem from a tax base stretched thin.

Eugene and other cities have three levers to pull when money is tight:

• Raise taxes on people who are already here
• Spend less money by cutting city positions and programs
• Find new tax revenue

When citizens demand that the City Council keep libraries and pools open, but also demand that it do everything in its power to keep Amazon out of Eugene, they are essentially taking the third lever out of the city’s hands. We express outrage when a service is up for cuts, but oppose a project that could generate millions of dollars in tax revenue over time to help pay for those same services.

Many details of Amazon’s plan for Eugene are unknown, including how many people the warehouse would employ. Amazon has made no secret of its plans to automate as much of its workforce as possible. Horrific working conditions in some of its warehouses and suppression of unionization efforts are well-documented.

At the same time, the 84-acre site Amazon plans to build on has been zoned for industrial use for decades. The wetlands have been evaluated and determined to have relatively low ecological significance, and Amazon will have to fork over hundreds of thousands of dollars to preserve other wetlands through the city’s Wetland Mitigation Banking Program. 

An Amazon fulfillment center in Salem that opened in 2019 — roughly three times the size of the proposed Eugene building — still employed 1,000 people as of 2024, according to city financial documents.

If 300 people worked in the Eugene warehouse when it opened, the payroll tax revenue collected for public safety could be significant. The work is grueling and thankless. But 1,400 fewer Lane County residents were employed in November 2025 compared to the year before, according to Oregon Employment Department data. For people who can handle the work, the jobs may keep some struggling families fed and housed.

Then there are the 2,600 daily vehicle trips the warehouse is projected to generate. That’s significant. For better or worse, though, thousands of Lane County residents use Amazon. With the nearest distribution center 45 miles north in Albany, those vehicles are already on the road. They’re just on the road for longer as they traverse Interstate 5.

Believe me, I would much rather be writing about a local manufacturer expanding on the site. But I can’t think of a time that’s happened in Eugene since Yogi Tea built its west Eugene plant back in 2018. So the option isn’t Amazon versus something better. It’s Amazon versus an empty field next to an airport.

Many Eugene residents would prefer the empty field. I’d prefer to avoid cuts at the Eugene Public Library and our city-run pools. I’d prefer sustainable funding for services that support vulnerable people.

Amazon won’t go away unless fewer people order from it. Until that happens, I’ll take the hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual property tax revenue they’re willing to pony up as the cost of doing business in Eugene.