Our View: A 2026 wish list for Lane County

From health care shakeups to budget battles to year one of Trump 2.0, Lane County weathered a bumpy 2025.

Now we turn the page to a consequential 2026. Politicians — from city halls to the state capitol to Congress — will be on the ballot. The year starts with Lane County’s economy on its shakiest footing since the pandemic, and local debates over budget cuts sure to continue.

That’s not to say everything in 2025 was doom and gloom. We saw thousands of Lane County residents repeatedly take to the streets to peacefully protest the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation tactics. We saw community members organize to oppose Eugene and Springfield’s contracts with the automated license-plate reader vendor Flock Safety. We saw thousands of Lane County residents give time, effort and money to support their food-insecure neighbors, family members opt for substance-abuse recovery instead of jail, teachers recognized for their excellence and young people volunteer to help the environment and reduce the gender gap in the sciences.

They all reminded us that citizen-led activism is alive and well, and that Lane County’s future remains bright.

So what will 2026 bring? Of course, only time will tell. But we’ll be starting the year paying close attention to these issues.

Competitive local election races: Voters deserve choices. The way the 2026 election season is shaping up, few Eugene or Springfield voters will get one.

So far, just one of the four Eugene City Council seats up in the May 19 primary election has drawn more than a single candidate.

In Springfield, none of the three council seats up in May is contested. And a fourth councilor who announced her resignation this week means another Springfield resident will need to step up.

March 10 is the deadline to file for city council races, so there’s still time for anyone considering a run to submit their paperwork. Voters benefit from the policy debates a contested race brings, and incumbents better serve the public when their record is challenged.

Eugene and Springfield residents, the clock is ticking. If you have ideas for making your city work better, this is your opportunity to help make it happen.

More decorum on our boards: Speaking of running for office, it would be nice to think of local education boards as refuges from our increasingly dysfunctional national politics.

Sadly, that wasn’t the case last year. Drama reached epic proportions on the boards of Lane Community College and Springfield Public Schools, where claims of rude conduct, intimidation and tense relationships between board members and administrators were the norm. That happened all while the LCC board repeatedly delayed discussions of impending budget cuts, and Springfield teachers and parents remained in the dark about a state investigation into the district’s curriculum.

None of LCC or Springfield school board members’ seats are up in 2026. So everyone who contributed to last year’s problems will have to work together to steer debate in a more civil (and productive) direction this year. The trust of their constituents hangs in the balance.

A smooth transition for Oregon Health Plan members: Feb. 1 marks an inflection point for local health care delivery. That’s when the insurance plans of nearly 96,000 Oregon Health Plan members in Lane County transition from PacificSource to Trillium.

Trillium officials have stressed that patients can keep seeing their current providers. At the same time, the insurer is racing to bring more doctors and clinics into its network to prevent 15,000 to 25,000 members from losing in-network access to their providers.

Patients shouldn’t notice much change if the transition goes well. But any stumbles could be disastrous for thousands of low-income residents, especially as the federal government cuts funding for Medicaid.

We’ll be watching to see if Trillium closes the provider gap and handles the transition smoothly.

Unorthodox solutions to our housing crisis: We’re losing the fight against housing insecurity. Downtown Eugene apartment projects are stalled, and fewer permits for new single-family homes were issued in 2025 than the year before. At the same time, prices keep rising: The median price of a Lane County house was about $445,000 last year, up 1.1% from the previous year.

Fewer housing units and higher prices continues to push the dream of homeownership — or even stable renting — out of reach for many. At this point, the message sounds like a broken record.

Making a dent in our construction deficit will take more than local resources. While major legislation is unlikely in this year’s short Oregon Legislative Session, state policymakers should spend 2026 coming up with longer-term solutions — even if they’re unpopular.

We’ve written about the need for fresh ideas in the face of our slowing economy. To increase the supply of housing, fresh ideas might mean streamlining the process for cities to expand their Urban Growth Boundaries, or reducing regulations for new construction.

There’s no silver bullet for our housing crisis. But we know the depth of the emergency requires more flexibility for our cities.

A second year of protest: Throughout 2025, Lane County residents took to the streets to protest the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.

From major rallies like the “No Kings” marches, to the weekly demonstrations outside Eugene’s downtown federal building, these protesters showed resolve and resilience in the face of threats to immigrants in our community — many of whom have committed no crimes or only minor offenses.

We don’t need to hope that residents continue peacefully exercising their right to protest and calling for dignity for their neighbors. That’s because we’re confident they’re plenty motivated to keep turning out in 2026.

Citizens keeping close tabs on government: Concerned Lane County citizens didn’t just take to the streets in 2025. They also turned up in force at Eugene and Springfield City Council meetings to protest their cities’ contracts to deploy Flock Safety cameras.

While we see the potential of license-plate reading technology to assist local police departments — as we wrote about previously — Flock’s poor track record on data security made it the wrong vendor for a state fighting back against federal encroachment.

We’ve already applauded the citizen-led public pressure campaigns that led to both police departments canceling their contracts, and again demonstrated that one of the best things about Lane County is its engaged citizens.

When people demand transparency and accountability, local governments are forced to listen. We hope to see the public just as engaged with their elected leaders in 2026.