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It’s a big week for the future of Eugene.
The three finalists to be Eugene’s next city manager — current interim Eugene City Manager Matt Rodrigues, Beaverton City Manager Jenny Haruyama and Lake Oswego City Manager Martha Bennett — will take turns fielding questions from Eugene city councilors this afternoon.
Each will make the case that they’re best suited for the job that’s essentially CEO of city government. A nearly $900 million-plus annual budget? More than 1,500 full-time employees? Both are the purview of the city manager.
But if a city manager is a CEO, then the City Council is the hiring committee. And they’re expected to move fast, possibly announcing their pick tomorrow. This could be the most consequential vote Eugene City Councilors take, and each councilor has (hopefully) done their own homework.
But since today’s meeting is the public’s only chance to hear from the candidates before the City Council makes a decision, here are three questions we’d like to see councilors ask the candidates.
1. As city manager, how will you keep Eugene focused on its major priorities?
The stalled downtown riverfront development — and housing policy in general — come to mind here. Eugene is great at patting itself on the back when projects like the first two riverfront buildings and park construction go well. But when the remaining 80 percent of the project stalls, the city seems to quickly move on to other matters.
With more than $50 million in Eugene urban renewal funds already spent, the riverfront project is arguably the most important development ever to come through the Eugene Planning and Development Department’s pipeline. Eugene’s next city manager must provide the leadership needed to revive the project, while simultaneously overseeing the city’s other departments and their priorities.
Then there are the city’s affordable housing goals. In recent years, Eugene has introduced a patchwork of construction subsidies, tax waivers, renter assistance and other incentives to address the city’s growing deficit of housing supply available for people making near or below the area’s median income — $64,200 for an individual, and $91,700 for a family of four. Yet meaningful progress to reduce our supply deficit hasn’t materialized.
Can the three city manager candidates speak to times they’ve seen a major city initiative like the riverfront project through to completion, while managing other responsibilities like affordable housing policy development at the same time? If they have been able to kickstart a stalled project, ask them how they did it.
2. How will you, as city manager, ensure key stakeholders are aware of issues that may be controversial?
Former City Manager Sarah Medary left the City Council in the dark last March, when she worked with Eugene’s police chief to approve the installation of dozens of Flock Safety license-plate reader cameras across the city.
City managers, not the City Council, sign contracts with third-party vendors like Flock. But it’s a chief executive’s responsibility to anticipate issues that could tarnish the council’s relationship with its citizens. And that’s exactly what happened throughout 2025, as protests against the license-plate reader technology culminated in Medary terminating the contract under intense council pressure.
How will the three city manager candidates decide when to get more input on issues, even when they’re not legally required to seek it?
3. How prepared are you to advocate for Eugene at the state and federal levels?
The success (or failure) of a city manager is closely tied to the health of a city’s budget. Right now, Eugene’s budget is a bit like a sick patient.
Facing a structural budget deficit due to rising employee pension costs and a slowing economy, the next city manager will need to make their presence felt in Salem and Washington, D.C.
Returning to the downtown riverfront, the city should lobby the state for more flexibility on the prevailing wage issue that ground construction to a halt over the summer. The city employs an intergovernmental relations manager who lobbies on the city’s behalf to the Oregon Legislature. But that position reports to the city manager, and needs a leader’s direction to make the case for any legislation that might be needed.
Then there are state and federal grants Eugene and other cities vie for to fund public safety, infrastructure, housing and other initiatives.
What experience do the city manager candidates have advocating on the state or federal level for increased funding?
The average tenure of the last four Eugene city managers was 6.5 years. The longest was 11 years; the shortest was four years. So no matter who is hired, we expect the next city manager to hang around for a while.
For that reason alone, the City Council’s interviews will be crucial. We won’t get to hear them deliberate — that will happen in a private council meeting Wednesday. But we’ll be watching today’s interviews to make sure the council treats the public part of the process with the attentiveness it deserves. The questions they ask will be telling.
