Chronic vacancies prompt Eugene Toxics Board to revisit its rules

The city of Eugene’s Toxics Board is weighing how to fill empty seats. 

The seven-member volunteer board oversees Eugene’s Toxics Right-to-Know Program, which requires local users of hazardous substances to report their chemical usage and pay associated fees. But persistent vacancies have prompted members to rethink their recruitment strategy. 

Voters created the program and board in 1996 through an amendment to the Eugene City Charter. City councilors appoint members to three-year terms. 

Under the amendment, the board must include three environmental representatives and three industry representatives who work for entities that are required to report under the program. There is also one neutral member who is nominated by at least four of the six other members. 

One industry seat and the neutral seat have been vacant for months.

At a work session July 8, members discussed how to expand the applicant pool for industry seats. The conversation centered on loosening a requirement that industry members must work for a “reporting entity” and instead allow members with at least two years of relevant experience in the past 10 years, even if they no longer work in the field.

“We’re recognizing that the language is limiting for us to recruit the industry representatives,” Eugene Springfield Fire Marshal Travis Worthington said.

The board floated two strategies for changing the rules. The first was to ask the City Council to initiate an amendment to the charter, which would appear on the ballot in the next election cycle. Worthington said that would be challenging, because the council typically bundles charter amendments, meaning that if “one fails, all fail.”

A second option was to ask the council to propose an ordinance that would dictate the industry representative experience requirements, which Worthington described as the board’s “Hail Mary” approach. 

Daniel Sharp, an industry representative who is director of brewing operations at Ninkasi Brewing Co., said he wants to exhaust cheaper, faster recruitment strategies before pursuing the complicated process of a charter amendment. 

He also questioned whether allowing applicants who haven’t worked in the field within the last decade would give the board the insight it needs. Worthington said time constraints are a key obstacle in attracting industry professionals, adding that recent retirees might have more availability. 

“We need to open it up, but we need to open up with people who have the relevant kind of mind frame that they understand, you know, what the reporting cycles are,” said Anthony Baronti, an industry representative who is a hazards materials manager at The Willamette Valley Co.

As a possible compromise, members proposed shortening the experience window to four or five years instead of 10. Worthington said members should also consider adding a conflict of interest mitigation clause, suggesting a mandated one-year gap between applicants’ last industry job and their appointment to the Toxics Board.

They ultimately tabled the discussion until their next work session Aug. 12. They also agreed to consider other recruitment strategies, such as mailers and direct outreach to the Eugene Chamber of Commerce.

Vacancies on the Toxics Board aren’t a new issue. At a City Council work session in April, Eugene Water & Electric Board commissioner John Barofsky said the Toxics Board’s ongoing struggle to fill seats has sometimes kept it from have a quorum. 

“It’s not like a budget committee or planning commission where we get plenty of people who want to be involved,” Councilor Randy Groves said at the April meeting. “Usually if you apply, you get the position [on the Toxics board]. It’s pretty lean.”

The Toxics Right-to-Know Program is funded by fees paid by local businesses that use hazardous substances. Starting July 1 those businesses must pay the city $85.62 per full-time-equivalent employee, up to a cap of $2,000 per business.