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Councilors voted 5-2 to return to City Hall for Wednesday work sessions, citing increased productivity and communication. One critic says the arrangement shuts the public out.
The Eugene City Council will soon gather for its Wednesday work sessions in person, but the public will still have to tune in remotely.
Councilors voted 5-2 Wednesday, March 11, to transition their virtual-only work sessions — the 27 council meetings per year without public comment periods — to a format where councilors appear in person while the public and media participate remotely. They said the change will allow for more productive discussions.
The move will tack on between $3,000 and $4,000 to the city’s upcoming supplemental budget to pay staff to set up and clean up council chambers and operate the in-room meeting technology.
“The minimal cost is absolutely worth it if even one decision that we make a year is a better decision because we’re able to work together more effectively,” said Council President Lyndsie Leech.
Councilors agreed to forgo catered lunches for the noon meetings to remove an additional annual expense of $11,000. They still receive meals for their twice-monthly Monday night meetings.
Councilors also opted not to pursue a work session format where both the council and public could attend in person, which would’ve cost an extra $39,000 per year.
That number breaks down to $8,000 in city staffing costs, $11,000 in catered meals and $20,000 for security, including support from the Eugene Police Department and Hult Center staff who operate the metal detector in the lobby.
Councilors Randy Groves and Mike Clark voted against transitioning to the hybrid format due to the added expense. The council originally moved its Wednesday work sessions to a virtual-only format to cut costs in the 2023-2025 biennium budget cycle.
Greg Evans, who was absent from the meeting, told Lookout Eugene-Springfield on Thursday that he would’ve voted with the minority.
Some councilors shared concerns Wednesday about the optics of transitioning to in-person meetings while continuing to require the public to attend virtually.
“If we’re going to have a meeting in City Hall, we should allow the general public to be in it,” Clark said. “That’s going to drive the expense issue, and leads me to thinking, ‘Do we make the whole expense, or do we don’t?’ I don’t think we should.”
Councilors maintained their decision doesn’t change how community members attend meetings, given that the work sessions are already virtual and intended for policy discussions between council and experts.
Councilor Matt Keating added that the new format will provide another “in-person touchpoint” with Jenny Haruyama, Eugene’s incoming city manager, when she begins her role in April.
“I would encourage colleagues not to let the public participation piece, or the perceived public participation piece, be a barrier,” Keating said. “The hybrid format doesn’t change anything we’re doing right now.”
The decision sparked concerns for Sara McKinney, a Ward 5 resident and Eugene’s deputy city recorder. She works in a city office that serves as a “point of access” between elected officials and city government.
In an email to the council, mayor and city manager days before the meeting, McKinney, writing as a constituent, not a city employee, raised worries about adding an additional expense to Eugene’s budget before the city finalizes its plan to resolve its deficit.
Eugene will need to reduce general fund spending by $2.2 million per year beginning in 2027 to keep the city’s reserves on target.
If the council believes meeting in person is worth increasing costs for taxpayers, members of the public should also have the option to be physically present, McKinney wrote.
After the Wednesday meeting, McKinney told Lookout that she appreciated councilors’ discussion but was disappointed by their decision.
“It’s a disservice to the public to not allow them to at least be in the room and look at the whites of the council’s eyes when they’re making decisions for us,” McKinney said.
The council could have considered other cost-saving measures to afford the new expenses associated with allowing the public to attend work sessions in person, including holding fewer of them or reducing the number of security staff, McKinney added.
Eugene’s council meets between two and three times per month for their Wednesday virtual-only work sessions. By comparison, the city councils representing Salem, which has roughly the same population as Eugene, and Springfield hold work sessions once or twice a month, which both councilors and the public can attend in person.
“When you’re a talking head on a monitor and the public is an imaginary thing that may or not be watching online, you’re a little more emboldened to say and do whatever you feel, and not take into consideration those people that elected you into the positions,” McKinney said.
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