Eugene City Council Ward 4 | Jennifer Yeh vs. Tom Stedman

To see how candidates answered identical questions from Lookout, click here.

A two-term incumbent faces a challenge from a retired veteran in the race to represent Ward 4 on the Eugene City Council. 

Councilor Jennifer Yeh, who has served on the council since 2017 and works for Community Supported Shelters, is running against Tom Stedman, who worked in industrial maintenance and chemical screening before serving as a medic for CAHOOTS. 

The winner of the race will represent the northeast wedge of Eugene, encompassing the Harlow  and Northeast neighborhoods. Ward 4 is bounded roughly by city limits to the north, Interstate 5 to the east, the Willamette River to the south, and segments of Oakway and Gilham roads to the west.

The eight-member council is Eugene’s representative legislative body, responsible for proposing and passing local laws, setting policy and hiring the city manager, who runs day-to-day operations and administration across City Hall at the council’s direction. 

Councilors also have the final say on Eugene’s $1.9 billion two-year budget proposed by the city manager, and appoint members to city committees, boards and commissions. The city pays councilors about $22,000 per year.

Eugene city councilors are elected to four-year terms by residents of their ward, with half the seats on the ballot every two years. There are no term limits.

In the 2022 election, 5,164 voters in Ward 4 returned ballots. Roughly 10% of those voters didn’t weigh in on the council race, where Yeh narrowly won against a challenger. 

This matchup will likely look different: Stedman is door-knocking, but has not fundraised, launched a website or purchased campaign materials like mailers and yard signs, setting up a clear contrast with Yeh’s conventional reelection campaign.

Asked about their respective challengers, Yeh said characterizing her race as contested is “probably a stretch.” Stedman said he primarily entered the race for practice, but believes he can “win it readily.” 

Here’s what Lookout Eugene-Springfeld learned about the candidates for Eugene City Council Ward 4:

Jennifer Yeh

With two terms under her belt, Councilor Jennifer Yeh is running for reelection as a steady hand.

When the University of Oregon graduate returned to Eugene to raise her family after living in other parts of the state, she followed in the footsteps of her parents, who volunteered for their church and local schools growing up, by joining the Harlow Neighbors Association. 

The decade she went on to spend on its board, blended with her own experience as a mom, showed her what it’s like to work and live in Eugene — and deepened her belief in a local government that reflects the diversity of her neighborhood and its needs, she said. 

She took that belief to the council in 2017, when she was appointed to the Ward 4 seat and brought with her nonprofit workplace experience; she worked for eight years at the Lane County History Museum, and now serves as Community Supported Shelters’ development manager.

After nine years representing Ward 4, Yeh says she’s a voice of stability equipped to steer her community through the next four years, which, between Eugene’s upcoming turbulent budget cycle and new city manager, are likely to bring much change. 

“We’re going to be making very uncomfortable decisions as a community going forward, and we may have new people on council, and I’m confident they will do an excellent job, but I feel like my years of experience can be really beneficial in that space,” Yeh said. 

With limited pay and responsibility, city councilors can “easily phone it in,” Yeh said, describing her own self motivation as the driving force behind her council work and a source of personal pride. 

Over the years, Yeh added, she has become more decisive and confident in her leadership, recognizing that good governance is a “team sport” and often leads to compromises that don’t satisfy everyone.

Yeh’s overall budget philosophy: If the city must choose between doing 10 things poorly or six things very well, she’s choosing the latter. When it comes to cuts to services and staff, Yeh said Eugene should protect services for the city’s most vulnerable community members. 

If reelected, Yeh said she’d strengthen community engagement on the budget, which would prevent perceptions of local government lacking transparency like during last year’s fire fee proposal, and would allow councilors to anticipate unintended outcomes, like inadvertently shifting work onto volunteers, she said. More broadly, the council could do a better job working with members of the city’s boards and commissions, Yeh added. 

“One of our jobs is communicating to our community, and we are not getting a good grade in that area,” Yeh said.

Yeh said the city has “made progress” on ushering in new housing using Accelerated Multi-Unit Property Tax Exemptions and Downtown Fee Assistance programs, but she wants to continue to find ways to support development outside of downtown, especially along major transit routes. 

“The thing most people talk about when they’re talking to me in my community is housing affordability,” she said. 

Yeh said she’d support entering a second contract for automatic license-plate reader cameras only if a vendor could offer the security and privacy guardrails that the city deems appropriate.

She said she is “100% on board” to find legal ways to make it harder for the federal government to conduct operations in Eugene like immigration enforcement, though she acknowledged the risks of making the city a target for federal intervention.

“Right now, in our nation and in our community, I think people are feeling a lot of uncertainty, and it can sometimes feel chaotic, what’s going on,” she said. “But our community, here in Eugene, doesn’t have to be that way.”

Tom Stedman

Tom Stedman is running a campaign for people he says have been left out of conversations at City Hall. 

After being discharged from the Army and moving to Eugene in the late 1970s, Stedman worked in a number of industrial jobs, including for Weyerhaeuser and the Army Corps of Engineers. 

There, and during his Army service, he said he witnessed rampant workplace discrimination and harassment against employees from marginalized communities — including false accusations of drug possession — which drove him to advocate for better workplace protections through union and lobbying efforts. 

After retiring, Stedman worked for years as a medic for CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets), the nationally recognized local crisis response service that shut down last year in Eugene. He treated vulnerable people experiencing addiction and homelessness. 

His background in industrial chemical screening also led him to serve on the city’s Toxics Board, the seven-member body that helps regulate the local use of hazardous substances. 

Stedman said the centerpiece of his grassroots campaign, and his focus if elected, are “boots on the ground workers” — blue-collar city employees and community members he feels are underrepresented on the council and, more broadly, the local political establishment. 

He said he generated his campaign priorities by jotting down notes while door-knocking and by approaching city employees working on the street. 

“The people that have the knowledge are the folks that do the work for us,” Stedman said, adding: “I’ve always been told I have a way with people, how to make them open up, communicate, share.”

His approach to the budget is based around shielding staff from budget cuts, particularly hourly workers like Public Works maintenance crews, who he said weren’t included in previous conversations about how to narrow the city’s shortfall. 

“It’s like, when you raise your hand in school, they’re just like, ‘We’ve moved on from that,” he said. “I think I would be able to say, ‘Let’s just hold on a second.’”

He didn’t offer many details of how he’d protect those staff from possible cuts, but he spoke of the risks that could come from them — public safety and public works staff getting hurt on the job from performing work that they’re not trained for — and suggested that Eugene could prioritize trimming spending and staffing in management-level positions instead. 

Stedman said he fears the new city manager’s record when it comes to hourly staff, describing it as “cut, slash and burn”; the former Beaverton city manager bridged a $10.7 million budget shortfall in the 2025-26 fiscal year largely by cutting staff, though most positions were vacant. 

“My experience in labor, you can’t be afraid to step on toes,” he said. “You really can’t.”

On public safety, the former CAHOOTS medic criticized the city’s new crisis response pilot program as being insufficient to address the needs on the ground due to its staffing structure and geographic boundaries. 

“Their plan they have now, it’s not CAHOOTS,” he said. “It’s not going to serve the community as a whole. They need a medic. They need to service the south hills, Cal Young, Santa Clara.” 

He said he supports establishing a fire district, a form of governance for Eugene Springfield Fire that the cities have so far opted against, and is opposed to Flock Safety and other companies that sell automatic license-plate reader technology. 

Stedman also shared deep concern about potential environmental harms from industry development and practices across the state, varying from data centers and water rights, to the Trainsong fuel transfer station. 

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Candidate questionnaires

Candidates provided answers in their own words to questions from Lookout Eugene Springfield. Our questions are in bold, followed by their responses.

What in your background would make you the best councilor for your race?

Yeh: My qualifications are rooted in long-term, hands-on service to this community and an understanding of how city government decisions affect people’s everyday lives. I spent a decade involved in my neighborhood association, including serving as chair and on the Neighborhood Leaders Council, where I worked directly with residents to address concerns, support what mattered to them, and do community projects that improved our neighborhood. Building on that work, I have served two terms as a city councilor, where I gained direct experience shaping policy, overseeing budgets, and balancing the diverse needs of Eugene residents. Through that service, I developed strong working relationships across the community and a deeper understanding of how to navigate complex issues collaboratively. In addition, I have raised my family here, which has given me a personal, long-term stake in the community’s future. Together, this combination of neighborhood leadership, elected experience, and deep personal roots in the community is my foundation to serve effectively and responsibly.

Stedman: ability to meet w/folks, listen to what is important to them & start going down a path of collaboration, getting people to speak from the heart/soul and being honest to themselves and truly speaking their intent. additionally i will always do the necessary foot work to delve deeper into the issues that come to my attention, often pricking the skin or buzzing they ear of people in power when trying to provide help to folks in need & hoping to both find a solution and the bottom line of may be ultimately be the cause.

What would your top three goals be if elected and how would you accomplish them?

Yeh: Budget – Our city budgeting is challenging, and therefore, it is more important than ever that community members have ways to share their feedback and see that reflected in discussions and decision-making. It’s also vital that the city supports the community to better understand the complexities of the budget in a way that is accessible for people with different levels of experience with budgeting. While our budget process is robust already, I will work with staff to ensure we have different ways and opportunities for people to engage in the process and we take advantage of our boards and commissions as well.

Housing – while a complex issue, it is a major concern in the community. People need housing that fits their needs at a price they can afford. This means using available funds and targeted incentives to support more housing development on different levels of cost across our community, as well as supporting vital shelter space for people experiencing homelessness. In addition, looking for ways to continue to support renters and prevent homelessness. While we have made some progress in these areas, including the recent Accelerated MUPTE and downtown fee assistance pilots, I want us to continue to look for ways to support housing development outside of the downtown area, especially along major transit routes.

Transportation – One of the things I have been hearing over the last several years is an increased concern from people in my ward about the safety of our transportation system. No matter the mode of transportation, people are concerned about impaired and distracted drivers, speeding, and running red lights, and want to see safer infrastructure, more safety for pedestrians and bikers, and targeted enforcement by EPD. As the council explores our Vision Zero program and ways to address safety on our roads and paths, I want to see us make targeted investments in sidewalks and traffic calming while also looking for other quick but effective options.

Stedman: our budget, establishing a fire district, retaining personnel that are our boots on the ground workers. a lot will depend on our new general manager. her track record appears to be cut, slash and burn hourly personnel, raise and implement taxes on home owners that sale their homes. work to make sure the budget burden is spread equally across our residents. a lot of the hourly folks are frustrated to constantly see their numbers being pared down, only to see the lost previous hourly FTE’s being used to create salaried FTE’s in increasing #’s. EMS personnel have their #’s continue to drop while having to make repeat calls at multiple retirement & assisted living centers for calls that these residence centers are also understaffed. the concern is that having HB1 hanging over them, they could be looking at billing to these residence going unpaid, causing an additional shortfall in their funding. fleet services have gained i believe 1 FTE over 15 years while seeing the fleet go from 400 vehicles to nearly 900.

What are the gaps and shortcomings in city services and how would you address them?

Yeh: Honestly, we have a systemic issue of many departments trying to support their programs and Eugene residents without adequate funding and staffing to meet the needs in the way our community needs. From support to renters, nuisance complaints, library services, homeless services, police and fire – our budget challenges are affecting many aspects of the work we do for our community. Not only that, cut it makes addressing new and emerging needs very difficult. My goal is focus on our most vulnerable residents’ needs as we are making these difficult decision so that programs are supporting those the least likely to be able to fill gaps themselves.

Stedman: public safety & public works. in order for public works to accomplish their work safely, they pool from different department to create full crews that go out in the field. not sure how often this happens, but people don’t have the skill sets to do the work, it will lead to potential accidents. some folks call it multi-crafting or high performance work systems. just another way to squeeze more out of trades and driving down morale.

How would you work with other councilors and city staff to find solutions to common problems? Give us an example of a time you worked on a collaborative solution.

Yeh: I think one of the best examples of local collaboration has been around housing policy and especially middle housing policy adoption. The process included extensive community input from residents, collaboration with nonprofits and the business community, and a lot of consultation with staff to arrive at a final strategy. While more extensive than most processes, it’s not different from how I approach other issues. I work collaboratively by focusing on listening first, building shared understanding, and finding practical solutions. I believe most challenges are better solved through collaboration than through individual approaches, and I make a point of staying open, respectful, and solution-oriented. While we may be elected individually and ultimately vote independently, I approach my role as being a part of a team with shared goals.

Stedman: i would have to get to know the other councilors and staff better then go from there. staff would be a little more difficult then fellow council members to establish a successful working relationship. worked to create a joint labor/salaried committee that addressed all harassment/hostile work environments that occurred in the Weyerhaeuser paper mill that worked at. this would become the only operation in the entire corporate operations of Weyerhaeuser. it was an extremely bitter and lack of trust environment w/lots of yelling and mistrust. it mostly gave the salaried women a venue to have some one hear them in a safe environment, provide confidentially and work to make the situation a matter of record.

How have recent actions by the federal government affected your goals and priorities, if at all?

Yeh: When our federal government divests, it places pressure on local governments to take on additional responsibilities. When federal funding for housing, infrastructure, public health, or climate resilience is reduced, a city like Eugene is forced to either cut programs, delay critical projects, or raise local taxes and fees to fill the gap. This is especially challenging in areas like housing, homelessness, and infrastructure.

Stedman: i worry for our kids and grand kids. i think the technologies & the tactics used on Venezuelan troops will soon be directed at American citizens, i believe the efforts to suppress and deny the upcoming elections will continue even more aggressively.

Outside of any elected experience in your background (if any), what other experiences in life have prepared you for this role?

Yeh: Did not answer

Stedman: my time as an RR/EO rep in the Army & dealing w/false accusations of possession & getting the 1st Sgt and company commander to admit planting the pot seeds, being approached by 2 separate klan groups to join their & outcome experienced by the group locally, iv’e been a member of the Ironworkers, AWPPW – UBC local 677 & UPTO, United Powers & Trades so i have an incite to our union represented folks, i know the local IAFF president and the former AFSCME local president and i have a good relationship w/both of em, my experience doing maintenance work at a variety of business gives me the ability to converse w/fleet services to electricians to carpenters to park services confidently and my time as a medic on CAHOOTS has given me an insight into the workings & stresses of our public safety personnel. i have been monitoring city council, police commission & civilian review board meetings to learn as much as possible of key topics before the council.