CC Minutes - 12/12/01 Work Session

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Mr. Pap~ observed that cost did not seem to be an issue for other Oregon communities. He asked for information about the costs to candidates running in the last election in Eugene. He also asked staff to find out whether Gresham's system was ward-based or at-large. Regarding the issue of constituent services, Mr. Pap~ said that he believed in an at-large system, councilors could defer to each other for constituent services. Ms. Bettman said if the council was going to have a substantive discussion on the issue, it needed more information about the assumptions being made than was provided in the packet. She cited information about campaign costs as an example. Ms. Bettman disagreed with the perception that councilors did not represent the entire community. She believed that councilors' participation on other committees and their constituent work gave them a well- rounded perspective. Ms. Bettman further pointed out that under a city-wide election system, each councilor would represent 140,000 constituents, more than twice as many as a County commissioner represented. Ms. Taylor thought the councilors all represented the entire city, and those who did not were not doing their job. She talked to everyone who called her no matter what ward they lived in and helped them get information. She did not want a situation where people from other parts of the City got to elect the councilor from a particular ward, and noted Mr. Kelly's comment that a councilor could fail to get the support of residents in their ward yet still be elected. Ms. Taylor believed that there would always be some citizens whose councilor did not represent their views. There was a better opportunity under the ward system to elect someone who did. She thought that money would play a larger role in city-wide elections than it did under the current system. Mr. Rayor said he would like to give the new wards a chance to work. He thought the wards were by their nature fundamentally different from one another, as demonstrated by the vote on the West Eugene Parkway. He also objected to the types of campaigns that he envisioned would be run on a city-wide basis, fearing that coalitions of candidates would run for office. For example, coalitions of realtors might gang up on other candidates by putting campaign signs up on houses for sale, making it appear as though the candidate had more support than they did. He did not think campaign finance limits would have an impact on that situation. Mr. Rayor termed ward campaigns "person-to-person" campaigns that allowed the candidate to become familiar with their wards and ward residents. Mayor Torrey said he believed the council was having this discussion because the ward population distribution had been uneven and councilors were not appropriately representative of the community as a whole. He cited the CCRC as a committee not representative of the community, but nonetheless the council placed its recommendation for instant runoff voting on the ballot and it subsequently was defeated by a wide margin. Mayor Torrey said if the council wanted to make city-wide elections work, it could do so. He asked why the council would be reluctant to let the citizens made a decision on the issue. He was not afraid to have the discussion or let the citizens have the discussion. Mayor Torrey said that the mayor's office depends on the bully pulpit. The mayor did not vote unless there was a tie. The issue was then, how could the mayor get people to do what was in the best interest of the community, and he advocated for communication with them. The mayor was the one person who could point to community-wide support. MINUTES--Eugene City Council December 12, 2001 Page 7 Work Session