DISCOVER THE WONDERS OF NATURE . . .
BY KITTY PIERCY
Building Trust
Is Eugene really as polarized
as we believe?
EDITOR’S NOTE: The below remarks were given as a keynote address at the
Citizens for Public Accountability annual meeting May 14.
W
e are in a world of hurt economically here in Oregon and the human toll
grows daily. Our schools are under-funded, our health care system is in disar-
ray, and our unemployment rate is the highest in the nation. Our most vulnera-
ble citizens are losing the support that provides them housing, medical treatment or other
basic needs. We find ourselves mocked by “Doonesbury” and discussed in major editori-
als across the nation.
One part of me thinks we deserve the mocking and the other part of me laments the
current national portrayal of Oregon. For more than a decade too many of us have been
bystanders to the steady erosion of all that makes Oregon special. We stand on the laurels
of the past, when Oregon led the nation in quality of education, protecting our beaches,
recycling our bottles, land use planning and the Oregon Health Plan. We now find our-
selves mired in short-term crisis and unable to move forward with long term visionary
planning for our state and its people.
Our Legislature is in the hands of those who were elected on an anti-government plat-
form. Those who aim to destroy government have, for all practical purposes, succeeded
in immobilizing it, making it essentially unable to adequately respond to the needs of
everyday citizens. This immobilization only reinforces the growing distrust of govern-
ment.
Eugene is better off than many communities, yet we are known for endless bickering
and polarization in our public debate and policy making. Every day someone talks to me
about this polarization and their dislike of it. I sometimes wonder if we get talked into
thinking we are more polarized than we really are. There are many things most
Eugeneans agree on. We want to manage our growth in a way that we can continue to
have a community we are proud of. We want jobs with good benefits and decent wages.
We support human and civil rights. We want high quality education opportunities for our
children, from pre-school through higher ed. We want a sound social service infrastruc-
ture to care for our most vulnerable citizens. We want a health care system that is acces-
sible to all. We want prevention of crime and justice for all. We want clean air and water.
There are more that you could add.
Certainly we don’t all agree on how to achieve these community goals, but we could
pause and acknowledge that most of us — no matter our politics — want these things for
our community. There are things that we think and do, though, that get in the way.
• There is a general distrust of policy makers from all sides. This comes to us be
cause of the political messages we hear and the way we go about working
together.
• We too often vilify those with whom we disagree.
• We believe we are cheated if we do not get our way.
• Money plays too heavy a role in decision-making.
• We feel frustration in a fast-moving world where we have few ways to impact
decisions.
• We too seldom put all the community pieces together. We just look at the separate
parts, the ones we are most interested in.
• We do not tout our successes at working together and build on them.
• We too often don’t honor past agreements.
• We feel compromise is “giving it away” and not standing by our values. We
don’t listen to each other with the intention or possibility of hearing something that will
alter our thinking. We worry that the game is already being played on
the other side of the court and any movement only supports a further move in
that direction.
In short we lack trust. Building trust and learning how to bring diverse views to the
table in order to build a common vision for our community is important. Perhaps learn-
ing how to do it well is as important or even more important that the actual decisions we
make.
I invite you to think about this with me.
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JUNE 12, 2003 7