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BY ALAN PITTMAN
Secret Survey
City manager hires political poll on council
E
ugene City Manager Jon Ruiz con-
ducted a secret $25,000 political
poll with questions about the
performance of elected offi cials without
the City Council knowing about it.
The poll asked whether respondents
agreed with the statement that “Eugene’s
elected offi cials are totally trustworthy.”
The survey found 29 percent agreed and 34
percent did not, with the rest undecided.
Another survey question asked whether
respondents agreed that “The Eugene
City Council does an excellent job of
determining priorities and overseeing
public policy in the City.” Only 17 percent
agreed, 47 percent disagreed and the rest
were undecided.
Several councilors told the manager at
a Sept. 23 “process session” that in their
supposed role of overseeing public policy,
they should have been told about Ruiz’s
poll before it was conducted. “I just feel
like we should have been consulted,” said
Councilor George Brown.
LESS THAN
A THIRD (31
PERCENT)
SUPPORTED
EXPANDING
THE CITY’S
URBAN
GROWTH
BOUNDARY.
But Ruiz said he didn’t want elected
offi cials to oversee his political polling. “I
have some concern about council weighing
in about wordsmithing under the guise
of policy, because all of a sudden that
becomes also political, because now the
questions become much more about what
your particular position or interest is.”
But while Ruiz didn’t want demo-
cratically elected offi cials’ positions or
interests in the poll, his poll is clearly
political.
The poll appeared designed to push for
support for passage of a new urban renewal
measure, despite a 2-1 defeat of urban renewal
at the polls two years ago. Citizens opposed
the $40 million measure as a diversion of
tax money from schools and other important
government services to unfairly subsidize
chain-store developers to compete with local
businesses. But city staff have long depended
on urban renewal to fund their own salaries.
In theory, using taxpayer money for
political campaigns is illegal in Oregon. The
survey questions tested possible arguments
to use in a campaign for an urban renewal
measure. But the law is rarely enforced,
especially before a measure is actually put
on the ballot.
Ruiz, who moved to Eugene from
Fresno, chose Gary Manross, a Los Angeles
operative on political and corporate
campaigns, to conduct the survey. Manross
advised in a council meeting Sept. 14 that
the city use the survey results to help push
Ruiz’s urban renewal plans. “This way you
can say this is what the electorate wants,”
Manross said.
The survey included long question
introductions that spun urban renewal
as a “job creation” program in the down
economy. But with downtown full of
vacancies and pits after 40 years of city
“urban renewal,” it’s hard to say that the
city’s approach has created any jobs.
Even with the slanted poll questions
pushing for urban renewal, only 48 percent
of respondents said they would defi nitely
or probably support a $20 million urban
renewal measure.
It’s hard to say if the poll respondents
would refl ect voters. Sixty percent of
respondents were over 55 years old, about
double the U.S. Census numbers for
Eugene. The pollster said the poll was of
likely voters.
Here are other interesting numbers from
the poll:
• Less than a third (31 percent) support-
ed expanding the city’s Urban Growth
Boundary. Forty-three percent opposed
expanding the UGB, and 25 percent were
unsure.
• Eighty-one percent agreed with the
statement: “Eugene is a great community;
I’m happy to be a resident.”
• Only 3 percent of respondents said
they were “especially concerned” about
crime and public safety.
• Three quarters of respondents de-
scribed the economy as worse than a mild
recession. But more than half (57 percent)
felt that in a year the economy would be
out of the recession.
• Twice as many respondents described
themselves as liberal (41 percent) as
conservative (19 percent). The rest (32
percent) said they were moderate or
declined to answer (8 percent).
• Eugene may have a Republican
city manager doing its political poling
with taxpayer money, but Democrats
outnumbered Republicans almost three to
one in the poll (65 vs. 23 percent).
The city manager’s political survey
may be more interesting for the questions
that it didn’t ask on pressing issues.
The survey did not ask about the city’s
controversial decision to move its police
station out of downtown to north Eugene,
contradicting the city’s supposed efforts
to increase employment and safety down-
town.
The 64-question survey also did not ask
about livability, reducing global warming
pollution, tax breaks for developers and
corporations, police accountability, building
more freeways, control of government by an
unelected city manager and whether or not
the unelected city executives that actually
run the city are “totally trustworthy” and
do an “excellent job.”
ew
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EUGENE WEEKLY OCTOBER 29, 2009 13