W
Fifty
Shades
of Betty
CITY COUNCIL RACE
PITS TAYLOR
AGAINST VALLE
hen southeast Eugene voters mark their ballots in this
election, they will make a familiar choice: four-term
City Councilor Betty Taylor or an opponent? Taylor, a
veteran progressive, is seeking her fifth term on the
council, while Social Security Administration counselor
Juan Carlos Valle is running in his first public election.
Taylor’s supporters, such as Mayor Kitty Piercy, cite her devotion to
Ward 2 and progressive causes as reasons to keep her on the council,
and they point to the development interests donating record
contributions to Valle’s campaign as a sign of how much pro-sprawl,
anti-conservation forces detest Taylor.
Valle’s camp says that he’s also progressive and would have a
similar voting record to Taylor, and he’s running because a
“fresh approach” is needed on the council. They say Taylor
doesn’t compromise; Taylor says she doesn’t compromise
the values she was elected to represent.
Taylor’s hair might be gray, but as her fellow Betty,
Betty White, has shown, older age doesn’t need to
slow you down. (Betty White is three years older
than Taylor.) Taylor’s smart, sassy and votes for
the kind of progressive values her south Eugene
ward holds dear. Valle says it’s all about compro-
mise and collaboration. But when money coming
into this campaign comes from conservatives,
developers and timber interests, what do com-
promise and collaboration mean?
by Shannon Finnell
PHOTO BY TODD COOPER
Funding from the Dark Side
Ward 2 is having a rare November election because
of a three-way split. Taylor got the most votes, but not
more than 50 percent in the May primary between
Taylor, Valle and Jim Ray. Council positions are
nonpartisan and the top two from a May primary face
off in November.
Lane County voters who followed the May primary
County Board of Commissioners race might think this
November race sounds familiar: A long-serving pro-
gressive facing a self-proclaimed progressive chal-
lenger who describes himself as more collaborative is
exactly what happened when Commissioner Pete
Sorenson fended off Andy Stahl.
No, Sorenson says — there’s a big difference in the
funding. “Betty’s opponent has gotten a substantial
amount of money from what I would call the dark side,”
he says, invoking Star Wars. “We’re talking major Repub-
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October 25, 2012 • eugeneweekly.com
lican money.” He says his May opponent was mostly
funded by two donors, one of them Stahl’s father.
Valle’s campaign manager is former progressive
councilor David Kelly, and his largest contributor
($4,238) is Kelly’s wife, Jane Kelly, but other donors
contributing to his campaign are far less progressive.
Development and real estate-related interests that
have donated to Valle include the Eugene Association
of Realtors, developer Dan Neal, Anslow &
DeGeneault, Inc., Bennett Management Company
(commercial and large-scale apartment management),
Jean Tate of Windermere Real Estate and real estate
consultant Hubert J. Prichard.
Timber executives Dan Giustina and Joe Gonyea
III also contributed to Valle’s campaign, as did the
Community Action Network (CAN), a political action
committee that supports conservative groups. CAN’s
funding sources include a long list of timber interests
like the Giustinas, Delta Sand and Gravel, Seneca
Jones, Oregon Family Farm Association PAC and
Healthy Communities Initiative (which donated
$22,643 to help defeat 2010’s proposed local tax for
Eugene 4J schools). The Oregon Family Farm
Association PAC, in turn, has received $107,500 from
conservative mega-donor Loren Parks in 2012 alone.
At press time, Valle’s campaign had broken
Eugene’s record for campaign spending in a City
Council race by spending $27,940.23.
“These are people substantially outside of Ward 2
who are trying to influence the election in Ward 2,”
Sorenson says.
Sorenson says it’s not hard to see why conservatives
and timber and development interests are donating
to Valle. “They’re upset with Betty Taylor for her
advocacy for the environment, for her advocacy for
the Amazon headwaters, for her advocacy for the