Eugene weekly., January 05, 2017, Page 10, Image 10

NEWS
BY CAMILLA MORTENSEN
GOODBYE KITTY:
PIERCY HANDS
OFF THE TORCH
AS MAYOR
olitical leaders leave legacies — Eugene’s first
woman mayor Ruth Bascom is remembered as the
“bicycling mayor” after establishing bike and pe-
destrian paths around town during her tenure from
1993-96.
As now-former mayor Kitty Piercy winds down her
stint from January 2005 to January 2017 as Eugene’s sec-
ond-longest serving mayor, many have wondered what her
legacy will be.
If you ask Piercy, she will tell you her legacy is “the
triple bottom line” and a belief that a city can be both pro-
business and pro-environment: economic development, so-
cial equity and natural resource protection. She points to
the filling of the downtown pits, a now-thriving downtown
and to dialogue over the controversial West Eugene Park-
way — the four-lane expressway through West Eugene that
never was — as examples of that.
She also points to Eugene’s role in paid sick leave in
Oregon, the city’s work on climate change, taking stances
on issues such as the Standing Rock pipeline protest and
adopting a police auditor position as positive steps forward
during her tenure in office.
Critics will tell you Piercy’s legacy might be the drawn-
out City Hall saga with no end in sight, and she doesn’t
dispute that City Hall is a disappointment. In a goodbye
talk to the City Club of Eugene Dec. 9, she pointed to “the
quality of Capstone, the endless saga of the city hall, the
failed school levy, the loss of the Eugene Celebration and
the continuing lack of a public shelter,” as examples of
problems not yet solved.
It’s perhaps Piercy’s method of solving problems that is
P
PHOTO BY ATHENA DELENE
her legacy. In Eugene’s form of government with a strong
city manager and weaker council and mayor, one of the
mayor’s functions is to break ties on the council.
Despite the fact that when Piercy took office, she had to
assert herself and her right to be in City Hall — to the extent,
she said in her City Club speech, that she “was barely toler-
ated at City Hall and encouraged not to be around much,”
— she also doesn’t have much criticism for the strong city
manager form of government, which she says is common in
smaller cities.
Piercy, who started her political career in the Oregon
Legislature after working for Planned Parenthood, says her
goal as mayor was to ensure that council members heard
one another, even if they didn’t necessarily agree.
Rather than use her tie-breaking position as a sledge-
hammer, Piercy says she sought, if not consensus then an
understanding of differing viewpoints. Though she says, “I
was never afraid to break a tie.”
That win-win and common ground focus is not popular
in the current political climate that has resulted in divisive
President-elect Donald Trump taking office, but reflecting
on the recent presidential election Piercy says, it was im-
portant to her to “use the power I have in the best way
possible.”
And while Hillary Clinton may have failed in her effort
to break that last glass ceiling, Piercy sees hope in the pres-
ence of the group Emerge Oregon, which trains progres-
sive female candidates for office, a supportive community
that wasn’t around when she was tapped to run for mayor
and before that for the Legislature.
Moving forward, Piercy says she will take some time to
breathe after leaving office Jan. 4. Wrapping up her term,
Piercy tells EW: “I laughed a lot, I worked really hard and
I took it really seriously.” ■
Piercy’s entire City Club speech and her list of takeaways from her time in office
are at eugeneweekly.com.
10
BY PAUL NEEVEL
HAPPENING PEOPLE
TOM CAMPBELL
January 5, 2017 • eugeneweekly.com
On Nov. 30, 2015, 56-year-old Tom Campbell was homeless and hoping
to spend the coming sub-20-degree night at Lane Community College’s
Egan Warming Center when he learned that the center would not open that
evening, due to a shortage of volunteer helpers. “Someone had stolen all my
possessions, all my gear,” says Campbell, who instead spent the night sitting
on a five-gallon bucket outside Bring Recycling in Glenwood. “The ladies
who came to work at 7 am gave me a blanket and called an ambulance. I had
frostbite.” Six months later, the toes on his right foot were amputated. A year
later, both feet are still swollen and infected. “That’s part of the reason that I
volunteer at the Warming Center now,” he says. “I’m also a consumer of social
services, and I need to pay some of that back.” The son of a Forest Service
employee, Campbell was born in Corvallis and went to junior high and high
school in Cottage Grove. He studied at a Southern California trade school and
worked for nearly two decades as a motorcycle mechanic. In the early ’90s,
he studied computer science at LCC and began volunteering at White Bird
Clinic, serving people in need. He went to paramedic school and worked as a
medic for White Bird, until his certification was revoked due to a number of
driving with a suspended license violations. He went four years homeless in
the late ’90s, then found work as a bar-back and also took up videography,
making DVDs for local bands and music venues. His current bout with
homelessness began two years ago, and he can be found volunteering at
LCC’s Warming Center on freezing nights from 2 am to 7 am in Building 4,
room 104 on LCC’s main campus. To learn more about becoming an Egan
volunteer or to donate to the program, go to eganwarmingcenter.com.