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Betty Taylor Has Left
the Building
OR SHE WOULD HAVE, IF EUGENE STILL HAD A CITY HALL
By Taylor Perse
F
or the better part of 24 years, Betty Taylor
spent every other Monday night at Eugene
City Council meetings. Whether they were
held at the former Eugene City Hall, Lane
County’s Harris Hall or virtually on Zoom,
Taylor was there.
Now 95 years old, Taylor chose to step
down and not seek re-election in 2020. Newer Ward 2 resi-
dent Matt Keating was elected to take over the position,
and was not endorsed by Taylor. He was sworn into office
in early January. Reflecting on her six-term City Council
career — the longest one in Eugene history — Taylor says
there were good moments and accomplishments, but also
issues the council still needs to work on.
She spent much of her time on council as a liberal voice,
sometimes standing alone on issues such as objecting to
tax breaks on wealthier developers, but in the past year
sided multiple times with Eugene’s more conservative
councilor, Mike Clark on issues such as multi-unit hous-
ing laws.
Before politics called, Taylor was an English teacher,
earning her doctorate in English from the University of
Oregon. She moved to Eugene in 1979 and bought her
house in south Eugene several years later. Taylor ran for
council in 1996 after Barbara Keller decided not to seek
re-election.
Taylor picked up the petitions needed to become a
candidate and thought about it, ultimately deciding to
throw her name into the hat in the hope that she could
change things.
“I decided I would speak up for the people who don’t
have a public voice,” Taylor says. She never had any
ambitions or desire to run for other political offices, local
or otherwise. Over her years of running she was often
endorsed by fellow city councilors, former Mayor Kitty
Piercy and former Oregon 4th District Congressman
Jim Weaver.
Taylor says she was consistently against tearing down
parts of the city. In 2007 she teamed up with citizens
to advocate against measure 20-134, which would have
increased the debt for Downtown Urban Renewal Plan,
allowing for corporate retail space downtown. In 2016
Taylor voted alongside then-Councilor George Brown
against selling Kesey Square, at the time “officially” named
Broadway Plaza.
“There has been too much destruction in this city
anyway,” Taylor says. “We have a teardown society.”
Taylor was also against the 2014 teardown of City Hall,
which has still not been rebuilt. She says when she was in
her late 80s then-Eugene City Manager Jon Ruiz promised
her that they would have a City Hall by the time she was 90.
A few years later, Taylor told Ruiz that she wasn’t 90
yet. The former city manager was confused, reminding
her that they had celebrated her 90th birthday recently.
“I told him ‘Well we don’t have a City Hall,’” Taylor says,
adding that she believes more in repairing and reusing
instead of tearing down.
Another notable action from Taylor’s City Council
career is her work in helping save the Amazon Creek
Headwaters. The council voted in 2014 to purchase two
plots of land containing main branches of Amazon head-
waters in south Eugene and add them to the Ridgeline
Trail System. The total acquisition was 26 acres.
Taylor says protecting neighborhoods was a big
priority. She advocated for more regulation of short-
term rentals over the last few years, because she says
they have destroyed the availability of moderate priced
houses in the community. Taylor isn’t opposed to short-
term rentals, she says, but thinks they at least need to
be owner occupied.
The council passed an ordinance in 2020 that required
short-term rental owners to register their rentals. Taylor
says that the action was pointless and she was the lone
vote against it, because “It didn’t matter anymore.”
“I even got an email from a man who lives in Paris
and owns a house in my ward,” she says. “It destroys
neighborhoods, too.”
Taylor has also opposed Oregon HB 2001, which re-
quires every Oregon city of more than 10,000 residents to
S U P P O R T L O C A L A N D VO C A L J O U R N A L I S M
E U G E N E W E E K LY . C O M
allow multi-unit housing in any residential neighborhood
within the urban growth boundary.
The bill usurps cities’ rights and destroys zoning, she
says. Clark agreed with Taylor on the subject. She says
Clark knows people who plan to buy up housing so they
can tear it down and build more condensed units.
“The state should be establishing homeless shelters,”
Taylor says. “People move around but the land doesn’t.”
She adds that there needs to be a shelter downtown,
explaining that if people had a place to sleep and keep their
stuff, it would make it easier for them to access services.
Taylor says there are still several issues she wants to
see the new City Council address.
“I hope for some really strong actions to combat climate
change,” Taylor says. “And I hope that we will persuade
the state to pay for homeless shelters, and I also would
like to see the city become more walkable.”
Because of the pandemic, Taylor says she can’t make
many plans for her retirement, though she does hope to
travel to the coast and make more train trips. Now that
she doesn’t have Monday night City Council meetings,
she has the time. ■
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