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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 1, 2022)
news Recall Repercussions IF THE RECALL ELECTION AGAINST CITY COUNCILOR CLAIRE SYRETT SUCCEEDS, IT COULD HAVE EFFECTS BEYOND RIVER ROAD By Camilla Mortensen F ormer Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury looked at the recall petition filed against Eugene City Councilor Claire Syrett and was not impressed. “It really kind of offends me,” he says. “It’s not truthful.” Bradbury was secretary of state from 1999 to 2009 and is known for ushering in Oregon’s vote by mail system and more recently for his work to combat climate change. He was attending a political fundraiser and started talking to Syrett about the petition triggering the recall election against her. Bradbury speaks with quiet force in a phone inter- view. “I think if it doesn’t get stopped — and we will see what the court does,” he says, “it starts to raise a red flag about recalls where they make claims that are not true under the recall system.” Syrett and her political candidate committee, Claire Syrett for Eugene City Council, filed a complaint with the Lane County Circuit Court seeking an injunction to halt the recall and alleging that the recall petitions made false statements in the recall’s support. State law bars the use of false information on recall petition forms. If the lawsuit is not successful, ballots, which are out for Ward 7 residents, are due Sept. 6. Syrett represents Ward 7 on the City Council, an area containing Santa Clara, River Road, Trainsong and the Whiteaker neighborhood. The recall centers on Syrett’s March 14 vote on the city and Lane Transit District’s MovingAhead project. MovingAhead addresses commu- nity goals on efficient transportation options, reducing greenhouse gasses, road safety and active transporta- tion options such as cycling, according to materials from the March 14 City Council work session. The petition’s claims include that MovingAhead will remove two car lanes on River Road and replace them with dedicated bus lanes, leaving only one lane for cars each way, slant • What we're reading: Hamil- ton: the Revolution by Lin Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter. A big, beautiful book (and expensive but worth it at about $50 if you buy it new at J. Michaels Books), it includes the libretto for the Broadway show plus short pieces on how the hip- hop marvel came together. We were advised to read the libretto before seeing the fast-paced show at the Hult Center in Eugene this month. It's a fun read. • As reports of the shooting in Bend came in, we waited, yet again, for news of how many people were killed by a young man in a mass shoot- E U G E N E W E E K LY . C O M and that property will be taken from homes and businesses. What the City Council, LTD and the Metropolitan Policy Committee actually voted on was adopting the “recom- mended locally preferred alternatives.” The City Council materials say the “locally preferred alternative is a key mile- stone in the environmental review process that provides staff with direction on which alternative to pursue on each corridor.” River Road is one of five corridors in the project. Other corridors include Coburg Road and Highway 99. Bradbury says, “It really struck me reading the peti- tion for the recall — it’s really clear that it’s not legal to lie in a petition calling for a recall.” Because the city of Eugene doesn’t have its own recall language, the election operates under Oregon law. The petition, Bradbury points out, states that the project “will” take out a lane and “will” leave only one lane each direction for cars. “Will, will, will, it’s not correct,” he says. “It ‘could,’ and if the recall petition said ‘could,’ that would be accurate. It is not truthful to say it ‘will’ do those things.” Mark Osterloh, who has been one of the faces of the petition and avidly working to get Syrett recalled, speaks with the verve of a minister trying to convert sinners. He does not live in Ward 7. When asked about Bradbury’s concerns about the repercussions of the petition, he says, “We felt that these were extraordinary circumstances.” He alleges Syrett refused to answer the concerns of her constituents and when the first round of petitions were delivered to her “she ignored those.” He also says Syrett lied when she said she didn’t get any letters about MovingAhead. The petition, he says, is “about the right to redress grievances in our government.” He switches topics from legal and ethical concerns about the petition to the MovingAhead EmX proposal for River Road itself, comparing the effects of moving ing with an AR-15-style rifle. It’s all too tragic and all too damn famil- iar. We also note that there were reports of other shoppers in that Safeway store the night of August 28 who were armed. They didn’t stop a tragedy, an unarmed employee tried to, and he died trying. The shooter killed himself. Let us remind you yet again, good guys with guns are not the answer. Fewer guns, fewer bullets and a better social safety net are the steps we need to take. • We repeat our strong recom- mendation that residents of Ward 7 vote “no” on the recall of City Councilor Claire Syrett on or by Sept. 6. This is a misuse of the recall. The proponents of the Syrett recall claim the councilor is wasting taxpayer money with the MovingAhead tran- sit plan. But it’s the recall election that’s hitting city taxpayers with- from two lanes of traffic to one to “an L.A. traffic jam.” He says MovingAhead’s EmX proposal doesn’t take into account new technology, and he advocates for using electric vehicles such as locally produced Arcimotos, self-driving technology and point-to-point services rather than hub- and-spoke systems such as buses that rely on passengers getting to a bus stop and perhaps later changing buses. Asked to address concerns about the petition process, Osterloh says “95 percent” of people he spoke to “had no idea what the plans were.” And that one person told him she was told it was “a done deal.” A quick search for outreach on MovingAhead shows the River Road Community Organization’s Facebook page has recent posts about MovingAhead as well as requests for input posted in 2015 and 2019. A 2015 LTD press release says 200 people attended MovingAhead workshops in May of that year. Documents show that notices of meetings about MovingAhead were posted in The Register-Guard. Ward 7 resident Daniel Isaacson is Syrett’s volunteer campaign coordinator and vice chair of the Eugene Plan- ning Commission. He is zealous in Syrett’s defense and in his concerns about democracy, saying, “Somewhere along the way we forgot that sometimes in a democracy you lose, and when you do that doesn’t mean you weren’t listened to or that you should lie to voters to fraudulently obtain through a recall what you could not in a general election.” Iasscson says, “Those behind the recall petition used the election calendar against the voters of Ward 7. They timed this reckless recall so that it would fall next to Labor Day in the hope that fewer people would be paying attention.” He asks, “How can a campaign supposedly centering on transparency have at its core a hope for as few people to chime in on their argument?” Bradbury says if the courts don’t stop the recall from proceeding, “any time an elected official does something that might lead to something, they then could be poten- tially recalled over it.” He adds, “I don’t think the voters will go for it.” If the Sept. 6 recall election happens and Syrett loses, the Eugene City Council must appoint someone within 90 days. That individual, according to the City Charter, would serve until a special election is held, as the vacancy filling would have occurred more than 100 days before the 2023 May election. ■ out any benefit. The Lane County Clerk told EW that the cost of the election will be between $17,000 and $23,000. And if Syrett loses, another special election will occur, costing taxpayers again. Not only is this elec- tion trying to boot an elected official on a bogus claim, it’s also a waste of taxpayer money. • We are also reading the long and fascinating obituary of Howard “Agent Orange” Slusher in August 29 New York Times. His nickname came from the color of his hair and his approach to sports contract negotia- tions. He was Phil Knight's consultant on many projects and was the last word on the new Hayward Field. The NYT didn't mention this part, but he died just before the World Athletics Championships came to Eugene to that field. Meanwhile, if you missed it in last week’s “EW Extra” email news- letter, the piece in Rolling Stone examining independent guberna- torial candidate Betsy Johnson’s gun-toting big Nike money ways is worth a read. You can find “Oregon’s Next Governor Could Be a Machine- Gun Toting Darling of GOP Mega- donors” at RollingStone.com and can sign up for our Tuesday newsletter at EugeneWeekly.com. • We’re sorry to hear that the popular theater troupe Radio Redux is taking the fall off. Redux’s board president Dave Weinkauf announced the hiatus in an email that went out August 28, citing low attendance and diminished revenue during the pandemic but primarily health prob- lems suffered by the group’s founder and executive director, Fred Crafts. Get well soon, Fred — we love the old- time radio plays you’ve been bringing to the Hult Center stage since 2009. S E P T E M B E R 1 , 2 0 2 2 7
