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Michael Dunne: Politics is a grind, whether you're the president or chief dog catcher. In mid-sized cities like Eugene, where serving on the council is basically a volunteer position, being an elected member means dividing your time into three big blocks: family, your day job and the work of City Hall. Now imagine trying to balance all that for a couple of decades. Today on the show, you'll hear from Alan Zelenka, who has been on the Eugene City Council for the past two decades and recently announced he is stepping away. We talk about his legacy, the ups and downs of elected office, and how the divisiveness and outright anger among the electorate and those in power is like nothing he has ever seen before. Alan Zelenka, Eugene City Council member, thanks for joining us.
Alan Zelenka: Thanks, Michael. Thanks for having me.
Dunne: You recently announced that you're stepping away and not seeking a sixth term. I want to start here: You've been a long-serving member of the council. What are you most proud of in your years of service?
Zelenka: When I first started in 2007, my goal was to make a positive impact on Eugene, and I think I've been pretty successful at doing that. My goal was to create the right policy so that it could be implemented by staff. I think I've been an advocate in three main areas: people, human services and human rights; the environment and climate; and making Eugene a better city, a better community, a better neighborhood. On the people and human services side, paid sick leave was something I worked on with Mayor Piercy and Councilor Syrett. That was a big deal, and it ended up becoming the model for state law, which was very gratifying. On homelessness, I helped put together the motions for the first Opportunity Village and for the safe campsites. On climate and the environment, I authored the Climate Recovery Ordinance and worked to make the capital improvement program and the transportation system plan consistent with it. I also worked on getting the Climate Action Plan 2.0 in place with both Mayor Piercy and Mayor Vinis, and authored the plastic bag ban. On making the community better, along with Councilor Batman, I helped structure the way we do our road bonds. It passed overwhelmingly, and we're now on our fourth one, with approval in the 70-plus percent range. People once thought that would never happen.
Dunne: For people who don't follow the council or attend meetings, what are some of the biggest challenges you face as a council member? What are the biggest obstacles, both systemic to the job and historically?
Zelenka: There are two parts to that. The first is true everywhere, whether at work, in organizations or in great businesses: trying to get a group of people to move in the same direction is very challenging, especially when they're smart, articulate people with many different points of view. Being able to bring people together around a particular policy is one of the hardest things to do. I learned long ago that if you insist on getting 100% of what you want, you're probably not going to succeed. But if you give and take a little, if you compromise and get 85 to 90%, that's great. You can move that policy forward. But you have to do it with other people. On the second part, specific challenges I've had to overcome: paid sick leave was one. Instantly, people came out and said this would bankrupt them. That, of course, didn't happen. There's always opposition to overcome, and you can do it. It's like sales. You handle one objection, then another, and when you're through all of them, they say OK. It's the same on the council. You have to keep working. People often ask me how many hours the council takes. At minimum, it's about 10 hours a week just to read the packets and attend meetings and committee sessions. But if you want to accomplish something, it can be 40 hours a week for a sustained period. On homelessness, we know what works. We know we need more campsites, and that they need to be limited and structured. That was the whole point behind Opportunity Village and the campsites. But getting them in place is hard. There's a lot of misinformation about what happens around them. They actually tend to be an improvement for the surrounding community. Residents do litter patrol and other things, and there are more eyes on the neighborhood. We actually showed statistically once that crime around those sites is lower than in the surrounding area. But getting those messages across in a media environment this cluttered with messaging is very, very difficult.
Dunne: Why step away now?
Zelenka: It's been 20 years, and before that, I was on the Budget Committee for about 10 years. That's a good run. When I first started, we elected President Obama, and there was a sense that government could be a force for positive change. That sustained for quite a long time through the Obama years. But now it's quite different. We're divided. People are pitting neighbor against neighbor, and people are disillusioned and angry. The Trump administration and Republicans, with their regressive and brutal policies, including the cruel budget cuts to food stamps, SNAP and Medicaid, represent a war on people, on the environment and on climate. All of that has changed since I started, and it makes it much harder for government to be a vehicle for positive change, especially when public trust in institutions is low. In fact, Eugene's city government makes a huge positive impact on people's lives every single day. Nobody really thinks about that. They think about the times they struggled with City Hall or had a complaint about public works. But you wake up every morning and the electricity works. That's government. The toilet and the sink work. That's government. You get to work on the roads. That's government. All of that works really well in Eugene, and I think that's been a very positive thing. But it's harder to get things done now because of the political climate and also because of financial constraints. We're going to see budget cuts in the coming years. In 16 of the last 19 budgets I've been involved with, we had to cut. We have fewer city employees per 1,000 residents today than we did 18 years ago, and we're spending less per 1,000 residents too, yet we're doing more with less and doing it really well. Former City Manager Sara Medary once put it this way: We had essentially added the entire population of Springfield into Eugene over the last 18 years, and we're still providing all the services: recreational services, library services, public works, all of it.
Dunne: I can imagine your supporters saying: Alan, you just described all these challenges. Why not stay and keep making the difference you've made over your career?
Zelenka: That's a good question, and I struggled with it, which is why I didn't decide until the last minute. There is still a lot to do. There are several things still on the agenda, and I'll be here for the rest of the year. But I really couldn't see myself doing this for another four years. There are other things I want to do and accomplish. I want to spend more time with my wife and my dog, pursue some hobbies and work on my house. And honestly, instead of reading council packets, I'd really like to read a book.
Dunne: There are some good ones out there.
Zelenka: There are some great ones. I'm reading one right now, by Bill Bryson, about the summer of 1927. It's fascinating to look back 100 years. Not that different, but a really strange time.
Dunne: That's actually a good jumping-off point. Speaking of history and change: How has the council changed since you first took office? How has Eugene changed?
Zelenka: The council right now, in recent years, has been very collegial. We operate in a space where you can disagree without being disagreeable. I can disagree with councilors on the opposite side of the political spectrum and we can still have a vigorous debate and come to a decision because we have to, or because we want to. So the council hasn't changed that much. It may even be a little better than it was a long time ago. The city itself has grown a lot. I was just looking at a list of all the restaurants that were here 15 to 20 years ago that aren't here anymore, which is, you know, epidemic in the restaurant industry. But the city has also grown in many positive ways. Development has pushed outward, it's become denser, it has more of a big-city feel. People comment on that. They say, you know, this really is a big city. It has the financial and cultural amenities, the University of Oregon, the sports, the theater, the Hult Center, all the resident arts companies. That's big-city stuff. But it still has a small-town feel at the same time, which I think is what people really love about Eugene. That's our competitive advantage. People come here from all over, not because we're a megalopolis with tons of opportunity, but because it's a great place to live, a great place to raise a family. It has great parks, access to the outdoors, a cultural scene, a sports scene. When I was a consultant traveling all over the West Coast for about 10 years, whenever I flew in over Eugene, I'd see the city and think: Yeah, Eugene. That's why I always came back and stayed, when I could have gone anywhere.
Dunne: Tying those threads together: Do you think the collegial spirit you described on the council, and what you love about Eugene, could someday return to our national politics? Do you think the pendulum might swing back?
Zelenka: Being something of a student of history, I think about this a lot. I was reading "Founding Brothers" a while back, about Jefferson, Washington, Adams and Hamilton, and how rough and tumble the politics was then. They would do incredibly slimy things through the common media of the day, which were newspapers and flyers. So this kind of ugliness has been recurrent throughout our history. Politics has always been tough. It's not for the meek. But at some point you want things to actually work. Right now it's deeply dysfunctional because we're so divided. It's neighbor versus neighbor, and it's all about winning, which means the other side has to lose. We have to find a way past that. I don't know if there's a transformational person who can do it, but I do think the body politic will get there. A lot of people agree with me that we need to learn how to talk to each other without making it a battle. Compromise has become a dirty word in Congress. It's win or lose. Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan used to have lunch together once a week. I can't imagine that right now, but it could happen again. When the current players leave the scene, that will help. Trump didn't create the divisiveness we're seeing, but he has certainly exacerbated it for his own benefit. And I think people are tired of it. Really tired of it. I hear that a lot. There's such fatigue with the constant battling. When people get fatigued enough, I believe we'll flip back toward a more collegial, compromise-driven, let's-get-things-done mentality. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
Dunne: Looking back over your career, is there a project or idea you couldn't get over the finish line? Not necessarily a regret, but something you wish you could have done?
Zelenka: Yes. Two things that were perennial problems in our community and crying out for dedicated funding were the homeless crisis and action on climate change. Neither had any inherent funding source. About five years ago, I proposed a work session to analyze and move toward some kind of bond or funding mechanism, perhaps a 50-50 split between homelessness and climate action. We did hold those work sessions and talked it through, but it got sidelined by budget issues and the fire fee debate and was never fully pursued. I hope we come back to it, because those are the two areas that, in my view, scream out for more action, and action requires funding. On homelessness specifically, what I've learned is that homelessness is a symptom. The actual problems are lack of affordable housing, lack of mental health services and lack of substance abuse services. Those three enormous problems have been building for 40 to 50 years and they are not quickly solvable. Oregon ranks near the bottom nationally on mental health and substance abuse services. On affordable housing, we set aside only a half-percent surcharge on new homes for affordable housing. Other communities, like Bend, went to 1%, likely without any measurable impact on the housing market, but with far more money for affordable housing. Homelessness ends up being the visible result of those three underlying failures. The people on our streets need those services to get a hand up and a path back into society. It's very, very difficult. These problems baked for decades. There's no quick solution. We chip away at it, but we need something more like New Deal-scale investment to tackle them at the scale they require.
Dunne: My last question is hypothetical, but I imagine it will come up: If someone approaches you and says, I want to get into politics, I want to run for council, what advice do you give them?
Zelenka: I'd probably start by asking, 'Are you sure?' One of the realities of being a council member, especially if you're also working, is that you have three worlds: family, work and the council. One of them is always out of balance, because all three make demands and they're constantly pushing and pulling each other. You have to be able to juggle, and you have to have the support of your family and some understanding from your employer to do it. Beyond that, being able to work well with others is essential. If you can't do that, don't become a city council member, because none of this can be done alone. I listed accomplishments earlier, but all of them were done by a whole group of people. I didn't do any of that by myself. You have to be able to build coalitions, form a group of supporters and be persuasive. Persuasiveness is another trait that successful council members tend to share.
Dunne: Well, best of luck to you in your next chapter. We've been speaking with Eugene City Council member Alan Zelenka. Thank you so much for coming in.
Zelenka: Thanks, Michael.
Dunne: That's the show for today. All episodes of Oregon On The Record are available as a podcast at KLCC.org. We've all been frustrated by weather reports. The meteorologist or the app on our phone tells us it's going to be sunny, only for the skies to open up and pour. Tomorrow on the show, we talk with the state climatologist about weather forecasting and the vital difference between climate and weather. I'm Michael Dunne, host of Oregon On The Record. Thanks for listening.
