Program date: September 5, 2025
Air date: September 8, 2025
From the City Club of Eugene:
Eugene Mayor Kaarin Knudson, who is wrapping up her first year in office, is interviewed about her experience by KLCC news reporter Rebecca Hansen-White at the Sept. 5 City Club of Eugene forum.
Mayor Knudson, local architect, university educator and housing advocate, was elected in 2024. After eight months at the helm of the second largest city in Oregon, has anything changed in the political landscape? We will find out how the new mayor is meeting the many challenges that have arisen in city government, some anticipated, some surprising, in the first year of her four-year term.
As a non-voting member of the city council (except to break ties), the mayor chairs Eugene City Council meetings. We hope she will speak about what stands out as noteworthy about leading those meetings and working with staff and constituents throughout the city. How the new mayor addresses the city’s budget crisis and the compounding traumas of homelessness, lack of health care, public safety concerns, environmental degradation and spreading economic inequality could greatly influence the livability of the city.
Speakers:
Award-winning reporter Rebecca Hansen-White joined the KLCC News Department in November 2023, covering local government, healthcare and housing. She started her journalism career in print, at her hometown paper, The Dayton Chronicle in Southeast Washington. She previously covered Washington state politics, education and local government for The Columbia Basin Herald newspaper, The Spokesman-Review newspaper in Spokane, and Spokane Public Radio.
Mayor Kaarin Knudson is an architect, writer, and educator with more than 25 years’ experience in design, sustainability, and community building. Trained as a journalist before becoming an architect, her work has always focused on people and place. In 2017, after a decade in architectural practice, she organized the public-interest project Better Housing Together to address Lane County’s housing crisis. This work supported the creation of Eugene’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund, Lane County’s first Affordable Housing Action Plan, and Oregon’s landmark middle housing reforms. In 2024 she was elected Mayor of Eugene. She is the first All-American runner to be elected mayor of TrackTown, USA. Mayor Knudson teaches planning and urban design at the University of Oregon, and she speaks regionally and nationally about housing, sustainable cities, and the work of guiding community change. Her first book, The Sustainable Urban Design Handbook (Routledge), was published in 2024.
About the City Club of Eugene:
The mission of the City Club of Eugene is to build community vision through open inquiry. The Club explores a wide range of significant local, state, and national issues and helps to formulate new approaches and solutions to problems. Membership is open to all, and Club members have a direct influence on public policy by discussing issues of concern with elected officials and other policy makers. The City Club’s mailing address is PO Box 12084, Eugene, OR 97440, and its website is cityclubofeugene.org.
Video and Broadcast
This program will be live streamed, and the videotape will be made available on the City Club of Eugene’s Facebook page and You Tube Channel, in addition to our website. It will be broadcast on Monday, [INSERT DATE HERE!!] at 7:00 p.m., on KLCC 89.7 FM.
Contact: For more information, visit CityClubOfEugene.org.