Program date: Sept. 19, 2025
Air date: Sept. 22, 2025
From the City Club of Eugene:
This has been a year of local headlines about troubles with the Eugene city budget. Eugene is not alone with these challenges. Municipalities across the state are experiencing similar if not more dire financial situations.
On this week's program, City Club welcomes three people who have been intimately involved with the challenges faced in developing the city budget.
In February the Eugene City Council adopted a fire service fee to help narrow an $11.5 million dollar gap in the city budget. By April a referendum petition spearheaded by the Eugene Chamber of Commerce had successfully gathered more than 8,400 signatures to place the proposed fire fee on the ballot for a public vote. Less than 6,000 signatures were required. Word spread quickly about the fire fee being on a ballot.
There was some confusion as to when that might happen and what the City Council might do, or not do, to address the increasing dissatisfaction from residents faced with threatened cuts in critical public-facing services such as the Greenhill Animal Shelter contract, swimming pools and community centers and many other services.
In May the City Council adopted a stormwater fee increase purportedly to replace the fire service fee. At that point both the referendum on the fire fee and an increase in stormwater fees were moving forward.
It was not until July that the City Council repealed the fire service fee, negating the need for a November 2025 vote on the referendum. Instead, an ad hoc committee will be working on long-term financial solutions to these budget woes.
This week's program is an opportunity to hear from individuals who have been involved with the city budget process for many years; what the process looks like to them, what works, what doesn’t work, and hopefully any suggestions they may have about how the budget process might be improved.
Everyone is welcome.
Speakers:
Mike Clark is the father of two wonderful grown kids. A graduate of the University of Oregon with a Bachelor of Science degree in Political Science. A mortgage loan officer for Directors Mortgage. A past board member of several local non-profits. And is in his 19th year on the Eugene City Council, first elected in 2006 after 2 years as a citizen member of the Eugene Budget Committee.
Tai Pruce-Zimmerman served seven years on the City of Eugene Budget Committee, including four years as Chair, until terming off after shepherding the very difficult 2025 Budget Cycle to its conclusion. He also volunteers for numerous other community organizations. Currently he serves as co-chair of the Active Bethel Community neighborhood association. He is a nonprofit board member at both WellMama and the Jewish Federation of Lane County. He is also on the Bethel School District’s long range planning committee and the Square One Villages finance committee. Beyond his community service Tai is a stay-at-home dad to a newly minted kindergartener, and he moonlights as a chess statistician. His professional background was in accounting. Furthermore he has recently filed to run for City Council in Eugene’s Ward 6 and looks forward to continuing to serve the community however he can for many years to come.
Brittany Quick-Warner is the President & CEO of the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce, where she leads efforts to strengthen the region’s economy through bold initiatives in economic development, housing, workforce development, downtown revitalization, and civic leadership. She recently spearheaded Elevate 2028, raising $5 million to implement the ambitious regional economic development initiative, and co-founded A.C.T. Now Lane, a cross-sector coalition working to make homelessness rare, brief, and non-recurring in Lane County. Brittany is known for her tenacity, her big ideas and for bringing people together across sectors to solve complex challenges and advocate for smart, business-friendly policy. A champion for women in leadership and a proud mom to a sweet 1-year old baby boy, Brittany is passionate about building a stronger, more prosperous future for Eugene. She is a recipient of a City Club Turtle Award.
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, Sept. 22 at 7:00 p.m., on KLCC 89.7 FM.
Contact: For more information, visit CityClubOfEugene.org.