After a year that required grit and persistence and a near return to normal, local officials hope to see more reemergence in 2023 as they prepare for transformational work and tough community conversations.
While reflecting on the past year, officials described it as one of celebration, reconnection and transition as Lane County kept recovering from the impacts of the still-raging coronavirus pandemic, wildfires and the housing crisis.
Local government leaders who spoke with The Register-Guard said they expect to see more innovation and pacing. They emphasized economic development while talking about achievements in 2022 and goals for 2023.
The past couple of years forced local government to throw previous assumptions out the window, County Administrator Steve Mokrohisky said, and will help drive change.
“I’m excited about the big visioning that can and will happen next year,” he said.
Officials will give more details in “State of the City” and “State of the County” addresses in coming weeks.
Lane County in 2022: Housing, public health, elections and more
Mokrohisky described 2022 as a year of recovering, regrouping, reconnecting and reemerging. While previous years put local communities “through the meat grinder,” he said local governments started “figuring out what the sausage will look like,” and will keep moving forward.
HOUSING AND SHELTER
Lane County and Eugene opened the River Avenue Navigation Center in August. The long-awaited shelter is low barrier and has 75 beds.
“That’s the first low-barrier public shelter in Lane County so it is serving the community and of course the goal is to initially provide shelter but ultimately to navigate people into more stable conditions,” Mokrohisky said.
In October, the county also opened the Shankle Brooklyn Street Shelter with 12 beds dedicated to the most vulnerable community members.
Once you include The Nel at West 11th Avenue and Charnelton Street, the county added dozens of new beds for people experiencing homelessness or transitioning to supportive housing.
PUBLIC HEALTH
As the county continued to deal with COVID-19, it also celebrated 100 years of public health.
From mpox to the flu to RSV, public health also dealt with 32 non-coronavirus disease outbreaks, Mokrohisky said.
While it feels like the pandemic is in the rearview mirror, he said, it isn’t.
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
At the start of the year, an underwater volcano eruption in Tonga resulted in a tsunami on some areas of the West Coast.
It didn’t have a noticeable impact in Lane County, but tested the county’s emergency response process, Mokrohisky said.
The larger response effort came as the Cedar Creek Fire forced evacuations in and around Oakridge.
“Thankfully it didn’t cause the loss and damage to structures that the Holiday Farm Fire did, but there was a lot of coordination and response,” Mokrohisky said.
Volunteers were the true “unsung heroes,” he added, as they helped with wildfire evacuation and staffed mass vaccination clinics.
The county also sent employees to training through the National Emergency Training Center, completed 10 fire evacuation plans for rural fire district, activated the Emergency Operations Center 11 times, provided staffing for special events like the county fair and World Athletics Championships Oregon22, facilitated table-top exercises, and did a lot more behind-the-scenes work on emergency preparedness, he said.
ELECTIONS
The county ran four elections in 2022: An April recall in Alsea School District 7J, the primary election in May, the Eugene Ward 7 recall in September and the November general election.
In between, a new county clerk, who oversee elections, came on board.
Lane County has been leaning into continued transparency around elections, Mokrohisky said, including a 24/7 livestream of elections activity.
“We have more plans in the works as we move forward to … really try to engage and encourage people to be part of the process,” he said.
PARKS LEVY
The county put a property tax ballot measure in front of voters in the parks levy, which passed in November.
That will provide around $5 million a year to help fund “much-needed investment” in the county’s parks system, Mokrohisky said.
“We’re just really excited and thankful to the voters for trusting us with those additional resources,” he said. “I think it goes to the value that voters place on their parks system.”
The county is excited to get to work on restoration, trail enhancements, facility and infrastructure improvements at popular parks and accessibility and safety improvements, he said.
PUBLIC SAFETY
The county also dedicated federal funding for a five-year commitment to add eight Lane County Sheriff’s Office deputies for patrol services.
“It’s a small investment in the scale of a county the size of Connecticut,” Mokrohisky said.
It adds another deputy to the patrol shift, he said, increasing from three to four deputies. It also represents a “significant investment of existing resources to enhance rural public safety response,” he said.
HEALTHY EMPLOYER
Mokrohisky also is proud the county was awarded the No. 1 healthiest large employer in Oregon for the second year.
The award comes from the Portland Business Journal, which evaluates how employers invest in a health workforce and preventive care.
County leaders feel strongly about providing a healthy workplace, Mokrohisky said, and it’s part of efforts to become an “employer of choice.”
What’s next for Lane County in 2023
Residents can expect to see more around emergency management in 2023, Mokrohisky said, including natural hazard mitigation and community preparedness for wildfires.
There will be continued work evaluating the proposed multi-use facility anchored by the Eugene Emeralds at the Lane Events Center.
Read the latest on the proposal:No roadblocks yet for proposed multiuse facility, home for Emeralds at Lane Events Center
Staff also will be “diving into master planning work” for the 50-acre county-owned events center which hosts the county fair, expos and many more events throughout the year, Mokrohisky said. There are a lot of “exciting ‘what ifs,’” surrounding the 50-acre campus, he said, and the first six months of the year will be “very revealing for how projects shape up.”
Two new commissioners will come on board in 2023. They’ve started orientation, Mokrohisky said, and transitioning the board with the new arrivals will impact ongoing tweaks to the strategic plan completed in 2022.
Officials will bring the public safety levy back for renewal as early as May.
“It continues to be critically important not just for the safety of the community but really the work that the sheriff’s office is doing” around mental health, substance use disorder treatment, reducing recidivism other public safety efforts, Mokrohisky said.
Another top priority for 2023 is the stabilization center to help address the county’s mental health crisis.
A spot behind the Lane County Behavioral Health Services clinic on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard could be the site of the future center, in part because of its proximity to other resources and the fact the county already owns it.
“We have space there,” Mokrohisky said. “We actually have plans for expansion.”
Staff will work to update preliminary designs and engage the community, he said, and people should expect to see progress on filling the significant service gap.
Other things to look for are work with the Oregon Legislature on big issues like funding for homelessness services and public safety, a new federally qualified health center in Cottage Grove and continued balancing of the budget.
Eugene in 2022: Hosting the world, reconnecting
City Manager Sarah Medary and Mayor Lucy Vinis described 2022 as a dynamic year of transition and celebration.
WORLD ATHLETICS CHAMPIONSHIPS OREGON22, OTHER CELEBRATIONS
For a long time, Eugene has been talking about 2021 then 2022 as the World Athletics Championships Oregon22, Medary said.
Looking back at 2022, she thinks about all the work that went into Oregon22 then having it be a successful and safe event.
“People could still go to restaurants, you could still get around town. The weather was perfect,” she said. “We didn’t have smoke and the Riverfront Festival was actually the place to be, which is what it said. And it just was beautiful.”
The celebration at the city’s new Downtown Riverfront Park was the “pivot of the year,” Medary said, adding the park opening itself was a major moment for the year.
For Medary personally, the opening of the new Farmer’s Market Pavilion was “kind of a punctuation point on so many years of relationship building, policy decisions, vision planning, implementation, decision making.”
The park, festival and pavilion were part of an overall theme of celebrating in “wonderful community gathering places,” Vinis said, and represented a high point for the year.
HOMELESSNESS AND HOUSING
Eugene also made a “huge investment” in doing something different about the homelessness crisis, Medary said, with Safe Sleep sites and efforts to stand up and ask the state for help.
“I think it really has made a big difference,” she said. “We tend to hear from people who say it hasn’t, but when I’m out looking around this is actually makes quite a difference.”
The city’s work on housing also has been powerful, Vinis said, including the adoption housing implementation pipeline and unanimous approval of a middle housing code.
More on the pipeline:Eugene’s new plan gives ‘a really good starting place’ for addressing housing crisis
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Medary felt good about a couple of things that weren’t the easiest to do, including a community survey that drew negative feedback.
She wasn’t surprised by the response but said it’s important to give people a chance to voice their opinions and concerns and hear them “really clearly.”
EQUITY WORK
Vinis also highlighted the city’s equity work that’s been laced through day-to-day operations and large projects.
The city has internal belonging training, she said, and also formed equity panels for climate work, middle housing and the Riverfront Festival.
“This is a community that often doesn’t recognize how diverse it really is,” she said.
What’s next for Eugene in 2023
Eugene has queued up conversations about climate, Vinis said, and those will be coming back to city council in 2023. The city also will execute a “very robust community engagement plan” around climate recovery efforts, she said.
“I’m hoping that serves to educate council about how the public is feeling or understanding about those issues but also to educate the public about what we’re really proposing to do or what the challenges are that we’re trying to address and the ways that we might look at that,” Vinis said.
The budget is top of mind for Medary as she and staff prepare a two-year budget for council review.
She’s also looking forward to a conversation about making the community better.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about the ways in which we stay individually and as a community hopeful and engaged in loving this community and improving this community,” Medary said. “I think the only way we do that is, is person by person, meeting by meeting. And I feel like I didn’t do enough of that in ’22. And so I’m really looking forward to ’23, in the midst of all of this, really engaging with more people on more topics.”
There will be some cool spaces, such as Striker Park and Santa Clara Community Park, opening in 2023, she said, and exciting work at Golden Gardens and talks about providing infrastructure to the area around Clear Lake Road for “green” industrial work.
“We have the land, it’s there, it’s ready to go,” Medary said, adding the project is capable of producing 1,600 jobs. “And yet it just needs to be served.”
Springfield in 2022: Development, continued police improvements
Mayor Sean VanGordon and City Manager Nancy Newton described 2022 as a year of getting back to normal and restructuring for growth.
The year had a list of accomplishments that’s “longer than the physical speech” VanGordon is preparing for the State of the City address, he said.
STREET REPAIR BOND, OTHER PROJECTS
One big thing was finishing up all the street repair projects using a general obligation bond, VanGordon said.
“People look back and talk about the streets that were touched and they say it’s amazing,” he said.
The city and a development partner also worked the Blue McKenzie project to revamp the parking lot by the former downtown Buick through some high costs and headwinds, VanGordon said.
“It’s gotten to the place where we’re hopefully almost to the moving dirt part,” he said.
There’s significant interest in Glenwood, he said, which also has been moving forward, though at a slower rate than the Blue McKenzie project.
“The Glenwood development is probably 10 times as complicated,” he said. “It’s going to take time, it’s going to take energy, but we’ve got to keep at it.”
POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY
The city also has consistently moved forward with work on improving the police department, VanGordon said.
“It’s just flat out changed significantly,” he said.
Chief Andrew Shearer has been “phenomenal in changing the culture of the department there,” Newton said.
“I have heard from past and present officers about how there’s a real and meaningful difference in that department now,” she said.
The city has been recruiting to hire a deputy chief to fill out what’s been a lean leadership team, she said, and hopes to make an announcement soon.
What’s next for Springfield in 2023
Changes in Springfield will start on day one, VanGordon said, as the city swears in two new councilors.
“Historically, we’ve seen long-serving councilors,” he said. “Replacing two in one go is going to give us a sort of different feel and, like everybody, we’ve got to find our footing together.”
Councilors will need to look at whether to ask voters to approve another road bond to address what’s still a “big set of deferred maintenance,” VanGordon said.
People will start to hear more about Mill Street, he said, though the city won’t break ground until 2024.
In addition to a hopeful groundbreaking for Blue McKenzie, he said, there will be lots of other economic activity, from more building at Marcola Meadows to more planning for Glenwood.
The city also is pulling information from zoning maps that are originally from the 1970s into a more modern system, he said, so people can “actually see the zoning that your home or piece of property is.”
VanGordon said the 42nd Street Levee also will come up again as Eugene, Springfield, Willamalane Park and Recreation District and Lane County continue to push to address the levee and get outside funding.
Overall, he said, the community is really active and will continue to be in 2023.
“I keep getting emails from people who are redoing events from before the pandemic or launching new events,” he said. “The level of civil pride and civil engagement is just really high right now.”
First of the year addresses
Eugene’s “State of the City” address will be at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Soreng Theater at the Hult Center, located at 1 Eugene Center. The event also will stream at bit.ly/Eugene-meetings.
Lane County’s “State of the County” address will be at 10 a.m. Jan. 9.
Springfield’s “State of the City” address will take place at 5:30 p.m. Jan. 19 at the Wildish Theater at 630 Main St. in Springfield. The city also will release the speech online.
Contact city government watchdog Megan Banta at mbanta@registerguard.com Follow her on Twitter @MeganBanta_1.
