Q&A with Eugene Councilor Claire Syrett and a lead petitioner in efforts to recall her

Ballots will start going out Thursday for the recall election of Eugene City Councilor Claire Syrett and are due a little less than three weeks later on Sept. 6.

Syrett represents Ward 7, which includes Santa Clara, River Road, Trainsong and Whiteaker neighborhood associations.

Petitioners, who started recall efforts in the spring, have cited frustration over MovingAhead, a yearslong transportation project that could result in bus-only lanes for an Emerald Express, or EmX, route on River Road.

Syrett has said people are entitled to have strong opinions about the issues they say prompted the recall effort, but expressed frustration that they went with this route instead of running someone against her in the next election.

Read more:Eugene councilor preparing for recall election after city validates petition signatures

In the special election, a majority of votes in favor of a recall would remove Syrett from the position. The remaining seven city councilors would then choose her successor. A majority of votes in opposition to a recall would mean Syrett finishes her term.

The Register-Guard talked with Syrett and Mark Osterloh, one of the petitioners, to get more information about the recall.

Their answers have been edited for length and clarity, and we've grouped questions and answers to alternate between the two sides.

Getting started, finding out

Question: How did this effort start, and why a recall?

Osterloh: This all started when we found out what they were trying to do with what they call MovingAhead and the EmX on River Road. We started looking into the plans for that.

People pushing these plans have been trying to scam the public, trying to hide what they’re actually doing. They had these plans all drawn up back in 2017, and they were saying they didn’t have plans. They have not presented the plans in meetings with neighborhood groups. They’re trying to sneak this through. It’s been very deceptive, very sneaky.

We got some copies of plans and went up and down five corridors and talked to businesses, people who would be affected. None of them knew anything about it. None of them had ever been presented the plans. They were shocked. We decided to get petitions, especially for River Road, which is going to be the most severely affected.

We gave all those petition signatures, over 464 of them, to everybody on the City Council. Five days later, Claire Syrett at a City Council meeting says ‘I haven’t received any opposition. I haven’t received letters from any property owners on River Road.’ She totally ignored what we did. She lied about it. And afterward, she insulted us.

Related:Eugene, LTD approve key step forward in MovingAhead, but it's 'not an approved, done deal'

At that point, we decided if we’re going to try to stop this process and have a process where people are actually involved, we’re going to have to do a recall.

Question: How did you first hear about the recall petition, and did it surprise you?

Syrett: I first heard about it from someone in my ward who saw some email exchanges.

Meta Maxwell, who’s driving this recall effort, kind of forecast on an email that they were going to go for a recall to a rather wide audience. And so, someone gave me a heads up.

Yes, I was very surprised. It’s not something one expects when one is simply trying to do the work of an elected official.

Concerns from petitioners, councilor response

Question: What are some of the other key issues at play?

Osterloh: When people heard about the recall going on, we’ve had people coming out of the woodwork all around the city and county saying they want to get rid of her for any number of reasons. Lots of people say she doesn’t respond to people when they have complaints or want to give her comments.

Her approach to dealing with crime seems to be to handcuff the police, not handcuff the criminals. The police are understaffed, but that’s not a priority. When they ask for specific laws that they can use to enforce crime, she ignores that.

We’re giving all of these tax breaks to investors to build these big fancy apartment buildings. She’s kissing up to special interests and not looking out for the people who live here and have been supporting the community. When those new people move in, there’s a lot of services involved, they should pay their fair share.

Also, she could address homelessness more comprehensively. If you decide you’re going to do it, and you pull all those things together (police, service providers, etc.) in a coordinated effort, you could do a pretty good job. If you are not addressing in a comprehensive way, looking at the needs, looking at the options and looking at what the people in the community want, then you’re not going to get the job done.

Question: What are the areas where you think you’ve best served your constituents?

Syrett: I think there are several places that I’ve either joined the council majority or was a leader on things I heard from constituents that they cared about and also things I said I would work on.

I’ve been a consistent advocate for finding ways to improve our parks and open spaces and start to build new ones. The road we chose for that was the parks bond and levy measures, which the voters passed. I was part of advocating for putting it on the ballot and asking voters if they want to do this.

Also, things around working to address homelessness, which is a very complex and challenging issue. Certainly, no single city councilor can craft a solution to that, but I’ve pushed the city to embrace alternative shelter so we can get folks off the street and start connecting them with services and housing. I’ve been an advocate and successful in ensuring that we get outside dollars going to affordable housing projects so we prevent people from becoming homeless and are building more housing units.

On the specific issue that the recall petitioners are upset about, the River Road and Santa Clara planning process that’s been underway for years now clearly points to improving bus service on that route. It doesn’t specifically name EmX as the solution, but all the values and goals identified in that neighborhood planning effort point to major improvements. The EmX is kind of the most obvious solution to that because it’s dedicated lanes, which means the service runs on time and is reliable and so people can plan to use it in order to get to work. It also means improving the bicycle and pedestrian experience of that major corridor. Those are things I heard directly from folks who live in those neighborhoods that they wanted.

I was also the councilor who really pushed the city manager to adopt our Vision Zero Goals, which is reducing serious injuries and deaths on our streets. That came from my advocacy and my pushing, and now we actually have some funding going toward some of the things that help to implement that.

I think there are many, many ways that have been responsive to my constituents. Sometimes I miss an email, sometimes I miss a phone call and don’t get back to someone, but I endeavor to respond to all of the Ward 7 folks who reach out to me. If they have a question, if they want to understand why I took a stance, if they have a problem on their block, I think that’s part of the role that is important.

Responding to statements

Question: Councilor Syrett is calling this “an abuse of the recall process.” What are your thoughts on that as one of the petitioners?

Osterloh: We need to stop this EmX process right now and go back to square one. It’s been a deceptive process to try and sneak this through. We can’t wait around with someone who won’t listen to the facts.

She says politics is a contact sport. Well, yeah, I’ve talked to so many people who haven’t had a clue who she was. We’ve had a lot of people say she doesn’t respond to them or said she’s been abrasive to people who don’t carry the same opinion.

The recall process is specifically there as a democratic process so that when you find you’ve got an elected official that you think is not representing you, is not doing your job, then you can recall them.

We think she’s doing such a bad job, it’s time to get rid of her and get somebody in there who can replace her and listen to the public.

She’s saying it’s a waste of money. She could have resigned. When 2,000 people want to recall you, that should be a message to most anybody. If she wanted to save the city money, she could have just resigned.

Question: Petitioners have highlighted a comment you made about not receiving “one communication from a property owner along River Road who has concerns about this proposal” when talking about the locally preferred alternatives for MovingAhead during a council meeting despite a petition drive. How would you address them making that a key part of the recall effort?

Syrett: I don’t think you recall a duly elected official over one statement that upset you. Now they’re trying to say that’s indicative of me ignoring my constituents, but I think there’s plenty of evidence that I have not.

And the statement I made was sincere. At that point, I was not aware of a property owner whose property would be impacted if we had to use eminent domain or something who had reached out to me directly to say they had concerns about this.

Their retort is they gave me a pile of paper with people’s signatures on it. Those signatures were from people who didn’t identify their role. This job is meant to be part time. It’s not within my capacity to have tracked down every single person. I feel like they zeroed in on that to try to make it a bigger deal as a statement than it actually is.

Campaign efforts

Question: What are you doing to reach people to get a majority of votes in favor of the recall?

Osterloh: At this very moment, I’m sitting down on a park bench (before going back to) passing out cards with information about the recall to voters. We’re just going door to door and leaving them there and we’re getting other volunteers to go all throughout Ward 7.

We’ve got a lot of people willing to volunteer, and they’re very unhappy with the job she’s doing.

Question: Petitioners had a head start in getting ‘yes’ votes. What are you doing to catch up?

Syrett: They definitely had a head start, and because of working a full-time job while also trying to get through the last work sessions at council, which were very hectic and full of important activities that I had to prepare for, I did not put any energy into defending against this recall until I knew they had qualified for the ballot.

I since have pulled together a campaign team, I have a campaign coordinator, I have a professional PR person working with me, I’ve got support from Democratic Party of Lane County.

Right at the end of July, I received my first contribution toward this campaign. Within less than just about three weeks, I’ve raised $8,000. I’m using those dollars to reach out to voters mainly through mailings. We’re also doing grassroots phone banking and canvassing, if we can get enough people who aren’t out of town on vacation.

Other thoughts

Question: Is there anything else you want people to know about the recall election at this time?

Osterloh: This is not only a recall for Claire Syrett. This is also sending a message to the City Council that we want this so-called MovingAhead stopped and done the proper way. Don’t hide this and sneak it through. You’re supposed to be representing us, not the special interests.

We’re sending a message to them: You better hear something about this. We don’t want to have to come after you also. Do the right thing. Learn from this process. Listen to people when they sign petitions and give them to you. We’ve heard from a number of people around the city who say they gave petitions to City Council and they get ignored. That is not the way to do it. When people sign a bunch of petitions, you listen to them, you don’t ignore them.

Syrett: I believe this is a misuse of the recall process. A recall is meant to be used for someone with criminal allegations against them or who has not shown up for city council meetings and has just bailed on actually doing the work, and not because you disagree with a city councilor on a policy issue.

I really take a lot of offense to this misuse and abuse of our democratic process. I feel it’s an anti-democratic effort to undermine an election.

Key dates, more info

5 p.m. Tuesday: Voter registration deadline

Thursday, Aug. 18: Ballots mailed and official drop sites open

Sept. 6: Election Day

Oct. 3: Last day for county clerk to certify election

For more info on the election, go to apps.lanecounty.org/Elections/Election/Index/241.

Contact city government watchdog Megan Banta at mbanta@registerguard.com. Follow her on Twitter @MeganBanta_1.

This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Q&A: Eugene Councilor Claire Syrett, petitioner in recall