City Hall Was Squandered

Thank you, Eugene Weekly and Joseph Cappelletti for the revealing and revolting article about the late city hall and the aftermath of that decision (“They Put Up a Parking Lot,” EW 3/4) .

If I and/or most of my fellow citizens robbed someone, we would go to jail. How is it that our former city manager can rob us all and get paid handsomely to do it?

Our former city manager, Jon Ruiz, was supposed to manage, not squander. A person who is hired to be a city manager should be looking at ways to improve the lives of the people who live in the city they’re managing. Most of these citizens work hard to pay their taxes, which are so high that some might and do lose their homes if they can’t make the payments. These are people’s lives we are talking about. Ruiz’ cavalier statement when questioned about why he didn’t inform the councilors of going over budget was, “No particular reason.” I think he should be prosecuted, as well as the ex-president. How on Earth can we accept this? By doing so we are accepting a crime!

The new city hall project is now over $40 million and climbing. 

The article ends with Mayor Lucy Vinis saying that even though there isn’t much public support, the council is remaining committed to the project (with the exception of Councilor Emily Semple), and completing it should be viewed as an economic recovery plan!

Our former mayor says we should have a new city hall, which should be a symbol of justice and equality and visually symbolic of a city’s culture, history and democracy. I wasn’t aware that democracy, etc., included robbing its citizens.

I was promised by last year’s quiet zone project manager that the quiet zone would be done by this year. Has anyone heard anything about that project? And what about homelessness? And roads?

$40 million could do a lot to improve the lives of people in our city rather than save the former and current powers that be from looking bad for their own bad decisions by building a costly replacement.

Jean Denis

Eugene