I appreciate the work Eugene City Councilor Claire Syrett has done on homeless shelter, affordable housing and mass transit, and I’m sorry she got recalled. But I wish she had done a much better campaign.

Her campaign against the recall seemed to be all about: She’s a good person; other local female movers and shakers like her; the recall was an abuse of the process, etc.

None of this matters to working-class voters who are most likely to support her policies. Politics is mostly about self-interest. What we want to know is, what’s in it for us? EmX is very much in our self-interests and was the main recall issue according to her opponents, yet her campaign refused to focus on that.

I haven’t owned a car since the mid 1990s, because I can’t afford one. I’m also too old to drive. I’ve spent years riding buses in Portland and Eugene. Most of them are very inconvenient because they run every half hour, which discourages people from using them, especially in the winter cold and rain. EmX is much better because it runs so much more often and gets you there faster. Working-class people like me have every reason to support it.

People in local government need to understand that they have to defend their policies in local news media, through letters and columns, and they need to focus on what we really care about.

Lynn Porter

Eugene

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