In the March 23, 2018, issue of the Register-Guard, Eugene resident Craig Starr writes in a letter:
Ballot Measure 20-283, proposing an elected Eugene city auditor, unnecessarily and improperly empowers the city auditor “to conduct audits … to determine whether … (c) the public is benefited by the activity.”
This plainly inserts the auditor into the legislative area of policy-making. It doesn’t, as proponents might reply, only empower the auditor to determine if an intended benefit was achieved, because that legitimate auditing goal already is separately expressed elsewhere.
We elect a city council to legislate in the public interest. There are ways to express disagreement with those decisions, but not by creating an auditor with shadow authority to second-guess the council’s policy decisions. I will not vote for 20-283.