In the April 8, 2018, issue of the Register-Guard, the editorial board writes:
Voters can cast their ballots in nine different ways, counting the undervote options, on a pair of dueling measures to create an auditor’s office for the city of Eugene. The best choice is to vote no on both, giving the city a chance to return with an improved plan for audits after the political smoke has cleared.
The complexity is the doing of the Eugene City Council, which took the ill-advised step of placing a measure on the May 15 ballot to compete with a proposal that comes to a public vote as the result of an initiative campaign. Allowing a straight up-or-down vote on the initiative, Measure 20-283, would have been better: Eugene residents could have seen that it over-reaches, and voted it down.
Measure 20-283 would amend Eugene’s city charter to create an elected auditor for the city. The sponsors, who include several former city councilors, crafted their proposal as though they were sealing a foundation against carpenter ants: They did everything they could to ensure that neither the City Council nor the city manager would have any leverage over the auditor or the office’s budget. The result is proposal so tightly sealed as to lack ventilation. …