In the April 12, 2018, issue of the Eugene Weekly, Eugene resident Finn Po writes in a letter:
I strongly agree with Archie Herring in his letter regarding City Hall and its unanswered questions (4/5). I dread being reminded about the $7 million that was lost every time I pass by the depressing empty pit where our new City Hall was supposed to be.
The Eugene City Council obviously isn’t willing to tell the truth about what happened with City Hall and the money. That’s why I support an elected city auditor. With more real transparency, the taxpayers of Eugene could finally find out what really happened. An elected auditor might also prevent other atrocious things like this from happening again.
The council put a highly controversial substitute auditor proposal on the ballot, but I don’t think this will do the job. An auditor needs to be independent. It seems to me that if the council wanted the voters to know what happened, they could have done so by now.
If they don’t want people to know what happened, an appointed auditor who can be fired by the council itself isn’t likely to be able to do so. We clearly need the protection of an elected auditor.