In the May 10, 2018, issue of the Register-Guard, Eugene resident Bill Northrup writes in a letter:
I’m voting for 20-283, the Elected City Auditor plan.
While at first the initial salary seems high, it’s in line with many other capable leaders in Eugene government, whose expertise level is needed here as well.
Coming from outside of the city is okay with me, because it avoids favoritism.
I also like that they have a big budget because at least at the start they’ll have a lot of looking at to do and it’d be good to get lots of audits going to jump start it.
Having a city council that destroys its buildings before it has another one, and then watching the costs balloon — well, I just think that four years ago if we had that auditor, then for $3 million we could have saved $12 million, netting $9 million clear to spend on the homeless and other things.
Now, I could be wrong, but let’s get it off the ground with a big enough budget so they can really go strong, and then later we can tweak the charter after judging the results. We just need it now.