Natural Gas, Homelessness, Shop Local

​I don’t know about you, but it feels like the closer we get towards the end of the year the faster the days are passing by, and the pressure is increasing to “get it all in before 2022”. In that vein, these past few weeks have been jam packed with activities that are moving key issues forward and in the next several weeks we have a lot of opportunity to impact how our community moves forward on key initiatives.

My Quick Note today has several “calls to action”. We need as many of you as possible to take a few minutes on one or more of these items to truly move the needle and ensure we are protecting our ability for businesses to succeed in our community.

Homelessness- Business Leaders Task Force
Hopefully you have seen the Chamber's "State of Our Homelessness Crisis" report released last month.  As mentioned in the report, our first step is launching a focused task force of business and community leaders to bring private sector support to the task of ending homelessness.  

The first meeting of the Business Task Force (BTF) will be on Monday, November 8th from Noon-1 pm on zoom.  The agenda will be to: solidify the purpose of the task force, review key findings from the report and current efforts around the homeless issues, and begin discussing how the private sector contributes to a community action plan and convening. 

CALL TO ACTION: If you are interested in joining this task force on Monday, November 8th from 12-1pm, please reply to me and let me know and I will send you the link to the meeting. 


Natural Gas & Electrification
Public pressure for our Eugene City Councilors to pass an ordinance that would ban natural gas use in our community is growing. Currently, there are a flood of emails going to Eugene City Councilors asking them to pass an ordinance that would ban the use of natural gas in all new buildings built in the city limits.

While we have heard from many of our businesses that they support a move towards a future that includes as much renewable energy as possible, we have also heard that an outright ban is not a responsible direction for our community.

When it comes to reducing our carbon footprint as a community, research suggests that “banning natural gas” is an action that sounds more impactful than it really would be- and could have significant tradeoffs for our community. The City of Eugene has done very little, if anything at all, to explore the economic impact that a natural gas ban may have on our community.

Council will be discussing these possible actions at a council work session on November 17th. The only opportunity for public testimony before that meeting is THIS MONDAY, NOVEMBER 8th at 7:30pm. We know that a large number of community members will be coming out to urge council to ban natural gas. We want to make sure the business community voice is heard as well.

CALL TO ACTION:

1. Write an email* to Eugene City Council sharing your thoughts on how this issue may impact business- consider including some of the research or questions we have attached to this email.
2. Even more impactful, log on to ZOOM to testify* during the public hearing on Monday, November 8th at 7:30pm VIA ZOOM. Testimony will likely be kept to 2 minutes each and you will find out the order you are slated to testify so you can roughly plan on how long you will need to stay at the meeting. Testimony will go on for no more than 90 minutes (although since it is on zoom, you don’t have to be tuned in the entire time, just ready for your turn to speak). (That link will take you to the city website- click on “Nov 8 Council Meeting” Tab to get the zoom link)

*If you plan to do either of these things, please consider BCCing me on the email or letting me know you plan to testify so we can keep an eye on the numbers we have reaching out. If you would like help developing your talking points, please let me know and we can do that!

Shop Local Campaign
Now for something a little lighter. We are proud to partner with Oregon Community Credit Union this holiday season on a “Support Local” campaign and online resource for community members. Our team is building a directory of local businesses that community members can visit to find easy ways to support local business and we will be putting resources in to spotlighting these businesses with marketing and giveaways over the next couple of months. The campaign kicks off this week and will run through the beginning of January.

We are hoping to include all kinds of business in one of our nine categories that range from business services to retail to food and beverage. In lieu of our annual business expo, which was difficult to fit in to our current COVID regulations, we are trying to bring people together to support local businesses as they consider new vendors in the new year, experiences they want to provide to their families or holiday gift shopping.

CALL TO ACTION: We would love to include your business- and its SUPER easy! Prices for listings range from FREE to $300 and you can sign your business up here: https://web.eugenechamber.com/events/Support-Local-Guide-2318302/details