Jensina Hawkins shares her endorsements in the May 19 election
John Q. Murray: The chair of Churchill Area Neighbors, co-chair of the Neighborhood Leaders Council, former chair of the Police Commission, and co-organizer of the citywide health care forums has been sharing her candidate endorsements on social media. Starting with her picks for the Eugene City Council in the May 19 election, Jensina Hawkins:
Jensina Hawkins: I did weigh in on a couple of the City Council races. On Ward 3, I have met Jennifer Smith. I have not met John Barofsky. I’ve reached out to him, and he’s too busy. So that’s perfectly fine. Again, my vote there doesn’t matter because they’re not going to run for my councilor.
John Q: How about Ward 5, where Mike Clark, the incumbent, faces two challengers?
Jensina: I endorse Jasmine Hatmaker. She’s a lovely young lady who has worked really hard through the Chamber of Commerce and other programs to uplift young up-and-comers. And she’s very measured with her responses. One thing I love about her is that she’s not reactionary at all. And she really takes the time to do her research and formulate a response that’s thoughtful before just flying off the handle.
And then I endorsed Tai Pruce-Zimmerman for Ward 6 against Greg Evans. You know, he was chair of the Budget Commission at the same time that I was chair of the Police Commission, and he was always very willing to help with any questions I had on how to chair a commission, how to engage with city leadership.
I’ve been really impressed because he always shows up. Every single event that is noteworthy, he’s there. His wife is frequently there, and I think that one thing that I have a lot of faith in with Tai is that he does show up. He has always shown up.
John Q: Two candidates are contending for the at-large position on the Eugene Water and Electric Board.
Jensina: EWEB is interesting. Eric Dziura is a very good friend of mine. He and I co-chaired the second citywide health care forum together, and I’ve been privileged to watch him in action firsthand. He’s very diligent, and he comes up with ideas. If he doesn’t know the answer, he will go find out how to get the answer. And it’s a pleasure working with him. He’s very effective. He’s another one who’s calm, not reactionary.
But, you know, it’s a tough race because Alexi Miller is engaging. Listening to the two of them debate, both of them are just brilliant with some of the plans of what they want to do. It’s also really nice to see the areas where they agree.
And it was interesting. Tim Morris weighed in on Alexi Miller, and his recommendation certainly carries a lot of weight with me as well. I ended up endorsing Eric Dziura just because I have worked with him firsthand on a very big project and saw it come to a very, very successful completion. And so I have no doubt that Eric will continue to do the same on the EWEB board.
John Q: Voters will decide in a rare contested election for Lane County Circuit Court Judge.
Jensina: Yes, that one has been interesting. It was Jenny Jonak, actually, who thought that I needed to meet Amit Kapoor. And Demond, of course, also said, ‘Oh, you should meet this judge.’ And I was like, ‘Who on earth meets a judge? Why is this even a thing?’ And, of course, it’s very rare for us to ever have a contested battle for a judgeship.
And so I ended up meeting with Judge Kapoor, and just from the get-go, just incredibly impressed with him. He’s eloquent. He’s engaging. He’s brilliant. He’s articulate. And his story is very much a rags-to-riches—actually, I don’t know if he’s rich, but the whole idea of growing up in a 400-square-foot apartment in India where one wall isn’t even a wall, it’s a bamboo curtain; coming from that to go to law school and eventually coming to America, becoming, he was in the public defender’s office here and also then became a judge.
I know there’s been a lot of talk from the opposition about how he was seated by Kate Brown. And so if you want somebody who’s not part of the establishment, you should vote for Katina Saint Marie. And so I did end up meeting with her as well. And I think she is entirely capable. I just don’t see anything about her that would make me budge on Judge Kapoor.
John Q: There are several funding measures on the ballot. We have the state transportation bill, the city’s library levy, and the County Extension / 4-H levy.
Jensina: For the measures, I would hope that the library levy, that people would be able to just say, ‘Obviously, we want that one.’ The same with the 4-H and the OSU extension.
John Q: And Lane County voters could enact a Watershed Bill of Rights, which would be a rights of nature measure.
Jensina: Very contentious. That one has been interesting. You know, the name of it is great. The intent is great, of course. But reading through the bill was pretty alarming to see how loosely written it was.
And so I actually consulted a couple of friends of mine who were attorneys because I wanted their take on it. And they were alarmed by how loosely written it is—the ability to just sue anybody for anything.
And then the burden of proof being on the person who’s being sued to prove that they didn’t cause harm, as opposed to where we would normally see with like medical malpractice or something where the person doing the suing proves that harm was caused.
And it just made me really nervous. I’ve heard that the fire department is against it as well. And I mean, there’s been plenty of times when I’ve gone hiking along a stream or something like that, and I don’t think I’m the person that throws out empty Coke bottles or anything like that, but I certainly wouldn’t want to be sued if something accidentally happened.
John Q: And for Lane County Commissioner, incumbents Ryan Ceniga, David Lovell, and Heather Buch each face opponents.
Jensina: The county commissioner race is definitely the most contested. The—well, the two county commissioner races.
So the Thomas Hiura vs. Ryan Ceniga has been very interesting to watch that. Thomas is another friend of mine, and I appreciate the work that he has done in the community. Again, though, I don’t see anything that’s compelling enough to push out the incumbent.
John Q: Then the Springfield commissioner district: David Loveall and Sean VanGordon.
Jensina: So you have to keep in mind that I’m a Christian, so I am not offended by the things that Commissioner Loveall does. In fact, I’ve teased him sometimes that I would love to have a birthday card from him that signed, ‘Thank you for doing kingdom work.’
That being said, I did attend the ‘State of the County’ address in January and I thought that the nature of it and the very invocational churchy nature of it was definitely something that people could take offense to.
And I don’t know, you know, we never know exactly what happened in some of these stories where allegedly he used his hands like a stripper. I don’t even know what that means! But I’ve certainly seen his fiery demeanor. I’ve seen him on the campaign trail and at different events. And he’s evangelical in a demeanor kind of way (I’m assuming he’s probably also evangelical in a religious kind of way), but the way that he can work a crowd is actually—it’s very entertaining.
I’ve sometimes called him ‘the Elton John of county commissioners’ because he can really work the crowd. He’s a performer and he knows how to engage his audience and I’ve seen him get standing ovations, because he’s good.
But it’s also not an area—the county commission is not an area where you really need to have all the divisiveness and everything else that’s been going on there. And so I don’t have any read whatsoever on Mayor VanGordon. He’s always been pleasant and calm whenever I’ve dealt with him. But I’m actually glad that I don’t have to vote in that race.
John Q: And for the East Lane District, we have the incumbent Heather Buch facing off against Jake Pelroy.
Jensina: So Heather’s always been a good friend to Demond and me. She’s another person who shows up, she is supportive, and she really is kind, she’s generous, and we’ve never, ever had anything but the kindest words to say about her. When the CleanLane stuff started coming out, I would ask her questions about it, and she’s very quick with the responses, but has never provided me with documentation.
And I actually had to kind of chase down Jake Pelroy because I wanted to have host both of them for a forum as well as Bob Zybach, the other person running. And so I had to chase him down and introduce myself via email. And I met with him.
And because he’s a Republican, I had actually reached out to some Republican friends of mine. It’s very interesting lately. One thing I’ve always pointed out is that Demond and I always get invited to all the DPLC events and all the house parties for the Democratic candidates. And I’ve asked some of the Republican strategists, like, ‘What do I have to do to get invited to these Republican things?’
It’s no secret anymore that I am a registered Republican. How come we don’t do parties? How come we don’t do these fun things? And it’s just the GOP is not nearly as organized here as well as the DPLC is.
But I reached out to a few of them before I met with Jake and I said, ‘What do i need to know about this fellow?’ And one of the Republican strategists said, ‘Well, ask him about CleanLane.’ And I hadn’t taken too much of an interest in it. It’s one of those things, you know, well, once you start talking about $20-30 million, it’s over my pay grade.
But I sat down and I talked to him about it and he was so incredibly intelligent and detailed in his responses and then he was texting and emailing me links to the documents. Every single time I had a question about the CleanLane stuff he always backed it up with the research. And there’s a lot to be said about somebody who can provide not only the answers but the backing for them.
The other thing that really impressed me about Jake is that he knew that we had donated money to Heather’s campaign, he knew we’re friends with Heather, and he always treated me as another person. He never acted like I was working for the enemy, or going to take information and run off with it, or do anything like that.
He was actually very helpful when Jenny Jonak and I were following Sen. (Floyd) Prozanski’s bill going through the short session. And every single time that bill was on the floor, Jake would text me and say, ‘Hey, it’s on the floor right now.’ And he would send me the OLIS (Oregon Legislative Information System) links to actually watch it myself. And receiving heads up for things like that was incredible.
And so as I got to know Jake more and ask him a lot more questions about things, it didn’t even matter what I asked him, he had an answer—and he had the documentation to back it up. And so because of that, I ended up not only endorsing him, but voting for him.
And again, I have nothing bad to say whatsoever about Heather, other than the fact that Jake has made a much more compelling case because he’s provided the research.
John Q: We’re talking with Jensina Hawkins about her endorsements for the May 19 election. What have you been hearing in response?
Jensina: Last year, I outed myself as a red, rural, religious Republican, so I think people aren’t surprised anymore. I did get a little bit of blowback for publicly endorsing Jake. It was taken a little bit as a personal affront (and not by Heather, because she’s a classy person). But it was taken a little bit more personally than I had intended. But even that settled down.
You know, I had kind of placed myself in the crosshairs anyway by calling out Ruben Garcia when he had made his kerfuffle at county commission regarding Commissioner Trieger. And so it was an opportunity to make a statement to support the candidate that Ruben had been practicing for. And honestly, even though Ruben definitely stepped in it at that time, I do respect his opinion in a lot of ways. And so, he was so passionate about this candidate, Pelroy, I thought it was my duty to find out why.
John Q: That is Jensina Hawkins with her endorsements for the May 19 election. Be sure to drop off your ballot before 8 p.m. Tuesday. You’re listening to KEPW-WholeCommunity.News.
