Public comments: Men must challenge rape culture

Presenter: One great way to participate in local self-governance is to speak at a public meeting. Many local boards, councils, and commissions set aside time to hear from as many speakers as possible. You’re usually given between two and three minutes. Here are the public comments at the Eugene City Council, Oct. 12:

Robert Parrish: My name is Robert Parrish, 21-year alumnus of CAHOOTS, days from World Mental Health Day (apparently).

People noticed. They noticed when White Bird stopped running CAHOOTS in Eugene. We don’t have a replacement for that loss yet, and people have noticed.

Community response is a public good. Community response makes our city safer. Community response is a compassionate and effective approach to issues of poverty, substance abuse, mental health crises, homelessness, and more.

Community response is a cost-effective use of public funds, and Eugene doesn’t have one.

We know that community response works in Eugene because it did for nearly 36 years, helping tens of thousands of people per year, inspiring literally hundreds of other communities to begin a community response program of their own.

New research published on Sept. 23, 2026 in the journal Science Advances, shows that CAHOOTS used to handle 18% of all EPD calls, when adjusted to include the program’s diversion of calls. That would typically just be an EPD response for assault, suspicious subject and disputes.

There was a 23% reduction in the need for EPD. When only considering calls that either EPD or Cahoots would respond to the city’s former community response program handled 45% – 50% of all overlapping mandate calls. The recent alternative response RFP (Request For Proposals) chose not to fund a program similar to what was lost when White Bird stopped running CAHOOTS in Eugene.

It awarded over half a million dollars to a for-profit peer program that shares most or all of its data with EPD and Eugene Springfield Fire. That isn’t alternative response.

Now our city has to revisit the community safety payroll tax. We have to grapple with the fact that this tax was advertised as a funding as funding community response, when 0.2% of that $100 million went to CAHOOTS.

Not only is a community response program a good idea, tried and tested in our own city over decades already, but it’s also a bargain.

The current two-year budget includes $186.7 million for EPD. That is a lot of money—$255,000 a day. In exchange for two days at that rate, you could redo the recent RFP and actually fund a small but dedicated community response program for a year.

John Alford: My name is John Alford. This has to do with something that happened outside of our state.

So in Jackson County in Mississippi, the 5th Circuit Court ruled that the U.S. Constitution doesn’t guarantee a right to clean drinking water, which I can’t argue against. And they also included in that, that we don’t have a right to accurate information from public officials during a health crisis.

Now that to me is drastically concerning. I understand that Eugene does not necessarily do the inspections directly or have a regulatory body that does that, but we do have partnerships with government agencies that do that, and we have the ability to regulate how they operate within our city and how they disclose information.

I don’t know what we can do to protect our city and our people from the misuse of other government agencies. That is what I’m bringing forward. I don’t have clear ideas on how to address this. All I know is that hearing this kind of report coming across the nation is incredibly disturbing, and I would love to hear feedback on that at some point in the future.

Shaz Rydstedt: My name is Shaz Rydstedt, I reside in Eugene. I can be corresponded with at Box 1165, 97440.

I spoke last time. Councilor (Matt) Keating suggested that people that have trouble with probable cause stops with Eugene should contact the city (independent police) auditor, which is such a good idea I did it the Monday morning after my traffic stop.

And the problem with that is it appears to be a rubber-stamp factory, because although the officer 30 days later said that the stop was not within the purview of the, he had misunderstood, the auditor didn’t catch that it should have been over there, but really it should have been over at my window when I told him that the law didn’t apply and when I told the supervisor specifically that it wasn’t a violation.

So some stuff got overlooked there.

I got some little dates to run down here. That was four days after the traffic. After I filed my complaint to the auditor that they just dismissed it and closed the file. Now that’s a problem.

The signs of something like this happening are going to be other people having this problem. So if anybody in Eugene has been stopped for 815.220, I’d sure like to know about it, because it appears to me to be a pattern in practice.

And it’s really disconcerting to me that on my way in, there’s an officer out there, and I asked him if he enforced traffic law, and he said yes. And I said, does 815.220 apply to rear windows? And he couldn’t give me an answer. That’s a problem.

So that was April 8. The day before there was a viral video about this, I just wanted to set this matter behind me. So I sent the auditor an email and I said, ‘Hey, you know, this is going to go viral tomorrow on the channel with over a quarter million subscribers. Could we put this behind us? I need a quick mea culpa, we’re sorry, drop the charges and move on with life.’

Which is what should have happened. Didn’t happen. So instead, April 9, that video went up. And then on April 14, Officer Anderson filed his motion to have it dismissed. And then April 20, it was dismissed and I didn’t get notified. That should be a serious problem for everybody here.

Basically, I was railroaded, I was plucked, I was stuck, and I’m still stuck. And I will be stuck until either I have to file suit under the Oregon Tort Claims Act or Title 42 (1983).

But maybe the city could come up with a better solution, because I’m just trying to get on with my life. I was a victim of police abuse thirty years ago. This exacerbated the PTSD from that.

I’m trying to recover from it. I can’t do it without you guys. Help. You need to acknowledge that what went on was wrong and find a way to fix it. Instead of just circle the wagons and run and hightail…

Presenter: Amanda Wolberg:

Amanda Wolberg: Well, you don’t have to worry. You don’t have to listen too hard to this, because I know you guys already know more about this than I do, but this is a picture of a body. It’s hanging from a meat hook. This was in a trailer right next to the catering company at the University of Oregon.

And not only that, I have digital footage from the game. They were displaying nude images of children on the screen. I have a picture of that. I’m not going to share that.

I don’t mind showing you guys dead bodies. I’m not going to show exploitive material of children because that’s disgusting.

And I’m not going to shut up about this because the same pictures I showed you from the hospital basement with the eviscerated human remains.

I found that in the garbage at my school and where I found this body, there were police cameras all around it. They know exactly what’s going on. And I think the fact that none of you are willing to address this, none of you speak about this. You know what I mean? You know it’s wrong, too, because if you didn’t see a problem with this happening, you’d just be like, yeah, so what?

Right? So you know, it’s wrong. and. I don’t even know what to do. And I can see why people are scared to talk about what’s happening to them. I overhear people talking about being trafficked. The staff at U of O knows there’s abductions happening there.

People in the community know. But is anyone really saying anything about it? No, because no one feels safe. (Names local nonprofit): They were trafficking people.

So yeah, what do you do when you’re being trafficked? And any place you could go, anyone you can talk to is going to put you in the same predicament or worse.

And it’s BS that people have to live in a city of fear, like, there should be resources for people that are suffering. I don’t know, maybe like if there’s one person you actually—maybe you don’t care about the general population, right?

But if there’s one person you care about—maybe you have kids, maybe you have a sister, maybe you have a mother, maybe you have one person that you wouldn’t want to see be trafficked and tortured.

Maybe you could think about like doing something about this problem because I’m one person, I can’t do everything. And I’ve been thinking, if I get all this evidence, if I find proof, maybe I can make it stop. It’s gotten a little bit better, but it seems to just go on and it’s disgusting.

Josh Easterlund: I’m Josh Easterlund, director of Equitable Access Eugene, and I’ve been coming to you for years asking Eugene to reconsider enforcement against the personal use and cultivation of psychedelic plants and fungi.

Tonight, I have some great news from right here in Oregon. On Sept. 30, Portland City Council passed its Psychedelic Health and Safety ordinance 10-0, with two councilors absent.

It makes noncommercial personal use, cultivation, and sharing of natural psychedelics a low law enforcement priority.

I was at the hearing the week before I listened to veterans, mental health professionals, parents, a retired firefighter and others describe how these substances had affected their lives. They spoke about addiction, depression, grief, trauma, and finding a way forward.

But what stayed with me the most wasn’t any single testimony. It was watching elected officials respond.

Council Vice President Olivia Clark acknowledged approaching the issue with reservations after listening, she said the testimony had changed her thinking. Councilor Eric Zimmerman spoke about soldiers he had lost to suicide. He acknowledged that there was much about psychedelics he didn’t understand, but he took seriously the positive experiences of veterans who had found help.

These councilors didn’t come into the discussion with the same beliefs. They asked questions about safeguards, consulted with police, refined the proposal, and ultimately found common ground.

And I think that’s the lesson for Eugene. We don’t have to agree about every claim made for psychedelics or whether we would personally choose to use them, but to agree on reasonable public safety priorities.

Portland’s Police Bureau explained that personal psychedelic use was already a low enforcement priority. Their ordinance simply makes that approach clear, consistent and more durable across future leadership.

I’ve sent you an email with links to Portland’s adopted ordinance, news coverage, and recordings of the public testimony and final vote. I’m also leaving a one-page briefing for each of you here tonight with a summary and links to those same resources.

So I’m asking Eugene to take a concrete next step: Have your staff review Portland’s adopted ordinance. Consult with the Eugene Police about current enforcement priorities and bring this issue back for a focused council discussion.

I’ve been asking you to consider this for years, and we have an Oregon example of elected officials listening and working through concerns and reaching agreement. I hope Eugene will do the same.

Richard LaRosa: My name is Richard LaRosa and I’m here to talk about rape prevention.

My mother was raped while walking the bike path in Skinner Butte Park. I went out looking for the rapist. I had a baseball bat. I was 13 years old. After the assault, folks in the neighborhood rallied. A warning sign was nailed to a tree near the path. We organized patrols.

The following year, 1979, more than 200 gathered at the University of Oregon Law School and formed Community Action Against Rape.

In those early years, it was mostly women doing the work. Eventually, men joined in. By the 1980s, Men Against Rape was formed to educate people about rape, masculinity, violence and power.

In the 2010s, Eugene Men Against Rape Culture organized discussion groups and task forces. I don’t know if these groups fizzled out or rebranded.

Still, the questions remain; questions men should be asking remain. What do we do about the rapists among us? When do we make it a habit to confront men who believe they’re entitled to women’s bodies? What are we waiting for? We can’t wait until a man decides to become a rapist. We have to get the message across to men while they’re still figuring out how to be allies to women.

We already know we should challenge harassment and degradation when we see it, but not enough of us are doing it.

‘Men will be men. Boys will be boys. You can’t change human nature.’ Give me a break. The existence of civilized societies proves that human beings are capable of overriding their worst impulses.

I’m asking the city of Eugene to bring together the people already doing rape education and prevention work, and explore a pilot program for boys and young men built around peer mentoring, consent, and bystander skills.

Forty-seven years ago, people gathered on campus because fear and rage wasn’t enough. They showed up. They took a stand.

I’m standing here again as a son to a mother, a brother to a sister, a father to a daughter, and an ally to women.

Men Addressing Rape Culture, or MARC, is a grassroots movement built around an idea meant to spread from person to person and community to community: Step in, speak up, follow through.

If you want to help carry that idea forward, come see me after the meeting. Let’s find each other. Thank you.

Presenter: Public comments at the Eugene City Council Oct. 12, 2026.