With Eugene mayoral candidate Douglas Barr withdrawing from the Eugene mayoral race and hopeful candidate Kirt Elliott failing to amass enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, long-time Eugene resident and University of Oregon graduate, Stefan Strek, is Eugene’s third and final candidate for the 2024 election cycle.
Strek, 33, has lived in Eugene for over 25 years and worked at UO dining from 2008 until 2016 before receiving his degree from UO in 2019. Currently Strek is a self-entrepreneur where he designs clothing, paintings and stickers for his self-described “skate life brand” called Skate Boar.
The third-time mayoral candidate completed his candidacy filing the day of the March 6 deadline and seeks a final win after losing in the 2016 primary election and failing to file before the 2020 deadline which left him ineligible to make the ballot.
Strek told the Daily Emerald that his official name on the May ballot will not be Stefan Strek but rather “Ace Dog” and that his preferred pronouns were “bro/dude.” Strek said the nickname was in an effort to appeal to independent and undecided voters.
Comparing the city of Eugene to a Gordon Ramsay cooking show, Strek said that Eugene has been “shockingly mismanaged” under current Mayor Lucy Vinis and her predecessor Kitty Piercy. Strek cited “mismanagement” of the local government as his primary reason for running.
“It feels like [when] Gordon Ramsay goes into one of those restaurants that ask for help, and they're like ‘everything's going wrong.’ They've got a line of angry customers, the sinks full of dishes and the sign is falling off out front ” Strek said. “There's no other way to say it.”
Strek wouldn’t name specific examples of what he thought had been mismanaged, but did share concern over the 10-year gap between the closing of the old city halland the current building process of the new one in the old EWEB building; something Strek called a “waste of money” and “a waste of time.”
Outside of the mismanagement Strek sees, he identified housing as his number one goal for the city of Eugene. Strek says that Eugene’s housing crisis is caused by “the free markets not being allowed to function as they should.”
He said that large tax breaks issued to large building developers by the city of Eugene is pushing out local landlords and rising housing costs across the city.
Furthermore, Strek said that he would like to begin a tax rebate program for senior citizens to build Accessible Dwelling Units on their property.
“If we can waive the fees for senior citizens to build ADUs on their property, it's a way for seniors to increase their property value while also adding to the housing supply,” Strek said.
Strek identified three things needed to help the unhoused community in Eugene: jobs, transportation to get to jobs and park bathrooms opened year round.
When speaking on the recent rollback of Oregon’s drug reform measure, ballot measure 110, Strek said that “it was designed to fail.”
“It's a tough spot. The [overdose] numbers are something like 30 people for 100,000 in Oregon [are] dying . In the 80s, it was down to something like two people per 100,000 were dying of drug overdose,” Strek said. “[It’s] a bit of a false victory because in the 80s people were just dying of AIDS faster than they could die of the drugs, and now we've hit a point where the drugs are gonna kill people faster than AIDS. It's not good.”
The Daily Emerald was unable to verify Strek’s claims.
Further priorities for Strek include expanding LTD and EMX public transportation services into a 24-hour service and expanding transit routes to encompass a large portion of the Eugene-Springfield area.
Lastly, as mayor, Strek said he wants to bring music festivals and community bonding events back to Eugene after the Covid-19 pandemic.
“COVID was only an excuse for a minute, but I'd like the Eugene celebration to come back. I'd like to see more of a variety of music festivals; we can really utilize public space a lot better” Strek said. “ [I want a] Eugene Blues Festival [and] Eugene Jazz Festival [to] really promote the city as a place for community events and cultural events in a way that it's not being really appreciated for.”
Strek’s current opponents are Shanaé Joyce-Stringer and Kaarin Knudson. The latter of whom have been endorsed by current Mayor Lucy Vinis and numerous members of the Eugene City Council. Strek said he was not concerned about the endorsem*nt deficit but was unhappy with Vinis’s “pre-arranged” endorsem*nt, referring to Knudson as “Kitty Piercy the third.”
Primary elections in Oregon, including the Eugene mayoral race, will take place on May 21. A runoff will occur on Nov. 5 between the top two candidates if no candidate receives a majority of the vote.
