A polarized landscape.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Mayor-elect Kitty Piercy's laudable aspiration is to be mayor of all Eugene - to be a uniter, not a divider. Yet the May 18 election results confirm that long-standing political differences are carved into Eugene's political landscape. The Eugene City Council is sure to remain sharply divided on certain issues. Piercy can, however, count on having a council that is friendly to her general point of view not just for two years, but for four.

Voting in last month's mayoral elections followed a pattern that has been evident in Eugene for at least two decades. Neighborhoods north of the Willamette River and in West Eugene voted for the more conservative candidate, City Councilor Nancy Nathanson. The other parts of the city, mainly south and central Eugene, were solidly for Piercy, the more liberal candidate.

The election wasn't close in any of the city's eight City Council wards. The closest results were in Nathanson's own Ward 8 in southwest Eugene, where she won 57 percent of the votes cast for the two leading candidates. The spread was wider everywhere else. Piercy received 75 percent of the vote in Ward 3, David Kelly's University of Oregon-area ward. Nathanson's stronghold was in Ward 5, the western part of north Eugene represented by Gary Pape, where she won 67 percent of the vote.

Piercy and Nathanson each won in four wards, but Piercy scored a comfortable 53-to-47 victory citywide. Piercy's margin was cemented by the fact that support for Nathanson was extremely weak in the high-turnout wards of south Eugene, while Piercy managed a third or more of the votes in the wards that Nathanson carried.

The wards that supported Piercy also elected councilors who are likely to be aligned with her after she takes office next year. In Ward 1, which has Friendly Street at its core, Bonny Bettman crushed two opponents, receiving two-thirds of all votes cast for any of the three candidates. Betty Taylor won only slightly less convincingly over a single opponent in southeast Eugene's Ward 2. In Ward 7, which takes in the Whiteaker neighborhood and incorporated portions of the River Road area, Andrea Ortiz easily defeated incumbent Scott Meisner.

Bettman, Taylor and Kelly already form a left-leaning bloc. Ortiz may bring some surprises when she joins the council, but in her campaign she was clearly identified as an alternative to Meisner, who had drifted away from the progressive bloc over the course of his two council terms. That makes four of eight - and with Piercy holding the tie-breaking vote, a change in the council's direction is expected.

The elections of 2006 aren't likely to alter the balance. That year, three of the four council seats up for election will be held by members of the right-leaning bloc. The fourth is Kelly's Ward 3. Kelly easily won re-election two years ago, and this year his ward voted more strongly for Piercy than any other. It's a safe bet that Ward 3 will re-elect Kelly or choose a like-minded successor, guaranteeing Piercy four supportive votes on throughout her term.

It's equally unlikely that the left-leaning bloc will add a fifth member anytime soon. Nathanson won with more than 60 percent of the vote in all of the wards, except for Kelly's, that will choose councilors in 2006.

Eugene's mayor ordinarily exercises power indirectly; real decision-making authority rests with the council. An evenly split council, however, in effect makes the mayor the ninth councilor and gives her the swing vote. Piercy can expect to spend her four years as mayor governing a starkly divided city and leading an equally divided council. Her hope to become the mayor of all Eugene will prove difficult to realize as the divided city and its divided council force her to choose one side or the other.