Eugene City Council Amends Independent Police Auditor Contract, Now Allows Teaching at University

The Eugene City Council voted 7-1 during its work session to reward the city’s independent police auditor for nine months on the job. Meanwhile, the Eugene Police Department simultaneously navigates its most recent controversy and growing calls for the chief to resign or be fired. 

The May 27 work session mostly centered around the “informal” performance review of Independent Police Auditor Craig Renetzky since his hiring nine months prior, in August 2025. 

Carrie Baraldo, the director of the city’s Employee Resource Center, began the review by explaining that the review switches from formal to informal each year — this year being the latter. 

As such, the independent police auditor submitted his own performance review of himself and the work session turned to discussing a cost of living pay increase and the amendment of his contract to allow him to also teach at the University of Oregon. 

Baraldo began by stating that Renetzky’s pay was set at the top of the $129,188 to $174,387 salary range set by the city council. 

“The employment agreement for Renetzky does provide for a [cost of living] increase at the same time [as a performance review],” said Baraldo. “A COLA would be applied automatically through the contract to the auditor pay range, and then subsequently for Auditor Renetzky.”

Further, Renetzky could still get a merit-based increase. 

“Otherwise, according to the contract regarding any merit increases, Renetzky’s employment contract still allows that the council can consider increasing his compensation at the same time as the annual performance evaluation which is what we’re here for today,” said Baraldo.

Then Baraldo added that Renetzky “has an interest in teaching locally at the university” as “something he had done prior to coming here.”

The work session then turned to comments from the city council who, largely, praised the auditor for his work since being hired. 

“You hit the ground running,” Councilor Alan Zelenka said. “Which made me think we did make the absolute right pick when we picked you to be the next police auditor.”

Councilor Zelenka, touching on the subject of former EPD officer Martin Siller’s body-cam footage, said, “I also thought that the way that you handled the racist officer incident recently was really well done and represented the office well.” 

He then asked Auditor Renetzky if anything could have been done differently. 

“I haven’t completely finished looking at the way we handled everything,” the auditor replied. “I want to look at some of the hiring process to make sure nothing was missed but, as a general rule, it surely seems like there would have been nothing that could have been done to detect this.” 

In this case, Auditor Renetzky said that the fact that officers typically ride alone, so there would be no way for another officer to hear Siller’s conversation. He also said that if the conversation had been with another EPD officer, he is confident it would have been reported internally. 

Councilor Zelenka then asked about the auditor’s thoughts on if he believed that racism was a part of the culture within the department. 

Auditor Renetzky replied that he hadn’t finished his evaluation and that looking at the internal culture would be a part of the “second phase” before talking about his initial impression. He said: 

“One of my background is I taught a class on racism so I gotta tell you, with this incident, was I surprised? No. Was I shocked? No. Was I disappointed? Absolutely. There is no magic wand, there is no way of making things change. And, [Councilor Zelenka is] right. Eugene is no different than any other city and it gets it.”

He also added that the response from the police department and the union are indicators that Siller’s behavior isn’t tolerated. 

And then he delivered a hard truth:

“Education is never a bad thing. But I got to be honest with you, I don’t know that education alone is going to stop racism. We’ve tried that for years. If I knew the magic trick to it, I think we all would have solved it a long time ago.” 

Councilor Eliza Kashinsky was the first to dissent, citing the atypical nature of an employee receiving a merit-based pay increase after someone has “already reached the top of the scale.”

“I will say that I very much believe in council-appointed and -hired employees being treated consistently as other employees of the city,” she explained. “But that is not at all a reflection of the work that [Auditor Renetzky] is doing.”

Continuing, Councilor Kashinsky asked the police auditor about his desire to teach at the university.

“Obviously it could not conflict with the job,” Auditor Renetzky replied. 

The police auditor then explained what he envisioned:

“My thought with teaching is, essentially this: these are the next generation of leaders in law enforcement. In the past, I’ve taught a lot of people that have gone into law enforcement, a lot of people that have become public defenders or lawyers.

There’s a scarcity of police auditor-type people, so that I will occasionally get requests [of] ‘can I consult on this’ or ‘can I advise on this’ and the answer is no. I think teaching a class, or making myself available for those sorts of things that don’t conflict with the city work would be helpful.

Obviously it makes up the compensation. I think it also benefits the community as a whole.”

Councilor Kashinsky then brought up the police auditor’s current employment contract which prohibits any outside employment, which the city attorney, Kathryn Brotherton, confirmed. 

Changing the employment contract requires a motion and then a vote — which occurred when Councilor Lyndsie Leech spoke next. She said:

“The question of a merit increase, for me, is really important. It’s been less than a year. We set that range and got to the top of that range. Next year, we have a full performance review [and] that’s a really good time to really analyze the scale again.”

Councilor Leech then motioned to amend the employment contract to allow Auditor Renetzky to teach. The city attorney then said that being allowed to specifically teach had been precedent. 

Then the second voice of dissent, Councilor Matt Keating, began speaking. About the spontaneous discussion — and now motion — of amending the contract, he said:

“I have a whole laundry list of comments that I was going to make — and I do plan on making them — that are laudable in regard to the auditor’s service to our community. You’ve been wholly accessible, transparent, engaging, and your community outreach plans that you have articulated both publicly and privately are welcome and appreciated.

I do, however, have some issue with amending a contract on the fly. This is the first I’m hearing about a longing to seek outside employment or engage in a teaching capacity at the university.

At this juncture, when there is so much turnover in the auditors office, I would submit — from my perspective — it seems that the auditor would benefit from having as much hands-on engagement with your new employees and, especially at this tumultuous time in history, I would be very interested in exploring outside employment maybe Year Two, once we have a full year under your belt. 

But there was no mention of this amendment in our AIS, or in any of our, or one=on-one even so this is coming as a bit of a surprise for me. So, I would not be interested in honoring said amendment because it does seem 11th hour.”

Councilor Keating then said he would support other merit-based increases but that he expects “any one of [the city’s] three employees — our auditor, our municipal court judge, our city manager to be wholly focused on the duties this council has hired them to do.”

“I haven’t even spoken to the university,” the police auditor said in response. “It’s not like something is in the works and I think the other thing, to be realistic, is teaching schedules are set far in advance so that any assignment would not even be for the fall, it would perhaps be for the next spring.”

Councilor Keating then made it clear he would not vote for the amendment if outside employment was included. 

Councilor Jennifer Yeh was more optimistic and said she hoped that Auditor Renetzky’s identity wasn’t just “police auditor” and could use his skills to educate people in the community to which Councilor Zelenka agreed.

Councilor Mike Clark said that the idea of the Eugene Police Auditor possibly teaching at the university could have a positive effect on the University of Oregon Police Department.

In the end, Councilor Leech made the motion, Councilor Kashinsky seconded it, and the vote followed. Seven voted in favor. Councilor Keating voted no.