Eugene, Ore. (KVAL) — Eugene Police Department Chief Pete Kerns broke down the cost of Donald Trump’s campaign visit to the city. It amounted to $78,000 for police overtime, $6,800 for fire overtime, $3,000 for other city employee’s overtime, and 4,500 for materials and supplies.
“We’ve never — we haven’t had a visit that’s required this level of resource before,” said Chief Kerns. “Since this was such a huge bill, we wanted to see if we couldn’t get the campaign to help us with it.”
Chief Kerns said because so many other trump campaign visits resulted in violence and rioting, Eugene police took extra safety measures. And it worked. No arrests and no complaints.
“We planned with a view that we could create a peaceful situation, and that’s exactly what happened,” Chief Kerns said. “When Donald Trump held his campaign rally right here at the Lane County Fair Grounds, it cost about $92,300. But the Eugene Police say to put that into perspective, when President Obama visited in 2008, it cost them about $29,000 dollars.”
Chief Pete Kerns estimates Donald Trump’s visit to Eugene cost more than any other campaign visits.
Trump Campaign Oregon Director Jacob Daniels said, “You know, I can’t give any comment as to whether or not there’s going to be any discussion on whether that bill should stay at $92,000 or if it should be reduced or whatnot, I don’t know how that discussion will go.”
Looking towards November, Chief Kerns was asked how he would react to another Donald Trump visit. He replied, “Well, we’ll have a different conversation with his campaign coordinators then we did this time.”
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