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mayor and City Council could contemplate a new City Hall in the face of the preservation and maintenance backlog. One suggested that the Police Chief was selecting laws to uphold rather than upholding all of them. The third alluded to the unseating of some of the councilors and mayor in the next election. He averred that he did not stand alone in his complaints about the City. He opined that Mayor Piercy and six councilors seemed to ignore 65 percent of Eugene. He thought it possible that some of the council did not care what the majority of residents thought. He would support recalling seven of the elected officials if the council continued to “spend, spend, spend” on items on which he had testified at the present meeting and at previous meetings. Cheryl Hunter , 5320 Nectar Way, supported the preservation of the Beverly and Green proper- ties, deemed the Amazon Headwaters. She observed that questions were now coming up about the amount of the appraisal that was part of the eminent domain proceedings. She would question a value that was excessively higher than the $600,000 that the Green property was offered in 2004. She was concerned that the tone of the discussion felt to her like people were focused on blaming each other for this difficult situation instead of thinking of what was best for the land. She found the provisions of the eminent domain proceedings “ridiculous” and did not believe the City should be responsible for attorneys’ fees. She asked everyone to work on finding a solution that involved considering the “unique value” of the land. She felt that preserving the land as an undeveloped park was not the same as creating a park in west Eugene or north Eugene. She asserted that parks in that area were most likely created out of land that had been farmed for at least 100 years. She acknowledged that when inventorying park land, south Eugene had more, but averred that it was a different kind of land; a different decision to preserve the land. She believed that the land had regional value and would “enhance the image of Eugene like Portland’s forested parks do.” Kathleen Leonard , 5020 Nectar Way, related that she had supported the 2006 Parks and Open Space bond measure because she believed some of the money would be used to purchase parcels of land with high natural resource value that were at risk of being developed and not land outside the Urban Growth Boundary (UGB). She declared that she would not have supported the bond had she known land outside of the UGB was in the parks plan. She felt Eugene had an obligation to preserve the last native areas within the UGB. She would now be “a lot more skeptical” when faced with future parks bonds because she had lost her trust in the City and its “process.” Benton Elliott , 1313 Lincoln Street, #605, spoke in support of acquiring the Amazon Creek headwaters properties. He wished to register his disagreement with an editorial piece in Sunday’s The Register Guard, which posited that there had not been an adequate opportunity for public comment. He had been pleased with the opportunity he had to share his views and believed that it had been an adequate public process that had lasted many months. He also felt the writer had made a “NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) claim,” in that the editorial piece had asserted that the driving force behind the movement to support eminent domain were the people who lived or owned property in that area. He underscored that he lived near the downtown area. He appreci- ated the property and used it for hiking because he lived in a condominium complex and did not have a yard. He added that the preservation of the property should be supported because the flora and fauna warranted protection. MINUTES—Eugene City Council December 10, 2007 Page 2 Regular Meeting