01/07/1985 Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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I;: e "State of the City", Mayor Gus Keller, 1/7/85 As Eugene's outgoing mayor, it is my privilege tonight to give you a brief report on the activities of your city government over the last 365 days) a summary of both the highlights and problems welve faced as a community in the year past. Despite all the references to George Orwell with which we entered it) 1984 was in many ways a good year for this community and its government. It was a year when the City of Eugene carrid on its theme of maintaining and improving service to the community in spite of scarce resources. If doing more with less is the style of the 801s) the Cityls organization is one of the most stylish around. Consider that between 1981 and 1984) the number of City employees has actually dropped. Now consider just a few of the major service increases the organization has made in the same period: the addition of a perorming arts and conference center) a regional wastewater treatment plant) the addition of paramedic ambulance service to the fire department) increased parks acreage, and the assignment of staff to major initiatives in business and development assistance. - These) and many other) increases in service have been accomplished during a period of financial austerity. The level of service provided this community by its city government has not been accomplished through massive expenditure of public funds. Rather) these continuing accomplishments have been made possible by sound management) an increasing use of technology) and by the efforts of an extremely talented and motivated group of people...the City staff. Despite operating in an atmosphere of almost continuous cutback) the, morale of the City's staff has kept pace with their dedication to public service. I feel that the people of Eugene demonstrated their faith in the management of the Cty organization on November 11) when they defeated Ballot Measure 2 in precincts across this city so soundly as to ensure the measure's failure statewide. Last year's budget process was a continuation of the "hold the line" financing now familiar to Eugene. At the direction of Council) staff prepared a budget that continued the service system...a "no frills") status quo financial plan that stayed within the 6% limitation and did not require voter approval. With that in mind, consider some of the things we accomp 1 i shed. . . - We continued to make business our business, as the Council made economic development the top priority during-Tts annual goal-setting session. We updated our economic diversification program, approved a Eugene-Springfield Metropolitan Partnership-about which I'm sure Brian will have a few things to say, and expanded the services provided to local developers through our Development Assistance Center. Our economic interests became international as we received a trade delegation from China's Fujian Province. Our status as a destination point took on an international flavor) as well. as we hosted two significant international events...the Olympic Scientific Congress and the World Meeting of the International Society