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th Eugene Drix , 307-½ East 14 Avenue, member of the West University Neighbors, said there had been a tree behind the Lemon house for 100 years and the tree now had to be taken down. He explained that the house had belonged to Charlotte Lemon, who had been active in the neighborhood until her death at 92. He invited the councilors to attend a potluck and ceremony on behalf of the tree on December 2. Mr. Drix was also concerned about the two holes in the downtown area. He felt they were a great starting point for the community to work together to put something good on those properties. Peter Ferris , Bayview Mobile Home Park, 955 Mill Street, Waldport, reviewed the talking points on his Petition for a Moratorium on Park Closures in Eugene signed submittal, entitled the . He asked that the council consider the proposed moratorium on mobile home park closures while it considered passing an ordinance that would protect mobile home residents. He said the mobile home community wanted this to occur before anyone could take away the mobile home park lands from them. He asserted that there were 1,500 people in Bend and in the Portland area that would have liked to have had a proactive city council in this regard. He believed that something similar to the moratorium the City enacted on condominium conversions in 1979 could be put in place. He related that St. Vincent DePaul had data that it cost $150,000 to reconstruct a lost affordable housing situation. He hoped the City would pass an ordinance similar to the one passed in Wilsonville. He stressed that an action taken by Eugene would have tremen- dous influence statewide given that Eugene was the second largest city in Oregon. Libby Sherman , 1475 Green Acres Road, Space #31, related that she was a “baby boomer.” She retired from 36 years of flying as a flight attendant, but had lost her pension because the major airline she worked for filed for bankruptcy. She found some financial balance in her life by living in a mobile/manufactured home park in Eugene. She averred that mobile home parks were not just for the elderly, disabled, or people without families. Rather, she said more people were finding that the parks offer communities of caring people who help each other. She loved her mobile home park and wanted to work to save the parks. She noted that she cared for her 80-year-old mother in her home and she found that people in her park were supportive and informative. Additionally, she and her mother felt safe in the park. She asked that the council not allow what had happened in Portland to happen here. She asked the council to help preserve and protect the mobile home parks so that people could live without the fear of losing what they had left. David T. Boehm , 1699 North Terry Street, Space #182, stated that he had retired at the age of 76-½. He worked to that age so that he could pay for his house, pay for his carport, pay for his new roof, and pay for the refrigeration and heating unit. He was now retired with only an Individual Retirement Account (IRA) that he had put away and Social Security. He said if he was forced to move he would have to drain his IRA and eventually would not have enough money for food. He stressed that he was just one of many people on fixed incomes who could not afford to move. Jerry A. Harden , Briarwood Mobile Home Park, 1400 Candlelight Drive Space, #224, averred that this was not a political issue; rather, it was an issue of fairness. He and his fellow signers of the petition believed the council would deliberate and come up with the right answer, which would be to declare a moratorium on park closures. He related the story of a friend in a Beaverton mobile home park who felt secure in the mobile home park she lived in one year ago, but was now renting a dilapidated house having been forced to move. He alleged that a “prominent park owner” asserted that every mobile home park was for sale at the right price. He said he was a member of the Lane County committee studying park closures and the committee was far from ready to make recommendations. He cited the two most serious unresolved issues: 1) a lack of vacant spaces to move homes to and how to address this; and 2) no one knew who would pay for an improved compensation package. He underscored that there were not enough vacant MINUTES—Eugene City Council November 13, 2006 Page 2 Regular Meeting