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Mr. Ruiz introduced Terrie Monroe, City Manager’s Office, to present the update on Eugene Counts, which <br />was a part of the council’s ongoing conversation about goals and visions and engaging the community in <br />that process. <br /> <br />Ms. Monroe used a slide presentation to provide a mid-course status report on Eugene Counts. She said <br />Eugene Counts was the way that council goals were connected to concrete results the community wanted to <br />see. She reviewed samples of responses when the community was asked what it envisioned for each of the <br />following goals: <br /> <br />? <br /> Safe community <br />? <br /> Sustainable development <br />? <br /> Accessible and thriving culture and recreation <br />? <br /> Effective and accountable municipal government <br />? <br /> Fair, stable and adequate financial resources <br /> <br />Ms. Monroe said that common results and common aspirations from diverse perspectives began to emerge <br />as the responses were analyzed. She reviewed the data collection strategies that used multiple modes to <br />obtain information from the community; particularly from those people who did not typically talk to the City <br />Council and whose voices were not usually heard. She described the qualitative analysis methods that would <br />be applied to data with quantitative rigor. She said the process would result in top ranked results for each of <br />the goals and a set of outcomes and suggested measures, which would be presented to the council in <br />December. She stressed there was still time for the public to provide input to Eugene Counts. She would <br />provide survey packets to council members to distribute when they attended community events. <br /> <br />Ms. Piercy asked about the use of focus groups in the process. Ms. Monroe replied that a recruiter was <br />used to draw representative samples of people for focus groups. <br /> <br />Mr. Clark thanked staff for their work on Eugene Counts. He hoped the project would be a useful tool for <br />establishing priorities in the budget process and looked forward to having an informative tool for analyzing <br />services and associated values and identifying the highest priorities. He asked how the City Manager <br />envisioned using the results to guide budget decisions. Mr. Ruiz said the Eugene Counts results would be <br />available in time to inform his budget decisions and the Budget Committee’s work; information would be <br />provided to the Budget Committee as it became available. He said the data would be used in service profiles <br />and priorities, and to identify gaps and fill them sustainably. He would provide a more detailed explanation <br />at the Budget Committee meeting. <br /> <br />Mr. Pryor was pleased with Eugene Counts and said, while informative data was very useful in the budget <br />process, it should work in tandem with the Budget Committee process and not dominate it. He hoped that a <br />sense of the larger priorities within the five goals would emerge from Eugene Counts. <br /> <br />In response to a question from Mr. Zelenka, Ms. Monroe said approximately 800 responses had been <br />received to date. <br /> <br />Mr. Brown asked about the source of random samples for focus groups. Ms. Monroe replied that the usual <br />source was voter lists and the optimal size for a focus group was 10 to 12 people. She said there would be <br />two focus groups for the population to be surveyed. <br /> <br />Ms. Piercy observed that people’s priorities shifted over time as issues emerged in the community. <br /> <br /> <br />MINUTES—Eugene City Council October 26, 2009 Page 3 <br /> Work Session <br /> <br />