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redirect a telephone call to another department, they take the responsibility of calling the citizen back to <br />ensure the individual making the inquiry received an answer. <br /> <br />Ms. Bettman alerted the council that at its last meeting, the Police Commission decided its work program <br />item related to the complaint process was so important members were willing to commit whatever time it <br />took to have a recommendation by September 2005. She anticipated more frequent and longer meetings, and <br />said it was possible the council would receive a contingency fund request for more staffing. <br /> <br />Referring to a recent article in The Register-Guard, which suggested the possibility the City would go to the <br />taxpayers for money to underwrite the costs of judgments reached against it, Ms. Bettman expressed dismay <br />about the idea. She believed the council needed to ensure there was accountability and oversight in the <br />organization, and she felt to achieve that, the council needed to revisit the issue of referring the question of <br />an independent external auditor to the voters. She said she intended to request a work session on the topic <br />and hoped one could be held on July 28. Ms. Bettman said that if the council had to go to the taxpayers to <br />seek money to underwrite the cost of judgments, it was important to assure the voters there would be a level <br />of oversight in the future that would avoid such situations. <br /> <br />Mr. Poling had no items. <br /> <br />Mr. Meisner had no items. <br /> <br />Mr. Pap6 suggested the council discuss how the organization handled risk management from a policy <br />standpoint. He advocated for a work session on that topic. <br /> <br />Mr. Pap6 thanked Mr. Taylor for the information he had provided to the council regarding the costs incurred <br />by the City for the acquisition of the Chiquita and AutoCraft sites. He hoped the City was able to recover <br />its investments in those sites soon. <br /> <br />Mr. Pap6 was happy to see that construction activity had commenced on the portion of the Chiquita site that <br />had been purchased by the General Services Administration (GSA). Mr. Taylor reported that the GSA was <br />working on its construction headquarters and on staging agreements with the City. Work would begin in <br />earnest soon. <br /> <br />Mr. Pap6 said he received several complaints from constituents in his ward that, as a result of new fence <br />standards adopted in the Land Use Code update, they were being contacted by the City and required to lower <br />their back and side yard fences when located on a street frontage and to set them back from the road. In <br />some cases, those residents had purchased their properties with the fences already installed. Mr. Pap6 called <br />for council review of those standards. <br /> <br />Ms. Nathanson said that the problem cited by Mr. Pap6 was an example of an oversight in the Land Use <br />Code. The code failed to distinguish between comer lots and other lots. She said City staff was aware of <br />the problem. Ms. Nathanson said the purpose of the standard was to avoid continuous walls along a street, <br />but by definition, if one yard on a street was a side yard and the other yards were front yards, there could be <br />a single parcel with a fence. She did not know if the City was going to able to address that housekeeping <br />change soon, although it seemed small and fixable to her. <br /> <br />MINUTES--Eugene City Council July 12, 2004 Page 2 <br /> Work Session <br /> <br /> <br />