Item 3A - Minutes Approval - Laserfiche WebLink

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Ms. Bettman agreed the majority of businesses in the zone were locally owned and small, but those businesses did not receive the majority of the tax exemption. Speaking to Ms. Solomon's contention that the City could not give tax breaks with money it did not have, Ms. Bettman said the cumulative impact of such zones across the state was significant. Others had to pay more taxes to pay the shortfall. Mr. Kelly acknowledged the mayor's comments regarding the cost of developing on brownfields but pointed out the new boundary did not exclusively contain brownfields. There were also infill and redevelopment areas in the boundary. He noted that Jack Roberts, Director of the Lane Metropolitan Partnership, believed the mitigation costs of brownfields in Eugene could be relatively low. Mr. Kelly agreed with Mr. Meisner's comments about the need to consider the City's other economic development policies, such as the Growth Management Study policies. Mr. Pap6 said that until the City had more information about the amount of industrial land it had, he preferred to keep the boundaries as proposed by the advisory committee. Mayor Torrey solicited a fourth round of council comments. Speaking to the issue of the advisory committee, Ms. Bettman said the committee met about six months but its review had not been very broad. It had essentially analyzed the old tools the City used in the past. She had objected the make-up of the committee when it was formed because it was "so obviously" had a majority of business interests as opposed to a broad range of citizen interests. However, she would have supported it if it would have given the council the recommendations for which it had "consensus minus one." That way the council would have been given recommendations with support from various community factions. That did not happen. Mayor Torrey called for the vote on the amendment. The vote on the amendment was a 4:4 tie; Ms. Taylor, Mr. Kelly, Mr. Meisner, and Ms. Bettman voting yes, and Ms. Nathanson, Mr. Pap6, Mr. Poling, and Ms. Solomon voting. The mayor voted against the amendment and it failed on a final vote of 5:4. Mr. Kelly regretted the vote. He said the council had the chance to have a united front on an important economic development issue but it was unable to achieve that. He was frustrated and angry that a council majority, rather than accepting what he believed to be 85 percent of the pie on which all could agree, instead took 100 percent of the pie, splitting the community down the middle. What happened in January, Mr. Kelly said, "who knows." Ms. Bettman said more importantly, what happened when the first business made an application for the zone, and there was a community uproar that the council was giving away tax dollars to businesses. The council would have no ability to ask for community standards or leverage business siting in a way that fulfilled community objectives and City policies. She said it was a compromise for her to support an enterprise zone to start with because she believed there were other places the City should invest its economic development dollars. She thought her amendment was a modest proposal that could be supported by everybody. Since it was not, she would vote against the main motion. MINUTES--Eugene City Council October 11, 2004 Page 12 Work Session