CC Minutes - 06/20/07 Work Session

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Ms. Bettman said after the second bond measure failed staff had created a sense of urgency about the conditions in which the police were working in the basement of City Hall and the City Council had allocated $6 million to relocate the police to a newly constructed facility at Roosevelt. There were not supposed to be any patrol officers in the basement of City Hall. Ms. Ortiz observed that the patrol function was not at the Roosevelt facility. Mr. Carlson clarified that in 2000, there was permanent staff in the basement of City Hall responsible for Property Control and the Forensics Laboratory. A building was constructed on the Roosevelt site to house Property Control and the Forensics Laboratory. All permanent staff were taken from the basement and housed in the new building. He said Ms. Ortiz was correct in that the basement of City Hall was still the location of patrol locker rooms and the place where patrol went each day to report in and receive briefings. There was no permanent staff in offices in the basement. Ms. Ortiz said the fact the voters rejected proposals for a new police facility in the past signified to her that they did not want to pay for it. She thought the council should pay for the facility from the existing budget. She did not think that moving forward with such a facility would be going against what the voters wanted. Ms. Teninty asked if any councilor was unwilling to give up the butterfly parking lot and Rock ‘N Rodeo site. Ms. Bettman said she was not unwilling to give up the two sites but her concern was that she did not want the existing City Hall site to be the only option. She suggested if the owner of the Rock ‘N Rodeo site had been approached with the same type of “value-added” approach other downtown property owners had been, her response might have been different. Referring to the deed restrictions on the butterfly lot, she recalled the recent court decision involving the deed restrictions for Civic Stadium, which had not worked out to the City’s advantage, which she attributed to the City’s legal representation rather than the deed restrictions. She thought if councilors were really interested in the butterfly lot, they would seek to lift the deed restrictions. She thought “bailing” on the sites premature because the council had yet to do due diligence in regard to the sites. Mr. Poling did not think the owner of the Rock ‘N Rodeo site was willing to sell as she hoped to develop her property herself. He said he had initially favored the City Hall site but had voted for the butterfly parking lot and Rock ‘N Rodeo sites because of the information from the focus groups. Given the survey results, he thought the council would lose support for the project if it proposed to buy new properties. He would be willing to look at other City-owned sites. Mr. Penwell said that the City had approached the owner of the Rock ‘N Rodeo site through an independent appraiser about buying her property and different ways of valuing her property and she was unwilling to talk to that person. Mr. Clark noted his previous support for the butterfly parking lot and Rock ‘N Rodeo site, based on the focus groups, and said he had changed his mind because of the deed restriction and the survey. The survey clarified for him what he heard at the public forums. Some of the rationale he heard for the butterfly lot and Rock ‘N Rodeo site was the reconnection to the Parks Blocks, which the survey indicated was not a concern for most of the respondents. He agreed with Ms. Bettman that the existing City Hall site should not be the only option, and advocated for examining all potential options. Mayor Piercy liked the butterfly parking lot and Rock ‘N Rodeo site but said there were other ways she would like to use her energy as she also thought the existing site was a fine site. There was potential for using the site adjacent to City Hall to create a link to downtown. She thought the idea worth pursuing. MINUTES—Eugene City Council June 20, 2007 Page 8 Work Shop—City Hall Goal