Item B1: Approval of City Council Minutes

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ATTACHMENT B M I N U T E S Eugene City Council Community Forum Council Chamber—City Hall 777 Pearl Street—Eugene, Oregon September 17, 2007 7 p.m. COUNCILORS PRESENT: Andrea Ortiz, Chris Pryor, Betty Taylor, Bonny Bettman, Jennifer Solomon, George Poling, Mike Clark, Alan Zelenka. Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the Eugene City Council Community Forum to order. She under- scored the value that the City Council placed on community input. 1. COMMUNITY FORUM: City Manager Recruitment Acting Assistant City Manager Scott Luell stated that the council had convened to receive input from the community on the qualifications a City Manager should possess and for the job description. Mayor Piercy reviewed the rules for speaking and opened the Community Forum. st Bob Peters , 1444 East 21 Street, expressed confidence that those hiring the next City Manager would know what genuine qualifications that person would need. He believed that in order for the City to be truly involved it needed to make the neighborhood association program function well. He averred that it needed to be enabled so that all of the neighborhood associations would have adequate support from the City for all of what they do. He felt the City needed a City Manager who was used to working with the neighborhood associations. He also thought the City should recruit someone who was competent and able to withstand “what may seem to be unreasonable and severe criticism.” th Charles Snyder , 990 West 12 Avenue, said if the City was going to make neighborhood groups function it would need to find someone to manage it that had a proven record of doing that sort of thing. He thought there had been a “little bit of slippage” between the council’s policy decisions and implementation. He felt it would be better if the council had more sway with “some of the implementation” of policy. Betty Snowden , PO Box 5166, Eugene, related that she had received many telephone calls from the community. She shared that some of the telephone calls included input that the City Council was a “hard body to work with” and that no matter who was hired “it would probably be for naught.” She had heard input that some had lost faith in the local government. She said it seemed there were more people who were concerned with development than with who would be leading the City. Ms. Snowden said what she was looking for in a City Manager was someone who showed leadership, who knew the community, who had integrity, and who did not run from adversity. She averred that a City Manager needed to know the community in order to provide good leadership. She stated that any leader had MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 17, 2007 Page 1 Community Forum