Item B1: Approval of City Council Minutes

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to be able to stand and make tough decisions through adverse conditions. She felt the City Manager should be someone who believed in including all citizens in the process. She declared that everyone in the community needed to part of the process. She thought the City Manager should be someone who could work with anyone regardless of a person’s belief, of how they feel or look or “what color they are.” Lastly, she said, the next City Manager should be someone who understood the “bottom line” and the intricacies of the city budgets. Councilor Solomon arrived. Lisa Warnes , 5020 Nectar Way, indicated her agreement with the previous speakers. She believed that there needed to be more balance in the City Manager’s position. She opined that she had seen things in the past be “heavily slanted” toward development interests. She wanted more of a focus on community and environmental issues. She averred that a City Manager should, when given a task by the City Council, do it regardless of whether he or she agrees with it. She advised the City Council not to tolerate it if the City Manager did not follow through. Majeska Seese-Green , PO Box 1214, Eugene, hoped the City would find a City Manager who was willing to have a city government that was “really” a City Manager/City Council form of government. She recalled hearing about that structure of government at a City Club meeting at which Ken Tollenaar spoke. She understood that the form of government did create some tension in the community, adding that this was how she thought it should be. Ms. Seese-Green said she wanted the next City Manager to understand the necessity of the neighborhood associations having a relationship with the City and being supported by the City. She averred that the City Manager also had to be independent and autonomous from the City. She believed that a lot of the people who were involved with neighborhoods felt that the relationship with neighborhood associations was of high importance for a City Manager. David Hinkley , 1350 Lawrence Street, #1, declared that the next City Manager needed to have a thick skin and the “backbone to say the truth even when people did not want to hear it.” He underscored the importance of public participation to the citizens of Eugene. He said the new City Manager needed to enthusiastically embrace the concept of public participation and this participation must happen before a decision was made and not afterwards. He averred that a City Manager needed to “have a strong hand on the reins.” He said if the City Manager needed to “replace one of the horses” the City Council must back the manager. He thought a City Manager should plan on tenure of four to five years. He opined that having a long-term City Manager created a situation whereby City employees had not experienced a transition to different management and this created difficulties with that situation. Rich Gaston , 2281 Wisconsin Street, stated that he had served on the Budget Committee. He shared his impression that the City Manager carried a lot of weight in the budget process. He advocated for having a financially conservative person to guide the City through that process. He averred that deficits should only be brought forward because of special needs. He also wished to advocate for the institution of some kind of independent performance auditor for the City of Eugene. He believed that it would be good to have someone who had worked with that kind of system and appreciated the checks and balances. He shared his great respect for City staff. He said if projections were correct, the City was in for tougher fiscal times. Jan Wostmann , 2645 Riverview Street, noted his service as co-chair of the Neighborhood Leaders Council. He said the first characteristic he hoped those hiring the City Manager would look for was someone who was comfortable with the idea that Eugene was composed of neighborhoods that had distinct needs. He felt MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 17, 2007 Page 2 Community Forum