Item B1: Approval of City Council Minutes

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on participation; if there was going to be a public investment in a project the public would have to weigh in on it. He underscored that without public investment there would not be the opportunity for the project. Mr. Pryor was pleased with the process. He said he was always interested in ways to better interact with the public. He averred that if the council was going to create a body and assign it “this much work and this much research and go through this much of a process” it was imperative that the council listen to what they had to say. He appreciated all of the work and believed that the recommendations were sound. Ms. Taylor opined that it was inappropriate to discuss this at this time as the project depended on the increase in the debt limit of the Urban Renewal Agency. She said the election on November 6 will indicate whether the public supported the project. She asserted that people who did not approve of the project had not “bothered to go” to the public workshops. Ms. Solomon thanked the committee members for “giving up their summer.” She was also thankful for the level of public participation that the committee had brought to the process. She felt there had been “squeaky wheels” that attempted to derail the process and she commended the committee for remaining focused on its assigned task. She said the report represented a “strong and thoughtful set of recommendations.” Mr. Zelenka said he had attended all of the meetings. He thanked the WBAC, Mr. McLauchlan, and Ms. Cherry for the work they had done in a “short period of time.” He called the community input “tremendous.” He thought urban renewal financing was interesting as it allowed development to be financed by the property taxes developers would pay. He believed the measure would pass on November 6 and the result would revitalize the downtown without raising taxes. Mr. Zelenka thanked the WBAC for being respectful of both the City Council and the developers and for not being too prescriptive. He indicated that he would bring back verbiage to the next meeting that would make the language stronger and clearer. Mayor Piercy related that she also attended all but one of the WBAC meetings. She had observed “very strong” participation from people with different points of view. Ms. Ortiz thanked staff for the work that had gone into the committee process and report. She commended Ms. Laurence for being a hard worker. Ms. Bettman remarked that the “ultimate public input” would be the vote in November. She averred that the project would also receive low-income housing money, Multiple Unit Property Tax Exemption (MUPTE) “money,” general fund money, “DRLP”(Downtown Revitialization Loan Program) money, and HOME funds, for a total of $29 million. She called this money “additional subsidies and incentives.” She opined that the discussion created the illusion that the recommendations would influence the final product. She declared it to be a “lot of public relations or… even propaganda.” She believed that if the ballot measure failed, very different projects would move forward and if it did pass the money on the ballot would not be enough. Ms. Bettman postulated that the Mayor and the proponents on the council would take a passed ballot measure as a “thumbs up for subsidies for private development” and would return and ask for a further increase in the debt limit. She was certain that if the proponents could interpret the passage of the ballot measure as support for the project it would be “no holds barred.” Ms. Ortiz, seconded by Mr. Pryor, moved to extend the discussion by five minutes. The motion passed unanimously, 8:0. MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 19, 2007 Page 3 Work Session