Item 2A: Approval of City Council Minutes

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Ridgeline Trail Corridor. She said there was not unanimous support for the grant application at the CCIGR so it was brought before the full council. She stated that a grant application had been approved and had been submitted on October 1 for Federal Forest Legacy funding, also for properties along the Ridgeline Trail. She related that at the time of the CCIGR approval, the City’s match for the grant had been proposed to be 25 percent of the total. Subsequent to this, she had been advised that the application would be more competitive if the City could match at the 50 percent rate. In order to do this, staff was proposing the additional grant application to OWEB to offset it and keep Eugene’s match at 25 percent. Ms. Weiss described three potential scenarios: ? The City could gain approval for both grants for approximately $3 million and the City’s match would be approximately $1 million. ? The Forest Legacy grant could be approved and the OWEB grant could not gain approval which would likely increase the City’s level of matching funds or the City would have to try to get funding from another source or the City could withdraw its request for funding from the Forest Legacy. ? The OWEB grant funding could be approved and the Forest Legacy funding could not be approved in which case the City could try to determine if there were other sources for financing available of it could withdraw its request to OWEB for funding. Councilor Ortiz commented that she was puzzled about why this item was coming forward in the face of the council’s direction to pursue the purchase of the Beverly/Green properties. She asked if staff was working on that acquisition. Ms. Weiss responded that the appraisal process was underway to understand the values of those properties. This project was happening simultaneously with the pursuit of acquisition of properties that meet the Ridgeline Trail criteria and with finding ways to leverage bond measure money with other sources as much as possible. In response to a follow-up question from Ms. Ortiz, Mr. Lidz explained that staff would be before the council with regard to the Beverly/Green properties when the appraisals were complete. He underscored that prior to knowing the cost it was difficult to bring discussion to the table regarding funding sources. Councilor Bettman asked if the three properties for which the grant application was made had been appraised. Ms. Weiss responded that they had not yet been appraised. Councilor Bettman asked if there was documentation to prove that the City’s grant application would be more competitive if there was a 50 percent match. Ms. Weiss replied that the advice had come in conversa- tions staff had been party to after a training staff had attended in Portland. Councilor Bettman ascertained from Ms. Weiss that the Parks, Recreation, and Open Space (PROS) Bond contained $2 million dedicated to the Golden Gardens Park. She asked how much more the additional acreage that was being purchased allegedly for the potential move of the county fairgrounds. Ms. Weiss responded that the POS division was not exceeding the $2 million bond money for the Golden Gardens Park. Councilor Bettman commented that now the City was getting 300 acres for $2 million, whereas before it was purchasing 100 acres for that amount of money. She called that a “huge discrepancy in numbers.” She asked how the City could do this. Ms. Weiss replied that she believed that there were additional funding sources that could be used for that park, such as systems development charges (SDCs). Councilor Bettman ascertained from Ms. Weiss that SDCs were also available for the Beverly/Green properties. She asserted that people voting for the bond did not know that land was being purchased with the money with the thought in mind that the land could eventually be purchased by the County. She opined that this was a misuse of that money. She said she would support the grant application at the 25 percent MINUTES—Eugene City Council October 8, 2007 Page 9 Regular Meeting