Item 1: JEO Meeting: Delta Sand & Gravel

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City Manager Taylor said staff was recommending for the council’s consideration what was believed to be the most efficient way, based on the straw polls, to put the measure before the County. Mr. Pryor commented that the council would not need to deliberate the criteria if it knew that the application would be denied. Mr. Yeiter said staff was not recommending that the council continue with deliberation of the criteria. He said the County might continue to deliberate. Mr. Pryor said it did not make sense to spend time deliberating on something for which the outcome had already been determined. He said the County’s deliberations should be with the knowledge that from the City’s standpoint the application was denied. Ms. Jerome pointed out that in some cases the council was advised to conduct the thorough process because from a legal perspective, defending a denial was less difficult if each basis for denial had been addressed. She said the effort that would be involved in analyzing all of the criteria in this instance might not be worth the benefit and it was possible the County could proceed through the criteria and provide the analysis. She said waiting to see what the County’s outcome would be was a sound policy decision for the council. Mr. Clark asked if an appeal was possible if the City denied on sufficiency of resource and the County denied on a different basis and how would the appellate body deal with that contradiction. Ms. Jerome said City and County staff would work together to ensure that the actions, which would be in the form of ordinances, were the same. She said the respective findings would likely look different. Mr. Clark asked if denial on the basis of sufficiency of resource had been upheld in the past. Ms. Jerome said there was no precedent in the courts, but she felt there was a basis to justify the finding. Ms. Solomon said she was disturbed by the reluctance to move forward on the application in a forthright and honest manner and give the applicant all of the process that was due. Regarding the issue of resource, she believed the applicant followed all of the protocol established in State statutes and passed all of the tests. She reminded the council that it could approve with conditions and that could include strategies to ensure there was no increase in production. She believed that Delta Sand and Gravel would be willing to adhere to those conditions as it had been willing to respond to all questions during the process. She reminded the council that Delta Sand and Gravel was a local business that provided good jobs for the community and the City of Eugene was a consumer of its products. If it was shut down, the City would suffer the consequences of increased prices. Mr. Zelenka supported denying the application on the resource issue but did not understand why the council would not go through the process as there were other, more problematic issues, such as noise and dust. Mr. Yeiter said based on feedback on the County, which conducted more sand and gravel operation reviews, the process would involve between 20 and 30 hours of council deliberation to reach the same conclusion. He said it was the council’s policy and scheduling choice whether to go through the entire process if the site did not qualify. Mr. Zelenka asked if the applicant could appeal to the Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) if both the City and County denied the application. Ms. Jerome said the appeal could also go above LUBA, but local decision-making would end at that point. She said LUBA could also remand the issue or if a decision became final the applicant could reapply. Mr. Clark said it strained at the idea of common sense that there was not sufficiency of resource at the site, which was only yards away from the site of decades of operation and production. MINUTES—Eugene City Council April 18, 2007 Page 2 Work Session