CC Minutes - 11/21/07 Work Session

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dations, but had an issue with excluding private parking lots and calculating the assessment on the minimum required parking in the code. She said that adjustments for credits and reductions were often used only by certain people and everyone else would make up the difference. She asked how many cars could typically be parked on 1,000 square feet. Mr. Corey replied that it depended on the size and configuration of the lot and could range from five to eight spaces. Mr. Zelenka remarked that the City was facing a backlog because transportation system funding had not been forthcoming from either the State or federal levels. He urged the council to eliminate the sunset provision on the $.02 gas tax. He was unwilling to use the General Fund to pay for fixing potholes at the expense of police, fire, and children's programs. He was willing to consider implementing the street utility after the levy was placed on the ballot in May 2008. He asked how shared parking would be charged proportionately to customers. Mr. Corey said the assessment could assign the number of spaces per commercial square foot, lineal foot of street frontage or floor area, for example. Mr. Poling asked if there had been any attempts to join with other cities to talk to the County about the potential for a countywide vehicle registration fee. Mr. Corey replied that a work group composed of employees in positions similar to his in other jurisdictions had been convening for several months to discuss possible regional solutions. He felt that work group could convince the cities to approach the Lane Board of County Commissioners with unified support for regional funding options such as a registration fee or countywide gas tax. Mr. Poling suggested that the cities could adopt the same resolution requesting a countywide solution for presentation to the County. He had concerns with the fees that were being discussed, but would support moving forward at this point. He was interested in the possibility of a business tax and urged the council to discuss that option. He asked how many businesses there were in the City of Eugene. Fred McVey, Public Works, estimated there were approximately 6,000 nonresidential customers. Ms. Solomon stated that she was committed to supporting the subcommittee's package of recommendations. She agreed that the timing of options could be reconsidered. She was not in favor of assessing nonresiden- tial properties on the basis of the amount of asphalt; the assessment should be based only on parking spaces. She did not think that people could opt out of paying the fee if they did not own a car as everyone still benefited from a good road system regardless of whether they drove a car. Mr. Clark said he was concerned with how moving the fees forward would appear in the media and be perceived by the public. He thought the level of trust that would be violated would not be worth the ground gained in moving forward with the fees. He advocated for rebuilding trust with the voters and building support for a solution, particularly a countywide solution. He was willing to be part of the subcommittee reconvened to develop a new package of solutions that could gain common support. Ms. Bettman hoped to see the options refined to the point they were usable tools and hoped staff would be directed to bring those refinements back to a work session. She said that could include emergent ideas such as a business license fee. She said one problem with using the facility reserve was that only certain departments had contributed to that reserve. She said the City should conduct a study to determine if it would be cost effective to do billing internally instead of contracting it out. Regarding residential and nonresidential methodology for the street utility fee, she said she could never support allocating 2.1 parking spaces per 1,000 square feet. MINUTES—Eugene City Council November 21, 2007 Page 4 Work Session