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Mr. Heuser said the Governor was proposing a ~connect Oregon' package that would give $100 million in funding for passenger rail. He said this could help fund railroad sidings in the Willamette Valley. He said the current situation was that freight and passenger rail shared the same lines. In response to a question from Councilor Papd regarding when the City legislative day would be, Mr. Heuser said it would be February 23, 2005. He said he would confirm that date with Mary Walston by the end of the day. He said he would make as many appointments with legislators as needed. In response to a question from Councilor Bettman regarding Floyd Prozanski's Traffic Bill, Mr. Heuser said it had been introduced but had not been referred to committee. He said the bill was a statewide attempt to deal with changing the policies of Oregon cities that were making themselves problem spots for speed traps. He said he was trying to get cities to exert ~peer pressure" on the few cities that were depending on speeding tickets for needed revenue. He said an alternative might be a way to limit state funding if cities got more than a specific percentage of their revenue from speeding tickets. He said he would bring more information at the next meeting. He noted that there would be a significant financial impact on the City of Eugene if the bill were passed. He reiterated that Senator Prozanski was concerned over the level of use of traffic tickets to fund city government in some areas of the State. In response to a question from Councilor Papd regarding whether as many bills were predicted as there were in the last legislative session, Mr. Heuser noted that freshman senators in a new legislature always introduced more bills to show that they had listened to their constituents. He added that, so far, the House had not pushed any kind of a social agenda. IV. UNITED FRONT PROPOSALS · Eugene Depot Mr. Heuser said the $300 million dollar appropriations bill had not been approved by Congress. He said this was why there had been no action on the bill. He said the project list had been kept the same so Congressman DeFazio did not have a moving target while trying to get funding for local Transportation related projects. In response to a question from Councilor Papd regarding the Eugene Depot and whether the project needed to be re-evaluated, Mr. Heuser said staff had tried to limit the project to general improvements, for the time being, while letting the legislature know that the master plan was still on the long term horizon. Councilor Papd said the Oak Street Extension issue would almost certainly result in litigation. He questioned whether it would be worth the time to litigate and suggested a council work session on the matter. Mr. Heuser said he would ask Russ Mecredy to draft a memo for the council. MINUTES--Eugene City Council January 25, 2005 Page 3 Committee on Intergovernmental Relations