Item 2A: Approval of City Council Minutes

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Ms. Bettman said she did not mean to cast aspersions on staff because they had worked hard to create a proposal that had the absolute least impact on the development community. She said it was not staff’s fault that the conventional posture of the organization was to facilitate development at all costs and at the same time put something on the table to convince DEQ that the City was making an effort, regardless of how ineffective, at protecting waterways. She asked what would happen if the ordinance did not pass. Ms. Walch said it was included in the TMDL plan as consideration of adopting an ordinance because the council had not yet taken action. She said if the ordinance did not pass the City would need to work with DEQ to find other ways to reduce the TDML as the proposal was considered an important part of the plan. Ms. Bettman said the City’s metropolitan wastewater facility had a stake in the outcome because it discharged into the Willamette River and was contributing to increasing the temperature. She said the City had lobbied the State to change those regulations so it could continue to dump into the river. She said it was necessary to change habits and clean up the waterways. Mr. Clark found Ms. Bettman’s comments about the motivations of the development community unfortu- nate. He said the purpose of government, as expressed in the Constitution, was to protect people’s rights. His concern was not about the development community; it was about private property when it was included in the overlay zone and how that affected owners’ right to use their property. He said it would also have an impact on businesses throughout the community. He wanted to put the right protections in place, but protect people’s rights appropriately in the process. Ms. Piercy believed that the proposal represented important steps toward compliance. She said the City should do as much as possible as quickly as it could to assure waterways were clean and ecosystems functioned. She thanked staff for its work to date. B. WORK SESSION: Beam Development Briefing Mr. Ruiz said the purpose of the briefing was to follow up on the council’s earlier executive session and move the discussion into a public setting, followed by a public hearing and council action. Mike Sullivan, Planning and Development Department, used a slide presentation to provide an overview of key features of the purchase and sale agreement (PSA). He said price reductions on both the Centre Court and Washburne buildings had been successfully negotiated; the Centre Court building was reduced from $2.8 million to $2.4 million dollars and the Washburne building was reduced from $1.9 million to $1.2 million. He said the total purchase price for both buildings was now $3.6 million, representing a reduction of $1.1 million. He said Beam had agreed to several important financial commitments, including: ? providing $50,000 in additional cash deposits as part of option negotiations with the seller, ? assuming responsibility for the City’s current deposit of $470,000, and ? agreeing to sign the PSA on May 22, which would commit Beam to purchase of the buildings by July 8 for a total of $3.6 million. Mr. Sullivan said Beam had also confirmed commitments to redevelop the Centre Court building in an historically consistent manner and redevelop approximately 120,000 square feet, split between the Centre Court building and newly constructed building on the adjacent development site. He said construction would be consistent with LEED certification and completed according to milestones included in the PSA. He said a certain amount of preleased space was necessary to qualify the project for financing and while the first MINUTES—Eugene City Council May 14, 2008 Page 4 Work Session