Item 3A - Minutes Approval - Laserfiche WebLink

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Ms. Taylor did not think the council needed to hire someone to tell it how to have a public process. She wanted more facts, adding that there had not been enough information on how much it would cost for a seismic retrofit for the existing building. Mr. Pap6 said the cost for renovation was known in 1999. He did not favor spending "one more dime" on the present facility. Mr. Pap6 recommended bringing the other councilors "up to speed" on the time-sensitive opportunity. He asked for head nods to determine if a work session on the "Shedd proposal" and trading a quarter of the lot should be scheduled. The councilors present indicated with a nod of the head that they wished to hold a work session on this item. City Manager Taylor surmised that individual meetings with a proposal that had not been vetted by other people would lead the council to have a meeting for disposal of half a block of property prior to deciding what it wanted to do with regard to City facilities. Mr. Kelly thought neighborhood meetings should be part of a master planning process but that he did not think such meetings were needed to determine the initial participation process. He noted the comment in the agenda item summary (AIS) on citizen juries and wished to clarify that his mention of a citizen jury was specific to the master planning process and not the design of the process. He said citizen juries were almost never delegated final authority and, in this case, he intended that a citizen body of this sort would provide a recommendation upon which the City Council would have the final say. Ms. Bettman called the deterioration of the City Hall facility a "discrete issue." She believed, within financial constraints, that the process should not be broadened by bringing in the County or the streets. She felt it was a facilities issue only, but it had turned into a large planning endeavor with a wide-open opportunity. In terms of visioning and planning, she felt location would be an important community discussion, but whether or not to build a new City Hall was a very discrete and technical issue. Mr. Carlson remarked that staff had been meeting about this issue for five years. He thought a lot of technical analysis would have to be conducted to make the determination on whether to rehabilitate the existing building and building onto it or whether to build a new building. He said until the amount of space that would be needed to meet the facility's needs were known, it would be difficult to determine just how much it would cost to rehabilitate or to rebuild. Ms. Taylor asserted that the building was deteriorating because the City had not maintained it. She did not think its alleged deterioration was a good excuse for replacing the building. Mr. Kelly asked why the council, ahead of a detailed master plan a few years earlier, had taken a vote in response to a staff recommendation that the City Hall would not receive any new major maintenance at that time if, as Mr. Carlson said, much more analysis was needed. He asked if the assistant city manager was trying to articulate major goals for the project. Mr. Carlson replied that staff needed to know if the project was going to be a police building and if it would consolidate other functions. Mr. Kelly thought this would complicate Ms. Bettman's goal to have clear, fact-based decisions prior to taking it to the public. He said there was material introduced from a seismic analysis of the building in a MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 23, 2005 Page 7 Work Session