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Mr. Pap6 announced that the Council Committee on Intergovernmental Relations (CCIGR) would meet on March 9, 2005, and there were a number of legislative issues to address. He invited councilors to attend. He said the committee met at 9 a.m. every Thursday with locations to be announced. He thanked Mayor Piercy for her efforts in Washington, DC, and expressed appreciation for all of the partner jurisdictions who participated in the trip. Mr. Kelly remarked that he was impressed with the work of the CCIGR during the current legislative session. He announced that the Human Rights Commission (HRC) was hosting an informal public outreach session on the issue of gender identity protection code revisions on March 14, 2005. City Manager Taylor noted that according to the Supreme Court's website the Public Employee Retirement System (PERS) court case decision was likely to be announced on March 8, 2005, and that decision would have budgetary implications for jurisdictions. B. WORK SESSION: Possible Formation of a Fire District City Manager Taylor stated that in December 2003, the council had asked staff to study the issue of formation of a fire district and report back in a year. He introduced Fire Chief Tom Tallon to provide the report. Chief Tallon highlighted portions of a report presented to the League of Oregon Cities (LOC) that demonstrated thc challenges facing cities to provide essential services as a result of tax reform in the 1990s and thc proliferation of proposals to break up services into districts. He said the report pointed out that it could create long-term pressure on cities' revenues through property tax compression. He noted information in the agenda packet that indicated the City would lose approximately $80,000 in revenue from local option levies due to tax compression in 2005. Chief Tallon said that the City was guided by the Eugene-Springfield Metropolitan Area General Plan (Metro Plan), which designated that fire and emergency service delivery was logically provided by cities. He said that thc Metro Plan would need to be amended, a process typically taking six to twelve months, to allow for a fire district. He reminded the council of a number of independent studies that had been conducted: Eugene was currently rated as a Class 2 city for purposes of property insurance by the Insurance Service Underwriters. A performance study funded by Springfield in 2002 recommended against forming a fire district, identified capacity and circumstances that implied a promise of cooperative efficiencies, and de- termined that the Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department was a well-mn agency that provided important fire and pre-hospital emergency services to the community. · Standards of Cover identified level of service, deployment of resources, location of stations, training, prevention, and other measures. · An accreditation process currently being undergone by the department was concluding with a site visit in May 2005 to review 240 measurements upon which accreditation was based. Chief Tallon stated that he was unable to put together site visits to other departments for the council but MINUTES--Eugene City Council March 7, 2005 Page 2 Work Session