CC Minutes - 02/23/05 WS - Laserfiche WebLink

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In response to a question from Ms. Taylor, Mr. Pryor said there had been no hired consultant for the Eugene Decisions process. He noted that Ed Weeks from the University of Oregon had been hired to help facilitate the process. Ms. Taylor opined that a consultant was not needed for the process. She wondered how much money it would take to have ~really good neighborhood meetings." She wished to find out if the public wanted the City to build a new City Hall. She thought this would be a good point of discussion during the two-day goal-setting session. Mr. Carlson responded that it would cost $10,000 to do a mail-out to everyone in the neighborhood groups. Ms. Taylor commented that this would be cheaper than $75,000 or $30,000. Mr. Carlson replied that this was the cost for only the notice and there would still be costs for staff time and facilitators. Ms. Taylor underscored that her intention was to determine whether the public wished to embark on this planning process. Mr. Papd asked, for comparison purposes, what was involved in Option 3 and Option 4. Mr. Svendsen stated that the big difference in Option 4 lay in the degree of public involvement in the reiteration of the process and that there was more in-depth work with the council on the issues. Mr. Papd commented that the City Council and staff had done a great job of master planning over the past five years. He cited the new Fire Station as a fruit of this labor. His wanted to remedy the current situation, wherein some of the police were housed in the basement of the City Hall building. He did not care for the City Hall facility but did not think his preferences should be the deciding factor in whether the facility should be rebuilt. However, if a new police and City Hall facility needed to be built, he highly recommended raising public awareness as to why these projects were being considered. He noted that the City of Boise, Idaho, had partnered with the County to build one facility for public safety and thought this was one option. Ms. Bettman stated that the public would have the final say when they voted on the ballot measure. She thought the council needed to weigh the technical issues like the cost of maintenance versus the cost of rebuilding. She advocated for making this decision in a public process in order to maintain transparency in the City government. She felt the real problem with taking every decision out to the public was that it came back to the council and fell apart because the council did not have consensus. She said the question lay in how to create a process to ~get to yes." She averred that the way to do that was to ~make fundamental decisions" before approaching the public. Ms. Bettman thought input from the public should include things like where a facility should be sited, but whether a master plan or an architectural diagram was needed would be a decision based upon whether the City was building a building or a campus. She recommended narrowing those options before the council went to the public. She wanted staff to bring a decision package to a City Council work session that included information on what the City was paying in rent and how much it would save by consolidating so that the council could take its first step. Ms. Solomon said it appeared that the City needed the master planning process and that it should include a parking garage to help link the City Hall part of downtown with the new courthouse. She thought it would address many of the needs the council had discussed. She wished to see what a quarter-block land swap would look like. City Manager Taylor responded that the answer to that question was contingent on the MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 23, 2005 Page 5 Work Session