CC Minutes - 05/12/08 Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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M I N U T E S Eugene City Council City Council Meeting Council Chamber 777 Pearl Street—Eugene, Oregon May 12, 2008 7:30 p.m. COUNCILORS PRESENT: Andrea Ortiz, Chris Pryor, Betty Taylor, Bonny Bettman, Mike Clark, Alan Zelenka, Jennifer Solomon. COUNCILORS ABSENT: George Poling. Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the meeting of the Eugene City Council to order. 1. PUBLIC FORUM Mayor Piercy reviewed procedures for providing comments. th Dan Weiner , East 16 Avenue, Eugene, spoke to the council about affordable housing. He expressed concerns about the impact of actions by a Texas corporation and asked the council to demonstrate its displeasure at the elimination of affordable housing and meet with a representative of the corporation before construction activities commenced in mid-June. He pointed out that the corporation was going against clearly stated council policies while “skimming the cream” and renting to affluent students. He hoped the mayor would attempt to recruit allies for the endeavor from University of Oregon faculty and administration. Doug DuPriest , High Street, Eugene, representing California-Oregon Broadcasting, Inc. (COBI), which owns and operates two television stations on its Chad Drive property, alerted the council to the potentially adverse impacts on COBI’s property of the proposed water quality ordinance. He distributed information packets. He said COBI’s satellite farm was on the south side of its property and a portion would be captured in the water quality overlay, possibly restricting COBI’s ability to upgrade the dishes to accommodate high definition signals. He used aerial photographs to illustrate the affected property and asked the council to exempt the property from the overlay because of the important telecommunications functions involved. Joe Collins , Hawkins Lane, Eugene, commented that the council and mayor were on a spending spree with projects such as redevelopment of downtown, acquisition of Amazon headwaters property, construction of a new City Hall and police station and expansion of the trail system. He said there were people in the community who needed mental health care and medical care and could not obtain it and street conditions were getting worse; nothing was being done to address those and other problems. He felt Eugene had the worst leadership in America and the mayor and council were an elitist group. He hoped no one would be reelected. Misha Seymour , Lincoln Street, Eugene, spoke about the disparity between conditions in downtown and along Coburg Road. He was concerned with the treatment of poor people in public areas such as outside the library. He felt their right to freedom of assembly had been abridged. He said City staff watered and nurtured flowers and landscaping, but not people. MINUTES—Eugene City Council May 12, 2008 Page 1 Public Hearing