Item 2C: Ratification of IGR Actions of June 18, 2008

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task force had been appointed, and she said it would be interesting to see whether the cap on local governments for torts would remain. She said we needed to think about whether the cap was too low. Ms. Wilson said these were concepts that had already been submitted. She knew the legislative team had received direction to look at hate crime legislation and funding for a quiet zone. Councilor Taylor clarified that this document was to look at, not to discuss today. Ms. Wilson agreed and noted that the CCIGR had discussed the legislative policies document at the last meeting. She said Councilor Taylor had two questions about some of the things in the document, one whether the City did oppose a loss of revenue to urban renewal districts. She said the City had supported this position since 1999, but Councilor Taylor had pointed out a problem with p. 4 of the policy document. Ms. Wilson said the word ban had been inadvertently omitted, which completely changed what the City appeared to support. She said, however, that staff had reviewed the bill on this issue last session and gone with the spirit of what the Council had decided: to support efforts to repeal the prohibition. Ms. Wilson said the legislative policy document was onerous to go through, and nobody really read it. When she had looked at what the League of Oregon Cities and Portland were doing, she found theirs were short and to the point. She created two different documents based on the City’s legislative policies book, two different ways of presenting the policies. Alternative 1 was more detailed and went through each policy, spelling out what the City would support and oppose under each individual issue. Alternative 2 spelled out the City’s objective, what the issue was and a statement of why it was a problem and why it was important to the City. She said Alternative 2 would be a short book, about 10 pages long, but she thought more useful for letting the local delegation and all the legislators know what was important to the City of Eugene. She asked which alternative members would want to go with. Mayor Piercy commented that as a legislator, two things were important, and depended on whether you were new or had been around a while. She said they needed to have the City’s policies available. In a session, they would want to know what issues the City cared about and what the City wanted to accomplish. She thought those were two very different things. Ms. Wilson agreed and thought the second thing was what they were most interested in. Mayor Piercy felt reference material about the City’s policies should also be available. Ms. Wilson said there could be one document spelling out what the City cared about. She recommended condensing the book and including bills from the last session the City had made a high priority but did not pass, such as field burning. Mayor Piercy commented that the League of Oregon Cities’ role was explaining home rule and overarching policies that cities in general cared about. Ms. Wilson still thought Eugene’s separate priorities needed to be more specific about what the City would support, accept and oppose. Mayor Piercy observed that there were different levels of issues, including policies that affected more than one city. She felt the City needed to pay more attention to focusing on what Eugene wanted to accomplish in this session. MINUTES—Council Committee on Intergovernmental Relations June 18, 2008 Page 9