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e e e 1985 saw the third and most successful Eugene Celebration. With over 100,000 people attending this joyous event, we demonstrated the diversity and the fun when the entire City celebrates. It is breathtaking to, at every moment, experience the unexpected. Each year we see a greater and greater number of people coming to Eugene just to share with us the warmth and talent and beauty of the city during the Celebration. "And there is a little bit more. We completed construction of sewers in River Road/Santa Clara, and won a national award for having the very best emergency medical/ambulance team in the entire country. We have an operational and well-run metropolitan wastewater sewer plant, and an agreement to base sewer rates on a flow-based system. IIThis listing of significant accomplishments could go on even longer, but the credit for these successes belongs, not as much to the Eugene City Council, as to the citizens of Eugene and to the staff and employees of the City of Eugene. We have 50 boards and commissions and 20 active neighborhood groups. There are over 360 people volunteering their time, energy, and will to these boards and commissions and over 120 people serving as officers of neighborhood associations alone. Eugene thrives on and needs broad citizen participation. We are proud of it, encourage it, and generally take the advice of the many recommendations that we receive. Beyond these boards and commissions there are literally thousands of people in this area working through incredible generosity of time in hundreds and hundreds of non-profit organizations, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank them, too. "A1most all of what you hear and see today would not, and could not, be done without the dedication, the talent, and the good will of the administration and employees of the City of Eugene. They have provided more and more service with fewer people and reduced budgets. Every employee is working in the public interest because they want Eugene to be the best city government in the United States. The organization has adopted a set of values for service which has permeated every department under the leadership and direction of our City Manager, Mike Gleason. Their Values Statement includes a commitment to excellence, customer orientation first, working as a team, planning strategically, and the acknowledgment that employees are our very finest resource. We owe them a debt of gratitude for making Eugene, along with all of us, the place we want to spend our lives. IIAll in all, 1985 was an extraordinary year. It was full of challenges, controversy, change, and progress. A philosopher said that nothing endures but change. We live in a community that made great strides toward becoming a city in 1985. And it did so, tempered by the public, and our common goal not to lose that which we really value the most--that is, our integrity and our quality of life. This is a community of incredible passion and care for what kind of place this is and what kind of place this shall be. The motivation and desire of the whole community to be the best possible is an overwhelming and inspired trait of our town. I think that I do not want it to be any other way. Thank you. II MINUTES--Eugene City Council January 6, 1986 Page 6