02/08/1988 Meeting (2) - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

e Mayor Obie closed the public hearing. Ms. Bellamy responded to questions raised in testimony. She said the process for appointing the committee that prepares a neutral explanation was patterned after the process used for the State voter's pamphlet, with four appointed committee members selecting the fifth member. She said City measures could not be included in the State pamphlet, although City candidates could. Ms. Bellamy said relevant information that could be included in the pamphlet would be restricted to that directly related to the election, such as polling places, if it did not pertain to a ballot measure, explanation, or argument; that information would be provided by City staff. She said the ordinance was intended to provide one committee for each measure on the ballot, and the ordinance would apply to advisory elections. ~ Tim Sercombe of the City Attorney's Office said the proponents who were appointed to the statement committee must be the petitioners or councilors who had voted in favor of referring the measure to voters, so the intent was to have people who were on record, either proponents or opponents, on the committee. Mr. Sercombe said graphs could not be included as part of the explanatory statement or arguments, which were restricted to words and numbers only. He said the ordinance covered advisory elections, and the fifth member was intended to provide a tie-breaker in the event of dissension between the opponents and proponents on the committee. Responding to Ms. Wooten's question, Mr. Holmer said the fifth member of the committee must be agreed upon by the other four committee members. Ms. Bascom said she was "lukewarm" on the issue, primarily because of its significant cost, and she asked about the estimated costs. Ms. Bellamy said production costs for printing and mailing the pamphlet would be $6,500 for an eight-page pamphlet, which was the minimum, and the cost would increase from there depending on the number of arguments. She said staff costs were difficult to determine but were estimated at about $2,000 for staff and attorney time per measure. Those costs would depend on the amount of committee deliberation over explanations, she added. Ms. Schue said she did not think the City could afford any more new programs, no matter how deSirable they were. She said she agreed that the voter's pamphlet was a good idea, but it was not a free idea, "and we can't fund the good ideas we have now." She said she did not enjoy doing it, but she would vote no. Mr. Miller said he thought this item took precedence over other things the City was doing, and he thought it was vital to have a mechanism available to people in the community to find out what implications were in the measures they were voting on. He added that he thought the action was timely and desperately needed. e MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 8, 1988 Page 31