02/17/1989 Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

e e underlined that the vote is the key to getting the project underway. She} stated that she feels a gap between the Council and the community, and thl public hearings citizens don't provide a great deal of input, as only a f~w people attend. Because of this the Council must rely on staff to make deci- sions. She suggested that the Council may need to have a series of meetings in every ward or hold "town hall" meetings. She stressed that the community needs to be involved and mentioned the Voter's Pamphlet Committee as a good example of citizen involvement; she feels that the community needs to be better educated about the issues. Another issue expressed as a concern was that of air quality; especially from pollution from wood stoves and automobiles. She mentioned that it was ironic that wood stoves had been promoted several years ago around the energy crisis and now they were creating an air quality problem. It was her feeling that the Council needed to take the lead on this air quality issue, and must also weigh the long and short term benefits in an issue. She wondered about long term issues and suggested that twenty years might be a target for issues; in this she used the example of parking garages, and recalled Councilor Boles' characterization of "warehouses for dinosaurs". She stated that her committee work was important to her and saw this an opportunity to pursue her interests in the community. She briefly mentioned the need for economic development and said that Eugene has a great deal of potential to exploit, include "Track City" and the "Eugene Summer" ideas. Finally, she said that we need to work with the new personalities at the Metro Partnership and come to some consensus around the issue. Schue commented on the relationships in the Metro Partnership. She said that her work with the League of Oregon Cities is very important, and that her work on the highway funds committee has proved to be very interesting. She shares Councilor Green's concerns about community input into the Council process and wondered what types of adjustments should take place to insure that the public is informed. She mentioned that four people at the table had been elected in uncontested races and felt that this decreased opportunities for candidates to get out into the community and express ideas and debate the issues. She suggested that perhaps the city has outgrown its current methods of educating and communicating important issue information to the community. Bennett began by discussing his feelings about the neighborhood groups and how they fit into his ward. He expressed disappointment that so few people attended the neighborhood meetings, and felt that it was almost impossible to get neighborhood groups to function. He said that the people in his ward have opinions on issues, but they do not participate in neighborhood groups, unless it is around a specific issue. He also noted that in some parts of his ward the neighborhood groups are aggressive, activist, and liberal but that they represent only a small segment of his ward. He suggested that the Council needs to take a hard look at how and where citizens participate and how the Council can get the most representative feedback on issues. The initiative petition is an issue he would like to review. He was concerned about the amount of time and resources that can be consumed by a relatively small segment of the population. He wondered if that was really "grassroots" politics, and suggested that the ordinance on the initiative petition process fe review for changes which would require a greater number of signatures to place an issue on a ballot. DRAFT COUNCIL GOAL SESSION PAGE 4