07/22/1991 Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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'-- e Mr. Gleason said the community might believe that the City does not really have financial problems and is only saying that it does for political rea- sons. In reality, he said, even small budgetary cuts would lead to drastic measures; i.e., a one percent cut in Fire Services would mean the closing of Station 7. Mr. Gleason said that due to ten years of cutbacks, the City is less capable of responding to change. He said there are only 25-30 people within the organization capable of leading organizational changes, and they are busy with the council's work plan. He said these people have difficulty denying any request by the council, but were finding that they had to do this on an increasing basis. He said there would be a diminishing ability to respond to the council at the executive level as Eugene Decisions progressed. Mr. Gleason said it was possible the City would run out of time and resources at the same time. He pointed out that the City is part of a process which is happening at the State and Federal levels as well, and which will last for a long time. Mr. Gleason said Eugene Decisions makes sense because it uses the activist portion of the community to elicit a response from the remainder of the com- munity. He said this was an experimental process and that the executives were committed to following through with it. Mr. Gleason said he hoped the City could avoid a situation where departments e fought among themselves for funds and resources. He said executives did not have a sense of hopelessness, but a realistic sense of commitment and opti- mism. IV. COUNCIL RESPONSE TO EXECUTIVE CONCERNS Mr. Boles said Mr. Gleason's comments were thoughtful and helpful. He ex- pressed concern that if the council's work plan was not realistic in view of the Eugene Decisions process, the council and executives should begin immedi- ately to work together to correct this situation. He expressed extreme re- gret that the City had lost Pat Decker of the Planning and Development De- partment (POD) to a job in another state. In response to a question from Ms. Bascom, Mr. Gleason said there was a major difference between taking one item such as the need for a new Library and making that issue stand on its own, as opposed to creating a complete strate- gy around the issue. In reference to an earlier comment by Mr. Gleason, Mr. Rutan said he was not being pressured by his constituents now, but expected to be later when the decision-making process began. He said he was concerned about the uncertain- ty of the Eugene Decisions process and that he looked forward to the initia- tion of workshops the following week. e MINUTES--Eugene City Council July 22, 1991 Page 2