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e ill, etc. She said this kind of confusion about purpose could occur during meetings on Eugene Decisions. Mr. Green said it was his assumption that the council was seeking the advice of the public, but that it must make the final decisions. He said the coun- cil would need to exercise discipline in order to "stay the coursen with Eugene Decisions. He said it would be best if the council could reach con- sensus on its decisions. Mayor Miller said the council would use the advice of the public to provide direction for its decisions. He said any budgetary cuts would require coun- cil consensus. He said the Mayor's Task Force on Human Rights had reached an impasse in its decision-making process at which point the majority asked the minority what concessions were required to reach consensus. He suggested the council might need to use a similar process with Eugene Decisions. He said council consensus would help create leadership. Ms. Ehrman said information disseminated to the public prior to Eugene Deci- sions was essential in helping the public understand what was at stake and what the City needed from citizens. Mr. Nicholson said that when Eugene Decisions was over, the public should feel that it had been part of a sincere consultation. Mr. Robinette said he was glad that the workshops were about to begin. He said the Eugene Decisions process would make better sense to everyone after e the City had collected results from the citizenry. He said citizen surveys would show whether the public understood the overall process. Mr. Green said public education was important and noted that there would be many different levels of understanding. Ms. Bascom said it might be neces- sary to alter the process if the first methods did not seem to be working. She pointed out that alterations to the original process might be perceived by the public as manipulation. Mr. Nicholson pointed out that the public consensus might be onerous to the council. Mr. Gleason said the most likely outcome was that the public would say that it wanted to keep all City services, but did not want to pay for them. He said staff would collect workshop data and other information, and create strategies from this material by the end of September. Mr. Gleason said it could be anticipated that public interest in the Eugene Decisions process would become intense when strategies were released. Mr. Robinette said the biggest problem for the council and the City was to educate the public about the reality of the City's finances. He said that if this education were successful, the Eugene Decisions process had a chance of being successful. He noted that staff would create strategies and the coun- cil would refine these strategies. e MINUTES--Eugene City Council July 22, 1991 Page 4