08/12/1981 Meeting (2) - Laserfiche WebLink

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. ;;.." e Mr. Gleason explained that unemployment in the timber products industry in the outlying towns hits Eugene's service product base economy in a ripple effect. Two solutions are possible: 1) to make Eugene a destination point with the Performing Arts Center; and 2) to convince the County to diversify the industry of the outlying cities and get them to grow faster than Eugene in a diversified manner. Mr. Gleason superimposed the United States housing starts on the Lane County unemployment rate. On both graphs, there were down turns with changes in Lane County..ernpl.OYri1etl'tlagging slightly behind changes in US housing starts. He showed the United States unemployment rate, which is not as dependent on the timber industry and is not as volatile as the Lane County unemployment rate. He pointed out the most diversified economy is the United States economy. The most Eugene could hope for would be to follow the trend line of the United States. The City of Portland is very diversified and their trend line looks like the United States trend line. The unemployment rate is the same. There is political volatility in the "boom and bust" cycles. When unemployment is high, citizens want economic activity stopped, citing pollution, noise, etc. When the unemployment cycle is low, people want economic activity. These cycles put the execution of the General Plan in a volatile situation. What staff wants to do is to push the City into a diversified economy but also to have a tool that is useful for matching the capacity of the City to adopt the General Plan so the land is available for industrial expansion in the down cycles and so they can control growth on the up cycles without saying you are IIpro" or lIantill growth. There could be a time that the council will direct staff to pull back on the reins, remembering that the impact is in the long run. Council should not expect major impact in the next two years. e B. What is the Solution? Mr. Gleason explained the pros and cons of two possible extreme staffing solu- tions. One was to form a Mayor's task force, the other was to create a depart- ment of economic development. Mr. Gleason said staff had chosen a solution in between the two extremes called a matrix management. By taking the group of existing people and giving them separate tasks, the existing staff is being used. He recommended development of an executive task force consisting of the departments heads key to the development issue and growth management: Charles Kupper, HCC; Public Works; Richard Reynolds, Performing Arts; CETA programming; Gary Long, Staff Services; John Porter, Planning. Mr. Gleason would chair the task team and would focus on economic diversification and development. Mr. Obie approved of the suggested modified approach but was concerned with Mr. Gleason's chairing the task team. He felt this project needed the full atten- tion of one person. Mr. Gleason could not give it the attention it needed with his other responsibilities. Mr. Gleason responded that this plan had evolved over a period of about two months. There were several meetings on the subject, six to eight. Consistently the major argument raised at these meetings was that it takes more time than we have to commit to the project. They talked about hiring someone for the posi- tion, such as a deputy city manager. The philosophy developing managerially in e MINUTES--Eugene City Council August 12, 1981 Page 2