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M I N U T E S Eugene City Council City Council Meeting Council Chamber—Eugene City Hall September 25, 2006 7:30 p.m. COUNCILORS PRESENT: Jennifer Solomon, Bonny Bettman, David Kelly, Andrea Ortiz, Gary Papé, George Poling, Chris Pryor, Betty Taylor. Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the meeting of the Eugene City Council to order and welcomed everyone to the meeting. 1. PUBLIC FORUM Mayor Piercy reviewed the rules of the Public Forum. Peg Renkert , 589 Covey Lane, related that on May 21 her house was demolished by a 90-foot-tall, 30,000-pound electrical transmission tower, causing over $200,000 in damage. She had been away at a fundraiser, but usually on that night of the week she had a family night at her house. Had her family been there, she felt they could have come to serious harm. She alleged that she encountered difficulties in her attempts to get “more than lip service and attitude” from the Eugene Water & Electric Board (EWEB) in this matter. She said the Quail Run Homeowners Association (QRHA) and the Harlow Neighbors Association (HNA) supported her efforts. She alleged that EWEB staff had destroyed evidence, kept information from her, and refused her requests to have access to the destroyed concrete tower. She related that she had been told by an EWEB representative that the concrete from the tower had gone to Eugene Sand & Gravel to be crushed. She inquired about the concrete at several such businesses, including Eugene Sand & Gravel, and no one seemed to know anything about it. She asserted that EWEB was hiding something. She stated that the QRHA was trying to get the towers rerouted, but EWEB had decided to keep the towers where they were. Kerry Lancy , 3626 Oxbow Way, Ms. Renkert’s daughter, felt that had May 21 been “a normal Sunday” for her family, she and her children would have been in the living room that was been crushed by the tower. She was very upset by this. She asserted that EWEB had withheld information and possibly provided false information about where the remains of the poles are. She alleged that EWEB did not include the citizens of Eugene in its decisions and actions. She cited as evidence EWEB’s unwillingness to discuss relocating the transmission lines. She recalled that EWEB was chartered by the City of Eugene to serve the interests of its citizens. She asked the council to require it to provide the information and to ask it to work with the QRHA and HNA in a participatory process to explore options for rerouting the poles. She noted that these types of poles were located all over the city and predicted that another one would fall. Clement Bosch , 469 Covey Lane, president of the QRHA, stated that when two poles broke, one falling on Ms. Renkert’s house, Quail Run area residents had ceased to feel safe. He averred that residents living by MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 25, 2006 Page 1 Regular Meeting