CC Minutes - 10/16/06 Public Hearing

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Councilor Pryor thought progress was made by the mutual recognition of the problem that existed. He suggested that the solution might involve a partnership approach. He thought that operations and mainte- nance projects should be paid for by ongoing money, so he would not be willing to drop a scaled-down fee altogether. He thought that preservation could appropriately be paid for by one-time money. The concept of bonding to pay for the City’s backlog of capital preservation needs made sense to him. Councilor Pryor said Eugene residents were willing to give money to governments they trust and believe will spend it appropriately. He said the council was obligated to demonstrate it could be trusted to spend the public’s money, and not to be talking about other solutions did not engender that trust. He wanted to generate trust with the public and proposed the council look at additional ongoing, stable money to pay for operations and maintenance and work with the public to solve the capital preservation problem. Councilor Kelly was “somewhat amused” by the discussion as it was clear to him there was no political will in the community to do anything about the problem. The council was now having the same discussion it had when the citizen members of the Budget Committee initially forwarded their recommendation six years ago. He said the council was “going around in circles” and he was convinced it would be doing the same ten years from now, and the roads would continue to decay. Councilor Kelly asked staff to prepare text for a motion raising the local gas tax by ten cents per gallon when the council took action on the ordinance. Councilor Kelly said he did not know what people meant when they discussed “curb-to-curb” maintenance. He asked if a bond measure could pay for operation and maintenance. Mr. Corey said it depended on the bond measure. The focus of testimony was on capital preservation. Mr. Corey said more research would be required as to what was eligible for bonding. Councilor Kelly said that bonding for capital preservation was no solution for the operations and maintenance shortfall, and invited a chamber proposal for that. Councilor Kelly said there was no dedicated source of funding for the maintenance and preservation of the off-street bicycle path. Mr. Corey agreed. Councilor Kelly recalled that five percent of the proposed fee was to be dedicated to bicycle paths, and said he would not support an ordinance that did not provide five percent of revenues to maintain the City’s off-street bicycle paths. Councilor Bettman asked if the fee could be referred by citizens to the ballot if adopted by the council. Mr. Klein said that residents would have 30 days from the time of the ordinance’s passage to collect the necessary signatures and turn them in to the City Recorder. Councilor Bettman referred to the ordinance and asked if the phrase “improve elements of the City’s transportation system” could be interpreted as providing for additional capacity. Mr. Corey said that the ordinance mirrored text from the old ordinance that prohibited new capital construction. Councilor Bettman interpreted Section 7.755(a) of the proposed ordinance as being general enough to allow the fee to pay for new lanes of increased capacity. Mr. Corey said that if the council desired the ordinance to be iron-clad in that regard, he would recommend the addition of text that clarified that intent. Councilor Bettman thought the City had extreme latitude in discounting, modifying, or waiving fees and she believed that led to increased fees for other users. Those residents with fewer resources were much less likely to be challenging and appealing fees and would be inequitably burdened by the fee. MINUTES—Eugene City Council October 16, 2006 Page 12 Public Hearing