CC Minutes - 10/16/06 Public Hearing

Home Browse Search

Councilor Papé asked if there was a way to place a lien on a property so a development could go forward without payment of the fee. Mr. Klein said he would include a response to that in his written materials. Councilor Kelly said that Lane County granted waivers but that presented other land use and service challenges. Speaking to the concern that enormous amounts could be raised from the ordinance, staff’s estimate was that it would raise about $500,000 annually. The two claims the City Council had considered would take slightly more than half that amount. He thought that in light of the claims that had come forward, that was not a lot of money at all. 2. PUBLIC HEARING: An Ordinance Concerning Transportation System Maintenance Fees and Adding Sections 7.750 through 7.790 to the Eugene Code, 1971 City Manager Taylor introduced Public Works Director Kurt Corey and City Engineer Mark Schoening. Mr. Corey referred the council and audience to a depiction of the three-legged stool that represented the transportation system: 1) operations and maintenance; 2) new construction; and 3) capital preservation. He recalled the recommendation of the Budget Citizen Subcommittee to adopt a transportation system maintenance fee as part of its recommendation for long-term street funding. The proposal before the council would close the funding gap with a trip-based fee component based on five residential and four nonresiden- tial categories. He reviewed the current funding sources for operations and maintenance, noting that the service currently cost about $9 million annually and had only about $8 million in funding. He also reviewed the current funding sources for capital preservation, noting the current revenues of about $4.5 million annually are short of the $9 million revenue target. Mr. Corey noted the public education and outreach process that occurred in regard to the proposal. Mayor Piercy opened the public hearing. Larry Hale , 2450 Laurelhurst Drive, identified himself as a typical taxpayer. He said that Eugene had bicycle paths on nearly every street but could not afford to patch potholes. Lane Transit District (LTD) operated buses all over the community but proposed the EmX system at a higher cost. He said that the Eugene council gave tax breaks to nearly every big business that moved to town but could not patch the potholes. He believed that Eugene residents wanted their money properly used. He thought the City used “bait and switch” techniques to get people to support measures, but then the money intended for the streets was used for other purposes. If the money was to be for repairs, that was all it should be used for. Jim Hale , 1715 Linnea Avenue, supported repairing the street preservation backlog. He said the City’s gas tax should be increased for that purpose because it was already in place and an increase could be made without any new bureaucracy. The new tax would create a need for new public employees and new bureaucracies. Mr. Hale said that council conservatives should oppose the tax because for those reasons; council liberals should oppose it because it disconnected the decision to make a vehicle trip from the public costs associated with the decision. He said all councilors should oppose the tax because it was not a user fee; instead, it was a non-user fee and internally unfair in that it taxes all households regardless of their use of the road system and number of vehicles and businesses regardless of their profitability. In terms of businesses, it taxes them on the irrational basis that businesses, rather than people, generated trips. Grocery stores would be forced to pay the tax even though they could not control the shopping patterns of their patrons. MINUTES—Eugene City Council October 16, 2006 Page 7 Public Hearing