CC Minutes - 10/16/06 Public Hearing

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Mr. Hale believed the biggest reason to oppose the fee and increase the gas tax was the loss of another Oregonian serving in Iraq and the need to reduce the community’s reliance on and addiction to foreign oil. Karl Sunberg , 3318 Coraly Avenue, said there was a road maintenance problem in Eugene and suggested it might not be due to a shortage of money but to bad decisions about which roads got resurfaced. He thought the wrong roads got resurfaced. Now the City wanted a reward for those bad decisions to pay to resurface the overlooked roads and more roads that do not need it. He offered to loan his car to anyone who wanted to test the roads. Mr. Sunberg said that most west Eugene residents were used to bad roads because they traveled them every day, and he did not think the fee would change that. He said that road assessments were needed to improve many west Eugene roads and that would not happen because of residents’ limited income. He pointed out that there were many poor people in the community lacking basic services and the City was proposing to throw their needs “to the wind” to fix bumpy roads. He said “shame on us.” He said he would support a fee to address those problems. Mr. Sunberg said that the fee was actually a tax and the use of the word “fee” was an attempt to avoid State law. He anticipated its rejection by the court system. He said if the City needed more money, it should call the fee a tax. On behalf of the low-income, the disabled who would not own a car, and the elderly, he asked the council to find a real problem and fix it. th John Lauch , 715 West 4 Avenue, representing School District 4J, discussed the impact of the tax on the school district. He said that any fee would reduce the money available for local school operations. The district would pay approximately $107,000 annually if the ordinance passed. The district would not be reimbursed by the State for the cost of the fee and would have to find the money from its existing budget. He acknowledged the need to maintain the road system and noted that the district paid about $10,000 annually in City motor fuel purchases for that purpose. The ordinance would require the district to redirect public education funds to support street maintenance. Joel Pomeranz , 1171 Risden Place, representing the Oregon Restaurant Association (ORA) and Oregon Lodging Association, said the ORA supported the position of the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce in regard to the proposed fee. He thought the fee was unfair because many of the restaurants that would bear the tax would be restaurants that were not trip generators but trip stop-offs. Restaurants operated under low profit margins of between three and seven percent, making it more difficult for such businesses to absorb additional fees. Eugene restaurants would be placed at a competitive disadvantage with those in neighboring communities. He agreed that funds for street maintenance were needed and indicated supported for the chamber’s bond proposal. Larry Reed , 4765 Valley Plaza Loop, representing JRH Transportation and Land Use Planning, opposed the proposed fee. He said that the fee was the wrong solution to a real problem. He said the proposal was not cost-effective as the cost of collecting $4 million annually would be around $700,000 and perhaps more, or about 17-½ to 20 percent of the total collected. The fee lacked accountability because it was not specifically dedicated to repair work between curbs and there was no guarantee it would be spent on the backlog. The City was asking the community for more money without making street maintenance a higher priority. He said that the streets had reached their current condition because past councils would not make street maintenance a priority. He preferred the use of general obligation bonds to catch up with the backlog a preferable approach. Bonding was equitable, offered certainty, demonstrated that the council was setting priorities, and provided accountability in that money must be spent on specific projects. Mr. Reed asked the council to explore the concept in more detail. MINUTES—Eugene City Council October 16, 2006 Page 8 Public Hearing