CC Minutes - 06/09/03 Mtg - Laserfiche WebLink

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Councilor Kelly raised concern over making a motion not recommended by staff before there was any discussion by the council. In response to a question from Mayor Torrey regarding whether the Council President had the right to make the motion, City Attorney Glenn Klein confirmed that the Council President had that right. Councilor Pap~ said the process had been a difficult one for him. He said he was disappointed in his own participation and apologized to those present. He said the real question was how the community was going to honor a national hero. He said he believed that a committee had been formed to answer the question of how best to honor Dr. King and had understood that the City of Springfield had been included in the process and said he should have realized something was wrong when he had a communication from the Springfield City Council that it had not been included in any discussion. He said the council had made the mistake of asking a too-narrow question of the Planning Commission and did the community a disservice by not including alternatives other than Centennial Boulevard. He added that the Human Rights Commission should have been included in the process. He said he had requested committee meeting minutes to see how the process was undertaken and who participated but said he had not received them. Councilor Bettman said the Lane County Board of Commissioners had invited the City Council to rename a prominent thoroughfare in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She said Mayor Torrey had asked for a volunteer to serve in the discussion and that she had volunteered and encouraged other councilors to offer input. She said there was no committee and that the discussions with Springfield City staff and County Commissioners had happened a full year before the current action. She said the renaming was consistent with the State's only criterion for a street renaming, which was that the action taken be in the best interests of the City. She opined that, given the level of community support, the renaming would be in the best interest of the City. She noted that there would be a certain level of inconvenience and cost to residents and businesses along that portion of Centennial Boulevard but commented that the inconvenience was of a minimal level and did not supercede the benefit to the City that the renaming would provide. She quoted the following from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. when he talked about using process and inconvenience to circumvent meaningful change: "First I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the white citizens councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice, who prefers a negative peace, which is the absence of tension, to a positive peace, which is the presence of justice, and who constantly says '1 agree with you in the goal you seek but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action, who paternalistically believes he can set the time table for another man's freedom, who fives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a more convenient season. Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Luke warm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress." Councilor Bettman, seconded by Councilor Kelly, moved to amend the motion by substituting the motion on the table to have the City Council adopt MINUTES--Eugene City Council June 9, 2003 Page 7 Regular Session