CC Minutes - 11/24/03 WS - Laserfiche WebLink

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input, and encourage them to remain in the neighborhood and support the improvements. He suggested a mailing to fully inform property owners and involvement of the fledgling neighborhood association were critical to the success of the project. He said that while improved alleys might not lead directly to less riots, walking through both improved and unimproved alleys would confirm the %roken window" syndrome that one broken window tended to start the degradation of an area. Mr. Meisner asked what circumstances had changed since the council dropped alley maintenance as a City function in 1991 that now resulted in a proposed model for alley improvements that required a minimal investment of CDBG funds to accomplish. He wondered why the model had not been considered before in response to requests for alley improvements in previous years. Mr. Taylor said the impetus came from the task force with the request for a council-initiated LID. Mr. Meisner said he hoped the City would respond in a similar fashion to requests from other neighbor- hoods. Ms. Bettman again expressed concern about an annual diversion of CDBG funds to alley improvements when they were originally allocated for accessibility improvements to City facilities, access ramps, and neighborhood parks. She said she intended to amend the motion when it was on the table to direct the City to pursue other funding sources. She asked why the entire cost of the project was not being assessed to property owners, when improvements to local streets were. She suggested that when the ordinance was amended, it should include requiring that alley improvements be completely assessable to adjacent property owners because she did not feel such project were an appropriate use of CDBG funds. Ms. Bettman said that the alleys in the West University neighborhood were very different in character from other neighborhoods because of the intensive use of the alleys due to the siting of multi-unit housing developments on those alleys. She said the owners of rental properties should be assessed the full cost of alley improvements. Mr. Pap6 moved, seconded by Ms. Nathanson, to direct the City Manager to pro- ceed with a project to improve the unimproved alleys in the West University neighborhood, consistent with the task force's final report. Ms. Bettman moved, seconded by Mr. Kelly, to amend the motion to add the phrase ;;and pursue other funding sources to replace the CDBG allocation. Mr. Kelly offered a friendly amendment to include the word ;;potential" to apply to other funding sources. Ms. Bettman accepted the friendly amendment. In response to an inquiry from Mayor Torrey, Mr. Taylor stated that staff would explore options in accordance with council direction at each step in the process, including full cost assessment. Ms. Bettman restated her motion to amend the main motion by adding the phrase ~and to pursue potential additional funding sources to replace the CDBG funds" at the end of the sentence. Ms. Solomon stated she did not support the amendment because the proposal was a creative use of CDBG MINUTES--Eugene City Council November 24, 2003 Page 11 Work Session