CC Minutes - 05/25/05 WS - Laserfiche WebLink

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suggested the formation of an ad hoc committee to help in the information flow between staff and the council and to foster agreement in order to move forward. Mayor Piercy commented that this was a good opportunity to determine how to get neighborhood associa- tions involved and how they wished to interact with the City staff and government in a meaningful way. In response to the first round of comments, Mr. Carlson said staff's concept of the first phase was to hire the consultant team and get it on board and then have the team interact with the councilors and the Mayor. Additionally, he stated that the consultants would have to review all of the existing information generated to date. He pointed out that generation of additional technical information, should it be needed, would take more than $30,000. An example of something that might require more funding would be studies to determine retrofitting costs, even though there was some existing data. Ms. Bettman recommended asking neighborhood associations how they wanted to be involved in the discussion. She underscored the importance of publicizing the City Council's point of view so that members of the community would know what to comment on. Regarding the facility policy discussion, Ms. Bettman averred that one work session was not adequate. Ms. Bettman said it was important to her to include individual councilor offices on the list under Priority Issue Outcomes 4(b). City Manager Taylor recalled that the discussion at the retreat had suggested that some subjects within the priority issues would lend themselves to sessions longer than the traditional work session. He recommended that the first phase policy discussion be held in a longer session. Mr. Kelly reiterated his desire to meet with consultants early in the process so that there would be a clear idea of whether there were new significant technical studies needed in the Phase 1 decisions that would require more money. He felt it was important to find out how the City Council felt about the plans so that the work plan would not be set up to fail through a lack of council agreement. Mr. Kelly recommended using a newspaper insert to educate the public, as well as to request feedback. Mr. Pap~ commented that if the council asked the public whether the City should keep City Hall and the public said yes, the council should be prepared for what lay ahead. He said he would try to be open-minded about the existing building, but he remembered the data from the assessment of 1999. He said he would be hard pressed to change his mind as the building was ~functionally and structurally obsolete." He thought the consultants and not the architects should have a lead role in the process, in order to ask some of the critical questions prior to beginning architectural design. Ms. Taylor thought the neighborhood associations should be made aware of the costs of the plan and should weigh in on whether to rebuild or renovate. She hoped people in the community could change the council's minds even if all eight councilors had decided to proceed in one direction. She underscored that the council was acting on behalf of the community. Regarding the consultants, Ms. Taylor asked who decided if a consultant was an expert or not. Mr. Carlson MINUTES--Eugene City Council May 25, 2005 Page 3 Work Session