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Mr. Rayor commended the work of the committee. He asked if there had been a positive legal <br />opinion of the draft ordinance. Mr. Johnson said the attorney reviewed some of the <br />recommendations but not all of them. Mr. Rayor wanted to see the results of the attorney's review <br />and reiterated his request for the city manager's opinion of each section in the ordinance. He <br />generally liked the recommendations for an in-house attorney and performance auditor position. <br />He thought the recommendations were a very reasonable set of amendments the citizens could feel <br />confident about, particularly after the council completed its review. <br /> <br />Ms. Nathanson thanked the committee for following State law and standards in developing its <br />recommendations. She wanted more council discussion about other thresholds for the proposed <br />protected ordinance. In terms of the committee's recommendations related to citizen involvement, <br />she hoped the committee was not looking for new procedures; perhaps, she suggested, the council <br />could commemorate current processes through an ordinance. Ms. Nathanson noted the time the <br />former Council Committee on Citizen Involvement spent on the topic. <br /> <br />Ms. Nathanson said she would like more information from dissenting members on whether they <br />believed there was a reasonable substitute approach to the CCRC's recommendation regarding <br />Section 52, Historic Trees. <br /> <br />Ms. Taylor was pleased with the recommendations for a performance auditor and in-house <br />attorney. She wanted the council to ask the citizens about instant runoff voting again when it <br />asked them to consider the charter changes. She liked the idea posing the changes to the voters <br />separately. Ms. Taylor reiterated her interest in more defined council involvement in the selection <br />of department directors, saying that did not mean the council was making the decision, but it <br />should know whether it approves of the decision. <br /> <br />Mr. Kelly thanked the committee for its work. He liked that the recommendations addressed both <br />what the changes were and why the changes were proposed, and the reasons that no changes were <br />proposed in some instances. He appreciated the committee had met its deadline. Mr. Kelly said he <br />wished some of the changes the committee recommended went further and that others were more <br />limited, but on balance he thought they required only minor wording changes and suggested the <br />council not attempt to rehash the committee's work. He thought the changes could be packaged <br />for presentation to the voters at separate elections. <br /> <br />Mr. Meisner said that separate issues needed to be presented discretely to the voters; he was not <br />interested in bundling the items, with the exception of the minor housekeeping items. He had <br />concerns about the recommendations regarding the council's role in contracts and purchasing, and <br />the proposed performance auditor; while there might be value to that function, Mr. Meisner <br />pointed out all the evidence in support of the performance auditor position was provided by an <br />organization that represented local government auditors. In his conversations with other members <br />of the National League of Cities, he had learned of cities that had rejected or ceased such <br />functions. He wanted more balanced information. Regarding the issue of department director <br />appointments, he did not want to change the form of government, but agreed that the council <br /> <br /> MINUTES--Eugene City Council January 14, 2002 Page 11 <br /> Work Session <br /> <br /> <br />