CC Minutes - 02/13/02 Work Session

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Mr. Meisner said the council needed to learn to exercise fiscal restraint in the future. Mr. Kelly offered a friendly amendment, which was accepted by the second, to make explicit in the motion that there was a $5,000 limit per facility in the allocation of the contingency funds. Mr. Rayor said the request was timely and well-considered. He said it was a wise use of the money and helped the Human Services Commission do its job. He stressed the importance of keeping track of donations of that type so the record could be shown to those who were interested. Mr. Pap~ said he would hesitantly support the motion. He reiterated Mr. Meisner's suggestion that the council use more fiscal constraint in the future. Ms. Taylor said she would support the motion. Mr. Fart clarified that the money would be spent within the taxpayer district of Eugene. The motion, as amended, passed unanimously. B.WORK SESSION: Consideration of City Wide Elections Ms. Walston noted that the current work session was a follow-up session to the council's December 12, 2001, meeting. She said that the council had run out of time at that meeting so there was no specific direction on any proposals. Ms. Walston noted that, since the December 12 meeting, the political action committee that was circulating a petition to put citywide elections on the ballot had ceased collecting signatures. She added that there had been public testimony on the issue during the council's last public forum. She said the central theme of the testimony she had heard was related to campaign finance. Ms. Bettman said she would vote against any motion that put citywide elections on the ballot. She noted that there had not been enough signatures to put the item on the ballot which suggested to her that there was no grassroots support for the idea. Ms. Bettman said that if citywide elections were implemented, a City Councilor would represent 140,000 people. She noted that a County commissioner represented 64,500 people, a State House representative represented 57,000 people, and a State Senator represented 114,000 people. She said that ward-based elections allowed a councilor to represent 17,500 people. She said this was a more manageable number and allowed councilors to keep in touch with their constituents and allowed people with moderate means to effectively compete in elections. Ms. Bettman noted that citywide elections/at-large elections had been challenged repeatedly by the Justice Department under the Voting Rights Act of 1965 on the grounds that citywide elections diluted the votes of minority voters. She said that there had been several lawsuits filed against jurisdictions using citywide elections by the Justice Department of the State of Oregon. She said citywide elections would be a backward step for the City of Eugene. MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 13, 2002 Page 3 Work Session