CC Minutes - 01/24/01 Work Session

Home Browse Search

Mr. Fart believed telephone surveys were a valid instrument and had utility. He agreed with Mr. Meisner's remarks regarding the need for specificity in the survey. Mr. Johnson said the survey had been about the same since 1990, and it had served a variety of purposes. The questions were the same to develop a trend analysis over time. He said that the survey should probably be examined again so the council could determine how often it should be done and its purposes. He reminded the council that two years previous during the goals setting process staff used the document to inform the council of the community's point of view on a variety of issues. Mr. Johnson also reminded the council the data from the survey was also used in performance measures and service profiles. Referring to the goals progress report, Mr. Kelly thanked the management team for its hard work. He expressed concern about the slips in the schedule for several goals. He cited specifically open space and parks acquisition, the storm water basin planning process and, of more importance to him, the completion of the transportation systems development charge methodology. He acknowledged the hard work of the Public Works Rates Advisory Committee but said the delay was not acceptable. The City was not recovering the costs of growth through the existing transportation SDC methodology. He requested a staff response. Ms. Nathanson noted she had asked several times if it was legal and feasible to use the funding from the Parks and Open Space Measure to add staff to assist in acquisitions. Mr. Johnson confirmed staff had been added. Ms. Nathanson questioned why the acquisition process was so slow if that was the case, although she acknowledged that many projects were "on the ground" or being implemented. Responding to a suggestion from Mr. Pap8 that staff let the council know if there were more goals than the City could support, Mr. Johnson pointed out that the work items associated with the goals, which implemented the goals, were proposed by staff. He anticipated that staff would work to provide the council with more explanatory plan items for the new goals. Some work items would try to propose fewer work. Mr. Farr emphasized the importance of the safe community goal to the citizens and said that education was directly related to a safe community. He said that many of the work items associated with that goal were on target or completed, so the schedule slip was not universal to all items. Mr. Meisner thought the council bore some responsibility for the slip in schedule. He said the the council needed to be proactive in inquiring about progress from staff. Mr. Meisner referred to the council goal of Fair, Stable, and Adequate Resources, and suggested the council appoint a new finance committee to examine new fair and equitable funding sources. He said the staff approach to funding services was too piecemeal, and at some point the council needed to look at a broader, more comprehensive picture of local government financing. Ms. Bettman thought existing programs often got pushed aside in favor of new initiatives, which created a bigger deficit in terms of maintaining the ongoing system. The City then looked to the tax payers to solve the problem. She suggested the council develop criteria to prioritize how funds were spent and staff resources allocated. She wanted to protect the ongoing existing infrastructure investment before money was spent on other things. Ms. Bettman believed that tradition played a large part in how funds were allocated, and thought the use of long-dedicated funds should be reexamined because "tradition did not cut it anymore." MINUTES--Eugene City Council January 24, 2001 Page 8 Work Session