CC Minutes - 11/27/06 Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

M I N U T E S Eugene City Council Regular Meeting Council Chamber—Eugene City Hall November 27, 2006 7:30 p.m. COUNCILORS PRESENT: Jennifer Solomon, Andrea Ortiz, David Kelly, Betty Taylor, Gary Papé, Bonny Bettman, Chris Pryor, George Poling. Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the regular meeting of the Eugene City Council to order. 1. PUBLIC FORUM Mayor Piercy reviewed the rules of the public forum. Ed Singer, 4160 Eddystone Place, indicated that he was a resident of the Santa Clara area. He said with the 1998 parks and open space bond measure, the City promised to purchase land for a community park in Santa Clara and eight years later the land had still not been acquired. He said the City’s promotion for the 2006 parks bond measure again promised to purchase land for a community park in Santa Clara. He urged the council to do whatever was necessary to purchase property as soon as possible before all sufficiently sized parcels were gone. Reverend William Winget, 4501 Franklin Boulevard, Space 2, Springfield, asked whether Eugene Police Department and SWAT team personnel were drug-tested. He said that people in the community were held accountable for their actions and police officers with weapons who were profiling people and looking for hazardous situations should be drug-tested. He stated he had not been able to get the City to regard him as a patient with a medical marijuana card instead of a criminal, regardless of what he had done in the past. He felt the counterculture in the community had been overlooked because its members were not black, gay, or Latinos. He said the City accepted their money but not their ideas and standards for accountability. He looked forward to seeing action on police accountability. Gary Heldt, 3477 Onyx Street, said he was not in town for the public hearing on the road fee and realized the record was closed, but wanted to comment even though it would not go into the record. He said the major issue was the amount of revenue to be generated, which was larger than the Library levy. He thought it should be subjected to a public vote. His position was that two-thirds of the funding should come from a gas tax and the other third should ideally be a general obligation (GO) bond situation for project-specific reconstructions. He said the second choice would be a road fee. He opined that the proposed fee was a regressive tax that hit residents who seldom drove at the same rate as residents with multiple SUVs. Mr. Heldt urged the council to consider doubling the gas tax, perhaps to nine cents a gallon, which would have minimal impact on consumers, would capture contributions from tourists and others passing through the community, and would provide a sufficiently stable funding source. He encouraged the City to pressure the State to consider a statewide gas tax increase in the name of combating global warming and providing MINUTES—Eugene City Council November 27, 2006 Page 1 Regular Meeting