CC Minutes - 07/09/01 Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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Jim Hale, 1715 Linnea Avenue, said that the hospital should be built in the downtown area. He urged that the hospital be given enough room for future expansion but stressed the importance of achieving the expansion in a timely manner. He suggested the area between Lincoln and Charnelton streets and between 11th and 13th avenues as a new hospital location. Nick Urhausen, 2858 Warren Street, said that the City Council should cease its nonsense regarding the planned hospital expansion. He opined the hospital would move to Springfield if it were not allowed to expand according to its plan. Bruce Miller, PO Box 50968, raised concern over the possibility of businesses not wanting to come to Eugene because of the fear that the City Council would make each business location a special land use case in spite of existing City Code. Mr. Miller raised concern over the "Gang of 9" cartoons in The Register-Guard and opined that they would create a hateful image of Eugene. Mr. Miller raised concern over hate mail being sent to Eugene citizens of Jewish descent. Tom Fieland, 2940 Crescent Avenue, reported that the smoking ban had an immediate negative effect on his business. He said there were businesses that had filed for building permits to extend the time for people to be allowed to smoke by pretending to build an outside smoking area. He urged the council to "level the playing field" for businesses that had not filed for a building permit and thereby had not gotten an extension to allow people to smoke in their establishments. Stacie Mount, 2840 Grand Canyon Drive, noted that the proposed PeaceHealth location was 6-1/2 times larger than its original plan. She raised concern over the kind of traffic this would generate in a residential area. Wayne Ford, 110 1/2 Hillcrest Street, said that State law required any hospital expansions to have a "Certificate of Need." He suggested that any hospital relocation in the city be contingent on possession of that certificate. Tom Slocum, 1950 Graham Drive, spoke regarding the hospital relocation issue. He said that the City Council was undoing years of good planning work and sending a bad message to businesses looking to locate in the community by involving itself in the proposed relocation. He said that PeaceHealth was a regional facility that other communities used as well as Eugene, and that they needed better access. Regarding the idea that the hospital relocation would aid in the demise of the downtown area, Mr. Slocum asserted that downtown "was dying anyway." He raised concern that the City Council was doing things that did not make any sense. Rick Szakalski raised a concern that Peace Health would decide to move the hospital to Springfield because of the intervention of the City Council. Keith Nastiuk, 551 Montana Way, stressed that PeaceHealth needed to expand the hospital to add more beds. He stressed that the hospital also served other communities in the region who MINUTES--Eugene City Council July 9, 2001 Page 2 Regular Session