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the funds were included in the General Fund, the council could decide on a yearly basis how much <br />it wished to allocate to drug treatment. <br /> <br />Mr. Carlson observed that the City did not generally dedicate fines or forfeitures to any particular <br />purpose. Mr. Johnson cited library fines as an example. <br /> <br />Ms. Bettman asked what other jurisdictions were doing with the forfeiture funds. Mr. Carlson said <br />that Springfield and Lane County were taking a similar approach to that proposed by Eugene. <br /> <br />Mr. Meisner preferred to keep the funds in the General Fund as opposed to dedicating to them on <br />a permanent basis to another use. That approach gave the council flexibility to use the funds as it <br />chose on an annual basis. He did not want to change the ordinance before the council at this time <br />and preferred to forward it to a public hearing for public comment before amendments were made. <br /> <br />Mr. Pap~ asked if the use of forfeiture would be moot given the passage of Ballot Measure 3. Ms. <br />Furlough said that currently, the District Attorney's Office had a 95 percent conviction rate for <br />filed cases. The District Attorney did not pursue forfeiture cases not associated with a criminal <br />case. The District Attorney did not take the property of people not subject to the forfeiture law or <br />who had not been convicted of a crime. She said that the measure had not affected how the <br />District Attorney did business in Lane County; it merely redirected the proceeds to other uses. <br /> <br />Mr. Pap~ said that it was his understanding that not all forfeiture cases were drug crimes, so <br />allocating the funding to drug treatment may not be "connecting dollars to dollars.' Ms. Furlough <br />responded that there were different aspects to civil forfeiture. Most in Lane County were related <br />to drug crimes. There were other allowable uses of civil forfeiture, such as for DUll convictions; <br />that were not used in Lane County. Animals and firearms could be forfeited in certain <br />circumstances. <br /> <br />Mr. Pap~ agreed with Mr. Meisner that the council should forward the ordinance before it to a <br />public hearing. Any proposed amendments could follow the hearing. <br /> <br />Mr. Kelly did not recall any Budget Committee discussion that lead to agreement the forfeited <br />moneys would be directed to the General Fund. He suggested that staff was overstepping in that <br />assumption. Regarding Mr. Meisner's comments that the council could make a choice as to the <br />allocation of funds annually, Mr. Kelly said that if that were really the way the system worked, he <br />would agree. However, he thought it difficult to make such conscious choices when the <br />expenditure "was predecided" in the draft budget. The allocation could be pulled out, but the <br />Budget Committee must then decide what to cut to balance the budget. <br /> <br />Mr. Kelly said that according to the Eugene Police Department, drug acrime underlies much of the <br />local crime problem and until that was addressed the council was "dancing" around the edges of the <br />issue. While he acknowledged that the measure itself mentioned "drug treatment or other lawful <br /> <br /> MINUTES--Eugene City Council October 8, 2001 Page 9 <br /> Work Session <br /> <br /> <br />