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Mr. Kelly supported directing the grant writer to seek further dollars for open space acquisition. <br />However, he wanted to know more about the City's legal ability to act as proposed in Ms. Taylor's <br />motion. Mr. Johnson noted that the Hearings Official had not yet rendered a decision on the <br />South Park planned unit development (PUD). City Attorney Glenn Klein said that the City could <br />make an offer on the property, but the council and manager could not be involved in the PUD <br />process. He pointed out that the property owners could decide at any time to dispose of the <br />property. <br /> <br />Mr. Kelly asked if staff had a sense that the area in question was a priority, given that the South <br />Park PUD was only 20 percent of the headwaters area and funding was limited. Mr. Lyle did not. <br />He said that the priority status and acquisition of other properties was also an issue, as well as <br />the impact on buildable land. Mr. Kelly said that he did not have enough information at this time <br />to determine that the South Park PUD area was a key purchase. <br /> <br />Ms. Nathanson said that Mr. Kelly had raised her issue, which was whether this property would <br />be the first key property for acquisition. Mr. Meisner said that his issue was the same. He was <br />not persuaded the City should take the acquisition out of sequence of other properties, so he <br />would not support the amendment at this point in time. <br /> <br />Mr. Meisner asked how long it would take the City to replace the departing grant writer. Mr. <br />Johnson said he would discuss financial strategies with the department managers and was <br />contemplating a hiring freeze; he had not determined if the grant writer position would be <br />included in the freeze. Mr. Meisner observed that the grant writer had been a valuable personnel <br />addition, and had produced considerable money for the City. <br /> <br />Mr. Rayor was also uncertain about the amendment, while acknowledging its importance to the <br />affected neighborhood. He was not convinced that the streams could not be protected in the <br />PUD process, and he was concerned about the loss of connectivity and residential housing land <br />inside the urban growth boundary. <br /> <br />Mr. Pap8 agreed with the remarks of other councilors and suggested that criteria be developed to <br />assess such purchases. <br /> <br />Ms. Taylor said that the property in question was in danger of immediate development, and the <br />runoff from the property would go directly to the Amazon Creek. She pointed out that the creek <br />was being cleaned in the lower areas and said it did not make sense to allow the upper portions <br />of the steams to adversely affect the areas being cleaned below. She agreed there were other <br />acquisition priorities but said that the property in question had some urgency given the owner's <br />development plans. <br /> <br />Mr. Lee asked how money much was involved in such a purchase. Stressing that there were <br />many factors that would affect the price, Mr. Lyle estimated between $500,000 and $750,000, <br />which did not include infrastructure improvements. <br /> <br />Responding to a question from Mr. Lee regarding other acquisitions, Mr. Lyle said that the <br />stormwater program had acquired stream corridors rather than large tracts of land. He said that <br />the stormwater program had only been involved indirectly in acquisitions of larger tracts by the <br />BLM in the West Eugene Wetlands Plan area. The City Council had not to this point adopted a <br />proposal for the acquisition of large parcels through the stormwater program. Mr. Lee asked if <br /> <br />MINUTES--Eugene City Council July 10, 2000 Page 5 <br /> Work Session <br /> <br /> <br />