CC Minutes - 02/12/07 Work Session

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Ms. Bettman pointed out that when the council and the community adopted the Downtown Plan, there were negotiations with EWEB about the provision in the plan that the City would get to approve the master plan and that the property could not be sold until there was a master plan. She said that EWEB was “on board” with this from the beginning. Ms. Bettman said that her motion was to have the City Manager bring a proposal back to the council. She said that the proposal could be modified at that point. She said that the City had rezoned property in the past and then disposed of it. City Manager Dennis Taylor said that when he and Mr. Berggren began discussing how to meet the board’s needs in terms of timeliness, certainty, and value, and the council’s needs in terms of community values and the master plan, he offered a similar proposal to Ms. Bettman’s. The proposal was for an assignable option in which EWEB would not have to declare the property surplus but terms would be negotiated and the City would take on the responsibility to master plan either jointly or through an advisory team. He said that this was done frequently and was being done with the West Broadway options. City Manager Dennis Taylor said that it seemed that there was consensus on what the two bodies did want and that the problems arose from who would go first and how the process should be managed. He said that was why he and Mr. Berggren made the recommendation to get the process underway as soon as possible and to enlist people to do the master planning who would be of assistance to both the City and EWEB. He said that he would like to have direction from the council so that he could go to the EWEB Board and ask what it would take to get the process going immediately. Ms. Bettman thanked the City Manager for his comments and said that she had used his letter to Mr. Berggren as part of the impetus for her motion. She emphasized that her motion did not say that the City Manager would go out and buy the property; rather, when the property was declared surplus the City could negotiate its option. She said that it would give some certainty and would give the community a chance to have a voice. She said that most people saw this as a community redevelopment opportunity and that she thought that this was the purview of the City. She said that she hoped that the councilors could support the motion. Ms. Taylor said that she intended to support the motion. She said that it was the citizens who owned the property, not EWEB or the City. She asked for the motion to be repeated. Mayor Piercy said she understood that both organizations had the public as their mutual constituents. She said she did not think that she could necessarily serve the public any better than the EWEB Board could serve the public. She said that she just wanted to know that the two bodies would come to agreement about how to go through the master planning process. She said that this needed to be a collaborative process and that each body needed to be satisfied with the process and that the process needed to be started soon. She said that she was not wedded to who would start the process and that she trusted both entities to have the public’s interest in mind. Mr. Pryor asked if the master planning could be done jointly. City Manager Dennis Taylor said that it was. Mr. Pryor offered a friendly amendment to the motion which would state that “the City and EWEB jointly undertake the master plan.” Ms. Bettman asked Mr. Pryor how that would differ from a City-managed master plan. MINUTES—Eugene City Council February 12, 2007 Page 11 Work Session