Item 2H: Ratification of Actions of Intergovernmental Relations Committee

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Mayor Piercy felt the intention of the effort should be to find the things all of the legislative partners could get behind. Ms. Bettman commented that perhaps the City of Eugene would be better off lobbying on its own behalf. She added that she was sometimes unclear who exactly was in the United Front. She noted her preference to leave the school districts out of the front. Mayor Piercy said the legislators liked to see the school districts there and the school districts had benefited from their lobbying work. Ms. Bettman commented that the City of Eugene had ended up cutting its numbers on the United Front trip. Mayor Piercy underscored the importance of focusing on what the partners could do together. She was loathe to focus on who the City of Eugene would “disinvite.” Ms. Bettman asserted that the front needed a process that was agreed upon by all of the jurisdictions and it needed criteria for getting proposals on the priority list. She said one criterion would be that all of the partners would agree on an item. Ms. Bettman wanted to add under the section regarding Grants and Funding Applications that a committee could give approval by email. She also wanted it to mention that staff should make efforts to bring grants before the CCIGR in a timely manner for action. She opined that there had been some “real melt-downs” the previous year because some grants had already been applied for before consulting the CCIGR. Mr. Pryor said since Section 7 of the operating agreements had been removed something that addressed human resource and collective bargaining needed to be added. He thought the CCIGR should be the primary vehicle for positions on human resources and collective bargaining issues, but he felt the City Manager needed to be involved in making recommendations around those issues because of the significant impact. He suggested language that indicated that the CCIGR should confer with the City Manager for advice and counsel on the impact those positions would have on the operation of the City. Ms. Bettman thought this was already the procedure. She said the City Manager or his designee responded to those issues and in this instance human resources staff served as his designee. She felt calling it out specifically implied that the City gave more weight to human resource issues than those issues entailed. Mr. Pryor agreed that he was giving those issues more weight. He explained that human resources issues had a potentially dramatic financial impact. Ms. Bettman reiterated her objection to specifically calling out human resource issues. Continuing, Ms. Bettman asked that the document contain some exposition on what the staff analysis included. Ms. Taylor said the staff analysis had gotten much easier to read and that she found having computer access to the bills to be very beneficial. Mayor Piercy recommended that when the CCIGR saw legislation coming that the City was proposing or legislation that would affect its community partners, the City should give its partners a “heads up” and discuss it with them at some level. MINUTES—Council Committee on Intergovernmental Relations April 26, 2007 Page 8