CC Minutes - 02/28/00 Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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at $0th Avenue and Donald Street. There were ten structures higher than eight stories in a 12- block radius of City Hall, the majority of which house senior citizens, but only 50 percent of the ladder capacity was in downtown. Mr. Brown saw no point in separating the issue on the ballot. If one service moved and the other stayed, City Hall would still have to be retrofitted to a higher standard at high cost to the taxpayers. Mayor Torrey closed the public hearing. He asked the council for questions or comments, and if it wished to take action that evening. Councilor Taylor did not think the council should take action that night. She also felt the issues on the ballot should be split, and that the fire issue was more urgent than the police issue. She believed a fire issue would have a better chance of passage because it cost less money. She said that all employees needed to be safe, not just the police, and City Hall should be upgraded for that reason. Councilor Taylor said that since the police work three shifts and only one-third would be on duty, and because most of the force would be patrolling or somewhere other than City Hall if an earthquake struck, she did not think the service would be paralyzed, while the same was not true of fire. Responding to Mr. Biggs' testimony, Councilor Kelly did not take self-selected polls such as television polls seriously and said that they were "less than nothing" in terms of accuracy. Regarding the total tax load, Councilor Kelly said that he had occasion to ask how the rating agencies consider the City's total debt load in relationship to how much it could legally carry, and was told the City was very conservative in the debt it carried. Regarding Councilor Taylor's remarks about the need for a seismic retrofit to protect all employees, he agreed, but pointed out that it would be much cheaper if City Hall had no essential services. Responding to Ms. Cleveland's testimony, Councilor Kelly said that the issue of a new city hall was no longer an issue as the City Council had indicated to the General Services Administration it was not interested in selling the current City Hall. He said that the council was not attempting to justify the expenditure a the basis of fear of crime; it was because the current police facilities in the basement of City Hall were undersized, poorly ventilated, and intended for storage, not as work space. The goal of the task force was to give the current force adequate space to work, and the future force room to expand at the same ratio of police officers to the population 20 years in the future. Councilor Kelly said that concerns about some police policies may be legitimate and he was working to resolve them with staff, but they were not relevant to the issue of whether the police should have an adequate and safe space to work. Councilor Meisner noted his agreement with the remarks of Councilor Kelly. He said that those who drew an analogy to the library drew an accurate analogy; the library was too small and spaces never intended for use by employees or the public were in active use. Mr. Meisner said the same thing was true of City Hall. If City Hall was upgraded seismically to include essential services, the facility would lose much usable space. He noted current prevention activities conducted by the police, and said those programs could not be expanded if there was no space for employees to work in. Mr. Meisner said that the task force members had pressed staff about every number, and he believed that the proposal was about as inexpensive as possible. Mr. Meisner reminded Mr. Biggs that the library bond was for operations only, not capital costs. The library was being constructed with Urban Renewal Agency revenues, proceeds from the sale of assets, and donations. He said he was not a fan of the property tax, but in the absence of MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 28, 2000 Page 12 Regular Meeting