CC Minutes - 02/22/99 Mtg - Laserfiche WebLink

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THE EUGENE CODE 1971; AND PROVIDING AN AUTOMATIC REPEAL AS OF MARCH 31, 1999 Mr. Johnson noted that the council held a work session on the ordinance and would hold a public hearing on the proposed ordinance revisions. He asked Officer Scott Fellman of the Eugene Police Department to summarize the ordinance revisions. Officer Fellman provided the council with an overview of the revisions. Mayor Torrey opened the public hearing. Jim Kovack, 60 West 22"d Avenue, said the ordinances in question did not address the severity of the problems downtown, in particular window etching, which was an increasing and expensive problem. He spoke of the difficulty and cost of finding new tenants to fill spaces downtown. He asked that the council extend the ordinance to the Charnelton Street area. He said that enforcement needed to be increased and concentrated in downtown in a manner similar to that used to disperse activity on Willamette Street "gut." Mr. Kovack said that merchants and property owners downtown should not be directed to remove graffiti, as they were removing it as fast as they could. Bruce Miller, PO Box 50968, Eugene, complemented staff for its work on the ordinances and hard work downtown. He referred to a letter from Russ Brink to the council in support of the ordinances and indicated his complete concurrence with Mr. Brink's remarks. He said that the problems downtown were a deterrent to business relocation, and had an effect on the broader community. Mr. Miller said the City's administration of the parking lots adjacent to Broadway had some negative aspects and were "helping to kill retail." Sue Prichard, 101 East Broadway, Suite 101, discussed her experience as a commercial real estate broker in downtown and enumerated problems she had in attempting to lease and sell properties in the area, including doors and windows smeared with human excrement and doorways used as toilets, etched windows, drug and pregnancy prevention paraphernalia, glued locks, and graffiti. Tenants were harassed on the mall by large groups of people who blocked access to space. As a result, rents downtown had dropped to less than half of what they were several years ago and there was a decrease in tenants. She said that since implementation of the mall ordinances conditions had improved significantly. Ms. Prichard acknowledged other efforts targeted downtown, and said she endorsed the revisions proposed by the Eugene Police Department to the ordinances as just one piece of a larger solution. Martin Champion, 1430 Willamette Street, #597, opposed the extension of the ordinances because they gave judicial power to the police. He said that law enforcement should be separated from the judicial system of punishment. He said that it was not due process to give an officer the authority to exclude people from the mall. Mr. Champion considered the ordinances to take away "a little piece of liberty," and asked where that would stop. Sherry Franzen, 2635 Oak Street, opposed the ordinances as a violation of people's civil liberties. She believed that the community would experience vigilantism if the police were not accountable to the law in the same way as a citizen. MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 22, 1999 Page 6 7:30 p.m.