CC Minutes - 06/29/05 WS - Laserfiche WebLink

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Mr. Poling said his understanding from the Lane County Board of Commissioners' discussion of the matter that morning was that by not adopting any interim standards, the State's guidelines would apply and the Board of Commissioners wanted to meet with the council to discuss community standards. He said commissioners' main concern was the per employee cap but they were willing to continue discussions on that and Commissioner Dwyer's motion was an effort to keep the City and County working together on the issue. Mr. Kelly said the council worked hard to find a collaborative solution that resulted in a 7 to 1 vote in favor of an application for an enterprise zone, which he felt was a factor in the State's approval. He said part of the solution was a per-job cap of $30,000 maximum tax exemption for each job created, which was generous and in line with benefits provided under the previous enterprise zone. He said the commissioners' discussion did not include the per-job cap; rather, timing was the topic. He said if Mr. Poling's motion passed, months of consensus and commitments among the councilors would be ;;thrown out the window" and he would not support the motion. He said if the motion was defeated he would introduce a motion to withdraw or terminate the City's application and designate a representative to work with County commis- sioners over the next year on an application that could receive consensus at the onset. Ms. Bettman said she felt there were some circumstances under which an enterprise zone could be a benefit to the community and she was willing to support it under those circumstances. She hoped that the council was willing to honor the collaboration involved in the application. In terms of the cap in the resolution, she felt there were legal implications to adopting standards or granting an application for benefit to the enterprise zone that did not include the cap as it would be inconsistent with the resolution. She said without the cap, the enterprise zone benefit was based on property value and investment, not on jobs, and the whole justification for the zone was job creation. She said the cap the council put in place provided almost all small and medium business under the cap with generous room to succeed and there were perhaps one or two very large entities that would benefit from the enterprise zone without the cap. She questioned the County's willingness to so generously transfer tax dollars that could be used to pay for public safety patrols and jails when it was claiming it did not have enough money for public safety. Ms. Solomon acknowledged the compromises made during development of the application, noting that she had compromised on the exclusion of the railroad yards in the zone when she preferred to have them included. She was agreeable to continuing to compromise in order to have a zone. She said the council had not had a significant discussion of the job caps, yet she compromised on including them in the resolution because she was willing to have a discussion at a later date. She said the understanding at the council's June 27, 2005, meeting was that all of the standards and the job cap were temporary but she continued to hear councilors state that only under those circumstances would there be an enterprise zone in Eugene. She questioned whether the council really wanted public input to determine community standards. She expressed concern that the City was ;;cutting off its nose to spite its face." Ms. Solomon emphasized that the standards were temporary and in the interests of retaining an enterprise zone and maintaining a relationship with partners she was willing to compromise. She indicated she would support the motion. Mr. Pryor pointed out that the City was 90 percent of the way to an enterprise zone. He said the previous months had seen an enormous amount of effort, collaboration and compromise. He said that withdrawing from the application would be like traveling from Oregon to New York and turning around and leaving when the arrival date was Friday instead of Thursday as originally expected. He said that agreement had been reached on standards, size and scope, a joint application had been submitted and approved and there was one MINUTES--Eugene City Council June 29, 2005 Page 3 Work Session