CC Minutes - 07/13/05 WS - Laserfiche WebLink

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Ms. Taylor agreed that the arts and outdoors were of primary importance but questioned the emphasis on making it an economic development tool. She did not believe it should be something to market, rather she averred it was something to aspire to. She agreed there were financial implications, should the City truly be focusing on the arts and outdoors and when the budget was developed more money would be allocated to such things. Ms. Taylor cited the Nectar Way/Dillard Road property and the Amazon Headwaters property as examples of purchases that should be made. She cited an opinion piece, printed in The Register-Guard on June 21, entitled 'Git's Hard to Put a Price on Some Land Deah'" and offered to provide copies to the councilors. She said it related to a purchase of land during the Depression in the 1930s. She averred that if the City really aspired to be a place that valued the outdoors, it should think about what was needed in the future. She opined that it was more urgent now to save land. Continuing, Ms. Taylor felt Eugene already had a wonderful arts "scene." She did not think the City contributed enough toward it. She thought more should be done for youth art and arts in general. She hoped it would be the City's goal to develop, to preserve, and to cherish the arts and the outdoors and that it would not be something to make money from. She felt it was "sort of embarrassing" to say that Eugene was the "greatest" city for the arts and outdoors. Mr. Papd pointed out that the Hendricks family had donated much of Hendricks Park and that Alton Baker Park had been purchased through efforts spearheaded by Alton Baker, former owner of The Register- Guard. Mr. Papd thanked the City Manager for expediting this priority issue. In reviewing the timeline, he noted with a little consternation that it spoke of a longer period of time than he had hoped for. He wished to have something to show for it within a year. He also noted that there would likely be some resource needs other than staff time and wondered if some of it could be moved into the cycle of the budget process starting with the next year. City Manager Taylor responded that staff hoped to get feedback on the action plan and to gain council approval for it and then the resource needs would begin to be better understood. He said the bulk of the work would result in decision packages for fiscal year (FY) 2007. Ms. Riner concurred, adding that the implementation of major projects was slated for 2007 and the preliminary work, such as the implementation of the resource assessment, meetings with community partners, and development of marketing strategies, would be put into place within six to nine months. In response to a question from Mr. Pap6, Ms. Riner said a program and funding request would be presented for the marketing program. She stated that long-term costs would depend on which projects from the Parks and Open Space comprehensive plan and from the Cultural Services comprehensive plan came to the forefront as key to meeting City goals for the arts and outdoors. Mr. Pap6 hoped the council could review each one of the priorities before the January goals session so that the council could be confident that definite budgetary allocations would occur within the process and not be special allocations made outside the budgetary process. Mr. Kelly was happy that "arts and outdoors" was a strategic priority issue because these elements brought personality to the community. He averred that the combination of a rich and accessible arts and outdoors scene made the City of Eugene special and this was worth marketing. He felt the accessibility and variety of MINUTES--Eugene City Council July 13, 2005 Page 2 Work Session