CC Minutes - 11/22/99 WS - Laserfiche WebLink

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In response to a comment from Mr. Rayor, Mr. Johnson said that a memo had been circulated calling for a work session to consider the role of the City in downtown parking, including a downtown parking exempt zone. In response to a concern from Mr. Rayor about the use of contingency funds for staff to work on the City Hall project, Mr. Johnson said that he was already planning to bring a breakdown of expenses to the December 6 council meeting. Mr. Rayor said that he did not remember authorizing money for staff from the contingency fund to work on the City Hall project. Mr. Johnson said that he would explain the issue of staff time in a memo. Mr. Rayor agreed with that idea. Mr. Meisner said that he shared Mr. Rayor's concern and suggested a work session to discuss the issue of whether or not funds that paid staff were freed for another use when that staff was paid from another source to do a different job. Mr. Meisner noted that he thought that the consultant fee estimate of $120,000 for the Franklin Boulevard- Willamette River Area very high. He said that he just wanted the City to be fiscally responsible. He said that he had similar concern about staffing in the other projects. Mr. Meisner noted that there was more money for consultants than implementation in the placemaking budget. He said that he was interested in results and questioned the need for more consultants in the placemaking plan. He reiterated that he objected to this as a pattern of City conduct and said that he wanted to do things, not plan things. Mr. Kelly said that he would support all three aspects of the proposal. He thanked staff for the additional information. Mr. Kelly also questioned the need for consultants for the placemaking plan. He said that he would rather see in-house staff used for that. Mr. Kelly supported changing the wording under Placemakin~, Duration to read a six-month project that would focus on the Park Blocks and one other site as a p/acemaking site. He thought that the exercise would be more useful if there were two sites. Mr. Kelly expressed his desire to have a mid-course council check-in on the key policy issues during the Downtown Phase II. In response to a question from Ms. Nathanson, Mr. Farmer said that he thought that discoveries and agreements made in Phase I would begin to influence actions taken by the City or the private sector even before Phase II was begun. Ms. Nathanson said that she assumed that if the Planning Commission and the council adopted the report, that staff could then use those policies. She hoped that there would be a way as an organization to spread the word and to get staff to begin implementing the policies. Mr. Farmer agreed and noted that he had begun having meetings with small work groups throughout the Planning and Development Department. He said that the issue of communicating direction from the council throughout the department had been discussed. Ms. Nathanson said that she supported the recommendation. Ms. Taylor said that she supported some effort at placemaking. She thought that it would take persuading some property owners to take action. Ms. Taylor said that she was also concerned about the issue raised by Mr. Rayor of funding for staff time. MINUTES--Eugene City Council November 22, 1999 Page 11 5:30 p.m.