CC Minutes - 12/06/99 WS - Laserfiche WebLink

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Mr. Meisner said that the 5th Street District site on 6th Avenue was unacceptable as the location for the courthouse for reasons of scale, design, and parking loss. He said that unless the City was willing to negotiate, the GSA was going to take the 6th Avenue site. He was not optimistic that the GSA would build a building that the community liked given its tepid response to the North End Scoping Group's recommendations. Mr. Meisner supported authorizing the City Manager to negotiate with the GSA. He said that those negotiations did not obligate the City to sell City Hall. Mr. Meisner added he would actively oppose a property tax measure that moved the police from downtown. Mr. Torrey said that the City Council had already gone through a considerable process regarding the subject. He agreed with Mr. Meisner that public input did not have to occur through a formal public hearing. He did not think that the council was "holding a gun to anyone's head" if it chose to ask the voters to approve a fire station or police station bond measure. The City had the ability to relocate those facilities off-site. Regarding the cost, he pointed out that no one knew the cost. He said that the numbers had been inaccurately reported by the media in Eugene. Mr. Torrey said that the council could accept or reject any offer from the GSA, and he believed that considering an offer was the responsible thing to do. He said that councilors may not have known when they were elected that it would face this issue, but he believed that the community elected its councilors to make such unexpected decisions. Mr. Meisner moved, seconded by Ms. Nathanson, to authorize the City Manager to negotiate the sale of City Hall with GSA and bring a purchase offer back to the council for final approval. Ms. Nathanson said that she had experienced a great deal of uncertainty about the process and the details involved in the process but had a great deal of certainty about the desired outcome. She thought there was time to work out the details; while she was still uncomfortable about the process, she still believed it was wrong to put the federal courthouse on the 6th Avenue site, and she did not want to put more money into the existing City Hall. She said that she would oppose putting money into a building that did not result in expanded services to citizens. Ms. Nathanson said that the details that needed to be resolved were like a three- dimensional jigsaw puzzle for which the council lacked pieces. She said that the council needed to look to the future and provide the citizens with a city hall they could use. Responding to a question from Mr. Lee, Mr. Johnson confirmed that, without pressure, the GSA would likely place the building on the 6th Avenue site. Mr. Lee asked Ms. Taylor and Mr. Rayor to help him understand how they would address that scenario; he said that it was not an option that the courthouse not be built. He believed either the council must provide an option for an alternative site, or see the building constructed on 6th Avenue. Mr. Lee questioned the impact on service delivery if the voters failed to support a measure and the council had to go to its back-up plan. Mr. Johnson said it was hard to estimate the impacts. It would depend on the services involved. However, regardless of physical location, Mr. Johnson said that staff would provide high- quality services. Responding to Mr. Lee's question, Mr. Rayor said that the locations under consideration were not far from each other and had the same basic physical relationship to the existing federal courthouse. He did not know MINUTES--Eugene City Council December 6, 1999 Page 7 5:30 p.m.