CC Minutes - 01/12/98 Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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Mr. Meisner said that the council needed to ask itself the same questions the Future Focus Task Force was discussing. He said that community vision for Eugene often included community goals that become government goals, and he was unsure the City could afford to take that approach given the current financial situation. Mr. Green said that it required the political will of the elected officials to exercise the discipline needed to focus on a few, doable goals. There will always be emerging needs and challenges, but if elected officials had the discipline to stay the course and not take on more than can be funded, the public would have greater faith in government. Ms. Swanson Gribskov said that it was important to maintain communication with the Future Focus Task Force because its recommendations could have implications for other decisions, such as those being made by the Public Safety Coordinating Council. Mr. Lee questioned how the task force could accomplish all it had been asked to do in the time given it. He endorsed the goal of a customer-focused, customer-driven government with the flexibility of the private sector, and asked Mr. Green to let the council know if the task force figured out how that could be accomplished. Mr. Green suggested that the task force might not find all the answers, but its work could set the stage for future discussions about the subject. He said that local government needed to act more proactively rather than reactively. Mr. Torrey did not think the task force's time line would allow the level of discussion envisioned by the council. He observed that many people, including himself, sometimes thought Lane County included everything but Eugene. Mr. Torrey noted that the board was dominated by nonmetropolitan commissioners. He said that the City provided social services because it did not think they would be provided if it was left up to the County. Mr. Torrey wanted more discussion about human services being the responsibility of the County. Mr. Green suggested that, alternatively, the commission had to consider that Lane County was more than just Eugene and Springfield, and respond to rural demands. However, he thought the point well-taken, and agreed that there might be opportunities to discuss shifting responsibilities in the area of human service delivery. However, he pointed out that there was a lack of coordination and information about what was available already. Sometimes the issue was not money, but how the money was best spent. Mr. Laue said that it appeared that Lane County would be in a deficit situation for some time, and he questioned how the commissioners intended to address that. He said that Eugene got into the field of human services delivery not because it wanted to, but because it was the only entity that could afford to. The County has steadily lost funding for 15 years. He asked Mr. Green about the long-term outlook. Mr. Green said that he could only discuss the next year, when a $2.5 million deficit was anticipated. He said that he was unable to predict the future beyond that point. Mr. Green pointed out that Lane County had been managing its resources well in a deficit mode. He agreed it was not the best atmosphere because of the impact on organization morale, and said he was not sure how the commission would manage the situation. Mr. Green said that if the County took on no new services it was in a stable financial environment for the time being. Mr. Torrey said that realistically, what the County was not able to provide, the City often had to provide. He was very concerned about the County's budget situation in future years. Mr. Laue said that the County had serious capacity issues in its criminal justice system. There was no effective short-term sanctions to deal with offenders, and unless that was addressed the MINUTES--Eugene City Council January 12, 1998 Page 4 7:30 p.m.