CC Minutes - 04/15/98 Work Session

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Ms. Nathanson said that testimony was very strong for the library and acceptance of urban renewal as a source of funding. There seemed to be some support for retaining urban renewal for downtown projects but questions as to what degree it had been used effectively. Some expressed support for urban renewal as a tool to maintain downtown as the head of the city. Ms. Nathanson said that the message she received at the hearing and from citizens was safety first, livability second, and compact urban form third. Ms. Taylor said that the council had received testimony that urban renewal had done as much harm as good downtown. She said that the council could have used urban renewal long before to build a new library, which she believed was preferable to what had been done instead. She said that many members of the public seemed to be accepting of urban renewal to build a library even when they did not support urban renewal. Ms. Taylor said that if the council chose to retain urban renewal, it should do so for the purpose of building the library only, and if not used for that purpose, the district should be automatically terminated. Mr. Meisner concurred with Ms. Nathanson's summary of the testimony received at the public hearing. He said that the downtown projects he envisioned were associated with the library and needed for access improvements related to safety and convenience. He did not perceive support for the downtown "projects only" option. He perceived public distrust of the way in which the district was administered. Mr. Meisner said he wanted to retain an option that would provide funding sufficient to build the library that the community needed. He said that he walked through downtown between the library and City Hall, or from the Hult Center to a restaurant, and found pedestrian lighting lacking. There were few benches and some of the sidewalks were in poor condition. Mr. Meisner supported funding downtown projects strictly related to those types of improvements. Mr. Tollenaar said that the hearing had produced good, substantive, well-thought out testimony and he had found it helpful. He agreed there was considerable pro-library testimony and noted the submission of anti-riverfront district testimony. Mr. Tollenaar believed that there were some who called for a status quo approach based on a nostalgia for the way downtowns used to be. Noting the receipt of testimony related to the value of ongoing projects to compact urban growth, he said that he would need to hear more about that issue given that there were so many other elements important to compact urban growth. Mr. Tollenaar said that one individual indicated there was no other source of funding for downtown projects, but he did not believe that was the case given that the council could choose to include downtown projects in the Capital Improvement Program (CIP); such projects would merely have to compete with other projects in the ClP. Ms. Swanson Gribskov concurred with Mr. Tollenaar regarding the hearing. She said she was narrowing on options B and C or a variant thereof, and suggested that the council consider shrinking the list of options. Ms. Swanson Gribskov observed that there were always some who would be staunchly opposed to urban renewal for their own heartfelt reasons, but she did not think it was a universally shared opinion. Mr. Torrey reminded the council of the five general options relative to the downtown district it had previously forwarded to the public for input and asked if there were any options the council wished to delete from further consideration at this point: A) build no projects; terminate the district; B) preserve option for library only; C) preserve option for library plus downtown projects, MINUTES--Eugene City Council April 15, 1998 Page 2 11:30 a.m.