Item 2A: Approval of City Council Minutes

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Joint Elected Officials Meeting Minutes September 15, 2008 Page 6 Councilor Wylie said they were in the middle of an election process. She asked what would happen if a new set of politicians came into positions in January of 2009 that didn’t want the WEP removed, and how that would affect the planning process. Mr. Boyatt said our land use effort looking to 2013 and transportation system planning would keep moving. Mr. Inerfeld said this was a five year or longer work plan so would go through several possible changes in elected officials. This tied in other work that was currently in place. He gave exampled. One of the requirements was to make our local transportation plans consistent with the RTP and the WEP was already removed from that. From Eugene’s perspective it was more a question of when they would remove the WEP, not whether or not it would be removed. He noted that the City of Eugene had initiated the amendments to remove the WEP, but it would not be removed until both the Eugene Council and Lane County Board of Commissioners took action to remove it. That was targeted for the first quarter of 2009 in the work plan. Commissioner Fleenor referred to Councilor Wylie’s comments regarding changes in electors in the near future and Commissioner Sorenson’s suggestion for one-year check-ins on the work plan. He said a recommendation could be to approve this plan for 6 years, with annual reviews to make sure benchmarks were met, co-adoption issues addressed, and issues regarding political changes addressed. That could offer some control on a year to year basis. Councilor Ortiz thanked Springfield for hosting today’s meeting. She said she appreciated that staff wanted the plan to remain flexible. When the community spoke to her, she tried to fight for their values as she expected other elected officials did. She respected others goals and priorities and asked for the same. She noted that the WEP was being removed, but something did need to be done in that area of town as it affected the whole County. She hoped that when the collaborative group that Mayor Piercy put forth brought their ideas to the table, the City of Eugene could move forward. Commissioner Sorenson said several staff had mentioned working with LCOG on the modeling. He asked where funding came from for LCOG and how much staff energy they were putting into the six-year effort. Mr. Boyatt said LCOG was funded by federal pass-through dollars from ODOT, and by the authorization of STP-U (“urban”) funds through the MPC. LCOG staff concurred. There was a combination of options working with LCOG. All of the model work LCOG did for the federal plan should have benefit to development of our local and regional plan as they overlapped. LCOG as the MPO had some prohibition on spending of those dollars. Some of the money the cities and county had identified for these projects could be used for some outside modeling. Commissioner Sorenson discussed rural reserves. He asked what the current work plan was for rural reserves. He didn’t want that to stop in order to implement this policy. Commissioner Dwyer said a rural reserve policy was not limited to the metro area. Ms. Barry said their policy decisions on rural reserves had been with the land management division and she was aware of those. This work program would not preclude them from forming a policy on rural reserves. She would continue to keep in contact with that division regarding that policy.