CC Minutes - 08/10/05 WS - Laserfiche WebLink

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Mr. Kelly observed that the projects came from a collective decision made by staff and elected officials but jurisdictions were unable to take the money and use it independently. He commented that while he saw value in the Game Farm Road project, he would likely support Ms. Bettman’s intended amendment to remove it from the list. He called this work “horse trading.” He imagined that if Eugene did not compete for the “modernization pie” and Springfield received more than its fair share of that money, the other jurisdictions might be inclined to give Eugene more than its fair share of the preservation money. Ms. Bettman, seconded by Ms. Taylor, moved to amend the motion to remove Surface Transportation Program-Urban money from the Game Farm Road project. Ms. Bettman averred that the amendment would not stop the project. She noted that previously $125,000 in assessments had been identified and that amount had fallen to $42,000. She said the policy that dictated that people living adjacent to such improvements must be assessed was “hard and fast.” She saw no reason to reduce the assessments. She reiterated that the project could go forward but would have to “revert to its original funding mechanism.” She agreed with Mr. Kelly’s assertion that this would make a statement that would motivate the MPC to allocate more preservation funding to the City of Eugene. Mr. Papé asked how subjective the criteria were. Mr. Schoening responded that it would be disingenuous to say there was no discussion between jurisdictions but he would not characterize it as “horse trading.” He felt this characterization overstated the discussion at the TPC and the MPC. He underscored that as transportation dollars became “tighter” other jurisdictions had their eyes on the planning money and other resources and competition became stiff. Mr. Papé surmised that there was a large amount of subjectivity put into the scoring system. Ms. Solomon felt it would be irresponsible to not apply for modernization dollars. She averred that the project met the goal to improve transportation in the system and it would ultimately take some of the traffic demand from the Coburg Road/Beltline Highway interchange. She believed that the voters expected the City to collaborate with its partners. The vote on the amendment was a 4:4 tie; Ms. Taylor, Ms. Bettman, Mr. Kelly, and Ms. Ortiz voting yes, and Mr. Papé, Mr. Poling, Ms. Solomon, and Mr. Pryor voting in opposi- tion. Mayor Piercy voted against the amendment and it failed on a final vote of 5:4. In response to a question from Mr. Papé, Mr. Schoening explained that he had looked at the unified planning work program and how much staff resource the City of Eugene used to implement its portion of it. Then he looked at the scoring criteria which allocated points for matching up to a 50 percent match. He stated what was requested was 50 percent of what the City of Eugene used to implement the unified planning work program, assuming that the City would put in a 50 percent match from the Road Fund to gain the maximum number of points. He added that the larger problem was that 20 percent of $10.5 million did not cover everyone’s planning needs in the region. Mr. Papé asked how the money was allocated, assuming $720,000 per year went into planning. Mr. Schoening replied that it was allocated by the MPC on a recommendation from the TPC using the criteria established for all of the categories. Mr. Kelly indicated he would oppose the main motion. He averred that failure of the amendment ran counter to the sort of discussion the City Council had in the past on strategies to increase road preservation funding. MINUTES—Eugene City Council August 10, 2005 Page 10 Work Session