Item 3: Follow-up on 2009 Legislative Policies

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City of Eugene Legislative Policies for 2009 Oregon Legislative Session F4. Expungements ?Eugene supports stiffening expungement criteria. ?Eugene supports allowing juvenile criminal records to be sealed rather than destroyed. ?Eugene supports allowing the City to recover its actual costs in complying with expungement court orders. The City is frequently ordered by the State District and Circuit Courts to expunge individual adult or juvenile criminal records which meet certain criteria. The State charges and collects a fee to cover the processing costs for adult expungements, but local government also bears a workload burden in this process. Expungements are a complex and staff-intensive process. While the expungement process allows individuals to clear their records after certain periods of time, they also impede investigations of criminal activity that has formed a pattern over the course of several years. G.TOBACCO REGULATION ?Eugene supports the restriction of youth access to tobacco including a prohibition on the sale of tobacco products to minors, a license for retailers selling tobacco products, and a prohibition on self-service tobacco sales. H.USE OF INITIATIVE PROCESS, ELECTION REFORM ?Eugene supports increasing the number of signatures required for an initiated constitutional amendment. ?Eugene supports limiting the extent to which an initiated constitutional amendment can require the state and/or local governments to make appropriations or incur expenditures in excess of a certain amount to be fixed by law. ?Eugene supports the requirement that prospective petitions be submitted to an appropriate state agency (Legislative Counsel or Attorney General) for advisory technical review prior to approval for circulation. The number of statewide initiatives measures has steadily increased in recent elections. As a result, some problems have arisen that affect both state and local government in Oregon. While state and legislative bodies are required to balance budgets, initiative lawmaking is under no such constraints. Some initiative measures have imposed heavy financial burdens on state and local governments, and yet made no provision for paying the cost of those burdens. Several initiatives have enacted new programs or policies directly into the State constitution rather than by statute, creating difficulties of interpretation, implementation and financing. Initiative campaigns are increasingly placed on the ballot by private sponsors, without public or legal review, and are promoted by professional high-tech campaigns. Voters are faced with a 34