CC Minutes - 07/23/08 Work Session

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broad recreational program without those residents because of the balance between fees and revenues. Mr. Weigandt said the district had explored expanding into the Santa Clara area but the boundary commission had not supported the proposal. Mr. Clark asked how the elimination of the boundary commission affected that issue. Mr. Lockard pointed out that the Eugene-Springfield Metropolitan General Area Plan (Metro Plan) stipulated that the City was the logical provider of such services, although the district disagreed with that. Mr. Clark thought the Metro Plan, more than annexation policy, was the driver of the challenge facing the City and district. Ms. Ortiz thanked the representatives of the district. She commended Emerald Park and noted her own family’s use of its facilities. She concurred with Mr. Helkison’s remarks and said the City and district needed to decide where they were heading and what the end product was. She said the City was already struggling to provide recreation and parks services for residents within its tax base. She invited more input into an ultimate solution. She was seeking an equitable solution because not all parts of the community received the same services, depending on their location. Ms. Ortiz suggested that the meeting was the beginning of a longer conversation and hoped that no one came to that discussion with a predisposition of where the discussion would go. Ms. Solomon thought Mr. Helikson’s remarks “cut to the chase” as she believed annexation would solve many of the problems facing the City and district. She was not happy with the City’s current annexation policies because she believed they needed to be more aggressive. However, she was unsure that the City could afford to provide the programs being offered by the district. She thought the $100,000 investment the City made was a good value given that the district was serving a large portion of the community. She was somewhat torn as how to proceed and was unclear as to how the discussion now differed from the discussion that led to the IGA. Mr. Helikson said that the IGA was put into place because the Boundary Commission wanted some arrange- ment between the two parties before it started approving annexations. He did not think anything had changed, and if the City had continued to honor the IGA, the meeting would not have happened. He thought the IGA had worked out well until the City unilaterally decided the amount was $100,000. He reminded the council of the circumstances in regard to sewers that existed at the time, leading to the requirement for any development to annex. Mr. Haniuk pointed out the IGA was a collaborative agreement but the City had been the party that initiated it because of what was expected to happen in regard to annexation over the next 20 years. Now people were only annexing for the purpose of development. The district had many areas that were subsequently annexed into Eugene, eliminating revenue to the district. In regard to the concept that this was the beginning of a longer conversation, Mr. Haniuk pointed out that the district could not wait for much longer before it would have to reduce services. Ms. Solomon said that if the City were to absorb the district in the future, she thought it would be better to absorb a healthy district rather than allowing the district to “die slowly on the vine” and then inherit something that required a huge infusion of cash. Mr. Helikson did not think the City could operate the district as frugally as it was operated now because the two entities did not have the same cost basis. Speaking to the implication in the meeting materials that the district’s services were so good they would have to be brought down to the City’s level, Mr. Helikson said that the district and City could arrange to make the park accessible to all residents with the appropriate funding. He did not think there was a reason to equalize MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 23, 2008 Page 5 Work Session