Agenda and attachments - 01/12/09 JEO

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4. Jurisdictional autonomy, and 5. Dispute resolution policies. These five issues have been under discussion by the Board for some time and at the December 1, 2008, meeting of the Mayors and Board Chair they were discussed in more detail. Attachment “A” to this memo is a copy of a background st memo that was provided for the December 1 meeting. At that meeting it was determined that simultaneously addressing all of these issues could be too complex of an endeavor. The Mayors and Board Chair suggested staff start by bringing issues #2 and #4 to the January 2009, meeting of the JEO for consideration and direction. As envisioned by the Mayors and Board Chair, the remaining issues could be considered at a later time, once issues #2 and #4 had been resolved. This memo provides an overview of issues #2 and #4 and describes possible Metro Plan amendment approaches to address each. Issue #2: Metro Plan Description of Urban Services Problem Statement: Within the Metro Plan a number of different and inconsistent terms are used when referring to various services provided by the local governments and other agencies. More important and problematic for Lane County is that the terms used in the plan do not specifically refer to, define or recognize those key functions and services that the county provides which are used extensively by urban residents. These key county-provided urban services include: Sheriff and corrections services, criminal prosecution (DA) services, parole and probation services, elections, regional transportation facilities and services, mental health services, public health services, workforce assistance services, animal services and regional park facilities and services. Failure to recognize the county as a provider of these key urban services within the metropolitan area and the Metro Plan is fundamentally unfair and potentially detrimental to the county’s long term ability to maintain them. This is because funding one or more of these services may, at some point, require the establishment of a special taxing district or some other innovative approach to keep those services viable. Under current policies and operational practices of the Metro Plan, the creation of special taxing districts for these services or including them within existing districts would likely not be feasible or could be precluded because public services are not defined and the scope of defined key urban services includes some services cities do not provide. The definitions and Metro Plan policies also may affect or exclude consideration of other services not provided by cities in ways unrelated to land use planning. Proposed Solution: Address deficiencies of the Metro Plan dealing with public and urban services. Revisions may include modifications/clarifications to the text of the fundamental principles; clarifying modifications to goal language and findings and/or modification or clarification of the definition of key urban services and public services within the Metro Plan Glossary. These revisions would clarify 2