Item B: River Avenue Improvements

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River Avenue Road Improvements Stakeholder Group Summary Report Submitted by Paul Hoobyar, Facilitator The River Avenue Stakeholder Group (RASG) met for three evening meetings at the Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plant on August 24th, August 30th, and October 5th. The charge of the RASG was to find agreement among property owners and community interests regarding needed improvements along River Avenue. This group convened as a result of Council direction to City staff to better understand what improvements the property owners and community wanted for River Avenue. The group was composed of six representatives from the property owners along River Avenue: Clayton Austin, Greg Austin, Daniel M. Hill, Gordon B. Howard, Chuck Meeker, and Paul Spain. (Note: Due to family commitments, Greg Austin only attended the first stakeholder meeting); Community interests were represented by two River Road Community Organization representatives: Teresa Damron and Krista Rojas; two Santa Clara Community Organization representatives: Mort Hyman and Ann Vaughn, and the Eugene Bike Coalition representative, Yuri Samer. (Note: Rob Handy was an alternate for the RRCO who participated at the end of the last meeting for Teresa Damron). The group decided to use a consensus decision-making model, with a two-thirds super majority vote as a fall back should consensus not be reached. First Meeting The first meeting began with City staff and an ODOT representative providing overviews of the City and state processes for scheduling, prioritizing, and funding road improvement projects. During subsequent discussion, the RASG representatives held widely diverse views on the role of the stakeholder group, the amount of influence the group had over the final decisions for design improvements to River A venue, as well as differences over the design issues associated with River Avenue and the implications of ODOT's future design changes for Beltline Highway and the Beltline bridge. In fact, questions regarding the scope of the design, coupled with questions about Council's intent and charge to the stakeholder group, led to a proposed motion to raise the issue before City Council: Was it the City Council's intent that River Avenue be redesigned spec~flcally to urban design standards. or is some lower level of improvement that is supported by stakeholders acceptable? That proposal was voted down, 8:3. (Minutes-River Avenue Stakeholder Group. August 24, 2005) (NOTE: To gain some insight into the environment in which the stakeholder group was operating, it is worth briefly noting that comments at public meetings from many in the