CC Minutes - 11/10/08 Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Councilor Bettman declared that many of the items in the document were far-reaching and would not get passed by the council. She felt many updates had not been made to the document. She did not know whether the council supported the “Big Look.” She did not know whether the City really wanted to “further gut” the land use system by amending BM 49. Ms. Wilson said the Big Look Task Force was currently meeting and would present its recommendation to the Legislature shortly. Councilor Bettman observed that the Legislative Document indicated council support before the council had seen it. Ms. Wilson affirmed this. She explained that the document was general and was not usually used by lobbying staff except in an emergency. She stressed that it was important to remember that the CCIGR would review all bills that pertained to the City on a case-by-case basis. She said while the City might support the Governor’s transportation funding bill, which called for a two-cent per gallon state gas tax increase, if it preempted the local gas tax the City might have a different position on it. She reiterated that they reserved the right to look at every bill because the “devil is in the details.” Councilor Pryor appreciated the work done on reformatting the document. He commended the CCIGR on the work they had done to make it more understandable. He said the reason he did not feel a need to go into great detail on it at the current meeting was that, as the legislative session progressed, the individual bills that would be proposed would be discussed at length in the CCIGR. He stated that overall he supported the document as written. Councilor Zelenka also appreciated the format, calling it easy to follow. He asked if Ms. Wilson knew how the two-cent gas tax would be allocated. Ms. Wilson responded that a 50:30:20 split was being recom- mended that should put an additional $91 million into local government. She said the City of Eugene’s share was based on its percentage of the population of the State of Oregon, estimated to provide the City with $5.3 million. She noted that there were other funding mechanisms in the package such as doubling the state titling fee and doubling the registration fee. She related that the House Transportation Committee had authorized the drafting of a bill that would eliminate the need for counties to go out to voters to increase their registration fees. She called it a “tool box of funding options” for the State. She said a committee would be convened under the Governor’s recommendation to look for a long-term permanent replacement for the gas tax since they believed it was a diminishing funding resource. She added that the Senate also authorized a bill to be drafted that would eliminate the gas tax based on a dollar amount and replace it with one based on percentage of sales. Councilor Zelenka asked if there was any word from the gas station lobby. Ms. Wilson responded that they would tend to support an increase in the gas tax at the state level as long as local governments were preempted. Councilor Zelenka recalled that when the Transportation Committee had been convened they had been “stymied” because registration fees could only be increased at the County level. He asked if it would be possible for the City to look at a registration fee at the local level. Ms. Wilson replied that they could look at it. She noted that Representative Beyer served as the Chair of the House Transportation Committee, and might be amenable to allowing an amendment to allow cities to also collect registration fees. She said whether there was the political will to do so was a different question. In response to a question from Councilor Zelenka, Ms. Wilson explained that every property tax exemption reduced the amount of money that went into the General Fund. She said in every session there were so many tax exemption bills on the table it was hard to keep track of them all. She averred that as the session progressed it was not the best exemptions that were passed, but rather the first exemptions that were passed. MINUTES—Eugene City Council November 10, 2008 Page 5 Regular Meeting