CC Minutes - 12/08/08 Work Session

Home Browse Search

C. WORK SESSION City Council Goal Update – Neighborhood Empowerment Renee Grube, Library, Recreation and Cultural Services, said the council’s neighborhood empowerment goal focused on two things: building strong leadership in neighborhoods and work collaborative with residents to deliver City services and achieve neighborhood priorities. She said a joint committee of neighborhood leaders and City staff had been meeting monthly for the past year to work through the 23 action items identified in the Neighborhood Empowerment Action Plan. She recognized a number of committee members in the audience. She introduced Carolyn Weiss, project lead, to discuss the committee’s progress to date. Ms. Weiss said the committee had focused its efforts on the following action items that were identified as high priorities for the neighborhoods at the 2007 neighborhood summit: 1. Shift involvement of neighborhood associations to be earlier in the land use process. 2. Infill compatibility standards and opportunity siting. 3. Increase ongoing support for neighborhood associations. 4. Integrate neighborhood priorities identified in the City’s operating budget and capital improvement program and the council’s goals. Ms. Weiss said progress on those items included hiring a neighborhood planner to assist neighborhoods to be more informed about and effective in the land use process. She listed a number of steps taken to improve communications with neighborhoods and said the City had offered 14 scholarships to the Oregon Planning Institute conference to interested neighborhoods. She said an assessment of the neighborhood services program had just been completed to identify ways to improve support for neighborhood. She announced that another neighborhood summit was planned for March 7, 2009, with a focus on identifying methods to improve and expand collaboration between neighborhood associations and the City. Mr. Clark commented that he heard frequently from neighborhoods about land use planning. He asked if the neighborhood planner would be measuring the priorities and goals of a broad section of a particular neighborhood, not just those who participated in the association. Ms. Weiss responded that staff had been discussing an equitable system for developing neighborhood plans that did not being with one neighborhood, leaving the others behind. She said the system would allow neighborhoods to take the initiative to move forward with their plans and there would be readiness components that required involvement of a broad cross-section of the neighborhood, particularly during the early phases of issue identification. The tools for that were still being developed. Mr. Clark said many constituents had remarked that neighborhood groups who spoke on behalf of the neighborhood actually had differing levels of participation in the organization. He was interested in the true representative nature of the voices that were being heard and assuring that services being delivered were truly desired by a large cross-section of the neighborhoods. Mr. Zelenka saw the goal as twofold: strengthen and support neighborhood associations and involve neighborhoods earlier and more effectively in the land use process to preserve and protect their livability. He hoped the initiative would continue to pursue those two goals. Ms. Piercy hoped neighborhood residents felt that the last neighborhood summit drove actions and priorities. MINUTES—Eugene City Council December 8, 2008 Page 7 Work Session