CC Minutes - 12/08/08 Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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M I N U T E S Eugene City Council Regular Meeting Council Chamber—Eugene City Hall 777 Pearl Street—Eugene, Oregon December 8, 2008 7:30 p.m. COUNCILORS PRESENT: Chris Pryor, Bonny Bettman, George Poling, Jennifer Solomon, Mike Clark, Alan Zelenka, Betty Taylor. COUNCILORS ABSENT: Andrea Ortiz Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the meeting of the Eugene City Council to order. 1. CEREMONIAL MATTERS Mayor Piercy read a proclamation certifying the November 4, 2008, Election Results into the record. She thanked the voters for supporting the two citywide ballot measures. 2. PUBLIC FORUM Mayor Piercy reviewed the rules of the Public Forum. Zachary Vishanoff , Ward 3, handed out copies of articles from the New York Times. He said people should Google “New York Times Ohio arena district” to see the article. He asked that copies be passed out so that he could walk the councilors through the article. He believed the planning had been “fractured” in the Fairmount neighborhood. He was concerned that the University of Oregon would try to seize Hirons’ Drugstore and PC Market of Choice on Franklin Boulevard using eminent domain. He felt the article would help the council see the “big picture” in which “government had gone wild” and pursued privatization for a sports entertainment district. Drix thanked the council for their time. He reiterated his love for the City of Eugene. He averred that the world was changing and being flexible to change was healthy. He related that a friend who worked in advertising had shared with him that the most powerful words to use were ‘you,’ ‘new,’ and ‘now.’ He wanted to share his visions in honor of the upcoming holidays and recalled “Eugene past,” the days when the Eugene Hotel was in operation and there was a shoeshine business in front of it and the men of the day wore fedoras and smoked cigars. He pointed out that people no longer shined shoes or smoked cigars and now people wore baseball caps instead of fedoras. He wanted to figure out what the community wanted and then figure out how to get it. He related his new words: “canopy thinking” in which one rose above the trees and saw the bigger picture and “yaya,” the meaning of which he was not sure of but he had heard people saying it a lot. Mark Rabinowitz , P.O. Box 51222, Eugene, thanked Councilor Bettman for her years of public service. He especially appreciated her “leadership on many transportation and land use and democracy issues” in the community. He had suggestions about the economic crash. He averred that “close to a quarter billion dollars in public debt” was being spent on the University of Oregon arena. He opined that this money could MINUTES—Eugene City Council December 8, 2008 Page 1 Regular Meeting