02/26/09 - City Council Newsletter

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neighborhoods, government and non-government – for a more resilient community," according to Jan Spencer, River Road neighborhood member of the summit planning team. This is the second Neighborhood Summit in Eugene. This event is being organized by volunteers from neighborhood associations and staff from the City of Eugene Neighborhood Services. Eugene Receives Award for Paving Excellence On February 24, Eugene received the second place award for paving excellence for urban pavements by the Asphalt Paving Association of Oregon (APAO) in recognition of its Pavement Preservation Program project on Chambers Street from Railroad Boulevard to 8th Avenue. Each year, the APAO reviews paving projects by cities, counties, ODOT, the federal government, and private parties all over the state, and recognizes the owner and the contractor of the top projects at an awards ceremony at its annual spring meeting. The Chambers Street project was built in 2008 by Wildish Construction. It was a difficult project due to the amount of traffic, bridges, variable width and the night work involved. City staff Matt Rodrigues and Katie Marwitz were credited for doing a great job designing and managing the project. Tom Fahsbender, Dan Kepley and Mike Koivula inspected the project and did a very good job working with the contractor to ensure good quality materials and construction practices were used; and the contractor did an excellent paving job leading to a finished pavement which is very smooth and of high quality. The APAO rating team members said they "were impressed with the quality of the finished product especially considering the difficult site conditions. We also like the way this treatment and pavement section fits into the perpetual pavement and sustainable pavement management scenario." For more information, please contact Pavement Preservation Program Manager Matt Rodrigues at 682-6036. Online Classes at Eugene Public Library The Downtown Library will offer a window into the wide world of blogging with a free introductory class, Saturday, February 28, at 10:00 a.m. Participants will learn to use the free website Blogger, RSS, Bloglines, or Google Reader to automatically deliver updated information and entertainment from their preferred online sources. Internet experience is required as is a Google "gmail" account. Participants should sign up for the free gmail account in advance and bring their username and password to class. Both classes require pre-registration, which may be done by calling the Library at 682-5450 (press 2). Interagency Project Standardizes Fire Hydrant Mapping Eugene's Fire & EMS and Public Works departments, in partnership with EWEB, have undertaken a comprehensive mapping and numbering project for all 4,500-plus public fire hydrants in Eugene. The result will be more accurate and more consistent information for both EWEB and the City. Before, each had relied upon -- and communicated with the other agency based on -- its own hydrant mapping and numbering system. As time has passed, and as hydrants have gone into and out of service around the city, exact location and ID number discrepancies have arisen. In recognition of this, the City's Geographic Information Services Committee, and GIS staff in Public Works, are now reconciling the two mapping and ID systems for the benefit of both agencies. (In a related measure, EWEB has agreed to assume responsibility for routine hydrant flow-testing in a manner that preserves residential water quality, while Fire & EMS will continue to maintain all public hydrants in proper working order.) The improved mapping information will allow for more efficient location of hydrants for routine and non-routine maintenance, clearing away of shrubs and other obscuring objects, and emergency use in the field. The graphic image above shows a portion of the work to-date, with hydrant locations in Eugene's North Gilham area. The project is expected EUGENE CITY COUNCIL NEWSLETTER PAGE 2 February 26, 2009