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M I N U T E S <br /> <br /> <br />Eugene City Council <br />McNutt Room—City Hall—777 Pearl Street <br />Eugene, Oregon <br /> <br /> February 18, 2009 <br /> Noon <br /> <br />COUNCILORS PRESENT: Chris Pryor, Betty Taylor, Andrea Ortiz, Mike Clark, Alan Zelenka, <br />George Poling, George Brown, Jennifer Solomon (via telephone). <br /> <br />Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the work session of the Eugene City Council to order. <br /> <br />A. WORK SESSION: <br /> <br />FY10 Budget Strategies to Maintain Road Fund Service Levels <br /> <br /> <br />City Manager Jon Ruiz stated that the goal of the work session was to discuss the matter, but he was not <br />asking the council to take any action. He said funding for road preservation, as well as operations and <br />maintenance, had been the subject of difficult budget discussion over the past several years. He noted that <br />the City was trying to fill an $8 million gap in the General Fund and there were gaps in other funds as well, <br />including the Road Fund. He said that meant there was no money in the General Fund to help provide <br />services in other funds and in order to develop a sustainable budget the organizational footprint would be <br />reduced. He introduced Public Works Executive Director Kurt Corey to present the topic. <br /> <br />Mr. Corey described the three-pronged approach to transportation system funding: operations and <br />maintenance (O&M), capital preservation and construction of new streets adding capacity to the system. He <br />said there were no funding concerns with new streets, but there was a $170 million backlog of deferred <br />preservation projects. With respect to the preservation backlog, he said that $9 million annually was needed <br />to prevent the backlog from increasing and $18 million annually would eliminate the backlog in 20 years. <br /> <br />Mr. Corey explained the activities that comprised O&M and said revenue to support them was somewhat <br />limited; the primary source historically had been the State Highway Trust Fund, which was derived from the <br />State’s gas tax. He said the gas tax had not been adjusted in 16 years and during that time the yield on the <br />tax was down. He said $2.5 million had come to the City annually from Lane County for roads, but was no <br />longer available and the loss of revenue, coupled with increased operating costs combined to create a <br />funding gap of approximately $4 million. <br /> <br />Mr. Corey reviewed the work of the council’s Subcommittee on Transportation Funding and the status of its <br />recommendations. He said the proposals now before the council were twofold: a right-of-way use fee on <br />stormwater and wastewater utilities and a transportation surcharge on solid waste haulers. He said both <br />could become locally controlled sustainable components in a broad package of transportations system <br />funding mechanisms. He said the proposals would fully fund the O&M gap in perpetuity. He said next <br />steps would be to move forward with public hearings on each of the proposals if the council wished. He <br />said there was a clear nexus between providing utility systems and garbage service and having a viable <br />transportation system. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />MINUTES—Eugene City Council February 18, 2009 Page 1 <br /> Work Session <br /> <br />