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sustainable. He had come to believe, however, that growth of a community and the growth of people getting together and interacting was sustainable. He believed this was the type of growth that was important for the council to support. He added that he bicycled from Springfield to Eugene every day. He said without bicycle lanes he would not be doing so. He supported inclusion of bicycle lanes in the Friendly Street project. Mayor Piercy closed the Public Forum. Councilor Clark thanked the people for coming. He asked City Engineer, Mark Schoening, to come forward to respond to a question. He noted that Mr. Schoening, Public Works Director, Kurt Corey, and several other staff people had been very helpful to the people in Ward 5 with a project much like the Crest Drive area, also a street that had not been improved to city standards. He recalled that the process was complex for citizens to vote on whether or not they wanted to upgrade their street. He asked when the vote to upgrade Crest Drive had taken place and how long the vote was “good for.” Mr. Schoening explained that there were two ways that a Local Improvement District (LID) could be initiated: the property owners could come together and initiate it or the City Council could initiate the project. He related that the council had initiated the Crest/Storey/Friendly project, the Chad Drive project, and the Maple/Elmira project of which Councilor Clark was speaking. Councilor Clark asked when the projects had been initiated. Mr. Schoening replied that they had all been initiated in the past three years through the budget process. He said before a contract was awarded to initiate construction on any of the three projects there would be a public hearing before the Hearings Official. He stated that if the people who would pay for 50 percent or more of the assessed cost remonstrated against the project, it would be heard by the City Council. He added that a two-thirds majority of the council was then required to move a project forward. In response to a follow-up question from Councilor Clark, Mr. Schoening stated that the hearings for all three of the projects were scheduled for some time in April. Councilor Clark wanted to ensure that the people who would be assessed were completely aware of the process. Mr. Schoening responded that everyone concerned would be notified as to the time and place for the public hearing. Councilor Taylor thanked everyone for coming. She hoped that the City could find a way to delay the aerial spraying in order to gain more information. She agreed with Crest area residents that the assessments were “outrageous” and the wrong way to pay for streets. She asked for information on whether the side streets that accessed Crest Drive to get out of their streets could be assessed. She also believed that the Tango Center was important for the downtown for all of the reasons that its proponents had listed. She believed that it fostered a connection to the University and provided a place for youth to go. Councilor Ortiz thanked everyone for coming. She asked if there would be a difference in the street assessment methodology if the street was classified as a collector versus a local street. Mr. Schoening affirmed that there would be. He said the underlying principle in the assessment code was that regardless of the classification of the street one lived on, everyone would pay the equivalent of a local street assessment. He explained that it would be different for the Maple/Elmira project than for the Crest Drive area. He further explained that the Chad Drive assessments would not be for the bicycle lanes or the center turn lanes, but would pay for the sidewalks and the rest of the asphalt. Councilor Ortiz ascertained from Mr. Schoening that there were “different monies” for the different parts of the projects. She recalled that in the three years that the City had been involved in the context-sensitive design process with the Crest Drive area residents, they had objected to reclassifying the streets to collectors. Mr. Schoening confirmed this. MINUTES—Eugene City Council February 23, 2009 Page 6 Regular Meeting