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Ordinance No. 20360
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2006 No. 20357-20374
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Ordinance No. 20360
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Last modified
6/10/2010 4:45:52 PM
Creation date
2/14/2006 11:04:39 AM
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Template:
City Recorder
CMO_Document_Type
Ordinances
Document_Date
2/13/2006
Document_Number
20360
CMO_Effective_Date
2/14/2006
Author
Kitty Piercy
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<br />according to the work performed to further the project is the standard practice within the City's <br />engineering section, and it has withstood independent examination in the past. There is no <br />reason to suspect that it was done in anything less than a completely professional manner in this <br />project. <br /> <br />Another property owner questioned the legitimacy of using the engineering costs set by the City <br />Manager's administrative order. Establishing costs for City services by consideration of the <br />factors that the City Manager used in establishing the engineering costs is a standard procedure. <br />In any large organization, there are other costs for personnel besides the salary or wages paid to <br />the person. It is legitimate to include these costs, because they are costs to the City for the <br />engineering services provided by City personnel, and that is the purpose of the City Manager's <br />order. It makes no difference that the administrative order discusses charges for private <br />improvements. The City cannot charge different rates for the engineering services it provides to <br />private individuals than it charges to itself. <br /> <br />The final challenge to included costs was a challenge to the City's inclusion of administrative <br />costs, which are calculated by using a standard five percent of the other costs. These <br />administrative costs are actual costs of the improvement. They are costs that are difficult to <br />calculate during the implementation of the project, since they include costs which are not finally <br />capable of being calculated until the project is completed and the assessments are levied. Rather <br />than increasing the cost by delaying the assessment until all these costs are fixed, the City has <br />chosen the process of calculating a standard cost for these elements, and assigning that standard <br />to each project. Since this calculation is based on a large number of projects, the five percent <br />standard is a reflection of the experience and is the best reflection possible of actual costs. There <br />is no better available means to calculate these costs. The method reflects, with the accuracy of <br />experience, actual costs of the improvement project. To exclude these costs would be <br />inappropriate, because it would mean excluding actual costs of the project. <br /> <br />All of these costs, engineering and administrative and similar costs, are what some objectors <br />referred to as "soft" costs, as opposed to the "hard costs" reflecting the payments made to the <br />construction contractors. Nothing in the Constitutional limits on assessments, or state laws or the <br />Eugene Code makes a distinction between "hard" and "soft" costs. Both types of costs exist <br />because they are actual costs, without which the project would not be accomplished. The Eugene <br />Code clearly establishes that all actual costs, hard and soft, should be included in the assessment. <br /> <br />The final argument raised by property owners concerned a challenge to the timing of the charges <br />included in the assessment. The Eugene Charter provides that amendments to Eugene's <br />assessment ordinances go into effect six months after adoption, and can apply only to <br />improvements authorized by the Council after the effective date of the amendments. The <br />Council was careful of its timing when it began its progress toward completing the alley <br />improvements. As it first considered proposed amendments to the assessment ordinance, the <br />necessary procedures and time limits to accomplish the West University alley improvements <br />were laid before the Council, and the Council took pains to act appropriately within the time <br /> <br />LOCAL IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT ASSESSMENTS FOR ALLEY IMPROVEMENTS IN THE WEST <br />UNIVERSITY NEIGHBORHOOD Page 7 <br />
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