Ordinance No. 20360 - Laserfiche WebLink

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