Item 2A - Approval of City Council Minutes

Home Browse Search

• We will recommit ourselves to Eugene’s Growth Management policies and measure how we are doing to accomplish those policies. The world in which we live While I have talked about what we worked to accomplish and some rather ambitious goals for the year ahead, it is important to acknowledge that we live in a country at war, where many families are making huge sacrifices. We live in a country where our social service infrastructure is being cut, affecting people here at home and across our state. There are too many who struggle to be housed and fed. Health care is harder to access all the time. I hope that former Governor John Kitzhaber will call upon us to support a single-payer system. Something simply has to be done. The gap between the rich and the poor grows. I am proud of our local efforts to provide clinics and stop-gap services for the uninsured. I am saddened that those with mental illness lack services that are so needed. We live in a country where drug addiction affects so many lives and has such a huge impact on our quality of life, social service and public safety systems. We have worked with our regional partners to address these issues but resolution is far away. We will continue to apply the best practices we can locally. We live in a country where our public schools struggle with inadequate funding at all levels. While we are fortunate here in Eugene to have a high quality of education, the challenges grow. The survival of a good public school system seems imperative for a civil and just society and yet it continues to be undercut. Our children depend on us to provide them with the education they need to be prepared for tomorrow. Our institutions of higher education need to be available to all our children or they will be left behind and our society will suffer. The City will partner with our school districts and institutions of higher education whenever we can. You will be asked to continue supporting local measures that fund our schools and our library, the core of our quality of life here in Eugene. We live in a state where Measure 37 brings into question the future of our land use policies and the future of Oregon as we know it. We need to engage in a discussion about the future and all the communities, farms, and natural resources these policies help us protect. We will watch the court decision regarding this important issue and its impact on our city. We live in a larger context of state, national and international policies. Now, more than ever, it is clear that the work we do at home is important. Doing our part for peace, for justice, for access to education, religious freedom, access to healthcare, food, shelter - our part to care for the resources we have so that they are there for the future, for our children and their children – is vital. We are truly fortunate to live here. I know you will join me in continuing to care and act upon that caring. I am so very proud to be your Mayor. VI. MUSICAL SELECTION Those present heard a second musical selection by the Oregon Peace Choir. VII. ADJOURN MINUTES—Eugene City Council January 5, 2006 Page 8 State of the City