CC Minutes - 01/23/06 Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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M I N U T E S Eugene City Council Regular Session Council Chamber—City Hall January 23, 2006 7:30 p.m. COUNCILORS PRESENT: Jennifer Solomon, David Kelly, Chris Pryor, Betty Taylor, Gary Papé, Andrea Ortiz, Bonny Bettman. COUNCILORS ABSENT: George Poling. 1. PUBLIC FORUM Mayor Piercy welcomed everyone to the City Council meeting and reviewed the rules of the Public Forum. Joan Kleban , 966 Jackson Street, owner of a retail store in the downtown area, said she felt excited that there were new ideas and “new things happening” in regard to the downtown development proposed by Connor and Woolley. The fact that such development would be under one ownership created some anxiety for her, however. She thought the City should delve further into whether the developers would actually provide housing, as opposed to parking lots that the City would help to fund. She said it could be vital to provide some kind of funding for small business owners such as herself to have incentives to relocate in the downtown area. She felt it was a wonderful idea to look at development in the downtown area and that a good theater would be an asset. Jan Wilson , 1260 President Street, wished to speak about the City’s Web site. She said her work both as a public interest advocate and a general citizen required her to access the City Web site frequently. She stressed that she “almost never” was able to get what she wanted. She related that every time she visited the Web site, her computer locked up. She stated that she visited many city, county, and state agency Web sites in her work and did not have this experience with any of them. She explained that she would open a folder and by the time she paged down two pages, the computer would lock up and error messages would appear. She said once this happened she could not get back and would have to reboot the whole computer and start over. She stated that the Table of Contents for the Land Use Code had every single section of the code listed, but no matter which section a person would click on, they were given the entire 400 pages of Chapter 9. She found herself constantly calling staff. She related that she was part of the group that put together the Oregon League of Conservation Voters score card. She said she completed the County’s score card in three days, but because of extreme difficulty in accessing council minutes through the Web site she had been forced to come to the Eugene City Recorder’s Office and review hard copies of the minutes, page by page. She called the new system tedious. She acknowledged that the City spent a lot of money on the upgrade, and asked the City to spend a little more to get it right. John Dotson , 2447 Canterbury Street, related that he and his wife felt that the River Road/Santa Clara Task Force did not want them at the meetings. He said they attended several meetings at which the Open MINUTES—Eugene City Council January 23, 2006 Page 1 Regular Session