CC Minutes - 04/27/09 Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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part of the City’s budget process. He preferred to delay action until other options had been explored by the Budget Committee. Councilor Zelenka spoke to the need for a comprehensive funding package to address maintenance and repair of roads. He said the issue had been discussed at length by the committee and many funding options examined. He said the committee had recommended a package of funding options, one of which was the garbage hauler surcharge. He asked staff to discuss the reasons that a surcharge was not expanded to include other heavy vehicles. Ms. Carlson said the committee had discussed expanding the surcharge to other heavy vehicles, but found a broader fee structure would be problematic because it could be seen as a vehicle registration fee, which only counties could impose, along with the administrative difficulty and expense of identifying and assessing a fee on all categories of heavy vehicles. Councilor Zelenka said the amount of deferred maintenance was continuing to grow and the condition of streets was getting worse. He did not see where other funds could be obtained in the budget process, given the City’s financial shortfall. He supported amendments related to school districts and a sunset clause to allow a review of the ordinance in one year. Councilor Brown asked if garbage haulers would be compensated for the labor and time involved in collecting the surcharge. Ms. Carlson said there had been no discussions of that and the City would need more information on what the haulers perceived as the incremental effort involved. She said the calculations would be made on the same basis of revenue as the current licensing fees and it was the City’s goal to make the process as easy as possible. She said compensation could be considered in the administrative rule process. Councilor Brown agreed with Councilor Pryor’s suggestion to consider the matter during the Budget Committee’s deliberations. City Manager Jon Ruiz said there would need to be a discussion because failure to adopt the ordinance meant there would be a $900,000 hole in the road operations and maintenance budget. He said the proposed budget contemplated having the surcharge revenue available. Councilor Clark agreed that the City needed to go through a priority setting discussion before the council considered adding or increasing fees. He said the garbage haulers would pass the surcharge along to customers and it was a bad time to impose additional costs on residents. He was particularly sensitive to the impact on schools and concerned that if exceptions were made for them there would be requests for exceptions for others who might qualify for special treatment. Councilor Ortiz said she could not have supported a ten percent surcharge, but would support it at the five percent level. She asserted that councilors were elected to make difficult decisions and she did not want to refer the surcharge to the Budget Committee; the public expected the council to work on the problem of funding the transportation system. She agreed that the timing was not good, but did not think the surcharge was unreasonable. She pointed out that currently construction costs were less expensive and it was a good time to continue to work on roads. She urged the council to support the ordinance. The motion failed, 5:3; councilors Brown, Zelenka and Ortiz voting yes. Mayor Piercy asked the council to indicate if there was a majority of members who wanted the surcharge discussed within the context of the budget process. Councilor Solomon stated that she wanted to discuss the matter at the Budget Committee level and asked that staff provide information on the garbage hauler system, including licensing process and fees and MINUTES—Eugene City Council April 27, 2009 Page 8