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unjust process.” Marion Eddie , 830 Crest Drive, Ward 2, urged the council to rethink the street assessment policy. She believed it would be best to postpone the street project in order to “revamp” the City statute. She acknowledged the work that had gone into the road design and understood that the people who worked on it did not want it to be for nothing. She agreed with that. She said if they were talking about hard work, they should also consider the hard work that the families who would be assessed for the road costs were doing to support their homes and families. She pointed out that these people were now being asked to produce an additional $10,000 to $20,000. She asked the council to consider whether 300 volunteer hours “for a few individuals” were more important than the “thousands of hours of additional payroll work for 100 families.” She opined that the timing was especially bad, given the current rate of unemployment locally. She asked the council to give consideration to the “families who were frightened to death” of the assessment. She asked the City to, at a minimum, “dig deep” and come up with more funding to help them. Bill Eddie , 830 Crest Drive, Ward 2, also spoke to the assessment issue. He averred that the council had been informed by testimony and a remonstrance signed by 86 citizens that the majority faced with the assessment felt it was unfair and unaffordable. He related some of the councilors’ comments regarding the assessment policy from the March 9 work session that indicated agreement that the assessments could be construed as unfair and unwieldy. He believed that the comments showed that even the councilors were uncomfortable with the assessment policy. He declared that the time seemed right to change “this wrong.” He underscored that road projects would “go on forever” and the council would face them again. He hoped the councilors’ statements would translate into a fair and affordable assessment policy. Steven Mayberry , 3439 Storey Boulevard, stated that he had bought his house approximately nine years earlier. He had emailed all of the councilors. He stressed that he and his wife were public school teachers with two children and an older relative living with them. He said they were taking out a second mortgage to pay for the street assessment, because paying for it would “devastate” them financially. He did not understand the idea that because 90 percent of the people in Eugene had already been assessed in this manner, it would be unfair to change the law to save the last 10 percent from the assessment. He believed that if citizens had to worry about fairness in that way, no laws would ever be changed. He agreed with Councilor Taylor that it was an unfair system. He asserted that the way street repairs were paid for would have to change. Marlene Varady , 420 Crest Drive, quoted William Shakespeare as having said “the people are the city.” She underscored the request of the people in the Crest Drive area for the council to consider all of their petitions. She appreciated that they had been able to come together to present to the council its petition for change. She acknowledged that they were asking the council to enact a big change. She believed it would be a large change for the future. She noted that she lived across from the Wayne Morse Family Farm and asked them to consider what Wayne Morse would have wanted. Toby Gamberoni , 691 Crest Drive, urged the council to delay the Crest Drive/Storey Boulevard/Friendly Street project. He encouraged the City to consider a citywide tax for future projects. He believed that the current assessment system was “possibly unfair and definitely outdated.” He related that he was being assessed $7,500 for 17.5 feet of access road, the minimum charge. He asserted that 71 to 85 percent of the people using the roads were not being asked to pay for it. He supported the institution of the garbage hauler fee and a commensurate change in how assessments were charged. Richard Wohlberg , 310 Crest Drive, encouraged the council not to build the road currently. He did not want to cut off all of the efforts that people had made to design the road. He hoped that just the delay would go through. He noted the difficulty that people were experiencing in getting loans at present, which made it MINUTES—Eugene City Council June 8, 2009 Page 2 Regular Meeting