CC Minutes - 06/08/09 Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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Mr. Corey confirmed, in response to a follow-up question from Councilor Zelenka, that 10 percent of the population of Eugene did not have garbage service and the fee, if passed, would be a pass through. Councilor Zelenka requested that staff bring back a mechanism for a reasonable incremental administration cost. He believed it would be a minimal amount. He also asked staff to bring back language exempting schools. In response to people who asked the council to wait, he said the City had been waiting already for “years and years.” He opined that the surcharge was one of the more equitable ideas the council committee had come up with. He supported it. Councilor Poling opposed the surcharge. He had voted against the surcharge each of the three times it had come before the council and Budget Committee. It did not make sense to him to exact this charge. He predicted that if the surcharge passed, there would be a referendum placed on the ballot to rescind it. He considered such a charge to be “an easy target.” He said there were many heavy trucks traveling on the city streets and it was not fair to single out garbage haulers. Councilor Clark commented that taxes were “the closest thing to eternal life.” He predicted that the surcharge would increase over time, if enacted, and would never go away. He indicated he would oppose the surcharge, adding that if it appeared it might pass, he would move to refer it to the voters. Councilor Solomon asked that any amendment to exempt schools include private schools of 200 or more students. She also wanted to amend the surcharge to ensure that it would remain at five percent. Legal Counsel Kathryn Brotherton stated that exempting schools, private or public, would be difficult to execute because the tax would be on the garbage haulers and how they passed it through would be up to them. She said they would not be able to carve out certain payers. Councilor Solomon asked if it could be capped. Ms. Brotherton replied that the fee would be delegated to the City Manager, as it was currently written. She said the councilors could add codified language to do so. Mayor Piercy understood that the council could not create any language that would prohibit future councils from making a different decision. Councilor Zelenka asked if it would be possible to give the schools a rebate. Ms. Brotherton responded that they could not for the same reasons they could not exempt the schools. She said it might be possible to subsidize something else that the schools paid to the City. She added that the garbage haulers could choose not to assess the schools. In response to a follow-up question from Councilor Zelenka, Ms. Brotherton stated that the rate of return for garbage haulers was approximately 11 percent. Mr. Corey said the ordinance was structured so that the haulers would be made whole. He stated that what staff had shown in the agenda materials was that exemptions from the charge would not work as well as the council, by policy, determining that there were one or more groups that it wanted to hold harmless. He explained that the council would not do this through the ordinance itself; it would have to come from a subsequent policy discussion. Councilor Ortiz said if the surcharge passed and was not referred to the voters, she would want the City to make some kind of agreement with School District 4J and the Bethel School District to mitigate the cost. MINUTES—Eugene City Council June 8, 2009 Page 8 Regular Meeting