CC Minutes - 06/15/09 Public Hearing

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Marion Eddie , 830 Crest Drive, Ward 2, turned in two additional signatures of remonstrance, noting that the total was now 88. She averred that every time the City assessed for road improvements, the people remonstrated. She asked how many more times the council would go through this before they changed the policy. She felt there would always be landowners opposed to such assessments. She asked anyone in the audience who did not intend to speak but was opposed to the assessments to stand and one person did so. Ruth South , 697 Crest Drive, supported the road improvement project but opposed the assessment. She felt that the assessment was an extreme hardship for a small number of property owners. She thought the costs of improvements should be shared by those properties that could only be accessed via Crest Drive. She averred that the system was unfair, though it might have been acceptable some years earlier when construction costs were lower and there was no threat of losing home ownership and when the economic climate was better than the current one. She urged the City Council to declare a delay in order to allow for some change in the financing of the improvements. Jan Fillinger , 695 Crest Drive, voiced his support for the project, but he believed that only assessing 126 residents when “hundreds and even thousands benefit daily” was unjust. He related that for his family the assessment would be $14,000. He had heard Councilor Poling state that 98 cents per month per household [for the garbage hauler fee] was a lot and that he did not feel comfortable asking the citizens to pay it. He thought that it would be more just if the City asked everyone to pay for street improvements just as they asked everyone to pay for public safety services. He said given the “dire economy,” to assess that much of a few families and then charge eight percent interest was “not fair.” He understood that the council had originally budgeted $5.75 million for the project, but bids had come in much lower. He had been told that there were reasons why the project could not use all of the money. He felt the council had indicated that it was willing to pay that much and suggested that the money be utilized to reduce the assessments. He observed that everyone on the council and nearly all of the neighbors believed that the assessment was unfair. He respected the work that had gone into the project. Kathy Saranpa , 3015 Friendly Street, Ward 2, stated that 75 linear feet of her street frontage would be assessed if the council approved the LID and she hoped they would proceed to do so. Regarding fairness, she pointed out that Crest Drive residents had been using roads that others had paid for out of their assessments. She averred that it was “grossly unfair” to ask for a different assessment policy when it was “[their] turn.” She related that paying the assessment would be a hardship for her, but the area residents had been hearing about the project for at least five years at neighborhood meetings, open houses, and through newsletters and newspaper articles. She declared that not only had the residents had time to prepare financially for the project, there were also loans and subsidies available and the possibility of donations from residents in the neighborhood and those outside of it. She believed there was plenty of time to work out the details as the project would be spread out over two summers. She remarked that she could have gone and collected signatures, saying to sign if people wanted the road to be built. She felt it was a person’s choice what to say when collecting signatures and found it shocking that a petition that had legal effect was not strictly limited in terms of how issues it engaged were framed or communicated. She related that the person who had come to her door had known very little about the history of the project, nor had she understood that the petition could halt the project. She said even after she had explained to the woman, the woman had asked if she would sign out of solidarity for those who found the assessment policy unfair. She asserted that at least two people had called the City in an attempt to have their signatures removed from the petition once they had realized that a halt to the project was possible. She declared that the number of volunteer hours that had gone into the project alone should make it worthy of completion. She said the “trust issue” between the City and the Crest citizens had been “successfully overcome” to create the design. She opined that if the council voted to “kill” the project, they would also be voting to “kill the hard won trust” that had taken time MINUTES—Eugene City Council June 15, 2009 Page 4 Public Hearing