Item 2A - Approval of Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Ms. Taylor moved, seconded by Ms. Bettman, to direct the city manager to bring back to the City Council as quickly as State statutes allow an ordinance to impose a moratorium on accepting or processing applications for retail establishments in ex- cess of 50,000 square feet. Ms. Taylor said her purpose was to give the council time to think and discuss possibilities and the reasons were to protect local jobs, local businesses, and downtown and to encourage businesses that kept money in the community rather than businesses that caused more social service expenditures. Mr. Kelly remarked that he would support the motion. He pointed out that a moratorium would not stop the current Wal-Mart application as the law that applied was the law in effect the day the application was submitted; its purpose was to prevent for a short period a potential mistake that could cost the community economically and environmentally for 20 or 30 years while the alternatives were considered. He said the reasons were threefold: 1) economic development and how the local economy was supported; 2) wage and benefits issues; and 3) land use issues. He said that it might not be legally possible to distinguish between national and local ownership, but other municipalities had been able to distinguish by using formula business or chain business. He noted that other cities had agreed that preventing, limiting, or reviewing further ;;big box" development was valuable, just as anti-trust laws existed to provide additional regulation of businesses with dominant market power. Mr. Meisner commented that he had supported the motion at the previous meeting, but was not going to support it currently because the moratorium was based solely on square footage in excess of 50,000 square feet and did not give notice to the city manager to prepare anything on any other grounds. Ms. Bettman acknowledged that the moratorium was problematic and restrictive, but when the land use code was updated there was not the political will to address issues related to %ig box" retail. She agreed with the Mayor's comments regarding the many issues involved and said if the council wanted to fulfill its underlying value of protecting local businesses and jobs and providing living wage jobs with benefits, that's what it should be negotiating. She said it was important to see how chain stores functioned in and impacted the community and she wanted the community to have a positive influence on the matter. She stated she would support the motion because it would expedite the council's ability to look at the issue and suggested referring it to the Mayor's Economic Development Committee for recommendations on criteria. Ms. Nathanson stated she would not support a moratorium because it could prevent the expansion of local businesses as well as %ig box" retail, which was the wrong message to send when the City was trying to encourage economic recovery. She expressed concern about characterization of ~those jobs" and said economic development should encourage manufacturing, not retail. She said that not all %ig box" stores paid the same wage and had the same benefit structure and asked how those compared to the communities' very small retailer and food service employers. She wondered whether the concerns were about wages, ownership, or square footage and transportation and said too many things were being addressed with the wrong solution. Mr. Pap~ said that before a decision was made, more specific information on the actual impact of %ig box" stores on the local should be obtained. He said that it was important to encourage the growth of existing smaller businesses but he was not a protectionist and did not think they should be protected from competi- tion. He said that minimum wage jobs offered employment opportunities to young people and students. He MINUTES--Eugene City Council May 24, 2004 Page 8 Work Session