Item 2A: Approval of City Council Minutes

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Mr. Brown asked if council action on the recommendation could be referred to a ballot. Mr. Klein said the council could choose to place a measure on the ballot, but unless it voluntarily agreed to do so, the council could take action such that they could not be referred. Mr. Brown believed that if the council failed to refer its action to the voters it would destroy the council’s credibility even further and would be a terrible mistake. Speaking to the question of what would happen to City Hall if the police moved out, Mr. Poling suggested that was part of the future process. He said if the City Council decided to bring other functions back to City Hall if the police moved out, he would be willing to give up his office space, which he did not use and which was a project that had cost much more than initially envisioned. Speaking to Mr. Brown’s concern about the airport fire station, Mr. Poling pointed out that the City was in the process of building a new station with the use of federal stimulus money as well as from other sources. Mr. Poling said the public voted down new taxes, not necessarily a new police facility. Subsequently, the City Council had begun to set aside the money. The City had the need and opportunity to use the money as intended, and the council had the right to make the decision about the expenditure. Mr. Poling believed that the space issue was one of the hard decisions the council had to make. He said the council could “dance around” the issue and have a “chicken and egg” discussion but he thought it needed to “step up to the plate” and make a decision. Mr. Zelenka reiterated that the issue for him was not about the police patrol but about City Hall and all the functions in City Hall. He said he supported referring a measure to the ballot if it addressed only the police facility. He considered the recommendation a plan to deal with all the functions in City Hall. He reiterated that the civic center concept had a lot of appeal to him given the activity it would create within a one- to two-block period. Mr. Zelenka thought there were many things the City could do with the existing building and expressed interest in Ms. Ortiz’s suggestion for a park. However, he suggested the City needed the money the building’s sale would realize. Mr. Zelenka wanted to avoid creating another pit. Mr. Zelenka did not think all buildings needed to be preserved. Sometimes it was time for buildings to go. That left the question of where to locate the police, which was a service with special needs. Very few buildings fit those needs, and to build a new building would cost $34 million. Mr. Zelenka said that the City could get the functionality for less than half that amount, and he wanted to explore the concept in more detail. Mr. Zelenka acknowledged that he did not think the police needed to be downtown. He said that if the City built a new police facility, it would be basically be a “ghost garage.” If the police were doing their jobs right, they would not be in the building, and he did not think a “ghost garage” was the best use of space downtown. He believed the police presence could be provided through a police substation. He found the Country Club Road building interesting because it met seismic standards, was located on a Lane Transit District bus line, was proximate to I-105, was essentially a shell, the needed technology could be easily put in place and the building had adequate parking. Ms. Taylor asked why the City needed a police facility if there was no one there. She said that took her back to the suggestion for take-home cars. Ms. Taylor believed City Hall was falling apart because the City had not maintained it. She said the City needed to do the basic seismic upgrade of the building if anyone was to use it. She preferred to rehabilitate and reuse City Hall and construct a basic office building in the parking lot across the street for the rest of the staff. She did not think the City needed to embark on an expensive public input process and recalled a two-day event the City held several years ago, during which several people advocated for rehabilitation of City Hall, but after it was over nobody remembered that. Ms. Taylor thought City Hall could be made to look good, and commended the plantings outside the City Manager’s Office. She preferred to spend the money to make City Hall look decent and be safe. MINUTES—City Council May 11, 2009 Page 9 Work Session