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manager could share about the follow -up to the event. <br />Ms. Ortiz had attended the groundbreaking for the Sponsors house on Highway 99 and it had been a good event <br />with much community support. She said it was good to see the dreams of those with the desire to help others <br />come to fruition. She commended the Sponsors Board of Directors and staff. <br />Ms. Ortiz invited the council to a barbeque celebrating the Trainsong Neighborhood on June 13 at Trainsong <br />Park. <br />Ms. Taylor recalled her own participation in a previous Fire Ops 101 and said she would have attended again had <br />she been in Eugene that weekend. However, she had a family conflict. <br />Ms. Taylor noted the upcoming Southeast Neighbors meeting at Spencer Butte School on June 7. <br />Ms. Taylor noted that Wade Hicks of the City's Minutes Recording staff was appearing as the lead in Humble <br />Boy at the Very Little Theater. She encouraged people to support the arts in Eugene. <br />Ms. Taylor spoke to the subject of street assessments and said she was glad to hear the City had received lower <br />bids. She hoped to find ways to help people pay those assessments this year. She observed that she had talked <br />with an engineer from St. Louis who had never heard of assessing abutting properties for such improvements. <br />Ms. Taylor reported on her recent attendance at the National League of Cities Human Development Steering <br />Committee. She said the committee had heard that the National League of Cities lobbyist and staff were very <br />pleased with the new administration and were being invited to meetings at the White House and their opinions on <br />issues solicited. Ms. Taylor said that the committee had appointed a subcommittee to track health care <br />legislation and its focus this year was on reauthorization of the Work Force Reinvestment Act. She had heard <br />interesting ideas, such as co- locating the work force investment board with unemployment offices. The <br />committee was also working to get local work force investment boards more flexibility in how they spent money. <br />Ms. Taylor said the committee was also working on efforts to reintegrate veterans into their communities and the <br />prevention of unplanned and teen -aged pregnancy. <br />Mr. Zelenka had also attended the Fire Ops 101 and thanked the fire fighters for attending on their own time. He <br />said their work was hard, dark and dangerous to a greater degree than he realized. He said as a result of his <br />participation, he had come to the realization that fire fighters' work was equipment- intensive and having good <br />equipment was very important, that repeated training was extremely important for fire fighters and that <br />firefighters depended on team work to save lives. Mr. Zelenka noted that many donated materials went into fire <br />fighter training and said that spoke well both of the community and the resourcefulness of the fire department. <br />Mr. Zelenka said he attended the West University Neighborhood meeting, which included an extensive discussion <br />of the future of City Hall and how the neighborhood organization could be involved in any future planning <br />processes. <br />Mr. Zelenka announced the Glenwood Hazardous Roundup on June 13 and reported the Amazon Neighbors also <br />planned a recycle -reuse roundup. <br />Mr. Zelenka said he heard a statistic that indicated 60 percent of individual bankruptcies were due to medical <br />costs, which was a number he found surprising as well as a reason to change the nation's health care system to a <br />more universal system. <br />MINUTES —City Council June 8, 2009 Page 3 <br />