Item 3F: Ratification of IGR Minutes of October 21, 2009

Home Browse Search

appropriation and receive it and then bow out of the request because the matching funds could not be allocated. If the City did receive the appropriation, it needed to be prepared to provide the match. She noted that the Eugene Mill Race had been taken out of the multi-year financial plan because funding for it could not be identified and there was not yet a plan to move the project ahead. She said the City Council had last looked at it in 2003. In response to a question from Ms. Wilson, Mayor Piercy said she thought Rep. DeFazio did not expect that the City would request an appropriation. Her understanding was that he had called and specifically wanted the City to do this and had indicated that it would not “tie [the City] down to anything.” Ms. Wilson recommended the City not request an appropriation at this time and that it should wait until EWEB had completed its Riverfront planning process. She added that they did not even know how much money to ask for at this point, only that they would be requesting more than they had ten years earlier. Mayor Piercy suggested that Ms. Wilson discuss this with Assistant City Manager Sarah Medary before they make any decision on whether or not to request the appropriation. Continuing, Ms. Wilson stated that there was no federal money available for municipal swimming pools. She had suggested to the Recreation Division that a way to obtain funding for maintenance and upgrades would be to pursue energy efficiency upgrades, given that improving energy efficiency was a federal goal. She thought it would become a good project for the United Front list, once the amount of money to request was known. Ms. Wilson related that the public safety project that she had mentioned earlier, an Emergency Services Simulator Lab, was the only project that was marked in both the Senate and the House, aside from the Forest Legacy. She recommended keeping it on the list, though it could be funded in the present year. The other public safety item on the list was the Teen Court Expansion. She said currently they worked in partnership with Lane County Courts to prevent recidivism in juvenile offenders. She noted that the City had determined that it was to its benefit because it provided opportunities for young offenders to find a different path. She stated that it was not yet known if they could get federal funding for it, but to do so they would need Lane County as a partner in it. Ms. Wilson explained that the Expand Project Full Moon Rising was an extension of “No Child Left Inside.” She said at present they already provided recreation staff in the local schools to provide environmental education and this effort sought to expand the program. They hoped to partner with some of the school districts. Regarding transportation projects, Ms. Wilson recommended leaving both the West Eugene Transportation Study and the Franklin Boulevard Planning projects on the list though they had not been marked in the House or the Senate. She said both projects, as well as the West Bank Extension, were also on the project list for the Safe Accountable Flexible Efficient Transportation Equity Act – A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) reauthorization, which had now been delayed for 18 months. She noted that one issue contributing to the delay in that bill was that they had no idea how to fund it. Ms. Wilson related that the City had applied for stimulus funds as part of the $8 billion in rail funding that had come through the ARRA for its Eugene Depot project. She said the depot project was one of only a few projects from the State of Oregon. She had listened to a hearing a few weeks earlier at which the head of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) stated that their intent was to only put funding into four of the corridors. She did know why that was or whether Eugene was in one of the corridors. She noted that the America 2050 had presented a report that included a recommendation for funding three corridors, with California as one of them. She said though three had been identified, they did not indicate which would MINUTES—Council Committee on Intergovernmental Relations October 21, 2009 Page 4