CC Minutes - 02/26/10 Joint Elected Officials

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February 26, 2010 Joint Elected Officials Meeting City of Springfield City of Eugene Lane County Page 11 of 13 in which the proceeds would benefit animal welfare. That would be an opportunity for animal lovers to buy a license plate, generating funds that could funnel back to the local level. Councilor Poling said he would like to further investigate the non-profit/public partnership, giving both organizations the opportunity to save some money. He didn’t want to get too bogged down in a community vision process. This was something that needed to be addressed soon. He and his wife had been doing volunteer work for an animal rescue support group for the past few years, and had visited many animal shelters in Oregon and Washington that were fine facilities. He suggested looking at those facilities when considering a new facility in Lane County. There were a lot of people in the community that would likely step forward to support this effort. He would like to hear more during a work session. He wasn’t aware that the City of Springfield had suggested the license plate, and he thought it was a good idea. He would like to continue the discussion on this subject. Councilor Simmons said he had met with Ms. Gaffney in September and he noted that Springfield had a cost issue so it needed to proceed carefully. There was a perception difference. Springfield had an attitude of containment and movement to the shelter, and Eugene had a more open process of getting the animal taken care of and adopted. He noted his past experience as an animal control officer and some of the dangerous animals he encountered. He was supportive of this, but it would be important to balance the differences between the jurisdictions. His predecessor, Councilor John Woodrow, would have been very supportive of this effort. He wanted to be sure this was looked at seriously. Commissioner Fleenor said LCAS was not a no-kill facility. They recognized that some animals had to be euthanized. One of the things they were looking for was standardization of codes within the jurisdictions. They would also ask for permission to work with the cities to canvas the jurisdictions to get more licensing. License fees could possibly help in putting forth a levy. Building a new facility could take longer than taking some of these other steps. Councilor Pryor said he agreed with finding ways to partner for a solution. Operationally, some things could be done now, but the challenging issue was regarding the building. He agreed that the facility was at the end of its useful life, but he noted that Eugene’s city hall and street lights were also at the end of their useful lives. Eugene had deferred maintenance on an entire infrastructure, so this was not a unique problem. The jurisdictions needed to find ways to get out of all of the challenges. This building was something that was used regularly by the public and needed to be addressed soon. Councilor Zelenka said he liked the idea of a partnership and he also like the license plate idea. A couple of years ago, Eugene talked about what would happen if animal services were not provided, and those outcomes were much worse. He asked how the original building had been funded. Ms. Gaffney said she was not sure. She had documentation of how the three jurisdictions divided the land, but not of the construction cost. Councilor Zelenka asked if this project would be right for stimulus funding. Ms. Gaffney said she hadn’t seen an opportunity for this type of project through stimulus funding. They had looked at other possible grants, which were challenging for the public sector to receive.