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February 26, 2010 <br />Joint Elected Officials Meeting <br />City of Springfield <br />City of Eugene <br />Lane County <br /> <br />Page 3 of 13 <br /> <br /> <br />sustaining business expansions, and the attraction and retention of programs with an emphasis on <br />traded-sector companies. <br /> <br />The cities of Eugene and Springfield should continue and enhance their efforts to promote downtown <br />vitality through development and redevelopment. The third item under this section, to inventory and <br />assess adequacy of industrial land availability in support of expansion, attraction and retention in <br />conjunction with comprehensive land assessment processes, was tied to the current land assessment <br />occurring in both cities. This item could be affected by the removal of tactic 2 of Attachment B. <br /> <br />The last focus was creating a Regional Prosperity Council to act as the guiding coalition for the <br />implementation of the regional strategy. This council would be a decision making body, but not a <br />jurisdictional body, made up of elected officials, appointed officials, and business members. <br /> <br />Mayor Piercy said she considered this an important moment for the joint elected officials. A lot of <br />these things had been discussed before, and now was the time to take action to move forward. She <br />noted that Commissioner Fleenor told her that the goal of creating 20,000 jobs would now be 35,000, <br />since 15,000 jobs had already been lost. This was an opportunity to replace those jobs with jobs that <br />paid more and set the community up for a better future. She was concerned that Birth to Three would <br />object to the use of that name for a business support, so suggested changing the name. She assumed <br />that the business assistance center would act as an incubator. <br /> <br />Mr. Ruiz said that could show up in a couple of different places in the document. There were places in <br />Attachment B that talked about entrepreneurial infrastructure, partnerships, and opportunities. Part of <br />that network could be the incubator space. <br /> <br />Mayor Piercy asked if the schools had been brought into this discussion. Mr. Ruiz said not formally. <br /> <br />Mayor Piercy said her only concern was how this could take the region beyond what it already had, <br />such as the Metro Partnership which went out to bring businesses into the community. She would want <br />to know what would be done differently with this and what would be the added value. <br /> <br />Councilor Zelenka said he liked some of the information, but felt like he was reading a rehash of what <br />was already being done. There seemed to be a disconnect in discussions in Eugene about the next <br />economy, and getting positioned for the green economy. There was nothing about the Eugene Mayor’s <br />sustainability efforts. This was not as much a vision document as it was an economic development tool <br />document. He was disappointed that it didn’t go far enough. <br /> <br />Commissioner Fleenor said there should be a commencement date regarding creation of new jobs by <br />2020. He was happy with the process and with the outcomes, and now it was time to get to work. They <br />needed to implement this. Although it was not a perfect document, it was a living document that could <br />be improved. He suggested the name Inception to Success instead of Birth to Three. He was pleased <br />and now it was time to roll up their sleeves and get to the business of creating jobs. <br /> <br />Councilor Ortiz said the part she felt didn’t connect was the education piece. This was an opportunity <br />for Eugene to say what was important for them. The community already had a regional identity, but it <br /> <br />