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Mayor Piercy also expressed appreciation for the conversation on fees to vacant building owners.. She <br />strongly encouraged a cooperative approach, rather than a regulatory approach. She agreed that even if a <br />building was empty, it still needed to look good. <br />Mr. Clark thanked everyone for the work they were doing to remedy the situation. He was glad to see that <br />they were taking "badly needed innovative steps" to create more accountability for crime in the downtown <br />area. He agreed with the Mayor regarding assessment of a fee on empty buildings. He had never been a <br />fan of the idea that the City should assess a fee to someone who could not seem to get business going well <br />enough to fill a building. <br />Regarding the OLCC and special district issues, Mr. Clark wondered if there were any existing districts <br />that could suffice. Chief Ferns responded that the first step would be to find out if OLCC was willing to <br />grant Eugene the administrative authority to make such an ordinance. He said they would study the <br />behaviors to determine where the best district would be. <br />Mr. Clark asked how long they wanted to study this. Chief Kerns replied that it would be good to have <br />something in place by summer. <br />Mr. Clark asked if there was a specific reason the Volunteers in Policing were not being considered to <br />help in enforcement of some kinds of things. Chief Kerns explained that in Oregon only law enforcement <br />officers were allowed to enforce the laws. He said some volunteers could write parking citations for <br />handicapped parking -space violations, but this would not address the problems they were trying to <br />address. <br />Continuing, Mr. Clark noted that Judge Wayne Allen had come before the Police Commission at its last <br />meeting and stated that he could use an additional ten jail beds right now. He related that Judge Allen had <br />indicated that he was letting people go at present who should be going to Jail. He asked if ten beds would <br />be an adequate number in order to do extra work to do a better j ob. Chief Kerns replied that it was not <br />adequate, but it was feasible. He thought that if those jail beds were used carefully, it could change the <br />behavior in the downtown area. <br />Mr.. Clark supported moving the strategies forward. He averred that they would have a positive effect. <br />Ms. Taylor asked if they kept records of complaints that were called in to the EPD if there was no <br />response. Chief Kerns replied that they did not. He said if they could implement the third strategy, Which <br />sought to increase and implement automated behavior crime reporting and cameras, they would be able to <br />develop a system internally that could do this. <br />In response to a question from Ms. Taylor, Chief Kerns affirmed that volunteers could do the work it took <br />to record calls. Ms. Taylor thought it was important to let people know that the calls were being recorded. <br />Ms. Taylor asked if the Chief was considering hiring the new officers to patrol in the downtown area or <br />did he intend to dispatch more experienced officers there. Chief Kerns replied that he would deploy more <br />experienced officers. <br />Ms. Taylor asked where the people who had been excluded from the downtown area were going. Chief <br />Kerns responded that they could only track the behavior and not the people. He said some crimes, if they <br />were aggressive in enforcing them, did not repeat anywhere else. He explained that those crimes required <br />certain environmental conditions to happen in a certain place, but behavioral crimes were not subject to <br />MINUTES Eugene City Council January 27, 2010 Page 3 <br />Work Session <br />