Item 2C: Ratification of IGR Committee Minutes

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Mayor Piercy asked that Council be introduced during the opening ceremonies of the LOC Convention. 4. Meeting with Smith, Dawson & Andrews – Federal Update Mr. Smith and Mr. Garson introduced themselves. Ms. Wilson explained that Smith, Dawson & Andrews (SDA) was the COE's federal public affairs and lob- by firm, and had been helping the COE for over 25 years. She said that the first project they worked on for the COE was to help the COE get funding for the Eugene Airport. Ms. Wilson directed CCIGR members' attention to the document that showed United Front's (UF) projects that they had on their FY 2011 Federal Appropriations Request, titled 2010 UF Appropriations. She di- rected their attention to the far-right column, titled “Senate.” She explained that this column showed the appropriations requests that Senators Wyden and Merkley had submitted jointly on United Front's behalf, and the amounts they submitted. She then directed their attention to Congressman DeFazio's requests on UF's behalf. She noted that Senators Wyden and Merkley had submitted all UF's requests except for one, and that they had had a discussion with Willamalane about that. Congressman DeFazio had submitted nine requests out of 18. She noted that Congressman DeFazio had received over 200 requests, and had submitted 55. Of those 55, nine were UF requests, which was positive. Mr. Smith thanked the CCIGR for having his firm at the meeting. He introduced Mr. Garson and Ms. Cro- nin. He noted that Mr. Garson supported the UF effort. Ms. Cronin was the newest member of the SDA team and had joined them in March. She had worked on Capitol Hill for the Chair of the Transportation Committee, James Oberstar, for seven years. He said she had run a bipartisan caucus for Mr. Oberstar that focused on the Northeast and Midwest, and had worked on many of the same programs and issues that were dear to the Eugene/Springfield/Lane County region. He said that SDA was happy to have her. He ex- plained that Kirk Bailey had decided to leave SDA to pursue a new career path. Ms. Cronin would be pick- ing up much of his portfolio. Mr. Smith repeated what Ms. Wilson had said, that SDA was successful in getting a vast majority of UF's projects approved by the delegation this year. He said that this was not always an easy process because of statewide competition. He said that it was significant that nine of the 55 requests Congressman DeFazio had put forward were UF's. He said that the level of support UF had received from Senators Wyden and Merk- ley was also significant. He said that this was a reflection of staff work, the collaboration of UF partners, and the research that went into identifying good projects, and projects that matched up well against federal programs and federal government priorities. Mr. Smith said that he was going to update the CCIGR in terms of where SDA's work for the COE was in this legislative session. He said that nearly seven months of the calendar, and a significant portion of the legislative calendar, had already passed. Congress, however, had not made as much progress in a lot of the areas important to the COE as SDA would have liked them to. It was no surprise that there was a partisan gridlock in Washington, D.C. This spilled over into many different areas, including many of the programs and initiatives important to the COE. As a result, one of SDA's highest priorities over the last 18 months had been the reauthorization of the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, and Efficient Transportation Equity Act – A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) legislation. Eugene and the UF had done very well under this program over the years. The COE had a number of major requests pending in that reauthorization bill. The program had expired last September and Congress was unable to get a full authorization approved. As a result, they had extended it on a temporary basis, and the program was now extended through the end of December. It MINUTES—Council Committee on Intergovernmental Relations June 30, 2010 Page 8