Item 3A: Approval of City Council Minutes

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Mr. Zelenka termed the report one of the best in the country and said the community could be very proud of it. He had shared the report with the Oregon Global Warming Commission’s Transportation and Land Use Committee and it had been used by that group to develop the State plan. Mr. Zelenka believed most of the actions in the plan were cost-effective and would reduce fuel consumption. He further averred that the plan would “make us healthier,” reduced pollution, and “did a good job” in trying to get at the triple bottom line. He acknowledged that the social element of the TBL was the weakest element in the plan but it was the weakest in all such analyses and he anticipated more work would occur on it. Mr. Zelenka asked City Manager Ruiz how the plan would be integrated into the everyday work of the City. City Manager Ruiz anticipated it would be used in many ways. Staff would assign the appropriate staff to implementation items, and he envisioned that the council would see many items implemented through the annual budget process. He pointed out that many of the items in the plan were already moving forward. Mr. Zelenka hoped the City tracked the savings realized by the plan. Mr. Zelenka asked staff to discuss the health impact assessment (HIA), which he termed innovative and the first in the country. Mr. McRae said the advocacy organization “Upstream Public Health” had done the HIA on the plan and it was the first such HIA done of a climate and energy action plan. Mr. Clark commended the staff presentation and acknowledged the work of all those who provided input into the plan. He was curious about the impact of the proposed motion on existing policy. He asked what Mr. McRae considered a “policy change.” He said there were many recommendations in the document he agreed with but there were implications to other recommendations that caused him concern and led him to questions about the cost-benefit analysis that went into the recommendations. For example, there were several places in the plan were it mentioned diversifying Lane Transit District’s source of operational funding. He asked what that meant. The plan also discussed setting aside rights-of-way for future EmX routes, which implied an endorsement of Lane Transit District long-term plans. Some of the capital costs involved with that concerned him a great deal. Mr. Clark suggested that the community dodged a bullet when the downtown power outage occurred, which was attributed to aging infrastructure that could not handle the load. He noted that many people in the community supported increased residential density, which was also mentioned in the plan. He asked if the City had analyzed the infrastructure costs of serving higher density development so the City could be prepared and could avoid the dangerous situation that led to the power outage. Mr. Clark was concerned that the City would be pushing ahead with actions that required more analysis and information as well as a council decision. City Manager Ruiz anticipated that the council would discuss such actions explicitly. He said that the plan was very similar to other planning efforts in that staff would return with actions to implement the plan and the council would say yes or not to that action. Ms. Solomon determined from Mr. McRae that existing staff would be assigned to deal with food-related actions discussed in the plan. Ms. Solomon asked if the plan was intended to be externally or internally focused. Mr. McRae said the plan was largely externally focused, although it contained a couple of policies aimed at internal City consumption. Ms. Solomon was more comfortable with a plan that was internally focused. She asked if the plan’s recommendations were just that or if they represented mandates. She saw no incentives or rewards in the plan for the community’s participation. Mr. McRae said the actions in the plan were recommendations. He acknowledged that more work needed to be done in regard to incentives. MINUTES—City Council September 15, 2010 Page 4 Work Session