Item 2A: Approval of City Council Minutes

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EWEB Water Resource and System Planner Brad Taylor thought it made sense to do a comprehensive regional master plan. He suggested that resolving the authority issue was critical to moving forward with that process. Mr. Taylor believed that a regional dialogue started with an awareness of what was happening, which required one-on-one dialogues with the individual cities. EWEB had begun those dialogues as a result of the Region 2050 process. All the Lane County communities had been at the table, and it was clear from the Region 2050 Steering Committee’s discussions there was a need for a regional water plan. Mr. Taylor noted that all the small cities had identified EWEB as a potential water source within their master plans, which was the foundation of the collaborative planning effort. Mr. Zelenka acknowledged the fact of the local master plan and said his remarks were directed at the lack of a regional water plan. He believed that EWEB needed to lead such an effort and produce a plan. He believed it was important to put contracts such as Veneta’s in the appropriate context. Ms. Smith said EWEB was committed to such a master plan but she was unsure of the timing. She pointed out that EWEB was currently responding to new leadership, and she was unsure how that affected EWEB’s priorities. She said that Mr. Taylor was focused on developing relationships with the smaller communities as a critical first step. Mr. Brown suggested that communities such as Creswell would approach EWEB because they wanted to double their population but could not do so without more water. He was unsure of his position on the contract but was concerned about “physically creating a subdivision” ten miles outside the Eugene urban growth boundary. He suggested that Veneta could not realize its population projections without water from EWEB. He believed Eugene first needed to decide if it wanted EWEB to be a regional provider. Mr. Brown thought that the water contract would encourage what he termed “exurban growth” and again asked what Eugene got in return. He anticipated even more people driving to Eugene as a result of the contract. Mr. Brown expressed concern that the council had adopted growth management goals and then proposed to do something in direct contradiction of its goals. Mayor Piercy suggested that sometimes the council had good goals that conflicted with each other. Veneta was seeking to build a community where people could live, work, and play at home. She suggested that community’s goals were similar to Eugene’s. She recognized that the two communities had shared travel areas, which came at a cost. Mr. Ingham emphasized Veneta’s interest in rebuilding its business base, which had declined with the decline of the timber industry. He suggested the danger that Veneta could be viewed as a community in decline, and businesses and industries would avoid locating there, leading Veneta to shut down the schools that were at the heart of the community, leaving no community at all. He suggested that could mean Veneta eventually unincorporated, and Veneta’s leaders were trying to avoid that. Mr. Pryor did not believe it was possible to discuss the contract without discussing the context involved. He was glad the issue of Eugene’s role in the region was on the table so questions related to that could be discussed. What would partnership look like and how far would it extend? If Eugene was the manager, what did that look like? Mr. Pryor acknowledged that Eugene was a regional factor but he was unsure to what degree it should be a controller. He said that Eugene needed to be a good steward of its resources, but he tended to believe that “we are all in this together” and if Eugene could make water available to Veneta without harm to its own citizens, it should. He questioned whether it was Eugene’s job to manage Veneta’s growth. MINUTES—Eugene City Council November 10, 2010 Page 5 Work Session