Item 2A: Approval of City Council Minutes

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Mayor Piercy acknowledged that LTD was working to decrease the negative impacts of the route on businesses and residents, but she did not want LTD’s efforts in that regard to work against the goal of achieving a viable public transit system. She was pleased to see that even with mitigation, the buses would run on dedicated lanes 75 percent of the route, which was an improvement over both the Franklin and Gateway EmX routes. Ms. Taylor determined from Mr. Pangborn that the information generated by LTD was corridor-specific and he did not know for how long the data would still be valid. Referring to the committee and community recommendations, Mr. Clark noted the West Eugene th Collaborative (WEC) position that it was not an option to maintain West 11 Avenue as it was currently configured. The WEC envisioned that the road would be rebuilt as a different sort of thoroughfare and that land uses in the corridor would fundamentally change. Currently, businesses along the corridor were auto-dependent and thus dependent on the current road configuration. Mr. Clark also noted that the th Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce had pledged to work to ensure West 11 Avenue businesses and property owners were not adversely affected by the route. That raised the question of the larger vision for th West 11 Avenue and what would happen to those businesses. He acknowledged the issue was one for the council to resolve. Mr. Gillespie pointed out to Mr. Clark that the WEC had stated it was not an option to maintain the road as a “congested” retail avenue. He said there was no intent to eliminate retail uses in the corridor. In response, Mr. Clark pointed out that through the Envision Eugene process the City had looking at the future of the corridor and there was discussion of multi-story businesses close to outside edges of the th core, which he interpreted as meaning that existing businesses along West 11 Avenue would change. Responding to Mr. Clark, Ms. Ortiz said that was not what she heard “at all.” She believed that LTD was “definitely listening” to the affected businesses and attempting to address their concerns through mitigation. She never heard anyone say that they were trying to eliminate those businesses, “change the face,” or replace the existing businesses with multi-story buildings. She believed that people understood there was value in the businesses in place, although they were not thriving as they once were due to the economy. She thought the EmX route would augment those businesses. Ms. Ortiz shared what she had learned in Cleveland, saying that Cleveland had established kiosks in association with routes where businesses could deliver products for pick-up by riders. Mr. Eyster reported that several board members participated in a listening session facilitated by Bob th Chadwick to hear the concerns of the opponents to the West 11 Avenue route. He acknowledged the risks that business owners faced from such projects and reported that a representative of “Our Money Our Transit” had recently spoken about the extent to which LTD staff had gone to mitigate potential damage to businesses. Staff had met individually more than 150 times with owners along the corridor. Mr. Clark expressed appreciation for that. th Mr. Clark asked if the City’s vision for West 11 Avenue was one of a denser transit corridor with different businesses than were in place now, or was it protect and maintain what was there. Mr. Zelenka asked Mr. Clark what his vision was. Mr. Clark indicated he was inclined to the no build option at the moment because of concerns that the system was too costly at this time and that the process was being rushed through. He also felt it was important to consider how decisions from the Envision Eugene process affected the question. Mr. Clark pointed out the council was talking about large-scale community changes and he wanted to ensure that those change occurred in the context of a larger vision. He believed MINUTES—Eugene City Council January 24, 2010 Page 5 Joint Work Session with Lane Transit District Board of Directors