CC Minutes - 05/24/10 Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Eugene Drix, High Street, had discovered that dandelions were food. He had learned that they were originally brought from Europe for food purposes. He was not certain how official this news was, but he had found out that there were sheep grazing in the wetlands. He said everything was new once. He had been thinking about who Eugene was. He loved the city because of its people, though it seemed to him that the city did not have its ducks in a row yet. It seemed to him that an appropriate phrase was "so you are from Eugene, I've heard of you, you're the blank that blanks" and the City did not know what that was yet. He suggested that they hold a party because the downtown holes were now being filled. He thought it was a wonderful cure for the downtown. Lorraine Kerwood, 2575 Friendly Street, Ward 1, member of the Friendly Area Neighbors, stated that she had previously served on the Sustainability Commission and was presently a member of the HRC and its Accessibility Committee. She was speaking as a member of her neighborhood. She thanked the council for their dedication to making the City a "premier city dedicated to enhancing the lives of all of its community members." She wished to discuss sustainability, which was at the center of the City's Climate Action Plan. She said the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights called for the right to food, shelter, education, health care, work, and an adequate standard of living. From her perspective, access to food was paramount to making all of the other things happen. She encouraged the council to suspend the limit on chickens and to increase the limit for backyard chickens. She did not have any at present but planned to build a coop and have chickens. She brought forward a chicken to represent the chickens in the community. She also wanted them to work to enhance bicycle amenities. Kevin Matthews, P.O. Box 1588, had appreciated the testimony of the Public Forum. He thought councilors might think the EmX was an LTD project and that the City should sit back and let LTD do its job. He said there were some things the City was involved in, such as a Planning Director's decision that he opined was "pretty farfetched," as it suggested the transportation plans supported the Amazon Canal option. He related that this decision was appealed by "a private party" and was turned down on appeal. He asserted that the City was working "behind the scenes" to facilitate the project. He alleged that the City was involved in detailed site design. His perception was that the City was not involved in "holding LTD's feet to the fire" around the West Eugene Collaborative's consensus - approach to West 11th Avenue, which was to use a multi -way boulevard. He thought the LTD approach for EmX would be hard on businesses on West 11th Avenue without finishing the job and giving them access streets and rising property values that he believed would compensate them in the long run. He believed that the multi -way boulevard would be a win -win solution. Carlis Nixon, 1556 Wilson Court, said she did not own a car and used the bus for a major part of her transportation. She was a fervent supporter of public transit and believed it was an important component of urban health. She was present to ask the council to oppose the Amazon option for a new EmX route. She averred that the City, true to its slogan, valued the outdoors and the bike path that ran by the Amazon Canal, which ran all the way to Fern Ridge Reservoir. She believed the bike path had the potential to be a national treasure. She said bike commuters deserved quiet and to be encouraged. She did not think it would encourage commuting to ask them to compete with large buses that went each direction every 12 minutes. She predicted that the bike path would be increasingly used for recreational purposes. She stated that it was a natural phenomenon as well; one could see great blue herons in the City. She questioned the need for the West Eugene EmX in the first place. She had grown up in Vancouver, British Columbia, which had a great public rapid transit system that she used and appreciated. She had recently read a book, Green Metropolis, which posited that cities needed to stop having a "kneejerk" reflex to rapid transit; not all rapid transit was good. The author suggested that when rapid transit was brought to underdeveloped areas it encouraged sprawl. She thought this was something they would not want to do. Majeska Seese- Green, Ward 7, agreed with the proponents of opening the Ribbon Trail to mountain bikers and of increasing the limit on backyard chickens. She thought it would be nice to have goats allowed in the City as well. She wanted to provide comments in regard to the recent dismissal of Dawn Reynolds, former deputy police MINUTES— Eugene City Council May 24, 2010 Page 8 Regular Meeting