Item 2A: Approval of City Council Minutes

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Hansen that the meetings violated the spirit of the law. She quoted from the Oregon Public Meetings law, which cautioned against the use of committees to circumvent the letter of the law and a section about committing to the spirit of the law. Jessica Spaulding , 120 Aberdeen Street, discussed her participation in the LEAD (Leadership, Education, Adventure, Directions) Program, which served low-income teens aged 12-17 in Eugene and Springfield. She said the program provided teens with age-appropriate and safe, supervised activities, including outdoor adventure activities and community service. The program valued diversity and welcomed those of all abilities, races, and sexual orientation. Ms. Spaulding said that teens have few opportunities to build leadership skills and LEAD provided those opportunities. Becca Purkey , 28844 Meadowview Road, Junction City, also discussed the LEAD Program, and the changes that LEAD had made in her life. She shared that she used to get into fights on an almost daily basis at school and home and her mom was ready to throw her out of the house. She was smoking, drinking, and doing drugs, and she hated the person she had become. LEAD helped her change that. Ms. Purkey said LEAD kept her out of fights and people called her for advice. She and her mother had grown to be best friends. She no longer smoked, drank, or did drugs. She had not thought of suicide since she began to participate in LEAD, and she now loved herself. She was more outgoing and sensitive than most people she knew, and enjoyed being around people a lot more. Her father, who died four years ago, would be proud of the person she had become, and that alone was worth living for. Madge Rafferty , 532 Olive Street, founder and executive director of the LEAD Program, said that she and her colleagues were present to try to persuade the council to open a teen center, and would continue to attend council meetings to encourage the achievement of that goal and share updates on their work with the County on the subject. She said census numbers indicated that about ten percent of the population was teenagers. Eugene was listed as one of America’s most livable communities, but when the LEAD teens put out the idea of having such a center they were told it was impossible. She pointed out that communities much smaller than Eugene had such centers. She noted the teens’ advocacy at the recent Town Hall on the mayor’s Sustainable Business Initiative. She said that those without a voice in government who often paid taxes were a part of the equation of sustainability. Teens were referred to as the problem downtown; she thought the problem was the lack of activities for teens. Maya Rios , 882 Almaden Street, a Churchill student, spoke on behalf of a project to create a teen center for at-risk kids in downtown Eugene. She said prevention was always more cost-effective than intervention. She said the Downtown Safety Council recently heard complaints about teen behavior in downtown and the center would give kids somewhere to go. She thought the proposed redevelopment plans for downtown made the time right for a teen center downtown. th Mary Ellen Locke , 1130 West 25 Avenue, an active member of the Friendly Area Neighbors (FAN), said FAN wanted to work with the City and EWEB to maintain access to College Hill Reservoir. She said that there were many talented people wishing to volunteer to address the historic preservation possibilities of the College Hill Reservoir system. She suggested that the City work with EWEB to create an open space agreement for the College Hill Reservoir. She requested the City’s assistance in the matter. Rick Grosscup , 2540 Lincoln Street, a member of the executive committee of FAN and co-chair of FAN’s “College Hill Reservoir Safety Advisory Task Force,” said that EWEB staff asserted there was a security issue with all its reservoirs and cited an Oregon Revised Statute in support of a proposal to fence the College Hill Reservoir. He maintained that EWEB staff was wrong and the reservoir did not need to be fenced because of an exception included in 1990 legislation. He maintained that fences were irrelevant to MINUTES—Eugene City Council February 13, 2006 Page 4 Regular Meeting