Item B - Econ.Dev.Comm. Recomm. - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

He believed that if the community wanted continued prosperity, it needed more land, and it needed to use that land wisely. He said that if the community wanted redevelopment, it was likely to take public money. Mr. Bowerman recalled a proposal for performance zoning as an alternative code track, which was to be worked on at some point after the code was completed. He asked Mr. Duncan if that was a way to avoid a code written for greenfield development. Mr. Duncan thought it was an alternative that should be looked at. He said rather than being creative, Eugene tended to specify every detail of development. He said if Eugene was going to encourage redevelopment, it needed a process where that could occur at the same pace as greenfield development. Mr. Duncan distributed copies of an executive summary of the two studies and referred members to his firm's Web site for more information: www.duncanbrown.com 6. Quality of Workforce and Wages Bob Bussel of the Labor Education and Research Center at the University of Oregon made a presentation on workforce quality and wages. He emphasized the importance of quality jobs to labor. He discussed the impact of low-wage jobs, saying it was a national issue. Wages had not kept pace with inflation over the last two decades and the average annual wage in Lane County had declined from $31,000 in 1978 to $27,780 in 2000. The numbers of those working in lower wage job in Lane County had increased. Mr. Bussel discussed what was actually required to support a family, saying that a Eugene family with an adult and child required a job paying $12.70 an hour, or $26,598 annually, to meet basic standards of self-sufficiency. Two adults and two children needed a job that paid $17.01 an hour, or $35,322 annually, to meet those standards. Many jobs fall short of the self-sufficiency standard. Mr. Bussel discussed the societal costs of low-wage jobs, reporting a study by the Atlanta Constitution indicated that more than 10,000 of 166,000 children receiving insurance coverage from a Georgia program for uninsured children had a parent working at a Wal Mart. A Harvard Business School Study indicated that Wal Mart spent an average of $1,300 less per employee than other comparable retailers. When Wal Mart failed to pay adequate wages or provide adequate benefits, there were public costs. Low-wage workers were much more likely to receive food stamps and housing subsidies. Low wage workershad higher turnover and low prospects of advancement. Mr. Bussel said the committee should recognize that iow-wage jobs were more likely to harm the local economy. For workers and unions, the focus was on the need to attract good jobs and sustain families and to avoid creating a drain on community resources. He asked the committee to think about what a good job was, suggesting that a move toward a sustainability standard was appropriate, although it did not have to be a rigid standard. Mr. Bussel noted that employers also found living wage jobs to be important to a sustainable local economy, and cited a high quality MINUTES--Mayor's Committee on Economic Development March 8, 2004 Page 10