Item 4A: Approval of City Council Minutes

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ATTACHMENT A M I N U T E S Eugene City Council Council Chamber—City Hall 777 Pearl Street—Eugene, Oregon May 14, 2012 7:30 p.m. COUNCILORS PRESENT: George Brown, Pat Farr, Betty Taylor, Andrea Ortiz, George Poling, Mike Clark, Chris Pryor, Alan Zelenka. Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the May 14, 2012, regular meeting of the Eugene City Council to order. 1. PUBLIC FORUM Mayor Piercy reviewed the rules of the Public Forum. She limited speakers to two minutes. Mark Robinowitz , Ward 1, recommended the City adopt the recommendations of Richard Heinberg and his institute. He said exponential growth could no longer continue as the planet had reached its finite ability to grow. He noted the current price of oil and contrasted that to local government predictions, which served as the basis for transportation projections. Oil production in Alaska had peaked and if dropped 20 to 30 percent it would no longer flow in the winter. He recommended the community think about the energy limits that transcended political partisanship and recognize the finite limits of the planet. Mary Salinas , a Springfield resident, spoke of the plight of the homeless. Their circumstance was extreme but they were human. She shared an article from The Register-Guard entitled Building Hope in the Barrio, which detailed the efforts of a local resident to build houses for low-income residents in South America. She contrasted the costs of those houses to the costs of the proposed Capstone development and suggested that 22,000 homes could be built for the same amount. Wendy Butler Boyeson , Ward 1, advocated for the West Eugene EmX route. She averred buses were currently full and the route was needed, particularly for the disabled who were dependent on public transit. Michael Todd , homeless, averred he had been harassed because an officer passed him five times while he was eating. He further averred that the homeless were given a death sentence because they had no place to sleep. He questioned how the City could be short of money when it was giving out tax breaks. He discussed his experience in the Municipal Court while dealing with an exclusion order. He said he was barred from the bus and the mission and questioned what the world was coming to. Devin Gates , Ward 7, called on the City to outsource the Rental Housing Code for greater impartiality. He believed the added element of energy efficiency went beyond the original scope of the code and would harm tenants in the long-term. Most landlords were not wealthy and it took time to recover one’s costs. The costs would cause many landlords to leave the business and prices would rise substantially. MINUTES—Eugene City Council May 14, 2012 Page 1 Regular Meeting