Item 2A: Approval of City Council Minutes

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th Gavin McComas , 1350 East 25 Avenue, acknowledged that the Whole Foods Grocery was more progressive than other “big box chain stores.” He saw the appeal the “corporation” had to the idealism of natural foods customers. He asserted that the store’s good deeds did not erase the damage it did to local businesses. He said if it were Walmart asking for help from the City, the City would not give it. He averred that like Walmart, Whole Foods Grocery took money out of the local economy and put it into the pockets of stockholders. It uses a centralized purchasing, distribution, and management to lower its cost of doing business. He alleged that Whole Foods Grocery would dismantle “local food webs” by buying their produce cheaply from factory farms and only supported local farmers as a last resort. He predicted that Whole Foods would help erode the individual character of Eugene, and would make it less attractive to tourists and potential job-producing businesses. He said like Wal-mart, Whole Foods would only be successful at the expense of local businesses. He did not think Whole Foods needed financial help from the City. Kaz Oveissi , 361 Sunset Drive, advocated for downtown development and had done so for many years. He stated that he owned and operated four businesses in the downtown area. He said for the first time in all of the years he had lived in Eugene he saw great possibilities and opportunities to transform the downtown because of both the East Broadway and West Broadway projects. He averred that the City deserved a livable downtown with dense, high-quality housing, movie theaters, restaurants, and a mix of national and local businesses. He wanted the downtown to be free of drugs, crime and vandalism. He felt the City had done its homework and the opportunity had arrived to produce the necessary results. He urged the council to take “effective action for a downtown that is real and works.” John Rowell , 1 East Broadway, spoke in support of the Whole Foods Grocery project as it was currently proposed. He said it aligned with the City’s plan for the downtown which was a result of an open and exhaustive public process. He felt that saying no to this project would send a message that Eugene was incapable of following its own plan. He thought it would be a terrible message to anyone who was about to invest in downtown Eugene. He asserted that the Whole Foods Grocery had a positive identity that fit the goals of the Mayor’s Sustainable Business Initiative and that the project was an important contribution to the city’s health. He predicted that the grocery anchor would make other development more attractive and would help business and not hurt it. He said downtown dwellers would finally have a supermarket, and the “wonderful smaller markets” would continue to fill a niche and would benefit from more activity. He averred that developers would not build housing and people would not move to the downtown area in any numbers unless there was a supermarket. He commented that for decades, large-scale food markets had been unwilling to take the risk and Whole Foods was the pioneer. He stressed that the City of Eugene built expensive public infrastructure like the well-used parking garages all of the time to support the development of outlying sites. He believed that in the downtown core parking garages were essential parts of public infrastructure as they were efficient, good investments that contribute to sustainable land use and promoted density. He did not think they were evil, nor did he think it should be assumed that such a structure would be ugly. He remarked that to paint the parking garage as a subsidy was to ignore that the parking would serve the public in the whole eastern downtown area. He added that if it attracted Whole Foods Grocery, then that was just good strategy. th George Brown , 60 West 17 Avenue, owner of the Kiva Market, said he had sold groceries, books, and wines for 35 years. He commented that thanks to his loyal customers, the store had survived economic bad times, achieved a modest livelihood, and had grown to become somewhat of a Eugene local institution. He surmised that everyone in the room cared very deeply about the city of Eugene and the health of downtown. He wanted to correct assumptions that he felt those who supported the project had about the opponents. He stressed that grocers and restaurateurs did not want Whole Foods Grocery to move in because it threatened their economic self-interest. He also stressed that Dan Giustina had a right to build a grocery store on his property because he had a right to further his own economic self-interest. He underscored that the small MINUTES—Eugene City Council -- March 13, 2006 Page 14 City Council Meeting