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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCC Minutes - 10/31/07 Work Session M I N U T E S Eugene City Council Work Session McNutt Room – City Hall 777 Pearl Street—Eugene, Oregon October 31, 2007 Noon COUNCILORS PRESENT: Andrea Ortiz, Chris Pryor, Bonny Bettman, Jennifer Solomon, George Poling, Mike Clark, Alan Zelenka. Betty Taylor joined by phone to vote only. Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the meeting of the Eugene City Council to order. A. WORK SESSION: Transition of Annexation Procedures Mayor Piercy announced that she would be putting together a citizen advisory group for the purpose of working on issues having to do with the Trainsong and Whiteaker neighborhoods. She hoped to facilitate better communication among the various stakeholders and to provide for better neighborhood involvement regarding the areas affected by railroad yards. City Manager Angel Jones asked Steve Nystrom, Principal Planner for the Planning and Development Department (PDD), to provide background information on the transition of annexation procedures. Mr. Nystrom explained that the work session sought to brief the council prior to the public hearing scheduled for November 19. He said at that time the council would be considering an ordinance that would facilitate the transition of annexation procedures from the Boundary Commission to the City of Eugene. He recapped the implications of Senate Bill 417, which had abolished the Boundary Commission and required that beginning January 1 the City of Eugene would have to have a process in place to perform the functions of the commission. He underscored that the focus of the ordinance was to follow the state mandate; at this time a broader discussion regarding policy issues behind annexation was not being undertaken. He stated that the draft ordinance sought to assume the responsibilities of the commission in a way that maintained all existing council policies regarding any of the aspects around the annexation discussions including Metro Plan policies, code provisions, and resolutions the council had adopted over the years. He reiterated that all of the council’s existing policy directions would be maintained. Mr. Nystrom clarified that with the passage of the bill the State statutes that applied to annexations were essentially the same as those that applied to every other community in Oregon. He said in preparing the draft, staff had looked at what other communities were doing in regard to annexations and had found that there was no one model being employed. He attributed this to the differing circumstances that different communities faced, both political and physical. He related that staff was proposing an ordinance that matched what the community would need, such as the current council policies around annexations – an MINUTES—Eugene City Council October 31, 2007 Page 1 Work Session important part of which was that the City was not in the practice of initiating non-voluntary annexations. He stressed that this was very different from the practice of many communities. Mr. Nystrom stated that the “checkerboard or Swiss cheese effect” of the annexations in the River Road/Santa Clara area had made the City of Eugene situation very different from the situations of most other communities. He explained that it led to a higher volume of smaller scale annexations. He under- scored that the City Council would be the sole decision-maker for all annexations to be proposed; the council would have sole discretion to decide whether to approve them or not. He highlighted the process as stated in the draft ordinance, as follows: ? A two-track process was proposed; ? Any application that came in for annexation would be evaluated by staff; ? Staff would make a recommendation to council in the form of a resolution; ? The council would have the option to act on the resolution or it could pull any particular annexation applications from that list and set public hearings on them; ? The second track would be to hold the public hearing; ? Staff would provide the required notices for the first process, and in the case of a public hearing would provide the second round of required notices. He reiterated that the City had mostly seen smaller annexation requests and the majority of those had been processed without controversy. He noted that the controversy that had occurred had largely centered on the inclusion of street annexations with the annexation requests. He acknowledged the council’s recent adoption of policies regarding annexations and stressed that they would still be in effect. Continuing, Mr. Nystrom said staff would try to batch the annexation requests when they could. He noted that it was the Boundary Commission’s practice to batch annexation requests as it convened every other month. He added that in addition to annexation requests, the commission also heard petitions to withdraw from special districts and for extra-territorial extensions. He noted that the latter was rare. Mr. Nystrom stated that the draft ordinance had gone to a public hearing with the Planning Commission, which had recommended approval of the ordinance. He said staff would convey the Planning Commission’s recommendations, which included additional noticing requirements particularly in terms of ways of noticing residents and the times for extra notice. He related that staff hoped to wrap up the item by December so that the process could be set up in January. Mayor Piercy suggested that the council not be presented with a large batch of annexation requests initially. Mr. Clark related that the Santa Clara Community Organization (SCCO) Chair, Jerry Finigan, had expressed concern to him about a perceived lack of communication. He asked how the changes would be communicated to concerned neighborhood organization members. Mr. Nystrom responded that under current provisions, with the process entirely falling under the purview of the City of Eugene, it would be easier to “map out” the communication process. He also felt that this was the concern expressed by the Planning Commission. Mr. Clark asked how the changes would affect the Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) with the County. He noted that currently people had to de facto annex in order to obtain a building permit. City Attorney Emily Jerome replied that the City and then the County had adopted Urbanizable Development codes that controlled how building permits were issued and how development occurred on properties within the Urban Growth Boundary (UGB). MINUTES—Eugene City Council October 31, 2007 Page 2 Work Session Mr. Nystrom said the provisions that were being considered were currently in place; this included who administered the code. He stressed that this would remain the same. Ms. Bettman was amenable to batching annexations. She thought it would make sense to assume that there would be a public hearing for the whole batch and then whatever was controversial would “come up.” In response to a question from Ms. Bettman, Ms. Jerome explained that the use of the term territory throughout the ordinance came from the statutes. She clarified that extra-territorial meant land that was outside the city limits. Ms. Bettman observed that the findings indicated that the amendments only impacted land that was urbanizable within the UGB and this seemed to exclude amendments having to do with extra-territorial land. She declared that this was an inconsistency and though they were rare they were significant. She noted that they were being proposed to be processed as a “Type 2” application, which meant the Planning Director acted on it and then if there was an appeal it would be brought before the Hearings Official. She opined that extra-territorial issues were “major policy issues according to the Metro Plan.” She thought they should be processed by the City Council after being reviewed by the Planning Commission. Ms. Jerome clarified that while these items were land use items they were not code amendments and so would not have to be heard by the Planning Commission first. She said such items could be presented to the Planning Commission if the council so chose. Ms. Ortiz asked if the approved criteria for annexations that indicated that properties that were non- contiguous would not be annexed, would still be in place. Mr. Nystrom affirmed that this was the current policy, as adopted by the City Council. Mr. Pryor expressed appreciation for all the work staff had done to craft an ordinance to put this system in place. He said he assumed that the public hearings held by the Planning Commission and to be held by the City Council would bring about some changes to the ordinance language. Ms. Jerome commented that what was before the council was a condensed version of what the council was required to do under the statutes. She stressed that the statutes were very prescriptive about the process but said very little regarding the criteria, application requirements, fees, and so on. Mr. Zelenka surmised that all of the existing policies were still intact and the chief purpose of the ordinance was to take the Boundary Commission function for within the UGB and transfer it to the City Council. Mr. Nystrom responded that staff had made an effort to ensure the policies were left intact, but one area that could not be included because of a change in state law was the policies that applied to non-contiguous annexations. In response to a question from Mr. Zelenka, Mr. Nystrom affirmed that annexation would not be triggered by a remodel. Ms. Bettman said the term “within the community” had been used under the policies related to extra- territorial lands regarding the extension of water and sewer service and she found the term to be vague. Ms. Bettman remarked that the purpose of annexation, as stated in the ordinance language, was just so that the City was consistent with State law. She asked if this was really the only purpose for the processes or MINUTES—Eugene City Council October 31, 2007 Page 3 Work Session should the language reference consistency with the Metro Plan as well. Ms. Jerome replied that both of those were in the “purpose section” and the language could be changed. In response to another question from Ms. Bettman, Ms. Jerome stated that the categories of elector/owner were from the statutes. She explained that the owner was the owner of the property and an elector was someone who could vote who lived on a property. She discussed the differences between double majorities and triple majorities and how that affected the annexation process. Ms. Bettman advised staff to use “common language” so that the public would have the chance to weigh in on the subject in an informed way. She averred that most people could not get through “this kind of technical language.” B. WORK SESSION: FY09 Service and Budget Alignment Process Ms. Jones said she had consulted with representatives of the labor unions and with the Neighborhood Leaders Council (NLC) since the October 17 work session on this topic. She reported that the labor leaders were concerned about the impact of this process on their memberships. She related that the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) had asked, and she had given assurances to them, that the City utilize the competitive service delivery model jointly developed by the management and AFSCME to evaluate the benefits of alternative delivery models prior to initiating outsourcing proposals. She stated that there was an understanding that the model was in place and before any decisions would be made through a budget process, all of the policies and procedures would be reviewed prior to the implemen- tation of changes. She reported that the NLC had appreciated the different approach to the budget, but was concerned about the amount of public involvement in the process for the Fiscal Year (FY) 09. She introduced Kitty Murdoch, Budget Manager for the Finance Division. Ms. Murdoch shared her excitement about the process. She had long wanted to better link the council goals with the budget. She felt the City had not done a good job in linking those goals with how it conducted its budget process. She stated that budgeting for outcomes was a proven method that was endorsed, taught, and cited as a best practice by leading professional organizations and universities. She averred that it helped organizations prioritize services and deliver better results and would benefit the community by providing more transparency, more staff involvement in decisions, more linkage of the budget to outcome measures, a review of service options and it would identify creative ways to improve services and align them with expected resources by FY11. Mayor Piercy underscored that she was not interested in developing the cheapest budget possible; she was interested in the best use of resources. Ms. Murdoch assured her that Public Strategies Group (PSG), the consultant hired to aid in the process, was not interested in promoting the cheapest way to provide services; the emphasis was on providing the best value to the community. Mayor Piercy wanted to gather public input before there was a vote on it at the council level. Ms. Jones said staff was trying to be cognizant of how to incorporate more public input when looking at the timeline. MINUTES—Eugene City Council October 31, 2007 Page 4 Work Session Mr. Pryor appreciated the effort to adopt a new way of budgeting. He supported the linkage of council goals to the budget. He agreed that the cheapest way of doing things was not always the best way; rather the focus should be on selecting services to budget for that provide the greatest ability to achieve a goal. He wanted to ensure that services were delivered in the way that best met the needs of the people of Eugene. Regarding public input, he strongly felt that the council needed to be mindful of which elements of it were appropriate to the process they were going through and which did not apply. Ms. Bettman asked which goals of the City were not being met. Ms. Murdoch replied that the City provided services under most of the council goals. Ms. Bettman surmised that the City was basically already fulfilling the goals. Ms. Murdoch affirmed that the City had programs that addressed each of the goals. Ms. Bettman opined that rhetoric around “this particular program” was like “religious zeal.” She felt it lacked substance. She asked how the proposed motion differed from the motion that was before the council on October 17. Ms. Jones responded that she was seeking council support to use the City Council’s five vision statements around which to align the City’s resources. She averred that the value and outcomes that were desired were not being stated, and the budget was not being aligned around the goals; it was being aligned by service outputs. Ms. Bettman felt that the motion was basically an endorsement of the program. She thought a piece of the motion had been left out, which was the presentation of the budget. She had a lot of concerns about showing up for the FY09 budget process with “a completely different document.” She declared that there would be no way to compare historic revenue expenditures with future revenue expenditures given the new format. She asked if it would be possible to move forward with the same budget document. Ms. Murdoch responded that the service budget would appear different because the City would not be aligning it in the same way. She said there may be services that serve two goals that would be split, but most of the document would remain as it is today. She pointed out that the City had an award-winning budget document and the City valued that it communicated well with the councilors, Budget Committee, and the community. She underscored that the budget, once completed, would be understandable and would be more transparent than before. Ms. Bettman reiterated her feeling that it would be problematic to have a document that would not track historic expenditures. She averred that there were school boards in Minnesota and labor unions in Iowa who had objected to this kind of program. She felt that if it was a good program the City did not need to move on it “in a truncated manner” and could defer the change to FY10. Ms. Jones thought one of the primary reasons to move forward with this program was that she had heard “for years” the desire to have more input into the budget process earlier and she had heard questions about how the City defined the things that were in the budget. She reiterated that she could have undertaken this process, directed staff to implement this procedure, and have gone through all of the steps and returned with a budget that would answer the questions it was legally required to answer. Instead, she said, she preferred to choose to communicate with the council on anything she would consider to be a change in the budget process in order to get the feedback on the vision statements. She wanted to move forward with the council’s support for those statements. She stressed that the City had to do something different other than a status quo budget because the forecast mandated that the City would not be able to continue to do “business as usual.” She underscored that it was important to her that the council understood that this was how the resources would be aligned; all of the other things were “irrelevant.” She pointed out that she could have easily chosen not to undertake this change given that she was serving in an interim position and that it would MINUTES—Eugene City Council October 31, 2007 Page 5 Work Session be “a headache to try to do.” She said this approach would have eaten up more of the reserve funds and left a “mess” for someone else to clean up. She declared that this was not how she did business. She was trying to make the process as up front and to garner council support for it as much as possible. She averred that this process would help the City to align its resources with the community’s values. Mr. Clark commended Ms. Jones for her remarks. He supported the five council goals and visions as a basis on which to undertake the alignment process. He was not interested in delaying this process and pointed out that one of the things the council had wanted was the opportunity to do more work and have more discussions on priority setting. He recalled that one of the items they had held off on in the previous budget session was an increase in police staffing. He was unwilling to wait another year to begin this and another year after that to increase police staffing. Mr. Clark related that he had spoken with Lou Sinniger, AFSCME Council Representative for Local 1724, earlier in the day. He stressed that he was not interested in destabilizing staff morale or finding ways to privatize or to find ways to do things “on the cheap.” He wanted to find more efficient and effective ways to communicate and link outcomes to the work that was being done. He remarked that if the City was doing two separate things in two separate departments to achieve the same goal, he would want to increase the linkage and communication between the two. He predicted that this would not lead to an increase in City staffing. Mr. Zelenka approved of the linkage of the vision statements and, more importantly, the goals of the City Council to the budget process. He was unclear how this could occur. Ms. Murdoch explained that each of the goal areas had a cross-departmental team of staff people who were meeting to decide what key factors most influenced the outcomes for safe communities, sustainable development, and the other goals. She said they would also choose indicators that would then let the community know how well the City was doing in achieving the goals. She stated that staff would bring a map of the goals and links for the Budget Committee to review on November 19. She related that after this, the departments would undertake service offers and would review what programs they currently offered, or what new programs they could think of that would meet those factors, and ultimately those would describe levels of options including the current level of service and a level that addressed the minimum and the exceptional levels of results. She explained that staff would then determine which of the offers would give the best results according to the council goals and would put together the best “grouping of packages” that delivered the best outcomes. This would be forwarded to the Executive Management Team, which would look at the financial forecast in relation to the recommendation and could make subsequent changes. Mr. Zelenka expressed concern that the new process would preclude the ability to look back two years and review the past budgets. Ms. Murdoch assured him that the City was required by law to do so and would be doing so at a departmental level and at a fund level. Mr. Zelenka recalled that when he had served on the Budget Committee years earlier there had been a shift from a department-oriented budget to a service-oriented budget. He asked if this approach would create a different way of looking at the budget services. Ms. Murdoch replied that the service budget would be aligned around the goals and would demonstrate how the various services would be organized under the vision statements. She said the financial summaries would remain in their current form. In response to a follow-up question from Mr. Zelenka, Ms. Murdoch clarified that as part of the instructions to the service teams there would be offers on the goals and the offers would be ranked ‘high,’ ‘medium,’ and MINUTES—Eugene City Council October 31, 2007 Page 6 Work Session ‘low.’ Mr. Zelenka asked why the term “service offers” was being used. Ms. Murdoch responded that it was the language that budgeting for outcomes used. Mr. Zelenka shared his concern that this approach might lead to service privatization. Ms. Jones responded that the unions shared some of these concerns, but she did not believe that the change in approach would change the set of values from which the City operated. She averred that if anything it would respect the values more because it would allow for more involvement in the process. Mr. Zelenka commented that he wanted to ensure that the public had involvement. He hoped there would be additional involvement before the process was completed. Ms. Solomon supported the budget alignment process. She believed it was an “exciting opportunity” for a different process that would ultimately be less divisive. She was not bothered by the truncated process. She felt it was to their advantage to do this “in two steps.” She said it was important to exercise fiscal responsibility and get “ahead of the curve.” She noted that the City had not gotten out ahead of the transportation infrastructure needs; the City had known since 1999 that it had a problem with the way it funded road maintenance and preservation and still had not taken action to change its approach. Ms. Ortiz appreciated Ms. Jones’ attempt to do this. She agreed that it would have been easier, as City Manager Pro Tem, to continue conducting the budget process as it had been. She felt Ms. Jones was trying to create a partnership with the council. She indicated that she would support the motion. Mayor Piercy expressed her appreciation for Ms. Jones’ comments and her efforts to involve the council. She stated that Ms. Jones had her confidence that she would undertake the process in a way that was aligned with the values of the organization. Ms. Ortiz, seconded by Mr. Pryor, moved to endorse using the City Council’s five vision statements as the foundation for aligning services and allocating resources in the FY09 Pro- posed Budget. Mr. Poling underscored that Ms. Jones was charged with “fixing what was broken.” He had been concerned as to how the budget alignment process would treat the unions and that it could lead to some privatization but he had come to believe that the system and policies that were in place had sufficiently addressed those concerns. He thought involving the staff in the process would provide a pride in ownership. He intended to support the motion. He expressed his appreciation to Ms. Jones for the work she had done on this and for the courage and dedication she had shown in taking these tasks on. He considered budget alignment to be a “huge task.” Mr. Pryor commented that while speaking of aligning with goals and visions could be considered rhetoric, he sensed the City was also talking about setting metrics and he supported this. He applauded staff for coming forward and asking for metrics. He thought the metrics would help the council and staff to understand whether the money actually went to the services that were designated and what happened as a result. He wanted to move away from people bringing a “shopping list” of what they wanted to the budget process. He wanted the money to be tied to the desired outcomes and council goals. He felt the budget alignment process would move everyone in that direction. Ms. Bettman took issue with performance measures and metrics. She said she had always wanted to see performance measures, but she wanted measures that “had some meaning.” She averred that in the past MINUTES—Eugene City Council October 31, 2007 Page 7 Work Session such measures included surveys which she considered to be intangibles. She felt the budget alignment process had no community input and was not justifiable at this time. She recalled that the council had voted to not dispose of the Kaufman Senior Center and had voted to take money from selling the annex and put it into a trust to provide the Kaufman Senior Center with funding into perpetuity. She noted that this was against the staff’s wishes, but the council supported doing so. She also recalled that the motion to fund bicycle and foot patrol public safety in perpetuity for urban core parks and downtown had been put into place by the council and budget committee despite opposition from staff. She asked what would happen to those services if staff decided that in order to “reach some obscure benchmark” the budget would not include these. Ms. Jones assured her that those decisions would be made like they were made every year; services funded in the previous year had to be evaluated the following year and the council and Budget Committee would still have the option to bring back something and make a change if they did not agree with a staff recom- mendation. She stressed that nothing was changing with that process. She stated that staff went through an annual evaluation of every service and tried to determine whether the City could continue to provide the service with the available resources or whether there was a better mechanism to deliver that service. Mr. Zelenka asked how the ten council goals would specifically be incorporated into the process. Ms. Jones responded that part of the budget instructions would state that there were ten council goals and that the staff teams needed to submit service offers at high, medium, and low levels to address those goals. Mr. Zelenka suggested that a web-based explanation be provided with a way for people to be involved and provide feedback. He preferred a budget based on values and a recognition of the diverse needs in the community, rather than just funding what was deemed most important and working the Budget Committee’s way down the budget. Ms. Taylor joined the meeting by telephone at 1:27 p.m. Ms. Bettman predicted that the issues that had “percolated up” from the community and upon which the council had made determinations, would be up for argument every year. She asserted that if those things were not supported by staff they would be the first things to fall out of the budget. She was not ready to make a change she considered to be so drastic. She felt this process was being “railroaded through” in a short amount of time. The motion passed, 6:2; Ms. Taylor and Ms. Bettman voting in opposition. The meeting adjourned at 1:29 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Angel Jones City Manager Pro Tem MINUTES—Eugene City Council October 31, 2007 Page 8 Work Session (Recorded by Ruth Atcherson) MINUTES—Eugene City Council October 31, 2007 Page 9 Work Session