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HomeMy WebLinkAboutJEO Meeting - Eugene Issues List Joint Elected Officials Meeting Issues List February 12, 2008 Presented by City of Eugene Homelessness – “Helping the homeless” has been one of the Eugene City Council’s annual goals o since 2005. Homelessness is a serious regional issue, because on any given night 2,300 homeless individuals impact the health, welfare, and budget of each local jurisdiction. These impacts are felt through public safety and public health, and in the schools and hospitals. Ninety-five percent of local homeless people are from this area. Many have a disability and one-third are children. In November 2006 Lane County adopted a “Ten-Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness.” The plan was aided by cooperation from Eugene and Springfield. In 2007 Mayor Piercy appointed a 21- member committee to consider funding options to address homelessness. The committee, which includes a County Commissioner and a Springfield Councilor, studied the issue and found that in addition to personal suffering, the impact to the community is significant and costly. Their final recommendations, expected in February or March, are expected to promote prevention programs and the “Housing First” model, which places people directly into service-enriched housing rather than into emergency shelters. Project Homeless Connect is an event that brings the public sector and greater community together to provide a range of services to homeless people in one place—on one day. The event results in long-term benefits and significant public awareness and education. Metro Plan – HB 3337 mandates separate UGBs and residential lands analyses for the cities of o Eugene and Springfield. The Metro Plan was written for a single UGB and allows buildable lands inventories to be shared between Eugene and Springfield. It contains shared policies about growth management, service provision, annexation, and processing amendments. The establishment of separate UGBs will create the need for various Metro Plan amendments as the Metro Plan currently references a single UGB. Public Safety – Public safety issues require inter-jurisdictional strategies and cooperation. Some o (like Fire-EMS responses and information support systems) are working very well. Those that carry larger financial requirements (such as ambulance transport) and for which different system components are the responsibility of different governmental entities (like the criminal justice system) are much more challenging due to severe budget constraints on all of the jurisdictional partners. Ambulance transport service, in particular, faces critical short-term sustainability issues due to sharply reduced Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, and interagency solutions should be among the options evaluated. Criminal justice system partners also face critical short-term issues in the form of reduced county secure schools payments. Cross-jurisdiction, system-wide strategies will be needed to address these issues. Enhance Understanding of Race Issues and Improve Race Relationships – The council priority on o race outlines a plan that the council as a body, and the Mayor and councilors as individuals, can engage in to build a better understanding of race issues among themselves and improve race relations in the community. The plan focuses on community input and Mayor and council education on issues of race as a background for action. By acknowledging and illuminating instances of bias in the community and making a commitment to change, the City Council is in a unique position to set the tone for race relations in Eugene and the metropolitan area. To this end, the Mayor and Council met with a broad group of representatives from the communities of color and later formed the Community Committee on Race JEO Issues List – Page 2 of 4 (CCR) to help advise the City on next steps. Staff, with direct input from the CCR, revised the Council’s action plan which was adopted in May 2007. One of the foundational elements of the action plan is the development of a Diversity and Equity Strategic Plan. This plan, to be completed in 2008, will guide the organization’s work to ensure a respectful workplace for all City employees and equitable service delivery to all members of the community. Transportation Planning/Funding – At its November 8, 2007 meeting, the Metropolitan Policy o Committee (MPC) adopted the 2031 Regional Transportation Plan (RTP). The State Transportation Planning Rule (TPR) requires that Transportation System Plans, such as TransPlan, be consistent with RTPs. According to the TPR, once the RTP is approved by the MPC, jurisdictions that are party to TransPlan–Eugene, Springfield, and Lane County–have one year to do one of the following: Find that TransPlan is consistent with the RTP; o Update TransPlan to be consistent with the RTP; or o Develop a work plan for updating TransPlan to be consistent with the RTP and have this o work plan approved by the State Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC). Since the RTP adoption, staff members from the local jurisdictions have held two meetings with ODOT and DLCD staff as well as several meetings amongst ourselves to discuss next steps. The broad consensus is that the third bullet, developing a work plan to update TransPlan, is the right approach. This recognizes that an update is necessary and that it will take longer than a year, especially considering coordination with the comprehensive lands analysis and possible associated Metro Plan updates. City staff and regional partners will continue to coordinate with ODOT and DLCD on development of a draft work plan for a TransPlan update and will present a proposed timeline, draft work plan, and associated costs at the April 9, 2008 City Council Meeting. Area Commissions on Transportation: In 1996, the Oregon Transportation Commission (OTC) authorized regionally-based transportation advisory commissions known as Area Commissions on Transportation (ACTs) in order to expand opportunities for local citizen involvement in ODOT’s decision-making. The OTC responded to local jurisdictions and other stakeholders asking for more opportunity to participate in the early stages of transportation project selection. ACTs consider regional and local transportation issues if they affect the state system and they work with other local organizations dealing with transportation-related issues. ACTs play a key advisory role in the development of the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP), which schedules funded transportation projects. ACTs establish a public process for area project selection priorities, and following adopted project eligibility criteria, prioritize transportation problems and solutions and recommend projects in their area to be included in the STIP. A total of ten ACTs have previously been formed representing all of Oregon except the Portland Metro area and Lane County. Lane County elected not to establish an ACT and, instead, ODOT works with the Eugene/Springfield Metropolitan Policy Committee and the Lane County Board of Commissioners to coordinate transportation project planning and construction. Transportation Funding: The City of Eugene has a documented backlog of deferred street maintenance in excess of $170 million while Springfield and Lane County also face shortfalls in transportation funding. A series of dynamic and complex issues related to intergovernmental transportation funding solutions adds both opportunity and uncertainty to the mix. Intergovernmental solutions, including the two mentioned below, are consistent with the recommendations of the transportation funding subcommittee, but the outcomes are less certain than those over which the council and the citizens of Eugene have direct control. Continue to pursue other opportunities such as a countywide vehicle registration fee and/or countywide gas tax JEO Issues List – Page 3 of 4 as well as legislative remedies and funding solutions at the statewide level. In September, LCOG convened a group that includes public works directors to begin discussing transportation funding solutions at a regional level. These two options are the ones most likely to mesh with the county. In addition, the 2009 Oregon Legislature is expected to consider some form of increased transportation funding, including a commitment from the Oregon Petroleum Association, to seek and endorse a significant increase to the state gas tax. A critical aspect of any funding solution collected at a countywide or statewide level would be a distribution formula that guarantees revenue, in perpetuity, to the cities. Presented by City of Springfield TransPlan Work Plan – The recent adoption of the federally mandated Regional Transportation o Plan (RTP) included a planning horizon that extends to the year 2031. The companion piece to the RTP is TransPlan, which shares the same adopted 2015 planning horizon as the Metro Plan. The state Transportation Planning Rule (TPR) requires consistency between the federal transportation plan and state required transportation plans, including similar out-years. The planning horizon for TransPlan needs to be adjusted accordingly, but since TransPlan is a part of the Metro Plan a similar adjustment to the Metro Plan is almost certainly necessary. As it happens, the updates to the buildable lands inventories currently underway will be for a planning horizon of 20 years (2030 when finished). It seems propitious to combine these tasks. Metro Plan – UGB Changes – HB 3337 requires Eugene and Springfield to undertake several o actions, including the establishment of separate urban growth boundaries. Although it is not clear when the best time might be to take this action, it would probably be in the best interest of all three governments to allow this to occur as either a joint action or independently depending on when the communities are ready to act. Metro Plan – Conforming Amendments – The establishment of separate UGB's for Springfield and o Eugene will create the need for various conforming amendments to the Metro Plan which will continue to reference a single UGB unless amendments are made to reflect compliance with the HB 3337 mandate for separate UGB's. One approach that would facilitate the work each city is undertaking is to coordinate necessary amendments to the Metro Plan text for purposes of creating conforming language that recognizes the changes brought about by HB 3337. Update – Inventories and Population Projections – A final draft of the Residential Lands Study o Report is nearly completed and the Commercial Industrial Buildable Lands (CIBL) project will begin this month. The findings of the Residential Lands Study will be combined with those of the CIBL to provide a complete inventory of all buildable lands and new strategies to encourage economic redevelopment. The inventories must be based on population projections for each urban growth boundary for that time horizon and adopted into the comprehensive plan. The existing population projections are for the metro area, not for each city, and only go out to the year 2015. It will benefit the inventory work of both cities to have the metro population projections disaggregated and as soon as possible. Presented by Lane County Right now the Eugene-Springfield Metropolitan Area General Plan (Metro Plan) provides that cities o are the logical provider of urban services. With the passage of Ballot Measure 5 and then 47/50, is this policy still appropriate? Lane County requests the three governments consider amendments to allow the creation of mutually agreed upon special districts. JEO Issues List – Page 4 of 4 Current policies of the Metro Plan support the concept of compact urban growth. Are there o strategies we can employ to allow this anticipated growth to occur but avoid the loss of high value farmland as well as preserving and allowing for some urban farming to continue inside the urban area? For example, how should the Metro Plan deal with the area south of the Jasper Extension/Natron sites that are currently designated as agriculture and aggregate resource? Representation of citizens between the urban growth boundary and the city limits. Right now, under o ORS 190 agreements, we have transferred land use and building permit administrative authority to the cities, and this is logical because this land is by definition urbanizable and will eventually be inside the city. Unfortunately, however, this creates a strong feeling of disenfranchisement for the citizens just outside the city limits. Are there strategies we can employ to give those citizens greater voice in urbanization and annexation decisions?