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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCC Minutes - 02/23/05 WS MINUTES Eugene City Council Work Session McNutt Room--City Hall February 23, 2005 Noon COUNCILORS PRESENT: Jennifer Solomon, Betty Taylor, David Kelly, Gary Papd, Bonny Bettman, Andrea Ortiz, Chris Pryor. COUNCILORS ABSENT: George Poling. Mayor Kitty Piercy called the work session of the Eugene City Council to order. She announced that Mr. Poling had requested no action be taken at the present meeting as he was unable to attend due to illness. A. ACTION: An Ordinance Concerning Prohibited Smoking; and Amending Sections 6.225, 6.230, 6.240, and 6.990 of the Eugene Code, 1971 City Manager Dennis Taylor explained that this was a continuation of the public hearing that had been held at the previous City Council meeting. He asked Keli Osbom, Permit Review Manager for the Planning and Development Department (PDD), to highlight the ordinance as proposed. Ms. Osbom conveyed the staff recommendation that a 25-foot no smoking buffer around City-owned buildings be declared. But, she said, the second item, which sought to incorporate the administrative order regarding outdoor smoking areas into the City Code, had been withdrawn from the proposal. She asked that the council provide direction to staff and possibly schedule a work session to discuss this issue further, which would provide time to further research existing outdoor smoking structures and determine how the City wanted to approach such facilities. Mayor Piercy ascertained from Ms. Osborn that, in the interim, the administrative rule would still govern outdoor smoking areas. Mayor Piercy called on the council for questions and comments. Mr. Kelly reiterated his support for the 25 -foot buffer. Regarding the issue of outdoor smoking areas, he recalled the discussion that had occurred when the council was crafting the original ordinance, which emphasized that such outdoor areas should only be built for bars and restaurants and only in the outdoors. He felt some of the examples the council looked at during the public hearing would not be judged as outdoor areas. He supported outdoor facilities when they were clearly outdoor areas, such as patios that were covered to protect patrons from the rain. MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 23, 2005 Page 1 Work Session Ms. Bettman was prepared to support the ordinance. She asked that the language in Section 6.230 referring to polling places be stricken, given that the citizens of Oregon now all vote by mail. She thought it might be appropriate to look into expanding the 25-foot buffer to include all publicly owned buildings when the ordinance was revisited to include language defining outdoor smoking areas. She underscored that the original intent of the issue was to protect people and foster workplace safety. She did not consider an outdoor smoking area to be an outdoor drinking area. She felt that once people were drinking in the outdoor area, service would be required and the intent of the ordinance was defeated. Speaking to the issue of the current administrative rule, Ms. Bettman asked if there was a way to stave off a plethora of permit applications for the development of outdoor smoking areas by bars and restaurants seeking to build prior to the potential imposition of stricter parameters. Ms. Taylor said the main reason for the ordinance was to protect people's health and she supported it. She agreed that it was unfair to employees to make them serve and clean up after patrons in outdoor smoking areas. She also thought it manifested unfair competition given that some establishments did not have the room to install an outdoor smoking area. Ms. Taylor asked if it would be possible, given that action would not be taken at the current work session, to vote on both the buffer and on standards for outdoor smoking areas when the ordinance was rescheduled for consideration. City Manager Taylor opined that it would be cleaner to get the 25-foot buffer adopted and return with new language to govern construction of outdoor smoking facilities. Ms. Osborn asked if Ms. Taylor meant that the council would be voting on standards for outdoor areas and, if so, whether she thought there should be another public hearing. Ms. Taylor indicated she did not think another public hearing was necessary because one had been held on the non-smoking ordinance in January. City Manager Taylor recommended that a public hearing be held because the people who could be affected by changes to outdoor smoking area standards had not been noticed prior to the last public meeting. Ms. Taylor asked if people with existing outdoor facilities would be grandfathered in. City Attorney Jerry Lidz responded that the construction and land use might be grandfathered in, but he did not think the use of the space as a smoking area was grandfathered since this was a form of regulation for the public health. He said given the amount of State regulation in this area, there were some legal issues concerned with the changes the City Council might make. He recommended further legal research. Mr. Pap~ supported the ordinance as proposed. He realized that the council was trying to protect non- smokers and employees from second-hand smoke. While he did not have a concept that people would not be drinking in the outdoor areas, he had not considered that people might be serving drinks to patrons in them. Regarding the Oregon Liquor Control Commission (OLCC) requirement that employees enter the areas in the case of emergencies, Mr. Pap~ asked how such emergencies were defined. Ms. Osborn replied that the OLCC did require visibility for those areas in which drinking occurred and that employees be able to go in should an incident require them to. Examples of such incidents included deterring minors from drinking or interrupting an altercation between patrons. MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 23, 2005 Page 2 Work Session Regarding the administrative rule, Mr. Papd asked if the 25 percent requirement was for opaque walls or for the open air portion of a facility. Ms. Osborn replied that it referred to the open air portion. Mr. Papd indicated that he would support increasing that amount to perhaps 50 percent. Mr. Pap~ supported the 25-foot buffer but was uncertain how it would be enforced. Ms. Osborn said it would be enforceable for congregating smokers but she did not think it would be possible to regulate smokers as they were walking by a building; however, public information could help promote compliance. Ms. Solomon wanted to be certain that the City was not taking away the option of having smoking areas. She felt bars and restaurants should have the choice and the option to build a smoking room if that was what their patrons wanted. Ms. Ortiz wished to stress that she was not against smoking or that smokers were bad people. She felt that smoking was a %ad" addiction. She appreciated that the council was having a good conversation about what was desired in such a facility. She supported making them as airy as possible and not forcing employees to breathe second-hand smoke. Ms. Bettman commented that the City had allowed the proliferation of these sorts of outdoor facilities and could be stuck with the ones that were already built. She asked if there was a way to temporarily discon- tinue issuing permits for their construction. Mr. Lidz commented that in the land use context, the City was required to issue or deny permits based on standards that were in place at the time the application was submitted. In response to a question from Ms. Bettman, City Manager Taylor recommended that the council come back after the break and finish addressing the item, at which time staff could present modifications to the administrative rule extrapolated from the council discussions on it. He did not think it would be prudent to issue a moratorium on permits, given that the action could take place relatively soon. Ms. Bettman said she was using up a lot of her time trying to define the issue and she had other comments to make. She felt she was not getting anywhere. She reiterated that the City may see a proliferation of permits. Ms. Bettman moved to discontinue issuing permits for outdoor smoking areas pending reso- lution of the issue. Mr. Kelly raised a point of order. He stated that a majority of the council would have to agree to override Mr. Poling's request not to take action. Ms. Bettman agreed to bring this item back. She asked staff to come back with language for a moratorium on the permits at the meeting scheduled for February 28. She reiterated that the key to regulation for her was not only the amount of available air but also whether employees were forced to enter into the smoking areas to serve customers or clean up after them. Mr. Kelly shared Ms. Bettman's concern. He felt a lot of the smoking areas were rooms for all purposes and intents because of the way the administrative rule was written or because an establishment disregarded MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 23, 2005 Page 3 Work Session the rule. He was not opposed to giving some latitude to smokers who go to a bar and want a truly outdoor area in which they could have drinks as well. He felt there would be enough air circulation that a server could occasionally enter an outdoor area to intervene in an altercation or other small emergencies. Ms. Taylor commented that even if it was truly outdoors, there was still some danger to the people who serve and the people who clean up. Ms. Osbom said it seemed that staff had clear direction to come back with some proposals. City Manager Taylor reiterated that it would be confined to bars and restaurants and would seek to protect employees from second-hand smoke. Mr. Lidz thought it possible to adopt a blanket 25-foot buffer for all publicly owned buildings, but he did not think the City could enforce it against the State or federal governments. He added that it was less clear regarding the County buildings. In response to a question from Mr. Pap~, Ms. Osborn said the City would pursue signage noting the 25-foot buffer. Mayor Piercy ascertained that no members of the council opposed the 25-foot buffer. The council indicated unanimous support. City Manager Taylor asked if the item could be included in the Consent Calendar, noting that Mr. Poling could pull it if he wished. The council indicated unanimous support for placement of the ordinance on the Consent Calendar. City Manager Taylor said he would ask Mr. Lidz and staff to look into what the council could do to keep from having a rush on permit applications for the construction of outdoor smoking areas. B. WORK SESSION: Downtown City Space Master Planning City Manager Taylor noted that Mike Penwell, Principal Facility Project Manager for the Facilities Division of the Central Services Department (CSD), was ill. As such, Facilities Division manager, Glen Svendsen, and Assistant City Manager Jim Carlson were standing in as staff for this item. Mr. Svendsen said this was the continuation of an item begun in November 2004. He recalled that there had been general consensus on the part of the council that a master planning process that would include public processes was needed for the downtown City spaces. He recalled that the council had been uncomfortable with the $750,000 price tag for the process and noted that the Eugene Water & Electric Board (EWEB) was also engaging in a similar process, slated to cost it $792,000. He related that staff had returned in January with a proposal that broke the process into stages, with the first stage slated to be a scoping element costing $75,000 that would involve both the council and the public in the development of the process. He provided a brief overview of the five options on how the master planning process should proceed. The fifth option was to take no action. MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 23, 2005 Page 4 Work Session In response to a question from Ms. Taylor, Mr. Pryor said there had been no hired consultant for the Eugene Decisions process. He noted that Ed Weeks from the University of Oregon had been hired to help facilitate the process. Ms. Taylor opined that a consultant was not needed for the process. She wondered how much money it would take to have ~really good neighborhood meetings." She wished to find out if the public wanted the City to build a new City Hall. She thought this would be a good point of discussion during the two-day goal-setting session. Mr. Carlson responded that it would cost $10,000 to do a mail-out to everyone in the neighborhood groups. Ms. Taylor commented that this would be cheaper than $75,000 or $30,000. Mr. Carlson replied that this was the cost for only the notice and there would still be costs for staff time and facilitators. Ms. Taylor underscored that her intention was to determine whether the public wished to embark on this planning process. Mr. Papd asked, for comparison purposes, what was involved in Option 3 and Option 4. Mr. Svendsen stated that the big difference in Option 4 lay in the degree of public involvement in the reiteration of the process and that there was more in-depth work with the council on the issues. Mr. Papd commented that the City Council and staff had done a great job of master planning over the past five years. He cited the new Fire Station as a fruit of this labor. His wanted to remedy the current situation, wherein some of the police were housed in the basement of the City Hall building. He did not care for the City Hall facility but did not think his preferences should be the deciding factor in whether the facility should be rebuilt. However, if a new police and City Hall facility needed to be built, he highly recommended raising public awareness as to why these projects were being considered. He noted that the City of Boise, Idaho, had partnered with the County to build one facility for public safety and thought this was one option. Ms. Bettman stated that the public would have the final say when they voted on the ballot measure. She thought the council needed to weigh the technical issues like the cost of maintenance versus the cost of rebuilding. She advocated for making this decision in a public process in order to maintain transparency in the City government. She felt the real problem with taking every decision out to the public was that it came back to the council and fell apart because the council did not have consensus. She said the question lay in how to create a process to ~get to yes." She averred that the way to do that was to ~make fundamental decisions" before approaching the public. Ms. Bettman thought input from the public should include things like where a facility should be sited, but whether a master plan or an architectural diagram was needed would be a decision based upon whether the City was building a building or a campus. She recommended narrowing those options before the council went to the public. She wanted staff to bring a decision package to a City Council work session that included information on what the City was paying in rent and how much it would save by consolidating so that the council could take its first step. Ms. Solomon said it appeared that the City needed the master planning process and that it should include a parking garage to help link the City Hall part of downtown with the new courthouse. She thought it would address many of the needs the council had discussed. She wished to see what a quarter-block land swap would look like. City Manager Taylor responded that the answer to that question was contingent on the MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 23, 2005 Page 5 Work Session council's desired approach to the City Hall facility. He stressed that land assemblage was the most difficult part of downtown development. Before the City divided property that it currently owned, he recommended the council have a clear idea on how it should proceed. Ms. Solomon acknowledged City Manager Taylor's comments, but wanted to consider this opportunity to partner with private development. She did not want to pursue master planning if it precluded the exploration of the sub-projects. She reiterated her wish to see what a quarter-block land swap would look like and also what a quarter-block police station would look like. Mr. Pryor remarked that the conversation should ;;be packaged and saved" for the point in the discussion when it was appropriate. He recalled that the item on the agenda was a discussion on what kind of meeting to have to talk about what kind of meeting to have. He underscored that the master planning process had not yet begun and all of the great input about that process should be saved for that discussion. He commented that he had never been involved in a process where a decision on the degree of public involvement was needed to determine how much public participation there should be in the master planning process. He thought it an interesting dilemma. In looking at the options, Mr. Pryor thought Option 1, which left it to the City Manager to determine the public process, was not adequate. He thought Option 2, wherein $15,000 was spent on designing a public process subject to council approval might be %kay." He thought Option 3, which engaged some public input, might also work. What he was trying to determine, however, was what motion the council should vote on and what kind of process the City wanted to pay for to decide what the public process should be. He did not feel the need to spend ;;a lot of money" to decide how much public participation there should be in a public participation deciding process. He stressed that he did not dispute the need for public participation when the council arrived at the ;;big meeting process." Mr. Kelly wished to address Ms. Solomon's comments. He thought both sub-projects presented opportuni- ties. He said in a perfect world, such projects should wait for a master planning process, but given the time- sensitive nature of the projects he felt the council should have a discussion as soon as possible. He asked if he needed to petition for a work session. City Manager Taylor thought this discussion could happen and would likely be best conducted in an executive session. He said the larger question at hand was what the council wished to do with regard to the City Hall facility. Mr. Kelly called it all relevant and intertwined and indicated he would request a work session. He thought the discussion might lead the council to consciously decide to limit its options regarding the City Hall complex. Regarding options, Mr. Kelly expressed a preference for Option 2, but said he was not interested in the option if it did not include some public involvement. He also agreed with Ms. Bettman regarding the necessity of the council making the fact-based decisions such as whether to build or renovate. Ms. Bettman asked Council Coordinator Lynda Rose to provide to the council copies of an e-mail she sent out after the January meeting that laid out the fact-based decisions she thought the council should make. She favored Option 2, stating that the City had the expertise to focus the discussion on the discrete issues of whether or not to build and what the minimum threshold for services that should be included in the building. MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 23, 2005 Page 6 Work Session Ms. Taylor did not think the council needed to hire someone to tell it how to have a public process. She wanted more facts, adding that there had not been enough information on how much it would cost for a seismic retrofit for the existing building. Mr. Pap6 said the cost for renovation was known in 1999. He did not favor spending "one more dime" on the present facility. Mr. Papd recommended bringing the other councilors "up to speed" on the time-sensitive opportunity. He asked for head nods to determine if a work session on the "Shedd proposal" and trading a quarter of the lot should be scheduled. The councilors present indicated with a nod of the head that they wished to hold a work session on this item. City Manager Taylor surmised that individual meetings with a proposal that had not been vetted by other people would lead the council to have a meeting for disposal of half a block of property prior to deciding what it wanted to do with regard to City facilities. Mr. Kelly thought neighborhood meetings should be part of a master planning process but that he did not think such meetings were needed to determine the initial participation process. He noted the comment in the agenda item summary (ALS) on citizen juries and wished to clarify that his mention of a citizen jury was specific to the master planning process and not the design of the process. He said citizen juries were almost never delegated final authority and, in this case, he intended that a citizen body of this sort would provide a recommendation upon which the City Council would have the final say. Ms. Bettman called the deterioration of the City Hall facility a ~discrete issue." She believed, within financial constraints, that the process should not be broadened by bringing in the County or additional issues like great street projects. She felt it was a facilities issue only, but it had turned into a large planning endeavor with a wide-open opportunity. In terms of visioning and planning, she felt location would be an important community discussion, but whether or not to build a new City Hall was a very discrete and technical issue. Mr. Carlson remarked that staff had been meeting about this issue for five years. He thought a lot of technical analysis would have to be conducted to make the determination on whether to rehabilitate the existing building and building onto it or whether to build a new building. He said until the amount of space that would be needed to meet the facility's needs were known, it would be difficult to determine just how much it would cost to rehabilitate or to rebuild. Ms. Taylor asserted that the building was deteriorating because the City had not maintained it. She did not think its alleged deterioration was a good excuse for replacing the building. Mr. Kelly asked why the council, ahead of a detailed master plan a few years earlier, had taken a vote in response to a staff recommendation that the City Hall would not receive any new major maintenance at that time if, as Mr. Carlson said, much more analysis was needed. He asked if the assistant city manager was trying to articulate major goals for the project. Mr. Carlson replied that staff needed to know if the project was going to be a police building and if it would consolidate other functions. MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 23, 2005 Page 7 Work Session Mr. Kelly thought this would complicate Ms. Bettman's goal to have clear, fact-based decisions prior to taking it to the public. He said there was material introduced from a seismic analysis of the building in a council session earlier in the year. He suggested those sorts of larger questions should inform the discussion on whether to build new or renovate. Mr. Pap6 stated that the City had certain functions and it was important to decide how the City wanted to manage and house these different functions of the City into the future. He felt the council and City were at a larger junction than just the question of what to do with City Hall. Ms. Bettman reiterated the issues she thought should be decided prior to moving forward, such as whether or not to have the Police Department contiguous to the City Hall facility. She stressed the need to reach consensus at the council on the ;;discrete issues." Ms. Ortiz stated that she had asked for motion language to remove the railroad yards from the proposed Enterprise Zone, slated for discussion and action at a future meeting. Mayor Piercy stressed the importance of ensuring an adequate amount of public participation to support the progress that the council wished to make. She added that she believed when the City Manager and staff came before the council and provided their opinions on items their intent was to inform the council and not to influence decisions. Mayor Piercy adjourned the meeting at 1:15 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Dennis M. Taylor City Manager (Recorded by Ruth Atcherson) MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 23, 2005 Page 8 Work Session