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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCC Minutes - 05/12/08 MeetingM I N U T E S Eugene City Council City Council Meeting Council Chamber 777 Pearl Street—Eugene, Oregon May 12, 2008 7:30 p.m. COUNCILORS PRESENT: Andrea Ortiz, Chris Pryor, Betty Taylor, Bonny Bettman, Mike Clark, Alan Zelenka, Jennifer Solomon. COUNCILORS ABSENT: George Poling. Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the meeting of the Eugene City Council to order. 1. PUBLIC FORUM Mayor Piercy reviewed procedures for providing comments. th Dan Weiner , East 16 Avenue, Eugene, spoke to the council about affordable housing. He expressed concerns about the impact of actions by a Texas corporation and asked the council to demonstrate its displeasure at the elimination of affordable housing and meet with a representative of the corporation before construction activities commenced in mid-June. He pointed out that the corporation was going against clearly stated council policies while “skimming the cream” and renting to affluent students. He hoped the mayor would attempt to recruit allies for the endeavor from University of Oregon faculty and administration. Doug DuPriest , High Street, Eugene, representing California-Oregon Broadcasting, Inc. (COBI), which owns and operates two television stations on its Chad Drive property, alerted the council to the potentially adverse impacts on COBI’s property of the proposed water quality ordinance. He distributed information packets. He said COBI’s satellite farm was on the south side of its property and a portion would be captured in the water quality overlay, possibly restricting COBI’s ability to upgrade the dishes to accommodate high definition signals. He used aerial photographs to illustrate the affected property and asked the council to exempt the property from the overlay because of the important telecommunications functions involved. Joe Collins , Hawkins Lane, Eugene, commented that the council and mayor were on a spending spree with projects such as redevelopment of downtown, acquisition of Amazon headwaters property, construction of a new City Hall and police station and expansion of the trail system. He said there were people in the community who needed mental health care and medical care and could not obtain it and street conditions were getting worse; nothing was being done to address those and other problems. He felt Eugene had the worst leadership in America and the mayor and council were an elitist group. He hoped no one would be reelected. Misha Seymour , Lincoln Street, Eugene, spoke about the disparity between conditions in downtown and along Coburg Road. He was concerned with the treatment of poor people in public areas such as outside the library. He felt their right to freedom of assembly had been abridged. He said City staff watered and nurtured flowers and landscaping, but not people. MINUTES—Eugene City Council May 12, 2008 Page 1 Public Hearing Deb Frisch , Eugene, referred to the council’s work session to discuss the City’s response to the Lane County budget crisis and displayed a document from the County’s budget that she said identified funding recommenda- tions for 48 different services. She pointed out that three programs were recommended for funding above the minimum: prosecution of adult defendants, the jail and prosecution of juvenile defendants. She said if the City contracted with the County to prosecute property crimes in Eugene that was an invitation to criminals to harass those who lived in Springfield and the County. She said the council had still not met on the subject of the University of Oregon’s proposed basketball arena. Mayor Piercy determined there was no one else wishing to speak and closed the public forum. She called for comments from the council. Councilor Bettman asked for a copy of the Lane County Budget document. 2. CONSENT CALENDAR A. Approval of City Council Minutes of the February 19, 2008, Public Hearing; February 27, 2008, Work Session; April 9, 2008, Work Session and May 5, 2008, Executive Session B. Approval of Tentative Working Agenda C. Approval of Minutes, Findings and Recommendations from the Hearings Official and Adoption of Resolution 4941 for Concrete Alley Paving, and Constructing Wastewater and th Stormwater Systems on 6 Alley between Taylor Street and Polk Street (Job #4527) D. Approval of Neighborhood Matching Grants Mr. Pryor, seconded by Ms. Bettman, moved to approve the items on the Consent Cal- endar. Ms. Bettman noted that she had submitted electronic minutes corrections and pulled Item C from the Consent Calendar. The motion passed unanimously, 7:0. Councilor Bettman stated she was not opposed to the local improvement district; her concern was with the assessment policies and assuring that all legally assessable costs were assessed. Her motion would increase the assessment by $14,016 of stormwater improvements. Councilor Bettman, seconded by Councilor Taylor, moved to amend Section 5 of Reso- lution No. 4941 to change $109,620 to $123,636. Councilor Bettman said her intent was to correct shifting part of the assessment cost to the City. She said the properties were mostly commercial and would benefit from the improvement and therefore all of the costs that were legally assessable to the impacted and benefitting properties should be allocated to those properties. Councilor Taylor asked why one property had been exempted from the assessment. City Engineer Mark Schoening explained that the property was not included because it did not front the alley. Councilor Taylor said there had been other cases when properties had to pay. Mr. Schoening said there were no instances that involved transportation improvements. City Attorney Glenn Klein said the code differentiated among alley, street and other types of assessments; the code was specific that for alley assessments the property had to abut MINUTES—Eugene City Council May 12, 2008 Page 2 Public Hearing the alley in order to be assessed and the subject property did not. He said in his legal opinion the council lacked the authority within the existing code to assess that one property for alley improvements. In response to Councilor Taylor’s request for further clarification, Mr. Klein said the council could adopt the resolution, including Councilor Bettman’s amendment, but could not expand the local improvement district to include the one property that did not abut the alley. Councilor Zelenka asked for a description of the planned improvements. Mr. Schoening said the improvements would include paving a graveled alley and reconstructing the sanitary wastewater line. He said the exempt property likely had access to the wastewater line through an easement on an adjacent property. Councilor Zelenka felt the code should be changed to provide for a more equitable assessment policy. He asked what the affect of the resolution amendment would be. Mr. Schoening said the affect was to reduce the City’s share of costs and increase the assessment to other properties by that amount, which was approximately 13 percent. Councilor Ortiz asked if passing the motion to amend would place a greater burden on the properties included in the improvement district. Mr. Schoening said it would. Councilor Bettman noted that the costs only related to the stormwater improvement and reiterated her concern that properties benefitting from an improvement should be assessed all of the costs and no costs should be shifted to City ratepayers. Councilor Clark said he was looking forward to a larger conversation about assessments. He said that would highlight the impact of greater density in the City’s core on aging infrastructure, the need to make improvements to accommodate that density and who should pay the costs of those improvements. The motion to amend the resolution failed, 4:3; Councilor Bettman, Council Taylor and Councilor Zelenka voting in favor. The Minutes, Findings and Recommendations from the Hearings Official were ap- proved and Resolution 4941 for Concrete Alley Paving, and Constructing Wastewater th and Stormwater Systems on 6 Alley between Taylor Street and Polk Street (Job #4527) was adopted, 5:2; Councilor Bettman and Council Taylor voting in opposition. The meeting adjourned at 8 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Jon Ruiz City Manager (Recorded by Lynn Taylor) MINUTES—Eugene City Council May 12, 2008 Page 3 Public Hearing