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HomeMy WebLinkAboutItem 2C: Ratification of IGR Actions of June 18, 2008 ECC UGENE ITY OUNCIL AIS GENDA TEM UMMARY Ratification of Intergovernmental Relations Committee Actions of June 18, 2008 Meeting Date: August 11, 2008 Agenda Item Number: 2C Department: City Manager’s Office Staff Contact: Brenda Wilson www.eugene-or.gov Contact Telephone Number: 682-8441 ISSUE STATEMENT This is an action item to ratify the recommendations of the Intergovernmental Relations (IGR) Committee meetings of June 18, 2008. BACKGROUND As a matter of procedure, the City Council is routinely asked to ratify the actions taken by the Intergovernmental Relations (IGR) Committee. This is done by submitting the minutes of each committee meeting to the council. RELATED CITY POLICIES Ratification of IGR Committee actions is the making or affirming of the City of Eugene’s policy with respect to Federal and State legislative issues or such other matters as may come to the council from the committee. COUNCIL OPTIONS The council may ratify or decline to ratify the IGR Committee’s actions as set forth in the minutes of the committee's meeting. CITY MANAGER’S RECOMMENDATION The City Manager recommends ratification of the IGR Committee's actions as set forth in the minutes of the committee's meeting. SUGGESTED MOTION Move to ratify the IGR Committee's actions as set forth in the minutes of the June 18, 2008, IGR meetings. ATTACHMENTS A. IGR Committee Minutes of June 18, 2008 Z:\CMO\2008 Council Agendas\M080811\S0808112C.doc FOR MORE INFORMATION Staff Contact: Brenda Wilson Telephone: 682-8441 Staff E-Mail: brenda.s.wilson@ci.eugene.or.us ATTACHMENT A M I N U T E S Council Committee on Intergovernmental Relations McNutt Room—Eugene City Hall 777 Pearl Street, Eugene, Oregon June 18, 2008 1:30 p.m. PRESENT: Betty Taylor, Chair; Andrea Ortiz, George Poling, members; Mayor Kitty Piercy; Brenda Wilson, Jessica Mumme, Mary Walston, City Manager's Office. 1. Call to Order and Review Agenda Councilor Taylor called the meeting of the Council Committee on Intergovernmental Relations (CCIGR) to order and reviewed the agenda. It was noted that Mayor Piercy would arrive later. Intergovernmental Relations Manager Brenda Wilson wanted to review a handout of legislative concepts that had been submitted by state agencies and the Governor’s office to Legislative Council. She said the actual provisions of the bills were still unclear, but she had a pretty good idea about the concepts. She solicited comments from the committee, with the understanding that once the bills were introduced, the staff would review and give recommendations so that the committee could develop a policy direction for the City. 2. Legislative Concepts Ms. Wilson laid out the major topics that would be addressed in the session, including transportation, water issues, climate and global change, and ethics reform. In addition, she said a restructuring of the entire state tax/revenue system was also being discussed. She then went through the individual legislative concepts. ? Ethics Reform Ms. Wilson reported on an ethics reform hearing held this morning before a joint Senate and House Committee. She said Senate President Peter Courtney had admitted the 2007 legislation had gone too far. Several groups, including the Oregon League of Cities, had asked for clarification of the law’s provisions. She said one of the main points would be removing the reporting requirements for family members of public officials, especially family members who do not live in the household of public officials and also revisiting gift limits. Councilor Taylor called the quarterly reports and $100 a day fine ridiculous. Ms. Wilson said the reporting would be addressed, including what needed to be reported. This afternoon, the head of the Capitol Club was bringing the head of the Ethics Commission before an entire room to ask 39 questions. She said a number of groups were working on the issue, and the City may want to take a strong position on ethics reform. MINUTES—Council Committee on Intergovernmental Relations June 18, 2008 Page 1 Councilor Taylor again stated that she felt the quarterly reporting should be replaced by annual reporting and found the fines oppressive. Ms. Wilson said reporting was an issue already being discussed and she would make sure the quarterly reporting was addressed. ? Oregon Wireless Interoperability (OWIN) Funding Ms. Wilson said that a placeholder to fund OWIN had been introduced, but that we also need to come into compliance with federal requirements by 2013. She said it did not appear as if the group working on OWIN was willing to engage local governments in the discussion. Cities would continue to work with state director Lindsay Ball to help him understand that especially where local governments had already built part of the system, we needed to be included in the discussions. She said a significant amount of money had been identified as necessary to fund OWIN, but the amount of funding that has been identified can not be fully explained and was in significant question. ? Metal Theft Ms. Wilson said a watered-down version of a metal theft law had passed in the last session. Criminal penalties for metal scrap dealers who accepted items like guard rails had been struck out of the bill. She said metal theft had caused safety issues around the state, especially for public works people, and some of the big steel dealers were saying it would interfere with their business. She said it was a hard argument to make that business would be hurt with tighter restrictions when we are talking about illegal goods. She noted that recently, an entire playground had been stolen. Mayor Piercy arrived. ? Lift Local Government Firearm Preemption Ms. Wilson said another concept would lift the preemption on local governments for regulating firearms, especially concealed weapons, given the mayor and city councilor who were shot and killed last year. Right now, local governments were prohibited from regulating or excluding concealed weapon holders from public buildings, including schools. A legislative concept placeholder had been introduced, and she thought the legislation might be a partial fix that would prevent carrying weapons into city halls, council chambers and schools. Mayor Piercy asked what the decision had been in the case of the teacher who wanted to carry a concealed weapon. Ms. Wilson replied that one of her representatives would be introducing a legislative concept that would prevent that information from being released to the public, specifically the media. A newspaper had made a public records request for the names of people holding a concealed weapon permit. Mayor Piercy noted that the two bills appeared to contradict each other. Ms. Wilson agreed and said that the two bills would probably be combined in some sort of compromise. ? Reform Psychiatric Security Review Board Siting and Notification Process Ms. Wilson said currently, there was no strict requirement to notify local governments that the state planned on siting a secure psychiatric treatment facility in a local jurisdiction. A task force has been set up by the governor to explore the issue. MINUTES—Council Committee on Intergovernmental Relations June 18, 2008 Page 2 ? Executive Session Changes Ms. Wilson said this housekeeping measure would allow government bodies to discuss security measures in executive session. This arose out of the shooting earlier this year where 5 people were shot and killed at a city counsel meeting. ? Prevailing Wage Ms. Wilson related that Salem was still in court over its prevailing wage case. There had been a nasty discussion in the last session, and she hoped it could be discussed in a nicer manner. She said there were a lot of issues with prevailing wage. Former Senator Avakian was the new head of the Labor Commission, and she felt he would help the discussion be more productive this time. ? Electronic Lie Detector Test for Police Recruits Ms. Wilson noted that we had asked for a bill to be introduced allowing lie detector and stress tests for police recruits bill in the last session that would allow the City to do a test in a specific point in the application process. She said the bill had specified that the test would not prevent the hiring of a police officer, but could be used as a tool to help investigators do background checks. The City had run up against opposition from Sen. Vicky Walker; Ms. Wilson thought enough information had been gathered to address the senator’s concerns. She asked whether the committee wanted the legislative team to seek a sponsor for the bill or wait to support a bill introduced by someone else. Ms. Taylor inquired whether the bill had come from the Police Department. Ms. Wilson confirmed that, adding that Sen. Floyd Prozanski had introduced it on our behalf. She said the City of Portland had also introduced a similar bill, and we had jumped behind theirs rather than pushing ours. ? Recall Reform Ms. Wilson related that recall reform had also been introduced as a placeholder; she had no details, except that it would require a constitutional amendment. ? Adult Business Regulation Ms. Wilson said adult business regulation, which was brought up in every session, would also require a constitutional amendment. ? Gross Receipts Tax for Telecom Ms. Wilson reported that City Manager Jon Ruiz had been appointed to the LOC’sadvisory committee looking at this issue. The City of Eugene, Creswell and Oakridge had strongly requested that they be grandfathered in. Eugene was one of only three cities in the state with the ability to tax wireless. She said the impact of a gross receipts tax was unclear, and the City was unwilling to risk the $2.4 million it collected annually and used for really incredible projects all across the community. She had heard that wireless might introduce a deregulation bill. ? Cancer Presumption in Firefighters Ms. Wilson said this had been a hard fought bill in the last session. Although last session’s bill settled on just 5 presumptive cancers, this proposal includes 12 cancers presumed to be work related, with stipulations. Sen. Prozanski introduced this last session, and she believed he would push it again. She said it would be a hard policy call for the City Council, because it was a budgetary issue as well as a livability and human resource issue. MINUTES—Council Committee on Intergovernmental Relations June 18, 2008 Page 3 Councilor Taylor asked about smokers. Ms. Wilson said the proposed bill provides that if a public employer can show that smoking was the likely cause of a cancer, it could be rebutted. Ms. Ortiz said smoking negated all cancers, from her understanding. When she listened to the health report for the Bethel area, there were cancer clusters, but they said 70% of the people were smokers. Ms. Wilson said her understanding from the last session was that the five cancers that were left on the table could only be caused by other things besides smoking. She was unsure about the additional seven cancers. She planned to have the increase to the PERS cost for a public employer analyzed, given that work-related disabilities were solely funded by the employer. The City had opposed this in the last session. Councilor Taylor asked who proposed it besides Sen. Prozanski. The firefighters, Ms. Wilson replied. Councilor Taylor commented that there had been discussion about all bills going through CCIGR instead of individual departments. Ms. Wilson did not know the previous process, but four bills had been introduced on the City’s behalf last session. Under the current operating agreements, all proposed bills from City departments had to go through CCIGR first. Councilor Ortiz inquired whether that applied to unions. Councilor Poling said the firefighters, as a union, would not have to go through the City. Ms. Wilson agreed and said the CCIGR would still review the bill if it was introduced. ? Burning Phase Down and Smoke Management Coordination. Ms. Wilson commented that the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) presented this concept to phase down field burning in the Willamette Valley. She said the timeline was still unclear, and it would allow more burning on more acres than already allowed under the law, if it could be shown that there were no viable alternatives, which the grass farmers had been arguing all along. She said the City would definitely want to take a look at the bill when it came out. She had spoken with Rep. Paul Holvey, who has stated he intends to make a complete ban on field burning one of his priority issues again in the upcoming session. Mayor Piercy said Lisa Arkin, executive director of the Oregon Toxics Alliance, had been in a work group working on what would come out, and she thought it had been a DEQ group. Ms. Wilson said she would check with Ms. Arkin. ? Bottle Bill Task Force Ms. Wilson listed some of the issues that almost killed the bottle bill in the last session: what containers could be recycled, how much, would they go through grocery stores or curbside recycling. She wanted the committee to be thinking about what role the City could play on this. The City was on the Bottle Bill Task Force last session. ? Producer Responsibility for Difficult-to-Manage Products MINUTES—Council Committee on Intergovernmental Relations June 18, 2008 Page 4 Ms. Wilson said DEQ had also submitted a concept that unless manufacturers had a plan submitted to DEQ and approved for the collection and adequate disposal of multi-ingredient or dangerous products, those products could not be sold in the state of Oregon. She said this was part of the sustainability initiative. Mayor Piercy went back to discussing the bottle bill and said that talking about what was in a bottle, rather than the type of bottle, was a weird approach. She thought recycling rules should apply no matter what product was in the bottle. Ms. Wilson said it came down to the strength of the lobbies. Mayor Piercy thought dealing with the type of container was a fairer application, but understood how the lobby could cause that distinction. ? School Siting Ms. Wilson said the City had opposed a bill allowing the siting of a school in Hood River within 3 miles of the Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) in the last session. LCDC introduced this concept that would allow a school outside the UGB, but within an urban reserve so at least the school would be in close proximity to neighborhoods. Mayor Piercy noted that Bethel wanted to site in the urban reserve. Ms. Wilson said there would be discussions with Bethel about working in partnership, even if the City wanted to oppose the legislation. ? Bicyclist and Pedestrian Manslaughter Ms. Wilson noted there had been several horrible accidents within the last couple of years, and she thought there was some willingness to provide a charge of manslaughter for the killing of a bicyclist or pedestrian by a driver who was impaired or driving without a license. Councilor Taylor did not think it mattered if the license was suspended, since it would not make the killing any worse, like if someone was impaired from staying up all night. Ms. Wilson noted the reasoning was that the person should not be driving, but it was certainly something to think about. ? Ban on Toy-like Lighters Ms. Wilson said a bill introduced last session to ban toy-like lighters went nowhere in the last session, but might have a chance this time with a concept introduced by the state Fire Marshal. Councilor Taylor had mixed feelings about that. Mayor Piercy observed that there were rules all over about how to advertise things that could be harmful to children. ? Funding Governor-Declared Conflagrations and Mobilizations Ms. Wilson said this concept to provide a dedicated funding source had also been introduced by the state Fire Marshal. It would reimburse local governments who had to go out to help with a governor-declared emergency. ? Re-employed PERS Retired Members Ms. Wilson said there was a provision in the PERS statute allowing a PERS retiree to be re-employed for 1,039 hours, but it did not apply to all retirees and became very complex, with huge tax consequences to MINUTES—Council Committee on Intergovernmental Relations June 18, 2008 Page 5 people who exceeded the maximum. This concept, introduced by PERS, would apply the 1039 hour exception to all benefit recipients and reduce confusion. ? Transportation Proposals (ODOT Placeholders) Strengthen Commercial Driver Drug Test Reporting o ODOT introduced a commercial driver drug test reporting. Ms. Wilson pointed to news reports that random tests had found 1 in 10 commercial drivers on the highways was drug impaired. Now there was no penalty for failing to report if one of your employees tested positive for drugs; this would install the penalty. Alternative Fuels Corridor Project o Ms. Wilson said this would allow ODOT to participate in a multi-state alternative fuels corridor project, providing special areas and rest stops for people to plug in electric cars along I-5. This would provide funding for this state sustainability goal. Rest Area Activities, to Prohibit Camping and Living at Rest Areas o Ms. Wilson said this bill would impose a $360 penalty for certain acts at rest areas like harassment and solicitation, but also includes camping and living. She said the City would want to pay close attention to the definition of camping. Real ID Compliance with federal Real ID Act o Ms. Wilson said the state needed to determine whether they would comply with the federal Real ID Act and had to decide by 2013 or Oregon Drivers licenses could not be used for federal identification purposes like boarding a plane. She said the City had opposed this legislation last session. Connect Oregon III o Ms. Wilson said this would provide ongoing funding for multi-modal projects. She reminded members that the City had not made the funding list in applying for Connect Oregon II. She said the City would keep a close eye on this bill. It was time to start thinking of projects; last year the pool was $100 million, but she did not know what it would be this year. Transportation Funding Package o Ms. Wilson said three task force groups had been working on this issue and all three agreed that one solution would not be the answer. She said a number of funding options were on the table, including distribution of those funds. She said the City would need to look at this and have discussions with the County. She said the counties that were losing federal timber revenues, especially the top six that included Lane, would be looking for additional state funding out of the same buckets of money that is also shared with cities. Universal Healthcare Access o Ms. Wilson said a placeholder had been submitted but no information was available on how this package would be funded. Increase in Document Recording Fees o Ms. Wilson said a placeholder had been submitted to increase the document recording fee by $15 and dedicate the funds to transportation. She said last session the City had supported a $15 increase with the funds dedicated to low income housing. She said she suspected that other groups would come forward asking for the $15 and the City may want to wait to see who was vying for the funds before deciding who to MINUTES—Council Committee on Intergovernmental Relations June 18, 2008 Page 6 support. She said the reason the fee increase was 415 is that was what the Oregon Realtor’s Association said they could support. Statewide Gas Tax o Ms. Wilson noted that this was a dwindling resource, given that people were buying less gas. She said it had been estimated that cities in Oregon needed an additional 27-cent tax to deal with $160 million backlog, but that would not happen. She added that lobbyists said they would accept 14 cents as long as local governments were preempted, so this might be quite a big fight. Local Vehicle Registration Fees o Ms. Wilson said this funding concept had been brought up by Councilor Taylor and asked whether the councilor wanted the City to find a sponsor for this bill or wait to support vehicle registration fee. Right now, the talk was that this would not only allow local governments to have a local registration fee, but as a statewide initiative, it could be done in a way that would not require referral to voters. Councilor Taylor wanted to ask one of local representatives to sponsor this bill. Ms. Wilson thought that conversation should be with Rep. Beyer, chair of the House Transportation Committee. Transportation Utility Fees, Increase in Registration Fees, Increase in Driver License o Fees Ms. Wilson said these were all concepts that would be part of the transportation funding package, and if they were not, we would always have an opportunity to introduce them on our own. She said that was something we should be thinking about. Mayor Piercy wanted to get Rep. Beyer to meet with CCIGR when she was in town to discuss the transportation package. Councilor Ortiz said she had to leave. The group scheduled its next meeting for July 23 after the City Council meeting. Ms. Wilson said she would bring back a legislative policies document with a final signoff. Councilor Ortiz said she had reviewed the document and did not see anything she had heartburn about. Ms. Wilson had sat on the Policy Committee chaired by Springfield Mayor Leiken for the cities, and Rep. Beyer had come to talk to the group about transportation issues. Ms. Wilson felt sure Rep. Beyer would talk with CCIGR. Councilor Taylor wanted to meet with the entire delegation. Mayor Piercy wanted to meet with Rep. Beyer because of the tussle over UGB in the last session. Councilor Taylor suggested a social occasion. Ms. Wilson said she had tried to go out of her way to let Rep. Beyer know we valued her leadership. Mayor Piercy wanted another kind of meeting to discuss the City’s priorities in the session. MINUTES—Council Committee on Intergovernmental Relations June 18, 2008 Page 7 Councilor Taylor wanted a meeting to discuss priorities, followed by food and drink. Ms. Wilson noted the new ethics rules that would need to be followed. Columbia River Crossing o Ms. Wilson said the only way to get the $4 billion needed to fund the Columbia River Crossing, a priority for the governor, would be to take it out of the same bucket, which would mean the City would lose money too. She said we needed to think about whether we would be in support of that. ? CAFFA Account—Delinquent Interest Ms. Wilson said the concept introduced would put all delinquent interest on property taxes into the CAFFA Fund, redirecting $15 million from local taxing authorities to give to counties. She said that might be an issue for us. ? Transfer of Community Corrections to State Ms. Wilson said public safety would come up the following Tuesday. In response to a query from Councilor Poling, Ms. Wilson said it could be probation and parole, youth services, Oregon Youth Authority. ? Utility Right-of-Way Fees for Counties This would allow counties to charge utilities for use of their right of ways. Right now, they did not have that ability, but local governments did. She said a discussion was needed with counties to make sure they did not include telecom on that, because telecom would be a huge fight for us in the coming session. ? Big Look Task Force Recommendations Ms. Wilson noted that the Big Look Task Force report on land use in the state of Oregon was due later in the fall. ? Measure 49 “Housekeeping” Ms. Wilson thought we should keep a good eye on LCDC’s proposal as it unfolded. ? Climate Change Proposal Ms. Wilson said there would be a huge climate change proposal package. A placeholder introduced by the governor’s office would contain energy reduction, tax credit for conservation, and many different items. ? Tax Restructuring There would be a huge restructuring of the state’s reliance on income tax. Sales tax had been on the table, and she suggested members think about whether they would support a sales tax ? Medical Marijuana in the Workplace Ms. Wilson said the Oregon Business Association would introduce this bill to limit medical marijuana for certain circumstances. In the last session, a measure had passed limiting its use in hazardous jobs. ? Tort Reform Ms. Wilson said this followed in the wake of a huge judgment against Oregon Health Sciences University, which as a government entity had claimed sovereignty, with the courts saying OHSU could not do that. A MINUTES—Council Committee on Intergovernmental Relations June 18, 2008 Page 8 task force had been appointed, and she said it would be interesting to see whether the cap on local governments for torts would remain. She said we needed to think about whether the cap was too low. Ms. Wilson said these were concepts that had already been submitted. She knew the legislative team had received direction to look at hate crime legislation and funding for a quiet zone. Councilor Taylor clarified that this document was to look at, not to discuss today. Ms. Wilson agreed and noted that the CCIGR had discussed the legislative policies document at the last meeting. She said Councilor Taylor had two questions about some of the things in the document, one whether the City did oppose a loss of revenue to urban renewal districts. She said the City had supported this position since 1999, but Councilor Taylor had pointed out a problem with p. 4 of the policy document. Ms. Wilson said the word ban had been inadvertently omitted, which completely changed what the City appeared to support. She said, however, that staff had reviewed the bill on this issue last session and gone with the spirit of what the Council had decided: to support efforts to repeal the prohibition. Ms. Wilson said the legislative policy document was onerous to go through, and nobody really read it. When she had looked at what the League of Oregon Cities and Portland were doing, she found theirs were short and to the point. She created two different documents based on the City’s legislative policies book, two different ways of presenting the policies. Alternative 1 was more detailed and went through each policy, spelling out what the City would support and oppose under each individual issue. Alternative 2 spelled out the City’s objective, what the issue was and a statement of why it was a problem and why it was important to the City. She said Alternative 2 would be a short book, about 10 pages long, but she thought more useful for letting the local delegation and all the legislators know what was important to the City of Eugene. She asked which alternative members would want to go with. Mayor Piercy commented that as a legislator, two things were important, and depended on whether you were new or had been around a while. She said they needed to have the City’s policies available. In a session, they would want to know what issues the City cared about and what the City wanted to accomplish. She thought those were two very different things. Ms. Wilson agreed and thought the second thing was what they were most interested in. Mayor Piercy felt reference material about the City’s policies should also be available. Ms. Wilson said there could be one document spelling out what the City cared about. She recommended condensing the book and including bills from the last session the City had made a high priority but did not pass, such as field burning. Mayor Piercy commented that the League of Oregon Cities’ role was explaining home rule and overarching policies that cities in general cared about. Ms. Wilson still thought Eugene’s separate priorities needed to be more specific about what the City would support, accept and oppose. Mayor Piercy observed that there were different levels of issues, including policies that affected more than one city. She felt the City needed to pay more attention to focusing on what Eugene wanted to accomplish in this session. MINUTES—Council Committee on Intergovernmental Relations June 18, 2008 Page 9 Ms. Wilson agreed and noted that she had focused on City objectives in Alternative 2. She listed issues Eugene would want to let legislators know about. Councilor Taylor pushed for a breakfast for legislators to present our legislative priorities. Ms. Wilson liked that suggestion, noting that it would be a good opportunity to make a presentation about the City’s priorities as well as learn about the legislators’ priorities. Mayor Piercy said this would give the City and opportunity to ferret out who would take on specific bills for the City. Ms. Wilson said those conversations had already started. The meeting adjourned at 2:50 p.m. (Recorded by Susan Wulfekuhler) MINUTES—Council Committee on Intergovernmental Relations June 18, 2008 Page 10