Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout10/26/1988 Meeting e M I NUT E S Eugene City Council McNutt Room--City Hall October 26, 1988 11 : 30 a. m. COUNCILORS PRESENT: Rob Bennett, Debra Ehrman, Freeman Holmer, Jeff Miller, Roger Rutan, Emily Schue. COUNCILORS ABSENT: Cynthia Wooten, Ruth Bascom. The adjourned meeting of the Eugene City Council was called to order by Mayor Brian Obie. I. ITEMS FROM THE MAYOR, CITY COUNCIL, AND CITY MANAGER A. Work Session on Air Quality Issues Mr. Rutan said the Legislative Committee will be considering whether the City should take a legislative position on field burning as well as possible legislation regarding pollution from wood stoves and slash burning. He e suggested that staff bring to council a summary of the major clean-air issues facing the City and a suggestion for action. Ms. Schue requested that a council work session on clean-air issues be scheduled. B. Hayward Field Improvements Mr. Rutan said work on the track facilities at Hayward Field is nearing completion. He said the City is an important partner in the project and encouraged council members to visit the new facilities. C. Laurel Hill Park Expansion Mr. Bennett said he has been working on two parks issues. One involves Laurel Hill Park which will need to be expanded in the future. He said there are foreclosed Bancroft lots on the perimeter of the park and felt the City should consider acquisition of some of these lots. Mr. Bennett said the general issue is whether it should be City policy to acquire lots when they are available and can be purchased at a reasonable rate. D. Sorrel Park Improvements Mr. Bennett voiced concern about the condition of Sorrel Park in the Coburg Road area. He said a body of water in a portion of the park is fed by a storm sewer system; the water is filthy and poses a significant health and e MINUTES--Eugene City Council October 26, 1988 Page 1 J safety risk to those who use the park. Mr. Bennett felt attention to this e park should be a high priority of the PARCS Department. E. Traffic on Eastwood and Southwood streets Mr. Holmer said the Hearings Official recently approved redesignation of Eastwood Street for commercial use. He said the street is not equipped to handle the traffic generated by the new use. Residents who live on the street are unhappy with the redesignation and will be pursuing the issue. Mr. Holmer said the residents have suggested diverting the traffic from Eastwood Street to Southwood Street but the idea has not been well-received by the Public Works Department. Mr. Bennett said this is not a new issue; in the past, when a commercial development was planned for the area, residents were not willing to pay for improvements to the street. F. Minutes of EWEB-LEC Meetings Mr. Holmer said discussions between the Lane Electric Co-op and Eugene Water & Electric Board are on-going. He said the minutes of the meeting are interesting and have improved since a neutral party was hired to take them. G. Appeal of Parade Permit Ms. Ehrman said she and Mr. Rutan heard an appeal of a parade permit denial. The issue was resolved by choosing a new route for the parade. She suggested that an odd number of councilors be chosen to hear appeals in the future so e that ties can be broken. Ms. Ehrman also questioned whether the correct ordinance had been used in processing this appeal. H. Notification of Noise Distrubance Ms. Ehrman had received a constituent call about the construction work on 13th Avenue. She said construction workers are starting work at 6 a.m. and the noise is disturbing to area residents. Ms. Ehrman suggested that residents near a construction site be warned in advance of the work that there will be disruptions of this nature. I. Public Access to EWEB Plaza Mr. Miller voiced concern that current access to the EWES building is not inviting to the public. He said it should be made clear that the access is a public access to the plaza and river. J. Access to Railroad Tracks Mr. Miller asked if there are any measures that the City or Southern Pacific Railroad can take to discourage access to the railroad tracks behind Romania's RV Center. e MINUTES--Eugene City Council October 26, 1988 Page 2 e K. Legislative Issues Ms. Schue asked council members to inform staff of any issues they would like to see the Legislative Committee consider for legislation. She said council will be kept informed of work on any controversial issues and asked councilors to alert staff if there are additional issues about which they would like information. Mr. Bennett said he does not like the law governing the rehabilitation of older buildings. He said the law is inflexible and is sometimes a serious constraint on the renovation of older buildings. He felt it is important to make legislative changes in this policy if possible. L. Room Tax Monies Mayor Obie discussed his understanding of the way Room Tax monies will be spent after the bonds for improvement of the Fairgrounds have been paid off. He said a committee composed of representatives from throughout the county will develop a priority list for expenditures of Room Tax monies. The committee's recommendations for facility needs will go to the Board of County Commissioners. Mayor Obie said the Visitor & Convention Bureau recently completed a five-year planning proces? The bureau recommended that a metro-wide plan for facilities development be created and implemented. e M. EPEA Contract Management Linda Norris, Human Resource and Risk Management Department, gave a presentation on the contract settlement for police officers and discussed various forms of dispute resolution processes. She began with a brief summary of the collective bargaining history in Oregon. In 1970, the City implemented collective bargaining legislation. In addition, Eugene was the first city in the country to have final offer arbitration. In 1973, the State instituted collective bargaining legislation; it took precedence over the City's ordinance in 1978. Ms. Norris said that in the State's legislation, police officers and fire fighters may not strike as a way of resolving issues. There are several other methods through which these employees can resolve issues. Mediation uses a third party to help clarify the issues and reach settlement; this is no longer mandatory by police and fire unions. Fact-finding, which had been a mandatory second step until last year, is now voluntary for police and fire unions and, as a result, most organizations go straight from mediation to binding arbitration. In binding arbitration, the parties jointly select an arbitrator who hears the evidence and testimony, and decides on an award. In making a decision, the arbitrator can consider: the lawful authority of the employer; any stipulations the parties have agreed to; public interest and welfare; ability e MINUTES--Eugene City Council October 26, 1988 Page 3 e to pay; a labor market analysis of wages, hours, and conditions; and, the average consumer price index. Ms. Norris said the last two items generally playa primary role in the arbitrator's decision. She added that it is very hard for an organization to prove inability to pay. Ms. Norris reviewed several dispute resolution options. The National Labor Relations Act gives private employees the right to strike. Advisory arbitration is a process whereby the final offers go to the arbitrator; after the arbitrator makes an award the parties are given a period of time to meet again and reach agreement or to accept the award as final. In last offer arbitration, the final two offers of each party go to the arbitrator who selects one. In "final offer and vote of the public" arbitration, both parties submit their final offer to fact-finding. After fact-finding recommendations are made, the parties are given another chance to reach an agreement. If they are unable to agree, their previous final offers go to a vote of the people. An advantage of this type of arbitration is that those who pay for the award are able to make the decision. Ms. Norris said there is also a "third party mandate" process in which a mediator can mandate any of the above methods of dispute resolution. Resolution can occur issue-by-issue or focus on the entire final package. She said the third party is typically a board similar to the Employment Relations Board. e Mayor Obie asked how the City's dispute resolution process has changed. Mr. Gleason said until last year there were several mandatory steps in the bargaining process, including fact-finding proceedings. During the last legislative session, the fact-finding proceeding was left as voluntary at the insistence of the public unions. The consequence has been that a high percentage of disputes go directly to the arbitrator and the arbitrator must make a decision. Mr. Gleason said before, the mandatory fact-finding served as a precursor to the arbitration process and helped reduce the number of issues to go before the arbitrator. Mr. Holmer asked about the disadvantages associated with final offer arbitration. Ms. Norris said most people in the labor relations profession prefer not to have compulsory final arbitration because the award can be anything; it does not have to correspond to the final offer of either party. She said this form of arbitration also causes difficulties for policy makers because it can substantially affect the budgeting process. Mr. Gleason felt last offer arbitration is a better approach than final arbitration, although he would prefer to go to a vote of the people. In response to a question from Ms. Ehrman, Ms. Norris said in Greely, Colorado, which operated under the "final offer, vote of the public" process, the final offers never went to the public for a vote. She felt the process applied pressure on both parties to reach agreement because they could never be certain of how the public would vote. Mr. Gleason felt the arbitration e MINUTES--Eugene City Council October 26, 1988 Page 4 ~ process has a chilling effect on sincere negotiations, because people are less willing to try to resolve their differences first. Answering a question from Ms. Schue, Ms. Norris said Oregon law would have to be changed to permit this type of arbitration. Mr. Sercombe added that Roseburg had this type of arbitration process and it was struck down by the Oregon Supreme Court because the state statute regarding impasse resolution takes precedence over statutes of local jurisdictions. Mr. Gleason said the settlement will represent a total increase of approximately $300,000 to $400,000 more than was budgeted. He said the union is unsatisfied with this settlement too. Ms. Norris said this settlement puts Eugene at market rate when using the area chosen by the City as comparable to itself. Using cities the union feels are comparable to Eugene, the settlement leaves the employees at approximately 5 to 15 percent below market. She said the arbitrator picked a balance of the cities proposed by the union and the City. Mayor Obie said he was troubled by the settlement because it exceeds the general trend of the community. He said this settlement represents an increase of approximately 7.5 percent for these employees. This is a higher increase than any other area unions have been awarded in the last several years and is more than the tax payers have been willing to pay. Mayor Obie said the City is already inadequately meeting the service needs of the community and asked where the money to pay for the increase will be generated. He said in all likelihood, it will mean even poorer services for e the community even though they will be spending more for those services. Ms. Schue said this award puts police salaries at market with the cities to which Eugene is comparable. She felt the settlement was fair and said the council must accept it although it does put a burden on the financial resources of the City. Ms. Schue said the council is going to have to concentrate on ways to improve public safety given the resources that are currently available. Mr. Holmer agreed that this award cannot be changed, but felt the council should pursue a legislative change regarding the arbitration process. He felt this would benefit the public and employees. Mr. Miller said it is shortsighted to believe that the police force must remain understaffed because of this award, which puts the wages of those employees at market rate. He said the council must face the problems surrounding community safety and said this would need to be a major agenda item in the future. Mayor Obie said the council needs to take a hard look at the City's ability to serve the public in many ways. He felt that in order for the City to improve its services, the scope of services provided may need to be narrowed. II. BALLOT FOR INTERVIEWEES FOR OPENINGS ON THE DOWNTOWN COMMISSION e MINUTES--Eugene City Council October 26, 1988 Page 5 e The councilors completed ballots indicating those they wished to interview for the three openings on the Downtown Commission. Reviewing the tally results, Mayor Obie said the council had chosen to interview Cordy Jensen, Richard Larson, Bjorn Olson, Roger Rich, and John Brown for the openings on the Downtown Commission. III. APPOINTMENTS: MAYOR'S NOMINATION TO THE METROPOLITAN AREA PLAN ADVISORY COMMITTEE Ms. Schue moved, seconded by Mr. Holmer, to reappoint Janice Goldberg to the Metropolitan Area Plan Advisory Committee for a term ending June 30, 1991. The motion passed unanimously, 6:0. IV. WORK SESSION: SOLAR ACCESS AMENDMENT: INFILL WAIVER Jim Croteau, Planning Department, said at a public hearing in September the council considered an amendment to the Solar Access Regulations to allow a waiver in the solar setback for lots in in-fill situations. At the close of the public hearing, Mr. Miller proposed a modification to staff's proposal that would broaden the circumstances under which a waiver could be granted. Mr. Croteau said the coun~il voted to withhold action on Mr. Miller's proposal to give staff time to analyze the effect it would have on the e building stock in Eugene. Mr. Croteau said there are approximately 3,800 vacant lots in the City. This amendment would allow a waiver for approximately 14 percent of these lots. This percentage would be reduced even further after orientation of the lots is taken into account. Realistically, the waiver would apply to approximately seven percent of the vacant lots in the City. Mr. Croteau said staff recommends that the council allow opportunity for additional public input on this amendment. A tentative public hearing was scheduled for December 12, 1988., Mr. Miller said the difference between his amendment and the one proposed by staff is that his is less complicated and less restrictive than staff's. V. WORK SESSION: STATUS REPORT ON BUILDING PERMIT TURNAROUND TIME Christine Andersen, Public Works Director, distributed and reviewed a graph depicting permit volume, turnaround time for commercial permits, and plan check staffing levels for the City. She said the graph indicates how volume of activity for permitting directly relates to the resource capacity for turnaround. e MINUTES--Eugene City Council October 26, 1988 Page 6 e Ms. Andersen said construction levels increase in the spring and continue at a high level until fall when they generally begin to taper off. The staffing level is not geared to peak season operating levels but rather, is designed to handle average levels of activity. Ms. Andersen said permit turnaround time slowed during this construction season due to a dramatic increase in permits sought and a reduction in staff. She said it is hard to find replacements for code analysts because they are required to have a high level of professional expertise. There are relatively few people who have the necessary certifications to perform this job locally, so they cannot be hired on a seasonal basis. Ms. Andersen said the two vacancies have finally been filled, however, and staff anticipates a noticeable improvement in plans review response time by early November. Mayor Obie did not feel the graph depicted average turnaround time for permits; in his experience, turnaround times have been significantly longer than this. Ms. Andersen said there are several factors which complicate permit processing, including getting all of the information necessary for processing and resolving development issues. Mayor Obie felt it would be very rare for a developer to submit a flawless application and felt, for this reason, that the average response time should be calculated from the time an applicant submits plans until a permit is issued. In response to a question from Mr. Bennett, Ms. Andersen said there are some professionals in the comm~nity who are qualified to do commercial plans checking and the City occasionally contracts with some of them to help reduce e its load. In addition, staff has contracted with the International Council of Building Officials (leBO) for plans review. Ms. Andersen said this is only marginally useful because ICBO is more stringent in plans examination than the City1s examiners, and the City's examiners still have to do some review of the plans for local code issues. Mr. Miller said some people feel staff is unsympathetic toward the business community. He said this perception is unacceptable; customers need to feel that staff wants to help solve development problems that arise so that development can proceed and businesses can be successful. Ms. Andersen said staff has shifted its method of operation in this direction over the past few years. She said staff does try to work with the developer and suggest alternatives when problems arise. This type of work takes more time than just plans examination and has contributed to the permit processing delays. Ms. Andersen said it is difficult to achieve a balance between being a code enforcement body protecting the public's interests and providing assistance to development. Mr. Gleason said the City made a conscious decision to try to help developers through the system. This increases the amount of time it takes to process permits. He said staff and the Building Construction Advisory Committee (BCAC) have been trying to establish guidelines for how to effectively process applications. If the City has made a mistake, it has been to staff plans examination on the lean side. Mr. Gleason said this has been done - MINUTES--Eugene City Council October 26, 1988 Page 7 e because of resource constraints and pointed out that there are many areas in the City where staffing is lean and response time is too high. Referring to the graph discussed earlier, Mr. Rutan said when the rise in construction activity occurred, it took a year to increase the staffing level. He felt it is imperative that staff and the council be anticipatory of these increases. Mr. Rutan said the City experienced a dramatic improvement in turnaround time when the Permit and Information Center was established. Since then, however, the improvement has plateaued. Mr. Rutan felt the City needs to take a hard look at staffing levels. He suggested that staff give council an idea of what the response time will look like under current staffing levels and how much additional staffing would cost so that the council can make a conscious choice about the direction it wants to take. He encouraged staff to pursue more creative staffing options in the private side as well as within the organization. Mr. Holmer asked if there is any flexibility between employees in other Public Works divisions and the code analyst positions. Ms. Andersen said there is no opportunity for flexibility in the building code process although there is in the site review process. The certifications required to be a code analyst or an inspector are significant and are different than requirements for other Public Works employees. Mr. Holmer asked who mandates the rigor with which the City enforces bUilding e codes. Larry Reed, Building Division, said there are two conditions under which the State grants local jurisdictions permission to enforce codes. One is obtaining the exempt city status; every two years the State comes and inspects the City's performance in terms of code enforcement. Second, the City must have tested and certified plans examiners and inspectors who are only authorized to do plans examinations or inspections in the areas for which they are licensed. Mr. Reed said he does the routine examinations of the staff's work. Mr. Bennett asked if it is possible to meet the three-week turnaround time with six code analysts and still help developers find creative solutions to their problems. Mr. Gleason did not feel this is possible. He said staff has not been vocal about the need for additional staff because it recognizes that resources are tight and that additional staffing directly competes with other City services. Mr. Bennett suggested that developers with complicated projects be encouraged to hire a person knowledgeable about codes to work with them. He felt this would remove some of the responsibility from staff and probably better meet the needs of the developer. Ms. Schue said the most frustrated people she talks to are those with small straightforward projects that get delayed. She asked about the possibility of a two-track system that would enable applications for minor developments to be processed more quickly. Ms. Andersen said that often smaller commercial rehabilitation projects can be quite complex and are on very tight budgets. Hiring a design professional would greatly benefit project e MINUTES--Eugene City Council October 26, 1988 Page 8 e development in these cases, but is sometimes perceived as too costly for the scale of the project by the developer. Larger developers who have a design team for their projects do not want to see priority given to smaller commercial projects. She said currently permits for residential and commercial projects are processed separately. In response to a question from Mr. Miller, Ms. Andersen said there is currently no provision in the State codes that would allow an architect or engineer to stamp plans and allow development to go forward without a permit. An employee or contractor of the City must review and approve the plans for development to begin. Mayor Obie said staff and the council must realize that each time it amends the code, code analysis becomes more difficult. He said the City need to keep this in mind and to become more disciplined in its pursuit of code changes. Mayor Obie proposed that resources to support additional code analysts to handle this crisis be sought in the systems development fund. He said if staff or councilors have different proposals they should be put forth for discussion. Mayor Obie added that he is not unsympathetic to the difficulties of staff, but felt the community needs a response to this issue. The meeting was adjourned to November 7, 1988. Respectfully submitted, e "ti"~ ,/, M J;.~" -~ ~ 'l'..,..;'"l/..,f",.~ ;..,;,.\".!!.':tU~ Micheal Gleason, City Manager (Recorded by Tanya Northman) MNCC 102688 e MINUTES--Eugene City Council October 26, 1988 Page 9