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HomeMy WebLinkAbout02/21/1990 Meeting e e e M I NUT E S Eugene City Council McNutt Room--City Hall February 21, 1990 11:30 a.m. COUNCILORS PRESENT: Ruth Bascom, Rob Bennett, Emily Schue, Bobby Green, Freeman Holmer, Debra Ehrman (after noon). COUNCILORS ABSENT: Shawn Boles, Roger Rutan. The adjourned meeting of February 14, 1990, of the Eugene City Council was called to order by His Honor Mayor Jeff Miller. I. ITEMS FROM THE CITY COUNCIL, MAYOR, AND CITY MANAGER A. Trash Dumping Mr. Green informed the council that he recently received a phone call from a citizen who was concerned with the dumping of stolen vehicles and other trash in a pond located west of Highway 99. He requested staff to look into a cleaning up this area. B. Nuclear-Free Zone Responding the County Commission's recent announcement that it is considering making the County's nuclear-free ordinance less restrictive, Mr. Holmer suggested that because of the apparent difficulty that this ordinance poses to the recruitment of new industry in our community, a measure be referred to the voters which would repeal the existing nuclear-free zone ordinance. He said that while the concept of a nuclear-free zone was once favored by a majority of community members, this position may no longer be held by a majority. C. Sears Building Mr. Holmer noted that in a letter recently received by the council, the owner of the Sears Building expressed frustration that a decision on the use of the parking lot adjacent to his property will not be made until after the May urban renewal election decision. Mr. Holmer said that the City should continue to make decisions regarding development downtown up until the May election, and then proceed with any necessary urban renewal plan amendments after the election. Mr. Gleason indicated that the Sears Building owner requested that the lot in question be committed to them for 20 years for utilization as a surface MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 21, 1990 Page 1 , e parking lot. He noted that both the council and the Urban Renewal Authority have predicated this lot for some type of dense development. Ms. Bascom indicated that the Council Committee on Economic Diversification (CCED) has had numerous discussions about the potential use of this lot and have also aspired for a different type of property use. For this reason, she expressed approval that staff has a mechanism for discouraging the type of development currently proposed. Mr. Bennett noted that in its Tenant Mixed Plan, the Retail Task Force has also made suggestions for a different approach to property utilization in that area of downtown than what is being suggested by that leasing opportunity. D. Irkutsk Press Bridge Ms. Bascom announced that the press bridge between Eugene and its sister city, Irkutsk, is currently underway. She said that the development of this type of rapport between the two news medias represents a tremendous success for the future of the Sister City Program. Mr. Holmer pointed out that the New York Times weather report includes the daily temperature and precipitation in Irkutsk and suggested that The Register-Guard should follow suit. e E. Applicability of Ordinances Across Jurisdictions Responding to a question from Mr. Miller about the applicability of the County's Nuclear-Free Zone Ordinance to the City, Tim Sercome, City Attorney's Office, said that both he and the Springfield City Attorney's Office are of the opinion that the County's ordinance does not apply to the City. He has also contacted the County counsel who indicated that he had not researched this issue enough to come to a conclusion. Mr. Miller emphasized the importance of resolving this issue in a timely manner. II. APPOINTMENTS: NOTIFICATION OF MAYOR'S APPOINTMENTS TO THE PUBLIC SAFETY ADVISORY COMMITTEE Mr. Miller announced that he has appointed Elizabeth Thwing to complete the unexpired term of Lawrence Martines on the Public Safety Advisory Committee and has appointed David Piercy to complete the unexpired term of Elizabeth Thwing as 4J School District Representative. III. APPOINTMENTS: MAYOR'S NOMINATION TO THE LOAN ADVISORY COMMITTEE Ms. Schue moved, seconded by Mr. Bennett, to appoint Anne Marie Cling to the Loan Advisory Committee for a term ending December 31, 1991. Roll call vote; the motion carried unanimously, 5:0. (At noon, Ms. Ehrman entered the meeting.) e MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 21, 1990 Page 2 ~ IV. WORK SESSION: THE CITIZEN INVOLVEMENT COMMITTEE'S PROPOSED CHANGES TO THE INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM PROCESSES David Biedermann, Administrative Services Department, reviewed the Citizen Involvement Committee's (CIC) recommended changes to the initiative and referendum process. He noted that at the council's request, the CIC has reviewed the proposed initiative/referendum code revisions and has made several recommendations regarding these revisions. Included in these recommendations are the following: 1.) Deletion of Section 2.964 concerning election procedures in the ordinance. Mr. Biedermann said that while the CIC felt this section was appropriate in that it reflects a change in the filing deadline, nomination for election is not an initiative or referendum issue. For this reason, it suggested that the filing deadline be changed by a separate ordinance. 2.) In Section 2.964, addition of definitions for the terms "complete petition" and "conflicting measure" to add clarification to these specific aspects of the initiative/referendum process. 3.) In Section 2.973, addition of a statement on the petition which signifies whether the petition circulator will or will not be paid for the collection of signatures. - 4. ) Addition of Section 2.976 (2) (c) to the ordinance requiring the City Recorder to advise the person submitting the petition of the election filing deadline for that petition to be included on the next available election. 5.) In Section 2.972, modification of the number of signatures required for the initiative, referendum, and charter amendment. The CIC recommended that the initiative be changed from 12.5 percent to 6 percent, the referendum from 8.5 percent to 4 percent, and the charter amendment from 15 percent to 8 percent. Additionally, the CIC recommended that the base upon which the percentage is calculated be changed from total city electors registered at the time of petition filing to total number of votes cast in the city for all candidates for governor at the last election for governor for a four-year term. Mr. Biedermann noted that the CIC's recommended percentage changes are a reflection of the numbers required by both the State and the County. Karen Darling, CIC Chair, said that the CIC recommendations reflected input from neighborhood leaders as well as interested citizens. The overall reaction from respondents was a desire to make it less difficult to place an initiative, referendum, or charter amendment on the ballot. They also hoped the council would be instrumental in making the whole process easier for the average citizen to understand. Ms. Darling noted that although the CIC did e MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 21, 1990 Page 3 e not set out to reduce the total number of signatures, this occurred out of a desire to gain uniformity with State and County processes. CIC does not feel that reducing the number of signatures will lead to abuse of the process. Responding to a question from Ms. Ehrman regarding the input CIC received from the community, Ms. Darling said that the CIC received two written statements from neighborhood leaders, one written statement from the Neighborhood leaders Council (NlC), and statements from three private citizens. Ms. Darling said that members of the CIe deliberated at great length the inclusion of a statement on the petition which would articulate the financial impact the measurement would have on the City; while they still feel this is very important, they could not identify a way to address this properly. CIe recommends that this issue be pursued separate from adoption of this measure. e Ken Tollenaar, CIC member and research associate at the Bureau of Governmental Research, provided information about the initiative/referendum and charter amendment processes in other cities around the country. He reported that in comparison to other cities within the state, the City's current requisite signature requirements for the processes are similar. He noted, however, that the City of Gresham has decreased its signature requirements to 3 percent for the initiative and 5 percent for the referendum, based on the total number of City electors registered at the time of petition filing. This change has had a relatively small impact on the City of Gresham. As evidenced from nation wide research, Mr. Tollenaar said that it is still uncertain what impact changing the signature requirement might have on initiative or referendum activity. In considering the total number of votes that would be required, Mr. Miller emphasized the importance of ensuring that any given measure is supported by a critical mass of voters. Mr. Biedermann underscored the importance that the CIC placed on the fiscal impact of an initiative on the City. The CIC would like the council to pursue some type of legislation at the State level. Mr. Biedermann mentioned that among the many ordinance improvements suggested by the CIe was a requirement that the City Attorney's Office review the perspective petition as it is filed to determine if there are any legal problems in drafting or ballot title. He noted that this issue has met with concerns at the staff level and should be discussed further. Mr. Sercombe said that specific concerns raised around this issue were that the five day requirement would be insufficient to conduct a substantive review of the measure to determine if legal difficulties exist, impartiality of the council when it has already taken a position on an issue, and City liability. He also noted that sometimes ballot measures are unworkable from the beginning; rewriting would not make them legal. Mr. Sercombe suggested that if there is support on the council of having City Attorney's Office e MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 21, 1990 Page 4 e review of a ballot measure, that it not be made mandatory for every measure. He also recommended that the five-day deadline be expanded to allow sufficient time for review. Ms. Bascom stated that the current process seems to work well and should not be changed. She acknowledged, however, that the City has experienced difficulty with the naming of ballot titles in the past and said that she would support whatever action can be taken to alleviate this. Responding to a question from Mr. Bennett, Mr. Gleason said that in the last 5 years, of the 15 initiative and referendums proposed, 6 have collected enough signatures to be put on the ballot; of these 15, 4 are still outstanding and no signature collection has begun. Ms. Schue said that the CIC has put much effort into trying to simplify and improve the initiative/referendum process and expressed support for the concept of having some sort of ballot measure review. Ms. Ehrman also added her support to this concept. She said that the City has a responsibility to the community to have at least a cursory review of ballot measures before they are circulated in the public. She noted that the idea of conformity with both the State and the County processes is appealing. e Mr. Holmer emphasized the importance of selecting a base of electors that is relatively constant; he felt that using the total number of city electors registered at the time of petition filing would give this consistency. Mr. Holmer also noted that while he is willing to consider decreasing the percentage requirements for both the initiative and referendum. the Charter Amendment represents significant legislative issues and should require a larger number. Mr. Bennett expressed concern that those citizens who are present at public hearings are not necessarily representative of the community as a whole and felt that the majority of the community would want to have more say in public petitioning processes. Mr. Gleason pointed out that there is good justification for having signature requirements which are different for cities than for states and counties. While counties spend a majority of time dealing with legislative delegations from the state. cities spend most of their time dealing with business practice issues. He added that its important to remember that as the threshold for number of votes decreases, petitioners who are energetic but might not represent a large portion of the community are able to use the proposed petitioning process to alter the debate of the discussion. Ms. Bascom said that having paid signature collectors is a travesty of the democratic process and asked whether there was a way to eliminate this. In response. Mr. Sercombe said that the Supreme Court has decided that prohibition on paid circulators for the initiative/referendum process is a violation of the First Amendment. e MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 21. 1990 Page 5 ~ e e Mr. Miller said that the initiative/referendum process is intended to be a check and balance system, not an alternative to representative democracy. If the threshold requirement for signatures is too low, it becomes difficult for elected City officials to make any decisions. For these reasons, he suggested that the council continue with the Cllrrent signature requirements but proceed with the rest of CICls recommendations. The general sense of the council was that it needed more time to review the proposed recommendations in order to make a decision. Mr. Gleason said that this item would be brought before the council at a later session, at which time the concept of City Attorney's Office ballot measure review could be reviewed more thoroughly. The council extended its appreciation to the CIC for the hard work and effort that went into researching and generating this proposal. (At 12:55 p.m., the Eugene City Council took a five-minute recess.) V. WORK SESSION: LINCOLN SCHOOL REDEVELOPMENT Jan Bohman, Planning and Development Department, provided an update of the Lincoln School redevelopment project. In October 1989, the council selected Lorig Associates, Inc. (LAI), to redevelop the Lincoln School building as apartments. The council directed staff to work with LAI and the Westside Neighborhood Quality Project (WNQP) to develop a plan for siting four community use elements on the site in addition to the apartment project, which include: a neighborhood center, a child-care center, community gardens, and a playground. The council approved a budget of up to $200,000 to provide for those four elements, $125,000 of which would come from LAI as the purchase price of the property. Ms. Bohman said that since October, representatives of LAI have been working on this project with a neighborhood site planning committee composed of representatives of WNQP, the Jefferson Area Neighbors (JAN), City staff, and a historic preservation and site planning consultant. She noted that creating a pleasing site plan that would satisfy all parties proved to be more challenging than anticipated. Several alternative site configurations were considered with the major elements in different locations. Out of this, a site plan has been developed which seems to be gaining approval by a majority of the neighbors and which is acceptable to the developer. This plan locates the Riley House, the neighborhood center building, at the corner of 13th and Jefferson and the child-care center on 12th Avenue. The play area and community gardens are reconfigured on the northwest corner around the child-care center. Ms. Bohman said that a great deal of discussion centered around the code requirement for parking spaces. The citizens were in favor of decreasing the code requirement for number of parking spaces. Although the code requires 1.5 spaces per unit, the developer felt 1.25 would be adequate; the group will seek a reduction in parking spaces through the PUD process. Ms. Bohman noted that the PUD process is well-suited to this project because it involves MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 21, 1990 Page 6 .. e the approval of a master site plan but allows the separate phases of this project to proceed at different schedules. The PUD process will also allow the City to deal with issues of density transfer and eliminate the need to proceed through a conditional use process for both the neighborhood and child-care centers. Ms. Bohman pointed out that the neighborhood felt it very important to place the Riley House in a prominent location to make a strong statement about historic preservation and the importance of neighborhood activities. They also placed a great deal of importance on retaining as much space in the play area as possible. From Lorig's standpoint, both visibility and access to the school bUilding were important, as well as developing a site plan that would make it possible to get financial assistance from lending institutions. Ms. Bohman said that the neighbors expressed a desire to locate the child- care facility somewhere off the Lincoln site. The Jefferson Pool site and the Washington Park site have been considered as alternate locations for this facility. Discussions with PARCs staff have revealed that the Jefferson Pool site is a possibility; Ms. Bohman said that this option will be pursued. Ms. Bohman pointed out that while a strong majority of neighbors were in favor of the compromise plan at the January site planning meeting, the plan met with a slimmer majority at the most recent neighborhood meeting. She explained that many neighbors in attendance at the most recent meeting were not involved through the entire process, which may have affected the resultant vote. e Hugh Prichard, LA! general partner, presented sketches of several different configurations for this site that evolved out of the site planning process. He noted that because project financing will require the borrowing of substantial amounts of money from private lenders, the plan design which is favored by LAI makes a clear distinction between public and private property and would be easily understood by lending institutions. Harris Hoffman, LAI partner, said that there is strong support for the compromise alternative both in terms of the neighbors and the developer. He stressed the importance of continued community involvement from those community members who have been involved with site planning thus far. Responding to a question from Ms. Bascom, Ms. Bohman said that while the opportunity to locate the community gardens elsewhere was considered, an acceptable nearby location could not be identified. Corresponding with a reduction in parking requirements, Ms. Bascom asked whether convenient and attractive bicycle parking has been worked into the process. Mr. Prichard said that several locked and secured bicycle parking areas will be made available. The council offered its general support to move ahead with the Lincoln School redevelopment as it is currently proceeding. e MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 21, 1990 Page 7 e e e The meeting adjourned at 1:30 p.m. -~espectfully submitted M~~ City Manager (Recorded by Traci Northman) mncc 022190 MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 21, 1990 Page 8