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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCC Minutes - 04/27/05 WS MINUTES Eugene City Council Work Session McNutt Room--City Hall April 27, 2005 Noon COUNCILORS PRESENT: George Poling, Jennifer Solomon, Betty Taylor, David Kelly, Gary Papd, Bonny Bettman, Andrea Ortiz, Chris Pryor. Mayor Kitty Piercy called the work session of the Eugene City Council to order. She announced that Bruce Miller, a citizen who testified frequently before the City Council, had passed away on April 26. Ms. Bettman, seconded by Mr. Kelly, moved to bring back the motion ta- bled at the meeting held on April 18 which sought to take the position of oppose, priority 3 on House Bill 2608. The motion failed, 5:3; Mr. Kelly, Ms. Bettman, and Ms. Ortiz voting in support of it. A. WORK SESSION: Emergency Management Plan City Manager Taylor asked Emergency Program Manager Charles Solin to speak about the Emergency Management Plan. Mr. Solin stated that after September 11,2001, there had been a movement on the federal level to organize how communities respond to disasters, both natural and those caused by people. He said local municipali- ties were required to be "in sync" with the federal government in order to receive Homeland Security funding. He provided the councilors with CD copies of the Emergency Management Plan. Mr. Solin underscored that the City had specific emergency plans for ice events, south hills fires, civil disruptions, as well as the larger, all-hazards emergency plan. He said the different emergency plans were managed by the Disaster Operations Task Team. Mr. Solin stated that one key element in the plan was the clear definition of the roles of the Mayor and City Council in an emergency. He explained that this was because the council could be called upon to make some difficult decisions. He cited one example from the Midwest where the council was forced to decide not to protect an area of a town that had been repeatedly flooded. He also pointed out that the City looked to the councilors to be a communication link with their respective wards. Continuing, Mr. Solin explained that the council would have a resolution before it in May that called for the adoption of the National Incident Management System (NIMS). He said this incident command system (ICS) had resulted from the fires that had happened in Southern California in the 1970s. Multiple agencies responded to the fires and there had not been a system in place to coordinate the response. He noted that the MINUTES--Eugene City Council April 27, 2005 Page 1 Work Session Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department (Fire/EMS) used ICS as a rule. He stated that until NIMS was adopted, even the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) did not have a clear way of inter-connecting with another jurisdiction's organizational model. He stressed that this did not change how the City addressed emergencies locally. Ms. Taylor asked if there was any assurance that all of the chain of command would not simultaneously be on vacation. Mr. Solin responded that typically such people appointed a person to act in capacity. In response to another question from Ms. Taylor, City Manager Taylor assured her that all of the people who could be given this level of responsibility were well-acquainted with the emergency plan. Ms. Taylor asked if all possible emergencies and how they would be responded to had been considered. Mr. Solin replied that staff had conducted a number of exercises, most recently a simulated terrorist event at the Moshofsky Center. He added that City emergency staff had also done an unannounced emergency drill several years earlier and every key executive manager had arrived at the Sheldon Emergency Center within 30 minutes. In response to another question from Ms. Taylor, Mr. Solin stated that the system in place was good for any significant event. Ms. Taylor asked if staff had considered what would happen if the dams upstream broke and two hospitals were located by the river. Mr. Kelly commented that the relationship between the City Councilors and the City Manager was unclear in the emergency management plan. He felt some checks on the City Manager's power should be clearly delineated. Mr. Kelly said he reviewed his notes from 1999 and had been dismayed that two clarifications he requested were not in the plan. He stated that the City Manager at the time had agreed to incorporate them in the plan. He did not think either clarification changed any philosophy but he wanted them in the document nonethe- less. He explained that the council had asked that the City Council and Mayor be included in the list of entities to be immediately notified in the case of an emergency and he did not see this wording in the document language. Mr. Solin assured Mr. Kelly that such notification was in the plan, though not in the specific section Mr. Kelly was referring to. He clarified that when the Public Information Officer (PLO) or City Manager was notified, one of their first responsibilities was notification of the Mayor and City Council. He indicated that the wording could be included in the section Mr. Kelly called out. Continuing, Mr. Kelly stated that the council had also specifically requested that wording be included to allow the City Council to repeal a City Manager's declaration of a state of emergency. He acknowledged that such wording was in an annex. Mr. Pap~ recalled that many discussions about emergency responses had been held prior to the year 2000. He agreed that the specific language cited by Mr. Kelly should be included in the main body of the document. He felt that in an emergency, people might not take the time to refer to annexes and appendices. MINUTES--Eugene City Council April 27, 2005 Page 2 Work Session In response to a question from Mr. Pap6, Mr. Solin said he did not think the ICS would require funding resources. He stated that training was being conducted every year and if a person was in a first-responder, role his or her responsibilities in the case of an emergency were incorporated into the training. He clarified that training was required for police, fire, and the majority of Public Works employees. Mr. Poling ascertained from Mr. Solin that the activation of the emergency system was the same for all situations but the reaction to an incident was specific to what type of incident it was. He asked if control over local operations would change if an agency such as FEMA came in. Mr. Solin responded that the control over local people would continue to be the responsibility of the City though it could fall under the umbrella of a federal agency. He said in a case such as the wind event a few years earlier, the federal government brought in its resources in the form of a disaster center to handle the claims after the event. Mr. Solin noted that the City of Eugene housed regional storage caches for one of the federal medical response teams and the federal government was set up so that it could bring in an emergency auxiliary medical center or a morgue. Mr. Poling asked if the other local jurisdictions in the vicinity were going through the same process and how their plans folded in with Eugene emergency plans. Mr. Solin replied that the key was how Eugene interfaced with the County, which was undergoing the same process. He pointed out that he was currently working with the City of Springfield to help rewrite its emergency plan. Ms. Bettman asked if Eugene received a franchise fee when Springfield copied Eugene's plan. Mr. Solin responded that the City of Springfield was covering all of the costs. He said he brought a hazard mitigation plan before the council in 2004 that had been done as a Eugene/Springfield Metropolitan Plan. Ms. Bettman remarked that she thought all of the jurisdictions contributed to the cost of creating the plan. Mr. Solin replied that the City of Eugene received the grant and the City of Springfield donated staff time for the hazard mitigation plan. In this case, he explained, the City of Eugene had entered into an inter-governmental agreement (IGA) and the City of Springfield was paying for the cost of writing the Emergency Plan. Ms. Bettman said her primary questions had to do with the extent of the oversight the legislative branch had over the administrative branch of municipal government in a crisis. She thought the City Manager was able to declare an emergency and then could assume unprecedented authority once the declaration of emergency was made. She did not think the ;;extreme shift of authority" was warranted. She sought to include a specific provision that specified that the City Manager's authority was still overseen by an elected body. She speculated, for purposes of example, that a city manager 20 years from now might take advantage of such a position to award all debris removal contracts to one company, as an example. Mr. Solin underscored that the City Manager had to indicate that a situation or incident constituted a Level 3 emergency and that he had contacted the majority of the city councilors. He reiterated that it was not a legally defined state of emergency until the administrative order was enacted by this process. Ms. Ortiz thanked staff for bringing the emergency plan forward. She noted that the hospital she worked for had a similar emergency management plan and indicated she was very comfortable with the plan as it was set forward. Mr. Kelly cited Eugene Code 2.1055, enacted in 1999, which declared that the City Manager shall provide MINUTES--Eugene City Council April 27, 2005 Page 3 Work Session the City Council with notice of each action that he or she would take and the City Council could, by majority vote, override the City Manager's action. He thought this was an explicit check and balance. Nonetheless, he felt this language should not be relegated to an annex. Mr. Solin said it would not be problematic to make small changes to the document. Ms. Taylor seconded Mr. Kelly's request. She thought the language should be clear and specific because in 20 years this council would be gone and a City Manager could be in place who was ;;power hungry." City Manager Taylor remarked that it was unlikely that one would become ;;power hungry" in the midst of a disaster of some scale. Ms. Taylor suggested that Library, Recreation, and Cultural Services (LRCS) staff be required to undergo emergency training. She cited, as an example, the possibility that someone could poison the water at the Amazon Aquatic Center or that a stampede of exiting audience members could occur at the Hult Center for the Performing Arts. Mr. Pap6 ascertained from new councilors Pryor and Ortiz and Mayor Piercy that they did not know what their powers were in a state of emergency. He recommended this be incorporated into orientation and training for new councilors. He also requested inclusion of the Eugene Code that Mr. Kelly cited in council packets for the next meeting. Mr. Solin noted that it was included in the CD-ROM under Annex L. In response to a question from Mr. Pap6, Mr. Solin stated that the flow chart in the emergency plan was taken directly out of the National Response Plan. City Manager Taylor added that since 1944, the City Manager had been the executive officer in this situation according to City Charter. Mr. Pap6 suggested that the wording be changed on page 31, 6.6, so that at the end of the second sentence the word ;customers' be changed to ;residents' or ;people.' Ms. Bettman, seconded by Mr. Pap6, moved to extend the time for the dis- cussion by five minutes. The motion passed unanimously, 8:0. Ms. Bettman said while she disagreed with the notion that someone might become ;;power hungry" she did believe in maintaining a series of checks and balances. She believed that some decisions were discretionary and a balance of power ensured that the best decisions would be made. In response to a question from Ms. Bettman, Mr. Solin stated that the emergency plan, in the legal annex, discussed the ordinances to declare a state of emergency. He said in the resolution to adopt NIMS there was no specific tie to the ordinances, but there was no need for there to be one as it sought to tie the City's system with the NIMS, the overarching system. He underscored that it did not supercede the local ordinance. Ms. Bettman opined that the ordinance should be cited in a provision in the resolution so that it could be easily tied into the ordinance. Mr. Pryor appreciated all of the work that had gone into the plan. He commented that he had only been MINUTES--Eugene City Council April 27, 2005 Page 4 Work Session involved in one emergency, the Thurston High School shooting. He stated that the emergency plan notebook sat on a shelf during the emergency. He emphasized that there were only a few basic elements that needed attention, the set up of an emergency management organization, an emergency management center, and command control communication. Once these were in place, he said, everyone knew what to do. He stressed that the Springfield City Council was never convened during that emergency. He said that in an emergency, one had to have an extraordinary level of trust in the people who were providing that function because when an emergency was underway there was not time for discussion or deliberation. This was why exercises such as table-top models and simulations were utilized. He reiterated his appreciation for the ~pre- effort." Mr. Kelly said he would feel more comfortable if there was a ~finding" indicating that NIMS was true to the City's code. Mr. Solin agreed to include this. B. WORK SESSION: Sustainable Design and Construction for City Buildings City Manager Taylor noted that the City had received attention for its ~green building" standards. He said Facilities Division Manager Glen Svendsen and Principal Facility Project Manager Michael Penwell would present the topic. Mr. Svendsen explained that the session sought to follow up on the November 8 discussion on existing buildings and the presentation sought to provide an overview of how sustainability guidelines were being used in the development of new buildings and the remodeling of older ones. He hoped to set the stage for further discussion of what the City's ~green building" policy should be. He clarified that the draft policy in the council packets had been developed in 2002 and the whole field of sustainable building design, construction, and maintenance had changed significantly since then. Mr. Svendsen introduced Facility Project Manager Meredith Fox, who put together most of the information for the PowerPoint presentation and who had included leading edge sustainable products in a number of her projects over the last few years. Mr. Penwell proceeded with the presentation, copies of which were distributed to all those present. He explained that the Design and Construction Division of the Facilities Division managed all of the design and construction projects for General Fund buildings and also managed and consulted on most non-General Fund building projects as well. Mr. Penwell outlined the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards, certification, and point system. He stressed that it was important to weigh the cost-versus-benefit of different certification levels. He hoped to attain some input in this regard from the councilors. Mr. Penwell explained that the scoring for new construction was divided into six categories: · Sustainable sites - was it a rehabilitated brown field and/or how accessible by mass transit was it? · Water efficiency - did it utilize such facilities as waterless urinals and low-flow faucets? · Energy and atmosphere; · Materials and resources - were materials with recycled content or materials that did not have a MINUTES--Eugene City Council April 27, 2005 Page 5 Work Session deleterious effect on health being used? · Indoor environmental quality - how well-ventilated and well-lit was it? · Innovation and design process. Each of these categories had an allocation of a certain amount of points which, when compiled, would provide a LEED rating that ranged from the lowest rating of ;certified' to the highest rating of ;platinum.' Mr. Penwell listed some of the ~green building" elements that were incorporated into the Library, the two new Fire Stations, and the Roosevelt Police Facility, such as daylighting, green materials, and construction waste management. He highlighted ways demolition debris had been recycled, such as the reuse of wood beams and the incorporation of ground concrete into the fill on the Chiquita site. He said over 90 percent of the debris had been diverted from the landfill. Mayor Piercy conveyed her appreciation for the presentation. Mr. Pap~ echoed her appreciation. He related that he attended the Green Building Conference in Portland. He said he marveled at the technology and expressed his support for continued sustainable construction in Eugene. He called it an opportunity for the City of Eugene to lead by example. He encouraged the City to set its sights higher and attain ~silver' or ~gold' LEED certification. Regarding specific suggestions for a sustainable building policy, Mr. Papd said he could agree to a minimum threshold at 5,000 square feet or more and that he thought the policy should be city-wide and not just limited to General Fund buildings. Mr. Kelly agreed with Mr. Pap~. He supported some sort of point system for construction in the private sector. He thought the City should lead the way with sustainability practices and should publicize it well, such as providing statistics on savings the Library building construction provided. Mr. Kelly asked for a cost/benefit analysis of certification. He suggested that the draft plan be published for public comment when it was ready. Ms. Taylor supported pursuing ~gold' or ~platinum' LEED certification. She asked how the Library and Fire Station 1 would rate. Mr. Penwell responded that the Library would rate at the ~certified' level but the apparatus bay in Fire Station 1 made certification for that facility difficult. He thought it had potential to be certified at the ~silver' level. Ms. Bettman expressed admiration for the City of Portland, which she said had turned development projects into tourist attractions by attracting conventions and utilizing the City as subject matter. In response to a question from Ms. Bettman, Mr. Penwell stated that there was much analysis now that LEED had been in place for some time. He said the difficulty lay in what to compare it with. He stressed that there was a clear benefit when comparing a LEED certified building to a code minimum building, but commented that no one built %heap buildings" anymore. Ms. Bettman indicated that she supported pursuing the higher certifications. She wished to enhance healthy and safe work environments, which would provide points toward LEED certification. She wanted to take the stance that the City would build sustainable buildings. She added that she would not apply a threshold MINUTES--Eugene City Council April 27, 2005 Page 6 Work Session for square footage. Mr. Pryor concurred with all that had been said about construction. He said, regarding demolition debris, every ton of material cost $45 and if half of the material was recycled it saved that money. He pointed out components of the meeting room that could be recycled and resold, which would actually make money for tax payers. He felt benefits could be reaped from both demolition and construction. Mr. Penwell reiterated that 95 percent of the demolition material from the old Chiquita site had been reused or recycled. He thought the City Hall building could easily be recycled should it be razed. Mr. Poling agreed with Mr. Pap& He had some of the same questions that Mr. Kelly had regarding the certification versus equivalency and the cost benefits. He was particularly interested in the recycling of demolition material as it benefited both the environment and the City taxpayers' pocketbooks. Mayor Piercy said it was great to have an opportunity at a work session to show the public the work the City was doing. She shared her excitement at the responses of the people around the table and stated that she looked forward to taking the opportunity to move forward on this. She encouraged the council to take both the long view and the short view and move forward as possible with real ~vigor and aim." Mayor Piercy adjourned the work session at 1:28 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Dennis M. Taylor City Manager (Recorded by Ruth Atcherson) MINUTES--Eugene City Council April 27, 2005 Page 7 Work Session