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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCC Minutes - 10/29/03 WS MINUTES Eugene City Council McNutt RoomCEugene City Hall October 29, 2003 Noon COUNCILORS PRESENT: Gary Pap6, Nancy Nathanson, Scott Meisner, Betty Taylor, David Kelly, Bonny Bettman, Jennifer Solomon, George Poling. In the absence of Mayor James D. Torrey, Council President Pap6 called the meeting of the Eugene City Council to order. A. Work Session: Update on Downtown Space Plan and Direction on a Police Services Building City Manager Dennis Taylor introduced Facilities Division Manager Glen Svendsen, who provided the staff presentation. Financial Analysis Manager Sue Cutsogeorge and Principal Facilities Project Manager Mike Penwell were also present for the item. Mr. Svendsen requested council direction on the police services building, which was the next step in the Downtown Space Plan. He said that staff was asking for direction now to give the council time to consider the issue and integrate it into its multi-year financial planning. As the process continued, staff would prepare additional project information and financial options. Mr. Svendsen reviewed progress in implementing the plan to this point, reporting that a number of short-range actions supporting the plan had been completed or were underway. He reminded the council that it adopted policies that decreased the City's reinvestment into City Hall and the City facility at 858 Pearl Street, assuming that the buildings would eventually be disposed of. The plan also called for the sale of surplus properties, the move of Eugene Police Department staff out of the basement of City Hall, and the identification of a site for Fire Station 1. Mr. Svendsen recalled that in September 2001, the council identified the latter two items as its top two priorities, and both were underway. The two remaining projects in the plan were the construction of a new police services building and the replacement of City Hall; those projects were tentatively proposed for completion in 2008 and 2011. Mr. Svendsen reported that the council agreed to finance projects in the plan through a combination of internal funding and the issuance of general obligation (GO) bonds. He noted that the Roosevelt police facility was being funded entirely with internal resources, and Fire Station 1 largely through a GO bond. Mr. Svendsen said that the police services building described in the Agenda Item Summary (ALS) would be the administrative and operational headquarters for the Police Department. Approximately 20 percent of the projected $33.8 million cost could be funded by internal resources, with the remainder to be funded through a GO bond. He asked the council to consider whether it wished staff MINUTES--Eugene City Council October 29, 2003 Page 1 Work Session to move ahead with more specific plans and financing proposals for a new police services building, noting that a November 2004 election date gave the council plenty of time to act. Assistant City Manager Jim Carlson said the primary reason the agenda item had been scheduled was the series of discussions the council would soon have about the six-year financial forecast, election sequencing, and the likely ballot measures other jurisdictions may propose over the next few years. He said that some additional space planning had been done by the Eugene Police Department, which had proposed a smaller facility than City staff had originally proposed when the council discussed the issue in 2001. Staff continued to look at ways to contain costs; he noted that the proposal before the council included the cost of underground parking, which was not a part of the project in 2001. Mr. Carlson emphasized the preliminary nature of the project estimates. Mr. Pap~ solicited a first round of council questions and comments. Referring to Attachment B, Mr. Meisner questioned whether the document, entitled Summary of the Downtown Space Plan, Funded Projects Updated October 20, 2003, was accurate given that it included information about facilities the City no longer occupied. Mr. Svendsen clarified that the information to which Mr. Meisner referred was original to the 2001 document adopted by the council, and had not been revised. Mr. Meisner noted that there were other references to those facilities in other places in the text. Noting the staff recommendation to fund the proposed building partly through Urban Renewal Agency (URA) funds realized from the sale of the former Sears building, Mr. Meisner recalled that the council had severely discounted the building's sale price. He asked what funds would be used to make up the difference between the estimated sale price and actual price, and if the proposal would diminish the money for projects and loans in the district. Ms. Cutsogeorge said that was a policy choice for the council. Staff was recommending that the URA make up the difference. Mr. Carlson added that originally, the City intended to sell the Sears Building as a URA asset. The URA would retain responsibility for payments for the library. Mr. Meisner concluded that the result would be fewer projects and loans in the URA, which was confirmed by Ms. Cutsogeorge. Mr. Meisner noted the mention of a possible parking garage to be located east of High Street to provide primary parking for the courthouse district, and noted that until the council took action to include the area in the district, it was not part of the district. He asked if those plans were still viable. Mr. Carlson clarified that the potential of a parking facility was merely an idea at this time. He said that such a facility had been discussed for several years as a logical location to replace the parking now located in Lot 15. He confirmed that the location was in private ownership. Ms. Solomon arrived at the meeting. Mr. Meisner indicated that he understood development was proposed for the area and suggested that staff might not want to count on such a facility. Mr. Carlson said that staff was anticipating any such facility would be a public-private partnership, and that had been discussed with potential buyers of the site. Responding to a question from Ms. Bettman, Mr. Carlson confirmed that the proposed police services building would be three stories. MINUTES--Eugene City Council October 29, 2003 Page 2 Work Session Ms. Bettman indicated tentative support for the staff recommendation. However, she wanted to expand the options before the council. She wanted to move forward with both a new police station and a new city hall. She said that her ultimate support for the project would be based on the final funding package. Ms. Bettman said she had informally polled some constituents who had supported past capital expenditures, but were tentative in their support for the police station. She thought it would be a ~hard sell" and did not want to see a bond measure placed on a ballot only to fail. Ms. Bettman had wanted the project included in the urban renewal district because she thought that would demonstrate to the voters that the cost of the facility would be offset by other funding sources. She asked staff to develop cost estimates for a combined police station/city hall. She suggested that if the City were to build one large building to replace the existing City Hall, it would be cleaner and the City would not be required to continue to maintain the existing building. Ms. Nathanson referred to Mr. Carlson's remarks about downsizing the project to reduce costs, and suggested that would raise the question of whether the City was being short-sighted by not building out to the original estimated need. She suggested that the City could build a shell that it left empty or occupied with an interim activity. Ms. Nathanson asked staff to discuss the impact of building additional satellite police stations, and if that reduced the need for space in a centralized building. Speaking to the latter question, Mr. Svendsen indicated that because of the scale of the satellite stations, they did not reduce the business of the police headquarters. Speaking to the first question, Mr. Svendsen said that an earlier option considered by staff was to reduce the project to a mid-sized range, but staff continued to look at the future needs of the department and wanted to size the building for the future, not just the short-term. Mr. Penwell added that staff had worked with architects to review the space needs assessment again and looked to see where space could be reduced as a result of changes in police operations, and concluded that with the current budget and realistic projections of the future, 92,000 square feet was the appropriate size. He indicated that the planning horizon used was 15 years. Ms. Nathanson suggested that the public would question the City's need for an exclusive use building, and asked why it was a good idea for the City to continue to plan for an exclusive use building. Mr. Svendsen said that there were building code issues related to the mixing of uses that was separate from the question of how the building would be used operationally. He believed there were co-location opportunities and their cost implications that could be discussed. Speaking on the topic of security, which had grown as an issue over the last few years, Mr. Svendsen noted the security issues created by mixing public accessibility for police and non-police functions. He deferred to Lieutenant Rick Siel for further comment. Lieutenant Siel spoke to the issue of satellite stations, saying the establishment of precincts or the expansion of substations to accommodate a wider range of police functions generally was not cost- effective until the police agency and the city involved reached a certain size. He did not see that happening in Eugene. Lieutenant Siel anticipated that there may be more substations or they could be used differently, but he did not think they would increase in size. Regarding the issue of security, he said that a new city hall with multiple functions would have to be built to a seismic level that a police station did not require, which created an additional cost. Other functions would increase the MINUTES--Eugene City Council October 29, 2003 Page 3 Work Session need for security, which would also increase cost. He added that the Police Department was not opposed to a combined-use building. Ms. Nathanson said as a former member of the Public Safety Coordinating Council, she had participated in committee discussions about the potential of combining police facilities. She asked if there had been any discussion with Lane County about the potential of collaborating on a slightly larger building to accommodate the needs of both the Police Department and the Sheriff's Office. Mr. Carlson said while the City was contemplating a single-use building, it was also contemplating more public access and staff availability than was currently available at City Hall. It was now difficult for citizens and volunteers to access City Hall. Staff anticipated the building would include a community meeting room off the lobby of the building to accommodate public meetings. Speaking to Ms. Nathanson's remarks regarding the appropriate building size and Ms. Bettman's remarks about a building that accommodated both police and general government services, Mr. Carlson said that staff had not been thinking about such a facility because of the seismic issues involved, but it had begun to think about using the extra square footage in the police services building for auxiliary functions such as Municipal Court, which could allow the City to vacate the existing City Hall sooner than anticipated as only the City Manager's Office and Human Resources and Risk Services functions would remain and could be relocated in leased space or other City facilities. Mr. Kelly urged staff to work with Lane County to test its interest in a combined City-County building. Mr. Kelly did not recall the council giving direction to staff to reduce maintenance to the City-owned facility at 858 Pearl Street. Mr. Svendsen said it was envisioned that the building would not be needed in the future as the functions involved would be combined with other City offices. Mr. Kelly believed that the building in question had some resale potential, and he did not want the City to neglect it before it could be sold. Mr. Kelly acknowledged the need for a new police facility. He said the issue for him was not the building's design or location, but how it would be paid for. He said the bond election results from 2000 were not an encouraging omen. Mr. Kelly thought that citizens were even more nervous about the economy than in 2000, and the City was providing fewer services than it had three years ago. Like Ms. Bettman, Mr. Kelly did not want to lose a measure at the ballot as he believed that lead to a situation where voters continually rejected money measures. In terms of general need, he suggested that the council might have to go to the voters for a serial levy for basic government operations in the future. Ms. Taylor also did not want to risk failure at the ballot box, although she thought it best to go to the voters with one project at a time. However, she was not sure that now was the best time to consider a new public building as people were upset about their tax bills and the economy. Ms. Taylor asked if the City had considered a consolidated Eugene-Springfield-Lane County public safety building. Mr. Carlson said that the PSCC had discussed the possibility, but it did not work for all three jurisdictions because of location issues. He suggested that such a facility could potentially work for Eugene and Lane County. He believed there was a potential for a combined building that MINUTES--Eugene City Council October 29, 2003 Page 4 Work Session would realize economies of scale, but the square footage the City required would be the same. He said that the problem to this point was that Lane County had no money to dedicate to such a facility. Ms. Taylor determined from Mr. Carlson that the City rented space at the Eugene Hotel and Central Building and rented some space from itself downtown. Mr. Svendsen added that the police substations and branch libraries were also located in rented space. Ms. Taylor suggested that the City would save money on rent by moving those services now in rented facilities into City Hall when the police moved out. She thought that would go a long way toward covering the costs of building operations and maintenance. Mr. Svendsen indicated that City Hall was not large enough to accommodate the Public Works functions currently located in downtown. Ms. Taylor determined from Mr. Svendsen that the space now occupied by the Fire Department in City Hall would be used for storage and the Police Department. Ms. Taylor referred to the $6 million in the Facilities Fund and said she wanted to use it for other urgent City needs. She suggested the council ask the voters about their willingness to pay for the entire cost of the proposed police station. Responding to a question from Mr. Pap6, Mr. Svendsen indicated that Police staffwould be out of the basement of City Hall sometime in late spring 2004. Mr. Pap~ averred that most cities have a police station and city hall adjacent to or near each other, and he encouraged staff to consider how it was going to plan for a new city hall with that in mind. He wanted to know what the City could do with the existing City Hall and if there was a way to dispose of it as it existed. Mr. Pap~ solicited a second round of comments and questions. Ms. Bettman did not support combining facilities with Lane County, saying that Eugene would end up paying the greatest share and she thought there was an identity issue to consider. She wanted the City to succeed in building a new facility and thought certain preconditions were needed. She was in favor of a combined city hall/police services facility, suggesting that the seismic issues were the same and City Hall would be more secure if the police were in the same building. Ms. Bettman asked when staff could return with revised numbers. Mr. Carlson reminded the council that it would soon hold a work session on election sequencing. He noted that the local option levy for school-related youth services was a three-year levy that started this year, and suggested that the City could consider going out with a GO bond measure for the police services building but that it not sell the bonds until that levy expired to avoid an increase in taxes on the public. Mr. Meisner said that he would like to see the creation of a civic complex and at this time he was not prepared to approve taking a new police building to the voters without an idea of what that would be. He questioned the need for buildings with separate meeting rooms, parking facilities, etc. He believed there were economies of service and scale to be realized by a civic complex. Mr. Meisner agreed with Ms. Nathanson that the local governments should work closely together on such issues. MINUTES--Eugene City Council October 29, 2003 Page 5 Work Session He said that both Eugene and Springfield had frustration with the j ail matrix system, and Springfield had considered building its own holding cells. He said that the City might want to have the same discussion, and suggested that the location of such holding cells need not be an issue that stopped a combined jurisdictional approach to their construction. Mr. Meisner noted that library branches accounted for about 40 percent of the total library circulation demand, and suggested that the City might want to focus more on neighborhood-based services. He said that every neighborhood seemed to want a substation, and that could have an affect on the downtown police headquarters. Regarding the issue of the consolidation of like functions, Mr. Carlson pointed to the j ail as a local example of the successful consolidation of government services. Mr. Kelly reiterated that there was no question as to the need for a new police building but he continued to be concerned about the City's ongoing service needs and the voters' response to a new bond measure. He did not support the motion proposed by staff because he did not want staff to spend more time on design if the actual construction was more than three years out, and the department's needs could have changed. He said he would support a motion that directed staff to return with specific recommendations on funding alternatives. Mr. Kelly endorsed Mr. Meisner's comments about a civic complex center and the importance of knowing what was going to happen to City Hall before going to the public. Mr. Kelly suggested that the City could poll the public on its response to a GO bond. Ms. Nathanson, seconded by Ms. Bettman, moved to extend time for the meeting by ten minutes. The motion passed unanimously. Ms. Nathanson, seconded by Ms. Solomon, moved to direct staff to bring more specific recommendations on the preliminary planning, cost, and financing of a new downtown police services building. Mr. Pap~ called for comments on the motion. Ms. Bettman wanted the staff recommendation to include the use of dedicated urban renewal funds to offset the cost of the police services building or combined city hall/police services building. Mr. Carlson suggested the council discuss the issue when it completed its discussions regarding the Riverfront Urban Renewal District. The City could not use the downtown district for the purpose because it could not expand its boundaries. Mr. Kelly suggested as a friendly amendment that the following phrase be added to the motion: ~and City Hall, as well as additional financing options." Ms. Nathanson and Ms. Solomon accepted the friendly amendment. Mr. Pap~ supported the motion with the addition of the phrase suggested by Mr. Kelly. He endorsed Mr. Meisner's remarks regarding the importance of having a civic complex. MINUTES--Eugene City Council October 29, 2003 Page 6 Work Session Ms. Nathanson noted the many mentions of a civic complex and recalled the council's discussions of planning on the west side of downtown, when she had been disappointed that the City Council failed to move ahead with ideas related to a civic complex in the area adjacent to what was proposed to be the new public library. At the time, many people were dismayed by the idea of City Hall no longer being proximate to other government agencies located on the eastside of downtown. Since then, some of those agencies had moved and others relocated nearby. Ms. Nathanson said she did not want the council to lose sight of the fact that a civic complex of sorts existed near the west end near the Lane Transit District station in the form of the library and the Atrium Building, which housed the City's Planning and Development Department, and suggested that the City focus some its planning on that area through renovations and "face lift" activities. Ms. Nathanson endorsed Mr. Meisner's comments regarding the economies of scale to be realized through shared parking structures, etc. She thought it made sense to look at an eastside civic complex. The motion passed unanimously, 7:0. B. WORK SESSION: Parks, Recreation, and Open Space Comprehensive Plan Update Library, Recreation, and Cultural Services Director Angel Jones, Parks and Open Space Planning Manager Andrea Riner, and Parks and Open Space Director Johnny Medlin joined the council for the item. Ms. Riner provided a PowerPoint presentation on the parks and open space planning effort currently underway. The presentation included information about the goals of the planning process, a process time line, and details about the public involvement process and resulting findings. Ms. Riner previewed next steps in the process. Following the presentation, Mr. Pap6 called on Ms. Nathanson as the Chair of the Mayor's Parks and Open Space Committee for Comprehensive Planning for her comments on the topic. Ms. Nathanson said that the committee had been meeting for one year. She said that the committee had been gathering data on many topics, including existing services and programs, a needs assessments for youth, adults, and seniors, a financial analysis, and information about trends in parks uses and activities. She noted that many changes had occurred in park trends over the last decade because of changes in demographics. Those trends had a significant impact on the programs and facilities the City would offer its residents in the future. Ms. Nathanson said the committee would review the parks inventory at its next meeting and then begin to work on its recommendations. She said the committee needed to be cognizant of the need to plan for land acquisition, building, equipment, as well as services and programs. Those were different things, and the ongoing cost implications created a different set of choices. Ms. Nathanson emphasized that the task of updating the comprehensive plan was not a simple one. It was all about looking to the future. Ms. Nathanson recalled that during the most recent update on the comprehensive plan councilors had questioned what the City would do with the left-over bond money; she said that there was no money "left over" because the process of implementing the bond had not been completed. She passed out copies of the most recent project update and called the council's attention to those projects yet to be completed. MINUTES--Eugene City Council October 29, 2003 Page 7 Work Session Mr. Papd solicited council comments and questions. Mr. Meisner found the data presented to the council interesting and said he was pleased to see it involved both property and services. He was not prepared to place another bond measure on the ballot without a plan for how the resulting operations and services would be paid for. Mr. Meisner said the public involvement process was valuable to him; he commended the use of the stakeholder groups, but emphasized the need to involve community members who were not advocates of any particular group. He said that the City should also consider the needs of renters as well as homeowners and solicit their input. Mr. Meisner referred to the most frequently used facilities and expressed surprise at the high number of visits to neighborhood parks. He said the council needed to keep those figures in mind when it considered its priorities for funding. Mr. Meisner noted that senior centers were the least-visited facilities, and acknowledged that could be because the City had closed some facilities. Mr. Meisner said that it was difficult to evaluate the results of a survey without knowing if those participating in the survey were cognizant of things like cost. He said that could dramatically alter the results of a survey. Mr. Kelly concurred with Mr. Meisner's comments regarding the need to know the cost of operating and maintaining new facilities. He thanked the committee and Ms. Nathanson for their work. He said that he was very proud of the programs and facilities the City offered its citizens, particularly given the difficult financial times local governments faced since the passage of Ballot Measure 47/50. Mr. Kelly requested more quantitative data on sport fields use (basketball courts, indoor sports facilities), asking if they were underscribed or overscribed, and about their geographic distribution. He looked forward to the committee's assessment of the geographic distribution of parks and recreation services. He believed the geographic distribution of neighborhood parks was particularly important. He cited the West University Neighborhood area and north Eugene as lacking neighborhood parks. Mr. Kelly believed that the City would have to spend considerable money to provide neighborhood parks in certain areas of the community because it would have to buy houses and tear them down. Mr. Kelly noted that the AlS stated that the Parks and Open Space Comprehensive Plan Web page had been recently updated, but that did not appear to be the case. Ms. Taylor said that she was struck by the community's interest in recreation centers, and regretted the City did not use the ones it had. She indicated interest in seeing a list of all the services that had been eliminated over the last six or seven years. Ms. Taylor believed the community would support new parks facilities before they supported a new city hall. Ms. Taylor said that land acquisition was very important to her, regardless of whether the City knew how it could be maintained, because if the City did not acquire the land it would be developed. She did not support tearing down existing houses to provide a park. MINUTES--Eugene City Council October 29, 2003 Page 8 Work Session Regarding the issue of geographic distribution, Ms. Taylor asserted that there was a ~myth" being circulated that South Eugene had many parks. Ms. Riner indicated that was the case on a per capita basis. Ms. Taylor said that she requested a list of the parks in the area, and it appeared to her all the parks in question were little sections of the Ridgeline, which was a regional facility. She said that Tugman Park was the only neighborhood park with which she was familiar. Amazon Park was a community park, and Milton Park was not fully developed. Ms. Taylor recalled that when she was a renter, parks were very important to her. Once she purchased a house with a yard, her family hardly ever went to a park. Ms. Bettman asked how staff decided what projects to implement and how the projects were timed. She noted that the Capital Improvement Plan included an upgrade to Friendly Park that had been put off year after year. She suggested that future POS expenditures should be based on articulated criteria for selection and prioritization of projects. The priorities that staff identified when talking to the community could be used to create a priority list of projects. Ms. Bettman acknowledged there were many factors influencing the timing of projects, but it appeared to her that decisions were made by staff, without any vehicle for the community and elected officials to understand the decision- making process. She termed the process ~mysterious" and said that it would help if it was more open and accessible. Ms. Riner said the schedule for the bond measure was in place the day she began to work for the City, and staff had started to work on everything. It had taken about two years longer to implement the bond measure than staff thought due to the amount of training and work required. She noted that 80 percent of all parks constructed in the last 20 years had been constructed in the last two years. She said that the priorities had been retained even though the schedule had slipped. Ms. Riner noted that the youth sports parks were taken from the middle of the schedule and accelerated to take advantage of the City's partnerships with the schools. She offered to share a general project schedule with the council. Mr. Pap6 expressed appreciation to the committee for its work, and said he also appreciated the periodic updates. He complimented Ms. Riner and her staff on the work they had done. He believed that the council was supportive of parks and open space projects and he was proud of that. He concurred with the remarks of Mr. Meisner and Mr. Kelly. He wanted to ensure that the City maintained its parks facilities. Mr. Pap6 adjourned the meeting at 1:30 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Dennis M. Taylor City Manager (Recorded by Kimberly Young) MINUTES--Eugene City Council October 29, 2003 Page 9 Work Session MINUTES--Eugene City Council October 29, 2003 Page 10 Work Session