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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCC Minutes - 11/28/01 Work Session MINUTES Eugene City Council Work Session McNutt Room--Eugene City Hall November 28, 2001 Noon COUNCILORS PRESENT: Betty Taylor, David Kelly, Nancy Nathanson, Pat Fart, Scott Meisner, Gary Rayor, Gary Pap~, Bonny Bettman. CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION Mayor James D. Torrey called the meeting of the Eugene City Council to order. A. Work Session: Resolution 4694, A Resolution Initiating Amendments to the West Eugene Wetlands Plan, Eugene-Springfield Metropolitan Area General Plan (Metro Plan) and Eugene-Springfield Metropolitan Area Transportation Plan (TransPlan) to Facilitate Construction of the West Eugene Parkway Planning Director Jan Childs and Transportation Engineer David Reinhard joined the council for the item. Ms. Childs noted additional materials provided for the work session: a letter from Rob Zako to the mayor and City Council, a revised copy of the resolution submitted by Mr. Papa, a letter from Bruce Warner of the Oregon Department of Transportation, and a copy of the certified election results for both ballot measures 20-53 and 20-54. Ms. Childs indicated that the resolution before the council would initiate the planning actions outlined and did not dictate the outcome of the amendments process. She noted Exhibit B, a time line for the process, based on the assumption that the council would want to move forward quickly. Ms. Childs called attention to Attachment B, which listed the decision makers involved in each planning action that must be taken. The goal exception and application of the planned transportation corridor were relatively straightforward amendments because there was certainty about the properties involved. The third amendment before the council was to revise the TransPlan 20-year fiscally constrained project list. The Transportation Planning Committee (TPC) developed a draft to start the discussion, which would also be reviewed by the Metropolitan Policy Committee (MPC) to give all jurisdictional partners in TransPlan a sense of what would be required to include the entire parkway in the plan. Mr. Rayor arrived at the meeting. Mr. Reinhard reviewed the details of Attachment C, Draft Staff Recommendation for Adjustments to TransPlan Fiscally Constrained Project List. Referring to the list of planning and corridor studies for ODOT, Ms. Bettman asked if the money involved could be used for operations, maintenance, and preservation. She also questioned why MINUTES--Eugene City Council November 28, 2001 Page 1 Work Session the City staff resources required to process the amendments were not quantified and said she would like to have an estimate of those costs. She asked at what point the council would see the final list of projects to be eliminated. Mr. Farr arrived at the meeting. Ms. Bettman asked if staff had received feedback from Lane County about postponing the Jasper Road/South 42nd Street extension. Mr. Schwetz stated that the source of funding for the planning and corridor studies would be State Planning Research dollars, which were federal moneys focused on planning, so they were not available for other purposes. Regarding City staff resources, Ms. Childs said that in terms of Planning Division staff time, her time would be reprogrammed from other work, with the consequence that the work of applying the Metro Plan designation and Eugene zoning to high priority nodal development areas would be delayed for a couple of months, although the work would still be done in the time frame of the Transportation Growth Management (TGM) grant cycle. She indicated she would provide an estimate of costs. Responding to Ms. Bettman's question about when the council would see the final list, Mr. Reinhard anticipated that the MPC would be asked to concur on a list as a starting point for the TransPlan amendment process. Regarding the postponement of the Jasper Road/42nd Street extension, Mr. Reinhard said that County and Springfield staff were involved in the process of developing the project list. He understood that Springfield City Manager Mike Kelly had indicated it would be a viable, although not preferred option. Ms. Bettman read the preliminary project list for the benefit of the viewing audience. Mr. Meisner shared Ms. Bettman's concern regarding staff resources. He said it was a continuing theme as the council prioritized its many goals. Regarding Attachment C, he noted ODOT's lack of interest in building local connections. The parkway was intended to provide a good connection from Highway 126 to the I-5 corridor, but the draft project list eliminated the Beltline improvements from River Road to Delta Highway, which would result in more traffic being funneled onto the th parkway and subsequently onto 6 and 7th avenues, which were already heavily congested. He questioned how that impacted downtown, and if that had been considered, particularly in light of the construction of the federal courthouse. Would the community need a six-lane corridor? He asked if staff had determined how the postponed projects and parkway construction with the rest of City projects and needs. Mr. Reinhard agreed that those issues needed to be examined, but the project list was the first cut at a final list. Mr. Meisner understood, but he thought that before the list was presented to the public, staff needed to do some analysis of the relationships between projects in TransPlan and the rest of the city. Mr. Reinhard indicated such analysis was forthcoming. Ms. Nathanson asked Mr. Reinhard to more fully describe the extent of participation in the development of the project list. Mr. Reinhard said that the staff group that put together the list was the same group that was involved in the development of TransPlan. He said that everyone MINUTES--Eugene City Council November 28, 2001 Page 2 Work Session involved recognized the difficulty of the effort and the need. All four agencies that were party to TransPlan as well as ©D©T had participated in the development of the list. Ms. Nathanson asked if staff used any sort of criteria to evaluate the projects on the list. She also asked if staff expected that, by putting projects on the list, some would never be accomplished, or was it a simply a question of sequencing as funding became available? Mr. Reinhard responded that the staff reviewed the criteria used to prioritize projects in the draft TransPlan. Recognizing the magnitude of the changes needed, staff recommended deferral of the largest projects. He said that the staff did not believe that the projects would necessarily be deferred beyond the 20- year planning horizon given the continued dynamics of the transportation planning and funding process. None were being abandoned; all were high-priority projects. Ms. Nathanson agreed it was important to know the impact of council decisions on staff resources; however, she considered this project somewhat differently given the delay in progress on the parkway. Rather than looking at the parkway as a new project, she viewed the situation as getting back on the initial track. Mr. Kelly continued to oppose the parkway project but acknowledged that the voters had spoken in support of it. He supported the resolution as presented by staff. With regard to the ballot measure, the next time some one suggested to him that a campaign would be a good way to educate the public about a complex issue, he would "laugh uproariously" He found the campaign to be a series of sound bites, citing in particular the fact he and others were derided publicly for suggesting that projects would have to be postponed if the parkway was passed. Now the council was considering a list that moved every local road project costing over $1 million except one from the 20-year TransPlan project list. Mr. Kelly said he wished those in support of the parkway had been honest about that. Mr. Kelly echoed Mr. Meisner's request for further analysis. Mr. Kelly pointed out to Ms. Nathanson that the situation was not business as usual in that the staff work on other priorities, such as nodal implementation, would be delayed. That effort was also intended to implement TransPlan. He asked if staff could ask ©D©T and the other local jurisdictions if they could help to offset some of those expenses to allow work to proceed on the City's State-related priorities. Mr. Fart asked staff where its time would have been spent if the parkway had not been delayed, and how its work load looked from this point. Ms. Childs said that last year staff anticipated the parkway would be a project on the Planning Commission work program and staff and commission time was scheduled for the effort in fiscal year 2001. When the council decided not to initiate the amendment process in December 2000, the effort was dropped from the fiscal year 2002 work program and the budget, and resources were redirected toward other projects, such as nodal development. Mr. Farr asked Mr. Reinhard to discuss the dynamics of the funding process. Mr. Reinhard responded that things can change in terms of the funding available, and noted the City's participation in the United Front federal lobbying effort, during which local representatives solicited support for such funding. He noted that some of the projects on the list were in the early planning stages, which added to the uncertainty about the size and timing of expenditures. MINUTES--Eugene City Council November 28, 2001 Page 3 Work Session Mr. Farr determined from Mr. Reinhard that staff was not proposing to drop any projects and the community would continue to work on the projects on the preliminary list at some point in time. Mr. Reinhard said yes; for example, unless something changed, the five projects in question would move to the futures list, which did not have the same standing in TransPlan as the adopted project list, but which reflected consensus that further effort was needed to ensure they were eventually constructed. Mr. Farr stated that the council was not eliminating projects, merely delaying them in response to the voters' direction. Ms. Taylor said the answers to the questions asked so far illustrated the folly of what the council was doing. She was interested in seeking federal funding for other priorities and said that the council could easily get less federal money rather than more federal money in the future. She read a letter she wrote to The Register-Guard in defense of what she anticipated her vote on the resolution would be. Her defense to the accusation that she was ignoring a vote of the people was her contention that the election results did not represent a mandate and her belief the parkway succeeded because of deceptive campaign advertising. In addition, the parkway did not gain majority support in her ward. In response to Mr. Kelly's comments about the campaign, Mayor Torrey said that as a parkway supporter he was asked at the City Club forum on the topic if passage of the ballot measure would require a readjustment to the TransPlan project list, and he had responded in the affirmative. He said that it was an accurate statement. In terms of dishonest statements, he said there were a number of advertisements published against the parkway that insinuated the money to be used for construction could be used for general taxation purposes, such as for schools, parks, and neighborhoods. He asked Mr. Reinhard if that was the case. Mr. Reinhard said no. Regarding the staff time, Mayor Torrey suggested that the City would have spent considerable more time on zoning adjustments that would have been necessary in the absence of the parkway. Mayor Torrey said that the federally constrained requirement associated with the parkway was thrown at the community last year for the first time. The community had never planned to have to budget for all the projects in the 20-year time frame. The parkway would not even be done within the 20-year time frame, but the federal government required that the community budget for it. It was a technical budgeting requirement. He did not think that any of the projects on the draft list, with the exception of the extra lane on the Washington-Jefferson Bridge, was authorized to proceed. Mr. Reinhard concurred. Mayor Torrey said that the public needed to understand that none of the projects on the list had been studied or approved by the agency (©D©T) that would give the community the money for the projects. Mr. Meisner called on the council to move forward and work together to do what needed to be done instead of continually blaming. Mr. Meisner said that the futures list was a long-term list and projects on the list would be unlikely to be built in the 20-year planning horizon unless new money came forward or something else was cancelled. Mr. Reinhard concurred. Mr. Meisner noted Ms. Nathanson's points regarding the fact that planning on the west side was premised on construction of the parkway. Assuming that to be true, he asked to what degree the Beltline improvements on the list were necessary for the parkway to work. He expressed concern about building a parkway that would funnel traffic through downtown rather than out through MINUTES--Eugene City Council November 28, 2001 Page 4 Work Session Beltline. If the project was moved to the futures list, where would the community get the money to start the studies for that project. Mr. Reinhard referred to footnote 1, which was a recommendation for a Beltline facility plan with funding to come from ©D©T. Mr. Meisner asked if the funding was sufficient or the project a priority for ©D©T. Mr. Reinhard did not know. Speaking to Ms. Taylor's remarks, Mr. Meisner noted that the Bethel ward had not supported the library project; did that mean the council should not build a Bethel branch library? He did not think so, adding he felt bound by a citywide vote. He reiterated his interest in knowing the effects of postponing the Beltline project. Mr. Reinhard said there was an interrelationship between the facilities, but reminded the council the traffic modeling indicated that a small percentage of traffic using the current West 11th Avenue west of Beltline would be taking the Beltline. The traffic primarily travels down 6th and 7th avenues and disperse from there. Mr. Meisner said he was a little unhappy with the continued message, received for months from ©D©T, that the only reason it was interested in the parkway was for the western portion, which connected to Beltline and I-5. He said he felt manipulated. Mr. Rayor supported the resolution in the packet. He agreed with Mr. Kelly's remarks. He had voted against referring the parkway to the voters and had opposed the parkway personally, and his ward voted 3:2 against it. However, he acknowledged the citywide vote on the topic and said it was a watershed decision about where the community was going. Mr. Rayor hoped in the future the transportation system could shift away from car and oil dependancy. Mr. Kelly agreed that none of the projects were yet approved by ©D©T, but that did not diminish the importance of the 20-year list. The project list was the shared wisdom of four jurisdictions. Mr. Kelly asked about the expected time line for completion of the parkway. Robed Pirrie of ©D©T said the time line was dependent on the priority given the project by the MPC as part of the regional prioritization process. If given a priority, the project would be completed in a 20-year time frame. Mr. Kelly asked if ©D©T had a sense of the end date. Mr. Pirrie said ©D©T had no specificity about the end date. He said it was possible it could be finished in year 19 of the planning period. Mr. Kelly noted the council's receipt of an e-mail message from a constituent who expressed concern that there were ©D©T statements that speak to road projects such as Beltline Phase 3 being integral to the success of the parkway. He asked staff to research those implications before the MPC meeting. Ms. Bettman spoke to the difficulty of the vote to be cast, which created a conflicts between values. She thought the parkway was not a good project and she hoped it did not get built as the community would be paying for it in many ways for decades. Regarding the dynamics of the campaign, Ms. Bettman said that it was a textbook example of how unlimited spending eclipsed any unbiased debate. She thought the influence of "big money" had poisoned the democratic process in Eugene. If the opponents of the project had half the money the proponents had, the project would not have been approved. She thought money tainted the outcome of the election. Ms. Bettman said that even though she held those beliefs, the system MINUTES--Eugene City Council November 28, 2001 Page 5 Work Session was what was in place, and for that reason she would support the resolution in the meeting packet. Ms. Taylor, seconded by Mr. Kelly, moved to adopt Resolution 4694, a resolution initiating amendments to the West Eugene Wetlands Plan, Eugene-Springfield Metropolitan Area General Plan, and Eugene-Springfield Metropolitan Area Transportation Plan to facilitate construction of the West Eugene Parkway. Ms. Taylor said that the vote on the parkway was advisory. Although she had respect for all voters, she believed that if there had been full education the vote would have been different. She agreed with Ms. Bettman that if the opponents had spent as much as the proponents, the parkway measure would have failed. She said the council's function was to educate people about the function and importance of wetlands and the harm to the wetlands from the parkway. Ms. Taylor said that it was irresponsible for the council to put the parkway on the ballot. She indicated she would oppose the resolution. Ms. Nathanson said that with regard to campaigns and funding, she did not believe that the totals reported included the value of in-kind services or other costs. She would be interested in comparing print and electronic media exposures, saying she saw many advertisements for both sides. She would be interested in knowing how much exposure the public had to that information. She received information in the mail and thought the amount was about even. Ms. Nathanson said that when projects were built in phases, they eventually will be built and will connect; that was different than eliminating something from the list entirely and forever. To ODOT's purpose and interest in the project, she assumed it was to improve traffic flow on the State system. Improvements to the State highway system facilitates travel to and through Eugene. She did not think the sole purpose of the parkway was ever expressed as being just the connection from Highway 126 to I-5. Mr. Pap8 agreed with Mr. Meisner that it was time to move forward. He quoted from Churchill: Democracy is not perfect but it's better than what's in second place. Mr. Pap~ pointed out to Ms. Taylor that wetlands mitigation would occur on a 2:1 or 3:1 basis. Mr. Pap8 said the Oregon Transportation Commission was seeking assurance from the council and community that it was willing to move forward in general with the project, not just appear to take the next steps toward its construction. Mr. PapS, seconded by Mr. Farr, moved to add as Section 1 to the resolution the following, "The City Council hereby provides a clear commitment to ODOT that it intends to proceed to make the full West Eugene Parkway a reality as funds are made available for the project," and to renumber existing Section 1 as Section 2. Ms. Bettman said that, aside from the fact that she had always had some apprehensions over the fact that Mr. PapS's brother was the regional designee to the Oregon Transportation Commission, the cycle of "you know, you saying well, we heard from them, and this is what they want," seemed to her to "muddy the water" somewhat. She thought the amendment beyond the intent of the ballot measure. She thought it so broadly construed that it would commit the City to every unforeseen MINUTES--Eugene City Council November 28, 2001 Page 6 Work Session circumstance, and the current council would be making a commitment for future councils, which she did not think possible. Ms. Bettman pointed out the project was of regional significance, and yet the amendment made it look like Eugene would shoulder the entire burden of making the parkway happen. Mr. Farr raised a point of personal privilege, saying that Ms. Bettman had spoken nine minutes and he had spoken once. He thought that the mayor was giving more time to those who spoke against the parkway than to those who supported the parkway. Mr. Pap8 also raised a point of personal privilege, saying that with regard to Ms. Bettman's comments regarding his brother's work on the commission, his brother worked very hard on the commission with no compensation, and he took personal offense at her putting such remarks on the record. Mr. Rayor opposed the amendment, characterizing it as being "like salt in the wound." He agreed that the council could not commit future councils to a particular action. Ms. Nathanson asked the difference between an amendment suggested earlier and the one just read. Mr. Johnson saw no difference. He thought the resolution in the meeting packet was satisfactory in terms of the commitment it made to ODOT. Mayor Torrey asked ODOT for input. Oregon Transportation Commissioner Randy Pap8 pointed to the long time the parkway had been in the study and planning stages at the cost of $10 million to this point, and the commission was looking for a firm commitment to the parkway from Eugene to move forward with the project and the additional expenditure of the taxpayers' funds. He agreed that the parkway was not just Eugene's sole responsibility. ODOT was seeking a good faith expression of support for the parkway, and would be happy to offer the amendment to the other metropolitan partners. Ms. Nathanson said she would support the amendment. Mr. Kelly supported the original resolution. He thought the amendment too vague, saying it would "open the checkbook" indefinitely. There may be lawsuits; he questioned if the City would be party to those lawsuits as a result of the amendment. He suggested that the council pass the resolution and direct the manager to write to ODOT asking what else needed to occur. Mr. Farr determined from Ms. Childs that the parkway was contemplated in the West Eugene Wetlands Plan, a nationally recognized plan. He noted the mitigation that would occur as a result of the plan and hoped it would address Ms. Taylor's concerns. Mr. Meisner was also concerned about the breadth of the amendment, believing it was a gratuitous request on the part of ODOT. He pointed out that, additionally, no action of the current council was unalterable by a future council. He wanted a commitment from ODOT that it would complete the project in the 20-year planning horizon. Mayor Torrey said he would support the amendment in the event of a tie. He said that Springfield had funding in the plan because ODOT trusted Springfield to follow through on its commitments. Mr. Kelly said that the amendment was also asking the council to prejudge the outcome of land use planning processes. MINUTES--Eugene City Council November 28, 2001 Page 7 Work Session City Attorney Glenn Klein said that the statement of intent reflected in the amendment was not legally binding. He did not think it committed Eugene to approving the plan amendments that must follow. Mayor Torrey said presuming Phase 1 was built, he understood it was the State's responsibility to complete the remaining phases or it must give the money it received for the parkway back to the federal government. Mr. Pirrie did not know the answer to that question. The amendment to the motion failed, 5:3; Ms. Nathanson, Mr. Pap~, and Mr. Farr voting yes. Mr. Rayor asked if West 11th Avenue west of Beltline would have access management, strategies applied to it. Tom Boyatt of ©D©T said that it was currently the State's intent to look at an expressway management plan for that portion of the road under State control. He anticipated that work would be done in conjunction with the City's efforts. Mr. Meisner said that the vote that was about to happen represented the community's clear commitment to ODOT. Ms. Bettman thought the other local jurisdictions should participate in the hard costs of the project. Ms. Bettman hoped that voters would consider that size of the campaign budget when the next measure occurred; the size of the budget was inversely related to their interests. Ms. Taylor stated that wetlands mitigation did not work. She further stated that all the money involved was taxpayer money, and it was Important not to waste it. Mayor Torrey noted that he and Ms. Taylor represented the council on the Metropolitan Policy Committee and asked the council to get their comments about the project list to them. The motion passed, 7:1; Ms. Taylor voting no. Mayor Torrey adjourned the meeting at 1:30 p.m. Respectfully submitted, James R. Johnson City Manager (Recorded by Kimberly Young) MINUTES--Eugene City Council November 28, 2001 Page 8 Work Session