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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCC Minutes - 01/31/07 Work Session M I N U T E S Eugene City Council Work Session McNutt Room—Eugene City Hall January 31, 2007 Noon COUNCILORS PRESENT: Andrea Ortiz, Chris Pryor, Betty Taylor, Bonny Bettman, George Poling, Alan Zelenka, Jennifer Solomon, Mike Clark. Ms. Ortiz called the meeting of the Eugene City Council to order. She announced that Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy was participating via telephone. A. WORK SESSION: Defining City Council Goals – What Does Success Look Like? Ms. Ortiz recommended that the discussion begin with the council’s new goals, as those were likely to take more time than the discussion of continuing goals. There were no objections. City Manager Dennis Taylor thanked councilors for their efforts to develop ideas that could grow into council goals for the next year during the recent council retreat. He said that, as in the past, staff would establish planning teams and develop action plans for the council’s consideration. He said that a high-level discussion about strategies and outcomes or successes for each of the goals would help inform staff efforts. He distributed Eugene City Council Priority Issues: Quarterly Report for October 2006 – December 2006, which reported on the seven goals for FY2006-07. New Goals: Sustainability Initiative City Manager Taylor stated that the work of the Sustainable Business Initiative (SBI) and subsequent council resolution established an excellent foundation. He said that an ordinance to create a sustainability commission would be the subject of a public hearing in February 2007. He asked for other outcomes the council visualized as part of the sustainability initiative over the next two years. Mayor Piercy also expressed appreciation for the work done thus far and encouraged moving ahead with the SBI recommendations, particularly working with community partners on zero waste and carbon neutrality. Mr. Zelenka wondered about renaming the initiatives in a more interesting way as was discussed at the retreat. He said the sustainability resolution included 11 recommendations from the SBI and thought those would be good benchmark goals or strategies. He asked for a timeline for hiring the sustainability manager and establishing the commission. MINUTES—Eugene City Council January 31, 2007 Page 1 Work Session City Manager Taylor asked for clarification on the “toolbox” strategies needed to support businesses that produced sustainable products and utilized sustainable practices. Mr. Zelenka said the sustainability commission could determine in detail what strategies and incentives to employ. Mr. Clark hoped to see Eugene become the capital for sustainable business. He wanted expert advice on how to achieve that and the sustainability commission would provide that level of opinion. Mr. Pryor preferred the sustainability initiative focus on providing incentives, encouragement and barrier removal instead of taking a regulatory approach. Mr. Poling cautioned that the sustainability initiative should not cause undue disadvantages to any particular business. He stressed the need to be fair and equitable and benefit the entire community. Ms. Solomon was also pleased with the focus on incentives instead of regulations. She said an inventory of current businesses that produced sustainable products should be done to establish a baseline for measuring success in promoting more businesses to become more sustainable. Mayor Piercy noted that the SBI round tables included a series of recommendations for tools to encourage sustainability. Ms. Bettman wanted to see a detailed approach to exploring very specific ways to influence businesses to create more sustainable products or support businesses that did produce those products and apply that universally to the City’s decision-making regarding land use and transportation. She said ways to become a less auto-dominated community had been going on for years with no progress. She said unless the City was willing to provide incentives or subsidize mass transit and efficient alternative modes there would not be progress toward sustainability. She wanted to see the same benchmarks applied to the environment. Mr. Zelenka pointed out that one of the 11 SBI recommendations was to adopt sustainability indicators and measurement systems to assess internal City operations as well as community-wide progress towards sustainability. He agreed with Ms. Bettman’s comments and hoped they would be part of the indicators and measures. Ms. Taylor hoped that the sustainability commission would monitor whether the City was actually practicing sustainability. She agreed that protecting the environment was a part of that. Downtown Initiative Mr. Clark appreciated staff’s initiative with regard to the downtown area and said he would appreciate the same type of leadership on future direction. Mr. Pryor liked the brevity of the goal, which invited much discussion. He said the most important word in the goal was “significant.” He said that downtown revitalization had been a topic for years and there had been many efforts to accomplish that; what made this different was the acknowledgement that significant effort was necessary to achieve success. He said a piecemeal approach would not bring the results envisioned by the goal and the key was to recognize what it would take to be “significant” in terms of MINUTES—Eugene City Council January 31, 2007 Page 2 Work Session finance, politics and community will. He did not think there was agreement on what “significant” meant and progress would not be made until there was a common understanding. Mayor Piercy pointed out that downtown revitalization was being treated as a priority but not articulated as a goal. She said that the goal encompassed many current activities in the downtown area, including th development at 10 Avenue and Charnelton Street, a City Hall complex, the Park Blocks and the Farmer’s Market. Ms. Bettman said the City had taken great strides in the last decade toward revitalization of downtown, but it would not happen overnight. She said no one project would undo years of misdirected economic development. She pointed to the library as a community-oriented development that anchored the area. She said the council’s purpose to serve the public did not always translate into doing what a private developer wanted. She believed that community-based economic diversity was needed in downtown and that consolidating property into fewer and fewer hands was a mistake. She said the highest priorities for downtown were people and activity, adding that the City’s most significant role would be subsidizing housing downtown. Ms. Taylor asserted it was important to enhance the assets of the City. She said cities that were successful at revitalization efforts began by concentrating on their positive attributes, such as being a center for music or having historical significance. She said Eugene’s two biggest assets were the Saturday Market and Farmer’s Market. She urged that revitalization efforts focus on completing one project at a time instead of trying to do a bit of everything all at once. Ms. Taylor thought there had been many mistakes with urban renewal, such as demolishing historic buildings. She was not happy with the option to buy property with no plan for its use and was opposed to having a “theme park” in downtown. She said the small, independent businesses that were successful should be encouraged as part of enhancing existing assets. Mr. Clark agreed with Mr. Pryor about the importance of defining “significant” and added that there should also be a discussion about the word “facilitate” and determining the appropriate role for the City. He saw the downtown initiative as similar to the sustainability initiative in terms of developing a toolbox of strategies. He was interested in finding appropriate ways to encourage growth of the Saturday and Farmer’s markets. Mr. Pryor mentioned the Oakway Mall area as an example of significant revitalization. He said transforma- tion of the mall into a dynamic and impressive retail area required a major commitment. He said that transformation was an example of what he was looking for in downtown and hoped the council could reach agreement on a common vision. Mr. Zelenka pointed out that the Oakway Mall was redeveloped with no assistance from the City. He said th there were many good projects underway in downtown, including the housing developments at 8 Avenue th and Lincoln Street and 10 Avenue and Charnelton Street. He said a revitalized downtown needed people, and that meant transforming the infrastructure so it was more livable and provided an appropriate mix of housing and commercial activities, combining both local and national businesses. He was interested in what role the City could play; those things the City could do to facilitate revitalization could be listed as part of the goal. MINUTES—Eugene City Council January 31, 2007 Page 3 Work Session Ms. Bettman said that the Northwest Portland area, often used as an example of revitalization, began with small local businesses and built up over time to the point where it was attractive to national chains. She said that the national chains were not lured into the area with incentives in the hope they would spur economic development. She added that the Pearl District in Portland was formerly an industrial area that was revitalized through the efforts of local business leaders. She said that streetcar service to the area represented an investment in sustainable transportation and stimulated private investment in housing and retail, resulting in a thriving neighborhood that was an economic development magnet. Mr. Clark expressed an interest in exploring ways to facilitate local business growth in the downtown area first. He suggested that the sustainability commission be housed downtown to create a nexus for work on sustainable businesses. Mr. Zelenka said there did not seem to be any clear vision on what it would take to revitalize downtown. He hoped to see a list of the barriers to revitalization as part of the discussion of strategies to facilitate economic development. He agreed with Ms. Bettman that housing was a major factor in revitalizing areas of Portland by establishing a critical mass that created a demand for retail and services. Police Initiative City Manager Taylor said the focus to increase police staffing with a special focus on supporting commu- nity policing and reducing property crime was helpful to staff. He asked the council for any elaboration on the goal. Mr. Zelenka said the recent budget presentation that identified proposed funding for police operations, police staffing, supervisory and administrative support and public safety stations was the correct strategy to achieve the goal to increasing staff and the special focus on community policing and reducing property crime. Mr. Clark agreed with Mr. Zelenka’s comments. He noted that the police chief mentioned during the council’s discussion that the wording of the goal was consistent with his strategic plan. He said the key was directing resources to ensure that community policing was successful. Mayor Piercy spoke to her continued commitment to community policing and reflected that the emphasis on property crime was a consequence of concerns voiced in the community. She said it was important to demonstrate that the City was taking steps to respond to those concerns, and it was also important to be able to measure progress. Ms. Taylor asked if the City Manager understood the goal to mean that more money would be spent than was already in the budget for police. City Manager Taylor replied he did think that was part of what was meant by police staffing to support community policing. He said freeing officers’ time so they could engage in proactive problem-solving policing might take a strategy consistent with recommendations from the earlier Hobson report and a report from the Magellan group that the City would receive in the spring. He said that could include strategies for how to increase staffing and patrols to achieve community policing goal and how to do that in a sustainable way over the next several years. Ms. Taylor remarked that community policing was an attitude and focus. She agreed that people were distressed with lack of police response to property crimes, but asserted that some people told her they were MINUTES—Eugene City Council January 31, 2007 Page 4 Work Session very distressed when they saw police breaking down a door because they suspected there was marijuana there, while people who needed help could not get it. She said it was more a focus on the helpful part of policing rather than the punitive part. She recognized that more money was needed for police, but more money was needed for almost everything. She was disturbed if the goal meant that money would be diverted from other things to provide more policing. Ms. Bettman recollected that some of the methodology used in the Hobson report was questioned several years after it was published, but the City was unable to confer with the author because he had died. She said the new report was a modified version; statistical data was not re-examined and modifiers were used to update the report. She questioned whether that was adequate in terms of resulting in a comprehensive staffing strategy. She suggested that funding for a new study would be a strategy to consider, given the council’s new goal. City Manager Taylor replied that inherent in the police department’s strategic plan was contracting for the Magellan report that would address staffing levels in the department as a whole. He expected that the report would not only present a snapshot of staffing but also inform action steps for moving forward and provide a tool for measuring progress along several dimensions of police staffing. Captain Steve Swenson added that the department hoped to develop a staffing plan that coincided with multi-year financial planning for implementation. Ms. Bettman said her understanding of the goal to reduce property crime was that when people called about property crime they got a response. She did not think that was a sustainable goal because as long as there was drug addiction there would be property crime. She said that addressing property crime meant providing for prevention and drug abuse treatment. Mr. Clark did not think that the County would retain the federal Secure Rural Schools Act funding and if not, the police chief needed a backup plan if the district attorney decided not to prosecute property crimes. He said that would change the dynamic of police response and any strategy to reduce property crime should include a backup plan if there were changes in other areas of the public safety system. Mr. Zelenka asked what commitment the council had made to the Hobson report or a subsequent report and the increase of staffing. He was not certain how the budget documents translated into council policy. City Manager Taylor said the Hobson report was before his time, but he understood that specific outcomes were identified based on that report and the City was poised to make a major investment in the level of police staffing, but the impact of ballot measures 47 and 50 required a retrenchment involving reprioritization through the Budget Committee process. Mr. Zelenka said he had heard differing opinions about whether the goal meant increasing police staffing at the expense of other things in the budget or increasing police staffing when resources allowed. Ms. Ortiz said she could fully support the goal if she had a clear vision of what increased police staffing meant and whether that effort would be supported by the City’s partners in the public safety system in terms of prosecution and incarceration. She was concerned about diverting resources from other services without knowing if there was a high level of coordination among jurisdictions. Mr. Pryor said he depended on the knowledge and experience of the chief and professional staff to know what needed to be done. He was focused on the outcome, which was for the residents of Eugene to be safe and secure, and while he wanted to know how that would be achieved, he would defer to the police chief on developing specific details of the plan. MINUTES—Eugene City Council January 31, 2007 Page 5 Work Session Ms. Bettman remarked that approximately 80 percent of all crime was drug-related and the percentage was greater for property crime. She said strategies would need to address the cause through prevention and treatment services, which were meagerly funded at this point. She said it was a choice between services and infrastructure; people were being matrixed out of the jail not because of a shortage of beds or capacity, but because there was no staffing. She said unless the County’s income tax measure excluded the ability to spend income tax revenue on capital infrastructure, it would not get her support. Transportation Mr. Pryor stated that it was important to have a balanced range of options to solve the problem of transportation system funding. He was willing to include bikes and pedestrians and other modes of transportation in the discussion if it meant the council could reach agreement, adding that the discussion should include how to address the $110 million backlog of street repairs. He expressed his desire to develop stable, sustainable funding for ongoing repairs and was willing to listen to any ideas to accomplish that. Mayor Piercy said she had confidence that the council’s subcommittee would develop a combination of solutions that would help the council reach a broader consensus. Ms. Bettman asked how expanding the goal to include cars, bikes, trucks and pedestrians was different from all of the council’s earlier discussions about a transportation system maintenance fee (TSMF) and how to fund the backlog. Ms. Ortiz said it was her opinion during her two years on the council that it was a hit-and-miss presentation with scattered ideas. She felt there needed to be a more comprehensive conversation. Mr. Zelenka agreed with the need to deal with the backlog of street repairs. He said there was desperate need for a comprehensive package solution that had many components to address the entire transportation system, not just a curb-to-curb fix. He said a package would require compromise and a willingness to give on a particular piece in the package in order to get something else. He hoped the discussion would examine all of the ideas that had been discussed in order to have a broad palette of solutions to consider when crafting a package that would work for everyone. He also urged incentives to encourage people to leave their cars at home and use other modes of transportation. Mr. Clark stressed that filling more potholes was a major concern for his constituents. He was willing to consider any idea in order to achieve a solution to transportation system funding. Ms. Taylor said she had been told by someone in the Crest Drive area that the City might get sued if the potholes were not repaired because they presented serious hazards. She was pleased that pedestrians and bicycles were included in discussions of the transportation system. Continuing Goals: Race Ms. Ortiz reported that the City Council Subcommittee on Race was developing recommendations and would prioritize them for presentation to the council. MINUTES—Eugene City Council January 31, 2007 Page 6 Work Session Neighborhood Empowerment Mayor Piercy said she had no objection to the language of the goal, but noted that the City was making progress with neighborhood associations through better communications and better collaboration with the City. She said the neighborhood associations requested that the council delay revising the language of the goal until after the associations hold their summit meeting on February 17. She suggested the council could continue its work on the neighborhood initiative with a focus on the neighborhood association component. Mr. Pryor said he saw two directions for the goal: neighborhood associations and neighborhoods. He cautioned that would make a very large goal and he would be interested in seeing what might be achieved during the time span identified. Mr. Clark expressed an interest in waiting until after the neighborhood association summit for the sake of better understanding the issues. He was hesitant about accepting the Neighborhood Leadership Council’s (NLC) suggestion of language for the goal as it was the council’s goal and should be defined by the council. Mr. Zelenka said that he received feedback indicating that restating and renaming the initiative had de- emphasized the neighborhood associations. He did not think that was the intent of the council. He thought the associations played a key role and the language clearly stated part of the goal was empowering neighborhood associations to get more involvement. He thought that neighborhood protection and livability was linked to the City’s land use policies as expressed in code, ordinances and regulations and that emphasis was not in the previous goal. Ms. Taylor said she understood the council agreed not to discuss the neighborhood initiative until after the summit meeting. Homeless Initiative Ms. Ortiz announced that Project Homeless Connect would take place on February 8, 2007, at the Lane Events Center. She encouraged councilors to attend if possible. Mayor Piercy also invited councilors to participate in Project Homeless Connect. She said she was developing for the council’s consideration a list of potential members for a committee to address the issue of more adequately funding community services for the homeless. Mr. Pryor stated that the Human Services Commission was also working diligently on the issue and there was a great deal of coordination with City staff and partner agencies. He said that a count of the homeless would be done to develop a more accurate picture of the extent of the problem and demographics of the homeless population. He said the goal spoke to working collaboratively to end chronic homelessness, but that was only a fraction of the problem. He urged the council not to lose sight of the fact that many people were “situationally” homeless and could benefit from a wide range of services that would have an immedi- ate, tangible impact on their circumstances. Mr. Zelenka related that the Safe and Sound program worked with homeless youth. He said there were many reasons why youth were homeless and that drugs were a major factor. He said that needed to be MINUTES—Eugene City Council January 31, 2007 Page 7 Work Session considered in the process and youth should be treated differently than chronically homeless adults. He was pleased that youth were recognized as a distinct category under the goal. City Hall City Manager Taylor said staff was working to implement the council’s plan for a chosen site. He asked if there were other results the council anticipated from the goal. Mr. Poling observed that the February 14, 2007, work session would be the next major step in the process. He recently spoke to one of the property owners who would potentially be affected by the plan and had no idea it was still possible to participate in the community discussion. He said the City needed to expand its efforts to contact those owners and get them more involved in the process. He said there was still an opportunity to get involved in the community forums and emphasized that no final decisions had yet been made. Arts and Outdoors City Manager Taylor said the cultural policy review process would be presenting recommendations over the next two years. Ms. Bettman questioned how well the available recreational activities were promoted. She said the recent Oregon Truffle Festival attracted participants from around the country and the world and more than half of the 300 participants at the fundraising dinner were from outside of Lane County. She said that many of the out-of-town participants were unaware of recreational opportunities in the area. She said that conferences and events should be tracked and used as marketing opportunities for the areas cultural and recreational activities; it was a mistake to only focus efforts on a few larger events like the Olympic Trials. Mr. Poling said the Convention and Visitors Association of Lane County (CVALCO) conducted those types of marketing activities countywide. He noted that Mr. Clark, as the council’s representative on the CVALCO board, would have an opportunity to encourage CVALCO’s active participation in highlighting the best of Eugene. Ms. Taylor said she was more interested in having substance to talk about than in marketing to others. She said the City should be supporting the arts and protecting the outdoor assets. She said that did not mean just sports; it meant protecting the Amazon headwaters from pollutants. She said that environmental degrada- tion of the headwaters could subject the City to a lawsuit. She preferred to see the City add to its outdoor assets and protect the ones it already had instead of marketing them. She said more should be done to support the arts and hoped there would be a focus on substance instead of bragging about what the City had. Mr. Clark mentioned that there was a rich discussion at a recent CVALCO board meeting around the idea of what would happen at the County level if funding changes affected CVALCO. He said the City should think about what a commitment to the arts and outdoors meant if one of the means for promoting those activities was in jeopardy. MINUTES—Eugene City Council January 31, 2007 Page 8 Work Session Hospital City Manager Taylor cautioned that legal counsel advised that there should be no discussion of a hospital because there was a land use application pending with the City. Ms. Bettman commented that the council made a statement by adopting a goal publicly endorsed by a majority of members, and it seemed highly unusual that it could not be discussed. City Manager Taylor referred to a legal opinion indicating it was acceptable for the council to adopt a goal, but to modify the goal or to discuss modifying the goal could expose the council or individual members to allegations of bias and affect its role in review of the pending application. He said the council determined at its retreat to retain the existing language and not comment on the substance of the goal until the pending application had been processed. Ms. Taylor stated she did not vote for the goal; by voting for it, the council did make a statement and staff might take that as permission to take action in certain ways. Mayor Piercy said it was important to have a full-service hospital in Eugene because of competition and choice and the future of the community. Ms. Ortiz asked if legal advice also cautioned against removing the goal. City Manager Taylor said the prohibition was against modifying or discussing the goal. Mr. Zelenka pointed out the goal was already in existence and reauthorizing it did not change its status. He said it was an aspirational goal to have a full-service hospital for competition and choice; it was not about siting or location. In response to a question from Ms. Bettman, City Manager Taylor indicated that the council did not readopt some of the previous goals as they had been accomplished. Ms. Bettman said she thought the constraint on discussing a hospital was significant because there were goals that the council did not readopt and readopting the hospital goal was a statement. She thought it was contradictory advice that the council could readopt a goal but not discuss it. Mr. Clark agreed that adopting a goal was an important policy decision. He suggested that when the hospital was discussed, tax-base be included as a topic along with competition and choice. The meeting adjourned at 1:30 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Dennis M. Taylor City Manager (Recorded by Lynn Taylor) MINUTES—Eugene City Council January 31, 2007 Page 9 Work Session