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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCC Minutes - 02/22/99 WS MINUTES Eugene City Council McNutt Room--City Hall February 22, 1999 5:30 p.m. COUNCILORS PRESENT: Scott Meisner, Nancy Nathanson, Bobby Lee, Betty Taylor, Gary Rayor, David Kelly. COUNCILORS ABSENT: Pat Farr, Gary PapS. In the absence of Mayor James D. Torrey, Council President Scott Meisner called the council to order at 5:30 p.m. He noted that councilors Pat Farr and Gary Pap8 would not be in attendance. COUNCIL DINNER WORK SESSION A. City Council Goals Process: Environmental Scan--City Service Issues 1. 1998 Community Survey Jan Bohman of the City Manager's Office introduced the topic, saying this was the second in a series of work sessions providing the council with background information on community and organizational issues prior to its goals-setting process. She referred the council to the community survey, which was conducted on an annual basis. The survey was developed in a way that allowed staff to track certain trends over time. Ms. Bohman said that in response to the changes made in the City's service mix, the survey was revised and updated. She reviewed changes made to the survey. Ms. Bohman reviewed the survey methodology. Responding to a question from Mr. Kelly, Ms. Bohman said that staff had followed-up on his previous question regarding the breakdown of renters versus owners, and did not find a significant discrepancy in their responses. She said that it was difficult to secure a precise, current breakdown of the ratio of the two groups; staff believed that there might be more homeowners, but there was also an increase in multi-family housing over the past ten years. Ms. Bohman said that the trend in percentages of those responding to the survey had been leaning toward owner-occupants. Responding to a question from Ms. Nathanson, Mr. Johnson said that renters may be less likely voters but there was no firm data supporting that statement. The council asked brief questions clarifying the results of the survey. MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 22, 1999 Page 1 5:30 p.m. Ms. Nathanson questioned how the survey outcomes might affect the budget, particularly in the area of public safety. Mr. Rayor concurred. He suggested that the outcome, "Provide a Good Value for Tax Dollars Spent", was especially vital when considering expenditures in downtown. Ms. Bohman distributed a document entitled Community Outcomes: Importance Versus Performance and a document entitled Community Outcomes Linked to City Services. She said that the first document showed the community's responses on a scale of 1-5 and illustrated the overall rate of satisfaction. She said that the differences between the responses was not great. The second document showed which City services primarily supported which outcomes. Mr. Lee suggested that the satisfaction reflected in the survey was also reflected in the successful passage of the library and park measures. He indicated interest in a similar survey specific to people of color. Mr. Lee commended the outcomes. Responding to a question from Ms. Nathanson, Mr. Johnson said that the United Way survey was a needs assessment conducted by the agency every two years. United Way used the data to help determine its allocations to social service providers. The survey usually included a special emphasis section; the most recent was focused on youth issues. Mr. Johnson said the survey was statistically valid and conducted on a countywide basis. Ms. Nathanson asked if there were issues staff wanted to bring to the council's attention. Acting Library, Recreation, and Cultural Services Department Director Terry Smith pointed out that the City's job performance rating was much higher than four years previous, and the increase began before the November election. He believed it proved people feel better about their government when they know more about it. He said the election got people's attention. Mr. Smith discussed responses to the open-ended question regarding the most important issue facing the community and noted that he had been surprised the responses regarding growth were so Iow in the previous survey. The figures had not changed much with the most recent survey. He noted that California communities experiencing high rates of growth had produced responses indicating that as many as 60 percent of respondents were concerned about growth. Mr. Smith suggested that an outsider reviewing the survey results would conclude Eugene residents were pretty happy with their community. Mr. Kelly suggested that rather than ask about the most important issue, the City ask about the three most important issues and request that respondents rank them. Mr. Torrey arrived at the meeting at 6:05 p.m. Mr. Lee asked Planning and Development Department Director Paul Farmer to comment on the survey results. Mr. Farmer responded that the numbers were good. He suggested that residents' level of satisfaction could be related to the condition of the national economy. Mr. Rayor questioned whether the survey could be representative given it did not include people without telephones. He asked if the City could survey people through another method, such as on foot, to reach more people. Mr. Johnson said that in the past, the United Way needs assessment had attempted to reach people without telephones by forming focus groups of MINUTES-Eugene City Council February 22, 1999 Page 2 5:30 p.m. people without telephones. He said that staff could provide the council with information on the differences in responses between those two groups in a shod memorandum. Ms. Taylor said that sometimes people do not answer their telephones and allow answering machines to pick up, which further restricted the types of survey responses. She had reservations about telephone surveys for that reason. She suggested that a mailed survey could be done with lots of publicity. Mr. Johnson agreed that the responses were of those who choose to took the survey, creating a natural bias. He said that the council needed to balance the cost of the survey against the results; in this case, the survey was being used to inform the council about trends, and should not be used to make decisions about, for example, budget allocations. Mr. Torrey encouraged the council to use common sense and their own background with the community when interpreting the survey results. 2. City Service Issues Mr. Johnson provided the council with statistics on the use of City services such as 9-1-1 call taking, aircraft landings and airport users, Permit and Information Center user numbers, building permits issued in 1998, parkland acres maintained, parking enforcement calls for stored and abandoned vehicles, etc., and reminded the council that the ongoing City work load needed to be kept in mind while it discussed goals. · Financial Stability Administrative Services Department Director Warren Wong reviewed the Financial Stability Section in a document provided to the council entitled City Service Issues. Mr. Lee expressed concern that the budget did not accommodate community policing and the council should be clear about that fact. Mr. Wong acknowledged that current and projected funding levels were not sufficient to implement the City's plans for community policing. He added that the Public Safety Coordinating Council (PSCC) had formed a finance subcommittee to work on funding public safety. Responding to a question from Mr. Lee, Mr. Wong said that funding for operations and maintenance were included in the parks bonds. Mr. Lee pointed out that the operating funds for the library would expire with the levy in four years. Mr. Torrey said that the City was faced with that issue for every levy. Mr. Lee said that he merely wanted to highlight those issues so councilors were cognizant of the fact action must be taken in the future. Responding to a question from Mr. Torrey, Mr. Wong said that State subventions to Eugene totaled $1.5 million currently. · Ongoing Implementation Priorities Mr. Johnson reviewed ongoing implementation priorities for major City projects, outlined on page 2 of City Service Issues. MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 22, 1999 Page 3 5:30 p.m. Responding to a question from Mr. Rayor, Mr. Johnson indicated the council would consider the final design for the new library on March 8. Ms. Nathanson asked if the last bullet in the section entitled "Parks and Open Space" referred to policies that would be referred to the council or individual projects. Mr. Johnson said both; there would be policy issues related to, for example, the City's partnership with School District 4J. He added that staff was following the program as outlined in the tabloid offered to voters. He said that there may be new issues arising that staff will want to review with the council before proceeding. Referring to the section regarding the Year 2000 issue, Mr. Torrey suggested that if the City was not prepared to address the issue, it would open itself to ridicule. He had asked Mr. Johnson to get together with the other chief executives to do an intergovernmental analysis and to consider the possibility of asking the PSCC to discuss the issue in conjunction with the State National Guard. He hoped that the County's sense of responsibility for assisting its citizens in addressing Year 2000 did not stop at the city limits. Mr. Torrey said he was primarily concerned about how Eugene could guarantee a source of electricity from Eugene Water & Electric Board for the community, and asked if staff was discussing the issue with EWEB. Mr. Johnson said yes; staff would provide an update on the topic on February 24. · Public Safety Acting Police Chief Jim Hill reviewed the section of City Service Issues related to public safety. He indicated concerns over the department's ability to continue the sector command model with a declining ratio in the number of officers to citizens. In addition, the work force was dropping in age and experience. Responding to a question from Mr. Kelly regarding enforcement priorities, Chief Hill responded that cases are followed up on the basis of solvability; in some cases, including even burglary, cases were not followed up unless there was a likelihood of success. Lesser assaults such as bar fights were sometimes not followed up, particularly if the suspect lived out of town. Chief Hill said that staff must prioritize the referrals it received about, for example, child abuse, because it received hundreds of such referrals. He said that the most serious crimes were the department's enforcement priorities. Responding to a question from Mr. Kelly, Mr. Johnson said that the Custody Referee was a State office, not a County office, and the local jurisdictions assisted the local Custody Referee by lobbying for additional operating funds. More delegation by judges to the Custody Referee occurred in Lane County than in any other county. He noted that funding for the Custody Referee had been included in the PSCC levy. Mr. Kelly expressed concern that the PSCC Finance Subcommittee would make decisions about funding in isolation without considering the broader context. Mr. Johnson pointed that Mr. Pap8 served on the subcommittee and Mr. Wong was staff to the subcommittee, and offered to provide periodic updates on that process. Mr. Rayor emphasized the importance of public safety and the need for adequate staffing levels. He suggested the council may have to consider a shift of priorities to fund adequate staff levels. MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 22, 1999 Page 4 5:30 p.m. Mr. Johnson observed that it was difficult for the City staff to make recommendations about alternatives for Eugene police issue when the regional system was not fixed. He said that it would be ridiculous for Chief Hill to recommend more officers be hired to make more arrests if the jail could not accommodate them and the justice system could not process those cases. Mr. Torrey said that the State legislature appeared to be unaware of the impacts of its mandates on local government, and continued to pass laws in spite of local resources issues. He said that many people who committed crimes in Eugene were from outside the city, but people living outside the city did not support the PSCC levy. He said that it would take creative thinking and prioritization to provide the needed services. Mr. Meisner agreed with Mr. Rayor's comments. He said that if the City was unable to follow-up on cases such as burglary, it should tell the public so that the public did not have unrealistic expectations about the service. Chief Hill agreed. He said that follow-up was complicated even when an arrest was made because the department was not aware of what was going on in the District Attorney's Office. He added that the department had done work to inform the public about follow-up, but there was somewhat of a capacity problem in tracking those cases. Officers on the scene attempt to give people a realistic sense of what would happen to their cases. Mr. Meisner suggested that the department include a copy of the police report form in the government section of the telephone book and/or neighborhood newsletters to encourage people to report crimes. · Infrastructure and Planning Issues Planning and Development Department Director Paul Farmer responded to council questions and comments regarding the section of City Service Issues related to infrastructure and planning. Ms. Nathanson said that section lacked mention of facility disposal, which she considered an important upcoming issue. She cited the former Sears building, closed fire stations, and the library building on 13th Avenue as examples of her concerns, and said that a general council discussion, followed by specific discussions about each facility, would be good to have. Regarding the bulleted statement on page 6 regarding the general lack of employee and citizen awareness of the Growth Management Study, Ms. Nathanson agreed and said she would add a lack of awareness of adopted policies that already exist. Glen Svendsen of the Public Works Department noted that the council would be considering a supplemental budget request for appraisals at the current library site, Fire Station 6, and Kaufman Annex. Part of the appraisal would include recommendations from the appraiser for uses best suited to those structures. He noted that traditionally, the City sought to determine whether the organization had an internal use for such spaces first. Ms. Nathanson asked why the City created zoning districts that were so large it predetermined a development type people did not like, such as large multi-family developments, rather than smaller, dispersed pockets of multi-family housing in a different pattern. Mr. Farmer believed that the City should be looking at regulating not just uses but the magnitude of development. He suggested that the City could permit developments of a particular size outright while mandating that larger developments go through a site review process that included citizen input. MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 22, 1999 Page 5 5:30 p.m. Ms. Taylor pointed out that Ms. Nathanson's remarks were related to a topic of long-standing interest to her, inclusionary zoning. Mr. Kelly suggested that the City consider a process whereby foreclosures could be called to the attention of City departments to ensure that the organization could take advantage of those that could benefit City services. Mr. Kelly said that the City should give nonprofit agencies a chance to purchase surplus property at favorable terms. Mr. Svendsen pointed out the precedent established by Station 7. Responding to a question from Mr. Kelly regarding the status of the Natural Resources Special Study, Mr. Farmer said that he would provide an update to Mr. Kelly on the status of the study's funding. Mr. Rayor said that it would be advantageous to speed up the progress of the review of systems development charges and the Land Use Code Update. He said while those processes were pending, the issue of growth paying its way was delayed. He asked why those processes needed to take so long. Mr. Rayor said he questioned the parking program downtown if it used resources that could be diverted to core services, such as public safety. He suggested the City could leverage the location of the federal courthouse to its advantage in terms of requiring the federal government to permanently fund parking. Mr. Rayor said that he questioned how responsible the City should be for parking downtown, and how many dollars should be put into parking given the investment that already occurred. Mr. Torrey observed that if the federal government chose to build a courthouse in Eugene's downtown the City lacked the ability to mandate anything from it. The City would instead need to convince the federal government that the construction of parking could benefit both it and the community. Mr. Farmer said that to maintain a dense downtown with a mixed use area, the City needed to ensure that it minimized surface parking. Regarding the issue of the City providing downtown parking, Mr. Farmer said that downtowns were the most efficient place in any region to do business, and some amount of parking was necessary to bring people downtown or they would go to places where they were guaranteed parking. He said that his department would attempt to quantify the benefit of parking downtown and its impact on vehicle miles traveled. Mr. Meisner agreed with Mr. Rayor about the amount of time it was taking the City to implement the Growth Management Study. He believed that the Land Use Code Update and SDC review were proceeding too slowly. Mr. Meisner believed that the extensive public process that had accompanied the Growth Management Study had raised expectations among citizens. He pointed out that while the Planning Commission had requested more time to complete its review and recommended that no items in the Land Use Code Update be "fast-tracked," the council had agreed to reserve the right to fast-track specific items of interest to the council. Regarding the issue of facility disposal, Mr. Meisner said he hoped that staff had considered both the use of facilities and whether the facility was in the best possible location for a City service. He was particularly concerned about further dispersal of City services. Mr. Johnson pointed out that urban watershed management was an emerging issue that would have an impact on the community. He said that the council would hear a guest speaker on that topic later in the week. Mr. Johnson anticipated that two species of salmon would be listed, and MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 22, 1999 Page 6 5:30 p.m. those listings would drive local policy decisions for several years into the future. Mr. Svendsen added that urban watershed management would be an interdepartmental effort involving both the Planning and Development Department and the Public Works Department. Mr. Lee asked if the council needed to review Statewide Planning Goal 5. Peter Ruffier of the Public Works Department said that the City Council may want to review the goal at some point. The State, in implementing the Oregon Plan, mentioned a more aggressive implementation of the goal. The City had not completed the periodic review process, through which it was dealing with the requirements of Goal 5. Mr. Rayor stressed the importance of good stormwater management and asked if the council could get a comprehensive look at all City practices and how they could be improved to increase water quality and reduce sediment. Mr. Ruffier said that Portland had reviewed all its practices with the goal of reducing the impact of those practices on water quality, and that effort would be discussed by a speaker who would address the council later in the week. Mr. Svendsen added that the City would be renewing its NPDES permit the following year and he anticipated that process would include a review of the City's Best Management Practices (BMPs) and would suggest improvements to those BMPs, as well as suggestions for new BMPs. · Cultural and Leisure Issues Acting Library, Recreation, and Cultural Services Department Director Terry Smith was present to respond to the council's comments and questions regarding the section. Mr. Torrey said that he received calls from residents of the River Road/Santa Clara area who wanted council representation but were not interested in becoming part of the city. Mr. Lee said that there was a lack of coordination between youth service providers, and he asked how the City could take a leadership role in ensuring that coordination occurred. Mr. Torrey noted that the League of Oregon Cities had submitted a bill to the legislature requiring that an elected city official sit on the local Commission for Children and Families. Mr. Smith reminded the council that it had requested that staff develop a comprehensive strategy for youth services. The evaluation component of that strategy was vital to bringing about the coordination Mr. Lee envisioned. He said that through evaluation the system could be disciplined and get people heading in the same direction. Mr. Smith said the amount of fragmentation of service in Lane County was somewhat unique. The fragmentation meant it was difficult for anyone to exercise leadership; in addition, the situation was complicated by the fact the City was not a provider of traditional youth services. Ms. Taylor suggested that the former Sears building would be a good place for a youth center, and asked about the possibility of securing private and State funding for that purpose. She believed that downtown was the ideal place for youth because it was centralized and could be reached by bus. Mr. Meisner said that the council will never see more coordination without knowledge of the system in place now. He did not think that anyone was collecting information on private nonprofit or private for-profit service providers, pointing out that some private for-profit facilities, such as martial arts centers, offer scholarships to Iow-income students through organizations such as Looking Glass Youth Services. MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 22, 1999 Page 7 5:30 p.m. Mr. Kelly agreed with Mr. Meisner's comments. He agreed about the importance of coordination for social services and suggested that such coordination did not currently exist because those organizations were overloaded delivering services and because of "turf"concerns. He proposed that the City and Lane County could work to jointly fund a neutral coordination role that helped to improve those organizations' effectiveness by linking them with each other and with local government. The meeting adjourned at 7:30 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Jim Johnson City Manager (Recorded by KimberlyYoung) MINUTES--Eugene City Council February 22, 1999 Page 8 5:30 p.m.