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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCC Minutes - 07/18/05 WS MINUTES Eugene City Council Work Session McNutt Room--Eugene City Hall July 18, 2005 5:30 p.m. COUNCILORS PRESENT: George Poling, Bonny Bettman, David Kelly, Betty Taylor, Gary Papd, Andrea Ortiz, Chris Pryor, Jennifer Solomon. Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the July 18 work session of the Eugene City Council to order. A. COMMITTEE REPORTS AND ITEMS OF INTEREST FROM MAYOR, CITY COUNCIL, AND CITY MANAGER Mayor Piercy reported she had a wonderful experience at the Sundance Summit on Climate Protection. The purpose of the summit was to discuss the causes and solutions to global warming and identify tools and actions for meeting emission reduction targets. Event sponsors included Local Governments for Sustainabil- ity, actor and activist Robert Redford, and Sak Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson. She noted that 45 mayors from around the country attended and they heard excellent presentations and interesting ideas for adaptation to the local community which she would share with the council in the future. Mr. Poling reported he recently attended a meeting at the Garden Way Church about the formation of a local improvement district (LID) on Arcadia Street. The meeting was a first step in the process. Staff shared three proposed ways of developing the street as a starting point for discussion, and would next poll property owners regarding their interest in participating in the LID. That response would dictate the next steps. Mr. Poling called the council's attention to an event scheduled for July 20 at 7 p.m. at the Spiritual Growth Center about the traffic calming proposals for Sorrell Way. Ms. Taylor said the City's Web site was more difficult to access and council information more difficult for people to find. Ms. Taylor shared a constituent complaint about the fact there was no longer an ambulance at Fire Station 5. She asked who made that decision, and how it could be changed. Ms. Taylor expressed concern about the fact Amazon Pool would be closed to the public to accommodate a swim meet the following week. Ms. Taylor reported that the Lane Regional Air Pollution Agency (LRAPA) had an interim director who was a former operations manager from the Department of Environmental Quality, and everyone seemed happy about him. MINUTES--Eugene City Council July 18, 2005 Page 1 Work Session Ms. Taylor shared a complaint from neighbors of Cascade Manor about noise from the new fans on the roof of building. When the neighbor called the Permit and Information Center to lodge a complaint, she was told that the City Council had withdrawn any objections to noise at the facility in August 2001. She said staff had not been able to find any record of the discussion. She asked for more information and if there was any thing the council could do about the situation. Mr. Pap6 arrived at the meeting. Ms. Taylor indicated she had a motion to offer the council to ensure that City Manager Dennis Taylor had clear direction to purchase the Nectar-Dillard property. Ms. Taylor, seconded by Mr. Kelly, moved to direct the City Manager to a) attempt to ne- gotiate a purchase price for the Joe Green property on Nectar-Dillard; b) contact the neighborhood as to the willingness of residents in the neighborhood or other groups to con- tribute funds for the purchase and the amount of such contributions; and c) bring the matter back to the council for discussion of sources for the balance of funds necessary for the ac- quisition. Mayor Piercy called for discussion on the motion. Mr. Pap6 determined that the motion included no funding amount. He said if funding was available, there were needs in the northern area of Eugene with regard to open space and parks that needed to be met. He could not support the motion until the City had equivalence in the number of parks and open space areas throughout the community. Mr. Kelly agreed there was an unequal amount of park space between the north and south parts of town. However, he believed that natural open space features should be acquired where they exist, and he had not heard anyone call out a significant natural area for preservation in north Eugene. He thanked Ms. Taylor for the methodical aspects of the motion, which called on the City to work with the neighbors and property owner on the purchase. He said the motion offered residents an opportunity to ;;put their money where their mouth was." Ms. Taylor said that natural open spaces should be purchased where they exist because they could not be recreated. She thought the purchase was urgent. Mr. Pryor indicated a potential conflict of interest as a family member owned property adjacent to Nectar Way. He said the motion seemed out of place when the council had not worked through the remainder of its acquisition priorities. He believed the purchase was worthwhile and noted that staff had been working on the purchase, so he questioned why necessary the motion was. He was concerned about a focus on a single piece of property without any discussion of other properties. He thought the motion was premature. Mr. Pap6 agreed with Mr. Pryor. He said that he was aware of other natural areas in his part of the community in Santa Clara and Gilham that the residents of those areas would probably like to acquire. He did not want to focus on the property in question without examination of other natural resources lands that could prioritized on a citywide basis Speaking to the issue of prioritizing acquisitions, Mr. Kelly suggested the council keep in mind the balance between methodological planning and opportunities that arose. He maintained that the City had an MINUTES--Eugene City Council July 18, 2005 Page 2 Work Session opportunity to purchase the site, which was ~in play." He noted that several portions of the property were identified by staff as a natural resource priority. The motion passed, 4:3; Mr. Pap6, Mr. Poling, and Mr. Pryor voting no (Ms. Solomon did not participate in the vote because she had not yet arrived). Mr. Kelly reported that a public safety task force which included representatives of the County, Eugene and Springfield, and all other incorporated cities in Lane County was meeting to discuss everyone's perceptions of the County's public safety needs, identify shortcomings, and work on a strategy to overcome those shortcomings with the goal of developing a ballot measure. Two meetings had been held to this point to share background and discuss the various jurisdictions' public safety needs. A total of six meetings were anticipated; the next was scheduled for July 28 at the John Serbu Center. Mr. Pap6 noted Eugene's recent mention as a wonderful fishery in an article in Northwest Fly Fishers magazine because of the local steelhead run. He said he could verify the facts in the article because he recently caught a 12-1/2 pound steelhead. Ms. Ortiz indicated she was working on a report to the council regarding her recent visit to Puerto Rico. Ms. Ortiz reported that she had attended a McKenzie Watershed tour and had found it interesting and eye- opening to learn about projects in the watershed. Ms. Ortiz said she went to the River Road community organization to discuss the proposed River Avenue project. She said that the community needed options from which to choose, such as the project Mr. Poling discussed. She did not think anyone would be happy with the ultimate solution given that taxation was involved, but it appeared from her observations that the improvements were needed. Ms. Bettman asked Mr. Kelly to let the council know when the working group meeting to discuss public safety had identified a funding amount. Ms. Bettman said she was contacted by a constituent who objected to the fact that access north of the tracks had been cut off. The constituent maintained the access had been in place for more than 100 years and it was one of the few access points in the area. She requested a memorandum with more information. Ms. Bettman spoke of large sites in the city, such as school and stadium sites, that were in transition. Rather than wait for a proposal to be made on those sites, she suggested the City be proactive about identifying the highest and best use for those sites so it could consider what she thought was in the best interest of the city, which was more housing. Mr. Pryor discussed the Forest Service tour he and Ms. Ortiz attended, which had started at H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest. He said the tour was very interesting with regard to what happened in the forest, and those conducting the tour had a lot of pride and passion for the work they did. Mr. Pryor noted that he and Ms. Ortiz also attended the Human Services Commission meeting earlier that day for a post-budget review. He said that contrary to some reports, funding for several agencies, such as Whitebird Clinic, had been maintained. MINUTES--Eugene City Council July 18, 2005 Page 3 Work Session Mr. Pryor said he toured the Westside neighborhood recently, which held many examples illustrating the balance between infill and growth. He said the tour provided much food for thought on how to strike that balance in other neighborhoods. Mr. Pryor noted a recent article in The Oregonian article regarding homeless practices instituted by that City over the last few years. He noted that some of those practices, such as eliminating the areas where the homeless traditionally gathered, had an adverse impact on the homeless by making them more visible and seemingly more problematic. Mr. Pryor thanked staff for its assistance with constituent questions. B. EXECUTIVE SESSION The council entered into executive session in accordance with Oregon Revised Statute 192.660(2)(i). Mayor Piercy called the council back into regular session. C. WORK SESSION: CITY MANAGER EVALUATION Human Resources and Risk Services Director Lauren Chouinard and City Attorney Glenn Klein were present for the item. City Manager Taylor thanked the councilors for the remarks they made during the earlier executive session. He took them to heart. City Manager Taylor said he was proud and honored to be the City Manager of Eugene. He acknowledged that the job was a challenge. One challenge was the long interregnum between the council elections and the seating of councilors in January 2005. City Manager Taylor said staff used that time to orient new councilors to the organization. City Manager Taylor noted the council's commitment to its goal-setting retreats and said he and the rest of the organization appreciated that commitment and the resulting goals. He said the goals gave the organiza- tion an opportunity to focus on council priorities, an opportunity to work as teams across departments, and an ambitious purpose to work toward in addition to day-to-day work. He said the council's goals would be used in daily decision-making and budget development. City Manager Taylor said he would continue to update the council with regular status reports on the action plans implementing those goals. City Manager Taylor indicated he believed he could do more to improve his communication skills and had contacted consultants Peter and Susan Glaser for assistance in that. He would work with individual councilors to address and clarify the concerns they had raised in their evaluations. City Manager Taylor perceived an opportunity that existed in terms of council leadership and the neighbor- hood initiative. He said that all the important work of the City occurred in the context of relationships; his relationship to the council, the staff-council relationship, the City's relationship with its individual partners, and the City's relationship to individual citizens. He acknowledged a need to do better in this area. MINUTES--Eugene City Council July 18, 2005 Page 4 Work Session City Manager Taylor said when he used the term ~we" he did so because he tried to work in the context of shared team responsibility. While he took responsibility for outcomes, he attempted to work in a team context, particularly around the council's goals. Mayor Piercy called for a round-robin of council comments. Mr. Poling said he was pleased with the manager's overall performance. He believed the manager was taking steps to address the criticisms that had been offered regarding his performance. He believed the manager needed to continue to improve communications between council and staff and the council and the citizens. Mr. Poling was glad to see the manager stay on top of the council's priorities, and hoped the council could implement as many of its action plans in the next year as possible. Ms. Taylor agreed the manager's job was difficult. Councilors had different points of view. She noted suggestions in the executive session that more public relations staff were needed, while she believed that such individuals produced propaganda. She said the community needed correct information. Ms. Taylor thought the manager's strengths lay in public relations, his work with the general public, and in his resilience. However, she thought that the manager often made excuses, which was perfectly normal behavior. She hoped the manager did meet with individual councilors to discuss their evaluations. Ms. Taylor said one of her biggest problems with the manager was his resistance to ideas he believed might compromise his authority as City Manager. That was a problem for her. She cited the idea of a perform- ance auditor as an example. She also perceived that he attempted to influence council policy rather than merely carry out policy. Ms. Taylor expressed concern that the council had not heard about the renewal of the City's legal contract until she had received a constituent inquiry. She wanted to see the manager report to the council on what he had been doing and what he was thinking about doing. She believed the manager should solicit the council's input into changes he was contemplating. Mr. Kelly thought City Manager Taylor strong in some areas and believed there were significant problems in other areas. Ms. Solomon arrived. On the positive side, Mr. Kelly said the manager was energetic and a very hard worker. He liked him personally. He thought the manager did a good job of community outreach to different groups and interests. He appreciated his positive oversight of financial matters, noting the very smooth recent budget process, for which he believed the manager deserved recognition. Mr. Kelly said that the manager and staff had also done some very good and hard work in difficult circumstances related to the council's priority for a hospital in the central core. Speaking to comments about the need for public relations made earlier, Mr. Kelly said that it would be nice to have a single public relations officer, but it did not have to be a single employee. He believed that every manager knew he or she was working in a fish bowl, and half the success of any project was the public's perception of it. For example, Mr. Kelly thought every lead staff or manager should have it in their mindset to respond to erroneous statements made in the press, for example, and immediately pick up the telephone and call the reporter as part of project management. That did not require public relations staff. MINUTES--Eugene City Council July 18, 2005 Page 5 Work Session Mr. Kelly expressed appreciation for the manager's acknowledgement of the big issues mentioned by councilors during the executive session. However, that only went so far for him, because many of the same issues had come up the past year and nothing had improved. In fact, some things had gotten worse. He cited the issue of council support as an example. He said the majority of the questions he posed to the manager in their monthly one-on-one sessions were not answered unless he asked them again. Mr. Pap6 thought the manager did a good job of leading the organization and managing the staff. He was concerned about certain aspects of the council-manager relationship and looked forward to work on those issues over the next year. Mr. Pap6 expressed appreciation for the manager's attempts to get the council to sit down and establish some high-level goals. He wanted to see the action plans associated with those goals sooner than the council seen them. He looked forward to regular review sessions to keep the council informed. He hoped that set a future pattern. Mr. Pap6 thought the manager had done a good job in his hires, which spoke to his managerial skill. Ms. Ortiz expressed general satisfaction for the manager's performance. She hoped she continued to feel good about it. She expressed her interest in getting sufficient and accurate information that allowed her to make a good, educated vote. Ms. Ortiz had observed that people seemed to be happy to be employed at the City of Eugene and she was glad to be a part of the organization. She looked forward to continued work with the manager. Ms. Bettman expressed regret that she had to write such a critical evaluation of the manager. She said the only recourse the council had when it perceived something wrong in the organization was through the City Manager. She expressed appreciation that the manager had acknowledged her comments were not new to him, but said she had seen no change in his approach. Ms. Bettman also expressed appreciation for the manager's strong management philosophy, but she saw a disconnection between that and how the council's policy was implemented "on the ground." She said it was important to her to know how City policies impact residents. Ms. Bettman expressed disappointment at the minimal amount of feedback into the manager's evaluation from employees as opposed to management and questioned why more employees did not participate. Ms. Bettman said the way the manager interpreted the charter provisions defining manager/council roles and function was so strict that it became an obstacle to the manager and council working together. Mr. Pryor discussed the relationship between the manager and council. He touched on the issue of communication, and said a trusting relationship was a product of better communication. He said the council's needs must be at the "top of the food chain" if the relationship was to work. Mr. Pryor empha- sized the importance of the manager being responsive to the council. He said the more informed the policy makers could be, the more focused and effective they would be at their jobs. Mr. Pryor noted his own employment as a public relations officer for a government organization and said he did not think he was a propagandist. He thought that information was extremely important to informing the public about what it needed to know, so the more effective the City could be at conveying what it was working on, the more effective it would be. He thought public relations an important function. MINUTES--Eugene City Council July 18, 2005 Page 6 Work Session Mr. Pryor was pleased with the relationship he had developed with the manager and looked forward to building an even better relationship. He appreciated the high priority the manager assigned to improved communications with the council. Ms. Solomon acknowledged City Manager Taylor interest in building relationships with the council and his interest in being accountable to the council. She believed he took the concern seriously. She said she had personally found City Manager Taylor to be accountable. Ms. Solomon expressed appreciation for the enthusiasm the manager brought to the job and said she did not know how he maintained it. She appreciated his leadership style and thought him an excellent manager, as demonstrated by the response he received from staff and to the council. Presentations were tighter and better and the agenda item summaries had improved, which she attributed to the direction of the manager. Ms. Solomon said the manager was remarkable in helping her address constituent requests, and she relied on him for that purpose. She expressed appreciation for the work he did to help her "navigate through the system" to assist her constituents. Mayor Piercy called for a second round of comments. Mr. Kelly said some of his lower evaluation scores were attributable to the fact some issues continued to exist. He acknowledged that individual councilors had no individual policy power, but once the council had passed a motion or resolution, he felt that on occasion its intent was not followed through and the final product was not what was requested. He said he wanted the manager's professional advice on operations and his professional advice on policy issues, but only once. There had been occasions on which he felt that Mr. Taylor had crossed the line to become the "ninth councilor." Mr. Kelly thanked the managers and line employees who took the time to write evaluations. He found them interesting and valuable. He thought an interesting trend could be detected in that the most critical reviews were from employees at the line level, and the most positive were from the executive staff. Ms. Taylor believed the council's goals had been twisted when they returned in the form of action plans. For example, the goal for arts and the outdoors seemed to have become a marketing campaign, which was not what she envisioned. She thought the manager should ask the council what it wanted rather than present a completed program. Mr. Pap6 agreed the council was a diverse group. For his own part, he did not perceive public relations as being propaganda and said he did not see a problem with a marketing campaign in regard to the goal for the arts and outdoors. Mr. Pap6 believed the manager had done a good job of communicating the council's goal to the organiza- tion. He believed that the goals process demonstrated that if council acted as a policy body, gave clear direction to the manager, and monitored his performance, the organization ran more smoothly than if councilors attempted to act as "little city managers" or department heads and try to micromanage it. Ms. Bettman returned to her complaint regarding the manager's strict interpretation of the charter. She believed there was a natural tension between the functions of the manager and the council. However, she had seen more examples of where the council was circumvented in its policy making by processes that precluded it from making a policy decision or by situations where issues came to the council so fully MINUTES--Eugene City Council July 18, 2005 Page 7 Work Session developed, with so many stakeholders and momentum, that its choices became very circumscribed. That minimized the council's input. Ms. Bettman said another issue of concern to her was that of respect for the democratic process. She said each councilor was elected and represented people in the community. The council's voices were important for that reason. It was not about specific personalities, but rather about the specific values and principles each councilor brought to the table. She thought there should be an attempt to incorporate all those values and principles in the direction of the City to achieve the broadest base for policy support as opposed to catering to a slim council majority. Mayor Piercy said City Manager Taylor had been very helpful to her as she assumed the role of mayor. She enjoyed working with him and had benefited from his years of experience. She acknowledged the tension that existed between the council and manager functions and said that everyone was trying to ~get the most out" of the position they were in. Mayor Piercy observed that as she attended meetings around the country, she found that many people knew the manager and respected his work and career. She thought Eugene was fortunate to have him. She believed that, overall, the manager's evaluation scores were high, although there were some significant things that needed to be worked on, such as creating better relationships between the council and staff. Mayor Piercy was also pleased to see how well-respected the manager was by his employees. She expressed appreciation for the manager's openness to criticism. She felt good about the council's goal-setting process and the successful budget season, and hoped the City improved in its ability to engage the community in decision-making. Mayor Piercy said she had enjoyed her experience as mayor, and a great deal of that had to do with working with the manager. Mr. Poling noted the council would discuss the issue of manager compensation on July 25 and invited councilors to provide input to him or Ms. Solomon. Mr. Papd thought City Manager Taylor had one of the most difficult city manager jobs in the country. He said Eugene was very diverse and a diverse council that was difficult to serve. He would not want the job. City Manager Taylor said he did want his job and was hopeful he could keep it longer. He had come to Eugene with very high expectations, and after two years and four months on the job, he found the commu- nity and organization to exceed his expectations. He said the organization asked tougher questions and came up with more elegant solutions than other communities. People across the country acknowledged the work done by Eugene, which had a well-known tradition of excellence and commitment to improvement. He acknowledged it was easier for him to serve the council when it spoke with one voice. He continued to be excited about the council's goals, which he thought would energize both the organization and community. City Manager Taylor thanked the council for its evaluation. The meeting adjourned at 7:13 p.m. Respectfully submitted, MINUTES--Eugene City Council July 18, 2005 Page 8 Work Session Dennis M. Taylor City Manager (Recorded by Kimberly Young) MINUTES--Eugene City Council July 18, 2005 Page 9 Work Session