Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutCC Minutes - 11/24/99 WS MINUTES Eugene City Council Eugene Water & Electric Board Meeting Room--500 East 4th ^venue November 24, 1999 4:30 p.m. COUNCILORS PRESENT: Scott Meisner, Nancy Nathanson, Pat Fart, David Kelly, Bobby Lee, Betty Taylor, Gary Pap~, Gary Rayor. DINNER WORK SESSION OF THE EUGENE CITY COUNCIL Mayor James D. Torrey called the work session of the City Council to order. Mr. Torrey adjourned the meeting of the City Council and convened a meeting of the Urban Renewal Agency. A.Action on Funding Request Alternatives Mr. Meisner moved, seconded by Ms. Nathanson, to allocate $175,000 from the Riverfront Research Park Urban Renewal District for the Franklin Boulevard-Willamette River Corridor Study. Ms. Taylor indicated she would vote no because the study was too focused on development. The motion passed, 7:1; Ms. Taylor voting no. Mr. Torrey adjourned the meeting of the Urban Renewal Agency and convened a meeting of the Eugene City Council. B.City Council Process Session Margo Helphand, consultant, facilitated the process session. She reviewed the council's responses to the question, "How are things going," which ranged from "good" to "really good." She had further elicited comments about how different councilors interpreted "good," and reviewed some of those comments. Ms. Helphand said that the council generally expressed value for the working relationship between councilors, and having councilors work together as a team was viewed as an important thing. Ms. Helphand identified the following issues as major areas of concern to the council as indicated through her interviews with individual councilors: 1) work sessions--how can the council make them work better, and get through the bulk of the work while having quality conversations; associated work session process issues, including extending courtesies to each other, time limits on comments, queues, and how agendas are set; and 2) individuals' visions of their roles as councilors. Less significant issues mentioned by councilors were the role of the council president; MINUTES--Eugene City Council November 24, 1999 Page 1 4:30 p.m. interpersonal communications; and committee appointments. Ms. Helphand asked councilors if they had other concerns or issues. Ms. Nathanson identified the length of time it took for an item to reach an agenda as an issue associated with work sessions, and the need to keep the agenda in line with the council's goals. Regarding the latter issue, she questioned if there was a way to review suggested agenda items in the context of the goals, and if the council had the self-discipline to limit itself to those items related to the goals. Mr. Rayor said he did not like surprises on the agenda and neither did the public. He had on at least two occasions learned about major City-related problems from the newspaper. However, he thought Mr. Johnson did a good job of informing the council about breaking issues and acknowledged the council had no power to affect the outcome of many such issues. Mr. Rayor believed the council needed to build in some flexibility in its agendas to address larger social issues, such as an environmental disaster, that might be somewhat outside the council's purview but about which councilors might wish to take stands. Mr. Fart discussed the work session of October 13, 1999, during which the council was asked to consider a motion condemning Hyundai Semiconductor of American for discrimination in employment, an item added to the agenda after it was published. He recommended that councilors extend each other the courtesy of informing each other prior to a meeting when a councilor wished the body to consider a resolution or motion. Mr. Fart identified as another work session-related issue the amount of time individual councilors spoke, noting that he had been unable to speak about a topic during a recent meeting in spite of time limits. He recommended that the time for an agenda item be divided equally among councilors, and that councilors be courteous about their use of time. If time remained after all councilors spoke, the time could be divided again. Mr. Kelly endorsed Mr. Farr's suggestion. Mr. Meisner was also concerned about limits on speaking time. He suggested that process issues arose most often around difficult topics. While he agreed with Ms. Nathanson that the council needed to have discipline to avoid "agenda creep," he believed most of the new items that had been raised related to the council's goals. Mr. Meisner asked for a definition of what constituted a "new" item. He pointed out that in the case of the October 13 discussion, the council had unanimously referred the issue of the Hyundai discrimination case to the Human Rights Commission but it had required three councilors to place the item on the agenda for council follow-up. He did not understand the distinction, and wanted the rules applied even-handedly for all referrals to advisory groups. Ms. Taylor did not see why one councilor could not put an item on the agenda. She also though that agenda items of high interest, such as legal services, should be the first item and not the last on an agenda. She suggested that the report from the youth leadership forum be taken off the work session agendas and included with the Public Forum. Mr. Pap~ identified contingency fund requests as an issue, saying he did not understand what the fund was meant for and wanted clarity. MINUTES--Eugene City Council November 24, 1999 Page 2 4:30 p.m. Mr. Rayor expressed concern that the current agenda setting method could allow one or two individuals to keep a politically sensitive issue off council agendas. He asked if an issue could get buried even if it was controversial or if a strong minority of the council wanted to discuss it. Mr. Lee identified as an issue how an item got placed on the council's agenda, and the appropriate use of e-mail in that process. He also was concerned about what constituted public deliberation, and e-mail's use for communications between councilors. Ms. Helphand asked the councilors to comment on or offer solutions to the issues that had been raised. Mr. Lee said that the council's goals should drive its work plan and the mayor and city manager should ensure that occurs. He advocated for the use of common sense and mutual trust in spite of differing individual ideologies. He said that all the councilors were trying to do the right thing for the community and all had to work under close public scrutiny. Mr. Lee urged councilors to give each other "the benefit of the doubt." Mr. Kelly noted the shod time period the council had for review of its meeting packet and asked how he could get information to the council if he wished to take a new direction on an agenda item in a timely way. Mr. Torrey said that the City Manager and his staff placed items on the agenda. He provided input about the time and order of items. He suggested that councilors could ask the manager to place an agenda item on the Consent Calendar, and if a council majority approved the calender with the item it would be placed on a council agenda. Mr. Torrey also suggested that to address councilors' concerns about limited speaking time, the number of agenda items be limited to two, and that each item be limited to 45 minutes, including staff presentation. Mr. Torrey said he was opposed to taking the youth leadership forum off the council agenda. He said that it was not a good message to send to a group of important young people, and he was more interested in knowing what local high school students were concerned about than in discussion of issues such as the nuclear test ban treaty. He pointed out that the council had not had the students on an agenda since early May because of its full agendas. Mr. Meisner said he liked the youth leadership forum but the council had never discussed the presentations as a regular agenda item. He said that the council's agendas were full and as a matter of courtesy the council should have discussed what was an addition to its workload. Mr. Meisner did not support Mr. Torrey's suggestion to employ the Consent Calendar to place items on the agenda because he believed it would stifle discussion and, if used, the current rules worked. Mr. Kelly supported the youth leadership forum and suggested some work sessions could be extended an hour and that the students be encouraged to meet beforehand to prepare more unified presentations to the council. Ms. Helphand asked the council if it supported referring the issue of how to keep the youth leadership forum going and better facilitate it to the manager and Mr. Torrey for a recommendation back to the council. All councilors with the exception of Ms. Taylor indicated support for such a process. MINUTES--Eugene City Council November 24, 1999 Page 3 4:30 p.m. Mr. Kelly also opposed the use of the Consent Calendar because it would "raise the bar" for getting an item on a council agenda from three to five councilors. He said that if three councilors wanted to discuss an issue it was probably worth discussing. Mr. Rayor agreed. He said that the council needed to distinguish between operational issues and more global issues and develop a process for the latter. However, he thought the current approach was appropriate for the majority of agenda items. Mr. Rayor did not support the suggestion for limiting agendas to two items, saying that the mayor was doing a good job of keeping the council on track. He reiterated the need for flexibility in agendas. Responding to a question from Mr. Rayor regarding how well the current approach was working, Mr. Johnson said the approach was not "broken" but that it was sometimes difficult for the staff to assess the time needed for a given agenda item. He liked an approach that limited major agenda items to two and suggested the council try it and see how it works. Mr. Johnson noted that the operating agreements did not distinguish between "old" and "new" items but stated that any three councilors could place an item on the agenda. Mr. Meisner reiterated his question about why some referrals to standing committees came back to the council but the motion to condemn Hyundai was treated as an item that required three councilors to place it on an agenda. Mr. Fart responded that the Human Rights Commission was to report back to the council after the Lane County Tax Assessor's investigation was complete. He, as council liaison to the commission, had been making periodic reports about the process. The motion to condemn Hyundai was completely separate from that process. Mr. Fart said that the Human Rights Commission did not ask the council to place the motion to condemn Hyundai on its agenda and commissioners did not expect the council to take action on October 13. Ms. Helphand suggested that the issues were avoiding surprise, how referrals to advisory committees were addressed, and what items needed the sponsorship of three councilors. Mr. Torrey suggested that there be a week between the time an agenda item was requested to be placed on an agenda and the item was scheduled to avoid the issue of surprise. Mr. Rayor said that an emergency to one person was not necessarily an emergency to another; merely because members of the Human Rights Commission wanted action by a certain date did not obligate the council to take action. He said the council should not let the demands of someone else's schedule dictate its schedule. Mr. Rayor said that the council needed to agree on what drove its schedule. Unless a majority of councilors choose to deviate from the projected agenda, the current approach should be maintained. Mr. Farr agreed. He said that if three councilors wanted an item on the agenda the current process should be followed and the manager would schedule the item; if a situation was such an emergency that four councilors wanted to schedule an item, the manager would schedule the item with a date certain using his best judgment about the level of the emergency. The council concurred, and agreed that those wishing to request an agenda item copy their request to the mayor and all other councilors. Ms. Nathanson suggested that the issue before the council was how it was going to spend its time. She asked what good it would do if the council passed a resolution that made councilors feel good but did not relate to a City program or have an impact. Ms. Nathanson asked who cared if Eugene was added to a list of cities that supported Resolution XYZ unless Eugene could do MINUTES-Eugene City Council November 24, 1999 Page 4 4:30 p.m. something about the underlying situation. Ms. Nathanson said that she would rather not spend the council's limited time on topics not related to the mission of the organization when the council was postponing agenda items and discussing limiting agendas to two items. She questioned how the council would accomplish its goals and have in-depth conversations about important topics like TransPlan if it continued to add items to its agendas. She asked what happened to the council's previous agreement that any individual councilor with the energy to write a letter about a topic such as the World Trade Organization could solicit other councilors to sign the letter too. Mr. Pap8 said that the goals represented the council's work plan, and the council was diverted too often by topics that individuals feel passionately about. He did not care what other cities passed resolutions, and did not think the council needed to weigh in on issues like the World Trade Organization unless it was willing to put off something else it identified as a priority. Ms. Helphand asked the council if the goals should be the guiding principles for the its agendas. Mr. Meisner said that the goals were not intended to restrict council agendas but were items upon which the council placed greater priority. Mr. Johnson suggested that the goals were in a general sense intended to focus the council's agendas, but to the extent time was available on the agenda other issues could be considered. Mr. Lee asked how the manager could be expected to lead the organization with nine different opinions directing him. He said that the council established the goals as guiding principles for the manager, and it was the council's job, as the board of directors of the organization, to track progress in meeting those goals. He said if the council choose to add items to its agendas, it should choose them strategically and make sure they aligned with the organization's goals. Ms. Helphand asked if there was concurrence that the goals were primary, and intended to focus the agendas, but were not exclusionary. With the exception of Ms. Taylor, councilors generally concurred. Ms. Taylor believed that the goals were so broad they could accommodate almost any topic. She said that the council should decide whether the manager should schedule items on the agenda because she did not think staff should dictate the agenda. She suggested that the manager should have to get three council sponsors for an agenda item. Ms. Helphand asked the council what it could have done to have avoided the situation of October 13. Mr. Farr said that the item should have gone through the council's liaison to the Human Rights Commission. He said that he had talked to most of the commission, who had told him they were not seeking the council's action on October 13. The commission had not asked him or any other councilor to seek council action on the motion. A single commissioner had gone to individual councilors seeking action. Mr. Farr said that as council liaison to the commission, he should have been contacted as a courtesy. Mr. Meisner said that he had been attempting to follow the appropriate process when he had offered the motion to condemn Hyundai to the council. He had consulted with the manager on the text of the motion. Mr. Meisner asked if motions as well as agenda items had to be presented to the mayor and manager for scheduling. Ms. Nathanson asked the council to distinguish between offering motions on an item already set for action and motions calling for action where no action was previously planned. MINUTES--Eugene City Council November 24, 1999 Page 5 4:30 p.m. Mr. Kelly concurred with Mr. Fart that the motion to condemn Hyundai should have been offered after Mr. Fart had been informed, as a courtesy. He asked if he, as representative of the Housing Policy Board, should be consulted by other councilors wishing to make motions related to affordable housing. Ms. Nathanson suggested that as a courtesy, such contact should be made. Mr. Torrey recommended that, as a courtesy, councilors should inform the council's liaison to or representative of an advisory committee about their intent to offer a potentially controversial motion related to that councilor's area of interest or expertise. He said that did not affect councilors' rights to make motions. The council concurred. The council also concurred with a suggestion from Mr. Johnson that, as a general guideline, councilors would make a reasonable effort to get the text of their motion or the concepts behind a motion that might be made to the mayor and other councilors prior to the meeting at which the motion would be offered. Mr. Kelly suggested that motions could be offered at a work session but not considered until the next work session, when the motion would be the first item scheduled. Mr. Torrey said that such delay was not necessarily bad because it gave people time to educate themselves about the topic the motion was focused on. Responding to a concern expressed by Mr. Rayor about the process of getting an item on the agenda and the inadequacy of follow-up for his request for discussion of parking, Mr. Johnson recommended that councilors either document such requests or request that staff document them. A majority of councilor expressed support for adding a work session on the City's role in the provision of parking and downtown parking to the tentative working agenda. Mr. Rayor did not feel comfortable signing letters regarding issues not related to the City. He asked where such an approach stopped, adding that councilors can write letters as individuals. He suggested that people could act globally by, for example, keeping their own river clean, but the City would not spend any staff time to track water pollution in the Amazon River. Mr. Rayor said that the City Council could work on environmental issues, for example, through its consideration of TransPlan. Ms. Taylor said that many global issues were related to what the council did locally. She said that the resolution regarding the World Trade Organization she had wanted the council to consider merely stated that the organization should not have the right to dictate environmental, labor, and human rights standards to local governments. She recalled that she had also raised an issue related to development in the county outside the urban growth boundary and had been told that the City had no purview over the issue. She said that while the City had no purview over the development decision, it was certainly affected by the development and such development proposals were the City's business. Mr. Lee suggested that the council had not yet learned to problem-solve together. He said that he had worked with the mayor extensively on homeless and youth issues and the mayor had done a very good job in problem-solving with him. He hoped to get the entire council up to that level. Mr. Lee left the meeting. Mr. Kelly asked Mr. Johnson for a suggestion on how motions could be shared prior to a meeting. Mr. Johnson suggested that if councilors did not feel comfortable with e-mail, they could fax their motions to other councilors. Councilors discussed the suggestion. Ms. Nathanson proposed that MINUTES--Eugene City Council November 24, 1999 Page 6 4:30 p.m. the council direct staff to ensure that motions were distributed to all councilors. That way a councilor only needed to make a single telephone call to staff. Mr. Johnson indicated staff would discuss the proposal and return with a recommendation for the process. The council took a brief break. The council discussed Mr. Kelly's proposal to schedule action on motions not previously scheduled for action at the following work session. Mr. Pap~ pointed out that a tabled motion had precedence. The council agreed with a suggestion from Mr. Johnson that it use discretion in determining when to take action on a motion and avoid establishing a rigid process. Mr. Kelly suggested the possibility of extending Wednesday work sessions by one-half hour. The council agreed that it needed to recognize the impact of tabling a motion to a following meeting on the next meeting's agenda and the time required to complete the meeting. Mr. Meisner advocated that the council return to its previous practice of being explicit about extending time for each agenda item. There was general concurrence. The council discussed the time limits now in place for comments. Mr. Meisner suggested councilors provide each other with feedback regarding the time used for comments. Mr. Torrey suggested that councilors attempt to identify their key points when they spoke. Mr. Farr said that being courteous would help. Ms. Nathanson said that each councilor has certain issues about which they were passionate. She said that she did provide input into every topic before the council and was unsure how she would react to being told she spoke too long if she spoke only one time during a meeting. Mr. Johnson asked if the council wanted a staff person to track the time each councilor spoke and to signal councilors after they spoke for three minutes. There was support for the idea. Ms. Helphand said summarized that councilors should acknowledge that not all councilors talked the same amount and should identify their key points. The council should be explicit if it decided to extend time on an item, although that action did not have to be formal. Ms. Taylor expressed dismay at the concept of extending Wednesday work sessions when she had not planned on evening meetings when she ran for office. She said that all-evening meetings would keep some people from running for a seat on the council. Ms. Taylor observed that many councilors come late and leave early, and she felt compelled to stay at one meeting rather than attend a neighborhood meeting because she was concerned about the loss of a quorum. She said that if any work session was extended it should be the Monday work session because the regular public meeting was often shod. Mr. Rayor did not support extending meetings because he believed it would cause quorum problems. He said that the mayor kept the council on task and could provide councilors with a "heads up" on the time remaining for an agenda item. Mr. Kelly noted his support for the mayor's practice of eliciting councilors' comments in an initial "bullet round." Mr. Torrey acknowledged Mr. Rayor for suggesting the idea to him. Ms. Helphand reviewed the decisions arrived at during the meeting. MINUTES--Eugene City Council November 24, 1999 Page 7 4:30 p.m. At the request of Mr. Fart, Mr. Pap~, and Mr. Rayor, the council agreed to schedule a work session on the use of the contingency fund. The council acknowledged it would be unable to complete all the items proposed for discussion and agreed to schedule another process session in the spring. The meeting adjourned at 7:30 p.m. Respectfully submitted, James R. Johnson City Manager (Recorded by Kimberly Young) MINUTES--Eugene City Council November 24, 1999 Page 8 4:30 p.m.