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HomeMy WebLinkAboutItem 2A: Approval of City Council Minutes ECC UGENE ITY OUNCIL AIS GENDA TEM UMMARY Approval of City Council Minutes Meeting Date: October 13, 2008 Agenda Item Number: 2A Department: City Manager’s Office Staff Contact: Beth Forrest www.eugene-or.gov Contact Telephone Number: 682-5882 ISSUE STATEMENT This is a routine item to approve City Council meeting minutes. SUGGESTED MOTION Move to approve the minutes of the June 16, 2008, Work Session and Public Hearing, July 14, 2008, City Council Meeting, July 15, 2008, Joint Elected Officials Meeting, July 30, 2008, Work Session, August 13, 2008, Work Session, September 8, 2008, Work Session, September 8, 2008, City Council Meeting, September 10, 2008, Work Session, September 15, 2008, Public Hearing, and September 22, 2008, City Council Meeting. ATTACHMENTS A.June 16, 2008, Work Session and Public Hearing B.July 14, 2008, City Council Meeting C.July 15, 2008, Joint Elected Officials Meeting D.July 30, 2008, Work Session E.August 13, 2008, Work Session F.September 8, 2008, Work Session G.September 8, 2008, City Council Meeting H.September 10, 2008, Work Session I.September 15, 2008, Public Hearing J.September 22, 2008, City Council Meeting FOR MORE INFORMATION Staff Contact: Beth Forrest Telephone: 682-5882 Staff E-Mail: beth.l.forrest@ci.eugene.or.us Z:\CMO\2008 Council Agendas\M081013\S0810132A.doc ATTACHMENT A M I N U T E S Eugene City Council Work Session and Public Hearing Council Chambers – City Hall 777 Pearl Street—Eugene, Oregon June 16, 2008 5:00 p.m. COUNCILORS PRESENT: Mike Clark, Betty Taylor, Bonny Bettman, Andrea Ortiz, Alan Zelenka, Chris Pryor, George Poling; Jennifer Solomon via teleconference. COUNCILORS ABSENT: Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy convened the meeting of the Eugene City Council. 1. ACTION: Selection of Community Advisory Team Members for Eugene Water and Electric Board (EWEB) Riverfront Master Planning Process Councilor Pryor, seconded by Councilor Bettman, moved to appoint Mark John- son to the EWEB Community Advisory Team. Councilor Bettman asked if it were possible for the City to require modification of a quasi-judicial decision once the Advisory Team recommended a Master Plan and made an application to the City. Ms. Jerome explained at some point, in order for the property to be developed according to the principles listed, the applicant would be required to have the property rezoned and a Eugene-Springfield Metropolitan Area General Plan (Metro Plan) amendment for the diagram. The diagram amendment would come before the City Council, thus the council would have an opportunity to make a decision with respect to the property. Whether or not the decision point was a package that included the zone change and the Master Plan depended on how the applicant packaged the request. If it was packaged together, the City Council would make the decision on the whole thing and the Master Plan would be evaluated according to the four factors in the Downtown Plan policy. Councilor Bettman said when the council received a packaged request, it was an up or down vote and the City Council did not have a chance to change the application once it was presented to the council. Ms. Jerome responded in this case there was more discretion because the policy itself listed four criteria that allowed more discretion than the council was usually allowed. The Master Plan had to be consistent with the four principles. Councilor Bettman said criteria provided broad guidance to the Master Planning Committee and did not give the City Council more flexibility. MINUTES—Eugene City Council June 16, 2008 Page 1 Work Session Councilor Taylor, seconded by Councilor Bettman, moved to substitute Kevin Matthews. The motion to substitute Kevin Matthews failed 3:5, with Councilors Taylor, Bettman and Ortiz voting in favor, and Councilors Pryor, Clark, Poling, Zelenka and Solomon voting in opposition. The motion to appoint Mark Johnson to the EWEB Community Advisory Team passed 6:2, with Councilors Pryor, Clark, Zelenka, Poling, Ortiz and Solomon voting in favor, and Councilors Taylor and Bettman voting in opposition. Councilor Pryor, seconded by Councilor Bettman, moved to appoint Mary Unruh to the EWEB Community Advisory Team. The motion passed unanimously, 8:0. Councilor Pryor, seconded by Councilor Bettman, moved to appoint Pat Johnston to the EWEB Community Advisory Team. The motion passed 6:2, with Council- ors Pryor, Clark, Zelenka, Poling, Bettman, and Taylor voting in favor, and Coun- cilors Solomon and Ortiz voting in opposition. Councilor Pryor, seconded by Councilor Bettman, moved to appoint Molly Myers to the EWEB Community Advisory Team. Councilor Clark, seconded by Councilor Poling, moved to substitute Anita Van Asperdt. Councilor Bettman would not support the amendment because Ms. Meyer had addressed issues of children and senior citizens in the community. The motion to substitute Anita Van Asperdt passed 6:2, with Councilors Ortiz, Pryor, Clark, Poling, Zelenka and Solomon voting in favor, and Councilors Taylor and Bettman voting in opposition. The motion to appoint Anita Van Asperdt passed 6:2, with Councilors Ortiz, Pryor, Clark, Poling, Zelenka and Solomon voting in favor, and Councilors Taylor and Bettman voting in opposition. The City Council took a recess from 7:10 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Councilor Ortiz asked to be excused from the Public Hearing, stating she would view it on Metro Vision or on-line since she had a commitment to attend the River Road Community Organization meeting. Councilor Solomon said she would watch the Public Hearing on her computer. 2. PUBLIC HEARING: Minor Code Amendments (MCAs) Mayor Piercy explained the process for conducting a public hearing. She said speakers would be limited to three minutes each and asked that City of Eugene residents identify which ward they lived in. MINUTES—Eugene City Council June 16, 2008 Page 2 Work Session City Manager Ruiz stated he was available to answer any questions that might arise. Ron Chase, 924 Sunnyside Drive, requested that the City Council postpone approval of the MCAs because they would have the net effect of decreasing housing density in a couple of neighborhoods as well as decreasing the number of allowable units, potentially setting a precedent for doing the same neighborhood by neighborhood citywide. Fifty percent of Eugene households were renters and the vacancy rate was very low, particularly regarding affordable housing. He daily saw how difficult it was for people with limited incomes to find an affordable rental through both his employment and personal circle. By decreasing density and increasing parking the council would effectively be increasing rents and pushing renters, particularly low-income renters, to the fringes of the urban growth boundary (UGB). With the increasing costs of transportation, whether people used mass transit or automobile, it was imperative to develop affordable housing downtown and in nearby core neighborhoods. He urged the City Council to look very closely at any change which inhibited that development and to follow the recommendation from the Housing Policy Board (HPB) by referring some of the changes to the Infill Compatibility Standards Task Team (ICS) for further discussion and to defer making permanent changes until a full discussion of the impact took place. Sue Prichard, 2671 Emerald Street, Ward 3, spoke as co-chair of the ICS. She said the ICS, the majority of whom represented neighborhood groups and had been involved from the early stages of the MCA process, was formed by the Planning Commission in November 2007. Other members represented the development, architectural and construction sectors of the community. The ICS formed a Minor Code Amendment Process Committee (MICAP) to review the proposed amendments which were selected by the Planning Commission and the City Council for the formal amendment process. MICAP reviewed each item, selected those that were of highest priority and brought their comments and recommendations to ICS for review and discussion. Fourteen of the twenty items were considered and commented upon. MICAP and ICS made no recommendations on the remaining six items. Ms. Prichard provided a copy to the council of the final ICS/MICAP recommendations presented to the Planning Commission. On March 17, 2008, the ICS unanimously passed a motion approving the MICAP report. All of the ICS recommenda- tions were in line with staff recommendations with the exception of the topic Required Parking in Residential Parking Program Permit Areas. ICS suggested a change to the proposed amendment that addressed the specific problem without addressing a potentially contentious citywide change. ICS had not had an opportunity to address the proposed amendments added by the City Council since the original list was developed, nor had it addressed the most recent minor revisions proposed by the Planning Commission. With the unanimous vote of the ICS prior to the additions of the City Council and minor revisions proposed by the Planning Commission, there was clear support to move forward with the ordinance. th Lauren Hulse, 1256 East 20 Avenue, Ward 3, reiterated the City Council direction to the Planning Commission on March 10, 2008. The City Council asked the City Manager to direct the Planning Commission to pursue the MCA process that would mitigate the following impacts of incompatible infill: ? Excessive building height in R-3 and R-4 proximal to R-1 zones to reflect a height transition to R-1 zoned areas. ? Excessive demand for on-street parking in multi-family development in units with three or more bedrooms in R-3 zones. Residents had worked with Planning staff and the developer of the build- th ing at 19 Avenue and Alder Street to scale back the building from seven to four stories, and would continue to work with any developer that wanted to build in the neighborhood, particularly along thth 18 and 19 Avenues, so that buildings could be built that were compatible with the well estab- lished neighborhood. MICAP #5 offered a compromise for both neighbors and developers that pro- MINUTES—Eugene City Council June 16, 2008 Page 3 Work Session thth vided a gradual transition from R-4 on 18 Avenue to R-1, midway through 19 Avenue, for a gradual reduction from 120 feet to 30 feet in one and one-half blocks. There was no R-2 and the neighborhood would have increased density but it would be more compatible with the neighbor- hood. Residents of the South University Neighborhood (SUN) loved their neighborhood, and had invested not only financially, but with their time and spirit to nurture a thriving and healthy community. The residents supported compact growth and were prepared to accommodate significant changes in the area. They believed there were ways to make a positive contribution to established neighborhoods, rather than destroying what already existed. John Wager, 1183 Van Buren Street, had owned and lived in his home for 30 years. He was speaking as a member of the intergovernmental HPB with Councilor Solomon. He noted the HPB had submitted a letter to the City Council and Planning Commission which took a position on several of the proposed MICAP amendments. The HPB had concerns about the reduction in density that would occur. Although the amendments were minor individually by definition, in aggregate they were not minor. They would have the tendency to set precedent for other neighborhoods, thus having a ripple effect in the community. Individual amendments would also have a ripple effect because they would affect housing throughout the community every time core density was reduced. Lowering density impacted housing affordability, with the greatest impact on those with the least ability to afford and maintain decent housing. He encouraged the City Council to remember that as important as neighborhood groups were to the fabric of the community, they were not elected representatives, but self-selected and invariably property owners. He hoped to speak for the 50 percent of the community who were renters; they often did not attend public hearings because they were not aware of the impact that changes discussed might have on them. th Dan Herbert, 1913 Potter Street, lived directly across 19 Avenue from the subject of one of the code amendments related to densities and parking. He was interested in affordable housing and cautioned the City Council about making code amendments which might have a negative or suppressing effect on affordable housing. Through presentations at the HPB and the American Institutes of Architects (AIA) he understood how difficult it was to get affordable housing. It was important for the community to have affordable housing. The HPB had concluded that the MCA proposal needed further study, and he was persuaded that the City Council needed to be very careful about putting any more road blocks in the way of affordable housing than already existed. Al Couper, 2258 Harris Street, spoke in favor of the building height transition amendment. The protection was needed now because Oregon’s residential standards law was statutory - when development plans were submitted that met the code standards, 120 feet tall in Eugene, building permits were automatically issued from a zoning standpoint. This meant there was no notice to affected property owners, no opportunity to comment, and no opportunity for the City Council or its designees to attach conditions that would make a development blend into the surrounding property. Additionally, the proposal before the council was reasonable. He had read the code and talked with planners in eight jurisdictions in the Willamette Valley and Bend, and noted that no one allowed 120-foot buildings in their highest density residential zone as a matter of right, and few allowed that under any circumstance. The average building height allowed under clear and objective standards would be less than 60 feet. The proposal was similar to what other cities in the region used to deal with the edge effect where height density bumped up against lower density. Each of the cities was bound by the same State law mandates as Eugene, in terms of UGBs, density, reducing vehicle miles, and clear and objective housing standards, but had found more graceful ways to deal with the MINUTES—Eugene City Council June 16, 2008 Page 4 Work Session edge effect. The proposal before the council would accomplish that and he urged the council to pass the building height transition amendment. thth Bill Spurling, 1958 Potter Street, held up a graphic of his neighborhood, including 19 Avenue and 20 Avenue at Potter Street. He supported the proposed code amendments but asserted 12-story buildings adjacent to single family homes was not acceptable. The modified MCA was a step in the right direction. Mike Russo, 1975 Potter Street, had undertaken a study to determine the answer to three questions: thth 1) how many residents lived in the eight blocks between 18 and 19 Avenues, and Agate and Hilyard th Streets, and a ninth block of R-4 to the south of 19 Avenue; 2) how many residents could be expected under current zoning, and 3) how many residents could be expected under MICAP proposal number five. The data was collected by walking the neighborhood, talking with building managers and residents, and counting names on mail boxes. He learned that the area was quite densely populated, with about 1,600 current residents. Under full build-out with current zoning, and using numbers from the Home Builders Association (HBA) he estimated over 10,000 people could reside in the area, which was more than the number of people who resided in Cottage Grove or Florence, and was extreme. Under MICAP proposal number five, 7,000 people could reside in the area. MICAP represented a measured approach that would result in a win/win situation. Time was of the essence in adopting the proposal. th Marsha Shankman, 893 East 20 Avenue, said she was on the board of the South University Neighbor- hood Association (SUNA). She was speaking in support of the MICAP amendments, particularly amended MICAP Amendment 5 related to the step-down in building heights. Her family had lived in a late 1920’s house for 22 years, which was one of three historic homes built at that time. Little had changed until last th summer when plans to build a seven-story student apartment complex at the corner of 19 Avenue and Alder Street were revealed. At that time she learned that the zoning jumped precipitously from R-1, single th family to R-3, and across 19 Avenue to R-4. She, along with a large group of concerned neighbors, had been actively involved in efforts to address incompatibility of the zoning in the neighborhood. She thanked the City Council for directing SUNA representatives to work through the MICAP amendments. Nowhere in City documents - including City codes, the Metro Plan, and the Growth Management Polices (GMPs) - was density valued over livability. Reading from City code 9.5500 on multiple family standards, she said the standards were met “to ensure that new multiple family development enhances the character of Eugene’s neighborhoods…to ensure the increased density that resulted from such development makes a positive contribution to the areas in which these developments are built…to ensure that the design of multiple family developments provides for sensitive transition to nearby, less intensive development…to provide physical environment that contributes to and enhances the quality of life.” She urged the City Council to establish a more sensitive transition and height limit by passing the amended MICAP Amend- ment 5. Sina Kraft, 1939 Hilyard Street, Ward 3, was a big fan of affordable and low-income housing. When she bought her home in 1986, she enjoyed the diversity of pre- and post-war homes, and the fact that her neighbors ranged in age from 7 to 82. Most carports and garages were on the alley, neighbors met each other daily, 15 homes were owner-occupied and four homes were rentals. Today, only eight were owner- occupied and 11 were rentals. Three new owners were families with young children. Two weeks ago, construction vehicles arrived to demolish one of the single-family homes and clear-cut the lot. Construction had begun on a two-story, five-unit apartment building. Refinements from the ICS and Neighborhood Leaders would be welcome and needed to be added later. Tonight, she urged the council to quickly approve the proposed code amendments to preserve what was left of the unique character and quality of all Eugene neighborhoods while providing a diversity of housing for everyone. MINUTES—Eugene City Council June 16, 2008 Page 5 Work Session Gordon Anslow, 1953 Garden Avenue, Ward 2, was speaking as co-chair of the ICS Task Team a co- owner of a design/build business, and a private individual. The ICS had been asked to review everything in the Eugene Code related to building new dwelling units which had been a daunting task. With the MICAP provisions inserted by the City Council, certain neighborhoods would be allowed to cut in front of the ICS process. Although he objected to the MICAP process running parallel to ICS work, the City Council inserted items that represented use of the MICAP process to Trojan Horse the will of a few in the process, as a means to side-step the process, and have the merits of their desires weighed by the ICS, balanced against the interests of other neighborhoods and interest groups and integrated into a set of rules crafted for all of Eugene. This undermined the ICS work and did not sit well with him. Mr. Anslow and Steve Baker of the West University Neighborhood (WUN) were on the ICS multi-family committee which was discussing ways to ultimately address legitimate parking concerns in the resident parking program areas near the University of Oregon (University). These would require more parking and make changes to Chapter 9 that would allow designers and developers more creative ways to provide additional parking on site-specifics that would be pursued if given to ICS. Under the present form, ICS would have no say on the issue. As a member of the design/build community, many of the MICAP proposals, taken as a whole, would stifle affordable housing in existing neighborhoods. Amendments 5 and 7, were not minor, and should not be adopted. He had studied eight recent projects and none could be built due to requirements for large new parking lot areas. The amount of land required for parking limited the amount of remaining space used for outdoor living, circulation and landscaping, thus reducing the amount of achievable density. As a private citizen, he was appalled that the City of Eugene was willing to give wealthy homeowners whatever they asked for without concern for the effect on the lives of students and people on low- and fixed-incomes. Eugene was on its way to becoming a city for the wealthy, while blue collar families, elderly and disabled people struggled to find decent, affordable housing, and had to live in outlying areas. As currently written, MICAP was moving in the wrong direction. st Joan Dunbar, 1234 East 21 Avenue, Ward 3, was concerned about Amendment 5, and urged the council to adopt the MICAP version. The current code was broken and she urged the council to act quickly and use common sense with all of the amendments. She understood the need for affordable housing and the need to increase densities. The code also talked about livability. Eugene had a history of allowing buildings that violated the surrounding neighborhood she said, citing YA-PO-AH Terrace and Prince Lucien Campbell as examples. The proposed code changes provided an opportunity to change the codes before buildings went up. Amendment 5, transitioning building heights, provided a win/win situation and was a compromise solution providing an example of what people could do when constituents worked together. th Mike Westervelt, 853 East 20 Avenue, had attended a recent Planning Commission meeting and was dismayed by the proposals of some contractors and the HBA’s proposals to degrade the healthy, compact, close-in neighborhood of the South University Neighborhood (SUN). The neighbors had recently been portrayed as those who would deny various building contractors and real estate agents a way to make a living, which was not true. The neighborhood was already 50 percent rentals. The proposal would afford developers and others involved the opportunity to build structures ranging from three to twelve stories. Fortunately, most builders stopped at three or four stories, but the neighbors were trying to prevent the renegade builder who wanted to build the inappropriate ten- or twelve-story building. This would take place in an area that could still easily add thousands of residents. Single-family residences should not be subject to the negative repercussions of twelve-story buildings. The R-4 loophole in the neighborhood was th designated in the 1940’s to accommodate fraternities and sororities on 19 Avenue and clearly did not mean what R-4 meant today. South University residents had made it abundantly clear throughout the MINUTES—Eugene City Council June 16, 2008 Page 6 Work Session process that they were not in favor of zero growth, and realized the sustainability, “walkabilty” and “bikeability” benefits of living close-in. They believed appropriately managed infill growth benefited everyone, including the residents, City, UGB, environment, and University. He said many similar neighborhoods throughout the country had been destroyed by decisions such as the current proposals and asked why Eugene should follow that lead. Reading from a 2006 letter from Planning Commissioner Rick Duncan to then City Councilor David Kelly, Mr. Westervelt said, “Sometimes the government does not make correct decisions when it comes to land use. Because incorrect decisions are made, property owners should not be penalized until such time that a city could afford to change that action.” Residents of the SUN should not be penalized by deferring action on the proposed amendments. He asked the City Council to make the SUN a model of what an historic, livable neighborhood could be in times of density growth by passing the MICAPs including an amended version of Amendment 5. Doug Weber, 1330 Flintridge Avenue, spoke against passing MICAP, particularly parking and density in south Eugene neighborhoods. He had previously e-mailed his comments to the councilors. Changing zoning created multiple impacts on residents, the planning process, and property values. He referred to a recent article in the Register Guard and the shortage of housing for this year’s incoming freshman class at the University. Increased density and accompanying height to attain those densities could not be reconciled with older neighborhoods. Amendment 8 regarding drainage in River Road/Santa Clara (RR/SC) was unnecessary and potentially dangerous. The only option to most people in that area was a stormwater disposal system that would percolate water into the ground. The State Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) had made the use of dry wells difficult and expensive, when allowed. He asked what would prevent DEQ from forbidding these systems next year. Another problem with the amendment was lack of an accurate drainage way. The definition needed to be changed. Marilyn Milne, 2156 Harris Avenue, Ward 3, president of the SUNA, submitted a statement on behalf of the SUNA Board of Directors. The neighborhood was an established neighborhood with a mix of housing stock that was walkable and had a good elementary school. The SUN was currently in a precarious situation due to old zoning changes that undermined the current livability of the neighborhood. In the 1984’s, the Greek system received approval to construct R-4 housing near campus. R-4 was limited to three- and four-story buildings at that time. In the 1960’s the R-4 height jumped to 120 feet, the equivalent of ten- to twelve-story buildings. SUNA was formed in 1974, thus had no role in the 1960’s changes. th Both longtime and newer residents were surprised to learn about the current allowable height on 18 and th 19 Avenues. In addition to the building heights, the height jumped from R-1 single family to R-3 and R-4 without any R-2 buffer zone in between. Other Oregon cities had prevented this type of jump. The SUNA request for an amended MICAP would put Eugene in conformance with other Oregon cities. The current zoning could allow up to 10,000 additional residents within a relatively small area. She said density should not equal intensity. MICAP Amendment 5 reduced building height while allowing for density. Zoning codes were a separate issue from affordable housing, and did not stipulate that housing had to be affordable. SUN residents were concerned about the livability of the neighborhood and were glad that GMP 6 stressed maintaining the character and livability of neighborhoods while creating infill. The City Council could achieve that goal by passing MICAP amendments, particularly Amendment 5. Carolyn Jacobs, 2040 Agate Street, appreciated that the City Council had been supportive of neighbor- hoods. Working closely with staff, an amendment that was both a compromise and an urgently needed course of protection for the SUN had been developed, while work continued with the ICS process. Amendment 5 placed limits on building heights that would have only a nominal effect, as most builders were building projects below the maximum heights, and most current projects around the University were still allowable under Amendment 5. Neighbors were concerned about the few buildings that would be MINUTES—Eugene City Council June 16, 2008 Page 7 Work Session exceedingly out of scale with the surrounding neighborhood. The negative impacts of one inappropriate building would be felt for blocks in all directions. The proposed amendment would allow approximately 7,000 new residents in nine square blocks and would keep student housing where it belonged, close to the University, while keeping land elsewhere in the City available for other types of development. Everyone needed to join forces and acknowledge that compact, dense growth could be done well, but must be given careful design and planning, without degrading the neighborhood. This would result in the neighborhood becoming undesirable to families, for without families, the neighborhood could not support the elementary school, forcing residents to move out. She urged passage of all MICAP amendments. Kevin Matthews, P.O. Box 1588, member of Friends of Eugene, Southeast Neighbors, Neighborhood Leaders Council (NLC) and ICS Task Team said he supported the amendments. There was an irony with tonight’s hearings with one set of amendments that was about reducing density in residential neighborhoods and the other set of amendments that was about reducing density in a commercial neighborhood. Many people in the community were in favor of MICAP amendments and against the downtown amendments. Density with quality was needed. Quantitative data was not available to enable the community to make informed decisions. Daniel Hill, 4765 Village Plaza Loop, spoke on behalf of his architecture/construction firm, and as a member of ICS. He supported the majority of the MCAs, but Amendments 5, 7 and 8 were not minor, and should be referred to the ICS for further review. Amendment 5 was completely against the desire of the community, the council, the Planning Commission and the staff recommendation. The economic impact would change the values of the properties and the zoning by default. SUN was an appropriate area for the transitions and he did not believe any developer would build a 12 story building in the area. Properties could be tastefully designed under the current code and design guidelines could be implemented to ensure proper transitions would occur. Amendment 7 went against decades of code to limit parking. This amendment was counter-productive to encouraging people to refrain from using cars around campus. The current code dovetailed with the important movement of limiting greenhouse gases and carbon footprints. Limiting parking encouraged students to walk to campus. The two amendments together created the opposite effect of what many have worked on for years. Amendment 8 definitions of drainage way and appropriate or inappropriate filling of those drainage ways was problematic. He encouraged the council to not include Amendments 5, 7 and 8 as suggested by the Planning Commission and refer them to the ICS. th Paul Conte, 1461 West 10 Avenue, thanked the council for its support for Eugene residents and neighborhoods. The council had shown it understood that strategies for a diverse and vibrant city could be based on actions that degraded and destabilized established neighborhoods. Past actions and code provisions had led to damaging infill in more and more areas of Eugene. Density could be achieved with reasonable standards and appropriate design. There was community support for twelve of the proposed amendments as evidenced by support by community organizations and a petition signed by over 300 people. According to the HPB minutes there was no quantitative discussion about the proposed amend- ments. The connection between affordable housing and the effect of the proposed standards was not supported by data, but was rather an emotional reaction. An emotional reaction resulted in tenement housing rather than affordable housing. He urged the council to adopt the proposed amendments. Mandi Butler, P.O. Box 7425, represented Future B Homes and was an HBA Board member. The MCA process was intended to make minor code changes, which implied non-controversial changes that did not affect policy. She found many of the proposed amendments were not minor, were controversial and effected policy. Amendment 5, graduated building heights and Amendment 7, had grave effects on housing in Eugene. Reduced density in R-3 and R-4 would limit if not prevent infill, reduce campus housing and MINUTES—Eugene City Council June 16, 2008 Page 8 Work Session was at odds with the GMPs. Amendment 8, related to RR/SC stormwater issues, took poorly written language from the Stormwater Manual and placed it into the code and would result in a reduction in the City’s buildable residential land. It would also raise the cost of housing and make it difficult for families to buy a house in Eugene. The amendments should not be passed at this time. Amendments 5, 7 and 8 should be referred to the ICS for a more comprehensive review. Lloyd Tolbert, 83 Centennial Loop, Suite 1, had worked with the City’s land use code as a local land surveyor for 15 years, in doing infill partitions, property line adjustments, and subdivisions. He currently was monumenting the exterior boundary of the newly acquired Ridgeline Trail. He had been involved with the MCA and supported those amendments that went through the entire process, but had issues with Amendments 5, 7 and 8. The original 200 proposed amendments were ranked based on criteria that included consistency with GMPs, level of concern, cost, public involvement, complexity, intensity of impact, environmental impact and controversy level, as well as other criteria. The Planning Commission, interested community members, and the consultant reduced the number to approximately 20, with a focus on those that were less controversial due to the necessity to get the first round of the MCAs passed for the good of the public. Amendments 5, 7 and 8 were not housekeeping items and needed a closer review. He asked that Amendments 5, 7 and 8 be forwarded to the ICS or separated into their own bundle. He thanked the City Council, the Planning Commission and staff for their work. Dan Neal, 1361 Pearl Street, said Amendment 7 would increase the amount of required parking for multi- family development in the Agate Street to Hilyard Street corridor (corridor), which amounted to “downzon- ing in disguise”. The SUN concerns about height did not address parking because they were aware of the affect increasing the parking requirements would have on meaningful multi-family development in the area next to the University where thousands of students wanted to live in quality housing. In recent years, some of the eyesores in the WUN and the corridor had come down and been replaced with high quality housing projects. He displayed photographs of his recently completed Coho project, that contained many th sustainability features on 14 Avenue between Hilyard Street and Patterson Street for which he had received accolades from the City of Eugene and the University of Oregon School of Architecture and Allied Arts. In order to do this project with the proposed increased parking requirements it would be necessary to have 23 parking spaces for which there was insufficient room on the standard city lot on which the project was built. Dale Deason, 1527 Charnelton Street, said the issue was not one of density and sprawl. The need to increase the population in the city core had been recognized and accepted for many years by the community and the neighbors. The question was not whether but how to densify, and managing the process was an issue. Changes in the code that relaxed requirements had resulted a doubling of allowable density in his neighborhood in 20 years. He was concerned this had been done in bits and pieces over time rather than through careful planning with almost no involvement by neighborhood residents and no one thinking of unintended consequences or how to avoid turning a thriving neighborhood into a slum. The City had targeted his neighborhood for radical transformation. All but one house on his block was single family but this would change with the City’s goal of doubling the population over the next 20 years. The outcomes would not be good if done with care and involvement by the residents. This was not an urban renewal project in which everything was torn down and you start over. The neighborhoods were full of middle class families who took care of their property and patronized local businesses. They were great places to live and were thriving. The proposed code amendments were from the grass roots and were not radical. They added balance to the process. He urged the Council not to follow the notion that the issue was density versus sprawl. The issue was how to do densification right and by approving the amendments the Council MINUTES—Eugene City Council June 16, 2008 Page 9 Work Session would take a first step to ensure that the City’s residential neighborhoods were strengthened and not degraded by the process. Howard Galvin , 2894 Warren Street, represented the HBA of Lane County. He asked the Council to not pass but refer Amendments 5, 7 and 8 be referred to the ICS for more comprehensive review. The amendments were not minor in scope and had large policy implications for the City. Although proposed Amendments 5 and 7 may affect only a small geographic area near the University they would have a broad negative effect in terms of policy on the community. The amendments allegedly reduced density near the University which was an area zoned for high density development and had a need and demand for high density development. He referred to recent Register Guard articles regarding a shortage of student housing. Given the housing situation and the finite amount of land near the University he asked if the City wanted to cut potential densities thereby cutting campus housing. The amendments, particularly the parking requirements, would effectively halt new multi-family development near the University. It was bad long term planning because it reduced housing, raised the cost of existing housing and increased the number of students driving to campus. The amendments needed and deserved more in-depth study. Laura Longdon, 4675 Goodpasture Loop, #82, Director of Government Affairs for HBA of Lane County. The HBA opposed Amendments 5, 7 and 8, because they were not minor in scope and had large policy effects on the community. She provided written testimony to the City Council. The amendments had long term effects and violated State Land Use Law. Proposed Amendments 5 and 7 were contrary to the Metro Plan policies for housing and the Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD) Goal 10 Administrative Rule for housing. Both the Metro Plan policies and DLCD Goal 10 rule were mandatory standards for the proposed amendments to the code. The Metro Plan anticipated the demand for residential land would be met through redevelopment and infill, and required that the zoning districts allow density ranges consistent with the Plan. It called for increased density allowed in the metropolitan area through code amendments. The proposed amendments reduced the height allowed along perimeter of any site zoned R-3 and R-4 without increasing the height allowed in the middle of the sites, which effectively downzoned property and precluded building the number of units the Metro Plan allowed on the sites. The parking requirement further aggravated that impact. By increasing the amount of required parking without increasing allowed height, the City further decreased the potential to develop units. DLCD Goal 10 rules required Metro Plan designations for all residential lands that identified the allowed density. The City of Eugene had an obligation to adopt and apply zoning designations that allowed the maximum planned residential densities. The HBA asked the City Council to refer Amendments 5, 7 and 8 be referred to the ICS for further review. Katrina Wester, 3550 Sterling Woods, Ward 5, thanked the Council for its service and leadership to the community. She owned a small construction company and was past president of the HBA. She said we all lived in the community and needed to work together to plan for the community’s future. The community would continue to grow and the citizens needed to make difficult choices on how and where to accommo- date that growth. GMPs policies addressed growth within the UGB and the University area was zoned for and was the most practical location for high density development. However, proposed Amendments 5 and 7 would effectively downzone the property and needed further consideration. State law required that the City have a 20 year supply of buildable land and the high density zoning was taken into account when the study was performed. The task of deciding where the City would accommodate growth was not a simple one, and Amendments 5 and 7 had complex consequences to their implementation, thus needing more consideration. As the amendments were currently written, the conflicted with the City’s GMPs and the Metro Plan and Oregon land use law. MINUTES—Eugene City Council June 16, 2008 Page 10 Work Session Jozef Siekiel-Zdzienicki, 1025 Taylor, Ward 1, was a renter. He said the City’s method of determining building height by measuring from halfway up the roofline did not make sense. Lack of provisions for buffer zones with no transition in residential areas was short-sighted. Although underground parking was expensive, it was an option. He urged the City Council to pass the MICAP amendments. Pauline Hutson, 1025 Taylor, lived in a small infill house. Her family had a modest income and the availability of affordable housing in safe, attractive neighborhoods was important to them. Eugene had a limited number of affordable small homes for rent or purchase, particularly in neighborhoods where people with modest incomes wanted to live rather than were forced to live. The Jefferson and Westside neighbor- hoods had affordable, appealing housing with friendly neighbors that was within walking distance to stores, restaurants and the library. It was important that the character and stability of the established neighbor- hoods not be degraded by the “human warehouse” apartments that were being jammed in alleys and back yards by developers with no concern for the community. The HPB chair did not speak for her when opposing the proposed MCAs to help prevent degradation of her neighborhood and community. She asked the City Council to approve the amendments that would help protect Eugene’s neighborhoods. Ed McMahon, 1233 Hilo Drive, Executive Director of the HBA said the Planning Commission had recommended that Amendments 5 and 7 be forwarded to the ICS and the HPB had agreed with the Commission. He expressed concerns about Amendments 3, 8, 9, and 11. He encouraged the Council to forward Amendments 5, 7 and 8 to the ICS for more citizen involvement, adding that to do otherwise would be in direct conflict with GMPs 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 10 and 11. A workable compromise existed supported by the feeling that everyone loved the community. He asked that the Council allow the necessary dialogue to take place and thanked it for its commitment to the community. Rob Handy, 455½ River Road, past co-chair of the NLC, had met with representatives from the Chamber of Commerce, the HBA, Friends of Eugene, City staff and consultants, to develop a process for the MCA process. The twelve proposed amendments had been unanimously endorsed by the NLC and the ICS. It was important to grow in a way that the community could see the vitality in the core of the neighborhoods. He supported Amendment 8, RR/SC stormwater issues, and asked that it be moved forward. Jim Torrey, 3393 Arlington Avenue, Ward 4, was not surprised by the conflict seen tonight. He asked the Council to reconsider the recommendation of the committee that was appointed four years ago to review the land use code on an annual basis. If the Council had done that, many of the issues raised tonight could have been brought to the Council earlier, before the conflict position was reached. He was convinced that most people had no idea of what was involved in the land use code until it impacted them and their neighborhood. The predictability of the code was key. If the Council wanted to earn the trust of the people, it needed to be able to give them an opportunity to bring issues to the Council when they learned it had an impact on them, their neighborhood or as an industry. He urged the City Council to reconsider the recommendation of a broad-based group of people. He noted that group had to agree by 75 percent before they brought issues to the Council. He strongly urged the Council to consider the need to review the code every year. th Deborah Healey, 360 East 15 Avenue, Chair of WUNA, Ward 3, said the WUN was the most densely populated neighborhood in Eugene, had a lot of experience with infill of various kinds and had actively participated in the MICAP process during the last 18 months. During the last few years, there had been a dramatic increase from one and two-bedroom units to four to six-bedroom units, with an average of 3.5 bedrooms and 200 bedrooms built or proposed in 2007. To date in 2008, 135 bedrooms were proposed or under construction, and well on track to exceed the 2007 figures. The neighborhood had a high student MINUTES—Eugene City Council June 16, 2008 Page 11 Work Session population, with 3,000 of the 5,500 residents in the 20-24 year old range. Six or seven of the nine WUNA Board members were renters because less than two percent of the residents were owner-occupiers. Most of the residents in the 20-24 age group were not families with children, but individuals, each of whom could have a car. Parking was not needed for every person in the apartments, but it was time to make a change. th Rene Kane , 254 West 14 Avenue, recently attended a City sponsored conference on Smart Growth. The expert speakers talked about how cities could be responsive to environmental, social, and economic issues when considering where and how to grow. She noted the conference had been attended by local elected officials and staff, building and design professionals, and neighborhood representatives. Qualities being incorporated into Smart Growth communities already existed in her neighborhood and other close-in neighborhoods such as Whiteaker, SUN and WUN. The neighborhoods were walkable, dense and diverse, with a good balance of open space and structures, both private and public, residential and commercial uses. There were eyes on the street and ample street tree canopies, the neighborhoods were pedestrian in scale while accommodating cars and bicycles. MICAP had been an involved community dialogue. She encouraged the Council to adopt the proposed twelve code amendments. th Steve Baker, 360 East 15 Avenue, Ward 3, said lack of onsite parking had been a serious problem in WUN since the 1970’s. Based upon the latest Harris Poll, 72 percent of students at the University had vehicles at college, most of which were covered by the Residential Parking Program due to the parking shortage. In 2007, 860 residential parking permits and 50 commuter parking permits were issued. WUNA proposed code amendments in 2006 that were fully supported by MICAP to deal with a few new projects being built with three to six bedrooms and minimal parking. The proposal was approved unanimously by ICS. The staff proposal submitted to the Planning Commission was more restrictive than the WUNA proposal, and the Commission decided against changing the code amendments. WUNA strongly urged the City Council approve the amendment originally submitted to the Planning Commission. He recently completed a detailed analysis of the 26 of the most recent multi-family infill projects. Over 80 percent of the projects met or exceeded the parking proposals submitted to the Council and contrary to some testimony tonight, the projects with adequate parking had a greater density, of 55 units per acre, compared to the projects with a density of 38 units per acres, which had inadequate parking. Additionally, the two highest density projects in the R-4 zone in the neighborhood exceeded the WUNA code proposal by 18 to 42 percent, and were close to the maximum allowable density in the R-4 zone, or above 100 units per acre. He asserted that the WUNA parking proposals did not affect the allowable density. Residents spent a lot of time looking for parking which was not sustainable. th Charles Snyder, 990 West 12 Avenue, Ward 1, said the MICAP process had resulted in a set of proposed code amendments that would help reverse the erosion of Eugene’s residential neighborhoods. The amendments, unanimously endorsed by the NLC, reflected the input of many people in Eugene who represented civic, professional, industry and neighborhood organizations. As a community, Eugene had decided to limit urban sprawl and determined to accommodate growth within the UGB, although how to do that had not been accomplished. The Opportunity Siting program was a joint effort between the City and the neighborhoods which applied an urban strategy to accommodate growth while preserving the livability of existing neighborhoods. It was not necessary to destroy neighborhoods to contain sprawl. The types of homes built should be initiated by the people who would live there. It was unfair and unwise to suggest that compassionate treatment of the disadvantaged was in conflict with people’s desire for livable neighborhoods. Eugene’s neighborhoods were home to people who generously donated time and resources to the City’s helping organizations. The leaders of those organizations were ill-served by disparaging their supporters’ desire to be comfortable in their homes. He urged the City Council to approve proposed MICAP Amendments 3-12, 14, and 17. MINUTES—Eugene City Council June 16, 2008 Page 12 Work Session Michael Webb, 1492 Washington Street, supported adoption of the MCAs. This would affect the HBA but there would still be plenty of business opportunities available. Marilyn Mohr, 1085 North Park Avenue, was a Lane County resident, member of the River Road Community Organization (RRCO) Board and member of the ICS. She supported the twelve proposed amendments, including Amendments 5, 7, and 8. Neighborhood volunteers who proposed the amendments had thoroughly considered the impacts and had responded to concerns from the Planning Commission, the HBA, and the HPB. In the findings included in the AIS for this meeting, although some of the amendments addressed residential standards, the land use code amendments did not compact the supply or availability of residential lands. The sustainable neighborhood amendments were supported by the NLC and unanimously endorsed by ICS. She hoped the City’s stated goals of allowing growth while maintaining the character and livability of neighborhoods would prove to be a priority. th Carol DeFazio, 1437 West 10 Avenue, had submitted written testimony via e-mail. She supported the MCAs and urged the City Council to consider them carefully and adopt them. Mayor Piercy closed the public hearing and the public record on the matter before the City Council. She thanked everyone who attended the hearing. The Council was scheduled to take action on July 14, 2008. Councilor Clark thanked everyone who came to the hearing. He had several questions that he would submit to staff via e-mail for response prior to the City Council making a decision. 3. PUBLIC HEARING: Downtown Code Amendments Mayor Piercy opened the public hearing on the Downtown Code Amendments. She explained the process for conducting a public hearing. She said speakers would be limited to three minutes each and asked that City of Eugene residents identify which ward they lived in. John Brown, 101 East Broadway, Ward 5, was speaking on his own behalf, and not on behalf of any board or commission of which he may be a member. He distributed photographs of property at 260 West th 10 Avenue, consisting of commercial space on the ground floor and housing on the second floor, which had been the subject of a Ballot Measure 37 claim brought against the City for a density variance in the 1.0 Floor Area Ration (FAR). The development was not financially feasible with the code required density. If the Measure 37 claim procedure had not been available and had gone back through the entire code, he would not have had to comply with stormwater standards and some other development design standards that had been included in the project. If the variance had not been granted, the site could have been sold to neighbors who wanted the site for a parking lot. He asked the Council to listen to local people, consider financial feasibility and understand that sometimes it was necessary to subsidize development downtown. The Council could not legislate financial feasibility unless it was willing to subsidize it as it had done in the past. It was important to listen to the people who lived in the community and wanted to do development “right”. Terry Connolly, 1401 Willamette Street, on behalf of the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce, supported the proposed Downtown Code Amendments and urged the City Council to approve them as recommended MINUTES—Eugene City Council June 16, 2008 Page 13 Work Session by the Planning Commission. Individually and collectively each of the proposed code amendments would remove some of the barriers that were in the way of attracting new investment, new projects, and more employers in downtown Eugene, and was especially true for local businesses that may wish to invest in downtown. The proposed code amendments were a step in the right direction for the City Council to achieve an economic vital downtown featuring a diverse mix of uses as envisioned in the Downtown Plan. Current code requirements such as the 1.0 FAR and 20 space parking maximum may have been well intentioned when first enacted but they have had unintended consequences as evidenced by seven years of very little private sector development activity in downtown compared to the development activity going on elsewhere in the community. The proposed code amendments were more in line with the basic economic and market conditions and/or limitations for a city the size of Eugene. Allowing adjustment review for all parcels was a good thing. This was not the first time a Eugene Planning Commission had recommended .65 FAR as being appropriate for the overlay zone. It should be noted that .65 FAR was precisely what the Planning Commission recommended eight years ago when it forwarded the Land Use Code Update (LUCU) to the City Council. This was an important opportunity for the City Council. The Chamber of Commerce urged the Council to approve the Downtown Code Amendments. He thanked the City Council and Planning staff for their work and public involvement opportunities provided through the process. Lisa Warnes, 5020 Nectar Way, Ward 2, said there was an implementation strategy in the Downtown Plan that said, “in order to identify impediments for achieving higher density in mixed use development and redevelopment downtown a regulatory audit is necessary.” The Plan further said, “perform a regulatory audit to identify impediments to achieving higher density, mixed use development and redevelopment downtown.” She was unaware of any audit in forming the proposed amendments. The process should be audit first, identification of impediments, and then development of a proposal based on audit findings. Staff findings stated “the proposed code amendments assist private developers to invest downtown by removing impediments in the land use code.” She said the statement was not supported by facts and the record provided no data based on information establishing what the impediments were. The findings failed to address the applicable TransPlan related Metro Plan nodal development policies. She urged the City Council to reject all Downtown Code Amendments until the proposed Chapter 9 amendments to encourage downtown development were based on factual information. Gary Wildish, 2424 Quince Street, supported a vibrant, active downtown. Not much had happened in downtown during the last seven years as most people would have wished. He suggested verifying how many dollars of permitted work had been allowed in the downtown area and comparing it with the amount of commercial development that had occurred outside of the downtown area. He opined everyone would be disappointed in the significance of development going other places, such as Coburg Road and Delta Highway. He encouraged the Council to support the Planning Commission and staff recommendations. Bruce Mulligan, 3056 Hendricks Hill Drive, Ward 3, supported the Planning Commission’s recommenda- tions for the MCAs, which was one of a two stage process. He said the proposed .65 FAR change would increase actual FARs in the area which were currently approximately .25 FAR. He had been briefly th involved with the WestTown on 8 project which had received a waiver from the City Council for development purposes. That low-income housing project would meet .65 FAR and was an asset to the community. It was necessary to create an easy way for people to invest in Eugene in great projects. The changes recommended by the Planning Commission would enhance the capability of Eugene to attract those dollars and see the projects we want to see happen. Some of the lowest land values in the community were in the downtown core, whereas they should be some of the highest values. He supported the Planning Commission recommendations and looked forward to the recommendations that would come from the second stage of the land use code changes evaluation process MINUTES—Eugene City Council June 16, 2008 Page 14 Work Session Kevin Matthews, P.O. Box 1588, President, Friends of Eugene, cited several State of Oregon legislative bills regarding greenhouse gas emissions and local sustainability issues, and how they related to downtown. The DLCD sent the City of Eugene a letter regarding reducing downtown density. Construction in downtown reduced vehicle miles traveled (VMT) for the metropolitan area, while construction in the perimeter of the UGB increased VMT. He suggested the City Council should ask staff for documentation of how building permits changed when the land use code was changed and do the regulatory audit called for in the Downtown Plan. Dan Montgomery, 66 Club Road, Ward 5, said in the most active real estate market in this area ever, very few if any new private buildings had been built in the Transit District Overlay (/TD) area. Adjustments needed to be made and for that reason he supported all of the proposed Downtown Code Amendments before the City Council. He recalled the amendments were included in the staff recommendation on code changes eight years ago. The current parking maximum of 20 spaces was not workable and an adjustment review process needed to be available for all properties within the /TD overlay zone. The current code had been a failure and had forced development to go to suburban areas and Springfield, causing more use of more fuels and more emissions. Approving the Downtown Code Amendments would be a step in the right direction. Will Shaver, 3846 Peppertree, Ward 8, spoke in favor of the Downtown Code Amendments on his own behalf, and not on behalf of the Sustainability Commission. He understood the dilemma brought forward by Mr. Matthews wanting to reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses while promoting density, which were values agreed on by many in the community. The past seven years had been very lean years from a downtown development perspective. He proposed a new slogan for downtown, Downtown Eugene: Please Drive Somewhere Else, which was what had happened. Development had occurred in the new downtown Eugene on Coburg Road, and in the new Eugene in Springfield, and all around the borders that caused people like Mr. Shaver to have to drive farther or ride his bike a ridiculous distance to procure goods and services. The current 1.0 FAR had been ineffective in accomplishing the community’s goal of reducing parking, based upon the pits and lack of building downtown. To reach the high density everyone sought, there needed to be incremental changes. Parking spaces did not create revenue but allowed people to do business. Eventually, as land values and density increased, parking spaces would be eliminated. In other downtowns with high land values, parking was inefficient use of the land. Lauri Segel, 642 Charnelton, Goal One Coalition, said the plan did not have a factual basis and she felt the policies relied on were the wrong policies to be looking at and the right policies were not looked at. The Downtown Plan should be predicated on other policies and Strategy F of the Downtown Plan related to regulatory audits had not been followed. The proposal was based on non-quantitative information that development did not pan out downtown. Going backwards and ignoring nodal development policies and DLCD direction did not make sense. The TransPlan and Metro Plan had barely been touched on, and adequate analysis had not been performed. She submitted written testimony for inclusion in the public record. Mayor Piercy closed the public hearing. Ms. Jerome said there was a written request to keep the public record open through June 30, and staff had recommended this would work with the City Council’s timeline. Mayor Piercy noted consensus of the City Council to keep the public record open until June 30, 2008. MINUTES—Eugene City Council June 16, 2008 Page 15 Work Session Councilor Poling noted six of the seven speakers who provided testimony to the Planning Commission about increasing the number of allowable dogs to provide temporary housing for foster dogs were not City residents. He asked for clarification on what change in the amendment meant for the number of allowable dogs within the City limits. Councilor Bettman asked staff to respond to the quantitative TransPlan nodal requirements and reduction in VMTs. She said housing was the key to redeveloping downtown and she wanted to see numbers. She heard that rents were high downtown in comparison to other parts of the City and overall the property values were brought down downtown by the west Broadway area because the much of the property was owned by one entity that allowed the property to deteriorate for many years thus bringing down the values. She asked to see a copy of the letter from DLCD referenced by several speakers tonight. Councilor Clark had previously asked for the list of properties redeveloped the last seven years. He concurred that much of downtown development was actually redevelopment. He asked for a comparison of permitted dollars for both developed and redeveloped properties both in downtown and outside of downtown. He also asked for a comparison of relative land values in downtown Eugene compared to the land values in downtown of other Oregon cities of comparable size, and versus similar types of develop- ment in other parts of Eugene. Mayor Piercy commented when comparing development downtown it was difficult to go back more than seven years. She cited stores leaving downtown for the malls, the covered downtown mall, urban renewal and other experiences over time, and said Eugene had been in a recovery in downtown since the 1970’s. It was looking more positive now than in a low time, with the construction of the Tate Building, WestTown th on 8, reopening of streets, and renovation of the Center Court building. Councilor Bettman asked for a description of the viability created by the proposed code changes for demolition of existing buildings and somebody putting in a paid surface parking lot. The area in question was the transit oriented area of downtown. How much housing could be built? She asked for information from staff on the regulatory audit. Councilor Clark asked staff to provide information on the FAR in current buildings and what the FAR would change to under the proposed .65 FAR. Councilor Zelenka asked to see the DLCD letter and the original parking amendment proposed by WUN. He also asked for clarification on a statement made by Rob Handy that ICS unanimously supported all of the proposed amendments. Mayor Piercy thanked City Councilors and members of the public for their participation in tonight’s public hearing. The meeting adjourned at 9:45 p.m. Respectfully submitted, MINUTES—Eugene City Council June 16, 2008 Page 16 Work Session Jon Ruiz City Manager (Recorded by Linda Henry) MINUTES—Eugene City Council June 16, 2008 Page 17 Work Session ATTACHMENT B M I N U T E S Eugene City Council Regular Meeting Council Chamber—Eugene City Hall July 14, 2008 7:30 p.m. COUNCILORS PRESENT: Chris Pryor, Bonny Bettman, Mike Clark, Andrea Ortiz, Betty Taylor, Jennifer Solomon, Alan Zelenka, George Poling. Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the regular meeting of the Eugene City Council to order. 1. PUBLIC FORUM Mayor Piercy reviewed the rules of the Public Forum. Drix , West 14th Avenue, was happy with the cleanup of the hole on Willamette Street. He recounted the experience and thanked Mayor Piercy for participating. He declared that through nothing they had gained something. He said they needed to be sure that what was built at that site was good. He noted that he lived in the University district, where the young people did not always know not to have parties. He tried to share a sense of integrity with them. He also related that he had attended the Olympics and interviewed people asking them what they knew of Eugene. He said perceptions were that the City was smart, green, and supportive of track activities. Roger Condos , 3281 Wintercreek Drive, spoke regarding Consent Calendar Item D, a proposed annexation. He related that a major windstorm had caused a tree to fall into his house in 2002. He said an arborist that had come out in the aftermath told him that the trees in the area proposed to be annexed had helped keep the other trees standing as a wind barrier. He feared that if the annexation went through it would put his house at risk again. He noted that there were ten 80-foot fir trees in his backyard as well as numerous animals. He stated that west of his residence a new development had been opened up and approximately 180 homes were supposed to be built, but only two lots had sold thus far. He averred that now was not a good time to add more lots. James Irwin , 3259 Wintercreek Drive, also wished to speak about the annexation request for Westfair Associates (A 08-2). He related that he and his wife had purchased their property five years earlier for the view, the wildlife, and the privacy. He felt the proposed annexation would “finish all that off.” He explained that they would have a buffer zone of approximately 35 feet, which was not enough to mitigate what he considered to be “a clear-cutting event.” He read the following bullet points into the record: ? The land zoned R-1, Residential was approximately 50 feet and the land behind it was zoned A, Agricultural; ? No provisions had been made with regard to the retention pond, which fed the wildlife; ? Based on the developers past track record, he feared the land would be cleared of all trees; MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 14, 2008 Page 1 Regular Meeting ? The City had a reputation of not allowing the Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) to be expanded. He averred that the property would not support the services needed for development. Ben Mondragon , 3265 Wintercreek Drive, also spoke in opposition to the annexation item. He said when he and his wife bought their home they had been led to believe they were not within the UGB. He underscored that they had purchased it because they wanted a “certain lifestyle and ambiance.” He echoed Mr. Irwin’s concern regarding the possible loss of the pond. He averred that in looking at some of the developers’ projects he felt they had a “scorched earth policy,” removing every tree and then asking the new home buyers to replant with trees not native to the area. He was also concerned there would be issues with the runoff. He believed there was currently an excess housing inventory in the south hills. He also expressed concern there would not be adequate access for emergency vehicles. He requested that the council deny the annexation. Del Johnson , 3247 Wintercreek Drive, spoke in tandem with the previous three speakers. He had bought his house ten years earlier and had been assured at that time that the land behind him would not be developed. This had contributed to the decision to purchase his home. He felt like they lived in a wildlife refuge. He expressed concern about the underground springs in the area, noting there were flooding issues in one area of his yard. He declared that this annexation flew in the face of what Eugene stood for. He said there were developments all around his property. He felt traffic would be an issue as well. He urged the councilors to vote against Consent Calendar Item D. Micheal M. Reeder , 800 Willamette Street, Suite 800, indicated he represented the owners of the properties on Wintercreek Drive. He said staff had suggested the item be pulled and allowed to go to a public hearing in September. He believed the annexation request represented an end run on the UGB expansion process in violation of Goal 14 and the Eugene Code (EC) 9.7825(1). He noted that he had submitted a packet of information to the council that included a diagram of the property and the UGB. He alleged that what was being proposed would expand the UGB to the south and would erroneously enter potentially developable property without going through the UGB expansion process. He reiterated the residents’ request for the council to deny the annexation. He also took issue with the application, averring that it was “quite incomplete.” He asserted that it did not show that services could be adequately provided to the property. He referred the council to Exhibit 3 in the written testimony. Zachary Vishanoff , somewhere on Patterson Street, declared that the council’s public hearing scheduled for July 21 was “incredibly important.” He alleged that the University’s arena project could “balloon” to $300 million. He did not believe the project would be built. He hoped everyone would come and testify at the hearings for alley vacations. He believed any decision could be appealed to the Land Use Board of Appeals th (LUBA) for a nominal fee. He said a dorm had “popped up” over the course of the summer at 16 Avenue and Moss Street. He felt that the University’s style of development was “unilateral and secretive” and “spiraling out of control.” He predicted that the dorm would throw the arena project off. He also asserted that the person chairing the Historic Review Board had a conflict of interest because she was the Univer- sity’s “developer.” He believed the University was breaking the law and the City was abetting. Joe Collins , PO Box 24417, related that he had visited a Web site that featured vocabulary multiple choice tests and for each word defined correctly, 20 grains of rice would allegedly be donated to poor people. He had also gone to a breast cancer site that provided free mammograms for women based on the number of clicks. He thought it would be great to have a site like that wherein every time someone clicked in a penny would be donated by sponsors to the needy of Eugene. He said there could be sites for people whose needs were not being met for dental or medical care, for addiction services, to hire a cop or fix a pothole, to find a job, repair glasses, and to provide free showers, bathrooms, and beds. He averred that these were things that MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 14, 2008 Page 2 Regular Meeting the Mayor and City Councilors would not provide because they were primarily interested in development, downtown redevelopment, and tax breaks and tax exemptions for developers. th Steven Bennett , 494 East 15 Avenue, thanked the council for establishing the Multiple Unit Property Tax Exemption (MUPTE) in his neighborhood. He believed that the incentive, pursuant to State law, encour- aged a higher quality of housing. He said the City had taken that “higher quality concept and ran with it” in 2004, adding standards that reflected the values of the community. He stated that as the councilors had read in the materials submitted, the North Park proposal exceeded the council’s requirements. He thought it should be supported by the council as it included the required use of green building techniques, sustainable construction practices, excellent Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) accessibility, maximum density design, and use of non- or low-toxic materials. He added that use of solar power was being considered. He believed that the proposal went beyond requirements stipulated in the application, integrating additional features requested by the neighborhood such as having more parking than required and making it hidden. He averred that the building would serve as a buffer from a “massive” over-park. He showed pictures of the area, noting that it would be a secure building for the safety of the tenants. He agreed that each application for a MUPTE should be diligently reviewed. He was concerned that for some applications denial would be automatic. He quoted Mayor Piercy, who had said denying developers’ applications set an “unfair situation for those people who thought they were playing by the rules.” He stressed that the North Park project was designed to meet the needs of the community and would be split between students and non-students. He closed by underscoring that the site was underdeveloped and the value currently lay in the land. Jim Lewis , 1555 Washington Street, stated that he worked for GLAS Architects, the architects hired for the North Park Apartment project. He echoed Mr. Bennett’s comments. He averred that the project would be vital to the needs of the community. He pointed out that it was fully supported by the neighborhood and was the kind of development they were looking for. He said the location was convenient to the University, the th hospital, and the commercial area on 13 Avenue. He hoped the apartments would appeal to both students and the general public. He stated that previous neighborhood concerns would be addressed by the provision of extra parking and by keeping the building at three stories so that it fit the scale of what was already there. He believed the project would improve the neighborhood. He noted that the existing big leaf maple tree would be preserved. He related that they were looking at a high quality design, with an elevator to provide accessibility, and they hoped to achieve a Leading in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standard of silver or gold. Jozef Siekiel-Zdzienicki , 1025 Taylor Street, thanked the City for co-sponsoring the Olympic Trials. He thought local businesses had not fared as well as they had anticipated and hoped the City would work to promote them more when the trials were next hosted by the City. Mr. Siekel-Zdizienicki stated that the Lane Transit District (LTD) had held workshops the previous week. thth He said the first workshop was for plans for the 6 and 7 Avenues section of the future EmX expansion th and the second one focused on 13 Avenue. He related that the workshops broke people into groups and residents were discussing the streets, traffic patterns, and what would or would not help. He complained about the lack of City staff presence. Also Mr. Siekel-Zdizienicki wanted to encourage the council to support the Minor Code Amendments as they were presented. th Randolph Stenersen , 159 East 15 Avenue, showed an area photo of downtown Eugene, which he believed depicted “lots of buildings, streets, and parking places.” He averred that many of these facilities were vacant and underutilized. He felt the City’s response to this was to engage in “development schemes” in MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 14, 2008 Page 3 Regular Meeting order to bring another building downtown. He said the reasoning was based on the “field of dreams/Taj Mahal theory” of development: if the City would build just the right development people would “flock” downtown to see it. He averred that the money the City had left, a “paltry $40 million or so,” left the City with developments that were “instead of vast, half-vast.” He recalled the construction of Broadway Place, once considered justification for cutting down “beautiful trees,” which was supposed to be Mixed Use, Residential and Retail development. He had visited it the previous week and found it to be very quiet. He remarked that using the subsidy to promote student housing would create an “unfortunate side effect,” in that the University campus was far away and the Lane Community College (LCC) campus was even farther. He said by taking 472 student bodies and multiplying that by their weight it meant that there would be 20 to 30 tons of students to put on the LTD system, which was already struggling because of rising fuel costs. He noted that he frequently rode on the EmX and it was crowded. He suggested that instead of bringing another building downtown, the solution would be to make downtown more pleasant. He suggested that the City should put a park in the “pit.” He thought much of the cost could be offset by the same type of donation system that supported the library. George Brown , 1740 Graham Street, spoke in support of the Beam Development proposal for the Sears site. He commented that the process to get a building on that site had been long and frustrating. He encouraged the council to reflect on both proposals and to consider possibly including a park there. He averred that a lot of people would be disappointed and angry if there was no park space. He also wanted to be sure the apartments would not be solely reserved for University of Oregon students. Mayor Piercy closed the Public Forum and called on the council for questions and remarks. Councilor Clark thanked everyone who spoke. He indicated his intention to pull Item D on the Consent Calendar. He agreed with testimony regarding the possibility of a park in the downtown area. He thought the opportunity for expansion or to develop more fully the Park Blocks area might meet that need. 2. CONSENT CALENDAR A. Approval of City Council Minutes - April 16, 2008, Work Session - May 12, 2008, Work Session - May 12, 2008, City Council Meeting - May 14, 2008, Work Session - May 19, 2008, Public Hearing - May 27, 2008, Work Session - May 28, 2008, Work Session B. Approval of Tentative Working Agenda C. Annexation Request for Eugene School District 4J (A 008-1) D. Annexation Request for Westfair Associates (A 08-2) E. Approval of Police Auditor Cost of Living Adjustment Councilor Pryor, seconded by Councilor Bettman, moved to approve the items on the Con- sent Calendar. Councilor Taylor pulled Items C and D. Councilor Bettman indicated that she had submitted minutes corrections via email. Mayor Piercy deemed the corrections, without objection, approved. MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 14, 2008 Page 4 Regular Meeting Roll call vote; the Consent Calendar with the exception of Items C and D passed unani- mously, 8:0. Councilor Taylor, seconded by Councilor Bettman, moved to hold a public hearing for Item C, Annexation Request for Eugene School District 4J (A 008-1). Councilor Ortiz asked what the purpose of holding a public hearing on the school district’s request would be. Lydia McKinney, Associate Planner for the Planning and Development Department (PDD), responded that the School District 4J request was straight forward and the property was already entirely within city limits. She underscored that the item was coming before the council as a result of the ordinance that had abolished the Boundary Commission in Lane County. Councilor Ortiz asked what would be accomplished by the annexation. Ms. McKinney replied that staff was responding to the applicant’s request to annex and the applicant had no specific plans at this time for development. Councilor Zelenka asked why they would not choose to hold a public hearing. He averred that annexations were a “big deal.” In response to a question from Councilor Bettman, Ms. McKinney confirmed that the annexation had been noticed according to law, but she did not know how many notices had been sent. She indicated she would find out and let Councilor Bettman know. Councilor Bettman remarked that the objective for annexing could be for the purpose of building a school or it could be to bring the property into the City and then sell it. She saw no reason for not holding a public hearing. Roll call vote; the motion passed, 6:2; councilors Clark and Poling voting in opposition. Mayor Piercy called for discussion of Item D. Councilor Taylor opined that neither annexation request was suitable for the Consent Calendar. Councilor Taylor, seconded by Councilor Clark, moved to deny Item D, theAnnexation Request for Westfair Associates (A 08-2). Councilor Bettman declared that a UGB expansion was a land use issue, with a process specific to it. She supported denying the application and then the applicant could undertake the process for a MetroPlan amendment. Ms. McKinney explained that an annexation in cases like this would be the process that would set the UGB. She said one of the reasons staff recommended a public hearing in this instance was that it was not just an annexation, it also included a determination of where the UGB lay. She underscored that they were still trying to determine whether the UGB fell where the neighbors thought it did or where the applicant thought it did. City Attorney Glenn Klein informed the council that a denial had to be supported by findings. He stated that the council would need to direct staff to provide said findings. MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 14, 2008 Page 5 Regular Meeting Councilor Taylor amended her motion to reflect counsel’s advice. Councilor Clark reiter- ated his second. Councilor Bettman did not understand why an annexation that would add acreage to the UGB would not trigger a land use process. City Attorney Emily Jerome confirmed that the addition of acreage would trigger a land use process. She said they needed to determine if the annexation would do so. She recommended either tabling the motion or scheduling a public hearing. Councilor Bettman, seconded by Councilor Zelenka, moved to table the motion. Roll call vote; the motion passed, 6:2; councilors Solomon and Poling voted in opposition. 3. ACTION: Resolution 4949 Calling a City Election on November 4, 2008, for the Purpose of Referring to the Legal Electors of the City of Eugene a Measure Amending Section 15-A. External Review of Police, of the Eugene Charter of 2002 Councilor Pryor, seconded by Councilor Bettman, moved to adopt Resolution 4949 calling a City election on November 4, 2008, for the purpose of referring to the legal electors of the City of Eugene a measure amending Section 15-A. External Review of Police, of the Eugene Charter of 2002. Councilor Clark, seconded by Councilor Poling, moved to amend the motion to add the words “the July 10 version of the” in front of the Resolution. Councilor Clark understood that this would solve the concerns of the City’s legal staff. He did not want to cause unintended consequences. Councilor Bettman opposed the amendment. She felt the council was taking its authority and delegating it to the Police Auditor. She declared that the amendment would take prescriptive operational language in the ordinance and insert it into the charter. She disagreed with the City Attorney’s interpretation that there would be unintended consequences. She said the language she provided would maintain the auditor’s authority as vested by the charter in the office and make it mandatory instead of optional. She felt this would make it so political changes would not affect the police auditor system. She asserted that the amendment would take the language out of the ordinance and put it into the charter. She averred that the auditor had the ability by charter to monitor internal police investigations and the council then put parameters around it in its ordinance. Councilor Pryor understood that changing ‘may’ to ‘shall’ was creating more of a requirement for the auditor to perform certain functions. He asked if the City Attorney was recommending that the council retain the discretion to choose whether to require. Mr. Klein responded that at present the auditor was authorized to participate in interviews for administrative investigations and the council dictated that the auditor “shall not” participate in criminal investigations until they were completed; making this language change with respect to what the council either could or must authorize the auditor to do would require the council to authorize the auditor to participate in interviews related to criminal investigations. He under- scored that this would require the council to change the existing ordinance. He stated that the language that the auditor and the City’s counsel had come up with was not intended to narrow the council’s flexibility or authorization; it was intended to retain the authorization and the power the council currently had without a requirement to change the ordinance to allow the auditor to participate in such an investigation. MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 14, 2008 Page 6 Regular Meeting In response to a follow-up question from Councilor Pryor, Mr. Klein stated that the change in Attachment A directed the council to change the ordinance to authorize what it had presently prohibited the auditor from doing, which was participating in criminal interviews. He averred that changing it this way would require, post the voters’ approval, that the council revise the ordinance. He said adopting the July 10 version of the Resolution would mean the council would not need to change the ordinance as it would preserve what currently existed in the ordinance. He reiterated that the council had the authority to change the ordinance but if the Resolution was passed as it was presented in Attachment A it would require the council to change it. Councilor Pryor asked if the council have to also add all of the additional language if they did not change the second part to ‘shall’ and just left it as ‘may.’ Mr. Klein replied that this would still require the council to appoint an auditor, but it would continue to say that the council ‘may’ authorize the duties and powers of the auditor. Councilor Pryor did not think anyone had a problem with the first ‘shall,’ it was the second ‘shall’ that would make changes; if it went forward with the charter vote as such it would be a much simpler measure to put forward. Mr. Klein affirmed that this was correct. Councilor Zelenka did not believe that ‘shall monitor’ would mean the auditor would be required to be involved in every criminal investigation. He asked if the language included the second ‘shall’ whether they would also be required to include the subsection (b) of that section – that the City would also contract with persons or entities to perform outside investigations of such complaints. Mr. Klein affirmed that it would but pointed out that the ordinance already authorized the auditor to contract for outside investigations. He said the council would not be requiring the auditor to be involved in criminal investigations, instead the council would be required to allow the auditor to be involved in criminal investigations. Councilor Zelenka asked why the principle of subsection (b) would not apply to subsection (c) which stated that the auditor was allowed to participate in criminal investigations but the auditor did not have to. Mr. Klein replied that this symmetry was in the charter amendment but it did not exist in the ordinance the council passed. He reiterated that the ordinance currently in place required the auditor to be involved in administrative investigations and prohibited the auditor from being involved in criminal investigations. He stressed that the difference in this was that the language change would require the ordinance to change to allow this and presently the ordinance prohibited it. Councilor Zelenka asked whether approval of the July 10 version would prohibit the auditor from participating in criminal investigations. Mr. Klein responded that it would allow the council to retain the flexibility to decide what a review of a criminal investigation would include, whether it would be a review after the fact or if it would be undertaken throughout the process. In response to a follow-up question from Councilor Zelenka, Mr. Klein explained that ‘monitor’ was not absolutely defined in the language, the council had the discretion to allow it or not. Councilor Clark was in favor of the idea. He averred that the people had spoken clearly – the City needed a strong police review process. He agreed that they should strengthen the language to state that the City ‘shall’ have a police auditor. He was not interested in adding Councilor Bettman’s language because he believed it would bind future City Councils. He did not want to add prescriptive language, adding his feeling that the language proposed by his colleague would change the nature of what the auditor was doing. Councilor Poling concurred. He thanked the Mayor for being able to see the possible unintended conse- quences and making the request that the legal staff work to determine those potential consequences. He felt MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 14, 2008 Page 7 Regular Meeting that the City Attorney had worked out the issues in the language and the Police Auditor was agreeable with the wording in the July 10 version. Councilor Bettman asserted that the July 10 language prohibited the authority by specifically limiting the oversight to administrative investigations. She disagreed with the City Attorney’s legal opinion that changing the language from ‘may’ to ‘shall’ would then require the council to give the auditor full authority to participate in investigations. She declared that it was up to the council to put operational parameters around the office. She asserted that the legal counsel had changed his mind before regarding language in this ordinance and she questioned his interpretation. She declared it was inconsistent between the two provisions. She likened Councilor Clark’s motion to “splitting the baby.” She alleged that the language in the July 10 version of the Resolution would make it so that the authority vested by the voters in the police auditor would be “optional according to who was in office at the moment.” She opined that this could mean the City would be paying a lot of taxpayer money for the Police Auditor and it would be a “completely illusory” form of oversight because there would be no authority behind it. She indicated she would oppose that version. Councilor Zelenka agreed with Councilor Bettman; he would support the original language because he believed the language regarding the auditor should be set in the charter and should not be subject to changes by the council. Councilor Solomon said she would put credence in the work that Police Auditor Cris Beamud and the City’s legal counsel had done together and that Ms. Beamud was amenable to it. She felt that because the auditor’s position was new it had been tough for Ms. Beamud. She was nervous about making a “whole lot of charter amendments.” Councilor Pryor understood and agreed with a lot of Councilor Bettman’s sentiment and what she was trying to do. He pointed out that whatever version was passed by the council would still go to the voters for approval. He averred that he would not lose sleep given that the public would ultimately decide on it. For him it came down to the employer/employee relationship and to what degree the employer wanted to maintain discretion with regard to what they wanted an employee to do. He said philosophically he did not want to “go down a road” that would add language that would direct the employee to make such decisions and not the employer. He indicated he would support the amended version, knowing that Ms. Beamud and Mr. Klein had worked on it. Councilor Clark appreciated Councilor Pryor’s point. He reiterated that either way this would be posed to the voters and the amended version was the version worked out by the Police Auditor and the City Attorney. He believed it would strengthen the piece that indicated Eugene would have a Police Auditor. He averred that the original version created another contentious political issue, in trying to pass something in contradic- tion to what the auditor and attorney had suggested. Mayor Piercy related that she had spoken with Ms. Beamud about the amendment and Ms. Beamud had indicated that she was amenable to the version presently before the council and she would not take issue if the council wished to change it as it was the council’s purview to do so. Councilor Bettman wanted to “preserve” the ordinance and make it mandatory instead of “optional.” She opined that the authority of the auditor was “minimal.” MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 14, 2008 Page 8 Regular Meeting Roll call vote; the vote on the amendment was a tie, 4:4; councilors Pryor, Clark, Solomon, and Poling voting in favor and councilors Ortiz, Bettman, Taylor, and Zelenka voting in opposition. Mayor Piercy voted in opposition of the amendment and it failed. Councilor Poling said he would vote for the Resolution so that it would go before the voters but he could not support it as it was currently written. He declared it to be a mistake not to have gone with the July 10 version. Councilor Clark echoed Councilor Poling. He added his feeling that Councilor Bettman was wrong in her analysis. He averred that the wording going forward did not preserve the ordinance, rather it changed it in a way that would be detrimental to the function of the Police Auditor. Roll call vote; the motion passed, 7:1; Councilor Solomon voting in opposition. Mayor Piercy adjourned the Eugene City Council and convened a meeting of the Eugene Urban Renewal Agency at 9:02 p.m. 4. ACTION: Termination of Purchase Option on Roberts (Taco Time) Property Councilor Pryor, seconded by Councilor Bettman, moved to authorize the Agency Director to terminate the purchase option agreement on the Roberts property upon receipt of the pro- posed $500 payment from the property owner. Councilor Taylor asked why the City was only receiving $500. Division Manager for the Community Development Division, Mike Sullivan, responded that it represented a prorated amount, which meant that much of the option period had gone by and it was the value of the period remaining. Roll call vote; the motion passed unanimously, 8:0. Mayor Piercy closed the meeting of the Urban Renewal Agency at 9:04 p.m. and reconvened the Eugene City Council. 5. ACTION th Application for a Multiple-Unit Property Tax Exemption – 16 Avenue and Hilyard Street Apartments Councilor Pryor, seconded by Councilor Bettman, moved to adopt a resolution denying a th multiple-unit property tax exemption for residential property located at 693 East 16 Ave- nue, Eugene, Oregon (Corey Development, LLC/applicant). Councilor Pryor indicated his opposition to the denial. Mayor Piercy remarked that the applications were being submitted prior to the council’s consideration of potential changes to the Multiple-Unit Property Tax Exemption (MUPTE). She had thought about them and it seemed to her the applications met a lot of the objectives that had been in place when the applications had been made, such as density in the urban core, green building features, and a higher quality of product that could not happen without the MUPTE. She noted that the neighborhood approved of them. MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 14, 2008 Page 9 Regular Meeting Councilor Bettman supported the denial. She reiterated her belief that the MUPTE took money out of the tax rolls. She stressed that each MUPTE came before the council and the council was not bound to approve them. Councilor Taylor concurred. She said the council was never obligated to grant the exemption. She averred that a MUPTE should only be granted if there was a definite advantage to the City. In response to a question from Councilor Poling, Mr. Klein explained that a substitute motion to approve the MUPTE was contained in Attachment A. He underscored that the council could only adopt a motion to deny or a motion to approve in this case. Councilor Poling, seconded by Councilor Solomon, moved to substitute the resolution ap- proving a multiple-unit property tax exemption for residential property located at 693 East th 16 Avenue as written, per Attachment A on page 263 of the City Council agenda packet. Councilor Pryor commented that he was conscious of the City’s and the County’s budget situations, but he did not want to say that the procedure would only apply until the City needed money. He stressed that the council had put a procedure in place that said if the requirements were fulfilled an applicant would qualify for a MUPTE. He likened it to the Enterprise Zone and wondered why the council should not grant the MUPTE. One of the reasons he had heard was that projects would be built anyway. He said this could be true, but for him a non-persuasive reason was that the MUPTE should not be granted because the City needed the money. He averred that this was not part of the procedure; it was based on whether the project would benefit the community and whether the tax benefit would produce a better project. He agreed that the project could potentially be built without the tax exemption but he believed it would not be as nice a project and would not have as many of the things the City was seeking in terms of redevelopment and community improvement. Councilor Zelenka said the purpose of the MUPTE was to create an incentive in an area needing it for development. He did not think the University neighborhood needed this incentive anymore and projects would be built anyway. He thought incentives were appropriate only for development in the downtown area. He echoed Councilor Bettmans’s concern about the “budget picture” for the City, the County, and the school districts. He declared that the total of the three MUPTE exemptions was $240,000 over a ten-year period. He supported denial of all three of the MUPTE applications before the council. Councilor Bettman did not agree that denial of the MUPTE was a change in the rules. She reiterated that the rules were that a threshold should be met and then it was up to the discretion of the council. She believed the projects would be built without an exemption. Councilor Taylor emphasized her belief that the council did not need a reason to deny the tax exemptions. She averred that they needed a compelling reason to grant the exemptions and there was no compelling reason to do so in this case. Councilor Solomon opined that the “tired, old, rundown housing” on these sites was a compelling reason to grant the MUPTE applications. She said Councilor Zelenka only told “half of the story” of what the City would forego over ten years, as the exemption was only on the improvements made to the property. She stressed that the owner would pay property taxes on the land but would be exempted from paying on the improvements for ten years; at the end of ten years the owner paid taxes on the improved property and the City would soon regain the revenue it did not receive. She also pointed out that the MUPTE would enable MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 14, 2008 Page 10 Regular Meeting better housing to be built in the University area for students and the City wanted students to live in the University area. She said helping these three local developers would benefit the City. Councilor Clark called it a wise long-term investment in the livability and financial health of the community. He opined that to define it any other way was wrong. He remarked that the City routinely did a six-year financial forecast and the most recent one did not look very good. He said if they looked at a 20-year forecast the picture was even “bleaker.” He acknowledged that the City would forego some tax income on the improvements for ten years, but he underscored that at the end of that period the City received “multiple returns” over the 40- or 50-year lifetime of the building which would add to the financial stability of the community. Mayor Piercy felt the tools should be used sparingly and to achieve what they wanted to achieve in the community. She underscored that the people proposing the projects had worked with the neighbors and garnered neighborhood support for them. She agreed that the University area would still be a focus for construction projects but she did not think they would be built with the high quality or livability that was desired for the community without the MUPTE. She was willing to support this tool to achieve those ends for the community. Councilor Bettman declared that the tax issue was important to the public. She noted that up for council consideration was a possible measure to place on the ballot to put $81 million into fixing the roads. She opined that granting the tax exemption was akin to saying that everyone else would pay for those roads, but for ten years these projects would not have to. She asserted that in a situation in which the City was asking for higher fees, higher rates, and higher taxes because it could not pay for services, “making a prettier façade to a building should not qualify as a justification to not pay taxes.” Councilor Pryor remarked that when talking about the degree to which the City wanted to participate with other partners on tax revenues, MUPTE was one incentive but there were others such as downtown redevelopment and enterprise zones. He underscored that there were a variety of different ways that cities provide financial incentives. He averred that in this case the MUPTE was as reasonable as another incentive in terms of what the community would get out of it. He said the MUPTE projects were attractive to the neighborhood because they were able to put in additional amenities and parking and other things they could not do without such an incentive. He felt this was why the neighborhoods were supportive of the projects; they knew that they would get a nicer building that worked better in the long-term. He was supportive of the City participating as a tax incentive partner to help that happen. Councilor Poling said to characterize the developments that were going in as adding a pretty façade to the neighborhood was a “slap in the face” to the developer and an “injustice.” He underscored that the applicants were local people who had gone to the area neighborhood associations and gotten their approval. He pointed out that one of the applicants had been born and raised within walking distance of where he wanted to put in a small “redeveloped good-looking” housing project. He stated that the applicants would continue to pay taxes and the tax incentive was an investment in the future. Councilor Zelenka clarified that he was not characterizing the developers in any way. For him it was a matter of what the role of government should be and how it should use tax incentives and tax dollars. Councilor Taylor declared that the council did not know whether or not these projects would be built without tax incentives. She also asserted that they did not know how many people were present at the neighborhood meetings at which the applicants had garnered neighborhood approval. She opined that the City wanted people to build good things but that should not mean they did not have to pay taxes. MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 14, 2008 Page 11 Regular Meeting Roll call vote; the vote to substitute the motion was a tie, 4:4; councilors Poling, Pryor, Solomon, and Clark voting in favor and councilors Zelenka, Taylor, Ortiz, and Bettman voting in opposition. Mayor Piercy voted in favor of the substitution and it passed. Roll call vote; the vote on the substitute motion was a tie, 4:4; councilors Poling, Pryor, Solomon, and Clark voting in favor and councilors Zelenka, Taylor, Ortiz, and Bettman voting in opposition. Mayor Piercy voted in favor of the substitution and it passed. 6. ACTION: Application for a Multiple-Unit Property Tax Exemption – North Park Apartments Councilor Pryor, seconded by Councilor Bettman, moved to adopt a resolution approving a multiple-unit property tax exemption for residential property located at the northwest corner th of 14 Avenue and Hilyard Street, Eugene, Oregon (Stephen Bennett/applicant-owner). Councilor Bettman reiterated her opposition. She pointed out that she seconded the motion because it was part of the office of council vice president. Roll call vote; the vote was a tie, 4:4; councilors Poling, Pryor, Solomon, and Clark voting in favor and councilors Zelenka, Taylor, Ortiz, and Bettman voting in opposition. Mayor Piercy voted in favor of the motion and it passed. 7. ACTION: Application for a Multiple-Unit Property Tax Exemption – The Fenway Councilor Pryor, seconded by Councilor Bettman, moved to adopt a resolution denying a th multiple-unit property tax exemption for residential property located at 450 East 14 Ave- nue, Eugene, Oregon (Twenty LLC, applicant-owner). Councilor Poling, seconded by Councilor Clark, moved to substitute a resolution approving th a multiple-unit property tax exemption for residential property located at 450 East 14 Avenue, per Attachment A on page 307 of the City Council agenda packet. Roll call vote; the vote on the substitution was a tie, 4:4; councilors Solomon, Poling, Clark, and Pryor voting in favor and councilors Ortiz, Zelenka, Bettman, and Taylor voting in opposition. Mayor Piercy voted in favor of the substitution and the motion passed. Roll call vote; the vote on the substitute motion was a tie, 4:4; councilors Solomon, Poling, Clark, and Pryor voting in favor and councilors Ortiz, Zelenka, Bettman, and Taylor voting in opposition. Mayor Piercy voted in favor of the substitute motion and it passed. 8. ACTION: Downtown Code Amendments An Ordinance Amending Sections 9.0500, 9.2161, and 9.4530, of the Eugene Code, 1971, Adding a New Map 9.2161(6) (Downtown Plan Map) to that Code; and Amending Map 9.4510 and Figure 9.4530(3) Councilor Pryor, seconded by Councilor Bettman, moved that the City Council adopt Council Bill 4980, an ordinance concerning downtown code amendments. MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 14, 2008 Page 12 Regular Meeting Councilor Bettman indicated that she had a list of intended amendments to the ordinance amending downtown codes. Councilor Bettman, seconded by Councilor Taylor, moved to delete Section 1 of the Ordi- nance, to delete the proposed changes to EC 9.4530(3)(b) in Section 3 of the Ordinance, and to delete the proposed changes to EC 9.4530(3)(d) in Section 3 of the Ordinance. Councilor Bettman asked Nan Laurence, Associate Planner for the Planning and Development Department (PDD), to describe what her amendment would alter in the ordinance. Ms. Laurence understood that the changes had to do with counting the basement as part of the Floor Area Ratio (FAR) and would keep the code the way it is regarding the basement; regardless of how the basement was used it would not be allowed to be counted as part of the floor area in determining the FAR. Councilor Bettman was concerned that counting the basement regardless of what was in it would further decrease the density that would be realized in the downtown area. Councilor Solomon found all of Councilor Bettman’s amendments to be “utterly hostile” to the businesses and people who had worked “so honestly and thoughtfully” to improve the situation in the downtown area. She averred that the downtown area had been deteriorating since the codes they were seeking to amend were instituted. She said the proposed changes had come from “a group of folks who worked downtown and tried to make downtown happen.” She declared that these were items that those people had identified that were doable, workable, and would help improve the situation. She pointed out that they had received a lot of testimony about buildings that existed in the downtown area that could not be built under today’s code. She was disappointed in the hostile nature of the amendments. Councilor Clark respected Councilor Bettman’s desire to make amendments she felt would add strength to the code. He said, however, the City had made code revisions a number of years earlier that were not working. He respected the number of people who had worked on the code amendments. He looked to experts such as Hugh Prichard who had been speaking to as many people as possible about the value of making minor alterations to what the council had done years earlier in order to make the possibility of success in the downtown area more probable. He felt the Beam project and the work the council had initiated at its earlier work session had started some momentum to change the downtown. He did not want to “step backwards.” Councilor Zelenka indicated he would be offering an amendment after Councilor Bettman’s amendment was voted on. He did not think that a basement that was unimproved in any way should be counted in the FAR. He thought that if the basement was improved into retail or office spaces or underground parking it should be counted. Roll call vote; the motion to amend failed, 6:2; councilors Bettman and Taylor voting in fa- vor. Councilor Zelenka, seconded by Councilor Bettman, moved to amend the ordinance to un- delete what had been deleted in Section 1, and to undelete what was deleted in Section 3(d) under 9.4530 and to include the words ‘and underground parking.’ Roll call vote; the mo- tion to amend passed, 5:3; councilors Poling, Clark, and Solomon voting in opposition. Councilor Clark, seconded by Councilor Poling, called for the question. MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 14, 2008 Page 13 Regular Meeting Councilor Bettman said she had issues; there were some portions of the ordinance she could support and some portions she could not support. She opposed calling the question. Roll call vote; the vote on calling the question was a tie, 4:4; councilors Pryor, Solomon, Clark and Poling voting in favor and councilors Taylor, Ortiz, Bettman, and Zelenka voting in opposition. Mayor Piercy voted in opposition and the motion failed. Councilor Bettman, seconded by Councilor Taylor, moved to delete the proposed change to EC 9.2161(5) in Section 2 of the Ordinance to retain the last sentence of that subsection. Councilor Bettman averred that without this amendment people would have an incentive to tear down buildings and develop surface parking lots. Roll call vote; the vote on the amendment was a tie, 4:4; councilors Taylor, Ortiz, Bettman, and Zelenka voting in favor and councilors Pryor, Solomon, Clark and Poling voting in op- position. Mayor Piercy voted in favor and the amendment passed. Councilor Bettman, seconded by Councilor Taylor, moved to delete the proposed changes to EC 9.4530(3)(a) in Section 3 of the Ordinance that reduce the FAR from 1.0 to 0.65 and delete the references to Map 9.4510 and Figure 9.4530(3) in Section 4 of the Ordinance. Councilor Bettman remarked that this affected a specific boundary with the Transit-oriented District, TD/ Zone. She felt that without her amendment the code changes would allow lower-density single-floor development in the urban core. She said this had been cited in a letter from the Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD), which had called this “suburban development densities in an urban environment.” She averred that they had a limited amount of land in the urban core and could not afford not to have it developed as densely as possible. She felt her amendment would help the urban core meet the City’s sustainability goals, land use goals, and growth management policy goals. Councilor Zelenka asked Ms. Laurence to respond to the letter from DLCD. Ms. Laurence stated that staff had conversed with DLCD and pointed out areas in which their letter was not correct. She noted that DLCD did not have regulations regarding what the City had to have as a certain FAR, though they wanted the City to comply with growth management goals. She clarified that this change applied to the area outside the urban core considered the greater downtown area. She underscored that much of the area that would be covered by the 1.0 FAR was actually within neighborhoods other than the downtown area. She said the change they were looking at would change the floor and not the ceiling – a development could be as dense as economics allowed. She noted that the Newman’s Fish Market building block had been developed to a .4 FAR; a .65 FAR would add 50 percent more density to blocks like that. Councilor Clark asked when the original changes to the code had been instituted that had brought in the 1.0 FAR in the greater downtown area and 2.0 FAR in the core. Ms. Laurence replied that the 2.0 FAR had been in place since 1993 and the density had been increased from a .65 FAR to a 1.0 FAR in the Land Use Code Update (LUCU) of 2001. Councilor Clark remarked that the market was not getting there. He acknowledged that it was the goal to get more density but he felt that moving the FAR to 1.0 begged the question of why they should not move it to 5.0. He thought it would be equally impossible to get development done at the higher FAR. While he MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 14, 2008 Page 14 Regular Meeting agreed that the City should move toward greater density in its core, he did not feel the speed at which they were increasing density requirements was something the market could keep up with. Councilor Solomon commented that no development had happened since the FAR had been increased from .65 to 1.0. Councilor Bettman disputed the assertion that nothing had happened. She averred that people had the ability to renovate their properties and so the change in FAR would not be blocking development. She opined that if the FAR was reduced there would be regular suburban development and asked, if that was the case, why the City would have a TD/ district at all. Roll call vote; the motion to amend failed, 6:2; councilors Bettman and Taylor voting in fa- vor. Roll call vote; the main motion passed, as amended, 7:1; Councilor Bettman voting in oppo- sition. 9. ACTION: Minor Code Amendments Ordinance A: An Ordinance Concerning Land Use Regulations; Amending Sections 9.0020, 9.0500, 9.2160, 9.2450, 9.2630, 9.2683, 9.2740, 9.2741, 9.2751, 9.2760, 9.2761, 9.2775, 9.3310, 9.3810, 9.3910, 9.5500, 9.6790, 9.6791, 9.7010, 9.7055, 9.7105, 9.7205, 9. 7230, 9.8320, 9.8430, 9.8555, and 4.330 of the Eugene Code, 1971; Adding a New Section 9.7007 to that Code; and Providing an Effective Date Ordinance B: An Ordinance Concerning Land Use Regulations; Amending Section 9.2751 of the Eugene Code, 1971; to that Code; and Providing an Effective Date This item was deferred because of the time. The meeting adjourned at 9:58 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Jon Ruiz City Manager (Recorded by Ruth Atcherson) MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 14, 2008 Page 15 Regular Meeting ATTACHMENT C M I N U T E S Joint Elected Officials Eugene City Council/Springfield City Council/Lane Board of County Commissioners McNutt Room—Eugene City Hall July 15, 2008 Noon EUGENE CITY COUNCILORS PRESENT: Betty Taylor, Bonny Bettman, Jennifer Solomon, Mike Clark, Alan Zelenka, Chris Pryor, George Poling. Andrea Ortiz was excused. SPRINGFIELD CITY COUNCILORS PRESENT: Christine Lundberg, Hillary Wylie, Anne Ballew, Joe Pishioneri, Dave Ralston. John Woodrow was excused. COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Faye Stewart, Bobby Green, Peter Sorenson, Bill Fleenor. Bill Dwyer was excused. Call to Order – Three Governing Bodies Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy opened the meeting of the Eugene City Council and welcomed everyone. Chair for the Board of County Commissioners Faye Stewart opened the meeting of the Lane Board of County Commissioners. He acknowledged that Commissioner Dwyer had a meeting conflict and was excused from the Joint Elected Officials meeting. His Honor Mayor Sid Leiken convened the meeting of the Springfield City Council. Mayor Piercy indicated that the Joint Elected Officials (JEO) would be joined by Coburg Mayor Judy Volta. A. WORK SESSION: Regional Transportation Planning Eugene City Manager Jon Ruiz said the JEO had last discussed regional transportation issues in its meeting in May. He reported that since then local jurisdiction staff had been working together with state agencies to develop a regional transportation planning work plan to present to the Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC) in October for its approval. He hoped to garner JEO input on the draft plan. Rob Inerfeld, Transportation Planning Manager for the Eugene Public Works Department, stated that the Metropolitan Policy Committee (MPC) had adopted an updated federally required Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) in November, 2007. He said this had triggered a requirement that the TransPlan, the state- mandated transportation system plan for Eugene, Springfield, and metropolitan Lane County, should be made consistent with the RTP or that the jurisdictions should present a work plan to the LCDC for making MINUTES—Joint Elected Officials— July 15, 2008 Page 1 Lane Board of County Commissioners and Eugene and Springfield City Councils TransPlan consistent with the RTP. He noted that the City of Coburg had its own Transportation System Plan (TSP) and had made a finding that it was consistent with the RTP. He said aside from Coburg the other local jurisdictions did not make a finding of consistency for a number of reasons. He conveyed staff’s recommendation that they take the work plan approach. He said since the MPC adoption of the RTP, staff for the local jurisdictions had met with the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) and the Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD) to develop a draft work plan that was coordinated with local land use efforts. Mr. Inerfeld stated that the work plan was divided into three elements, short-term, medium-term, and long- term actions. He explained that the short-term actions would address more immediate concerns from DLCD and ODOT regarding RTP TransPlan consistency and included deleting the completed projects from the TransPlan project list, extending the TransPlan planning horizon, and elimination of language addressing the West Eugene Parkway (WEP). He said the mid-term actions could be initiated prior to the LCDC meeting and included a decision on whether Springfield and Eugene would have their own TSP or whether they would continue to have a shared TSP and a shared Regional Transportation System Plan (RTSP). He noted that another issue was to determine whether the four ODOT facility projects that had been moved from the illustrative list to the financially constrained list in the RTP should be moved from the one list to the other in the TransPlan. He related that the long-range regional transportation planning work plan that would lead to having both the TSP and the RTSP consistent with the regional transportation plan. He stated that at this point staff had identified the major developments of the long-range work plan, but staff intended to refine this into a more detailed work plan that would be brought before the JEO in September. In response to a question from Commissioner Sorenson, Mr. Inerfeld explained that TransPlan was a state required plan and it would be important to coordinate the update to the TransPlan and any land use planning work. Commissioner Sorenson wanted to know about the federal requirement to have a consistent plan and asked what that was called. Mr. Inerfeld replied that it was called the RTP. Commissioner Sorenson asked if the jurisdictions would have to do the RTP and the TransPlan at the same time. Mr. Inerfeld responded that the federal government required the RTP to be updated every four years, with the next update scheduled for November, 2011. He said ideally that would be coordinated with and would reflect the local land use and transportation planning that was done, so that when passed by the MPC it would be consistent with local plans. Eugene Councilor Bettman had not seen any public involvement in the outline. Mr. Inerfeld responded that staff intended to have a public input component in the plan when staff returned before the JEO in Septem- ber. Councilor Bettman opined that there would be pressure in September to approve it; this created a short timeline. Mr. Inerfeld said if the JEO needed more time it would be possible to request more time. Councilor Bettman asked if the language deletion regarding the WEP would delete the project from the TransPlan. Mr. Inerfeld said it would not. Eugene Councilor Zelenka arrived. Councilor Bettman requested a memorandum from the Eugene City Attorney on the impact of not taking the WEP out. She understood that the Eugene City Council had taken action to delete the project from the list and to replace it with other projects that had been “futured” to fit the TransPlan. MINUTES—Joint Elected Officials— July 15, 2008 Page 2 Lane Board of County Commissioners and Eugene and Springfield City Councils Commissioner Fleenor said Lane County was contemplating “doing a Lane County coordinated population forecast” and was looking at the MetroPlan to see whether it needed to be updated due to the passage of House Bill (HB) 3737, Oregon Revised Statutes (ORS) 221.222, and the new Oregon Administrative Rule (OAR) 660. He questioned if this was a good time to take a look at the TransPlan given these activities. Mr. Inerfeld responded that there were elements to the TransPlan update they could take a look at. He said the important thing would be to do things in a coordinated way and to be flexible. Commissioner Fleenor asked if a population forecast would have “major ramifications” on the transporta- tion infrastructure moving forward. Mr. Inerfeld responded that he was providing the shape of what kinds of changes could come out of the land use planning effort. Commissioner Fleenor opined that with increasing gas prices there would be fewer people on the roads. He wondered if that would have an impact on transportation needs in the future. Councilor Bettman asked if there had been an opportunity for the jurisdictions to weigh in on the whole project list. She did not think the Eugene City Council had done so. She averred that when discussing an individual versus a joint update, it seemed they were already doing individual updates. She asked why they would move to a joint update and if they did move to a joint update would it not mean that they would have to have a regional priority setting process. Mr. Inerfeld reiterated that one of the directions staff was seeking was whether to pursue individual TSPs or a joint TSP. He said from a staff perspective it made sense for each jurisdiction to have its own TSP. Councilor Bettman declared that since the City of Springfield had pursued having a separate Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) they had already split the land use component. She opined that two projects in Springfield were being elevated and offered primarily to serve the expansion of the UGB. It seemed to her that they were already moving in an individual direction and this decision had already been made. Mayor Volta stated that the City of Coburg had an individual TSP though it wanted to work collaboratively. She said to involve Coburg in the process that Eugene and Springfield go through would put a big strain on Coburg and did not represent what Coburg wanted to do. She thought there would come a time when each jurisdiction would have its own plan, but she wanted to see it expedited as much as possible. She would not want to have the transportation planning process held hostage due to the population growth forecast that was being redone, something she was not certain was necessary. Springfield Councilor Ballew clarified that the two projects Councilor Bettman referred to had been included in the TransPlan since 1986 and were at least one mile away from the UGB. She wished to dispute misinformation that was being disseminated. In response to a question from Councilor Ballew, Mr. Inerfeld said rough projections indicated that the regional population would hit 296,000 in 2023. He said if they did a full TransPlan update they might want to use 2035 as the horizon year instead of 2015. Commissioner Fleenor disagreed that the population forecast could be considered unnecessary. He averred that there were contradictory interpretations of the forecast by the DLCD and local jurisdictions. He felt that doing another forecast would provide certainty. He predicted that if the jurisdictions did this individu- ally they would be faced with multiple Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) “claims” and multiple lawsuits in the Circuit Courts. He said HB 3436 gave jurisdictions an option to use safe harbor. He had extrapo- lated that the legislature knew that this would be contentious. He opined that if they moved forward as a united county to perform the coordinated population forecast they would be able to move forward “faster and in a coordinated manner.” MINUTES—Joint Elected Officials— July 15, 2008 Page 3 Lane Board of County Commissioners and Eugene and Springfield City Councils Eugene Councilor Clark asked if there were consequences if the jurisdictions moved forward in a separate way. Mr. Inerfeld replied that he was pretty certain that the RTSP would still have to contain facilities of regional significance. He thought it would help each jurisdiction to have its own plan, adding that he was not aware of any other jurisdictions in the state that had joint plans. Commissioner Fleenor asked how revising or dispensing with the MetroPlan would impact the RTSP. Eugene City Attorney Katherine Brotherton responded that the TransPlan was the functional part of the MetroPlan. She said if the MetroPlan stopped existing as it stood today it would have impacts on the way that the TransPlan would look in the future partially because it was implementing the transportation element of the MetroPlan. Commissioner Fleenor said he had analyzed the MetroPlan and he opined that it had no legal underpinnings; he was not certain it would be legally defensible. He averred that before they go any further they should restore the underpinnings of the assumptions that they were working on and address the MetroPlan first. Mayor Leiken thought the two cities would still have to have a comprehensive plan. He agreed that it would make more sense for the two jurisdictions to have their own plans except in the case of projects that had regional significance such as the Interstate 5/Beltline Highway interchange. He believed that it would make sense for the jurisdictions to continue their United Front efforts. He also had some issues with the MetroPlan and felt it was worth continuing to look into. Springfield Councilor Lundberg assumed that if the jurisdictions had their own transportation plans they would still make decisions about regional facilities as they did now. She asked if this had been defined and who would make what decision. Mr. Inerfeld responded that it was not entirely clear where the line would fall between what would be considered a regional transportation facility and what was not. He said it had yet to be worked out between the local jurisdictions and ODOT where the line fell between what should be in the RTSP, what should be in the local transportation plan, and what should fall under the heading of both. He noted that the City of Eugene had an Arterial and Collector Street Plan that classified the streets according to transportation needs as local streets, collectors, or arterials. Tom Boyatt, Transportation Manager for the City of Springfield, stated that Springfield was about to initiate a street classification process. Commissioner Fleenor said he wanted to “dovetail on the coattails” of Mayor Leiken regarding the current financial circumstances. He reiterated his belief that a coordinated population forecast was an essential building block by which they should begin this process. He opined that without such a forecast any structure above this would be “susceptible.” He averred that they should take a slow approach and ensure they had a solid foundation to work from in order to move forward 25 to 75 years ahead. Eugene Councilor Pryor agreed that it would be appropriate to conduct the majority of transportation planning at the local level. He observed that there were large transportation systems that had a regional impact as evidenced by the large amount of traffic traveling from east to west and vice versa during rush hours. He said defining what that level would be and how the systems would interface would be the exercise that would have to be undertaken. He was more concerned about what the underpinning assumptions each of the jurisdictions would be making and the degree to which they would agree or disagree about them would be. He wanted to work out a way to coordinate the underlying assumptions. Councilor Bettman questioned whether the underpinning assumptions could be coordinated. She asserted that the City of Eugene was trying to build more densely and the City of Springfield was building out at 50 MINUTES—Joint Elected Officials— July 15, 2008 Page 4 Lane Board of County Commissioners and Eugene and Springfield City Councils percent of allowable density. She declared that those assumptions were “extremely different” and she could not see how they could be coordinated. She thought the Metro Plan should be included in the work plan as it contained the land use assumptions that dictated transportation assumptions and the projects. She opined that they would have to be individual plans because the two jurisdictions no longer shared an Urban Growth Boundary (UGB). Springfield Councilor Ralston agreed with the assumption that the Metro Plan was no longer useful or that there were components of it that were no longer useful. He supported separate TSPs and averred that if the Regional Transportation Plan took care of the large projects that related to both communities it would beg the question how important the TransPlan would be. He felt that if the MetroPlan was invalid, then it would make the TransPlan invalid, especially if the two jurisdictions developed their own plans. He wanted to know why the TransPlan was important. Mr. Inerfeld responded that the TransPlan was what was considered the TSP and the RTSP at this time. He said they could make TransPlan the name of the RTSP, which was required by the State or it could be called by another name. Commissioner Sorenson remarked that the County had a sense of urgency about economizing the plan so that the federal, state, and regional requirements should be pulled together. He agreed that a local facility that affected one community should be handled locally. He related that the commissioners had directed their staff to return in September or October with an estimate of how long the County had before it would run out of its Road Fund. He predicted that for the County the brakes would stop on its financial ability to participate in regional activities where the Road Fund was a principal source of funding. He was bothered by the idea of not merging the federal, state, and regional requirements. Mayor Piercy asked if Commissioner Sorenson was echoing Councilor Ralston’s sentiments. Commissioner Sorenson affirmed that he was. He said they needed to keep doing the state regional work separately from the federal regional work, but help from the County in certain projects was required by federal and state laws and the jurisdictions would have to help the County look for ways to economize on its participation. Councilor Ballew said before they made a decision about how to develop the transportation plans, whether to do them individually or in conjunction with one another, there needed to be a clearer understanding of the financial ramifications. Councilor Zelenka averred that they were in danger of making three separate plans. He agreed that the local and regional plans should be separate, but he hoped that in consideration of the County’s financial constraints the state and federal planning would be combined into one plan. Councilor Bettman did not want to take regional priority setting out of the purview of local decision-making. She noted that federal funding sometimes required a local match. Commissioner Fleenor encouraged his colleagues and the staff of the jurisdictions to realize that the area could be in a persistent economic downturn that could last “years and even decades.” He also wanted to encourage staff to “keep it simple, reduce the layers of bureaucracy, [and] reduce the policies and procedures.” He predicted this would add less of a burden on taxpayers. He wanted things to be simplified and made less expensive. He said they needed a simple understandable transportation system plan that was affordable. Mayor Piercy observed that transportation planning was complicated for the public. She did not think people understood how or why to participate in the planning. MINUTES—Joint Elected Officials— July 15, 2008 Page 5 Lane Board of County Commissioners and Eugene and Springfield City Councils Councilor Zelenka agreed that having the public get involved at the local level and having that inform the regional plan would be good. He remarked that public involvement was broken and the “usual suspects” came to meetings to provide testimony. He noted that the Citizen Advisory Committee for the Metropolitan Policy Organization (MPO CAC) had been charged with bolstering public involvement. Eugene Councilor Taylor thought the reason people did not participate sometimes was that they did not recognize they had an impact. She opined that this was especially true regarding the Metropolitan Policy Committee (MPC). She felt that people were closer to their councilors than to members of the inter- jurisdictional group and would be more comfortable providing input locally. Councilor Bettman opined that the MPO CAC had been “morphed into” a marginalized committee that was in charge of telling the MPC “how to have a nicer forum or better ads in the newspaper.” She declared that this was not the intended role for the MPO CAC; it was to be a body to provide public input. Councilor Zelenka averred that it took perseverance to participate in this kind of planning. He felt they should redouble efforts at the local level to involve not just the institutionally financed groups but also the regular citizens. Councilor Ballew observed that a better job could be done at the local level to garner public input when putting together the Capital Improvement Programs (CIPs). Councilor Ralston noted that amending the TransPlan so that the completed projects were deleted was part of the short-term goals. He thought they ought to consider the TransPlan the RTP and update it so that they would not have to change all of the documents that referred to it. Councilor Ballew did not see anything in the short-term actions that were objectionable. She also did not think the mid-term actions were unreasonable. Councilor Bettman said Eugene City Manager Jon Ruiz should take from the discussion what the decision points should be and then the council should have a work session in order to make those decisions. She thought the decisions could then be forwarded to the JEO. Commissioner Fleenor concurred. Mayor Piercy surmised that each group would return to their jurisdictions and make the decisions and then reconvene as the JEO. MINUTES—Joint Elected Officials— July 15, 2008 Page 6 Lane Board of County Commissioners and Eugene and Springfield City Councils B. WORK SESSION: Public Safety Commissioner Stewart recalled that at the previous JEO meeting they had tried to find a long-term solution for public safety. He asked County Administrator Jeff Spartz to work through the item that was in the packet in order to garner direction. Mr. Spartz observed that everyone was aware that public safety in Lane County was heavily dependent on funding in the County’s General Fund and with the failure of Congress to reenact the Save Our Rural Schools appropriations in this fiscal year it had experienced a huge shortfall. He said going forward into the next presidential administration there was some hope that a successor program to the funding would be created but there was no certainty of that. He stated that the swap the County had made with the City of Eugene would help in the present year and the next year but it still left the County with a reduction of $13 million in public safety which would reach a magnitude of $15 million when the agreements with Springfield and Eugene run out. He declared that this was both a mid-term and a long-term problem. He suggested that a subcommittee or subgroup of the JEO that was cross-jurisdictional should be convened. He felt the lack of jail space was the “tip of the iceberg.” He wanted the JEO to consider what role the Public Safety Coordinating Council (PSCC) should play, what models should be used for the staff report, and how it should get the necessary public involvement that would fully appreciate the nuances of the issues and drive the group forward to a decision-making model. Commissioner Fleenor said he had raised the question in community dialogues of what it meant to be safe and how they should achieve public safety. He declared that they needed to get “back to basics” and ask fundamental questions like why Lane County existed and why the City of Eugene existed. He challenged the JEO to answer the question of what it meant to be safe. He averred that they would never reach the target if they did not know what the target was. He remarked that more people died on Highway 126 than died as a result of crime. Councilor Bettman asked what a third party evaluation of the system would mean. She believed that the County wanted to move toward a regionalized model with regionalized decision-making. She did not understand under what authority the JEO could be a decision-making body. She averred that the City of Eugene had different community values; it had a Police Auditor and the other jurisdictions did not. She thought a merge of public safety services would cause Eugene to lose “what [was] very specifically Eugene community values.” While she was concerned about the County’s public safety crisis she thought the proposed model was “going down the wrong path.” Eugene Councilor Clark noted that they had already “gone down the road” of proposing a public safety district. He surmised that regionalizing the response to public safety issues contained some challenges. He pointed out that criminals did not respect boundaries and he did not imagine that the public safety response should either. He admired what the combined fire departments had done in their third battalion response between Eugene and Springfield. He related that they look for how they could fill in each others’ gaps. He liked the idea of looking into creative ways to collaborate. He believed that regional economic development was the answer as it would provide the appropriate tax base to address the shortfall on a countywide basis. Eugene Councilor Poling concurred. He believed the discussion should be on a broader spectrum and should address the prevention, intervention and treatment services. He said the perpetrators did not care about city limits and a person calling for help did not care what color the car or uniform were of the respondent to the call. He remembered the discussion they had several years earlier about combining some of the present overlapping public safety efforts, but there was such strong opposition on the Eugene City Council that it did not progress. He felt there were a number of different areas in which some of the duplication could be MINUTES—Joint Elected Officials— July 15, 2008 Page 7 Lane Board of County Commissioners and Eugene and Springfield City Councils eliminated. He acknowledged the City of Eugene’s police oversight process, adding that he knew there were officers in other agencies that would not be willing to work under the Eugene system. He believed that the PSCC would be a good starting point as it involved the three public safety systems. He wanted to ask how they could come up with a solution so that the entire population of Lane County was served by the public safety system. Councilor Zelenka reiterated his appreciation for the proposition for the fund swap that Councilor Bettman had made. He thought the discussion about the issue should be at the JEO table but the votes should occur in the individual jurisdictional level. He also agreed with Councilor Poling that a public safety solution should include prevention and intervention. He added his support for cooperation and efficiency and also agreed that they should try not to duplicate services as much as possible. Mayor Piercy remarked that differences exist. She felt that the county and the two communities could work together creatively to find solutions without losing sight of their differences. Councilor Pryor recognized that there were two parts to the public safety discussion: the crime and incarceration component and the other parts such as prevention and intervention. He believed that with sufficient funding the two police departments and the sheriff’s office would run well. He stressed that at present the system was “grossly underfunded.” He thought that things like the third battalion could be worked out between the jurisdictions, such as community policing. He said the JEO coordination needed to occur around services the County had traditionally provided, such as juvenile services and court services. He said they could talk about this as a coordinated effort but he pointed out that the PSCC had put measures on the ballot and all had failed. He related that the PSCC had come up with plans and then had not had the resources to follow through with them. He did not want to keep doing the same things that were not working. He wanted to find “a new mechanism” that would address that side of the equation. He preferred to focus this effort on drugs, prevention, youth, and education because he believed this was where the region was “floundering.” Springfield Councilor Wylie stated that the region needs adequate parole, probation, supervision, and jail time. She remarked that she worked in the treatment field and believed more treatment services were needed. She said some of the responsibility for the funding belonged in other places. She noted that the State had continually cut back treatment funding and area representatives needed to put pressure on the State to get that money back. She related that she had talked to Springfield Police Chief Jerry Smith about regional issues and how the cities could cover the areas that would be affected as the Lane County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO) “got thin.” She said Chief Smith had indicated that the departments were already looking out for one another. Councilor Wylie pointed out that a person who was wearing a Eugene Police Department badge would know they were responsible to the police oversight process. She thought the two chiefs and the sheriff could work together and do a lot of streamlining. She noted that they were already doing a lot of radio and information sharing. She underscored the importance of being responsible to the citizens and keeping them safe. She averred that there were a lot of things they could do; they could talk about what they needed to place on the ballot and how to get legislators to bring more funds to the issue. She added that one idea she had for the ballot was to provide voters with a choice on what amount of money to allocate to which portion of the public safety system. Commissioner Fleenor said he was not sure it was a revenue problem or a resource problem. He averred that it was an allocation of the resources and the “lack of a goal, a vision.” He thought they should take a look at some of the laws and ask why they were locking up “so many people.” He wanted to find ways to intercede earlier. He called it an “idea problem.” MINUTES—Joint Elected Officials— July 15, 2008 Page 8 Lane Board of County Commissioners and Eugene and Springfield City Councils Eugene Councilor Taylor thought they should appoint Commissioner Fleenor to a committee to talk about the allocation of resources. She believed he had “an excellent point.” She opined that the area continued to do public safety “in the wrong way.” She thought the PSCC was a waste of time and money. She averred that the PSCC “put out a lot of reports” and she did not know if that made any difference. Councilor Taylor did not believe that the fire and police were comparable because the firefighters put out fires and what the police did could be very different. She felt it would be more difficult to combine the efforts of the police. She said they should cooperate in the areas of prevention and treatment. She opined that when the County started charging to go into parks it was contrary to the philosophy of prevention. She averred that she had seen people with children at Mount Pisgah wishing they could go for a walk but unable to afford it. She had also “heard from a lot of people” that people should just be sent to Eugene if they were homeless. She said taking care of things like that was a cooperative thing. She felt the jurisdictions would have different philosophies about community policing as well as what a crime was. Commissioner Green felt the discussion on funding for public safety was premature. He declared that criminals committing crimes have a better knowledge of the system than most of the people around the table. He said they needed to bring the community and people with a certain level of education about public safety to the table. He thought ultimately decisions would be made by the communities. He underscored the need for keeping the perspective of the victims in mind. He had not heard anyone talk about the victims, the people who were susceptible to the crimes. He pointed out that some of the people in the room had experienced having their car or their house broken into or having their purse stolen and knew how that felt. He said the other element that was missing from the conversation was the work of those who were in the non-profit arena that were trying to accomplish a lot on minimal dollars. He felt that those working on prevention and treatment were doing the best they could with the resources. He stressed that they needed to start the conversation with the non-profit agencies and the community to get an idea of what public safety was to them. He said they needed to talk to the people who disagreed with them to try to understand why they disagree as well as those that agreed with them. Commissioner Green stated that there were different components to the system. He said Senate Bill 1145 mandated that the area form the PSCC in 1995. He pointed out that if people found it useless or a waste of money they needed to tell that to the State Legislature who created it. He reiterated that they should be talking about what the area really needed for public safety and what the community was willing to support. He predicted that the funding would happen once people got the idea that they did not want anyone to be a victim. He suggested that the JEO members look in the paper every day and see the reports of sex offenders and that people were getting stabbed; those were victims. He suggested they look at the system through their eyes and the solution would come to them. Councilor Bettman declared that the City of Eugene provided more money per capita in the areas where the jurisdictions provided joint funding, such as the Human Services Commission. She alleged that there were other services that Eugene cooperated to provide where the City paid a larger share. Regarding the PSCC, she commented that the public did not know where their tax money went. She opined that Eugene did not have any control over the prioritization in outlying communities and what they decided to prosecute or not to prosecute. She felt this was why there had to be localized decision-making. She agreed that the PSCC was not a good use of resources. She averred that both Lane County and the City of Springfield had “pretty remarkable success at the Legislature when they go up there and they ask for favors.” She asked if anyone had ever asked for a repeal of the requirement to have the PSCC. She also wondered if anyone had ever asked for an exemption from the tax-base freeze that had been enacted by Ballot Measures 47 and 50. She claimed that the ballot measures had caught the County “unawares.” She asked why they were not coming up with a strategy at the Legislature so that they could access more funds. She remarked that she had been MINUTES—Joint Elected Officials— July 15, 2008 Page 9 Lane Board of County Commissioners and Eugene and Springfield City Councils impressed by the success that Lane County and Springfield had with other issues that were “maybe not as high a priority.” Commissioner Sorenson pointed out that the County had laid off 57 deputies. He said to say that Lane County was in deep trouble was an understatement. He commented that Springfield had built its own jail, which he considered “remarkable.” He felt that Eugene’s contributions to social services and corrections were good but ultimately the jurisdictions had to look after the taxpayers. He felt that if the board could show substantial public interest in a ballot measure, they would do so, but the ballot measures that they had mounted thus far had not passed. He averred that Springfield “had gone its own way with public safety” by building its own jail. He called this “further evidence of the divorce” that Springfield had obtained when it had been able to get out of the Eugene/Springfield metro planning process. Councilor Ralston was not interested in regionalized public safety. He felt that Springfield had been proactive and had citizen support for its jail project. He stated that the citizens of Springfield elected their councilors to represent them and to be responsible to them. For him it was a financial issue and Springfield did not have the resources to solve the County’s problem. He averred that Lane County residents needed to buy into the public safety system. Mayor Leiken noted that Springfield started planning for the jail in 2002 and passed its ballot measure in 2004. He said they had not profited, it was just an area they had looked at and worked on. He underscored that the bottom line was that Washington, D.C. had turned its back on Lane County and several other counties in Oregon. He averred that this area would need to “pull itself up by its bootstraps.” He noted that even when they were making plans for the jail it had appeared to them that the Save Our Rural Schools funding would continue, though it might “look a little different.” He thought Councilor Pryor was on the right track, but it was a funding issue. He pointed out that if it had not been for the levies that Springfield had passed and re-passed in 2006 the city would have roughly the same amount of police officers on the street as it did in 1980, though the town had grown by a third. Instead, he related, Springfield now had six or eight more officers. He underscored that Lane County had more officers in 1980 than it did today. He was not interested in forming more committees, but if the JEO wanted to focus on what the jurisdictions could do together to “take care of business” he was “in.” He indicated his support for potentially lobbying the State to eliminate the PSCC. He felt that Springfield was in a good position, noting that it had passed the Lane County measure. Additionally, he agreed with Commissioner Green: the criminals knew the system better than they did. Mr. Ruiz asked how staff could best support the JEO. He asked if it would be helpful for staff to identify options for how to move the discussion forward. Councilor Bettman wanted to vote on that at the local level. Councilor Ralston concurred. Councilor Ballew underscored the need to be focused when putting ideas together so that they were targeted on jail, prosecution, and the hard-edged issues. Mayor Piercy commented that they should consider having a lobbying effort for Salem that was similar to the United Front lobbying trip to Washington, D.C. Commissioner Stewart thanked everyone for their comments and adjourned the Board of Commissioners. Mayor Piercy adjourned the meeting of the Eugene City Council. MINUTES—Joint Elected Officials— July 15, 2008 Page 10 Lane Board of County Commissioners and Eugene and Springfield City Councils Mayor Leiken adjourned the meeting of the Springfield City Council. The JEO meeting was adjourned at 1:51 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Jon Ruiz (Recorded by Ruth Atcherson) MINUTES—Joint Elected Officials— July 15, 2008 Page 11 Lane Board of County Commissioners and Eugene and Springfield City Councils ATTACHMENT D M I N U T E S Eugene City Council McNutt Room—City Hall—777 Pearl Street Eugene, Oregon July 30, 2008 Noon COUNCILORS PRESENT: Bonny Bettman, Chris Pryor, Betty Taylor, Jennifer Solomon, George Poling, Andrea Ortiz, Mike Clark, Alan Zelenka. Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the work session of the Eugene City Council to order. She adjourned the meeting of the Eugene City Council and convened a meeting of the Eugene Urban Renewal Agency (URA). A. WORK SESSION: th Selection of Development Proposal for 10 and Charnelton Site City Manager Jon Ruiz stated that both development proposals were strong. He emphasized that staff would continue to work with whichever proposal was not selected by the council to determine if there were other opportunities. Mr. Clark, in the interests of full disclosure, declared that he had known Wally Graff of WG Development for over 20 years and while they had on occasion discussed the possibility of a joint business venture, there were no contracts or agreements in place. He wanted to clarify that in the event he had a future business relationship with Mr. Graff. Nan Laurence, Planning and Development Department, used a PowerPoint presentation to illustrate features and compare the proposals under consideration from WG Development and Opus NWR Development. She reviewed details of each proposal in terms of urban design and active uses and project feasibility and public benefit. In conclusion, she said that both proposals added value and activity to downtown and contributed to a quality urban environment. She said both projects were supported by the Downtown Plan and were financially feasible, although the Opus proposal was stronger financially, and both supported the goal of a revitalized downtown. She said the recommendation was to direct the agency director to enter into an exclusive negotiation period not to exceed 90 days with either WG Development or Opus NWR Develop- th ment for the sale and development of the 10 and Charnelton site and return to the URA with terms of the sale and development for approval. Ms. Bettman indicated she preferred the more urban-scale Opus design and had concerns with the design of th the WG project on 18 Avenue. She questioned whether there would be more design improvements given economic projections. Ms. Laurence said design refinements would occur when a project had moved from conceptual to schematic design. She felt both proposals presented preliminary designs and assumed that further design refinements would be forthcoming, although that did not mean that additional funds would be put into higher quality materials. MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 30, 2008 Page 1 Work Session Ms. Bettman asked for elaboration on the developers’ reliance on the projection of a better lending environment at the end of 2009 and the risk that posed. Ms. Laurence said staff used the analysis from Johnson Gardner, financial consultant, to determine where developers were in expected markets. She said the analysis assumed a conservative increase between now and 2011, but that remained a risk factor. Mike. Sullivan, Planning and Development, added that if there was significant pre-leasing and equity in a project, the development would be able to move forward, assuming the revenue model was appropriate. He said the WG borrowing model was somewhat lower than market, while the Opus model was more consistent with the market. Ms. Bettman asked why WG did not go forward with the feasibility study to provide greater assurance. Mr. Sullivan opined that WG was waiting until one was required by a financial institution. Ms. Bettman noted that abatement costs were not included and WG had indicated that the City would need to pay any abatement costs. Mr. Sullivan said that previous site studies had not indicated any potential abatement concerns. Ms. Bettman said the WG proposal did not specify who would pay the cost of administering the grant for public art. Mr. Zelenka observed that the three percent rate of return for the Opus project was far below what investors typically wanted. Mr. Sullivan said the Opus business plan was to build, stabilize and sell, with sale proceeds becoming part of the total return; on that basis the performance was quite good. Mr. Zelenka noted that there was less public subsidy for the WG project. Mr. Sullivan noted that the primary difference was the tax exemption value based on housing investment; the Opus project included far more housing units. In response to a comment from Mr. Zelenka, Mr. Sullivan said Pacific University had made a commitment of interest for 20,000 square feet of space in the WG project. Mr. Clark expressed his pleasure with the two proposals and said one of the questions was which was more appropriate from a design perspective on the site across from the Downtown Library. He asked if WG project’s courtyard would be private or public space. Ms. Laurence said she understood the courtyard would be privately owned, but available for public use under certain circumstances. Mr. Clark noted that the WG project was willing to make space available for a public safety kiosk, which would be a benefit to that area in downtown if the City had the capacity to staff it. He also liked the Opus project and the developer’s financial stability and proven track record, but favored the WG project because of the level of local involvement and commitment. He hoped the City could find a way to facilitate both projects. Ms. Piercy asked if staff had determined the feasibility of moving forward with both projects in the th downtown area. Ms. Laurence said there were no other sites in downtown equivalent to the 10 and Charnelton site that were owned by the City, but there were some privately held parcels that could be investigated. Ms. Piercy noted that the Lane Transit District station on the east side of the library included a public safety kiosk. MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 30, 2008 Page 2 Work Session Ms. Taylor commented that a public safety kiosk would benefit the developer. She was concerned with guarantees from both developers. She asked if there were any guarantees that a developer would fill the open pit on the site if a project was unable to move forward. Mr. Sullivan said that could be included in the terms of the agreement with the prevailing party. th Ms. Taylor indicated she did not like the design of the WG project on 18 Avenue and wanted a guarantee that the downtown project would not be similar. She also was interested in a guarantee that the project’s open space would be available to the public. She had hoped the City would sell half of the site and put a park on the other half. She asked if staff had discussed that possibility with the developers. Ms. Laurence said staff was responding to the URA’s development objective for dense, quality urban development, which meant the entire half block would be used for development. Ms. Taylor expressed concerned about the prospect of Opus selling its project after a few years and the possibility of having dormitories in downtown that might be eventually abandoned. Mr. Pryor agreed with Mr. Clark that both proposals incorporated many benefits to the downtown area. He was leaning toward the Opus project because of the larger number of housing units and the potential for moving forward quickly, but hoped that both projects could be implemented. He liked the design of WG’s th 18 Avenue building. Ms. Solomon asked if there would be urban renewal funds available to assist a second project if a site was identified. Mr. Sullivan said there were remaining proceeds in both the downtown and riverfront districts th and resources would not be exhausted by the 10 and Charnelton site. Mr. Poling said there was only a few months difference in the timing of the projects and both would provide housing for students. He was somewhat concerned about a concentrated population of college-age residents and associated problems. Ms. Bettman asked if the WG project was requesting a grant or a loan for project enhancements. Mr. Sullivan said there was no specific request; the developer had indicated they might require some additional assistance for project enhancements. Ms. Bettman expressed concern with subsidizing a development that would house businesses that competed with downtown businesses and office space. She said a market analysis was needed from WG and asked if there would be consequences if the project timeline was not met. Ms. Laurence said the project timeline would be included in the development agreement and failure to meet it could be a breach of contract. Mr. Sullivan said the consequences would depend on what stage the project was in at the time and include remedies such as taking the property back. Ms. Bettman asked if there was any guarantee that WG would not sell the project once it was completed. Mr. Sullivan said there was no guarantee, but that was inconsistent with the company’s business plan in the community. Ms. Bettman indicated she preferred the Opus project because of its greater financial certainty and its urban-scale design. MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 30, 2008 Page 3 Work Session Mr. Zelenka asked if the development agreement could include a requirement that the project design be similar to what had been included in the proposal. Ms. Laurence said that could be done, but there were also cost issues to be considered. Mr. Zelenka said he did not feel the need for additional market analysis for either housing or commercial space. Ms. Laurence noted that the Opus study had only addressed student housing. Mr. Zelenka felt that both projects were strong and very similar in terms of design and quality, but preferred the WG proposal because of the mixed use and local involvement. Mr. Ruiz agreed that both proposals were very good, but still recommended the Opus project because of the certainties regarding financial stability and ability to implement quickly. He said the Beam mixed use project was somewhat similar to the WG project, which raised a concern about adding more of that type of space to downtown. He said staff was willing to work with both developers. Mr. Pryor reiterated that both were great projects and would be a credit to downtown. He would be pleased with whichever project was selected. Mr. Pryor, seconded by Ms. Bettman, moved to direct the agency director to enter into an exclusive negotiation period not to exceed 90 days with Opus NWR Devel- th opment, LLC, for the sale and development of the 10 and Charnelton development site and return to the City Council, acting as the Urban Renewal Agency, with the proposed terms of the sale and development following the negotiation period. Ms. Ortiz, seconded by Mr. Zelenka, moved to amend the motion by substituting WG Development for Opus NWR Development. Ms. Ortiz asserted that both were good, viable projects and the community was fortunate to have such a choice. She hoped that the City Manager would continue to pursue working with whichever developer was not selected. Ms. Solomon said that WB’s proposed occupancy date was September 2011 and Opus’s occupancy date was July 2010. Ms. Bettman felt that choosing WG would kill the Opus project because its financial projects were based on moving forward immediately. She wanted additional time to gain better understanding of WG’s financial nuances. She preferred to move forward with the Opus project and negotiate for another site for the WG project while addressing some of the questions regarding the WG proposal. She would not support the amendment to substitute WG Development. Ms. Taylor said she was not interested in the City assisting with two projects. She said she was initially inclined to support Opus because of the connection with the University of Oregon, but many people in the community had spoken against siting a dormitory in downtown. She was concerned with taking the land back in the event of a breach of contract and preferred another remedy such as a non-refundable deposit. Mr. Zelenka clarified that the occupancy dates for Opus and WG were July 2010 and September 2010 respectively, a difference of only a few months. MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 30, 2008 Page 4 Work Session Ms. Bettman asked how another site for the Opus project would be funded if the WG project was selected th for the 10 and Charnelton site. Mr. Sullivan said sites currently owned by the City could be put forward and if those were not considered by Opus to be appropriate, there were funds available in the downtown district for another site, but those funds were limited. Mr. Pryor said he would vote against the motion to substitute WG Development, but if it passed he would support the amended main motion as it was important for the council to demonstrate unanimity in its support of a project. The motion to amend passed, 6:2; Ms. Bettman and Mr. Pryor voting no. Ms. Bettman stated she would not vote for the amended motion as she was unwilling to risk public funds when the project’s financial information was incomplete. Mr. Zelenka said he would support the motion. He agreed there was somewhat more risk with the WG project, but noted that the public subsidy was $2.2 million less with the WG proposal, which outweighed the risk. The main motion as amended passed 7:1; Ms. Bettman voting no. Mr. Clark, seconded by Mr. Poling, moved to direct the agency director to explore with Opus NWR Development the possibility of developing Opus’s proposal on another site in the downtown area and report back to the agency on the results of the discussions as soon as possible. Mr. Clark said the possibility existed that privately-owned property in the immediate area might be available for the other proposal and encouraged staff to explore that with property owners. Ms. Bettman, seconded by Ms. Ortiz, moved to amend the motion to include that any City financial participation shall exclude the possibility of an increased spend- ing limit of either urban renewal district. Ms. Bettman said that locating the Opus project on another site would require the purchase of that site, which would require an additional subsidy and open a new set of issues. Mr. Zelenka did not see that implication in Mr. Clark’s motion, but would support the amendment. He asked what amount of resources would remain after the Beam and WG projects were completed. Mr. Sullivan replied that there would be approximately $4 million still available and staff would provide a memorandum detailing those financial resources. Ms. Taylor supported the amendment and was opposed to spending any additional urban renewal funds or expanding the debt limits or boundaries. She also opposed destroying the Tango Center. Ms. Bettman said her intent was to assure that any proposal was based on existing financial capacity. The vote on the motion to amend was a 4:4 tie; Ms. Taylor, Ms. Bettman, Ms. Or- tiz, and Mr. Zelenka voting yes, and Ms. Solomon, Mr. Poling, Mr. Pryor, and Mr. Clark voting no. The Mayor cast a vote in support of the motion and it passed on a final vote of 5:4. MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 30, 2008 Page 5 Work Session The motion as amended passed, 7:1; Ms. Taylor voting no. Ms. Piercy adjourned the meeting of the URA and convened the meeting of the City Council. Ms. Bettman, seconded by Mr. Pryor, moved that the City Council offer the posi- tion of interim police auditor to Deputy Auditor Dawn Reynolds and if she ac- cepted, appoint her as interim police auditor starting August 23, 2008, and direct the council officers to draft a compensation package commensurate with the interim police auditor position and bring it to the council for review and approval before the break. Ms. Solomon asked how long Ms. Reynolds had been the deputy auditor. She questioned the need to appoint an interim auditor and wondered why Ms. Reynolds could not just continue in her position as deputy police auditor. She had just seen a copy of Ms. Reynolds resume. City Attorney Glenn Klein advised appointing an interim police auditor as there was some question as to whether the deputy auditor had all of the same powers as the police auditor; an interim police auditor would have those powers. Ms. Solomon observed that there were still unresolved issues related to the functioning of the police auditor position and its interaction with the council. She hoped those issues would be addressed in a clear manner before another police auditor was hired. Mr. Poling asked if Ms. Reynolds could apply for the police auditor position given the prohibition in the last police auditor recruitment against an applicant’s having a previous working relationship with the City of Eugene or its police officers. Mr. Klein said that prohibition could be removed in the new recruitment process and Ms. Reynolds would not be precluded from applying for the position. Mr. Zelenka thanked Mr. Pryor for his due diligence in discussing the interim auditor position with Ms. Reynolds. He would support the appointment. Ms. Taylor indicated she would support the appointment of Ms. Reynolds and had confidence in Christine Beamud’s recommendation of her. Mr. Clark said he was willing to proceed on the basis of Mr. Pryor’s recommendation, although he had not had time to fully review Ms. Reynolds’s qualifications. He hoped that the process of hiring a new police auditor would not be rushed and would allow sufficient time to address the concerns raised by some members of the council and community, as well as provide for a thorough and effective recruitment process that would result in the best possible candidate being hired. Ms. Bettman thanked Mr. Pryor for pursuing the appointment of an interim police auditor. She was concerned about undue delays in the hiring process and gave examples of problems that resulted when there was a delay in hiring a city manager. Mr. Zelenka commented that four to six months was a typical recruitment process timeline for a position at the level of the police auditor and it should be possible to complete the process by the end of the year. MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 30, 2008 Page 6 Work Session Mr. Poling noted that there was a big difference between hiring a police auditor and a city manager, as the police auditor was not responsible for the day-to-day operations of the entire City organization. Mr. Pryor said a work session would be scheduled to discuss the recruitment process. The motion passed, 8:0. The meeting adjourned at 1:30 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Jon Ruiz City Manager (Recorded by Lynn Taylor) MINUTES—Eugene City Council July 30, 2008 Page 7 Work Session ATTACHMENT E M I N U T E S Eugene City Council Work Session McNutt Room—Eugene City Hall 777 Pearl Street—Eugene, Oregon August 13, 2008 Noon COUNCILORS PRESENT: Chris Pryor, President; Bonny Bettman, Vice President; Betty Taylor, Jennifer Solomon, Andrea Ortiz, Mike Clark, Alan Zelenka, George Poling. Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the work session of the Eugene City Council to order. Ms. Ortiz, seconded by Mr. Clark, moved to reschedule the discussion of the MUPTE ordinance for a work session after the council break, on a date to be determined by the Mayor and City Manager. The motion passed unanimously, 7:0. Councilor Jennifer Solomon had not yet arrived at the work session. A. ACTION: th An Ordinance Vacating a Portion of Villard Alley Right-of-Way between East 13 Avenue thth and East 15 Avenue; an Ordinance Vacating a Portion of East 13 Avenue Right-of-Way and East of Its Intersection with Franklin Boulevard City Manager Jon Ruiz indicated staff was ready for discussion and questions regarding the ordinances. Mr. Pryor, seconded by Ms. Bettman, moved that the City Council adopt Council Bill 4986, an ordinance vacating a portion of Villard Alley right-of-way. Ms. Taylor indicated her confusion that the council was not discussing the arena while the materials in front of her indicated differently. Planning Division staff Steven Nystrom replied that while the agenda item summaries before the council referenced the public interest/benefits of the arena, only the alley and street vacations were to be discussed. Ms. Taylor said her information only reflected how the vacations would not hurt the public interest and not specifically how they would benefit the public interest. She asked Mr. Nystrom to summarize the public benefits of the alley and street vacations. Mr. Nystrom said the alley had minimal public benefit in terms of its provision of access to the general public. Ms. Taylor again asked Mr. Nystrom to summarize the public benefit of the alley vacation. Mr. Nystrom stated the primary benefit to the City from the vacations would be that it would enhance redevelopment opportunities in the surrounding areas. In response to Ms. Taylor’s inquiry regarding driveways adjacent to the alley in question, Mr. Nystrom stated the elimination of those driveways would enhance traffic circulation. MINUTES—Eugene City Council August 13, 2008 Page 1 Work Session Ms. Bettman, seconded by Ms. Taylor, moved to amend the ordinance to add a new Finding D and section 5, to read as follows: D. As required by EC 9.8710, the City Manager determined that the applicant should pay a special assessment for the two vacations in the amount of $482.950. The council has determined that the special benefit amount actually should be $1,467,171, which is $984,221 more than the amount the applicant has deposited with the City. Section 5. Notwithstanding the effective date of ordinances as provided in the Eugene Charter of 2002, this Ordinance will take effect only upon the applicant’s payment of $984,221, which is in addition to the assessment already deposited. Ms. Bettman, noting that the Basis of Value report provided to the council was not an appraisal, stated that one of the prime pieces of property along Franklin Boulevard had been reduced in value by 65%. She said the reduction was rather arbitrary and based solely on the fact that there was going to be a sidewalk. She felt that it was reasonable for it to be the University’s responsibility to provide a sidewalk and that City taxpayers should not be burdened with the expense. Ms. Bettman stated that decisions had been made between City staff and University personnel regarding the area in and around what was formerly known as Williams Bakery that the council had not been privy to. She indicated there were eighteen parking spaces in the area that generated between $36,000 and $40,000 for the City. She stated that the adjusted special assessment described in her motion was based on these parking spaces generating $40,000 amortized over twenty years. She felt this was a justifiable figure. Ms. Bettman agreed with Ms. Taylor that much of the testimony heard regarding the alley vacations in relation to the arena dealt primarily with the public benefits or lack thereof, but felt that the council had not adequately examined the financial costs of the arena to the City. She felt her motion addressed that discrepancy. Mayor Piercy asked Mr. Ruiz if City staff had reviewed the benefit amounts Ms. Bettman had referred to in her motion. Mr. Nystrom answered the subject properties had been appraised in accordance with standard practices normally used by staff. City Attorney Glenn Klein stated the City had determined the value of the subject properties using the guidelines described in the Basis of Value report provided as Attachment E in the agenda item summary, also referred to as City Council Agenda page 219. Mr. Ruiz confirmed Ms. Bettman’s motion would list the property at 100% of its assessed value rather than the 35% arrived at by staff. Addressing Ms. Bettman’s statements regarding the potential value of the parking in the subject properties, Mr. Ruiz commented it was his understanding the vacations would remove only two double-headed parking meters rather than eighteen separate spaces. Mr. Klein was concerned that the approximately $800,000 increase based on lost parking revenues as described by Ms. Bettman did not address the two standard criteria used to determine special assessed benefits as described in the Basis of Value Report, namely the value of the real property and the costs incurred by the City in the construction of public improvements. He felt that making such a demand on the University would be challengeable and that the University would most likely win such a challenge as being inconsistent with City Code provisions. Mr. Clark, after confirming with Mr. Klein that the University was in fact a public entity as part of the Oregon State Board of Higher Education, asked Mr. Klein what the legislative intent and latitude of intent of EC 9.8710 actually was in relation to its use in arriving at the assessed value of the special benefit. Mr. Klein was unable to describe the original legislative intent as the provision had been in existence for more than twenty years, and said the parking factors described by Ms. Bettman were outside the latitude of intent MINUTES—Eugene City Council August 13, 2008 Page 2 Work Session of the provision. Mr. Klein felt this was the reason the University would ultimately win out, because parking was not a factor enumerated by EC 9.8710. Mr. Zelenka asked Mr. Nystrom to explain the process by which the value of the Franklin Boulevard property had been reduced by 65%. Mr. Nystrom said the determination on the reduced value was made because the City would not be entirely vacating the properties and the City would be retaining a certain amount of public interest over them. Mr. Nystrom, responding to Mr. Zelenka’s question about what specific interest the City would be retaining, stated the City would retain a public utility easement over the vacated area, as well as pedestrian access th easement in the case of 13 Avenue. Mr. Nystrom said the 65% reduction in value of the properties was a result of standard rates applied by staff for other similar circumstances. He was unable to cite any previous specific examples of similar reductions. Mr. Zelenka asked why the assessment was different for the southern area where the public utility easement resulted in a listed value of 50% of the assessed value as opposed to 35%. Mr. Nystrom speculated some of the land in that area would be used for more private concerns, whereas in the pedestrian area there would be greater public use of the property. Mr. Zelenka felt the listed values of the properties and the reductions of same seemed fairly arbitrary and that there were no hard and fast rules governing reductions of assessed values. Mr. Nystrom again commented the assessed values and resultant reductions were arrived at by Public Works staff using standard methodologies. Mr. Zelenka asked if anyone present could provide more information as to how the assessed values and reductions were determined. Eugene Public Works Director Kurt Corey commented that the individuals making the determinations were licensed appraisers and the percentages were based on their best profes- sional judgment. Mr. Ruiz commented that the appraisers used their best professional judgment based on past practices and experience. Mr. Zelenka confirmed that Ms. Bettman’s motion increased the price of the special assessment to $451,250. Mr. Ruiz commented that would indicate that the City was not retaining any value or was not willing to pay for any of the value retained. Mr. Zelenka asked if Ms. Bettman would be willing to entertain a friendly amendment to make the special assessment 50% of the assessed value as opposed to 100%. Mr. Bettman felt the council should continue discussion on the matter before raising the possibility of a friendly amendment. Ms. Ortiz asked Mr. Ruiz how the City could have a conversation with the University of Oregon about how they could pay a special assessment in lieu of taxes like EWEB does. She understood the University was a significant asset to the City and that they warranted special consideration, but felt the University also made significant demands on Eugene taxpayers and City resources. Mr. Ruiz said a well-rounded discussion of the University’s contribution to the City and the community at- large was an important conversation to have. He said that such a dialogue could easily be initiated between himself and University of Oregon President David Frohnmayer. MINUTES—Eugene City Council August 13, 2008 Page 3 Work Session Mr. Klein offered some examples of City resources that received financial and/or administrative support from the University including the police substation near Sacred Heart Medical Center and inter- governmental agreements involving the Eugene Fire Department. Ms. Bettman asked if it was the council’s purview to be allowed to put conditions on an alley vacation such as the one being discussed. Mr. Klein replied that the council was allowed to put certain conditions on vacations, but that they must be consistent both with the Eugene City Code as well any constitutional restraints on what the City could require. He felt a court would say that the amount which the council was trying to require the University to pay would not be allowed because it fell outside of guidelines listed in the City Code. Ms. Bettman asked how parking would not be included in the value of a property as a source of potential revenue. Mr. Klein responded that revenue-producing capacity was only one of three methods that appraisers used to determine the value of property, and that the estimations in the Basis of Value report were arrived at by examination of the real market value of the property rather than an examination of revenue- producing capacity. Ms. Bettman asked if the Basis of Value report took into account any of the easements on the subject properties. Mr. Klein indicated he had no such information in that regard. Ms. Bettman emphasized the Basis of Value report was not an appraisal. Ms. Bettman said she would be willing to introduce a motion to send the City Manager back to the University to renegotiate the value of the special assessment based on more realistic allocations of benefit that included consideration of the revenue-producing capacity of the properties. Ms. Bettman commented there was a history of inequity between the University of Oregon and the City of Eugene and that the City Council rarely had any leverage to address issues of the University’s benefits to the community versus its demands on City resources. Mr. Clark said the conversation regarding public safety with regard to the University might be better addressed at a later time. Mr. Clark said the conversation regarding the alley and street vacations seemed fairly arbitrary with regard to the assessed values and reductions being discussed, and he was having a tough time disagreeing with the expert recommendations of City staff. He asked Mr. Klein if the City would be getting into any sort of legal trouble with the University by arbitrarily adjusting the special assessment figures, and also what might be a better mechanism to determine those figures more thoughtfully. Mr. Klein replied the City would get into trouble legally if it acted arbitrarily and felt it would be difficult to determine a better mechanism to determine special assessment figures if the council’s intent was to settle the matter in a timely fashion. Mr. Klein reminded council the person who had signed off on the Basis of Value report, Real Property Officer Lloyd Williams, was a licensed appraiser who engaged in special assessment determinations on behalf of the City on a regular basis. Mr. Klein felt the council could not ask the City Manager to renegotiate with the University if they wanted to act immediately on the matter, particularly in light of the fact that staff’s evaluations had been deemed to be an effective determination of the value of the properties. Mr. Clark’s inclination was to trust the staff’s recommendation with regard to the timing of the process and felt the University would be highly inclined to appeal any decisions the council might make to readjust the special assessment values. MINUTES—Eugene City Council August 13, 2008 Page 4 Work Session Mr. Pryor appreciated the conversation around the property vacations, but felt uncomfortable that the tenor of the conversations the council had been conducting with the University might make it difficult to move beyond the matter in the future. He was uncomfortable using the council and City’s authority as leverage against the University in this matter. Ms. Solomon reminded the council they had had the Basis of Value report since April 14, 2008, and objected to Ms. Bettman’s motion coming up in the eleventh hour. She was uncomfortable that the University had not had the opportunity to weigh in on the discussion, and felt the council had not acted with full transparency in the matter. Ms. Solomon asked Mr. Ruiz how many more decision points there would be for the council in terms of having the arena built. Mr. Ruiz answered that the property vacations matter before the council was probably the last formal step and that any other decisions regarding the planning and construction of the arena would be taken care of through other land use action channels. Ms. Solomon indicated she would not support Ms. Bettman’s motion for the reasons she had previously stated. Ms. Taylor asked Klein what the constitutional problems would be in asking the University for more money, particularly since it was her understanding that the council could pull out of the project altogether with no resultant legal difficulties. Mr. Klein confirmed that it would not pose a constitutional problem for the council to determine it would not be in the public’s interest to vacate the properties, and cited a Ninth Circuit Court case of the University of Oregon Foundation versus the City of Klamath Falls wherein that city had agreed to vacate a property and then asked the foundation for further remunerations regarding geothermal wells. He said the court’s determination was that the city’s actions were unconstitutional because it indicated the city was treating the applicant differently than other applicants. Mr. Klein could not say for certain the City would lose on appeal if Ms. Bettman’s motion was passed and that he had not undertaken any sort of constitutional analysis in that regard, but he said the council would certainly be treating the University differently than any other applicant who might apply for a property vacation. Mr. Klein, responding to a request for further clarification from Ms. Taylor, confirmed that the City could most likely refuse to vacate the properties altogether on the grounds that it would not be in the public interest to do so. Ms. Taylor asked Mr. Klein if the council could indeed ask the City Manager to renegotiate with the University. Mr. Klein said that, only if they did not approve Ms. Bettman’s motion today, they could conceivably say what was before them was not in the public interest and ask the City Manager to renegoti- ate. Ms. Taylor averred this was precisely the problem with rushing through the process. Ms. Bettman stated her awareness of a City Code provision requiring homeowners performing remodeling projects to put in sidewalks at their own expense and questioned why similar provisions did not apply to the University. Ms. Bettman expressed that rushing the decision to vacate the properties was not in the public’s interest, particularly if the council was unable to ensure that the inherent value of the properties was adequately considered. Ms. Bettman said her motion was designed to make the property vacations serve the public interest so that the council could endorse it. MINUTES—Eugene City Council August 13, 2008 Page 5 Work Session Ms. Bettman, with the consent of the second by Ms. Taylor, withdrew her previous motion to amend the vacation ordinances. Ms. Bettman, seconded by Ms. Taylor, moved to postpone and direct the City Manager to renegotiate the cost basis of real property of the alley vacation to maximize the public benefit and to negotiate an inter-governmental agreement with the University of Oregon on a contribution in lieu of taxes. Mr. Zelenka felt further discussion on a contribution by the University in lieu of taxes would be a great idea so that the actual financial benefit provided to the City by the University could be more accurately determined. Associate Planner Steve Ochs, responding to a request from Mr. Zelenka, clarified the color classifications of the maps in the council agenda materials as the council had been provided black and white copies. Mr. Nystrom said the University would still have the ability to utilize the vacated properties for access to existing housing, despite any pedestrian or public utility easements. Mr. Zelenka, addressing Mr. Clark’s previous comments about the timeliness of the matter, said the alley vacation was not needed at this time. Additionally, Mr. Zelenka stated the University could not excavate the site until they had received a building permit which could only be granted when they had received a conditional use permit (CUP). Mr. Zelenka believed the University had manufactured the current sense of urgency around the project in order to force the City to prematurely grant the property vacations so that they could get it under their belt, but that they would ultimately sit on the execution of the project for several months. Mr. Zelenka asked if the Basis of Value report was not in fact an appraisal of the property. Mr. Ruiz confirmed it was not an appraisal, to which Mr. Zelenka responded that it did not appear that the report or the property vacations were maximizing the public’s benefit or interest in any way. Mr. Zelenka asked if changing the special assessment from 35% to 50% of the full assessed value would be considered arbitrary. Mr. Klein answered he was not familiar with everything in the public record on the matter and could not fully respond to Mr. Zelenka’s question. Mr. Klein reminded the council that Section 9.7450 of the City Code required them to make a decision within thirty days of the close of the record, which in this case would be September 10, 2008, unless a longer time frame was agreed to by the person or entity initiating the application. He said if the council wanted to consider new evidence such as a new appraisal they would need to re-open the record, which could not be done given the processes involved and the upcoming council break. Mr. Klein commented the excavation permit process was not as simple as Mr. Zelenka had described since there were some types of excavation that could occur under the City Code, and that the City had been awaiting the Attorney General’s determination as to whether this was an instance where excavation could proceed. Ms. Solomon said the matter before the council was simply a stall tactic and that the council had had all the time and information necessary to make a thoughtful and well informed decision. She said the questions before the council could have been asked when the record was closed instead of in the current work session. She believed the council’s behavior in the work session was seriously compromising what little integrity it still had. She said the University had followed the processes that had been defined to them, and urged the MINUTES—Eugene City Council August 13, 2008 Page 6 Work Session council to not change the goal posts or attempt to extort the University any further. Mr. Clark, averring that the council’s primary mitigating factor should be the public interest and benefit, stated a recent public survey had indicated that an improved relationship between the City of Eugene and its inter-governmental partners such as the University of Oregon was the fourth highest priority to the public. He worried that, by the council’s willingness to postpone the matter, the City would ultimately be costing the University up to $12 million for the sake of only $200,000 for the City of Eugene. He said the council had all of the information necessary to make a decision immediately. Mayor Piercy called for a vote on Ms. Bettman’s previously stated motion to postpone and direct the City Manager. The motion failed, 3:5; Pryor, Clark, Poling, Ortiz and Solomon dissenting. Returning to Mr. Pryor’s motion to adopt Council Bill 4986, Mayor Piercy opened the meeting to further discussion. Mr. Zelenka thought the increased cost issue of the property vacancies was a total red herring, and expressed that while he was in favor of the arena being built he wanted to ensure that neighborhood interests concerning traffic and parking were fully mitigated. He said he had very high hopes that the University would act out of goodwill, but his experience was that the City had received nothing more from the University than a lack of cooperation and transparency and a manufactured sense of urgency surrounding the project. He was further bothered that the University’s actions had necessitated the City’s expenditure of approximately $10,000 in legal fees to combat the University’s lack of cooperation and engagement with the community. Mr. Zelenka said the University had broken a promise to him to have the Villard Alley vacation linked to a conditional use permit once he had introduced the property vacations matter into the council’s agenda. Mr. Zelenka said that after numerous meetings with various University personnel, the City Council had not received a single concrete proposal to specifically address any issues of traffic, parking, noise, or litter. He believed passing any motions on property vacations would be a tacit endorsement of the arena project without any indication as to how the CUP process involved would actually play out. Ms. Bettman disagreed with Mr. Zelenka’s characterization of the cost issues as being a red herring, and said the financial aspects of the proposed property vacations were in fact on the record and that they had been brought up by members of the public via correspondence as well as by herself in previous public hearing sessions. She said she was not interested in the City giving away another public asset to the University simply because they had arranged for a full court press on the City Council in order to make them rush the matter through. Ms. Bettman felt Mr. Clark’s statement that postponing the matter might cost the University up to $12 million was nothing short of ridiculous. She said her understanding was that the CUP process would not even be complete until November of 2008 and that asking the City Manager to renegotiate with the University would have been in the public interest. Ms. Bettman said the City had been apprehensive in its efforts to request more remuneration from the University for several years, especially for public safety concerns related to the University. Ms. Bettman summarized saying that since rushing the vacation process was not in the public interest and since the council did not have an appraisal, and also because she believed the discounts on the valuation of MINUTES—Eugene City Council August 13, 2008 Page 7 Work Session the property were arbitrary, she would be voting against the alley vacation. Ms. Taylor agreed with everything Ms. Bettman and Mr. Zelenka said, and said she did not even know how it was in the University’s interest, let alone the public interest, for the council to rush the vacation process. Mayor Piercy called for a vote on Mr. Pryor’s motion to adopt Council Bill 4986. The motion passed, 5:3; Bettman, Zelenka and Taylor dissenting. Mr. Pryor, seconded by Ms. Ortiz, moved that the City Council adopt Council Bill 4987, an th ordinance vacating a portion of East 13 Avenue right-of-way. The motion passed, 5:3; Bettman, Zelenka and Taylor dissenting. B. WORK SESSION: Regional Transportation Planning Public Works Engineering Division staff Rob Inerfeld restated the list of staff recommendations from the agenda item summary regarding a number of regional transportation planning issues that were previously discussed during the Joint Elected Officials (JEO) meeting on July 15, 2008. He said staff was seeking the council’s concurrence on the recommendations. With respect to the fifth Regional Transportation Planning (RTP) item regarding the development of a Eugene-only Transportation System Plan (TSP), Mr. Inerfeld indicated it was his understanding that the public involvement component of any such TSP was very important to the council. Mr. Inerfeld said the plan was for staff to return to council at the September 15 JEO meeting, with a work plan that would then go to the Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC) at its October meeting. Mayor Piercy confirmed with Mr. Inerfeld that decisions regarding a TSP work plan would be made at the local level before they would be taken to the JEO meeting in September. Ms. Bettman, seconded by Mr. Zelenka, moved to initiate a TransPlan amendment to delete the West Eugene Parkway (WEP) from the project list and plan as part of the short term amendments, and to add the two Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) facility th projects, West 11 Avenue from Terry Street to Greenhill Road, and the Beltline Highway from River Road to Delta Highway, into the constrained project lists. Ms. Bettman said she had read in her materials that the deletion and additions specified in her motion would require the initiation of a Metro Plan amendment and asked if she would need to add that amendment to her motion. Mr. Inerfeld replied that a TransPlan amendment would be sufficient. Ms. Bettman stated that TransPlan was due to be updated by staff in 2008 rather than 2007 for multiple reasons. She said the decision from ODOT was that TransPlan was not part of the RTP and that it seemed like a convoluted way to appease ODOT. Mr. Inerfeld said ODOT was the entity that had recommended the WEP language to the TransPlan recommendations, and confirmed Ms. Bettman’s earlier statement that the WEP was not a planned transportation facility for the purposes of the Transportation Planning Rule (TPR). Mr. Clark was uncertain that he could support the motion as he was unclear what the impact of it would be. Mr. Clark, referring to the second of the five TransPlan recommendations, asked Mr. Inerfeld if the planning horizon of 2022 was where the TransPlan update would occur. Mr. Inerfeld answered that the planning MINUTES—Eugene City Council August 13, 2008 Page 8 Work Session horizon estimation had been adjusted to reflect slower population growth than was originally projected. Mr. Inerfeld said staff would like for a TransPlan update to happen within the next few years, presumably to coincide with the RTP update planned for 2011. Mr. Clark, referring to the third of the five staff recommendations, recalled a previous vote where council discussed the Beltline Highway from River Road to Delta Highway as being the top regional transportation priority for the City. He asked if a vote on Ms. Bettman’s motion would change that priority in any way. Mr. Inerfeld answered that it would not. Mr. Clark was not sure of the value of voting affirmatively on Ms. Bettman’s motion and asked Mr. Inerfeld to identify any potential harm as Mr. Clark interpreted the motion as being contrary to ODOT’s suggestion. Mr. Inerfeld commented it might divert staff time at the City and LCOG that would otherwise be spent on the TSP update and ongoing studies. Mr. Zelenka asked why staff recommended that the RTP issues be addressed over the next several months instead of being taken care of immediately. Mr. Inerfeld replied that there were procedures to be followed with the City Planning Commission and council and that immediate action would not be feasible beyond the act of initiating the changes to TransPlan. Mr. Zelenka averred that the federal portion of the TransPlan had been removed from the RTP. Mr. Inerfeld said that State laws dictated that some sort of transportation facility be constructed to serve the City’s planned land uses and that removal of the WEP from the TransPlan would violate that mandate. He further stated that staff’s recommendation to fold the WEP into the constrained plan would allow the City to comply with state laws. Mr. Zelenka offered that for all intents and purposes the WEP project was dead as it had no funding or authorization to proceed, and that continuing to discuss the WEP was undue process. Mr. Inerfeld said the language staff was recommending to be added to the TransPlan was for the purpose of providing developers the opportunity to rely on the WEP in the interim as it would still be in the TransPlan. Mr. Zelenka asked what the difference was between the language of staff’s recommendation and the language of Ms. Bettman’s motion. Mr. Inerfeld stated it would be easier for staff to initiate their recommendations than it would be to execute the deletions and modifications described in Ms. Bettman’s motion. Mr. Zelenka said it would be his preference to execute the WEP now rather than later and asked what would be pushed back if the City focused on the WEP immediately. Mr. Inerfeld could not say specifically what would be pushed back, but that it might impact the West 11th Transportation Corridor study, the West Eugene Collaborative, the EmX expansion with the Lane Transit District, and pedestrian/bicycle planning in the south hills area of Eugene. Mr. Inerfeld said it was necessary for the City to balance the land use and transportation systems in West Eugene, and that they might not be able to do so at this point because the City had no other facilities it could use to substitute for the WEP. He summarized saying that the State required the City to have some other project in place in order to take the WEP out, and that the City was currently unprepared to do so. Mr. Zelenka asked Mr. Klein if that meant that Ms. Bettman’s motion would be considered illegal. Mr. Klein answered that it might be difficult to determine the legality of the motion as it involved multiple jurisdictions such as the City of Eugene and Lane County, and that any removal of the WEP from TransPlan would be considered acceptable provided the City could prove that something was planned to take its place. Mr. Klein said he did not perceive a problem with Ms. Bettman initiating removal of the WEP but that if it MINUTES—Eugene City Council August 13, 2008 Page 9 Work Session were done now the City would have nothing to replace it with. He further explained that the staff’s recommendation to change the language as suggested by ODOT was designed to prevent developers from exploiting the WEP project to re-zone their properties. Mr. Zelenka said it was his understanding the WEP did not solve the transportation problems in west Eugene in the first place and that the City was already non-compliant with State and Federal guidelines. Mr. Klein said that the WEP, as part of TransPlan, was already considered consistent with State planning goals, the TPR and Goal 12. He further stated that any opportunity to amend the TransPlan was also an opportunity for government officials to say that the plan was not consistent with State requirements. Mr. Zelenka, noting the population projection from the second of the five staff recommendations, asked if that figure was based on the slower population growth that Mr. Inerfeld had mentioned earlier. Mr. Inerfeld confirmed that it was. Mr. Poling, referring to the third of the five Staff recommendations, said a recently formed stakeholder group looking at the Beltline improvements had actually focused on the area from Coburg Road to the Beltline’s potential intersection with Crocker Road. He asked if the wording of the recommendation or Ms. Bettman’s motion would need to be changed to reflect that determination. Mr. Inerfeld commented that when the RTP was updated to a financially constrained plan, the area from River Road to Delta Highway was specified because it was identified as having the most severe problems. He commented that the section of the Beltline from Delta Highway to Coburg Road remained on the Illustrative list. Mr. Pryor said he was satisfied with staff’s recommendations, and subsequently could not support Ms. Bettman’s motion. Mayor Piercy believed Ms. Bettman was intending to ensure that no one could base anything on the possibility of the WEP returning at some future date. Ms. Bettman confirmed that was one of her intentions. Mayor Piercy asked if the current language of staff recommendations would also ensure the same thing. Mr. Klein replied that the language suggested by ODOT would ensure that no one could rely on the WEP’s existence in the TransPlan in order to try to justify a re-zoning or similar re-designation. Mr. Pryor, seconded by Mr. Clark, moved to extend the City Council meeting by 10 minutes. The motion passed unanimously, 8:0. Mr. Pryor believed that the WEP was most likely never going to happen. He was committed to a variety of post-WEP projects such as the West Eugene Collaborative. He felt the staff recommendations were probably the way the council needed to go. He said he would not be supporting Ms. Bettman’s motion, primarily because he felt the timing of the relevant issues were better addressed by staff’s recommendations. Mr. Clark could not support Ms. Bettman’s motion primarily because he felt it would lead to an inefficient use of staff time in relation to the other corridor studies, as well as because of the potential for other people to abuse the WEP as justification for Goal 12 findings. Ms. Bettman said removing the WEP from the RTP only meant that it would not receive Federal funding and that leaving it in the TransPlan with the caveat that you could not use it to develop would not mean that the WEP could never be built. MINUTES—Eugene City Council August 13, 2008 Page 10 Work Session Ms. Bettman, referring to the record of decision from 2006 on the matter, felt a 2011 update of the TransPlan was overly optimistic. She felt that her motion to delete the WEP was timely as the council was initiating TransPlan amendments anyway. She said leaving the WEP in the TransPlan would lead to a huge public outcry and take focus off of other important transportation issues. She said the council needed to put a stake in the heart of the project. Mr. Zelenka felt the City’s relationship with ODOT was actually quite good despite rumors to the contrary. Mr. Zelenka asked why the staff’s recommendations to amend the TransPlan were not required to be initiated as motions brought by the City Council. Mr. Inerfeld did not believe staff needed a motion by the council to initiate amendments. Ms. Bettman said that motions were indeed required and that the staff’s recommended amendments were due to be tabled as a motion at the City Council meeting as part of the work plan on September 15, 2008. Mr. Zelenka said the City did not actually have a regional transportation plan, but rather grouped several local transportation plans into what City Staff referred to as a regional transportation plan. Mr. Zelenka said it was very inefficient to have to employ both State and Federal processes with regard to transportation planning. Mr. Inerfeld commented that the City was moving in the direction of having its own transportation system plan and that the City would need to have at least two plans. Mayor Piercy called for a vote on Ms. Bettman’s motion to initiate a TransPlan amendment to delete the West Eugene Parkway (WEP) from the project list and Plan as part of the short term amendments, and to add the two Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) th facility projects, West 11 Avenue from Terry Street to Greenhill Road, and the Beltline Highway from River Road to Delta Highway, into the constrained project lists. The motion tied, 4:4; Zelenka, Bettman, Taylor, Ortiz in favor; Clark, Poling, Solomon, Pryor against. Mayor Piercy voted to break the tie in favor of the motion. The motion carried 5:4. The meeting adjourned at 1:41 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Jon Ruiz City Manager (Recorded by Wade Hicks) MINUTES—Eugene City Council August 13, 2008 Page 11 Work Session ATTACHMENT F M I N U T E S Eugene City Council Work Session McNutt Room – City Hall 777 Pearl Street—Eugene, Oregon September 8, 2008 5:30 p.m. COUNCILORS PRESENT: Andrea Ortiz, Chris Pryor, Betty Taylor, George Poling, Mike Clark, Jennifer Solomon, Bonny Bettman (via telephone), Alan Zelenka (via tele- phone). Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the meeting of the Eugene City Council to order A. Committee Reports and Items of Interest from Mayor, City Council and City Manager Ms. Piercy announced the openings of the Mayor’s Art Show and the Teen Art Show. She said the Eugene Celebration would be September 12-14. She said she and Ms. Ortiz met with business owners regarding the problem of metal theft. She said that Columbus, Ohio had developed ordinances to address metal theft and hoped Eugene could do something similar. Ms. Ortiz said she had attended farewell parties for former City employees Angel Jones and Chris Beamud. She attended neighborhood meetings in River Road/Santa Clara and downtown. She reminded the public that the recruitment of citizens for boards and commissions was still open and encouraged people from wards 6, 7 and 8 to apply. Mr. Clark echoed Ms. Ortiz’s comments regarding boards and commissions and encouraged people from Ward 5 to apply. He attended the Human Rights Commission picnic and various neighborhood meetings. He also attended the Lane Workforce Partnership lunch and the grand opening of Kendall Toyota’s new sustainable facility. He said they were hoping for a gold LEED certification or possibly platinum. He asked the City Manager to provide a written response to his question about who had authorized advertising to fill the deputy police auditor position. Ms. Taylor attended Crest Drive and Southeast neighborhood gatherings. She also attended a meeting regarding field burning. She said a universal number where people could call with concerns was needed, particularly on weekends and evenings. She asked if people who had been convicted of some type of vandalism could be sentenced to a certain number of hours of cleaning downtown streets and sidewalks. Mr. Poling congratulated the City on completion of Willakenzie Park. He said the Council Committee on Intergovernmental Relations (CCIGR) had considered a list of legislative concepts submitted by the League of Oregon Cities. He said the CCIGR identified four concepts as priorities for the City, one of those being measures to address metal theft. MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 8, 2008 Page 1 Work Session Mr. Pryor reviewed the number of openings on various boards and commissions. He encouraged people to apply. He assisted with patching potholes and emphasized that in addition to the bond measure to help with street repairs, the City was already actively spending almost $10 million annually on streets. Ms. Bettman announced that the Metropolitan Wastewater Management Commission public hearing was postponed to September 26. She also assisted with patching potholes and enjoyed the experience. Regarding Item C on the agenda, she said she lived on the north end of Friendly Street and asked if that presented a conflict of interest. City Attorney Jerome Lidz replied that if she lived on a portion of the street not subject to road improvements there was no conflict. Mr. Ruiz invited councilors to stop by the Human Rights Center’s information table during the Eugene Celebration and participate in the United Way Community breakfast. B. WORK SESSION: West Eugene EmX Extension Update Lane Transit District (LTD) board member Greg Evans provided an overview of the West Eugene EmX project. He said for the past 18 months the City and LTD had been following the process established by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) in order to qualify the project for federal funds. He said the West Eugene project was more complex than the process for the Emerald EmX line and the Gateway EmX line. He said a preferred alternative had not yet been selected and public input on options was still being collected. He noted that a preferred alternative had to be agreed upon by the council, the LTD board and the Metropolitan Policy Committee (MPC). He said LTD was asking for the council’s support of the district’s requests for state and federal funding for the local match portion of the project. LTD director of planning and development Tom Schwetz stated that EmX was the region’s adopted high- th capacity transit option. He said following the council’s recommendation of the West 11 Avenue corridor for the next EmX line the LTD board concurred and the project was initiated in early 2007 with a notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS). He reviewed the elements and timeline of the environmental process, which incorporated extensive public outreach and involvement and would culminate in selection of a locally preferred alternative. Mr. Schwetz said the West Eugene EmX Extension Corridor Committee had been formed to bring decision- makers together with stakeholders along the corridor to provide advice throughout the process. He said community design workshops to consider options for each alternative were currently in progress and would be concluded on October 20. He listed the points of coordination between LTD and the City, including the th corridor committee, a project management group, the City’s West 11 Corridor Study, the West Eugene Collaborative and the Metro Waterways Study. He briefly reviewed the Amazon alignment and fixed design elements such as preservation of multi-use path, separation of multi-use path from EmX, incorporation of Metro Waterways goals and objectives, enhancement of the channel and location of stations at cross streets. He said public outreach was conducted in a number of ways, using newsletters, email, community workshops, speakers, neighborhood presentations, websites and one-on-one meetings. He emphasized that the environmental process was intended to support complex decisions by the council, the LTD board and the MPC. In response to a question from Ms. Bettman, Mr. Schwetz said LTD was not requesting funds from Eugene for the local match. MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 8, 2008 Page 2 Work Session Ms. Bettman asked if the environmental process would vet all alternatives to the same level of thoroughness, even ones that the council would not support. Mr. Schwetz explained that the process was established by federal regulation, which envisioned a decision-making process whereby people made a decision at the point where the fullest amount of information was available. Ms. Bettman opined that the Amazon alignment had fatal flaws and the Amazon channel was an amenity to the community that should not be diminished. She said the transit corridor should access the area but not thth infringe upon it; her preferred alternative was the 6/7 avenues alignment because it linked workers with their employment. Mr. Zelenka asked why the Amazon alignment was still being considered. Mr. Schwetz said that alternative arose during the scoping process and LTD felt that there could be some potential funding opportunities. He said there were examples in the Portland area of transit running along similar waterways. He reiterated that the environmental process was intended to scrutinize all alternatives. Mr. Evans added that the only th alternative removed from consideration was the residential portion of West 11 Avenue, which the LTD board felt was not feasible for the district, the neighborhood or the community. Mr. Clark asked if there were representatives of the 3RT group on the stakeholder committee. Mr. Schwetz said there was one 3RT representative on the committee. Mr. Clark asked what impact LTD’s funding challenges would have on its ongoing planning activities and eventual implementation. Mr. Evans said the EmX planning process would not be affected, but federal funding would be required for the eventual construction of the project. Mr. Clark asked if LTD anticipated a need for increased operational funding. Mr. Evans said LTD was already faced with the need for additional operating funds because of increased ridership and increased fuel prices and there would be some restructuring of the system to address that problem. He stressed that funding for operations was separate from planning and construction activities. Mr. Schwetz added that State funding would be sought for the match portion of the capital project. He said the operational efficiencies that were realized through EmX actually helped the district’s operational needs. Mr. Pryor said he appreciated participating in the process. He said the corridor was divided into three segments and the middle segment—Garfield Street to Bailey Hill Road—essentially defined the project. He said the Amazon alignment was included in the process because each option had to be considered until it was no longer viable. He found the discussion of alternatives to be very informative and helpful. Ms. Taylor commented that it was a waste of time and money to look at the Amazon channel if it was not supported by most people. Mr. Schwetz said that an alternative could not be eliminated until all of the information was available. Ms. Taylor asked if the council could determine that an alternative should not be pursued. Mr. Schwetz said it was more effective to wait until all the information had been obtained. Ms. Ortiz commended the community design workshops. She did not feel that any option should be eliminated at this point in the process. She pointed out that there were many businesses that were located right next to the Amazon channel in that area. She doubted that all of them were in compliance with current City codes regarding stormwater and she was not certain that the community would refuse to support an Amazon alignment. MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 8, 2008 Page 3 Work Session Mr. Poling thanked LTD staff for the public involvement process and agreed with Ms. Ortiz that the more options that were considered the better the outcome of the process would be. He would not be willing to eliminate an alternative until he had all of the information from the process. Ms. Bettman asked what the federal regulations required in terms of considering options. She asked if it thth would be permissible under the federal process to express a preference for the 6/7 avenues alignment and then focus on alternatives related to that alignment. City Attorney Jerome Lidz said he would need to research that question, but it was clear that the process needed to proceed with all the options. Ms. Bettman said it was a poor use of taxpayer money to consider options that did not have council or thth community support. She favored only considering options related to the 6/7 avenues alignment. She asked if each alternative would be subjected to all of the environmental disciplines listed in Attachment F in the agenda packet. Mr. Schwetz said detailed descriptions of each of the environmental disciplines would be used to conduct an impact analysis of each alternative alignment and a report summarizing those findings would be provided to the council. Leon Skiles, consultant, asserted that Attachment F defined the content of the EIS and each area would be addressed in the EIS for all of the alternatives. He said additionally the LTD adopted goals and objectives that would lead to evaluation criteria and measures that would be a subset of the information in the EIS. Ms. Piercy remarked that LTD was in charge of the process of vetting the range of alternatives and no one would know the outcome until the process was completed and could inform the final decision. She thought the public was very concerned with preserving bus services and also liked EmX, but worried that EmX might impact the other services LTD provided. She said the City was willing to help LTD find resources to provide regular and paratransit services along with EmX. Mr. Ruiz said the council’s October 13 work session would include a discussion of LTD funding and service issues. Ms. Bettman repeated her request for a legal memorandum regarding what was required to meet the federal requirements for analyzing alternative options. C. WORK SESSION: Funding Alternatives for City’s Share of Road Improvements for Crest Drive, Storey Boulevard and Friendly Street Mark Schoening, City engineer, presented alternatives for funding the City’s share of the implementation of the approved design for Crest Drive, Storey Boulevard and Friendly Street. He said the council had approved the recommended design in April 2008, with an estimated cost of $5.75 million, and in June 2008, adopted the FY09 budget, which included $2.6 million in the Special Assessment Capital Projects Fund to provide the interim financing for the assessable share of the project. He said the council also approved over $1 million in stormwater funds, which combined with the budget appropriation would cover the $1.5 million in non-assessable stormwater costs. Not included in the budget, he said, was the City’s share of road improvements at $1.65 million. Mr. Schoening reviewed the various options for funding the City’s share and said the recommended strategy was to use $700,000 from the Delayed Assessment Fund and $950,000 from the $4.5 million in Lane County Road Fund dollars the City received in exchange for General Fund dollars. He said the Lane County Road Fund was earmarked for pavement preservation and the Crest, Friendly and Storey improvements were MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 8, 2008 Page 4 Work Session upgrading those streets to urban standards and the project has a significant pavement preservation component. Mr. Ruiz said the intent of the road fund dollars was pavement preservation and a good portion of the project was pavement preservation. Ms. Taylor congratulated the City Manager on finding a way to fund the project. She hoped that potholes could still be filled in the interim and the City could find a way to help people who could not afford their assessments. Mr. Pryor acknowledged the hard work of the neighborhood on the project and congratulated the City Manager and staff on finding the funds to implement the project without crippling something else in the budget. Ms. Bettman concurred with Mr. Pryor’s comments. She was pleased the project was moving forward and maintaining the momentum of the collaboration between the neighborhood and the City. She agreed with the funding recommendation. She asked if moving forward with final design and construction of the project would preclude pursuing a classification change of the street. Mr. Schoening said those actions could move forward independently. Ms. Solomon objected to filling potholes on streets prior to construction because the project would use 25 percent of the Lane County Road Fund exchange dollars, and limited resources for potholes should be used elsewhere. She said the project would permanently resolve those problems and she preferred to see resources invested in pothole repairs on other streets that were in equally bad condition. She did not support the funding strategy because it would use 25 percent of the exchange funds for one project. Mr. Clark said he wanted to see the project completed, but had the same concerns as Ms. Solomon about using 25 percent of the funds for one project. He commended staff for a creative strategy. He asked if using the funds for this project would displace other projects that were slated for funding. Mr. Schoening said there was a $170 million preservation backlog, but specific projects had not been targeted with the funds. Mr. Clark asked if the Crest/Friendly/Storey project rose to the level of priority that warranted using 25 percent of the county road fund exchange money. Mr. Schoening said that it did. Mr. Clark asked if using money from the Delayed Assessment Fund would jeopardize helping owners with local assessments of developed property. Mr. Schoening said the ability to help should not be affected. Mr. Clark asked for a list of the priority street preservation projects. Ms. Ortiz thanked staff for their creativity in developing the funding strategy recommendation. She acknowledged that there was a large backlog of roads that needed to be repaired, but the neighbors had been working for a long time on the project and it was time to move forward. She hoped that staff would be as creative with ideas for the Elmira/Maple Road project. She would support the recommendation, but did not want to see pothole repairs done on those streets before construction began. Mr. Schoening said it would be difficult to screen out certain streets in the pothole repair program; the goal was to construct the project in the summer of 2009. Ms. Ortiz urged staff to minimize the amount of repairs in that area. MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 8, 2008 Page 5 Work Session Mr. Pryor, seconded by Ms. Bettman, moved to proceed with the final design and construction with a combination of $700,000 from the Delayed Assessment Fund and $950,000 from the Lane County Road Fund exchange, and include the Delayed Assessment Fund share as part of Supplemental Budget #1 in FY09. Mr. Ruiz commended Public Works staff for their outstanding work and creativity. Ms. Piercy said the council would take up the Consent Calendar from the regular meeting agenda. D. CONSENT CALENDAR A. Approval of City Council Minutes of the June 23, 2008, City Council Meeting; June 24, 2008, Joint Elected Officials Meeting; July 28, 2008, Work Session B. Approval of Tentative Working Agenda C. Authorization to Execute Employment Agreement with Interim Police Auditor Mr. Pryor, seconded by Ms. Bettman, moved to approve the items on the Consent Calendar. Ms. Ortiz pulled Item C. The Consent Calendar, with the exception of Item C, was approved, 8:0. Mr. Pryor and Ms. Bettman accepted a friendly amendment from Ms. Ortiz to add provisions regarding a car allowance and Ms. Reynolds’ right to return to the position of deputy police auditor to the employment agreement. Ms. Solomon questioned how Ms. Reynolds would be able to return to her previous position when the City was advertising for a deputy police auditor. Mr. Ruiz commented that the police auditor was autonomous and reported to the council; she had to ability to hire and manage staff in accordance with the City charter. Alana Holmes, Human Resources (HR), said that Ms. Reynolds was working with HR staff to hire interim help to backfill the deputy position while she was acting as the interim police auditor. She said the hiring would be for a finite period until a decision was made on hiring a police auditor. She would follow-up to determine if that was clear in the advertisement. Ms. Solomon felt it would be more efficient for someone else in the City organization to be loaned to the police auditor’s office, instead of hiring someone new and then potentially letting them go. Ms. Holmes said Ms. Reynolds had been hired fairly recently and the pool of applicants from that recruitment would be surveyed to determine interest in a short-term temporary position. Mr. Clark said he was troubled that the council was not notified that the deputy auditor position was being filled on an interim basis. He felt that filling the deputy position could signal other potential applicants that the person in the interim auditor position was likely to become the permanent auditor. He felt the council should have had that discussion. He was also concerned about hiring a short-term, temporary auditor because of the confidentiality issues that had recently been raised. Mr. Lidz said Ms. Reynolds would be available at the regular meeting to respond to questions. MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 8, 2008 Page 6 Work Session Mr. Poling commented that there were two separate issues: one related to approving the contract verbally offered to Ms. Reynolds for the interim police auditor position and the other related to her authority to advertise for a deputy auditor without consulting the council and was that acceptable to the council. He felt the latter issue should be addressed at a different time and the council should take action to formalize the contract. He said as long as the advertisement was clear that the position was temporary he was satisfied, but the council did need to have that discussion. Mr. Pryor agreed with Mr. Poling’s remarks. He said the subject of the police auditor’s authority was an ideal topic for a process session as it could be complicated for eight people to provide direct supervision to an employee. Ms. Ortiz agreed with Mr. Poling and Mr. Pryor. She noted that Ms. Reynolds had no previous experience with being supervised by the council. The amended motion passed 6:2; Mr. Clark and Ms. Solomon voting no. The meeting was adjourned at 7 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Jon Ruiz City Manager (Recorded by Lynn Taylor) MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 8, 2008 Page 7 Work Session ATTACHMENT G M I N U T E S Eugene City Council Public Hearing Council Chamber 777 Pearl Street—Eugene, Oregon September 8, 2008 7:30 p.m. COUNCILORS PRESENT: Chris Pryor, Andrea Ortiz, Mike Clark, Betty Taylor, Jennifer Solomon, George Poling. COUNCILORS ABSENT: Bonny Bettman, Alan Zelenka. Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the meeting of the Eugene City Council to order. She noted that the Consent Calendar had been included in the business of the previous Work Session. 1. PUBLIC FORUM Mayor Piercy reviewed procedures for providing comments. Carol Berg-Caldwell , 2510 Augusta Street, hoped for improved city/police relations. She related that two days of group discussions with a conflict resolution expert had been conducted at the Human Rights Commission for concerned people. She had attended two sessions. She said she had attended a dinner meeting with City Manager, Jon Ruiz. She thought it was essential for representatives of the Police Department and “some of us” to hold some joint sessions so each side could listen to the other and there would be no more “them and us.” She had been troubled to read Councilor Clark’s comments wherein Police Chief Bob Lehner had “taken some unfair shots from some extreme points of view” and that he understood why Chief Lehner would become tired of the abuse. She declared that it was never extreme for citizens to defend the voting process or to oppose a City ordinance being violated. She asked hypothetically how the councilor would feel if someone tampered with the election process under which he had gained his seat on the council. Ms. Berg-Caldwell said Mr. Ruiz supported the Police Auditor reporting to the council and not to the City Manager. She took issue with Mayoral-candidate Jim Torrey’s alleged opinion that the auditor should be a City employee. She asserted that a donation from the police union positioned Mr. Torrey as the “pro-police candidate.” She accused Councilor Clark of political opportunism. She averred that the voters that supported the Police Auditor Ordinance would “see through this.” She commended Mr. Ruiz for reaching out, even “to his critics.” Daniel related situations from his family life. Zachary Vishanoff , Ward 3, provided a packet of photocopied articles and asked for staff’s assurance that it would be delivered to Councilor Bettman in her absence. He said it was about the University’s arena MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 8, 2008 Page 1 Public Hearing project. He opined that the media had failed in regard to the arena. He wished to confirm the date of the public hearing on the arena and asked if it was scheduled for October 7 in the Council Chamber. He asked if the City could do a press release to the public. He thought it would be good to “pin down” when that hearing would be. He noted that the information was available on line and urged the council to include the email address in a press release. He called the project “very significant.” He opined that KLCC had given the “least pathetic” media coverage of the arena and KEZI was the “biggest cheerleader.” He asked staff to pass out his packet of photocopied articles in front of him because it helped his “feeling like the council actually wants the information.” Joe Collins , P.O. Box 24411, related that he had gone to the library to talk to the research librarian about how to research individuals in public life. He said the librarian did not have this information. He commented that he was having a difficult time finding out things about the councilors. He asked Councilor Clark if he was related to a woman featured in the paper who was a loan officer at a local bank. Councilor Clark indicated that she was no relation to him. Continuing, Mr. Collins said he was “pleased” to see that Police Chief Bob Lehner was considering leaving the City. He hoped that he would take “half the District Attorney’s office with him and a couple of the more obnoxious judges.” He also had noticed that the area had the highest number of infant mortality deaths in the nation. He thought this should be addressed by the council. He remarked that the problem with problems was that no one stepped forward and took responsibility for the problems and then worked to solve them. He felt the area had an awful drug problem but the justice system did not seem to know anything about it. He asked the council to go to Douglas County for information because they seemed to know about drug problems and how to interdict them. He closed by expressing disappointment in the City Council. Mayor Piercy closed the public forum and called for councilor comments. Councilor Clark expressed appreciation for Ms. Berg-Caldwell’s comments. He said it was a free country and it was a “beautiful thing” that citizens had the ability to speak out. He said it was okay to attack him; it came with the territory. He stated that prior to the comments quoted in the paper he had related to the press that he had received input from people who lived in North Eugene that indicated they were unhappy that he had not spoken up about the treatment the Chief of Police had received. He stressed that many, many people he represented in North Eugene were very angry about how unfairly the Chief had been portrayed. He said they were also very angry that there seemed to be only one side to the conversation. He averred that some of the comments that had been made and some of the letters to the editor that had been written had been extreme and irresponsible. He believed that it was irresponsible for people to suggest that someone had broken the law based upon information they might not be fully aware of and then suggest there should be a specific remedy before being fully apprised of the details. He stated that he had not spoken out earlier because he wished to wait until “calmer heads” could prevail so that this could be dealt with in a thorough way at a time when all of the information could be heard without having anyone’s safety placed in jeopardy. He reiterated his appreciation for her remarks and stressed that he disagreed with them. th Councilor Solomon related that she had been at a coffee shop at the corner of 29 Avenue and Willamette Street and the shop had a laptop set up with a link to a city Web site that allowed a person to enter their favorite pothole. She thought it had been very easy to use. She encouraged members of the public to go to the site and register their favorite potholes. She believed this would be a useful tool for the City. Mayor Piercy thanked Councilor Solomon for bringing that up. MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 8, 2008 Page 2 Public Hearing Councilor Taylor thanked everyone who spoke. She appreciated Ms. Berg-Caldwell’s activism “all of these years.” She averred that Ms. Berg-Caldwell was a good example of “citizens watching the public process.” She added that she wanted to hear the rest of what Mr. Collins wanted to say. She also wished to clarify that the public hearing Mr. Vishanoff brought up was not a City Council hearing. Mayor Piercy stated that the infant mortality rate that had been written about in the newspaper was a county issue and one that had been identified. She noted that she served on the Commission for Children and Families and this was an important topic for them. She commented that they could point to Lane County Public Health, which like all public health departments was in need of an infusion of support. She felt Lane County was huge and a vast amount of it was rural, making it difficult for people to access services. She said it was something they needed to work on. 2. CONSENT CALENDAR A. Approval of City Council Minutes - June 23, 2008, City Council Meeting - June 24, 20008, Joint Elected Officials Meeting - July 28, 2008, Work Session B. Approval of Tentative Working Agenda C. Authorization to Execute Employment Agreement with Interim Police Auditor The council had considered and approved the Consent Calendar during its preceding Work Session. The meeting adjourned at 7:40 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Jon Ruiz City Manager (Recorded by Ruth Atcherson) MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 8, 2008 Page 3 Public Hearing ATTACHMENT H M I N U T E S Eugene City Council McNutt Room—City Hall—777 Pearl Street Eugene, Oregon September 10, 2008 Noon COUNCILORS PRESENT: Chris Pryor, Betty Taylor, Jennifer Solomon, George Poling, Andrea Ortiz, Mike Clark, Alan Zelenka (via telephone), Bonny Bettman (via telephone). Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the work session of the Eugene City Council to order. She noted that Mr. Zelenka and Ms. Bettman were participating by telephone. A. WORK SESSION: Police Auditor Recruitment Process Alana Holmes, Human Resources, referred to information in the agenda packet related to the seven recruitment firms who had responded with information regarding the search for a police auditor. She said the council would select two firms to interview by phone following the September 17 work session. She said a decision based on the results of those interviews could be made at the council’s September 24 work session. Ms. Holmes said the seven firms were evaluated using a screening matrix that included factors such as cost, experience, process and timeline and access to candidates. She reviewed the results for the following firms: ? Alliance Resources Counseling ? Avery Associates ? Bob Murray & Associates ? Mercer Group ? Prothman ? Waldron & Company ? Walters-Oldani Ms. Taylor suggested determining if there were any firms in which no one was interested. She was most interested in Alliance and Waldron and would consider Avery or Mercer, but was not interested in Prothman or Bob Murray & Associates. Mr. Poling indicated he was interested in Bob Murray & Associates based on the information provided and the council’s previous experience with the firm. He was not interested in moving any of the other firms forward. Mr. Pryor said he liked Bob Murray & Associates and Alliance. He would be willing to consider Avery if three firms were interviewed. MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 10, 2008 Page 1 Work Session Ms. Solomon concurred with Mr. Pryor’s remarks and would support Bob Murray & Associates and Alliance, with Avery a third choice. Ms. Ortiz concurred with Mr. Pryor and Ms. Solomon. She said Alliance and Bob Murray & Associates scored the highest in the category of police auditor experience. Mr. Clark thanked staff for their work. He concurred with Mr. Pryor, Ms. Solomon and Ms. Ortiz. Ms. Bettman stated she could not support moving Bob Murray &Associates forward to an interview because of her previous experience with the firm. She felt the firm selected should be able to penetrate many different markets because there were so few police auditors and it would be necessary to identify people with the requisite skills. She also did not like the fact that the individual in Bob Murray & Associates who would be managing the recruitment process had a background in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). She supported interviewing Alliance, Mercer and Waldron. Mr. Zelenka said he did not want to interview Bob Murray & Associates and would support interviewing Alliance, Avery, Mercer and Waldron as they all seemed to be qualified. Ms. Taylor strongly objected to Bob Murray & Associates. She liked Waldron because of its familiarity with Oregon and would also consider Alliance, Mercer or Avery. Mr. Poling felt that Bob Murray & Associates had done a good job with a previous recruitment. He pointed out that the council was not hiring an individual to conduct the recruitment; it was hiring a firm. He noted that Bob Murray & Associates had the highest total score with the lowest cost and Waldron had the lowest total score with the highest cost according to the screening matrix. He said using Bob Murray & Associates could start the recruitment process as soon as possible, with the lowest cost. Ms. Piercy thanked staff for providing the information to help inform the council’s decision. She noted that seven councilors liked Alliance and five councilors were interested in Bob Murray & Associates. Mr. Pryor, seconded by Ms. Bettman, moved to interview by phone the top three recruitment firms on Wednesday, September 17, 2008. The firms to be interviewed are: Alliance Resources Consulting, Bob Murray & Associates and Waldron and Company. Mr. Clark, seconded by Ms. Ortiz, moved to amend the motion by substituting Mercer Group for Waldron and Company. The motion passed, 7:1; Ms. Taylor voting no. Ms. Bettman, seconded by Ms. Taylor, moved to delete Bob Murray & Associates from the interview process. The motion failed, 6:2; Ms. Bettman and Ms. Taylor voting yes. The main motion as amended passed, 7:1; Mr. Poling voting no. Ms. Holmes asked councilors to suggest issues to be addressed in the interview process so staff could draft a set of questions for the interview process. MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 10, 2008 Page 2 Work Session Ms. Ortiz said Eugene’s recruitment should be a top priority for the firm selected. Ms. Bettman asked that questions developed by council officers be included. She wanted the process to be sufficiently flexible to allow for follow-up questions when appropriate. She said the questions used to select a firm during the last city manager recruitment process worked well and should be included. Mr. Clark suggested taking advantage of Ms. Ortiz’s attendance at the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE) conference to identify potential candidates and obtain information on oversight systems used in other jurisdictions. He was interested in questioning firms about their previous experience in other markets and what they learned about those police oversight models that might be of assistance to the council. Ms. Ortiz said she would distribute recruitment information at the NACOLE conference. Mr. Zelenka said the firms should be asked how many other clients they had and how many recruitment processes would be conducted at the same time; they should also be asked about their scope of geography. Ms. Piercy commented that the oversight models used in other jurisdictions was a different issue. Mr. Clark said he was interested in the opinion of an objective third party about the systems in place elsewhere. He wanted information about different approaches to oversight and what had worked or not worked in other places that could assist the council to create a stronger system and determine the type of person to fill the police auditor position. Ms. Piercy did not think a recruitment firm was the right source for that information. Ms. Bettman said an evaluative role was not appropriate for a recruiter and those types of questions should not be a part of the interview process. She said there was extensive information on oversight models available from NACOLE and other organizations that the council could use for that purpose. Mr. Clark said his intent was to probe the recruitment firms’ understanding of the types of oversight models in use. Ms. Holmes said she would develop a list of questions for the interview process and email them to councilors for further refinement. The meeting adjourned at 12:40 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Jon Ruiz City Manager (Recorded by Lynn Taylor) MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 10, 2008 Page 3 Work Session ATTACHMENT I M I N U T E S Eugene City Council Public Hearing Council Chamber 777 Pearl Street—Eugene, Oregon September 15, 2008 7:30 p.m. COUNCILORS PRESENT: Chris Pryor, Andrea Ortiz, Mike Clark, Jennifer Solomon, George Poling, Betty Taylor. COUNCILORS ABSENT: Alan Zelenka, Bonny Bettman. Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the meeting of the Eugene City Council to order. 1. PUBLIC HEARING An Ordinance Concerning a Council Employee Complaint Process; Adding Sections 2.400, 2.402, 2.404, 2.406, 2.410 and 2.412 to the Eugene Code, 1971; and Amending Section 2.486 of that Code. Mayor Piercy opened the public hearing and reviewed the procedures for providing testimony. There being no one wishing to speak, she closed the hearing. There were no questions or comments from councilors. 2. PUBLIC HEARING An Ordinance Amending the 1999 Street Classification Map to Add a Newly Constructed Sec- tion of Hilyard Street from East Broadway to Mill Street Which is Designated as a Minor Ar- terial Mayor Piercy opened the public hearing and reviewed the procedures for providing testimony. There being no one wishing to speak, she closed the hearing. There were no questions or comments from councilors. 3. PUBLIC HEARING Annexation Request for Eugene School District 4J (A 08-1) Mayor Piercy opened the public hearing and explained the procedures for providing testimony. Jon Lauch, Facilities and Transportation Director for School District 4J, said he had also functioned as the district’s property manager for the past 15 years. He said there was a need for the district to retain that property and preserve it for a future school site because it was the only area within the district’s boundary that had the potential for future growth. He said any future use or sale of the property should not influence MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 15, 2008 Page 1 Public Hearing the decision regarding annexation; the annexation request met the City’s criteria and planning staff had recommended approval. Regarding rumors about disposition of the property, he said the district needed to maintain property in the area of future potential growth and would consider alternate properties if it was in the interests of that goal, including appropriate location, size and proximity to public services, but to-date no property had been identified. There being no one else wishing to speak, Mayor Piercy closed the public hearing and called for comments from the council. Councilor Poling asked Mr. Lauch to submit his comments and any additional information he had to the council in writing. He asked if a date had been set for action on the ordinance related to the council employee complaint process. City Manager Jon Ruiz said action was scheduled on September 22, 2008. Councilor Poling, seconded by Councilor Clark, moved to keep the record open un- til Friday, September 19, 2008, at 5 p.m. The motion passed unanimously, 6:0. The meeting adjourned at 7:42 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Jon Ruiz City Manager (Recorded by Lynn Taylor) MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 15, 2008 Page 2 Public Hearing ATTACHMENT J M I N U T E S Eugene City Council Regular Meeting Council Chamber—Eugene City Hall September 22, 2008 7:30 p.m. COUNCILORS PRESENT: Chris Pryor, Bonny Bettman, Mike Clark, Andrea Ortiz, Betty Taylor, Jennifer Solomon, Alan Zelenka. COUNCILORS ABSENT: George Poling. Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the regular meeting of the Eugene City Council to order. Councilor Poling was excused due to a death in the family. 1. PUBLIC FORUM Mayor Piercy reviewed the rules of the Public Forum. Carol Berg-Caldwell , 2510 Augusta Street, asserted that mayoral candidate Jim Torrey had made “baseless attacks” on the Civilian Review Board (CRB). She alleged that this was tantamount to politiciz- ing an “already fragile police/community relationship.” She asked why Mr. Torrey would question Mayor Piercy’s unwillingness to condemn a member of the CRB who had allegedly suggested a citizen’s arrest of Police Chief Lehner. She disputed claims that Mayor Piercy disrespected the police because she did not advocate hiring more police. She averred that Mayor Piercy “hired” more police than had been hired during Mayor Torrey’s tenure. She opined that candidate Torrey was making false accusations and was exploiting police/community conflicts. She felt that City Manager Jon Ruiz and some Human Rights Commission (HRC) staff and “some police, too,” were “quietly working to restore good relations between police and public.” She opined that people were harmed by Mr. Torrey’s efforts. She said the Eugene Police Department (EPD) knew there was a “growing negative atmosphere” and an EPD representative had told the Police Commission that the Prevention Convention scheduled for October 12 and sponsored by the EPD was being held in part to counter negative publicity the EPD had received. She reiterated her unhappiness with Mr. Torrey. th Deb Frisch ,3002 West 11 Avenue, related that she had attended the CRB. She was unhappy that the officers who were involved in the tasering incident in late May would not be investigated until the District Attorney’s office investigation was completed. She was also unhappy with the appeal process to the Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) regarding the alley vacations. Gary Gillespie , 2644 Kincaid Street, stated that he was president of Oregon American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 75 which represented 23,000 workers throughout the state. He said he worked for the public library and had been employed by the City for 21 years. He had bargained from both the management and the labor sides of the table. He underscored that the City had a deal to be made but this deal would not be for a three percent pay increase. He indicated that the council MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 22, 2008 Page 1 Regular Meeting supported the AFSCME local for the City. He had dedicated his life to the labor movement and when it came “home to roost” he was ready to make sure that a deal was settled. He stressed that the City’s AFSCME local represented over 1,400 workers and 94 percent of the membership voted. He said they were very good at getting people to turn out to vote. He related that the City Manager had said that City employees were a great asset to the City. He declared it was time to show this by the City’s actions. He averred that they were not “asking for the moon,” they were asking to keep up with the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Zachary Vishanoff , somewhere on Patterson Street, remarked that he had been involved “a lot” with the University of Oregon arena. He opined that the “best Oregonian reporter” was now writing of the inadequacy of Mac Court. He felt the reporter was “spinning for the U of O marketing department.” He averred that Neanderthal politics had taken over the town as he believed the alley vacations in that area had been “rushed through.” He felt that people did not comprehend how important it was to “tame the dragon” of the proposal at an early stage so that “sustainable eminent domain” was not used along Franklin Boulevard. He was concerned that the new PC Market of Choice could be torn down. He asserted that a “Fortune 500 Company” was able to “launder public policy” through the University of Oregon Foundation and “quietly dictate which business owners…stay and which…go.” He opined that the foundation included Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) “operatives” that sought to “redo Franklin with more EmX.” He thought it was a tragedy that the media would “not do its job.” He implored the council to announce the date and time for the public hearing on the arena. Joe Collins , PO Box 24417, recalled that the last time he had testified he had said the problem with problems was that no one would accept responsibility for them. He commented that everyone would agree that the infant mortality rate in the area was shameful. He noted that after he had made his presentation Mayor Piercy had “said it was a Lane County problem.” He asserted that the Mayor and City Council’s purpose was to give tax breaks to the developers and redevelopers and to make sure the “wealthy in Eugene grow wealthier.” He observed that there were disenfranchised young people hanging around on the downtown mall. He agreed that Ms. Snowden should not have to suffer mistreatment but he thought some of the young people were there because they could not go home. He suggested that one of the City’s properties in the downtown area could be refurbished to make a place for some of the teenagers to go for help or showers or other services. He opined that not enough was being done about the city’s drug problem. He opined that the City needed a new mayor and city council. Drix , West 14th Avenue, declared that everyone in the area was Eugene and this was something to build from. He related that he had attended the Burning Man Project and had been impressed by the community there. He said it had been a harsh place for everyone and he had brought back some suggestions for solutions to local issues. He opined that the downtown was a “bubbling bowl of life.” He observed that the young people downtown were all different people leaving home and trying to find what life was like. He remembered that when he was young, people used to “cruise the gut” on Friday nights. He called it a piece of life, but felt it was out of balance. He felt there were some solutions without money. He suggested that the City “get some vets” into the downtown area and connect them with young people. He wanted to inspire and connect people. David Sonnichsen , 2435 Skyline Boulevard, related that he had served on the Community Advisory Group for the Interstate 5 Willamette Bridge Project. He was concerned that ODOT was now indicating it would be a $150 million undertaking, when it had previously considered it a $180 million project. He said the estimate for the “two arch, through arch” bridge would be $164 million or $1 million less than what ODOT had originally estimated to be budgeted on its fact sheet for construction. He remarked that even if one accepted the new cost estimate, the $164 million “through arch” bridge project would come in at 10 percent MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 22, 2008 Page 2 Regular Meeting above the $150 million. He stated that the project development team was informed that the “through arch” was within budget and subsequently voted 8:1 to recommend it. He averred that it was “commonly understood” that “such a strong endorsement” would be accepted by ODOT but it was not. He understood there would be an attempt by people in the process to urge ODOT to reconsider this decision. He hoped that the Mayor and City Council would discuss this and express an opinion to ODOT. Heidi Dotson , 2656 Windsor Circle, stated that AFSCME employees made up 17 percent of the General Fund budget and represented many of the lower-paid employees of the City. She noted that over 50 members were present, along with representatives from the Eugene/Springfield Solidarity Network (ESSN), the Teamsters, and the State and County AFSCME. She said she was participating in the bargaining process and was “loving it.” She explained that AFSCME was experiencing problems in the bargaining process because exempt employees had been given a three percent raise and management thought it was fair to give AFSCME employees the same percentage increase. She related that exempt employees made on average $30,000 more per year than the AFSCME-represented employees and a three percent increase for them was substantially less than the same increase for exempt employees. She stressed that the economic forecast for the area was not good and it was going to be challenging for employees to keep up with costs. She stated that the average salary for managers was $75,000. She noted that approximately 400 City employees fell into that category but they took up 34 percent of the General Fund, while 700 AFSCME people took up 17 percent of the General Fund. She averred that the gap between the two classes of employees was widening. Wendy Kathleen Beck , 1945 Villard Alley, said she also served on the bargaining team for AFSCME. She offered as a comparison that the Eugene Police Employee Association (EPEA) had been given a 3.5 percent increase and the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) had been given a 3.8 percent increase. She stated that an average of the increases given to the markets comparable to Eugene, which included Salem, Beaverton, and Hillsboro, and Springfield and Clackamas County, was 3.5 percent. She declared that AFSCME wages were falling behind wages of the other unions within the City and, more importantly, they were falling behind the City’s comparable city and county employers. She said if the City’s AFSCME employees accepted the three percent wage increase as of July 1, they would already be behind everyone else by at least a half a percentage point. She stressed that the employees’ bills and expenses were high “right now” and for that reason employees needed a better wage increase. Daljeer Ollek , 2465 Tyler Street, president of AFSCME Local 1724, stated that he had been a City employee for 17 years. He asked the other members of AFSCME to stand and display on cards their years of service, and they did. He said AFSCME-represented the general service members of the City of Eugene and had been bargaining with the City in good faith since February. He related that bargaining was down to dollars, the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA), and retirement savings benefits and it was stuck. He stated that they had been in mediation twice. It had been unsuccessful and AFSCME employees had been working without a contract since July 1. He questioned why the City was subsidizing retirement of the highest paid employees but no one else. He understood that finances were tight. He found it difficult to understand that money was not available to offer COLAs to the lowest paid employees in the face of this retirement subsidy of a two-percent deferred compensation contribution based on the exempt employees’ salaries. He pointed out that while AFSCME employees retire with the Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) Tiers 1, 2, or 3, the “richest employees” of the City receive the same PERS plus the deferred compensation contribu- tion. He said the exempt employee could put one percent in deferred compensation and the City would match it with two percent. He noted that the COLAs those employees give themselves also increased this match accordingly. He related that the union had begun to see members unable to retire because of health insurance issues and had asked the City to help address this issue. He said they had looked at retirement savings accounts, but when it came to the bargaining table the managers had refused to match the two MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 22, 2008 Page 3 Regular Meeting percent in deferred compensation with a similar health savings account for AFSCME workers. He underscored that health savings accounts could only be spent on health benefits. Mayor Piercy closed the Public Forum. She said they were proud of the City’s employees and supported the negotiations and the achievement of a fair deal. Mayor Piercy stated that she served on the Commission on Children and Families and they had worked on the infant mortality issue. She felt it was of deep concern to people in this area. She also wished to point out that a facility had been opened in the downtown area for the Leadership Education Adventure Direction (LEAD) teen program in a building owned by the City and that the City participated in the Safe and Sound program. She noted that there was a Network Charter School in the downtown area, along with a New Roads facility. She said Mr. Collins’ comments were important but she wished to assure him that they were working on those issues. Councilor Clark thanked everyone who spoke. He expressed appreciation for the AFSCME employees’ work and the way they served the community. Councilor Bettman thanked the members of AFSCME for coming and bringing “to light quantifiable issues.” She had requested a work session. She had inspected the City Charter and interpreted it to say that the City Manager will conduct bargaining on behalf of the City Council and that this meant that the City Council could give policy direction regarding that process. She averred that asking for equity in collective bargaining was within the purview of the council. She felt that if they were in an economic downturn the City should economize from the top down and not from the bottom up. Councilor Zelenka announced, at Mr. Vishanoff’s request, that the Hearings Official hearing on the Conditional Use Permit (CUP) for the University arena project would be held in the Council Chambers at 5 p.m. on October 7. He encouraged those who were impacted by this to come and have their say. Councilor Zelenka thanked the AFSCME people for coming and for the work they do for the City. He supported the idea of holding a work session. He also thanked Mr. Sonnichsen for his work on the I-5 bridge project. He noted his preference for the design that was not chosen. Councilor Ortiz echoed her colleagues’ agreement with the AFSCME representatives. She said the council’s employee was the City Manager. She related that in his evaluation she had asked how the people who earned the least money were treated. She had found it informative to have so many AFSCME representa- tives say what they wanted and needed. She indicated her support for a work session on the subject. She expected the City Manager to bargain with fairness. She agreed that in a bad economic time everyone should “take the hit.” Councilor Taylor supported holding a work session. She agreed that if sacrifices were made they should be made at the top instead of lower down. She averred that they should be very concerned about health care for everyone. 2. CONSENT CALENDAR A. Approval of City Council Minutes - June 9, 2008, City Council Meeting - June 9, 2008, Work Session - August 11, 2008, Work Session B. Approval of Tentative Working Agenda MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 22, 2008 Page 4 Regular Meeting C. Adoption of Resolution 4955 Approving Low-Income Rental Housing Property Tax Ex- th emption for the Property Located at 1070 West 6 Avenue, Eugene, Oregon (Asses- sor’s Property Account Number 0473056) (St. Vincent DePaul Society of Lane County, Inc.) D. Ratification of Intergovernmental Relations Committee Actions of July 23, 2008 E. Approval of Overseas Travel Request The Consent Calendar was approved during the preceding City Council Work Session. 3. ACTION: An Ordinance Concerning a Council Employee Complaint Process; Adding Sections 2.400, 2.402, 2.404, 2.406, 2.408, 2.410, and 2.412 to the Eugene Code, 1971; and Amending Section 2.486 of that Code Councilor Pryor, seconded by Councilor Bettman, moved that the City Council adopt Council Bill 4989, an ordinance concerning a council employee complaint process. Councilor Clark ascertained from the City Attorney that changes had been made so that the confidentiality of someone making a complaint would be ensured. Roll call vote; the motion passed unanimously, 7:0. Mayor Piercy stated that Councilor Pryor had a motion he wished to place on the table. Councilor Pryor, seconded by Councilor Bettman, moved to allocate $10,000 from the council contingency fund to support completion of the work of the West Eugene Collabora- tive. Councilor Pryor related that the City of Eugene had contributed $40,000 to further the work of the West Eugene Collaborative as it worked with the City and Lane Transit District (LTD) on transportation solutions in Eugene. He said the funding sources to-date included the City, the County, Lane Metro Partnership, Eugene Realtors, the environmental community, the Chamber of Commerce, the Oregon Consensus Program, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and LTD. He noted that in-kind contribu- tions had been made by planners, architects, and a national charette organization, and in reduced cost facilitation provided by the Osprey Group. He underscored that it took a long time for a true collaborative process to work and it was now in the “home stretch.” He projected that they would have recommendations by the end of the year and this funding would get the group to completion of the process, with recommenda- tions usable by both LTD and the City. He supported this final contribution to complete the work. Councilor Zelenka supported the motion, adding that it was “exactly the kind of process” they should use. Mayor Piercy underscored that this was not an official group; it was a volunteer group consisting of business leaders, environmental leaders, agencies, elected officials, and neighborhood residents working together to come up with recommendations for addressing transportation and traffic issues in West Eugene. She called it an extraordinary volunteer effort. She averred that it was being looked at by the Governor and ODOT as a potential way to work through difficult transportation issues. Roll call vote; the motion passed, 6:1; Councilor Clark voting in opposition. MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 22, 2008 Page 5 Regular Meeting The meeting adjourned at 8:15 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Jon Ruiz City Manager (Recorded by Ruth Atcherson) MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 22, 2008 Page 6 Regular Meeting