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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: February 9, 2009 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 November 17, 2008, Work Session, November 26, 2008, Work Session, November 26, 2008, Executive Session, December 10, 2008, Work Session, January 12, 2009, Work Session, January 12, 2009, City Council Meeting, January 13, 2009, Joint Elected Officials Meeting, and January 14, 2009, Executive Session. ATTACHMENTS A. November 17, 2008, Work Session B. November 26, 2008, Work Session C. November 26, 2008, Executive Session D. December 10, 2008, Work Session E. January 12, 2009, Work Session F. January 12, 2009, City Council Meeting G. January 13, 2009, Joint Elected Officials Meeting H. January 14, 2009, Executive Session FOR MORE INFORMATION Staff Contact: Beth Forrest Telephone: 682-5882 Staff E-Mail: beth.l.forrest@ci.eugene.or.us Z:\CMO\2009 Council Agendas\M090209\S0902092A.doc ATTACHMENT A M I N U T E S Eugene City Council Work Session McNutt Room—Eugene City Hall 777 Pearl Street—Eugene, Oregon November 17, 2008 7:30 p.m. COUNCILORS PRESENT: Chris Pryor, Bonny Bettman, Betty Taylor, Jennifer Solomon, Andrea Ortiz (via telephone), Mike Clark, Alan Zelenka. COUNCILORS ABSENT: George Poling. Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the special meeting of the Eugene City Council to order. A. WORK SESSION: Proposed Ordinance Modifying the Powers and Duties of the Police Auditor City Manager Jon Ruiz invited questions from the council. City Attorney Glenn Klein referred the council to the ordinance prepared by staff at the direction of the City Council, included in the meeting packet. Mayor Piercy reported that since Ms. Bettman put forth her proposed ordinance amendments, the council had heard from members of the Civilian Review Board and Police Commission expressing support for amending the ordinance but asking the council to slow down and institute an inclusive process. Mayor Piercy thought that the council could take the time to be inclusive and thoughtful. She supported the recently passed charter amendment, the Police Auditor’s Office, and the CRB and wanted to do all she could to ensure their success. Ms. Bettman asserted the provisions she presented to the council were strictly limited to implementing the charter revisions recently passed by the voters and addressed the authority and roles already provided via the charter, the council, and the voters to the Police Auditor’s Office. The council set a work session date and public hearing to allow for input on the provisions. She reiterated she had presented no new provisions. When the item was moved forward to a hearing, she had asked legal counsel to identify any legal issues, but the council did not “have that memo.” Ms. Bettman continued to support moving her proposals forward to a public hearing because they were limited to implementing the charter, were consistent with past processes, and there were “huge problems” with the motion she anticipated would be put before the body. She asserted that the motion had been “heavily lobbied for over the weekend,” precluding a public response. She assumed the motion had the votes to pass so the meeting was “pretty much just a staging.” Ms. Bettman asked City Attorney Klein to state if in his opinion there were provisions in the existing ordinance inconsistent with the new charter language just approved by the voters. City Attorney Klein said the existing ordinance was not inconsistent with the charter. Ms. Bettman said that Mr. Klein prepared a memorandum after she put forth her original motion that indicated there would be unintended consequences to the mandatory nature of what she wanted to see. MINUTES—Eugene City Council November 17, 2008 Page 1 Work Session Those consequences were that the auditor would be required to participate in criminal investigations. At that time, Mr. Klein interpreted the language to include both administrative and criminal complaint investigations. Now it appeared he was saying there was no inconsistency. Mr. Klein said that at the time he shared that earlier conclusion, there was no legislative history from the City Council. His memorandum was part of the Agenda Item Summary. Ms. Bettman, Mr. Klein and Mr. Zelenka had a lengthy discussion of the conclusion in that memorandum. Both Ms. Bettman and Mr. Zelenka disagreed with the conclusion and denied that was what the proposed charter amendment would require. The council then voted to refer it to the voters. There was nothing in the ballot title that spoke to the fact that the charter amendment would require a change to the ordinance, and nothing in legislative history or intent outside that discussion. Because of that legislative history created by Mr. Zelenka and Ms Bettman in that council discussion, Mr. Klein concluded that the voters had not understood that the charter amendment would require any changes to the ordinance, and based on that, he believed a judge would agree that the charter amendment required no change. Ms. Bettman recalled that she had said at the time that the charter amendment mandated the council to give the Police Auditor the authority to monitor all investigations, but it did not require the auditor to be involved in every police investigation. Mr. Pryor, seconded by Mr. Clark, moved that in lieu of the public hearing scheduled for December 8, 2008, the City Council create a committee to review the issues raised by Councilor Bettman’s November 10 motion as well as other issues that the committee mem- bers believed should be reviewed, and to report back to the City Council by March 11, 2009, with recommendations on amendments to the Police Auditor ordinance. The commit- tee shall be composed of two members of the Civilian Review Board, to be designated by the Civilian Review Board, two members of the Police Commission, to be designated by the Police Commission, two individuals designated by the Citizens United for Better Policing, two members of the Eugene Police Employees Association, the Police Auditor, the Police Chief, the Mayor, two councilors appointed by the Mayor, and two community members at- large also appointed by the Mayor. Ms. Ortiz said she received immediate and ample feedback the day after the council took action and those she spoke to felt that the council was moving very quickly. She was concerned about the ramifications of the council’s action, leading her to think the process should be slowed down somewhat. She anticipated the result of her motion would be an inclusion conversation focused on how to make the program work. She wanted to get the needed work done thoughtfully and carefully with as much community input as possible. Ms. Taylor asserted that the feedback she heard questioned the point of a delay. She saw no point to it and thought the public hearing could serve as the needed public input. If the council learned something that gave it pause or made it decide to change something, it could pause or make the change. The public hearing did not end the process. She thought there was nothing unusual or surprising in Ms. Bettman’s proposal and said she did not know where the comments were coming from. She suggested that some people were asked to get in touch with the council, by whom and for what reason she did not know, but she thought the process should go forward as originally proposed. Mr. Clark acknowledged the concerns that Ms. Bettman had about the Police Auditor but suggested that there were some in the community who disagreed about her characterization of the problems and wanted time to understand them better. He supported the motion. Ms. Bettman, seconded by Ms. Taylor, moved to substitute the motion with a motion direct- ing the City Manager and Police Auditor to work with the Civilian Review Board to review MINUTES—Eugene City Council November 17, 2008 Page 2 Work Session and recommend next steps for the program of external oversight of complaints involving po- lice employees, including but not limited to, authority for the Police Auditor to determine fi- nal adjudication, authority for the Police Auditor to recommend discipline, subpoena power for the Civilian Review Board and the Police Auditor, the Police Auditor’s role in training of police employees, the Civilian Review Board’s role in evaluating and overseeing the Po- lice Auditor, and the authority for the Police Auditor to participate in hiring processes for Eugene Police Department employees, including the Chief of Police. Ms. Bettman said that the hearing would have provided the needed opportunity for public input. She understood that people wanted to be involved in the next steps and she supported that. However, the provisions she put forward were not the next steps; instead, they implemented the steps that the council had already adopted as policy and that the electorate had “weighed in on twice.” She believed the use of the phrase “including but not limited to” allowed for the examination of other issues. She asserted that the provisions she put forth had overwhelming voter support and reflected and strengthened current authorities as well as “stop the hemorrhaging” occurring in the oversight system. Ms. Bettman said that the changes she proposed could have been made before the recent mayoral election, but councilors put it off because there were people running for office who felt it might have a negative impact on their elections. Now the council was looking at implementing provisions that “basically, just do what the ordinance already tells the City to do,” which was different from next steps. She maintained that her original provisions were not changes but reinforcements to what the City was already doing, and there was a public process involved. She said the motion would merely extend the delay in implementing the oversight process and “was just another orchestrated delay.” Her motion was consistent with the charter, and separated next steps from implementing existing roles and authorities already approved by the voters. Mr. Zelenka indicated he was committed to the substance of Ms. Bettman’s 12-part motion of November 10. He felt that it represented resolution of long-standing issues that the council had been grappling with for some time, and he considered that it largely addressed administrative issues and clarification of the “way things were supposed to be in the first place.” However, he had many contacts since the last meeting and thought the motion offered by Ms. Ortiz was probably preferable at this time as it was more along the lines of good governance, and he understood residents’ desire for more time. Mr. Pryor opposed Ms. Bettman’s substitute motion but thought many of the provisions she put forward would be at the top of the list of items for the committee to discuss. He said if he was a member of the stakeholder groups he would want to be in a setting to discuss the issues involved rather than be forced into a three-minute speech at a podium at a public hearing. In regard to Ms. Bettman’s assertion that the process was orchestrated, he said that he was not involved in orchestrating anything; he was interested in good governance and a process that worked. He believed in the Police Auditor, voted for the Police Auditor, and supported the Police Auditor. He thought Ms. Ortiz’s motion the best way to achieve what was desired: a collaborative, consensus-driven, easily-agreed-to outcome. Ms. Bettman said the voters wanted an independent complaint process. She objected to the inclusion of members of the Police Commission, asserting it was dominated by the Police Department and therefore not an independent body. She noted that the Communities United for Better Policing had refused to participate in the discussions surrounding the charter amendment, which made her question the entire list. She maintained that to have people who were not independent and who were heavily biased on a committee developing ordinance language would undermine the Police Auditor system and was not good governance. She reiterated that the process was being orchestrated and the motion put forth by Mr. Pryor was a “thinly MINUTES—Eugene City Council November 17, 2008 Page 3 Work Session veiled delay” and postponement of getting the Police Auditor’s Office “up and fully functioning.” Speaking to comments by the City Manager and Police Chief that they supported the Police Auditor, Ms. Bettman said “thank you,” but recalled that a past manager and chief had been unwilling to enter into an administrative investigation at her behest for a variety of reasons, including the civil cases filed against the City, and the ultimate decision not to pursue such an investigation. She asserted her provisions were “personality proof” and gave the Police Auditor and CRB access to information, documents, and complaint investigations needed to do the job without having to go through third parties or suffer delays or obfuscation. She maintained that to oppose her motion was to overturn the will of the voters. Ms. Taylor agreed with Ms. Bettman. She said the provisions Ms. Bettman suggested were “almost like housekeeping” except that they strengthened and clarified the role of the Police Auditor. She said the Police Commission was intended to advise the council, not make decisions, and if it wanted to give the council advice, it could. She did not support the makeup of the committee, saying it did not make sense. Mr. Clark observed that a local newspaper, The Eugene Weekly, had characterized him as being against police oversight because he would not proceed in the way Ms. Bettman preferred. That was being reinforced by accusations that the council was overturning the will of the voters by refusing to proceed in a very specific way. Mr. Clark said that he had always supported effective police oversight as well as what he believed was good governance. His challenge in regard to the provisions put forth by Ms. Bettman was not in regard to their content but to the process. He looked forward to a broader public process. Speaking to Ms. Bettman’s remarks that the Police Commission was heavily dominated by the police, Mr. Clark noted Ms. Taylor’s membership on that group and asked if she felt dominated by the police. Mr. Clark believed the motion put forth by Mr. Pryor represented a fairer and more open process and more importantly, an opportunity for more community education and buy-in to the Police Auditor. Ms. Bettman said “all of a sudden” everyone was in favor of police oversight and committed to the auditor, but not all police oversight was created the same. She said that everyone could reach consensus if the City lowered the threshold and the result was no effective police oversight. She said that was practically the case now. The model in place was very modest because of all the stakeholder input, including that of the police union, the Police Department, and the Police Commission. She maintained that it was a one-sided watered down model because of all the public input. The only authority the auditor and CRB had was “shining a light” She termed it the epitome of irony that Ms. Ortiz was canceling the public hearing. She regretted terribly that the council was about to overturn the will of the voters. Ms. Bettman could have a recommendation for more time and in the meantime there would be compromised investigations. The substitute motion failed 5:2; Ms. Bettman and Ms. Taylor voting yes. Mr. Zelenka liked the time certain element of the proposal. He was not interested in having the committee ask for more time as he thought it would have plenty of time. He believed that many residents, including him, were in favor of Ms. Bettman’s recommendations. Mr. Zelenka offered a friendly amendment, which was accepted by Mr. Pryor and Mr. Clark, that the proposed committee first review Ms. Bettman’s motion of November 10. Mr. Zelenka offered a second friendly amendment, which was also accepted by Mr. Pryor and Mr. Clark, stipulating that the committee must request council approval of any issues other than those referred to it by the council. Mr. Clark offered the caveat that any new or additional issues recommended by the council would be considered after its initial MINUTES—Eugene City Council November 17, 2008 Page 4 Work Session charge was complete. Mr. Zelenka offered a third friendly amendment that Ms. Bettman’s motion of November 17 would also be considered by the proposed amendment. He suggested that the committee provide for public input before they make a final recommendation. Mr. Pryor and Mr. Clark had no objection to the proposed friendly amendments. Mr. Zelenka asked for more information about the organization “Citizens United for Better Policing.” He suggested alternatively, that two more citizen members be appointed in lieu of that organization’s represen- tatives. Ms. Ortiz expressed the hope the Mayor would select a wide range of representatives with an interest and some history around police issues. She believed there were many people the mayor could call on. She said the Citizens United for Better Policing had a long history of involvement in police issues and its members were willing to serve on the committee. Mr. Clark was willing to let the Mayor balance the committee appointments. Mr. Klein reviewed the revised motion for the benefit of Ms. Ortiz (italicized text added, struck text deleted). Mr. Pryor, seconded by Mr. Clark, moved that in lieu of the public hearing scheduled for December 8, 2008, the City Council create a committee to first review the issues raised by Councilor Bett- man’s November 10 and November 17 motions as well as, then other issues if time permits that the committee members believed should be reviewed, obtain public input, and to then report back to the City Council by March 11, 2009. . .” Ms. Bettman called the motion an extreme example of bad governance. She had witnessed many things she found extremely objectionable but “this really takes the cake.” She said Ms. Ortiz’s “exclusive stakeholder group” was a committee to “second-guess” what the voters overwhelming supported, and replaced what was a standard procedure for amending the code with a “hodge-podge” of a process just so “you can delay the implementation of the oversight system.” She called it a “tragic outcome of what been a long hard process with immense amounts of stakeholder input.” She pointed out that the National Association of Colored People (NAACP) and the Interfaith Community were not included on the list of stakeholders, but had been involved “all along.” She said the Police Commission had spent months researching the complex topic of police oversight, and now the council proposed to “toss the subject” to a group of people handpicked by Ms. Ortiz and Mayor Piercy. She termed the proposed committee “an insider operation” and maintained that it “was a very sad day.” She asserted that the council was “thwarting the will of the voters.” Mr. Pryor indicated his disagreement with Ms. Bettman’s remarks. Ms. Taylor said she had no idea what was behind the motion on the table and asked what specific objections there were to Ms. Bettman’s November 10 motion. She could not imagine there was anything there to object to. She saw no purpose to another committee and called the motion on the table a delaying tactic and big waste of time. Ms. Taylor maintained that the motion represented an obstacle to the work of the Police Auditor. She did not understand the origins of the motion, now it had been constituted, or the objections to the motion passed the previous week. She questioned why a public hearing was not acceptable when it was what the council usually did. Mayor Piercy regretted the characterizations of intention directed at the motion. She believed that those who supported the approach proposed in the motion were concerned about the process and not about undermining MINUTES—Eugene City Council November 17, 2008 Page 5 Work Session the Police Auditor. She thought the issues Ms. Bettman brought up were worth discussion; however, the council heard from many people who wanted the council to slow down and allow a broader community discussion to take place in a timely way. Mayor Piercy pointed out that the chief and auditor were working well together at the current time, and further pointed out that the committee’s recommendation would come to the council for discussion and approval. Ms. Bettman said that if the issue was “all about the process,” perhaps the committee should be charged to work on the City’s smoking ordinance, as it was her understanding that Mr. Pryor was working “behind the scenes” with the Planning and Development Department to make changes to the smoking ordinance, which had an incredible amount of public input. She asked why that issue was not going to some committee for recommendations about changes to the ordinance, and asked Mr. Pryor why he was “working behind the scenes” to change that ordinance. She maintained that was only one inconsistency in regard to process and said she could offer others. Mr. Pryor indicated that there was no truth to Ms. Bettman’s remarks and suggested that she communicate with him first before leveling such charges. Ms. Bettman maintained that the recent election resulted in changes to the charter that required updates to the Police Auditor ordinance be implemented. Ms. Bettman said that the charter had been characterized to the council for as long as she had been engaged in City issues as being “set in stone.” It was strictly interpreted by legal counsel and the City administration when it came to the roles of the manager and the prohibitions placed on the council in terms of the manager’s authorities. She suggested that Mr. Klein was saying that the council could make the choice not to change the implementing ordinance and not to adhere to the charter. If that was the case, she asked why the council could not pass an ordinance that gave it authority to fire the executive managers. Mr. Klein indicated he had nothing to add to what he had already said in regard to the disagreement between himself and Ms. Bettman about what the charter meant. He could not respond to her question because it encompassed many different topics and he was not prepared to respond to all the different topics. Ms. Bettman asked if the council could pass a motion to create an ordinance that gave it the authority to hire and fire the executive managers. Mr. Klein said no. Ms. Bettman asked why that was not within the purview of the council. Mr. Klein indicated that unless otherwise directed by the council, he would not attempt to address questions unrelated to this agenda topic. Ms. Bettman maintained that “this is all about the charter; it is related.” She said she was waiting for an answer to her question. Mr. Klein had nothing to add to what he already said. Mr. Zelenka supported the motion as amended because it opened the subject to a broader community discussion of serious issues, and the issues raised by Ms. Bettman would be the first subject of discussion. He pointed out that many of the issues in Ms. Bettman’s November 10 motion in regard to access and to information and procedure had been addressed by City Manager Ruiz in the memorandum he sent to Acting Police Chief Pete Kerns and the auditor. He looked forward to the results of the committee’s discussion. The motion passed, 5:2; Ms. Taylor and Ms. Bettman voting no. Mayor Piercy adjourned the meeting at 8:20 p.m. Respectfully submitted, MINUTES—Eugene City Council November 17, 2008 Page 6 Work Session Jon Ruiz City Manager (Recorded by Kimberly Young) MINUTES—Eugene City Council November 17, 2008 Page 7 Work Session ATTACHMENT B M I N U T E S Eugene City Council Work Session McNutt Room – City Hall 777 Pearl Street—Eugene, Oregon November 26, 2008 12:00 p.m. COUNCILORS PRESENT: Chris Pryor, Andrea Ortiz, Mike Clark, George Poling, Betty Taylor. COUNCILORS ABSENT: Alan Zelenka, Jennifer Solomon, Bonny Bettman Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the work session meeting of the Eugene City Council to order at 12:00 p.m. A. WORK SESSION - Review Police Auditor Job Description Acting Human Resources Director Alana Holmes gave a brief update on the recruitment process for the police auditor position and directed the council to the Police Auditor Hiring Process summary document included as Attachment A to the Agenda Item Summary (AIS). Ms. Holmes noted that the summary was being brought before the council to determine their intent and interest in the following steps of the police auditor recruitment process. Interview with Mayor and City Council Ms. Holmes briefly described the interview process for the Mayor and City Council regarding the police auditor recruitment process as detailed in the summary document. Ms. Holmes, responding to a question from Ms. Piercy, noted that the candidates could be given a brief history of the police auditor position as part of the recruitment process if that was the direction of the council. Ms. Holmes noted that the summary under discussion was the same as for the recruitment process that had been used in 2006. Ms. Ortiz noted that the process had worked well in the past. Mr. Poling concurred with Ms. Ortiz’s assessment that the recruitment process used in 2006 had worked very well. Mr. Poling asked if any subcommittees were being formed to assist in the current recruitment process as had been done in 2006. Ms. Holmes replied that there were currently no plans to have any subcommittee breakouts to assist in the recruitment process. She noted that it did not appear that there would be a surplus of candidates applying for the police auditor position and that no subcommittees would be necessary. Ms. Taylor commented that the previous recruitment process had worked very well except for the fact that there had been two candidates who were clearly not qualified for the position. She felt it was important that the council review the application, but hoped there might be some way to sort out undesirable MINUTES—Eugene City Council November 26, 2008 Page 1 Work Session candidates earlier in the recruitment process this time. Mr. Poling and Mr. Clark agreed with Ms. Taylor’s statement. Ms. Holmes, in response to a question from Mr. Clark, noted that thirteen applications had been received thus far for the police auditor position. Interview with Internal Panel Members Ms. Holmes briefly described the interview process for the Internal Panel Members regarding the police auditor recruitment process and as detailed in the summary document. Ms. Piercy asked if during the previous recruitment process any stakeholder representatives had been identified who should have been included in the internal panel but were not. Ms. Holmes answered that she had not heard of any such considerations but that she would review the results of the last recruitment process and discuss the matter with current internal panel members to see if any such omitted stakeholder representatives could be identified. Ms. Holmes passed out a list of the internal panel members from the previous recruitment process and asked the council to make suggestions about who else might need to be included in that group. Presentation and Q&A Forum with Community Panel Ms. Holmes briefly described the presentation and community panel forum component of the police auditor recruitment process as described in the summary document. Ms. Holmes noted no objections to continuing to use the format used in the previous recruitment process in 2006. Ms. Holmes, responding to a question from Ms. Piercy, noted that the Mayor and City Council might have the opportunity in the early part of 2009 to provide input on the makeup of the community panel for the current recruitment process. Tour of City Given By Executive or Division Manager Ms. Holmes briefly described the tour of Eugene to be given to police auditor candidates. She maintained that the tour provided a good opportunity to orient the candidates to the community. Ms. Piercy commented that in 2006 the Q&A forum and community panel had taken place before the interview process for certain candidates and asked if that would continue to be the case. HR Recruitment Selection Manager Becky Hopkins commented that the forum/community panel and the interview processes had been staggered so that they would be easier to schedule. Mr. Poling noted that it was very helpful during the previous process to have the feedback from the forum and community panel process available to the council before the interview process. Ms. Holmes noted that the candidates would be scheduled to provide for that availability of feedback as much as possible for the current recruitment process. Ms. Piercy convened an executive session of the Eugene City Council at 12:14 p.m. and reconvened the work session meeting at 12:46 p.m. Ms. Holmes noted that information had been distributed to the council from executive recruiter Eric Middleton who was creating a poll for candidates regarding the police auditor recruitment process. Mr. Poling responded that the poll supplemental questions were good and felt they addressed issues that were important to both the council and the City at-large. Mr. Clark and Ms. Ortiz concurred with Mr. Poling’s assessment. MINUTES—Eugene City Council November 26, 2008 Page 2 Work Session Mr. Clark asked what the ideal number of applicants was for the recruitment process. Ms. Holmes answered that her office did not have a specific number of applicants in mind, but felt that it would be more than the 13 applicants currently under review. She added that approximately 90 applications had been received during the previous recruitment process in 2006. Ms. Holmes noted that she had spoken with representatives from the City Manager’s office regarding their concerns about the low number of applicants. She said that Mr. Middleton might be making recommendations to the council regarding the number of applications after the position closed on December 8. Mr. Poling noted that the council could meet to discuss the recruitment process and perhaps lower the minimum requirements in order to boost the number of applicants. He expressed that it might be inadvisable to continue to require that all potential candidates have a law degree. Ms. Holmes, responding to a question from Mr. Poling, noted that it might not be necessary for current applicants to re-apply should the council choose to lower the minimum requirements for the position and re- start the recruitment process. She added that she would discuss that issue with Mr. Middleton and report back to the council. Ms. Piercy commented that Mr. Middleton had raised concerns about the minimum requirements for the police auditor position being too high. B. WORK SESSION – Options to Address Hate Speech City Attorney’s office representative Jerry Lidz reported to the council regarding the options to address hate speech as outlined in the AIS materials. Mr. Lidz briefly discussed the differences in the definitions of hate speech versus hate crimes for the benefit of the council, noting that hate crimes generally described conduct that constituted an offense under the law that was made worse by the perpetrator’s motive to express hatred or bias against the victim, while hate speech was protected under the Constitution except in very narrow circumstances. Mr. Lidz commented that the State and certain cities in Oregon had repeatedly tried over the last several decades to regulate expressive conduct that was deemed to be offensive but that each time the State Supreme Court had deemed that such regulation would be unconstitutional. Mr. Lidz directed the council to his comments from the AIS regarding State v. Johnson by way of illustration. Mr. Lidz expressed that none of the current proposed options regarding hate speech were certain to work and that it would be important for the City to proceed carefully regarding the matter. He described the various processes surrounding the four proposed options to address hate speech. Amendment of the Harassment Ordinance Mr. Lidz noted that the proposed amendment to the City’s harassment ordinance was identical to a State statute that the Supreme Court had declared unconstitutional. He noted that the Supreme Court’s focus of opinion in that instance was the statute did not require that a violent response be imminent. He added that the City Attorney’s office might be able to amend the proposed ordinance to address the constitutional flaws noted by the court in the statute, or the City could wait to see how the state legislature responded to the Court’s determination in their upcoming session. MINUTES—Eugene City Council November 26, 2008 Page 3 Work Session Civil Cause of Action Mr. Lidz noted that the City could create a civil cause action upon which to sue for damages in instances of hate speech and directed the council to the AIS materials outlining the same. Mr. Lidz commented that although the creation of a civil cause of action regarding hate speech was a viable option, the State courts had demonstrated reservations and concerns regarding such tort claims. He noted that while the City could create a civil cause of action, it might be difficult for plaintiffs to recover significant or meaningful damages, much less attorneys’ fees, in civil litigation. Intimidation III Mr. Lidz commented that the option to create a third degree of intimidation to the City Code would create a “threat of serious physical injury” rather than the “serious threat of physical injury” as defined by second degree intimidation. Penalty Enhancement Mr. Lidz expressed that while the enhancement of penalties for hate speech was a legitimate option, City law enforcement agencies did not have adequate jail space now to enforce any enhanced sanctions with measurable effectiveness. Mr. Pryor thanked Mr. Lidz for his efforts regarding the matter and noted that the issue of hate speech was difficult to approach from a criminal perspective. He expressed that he was intrigued by the notion of making hate speech an offense that could be addressed by civil causes of action is it could provide a significant disincentive to hate speech itself if not a means to recover significant damages by the victims of such offenses. Mr. Lidz responded that attempting to create disincentives might backfire as it could conceivably create disincentives to engage in forms of legitimate protected speech. Ms. Taylor indicated that the matter was complicated and she was not interested in doing anything that might be limiting or inhibiting to free speech. Mr. Clark noted he had participated in several conversations with the Human Rights Commission regarding hate speech. He commented that while he was a strong advocate for free speech in the community, there were some instances of hate speech that crossed the line between opinion and injury and that it was the injurious hate speech that warranted further action. He indicated interest in a continued exploration of the option of amending the City’s harassment ordinance. Ms. Ortiz agreed with Mr. Clark’s statement, and further opined that there was a cumulative effect to instances of hate speech, further stating, “a thousand cuts make you bleed.” She felt it was important to take action regarding the matter. Mr. Poling agreed with Mr. Clark’s statement, but noted that he was not interested in supporting the creation of civil causes of action regarding hate speech. He noted that he would be supportive of the option to create a third degree of intimidation in the City Code since such charges would at the very least become part of an offender’s criminal record. He advocated for additional public hearings regarding the matter. Mr. Clark noted that it was important to communicate effectively with the public in order to ensure that there was no confusion regarding the City Council’s motivations or perceived reluctance in taking stronger action regarding instances of hate speech. MINUTES—Eugene City Council November 26, 2008 Page 4 Work Session Mr. Pryor felt that creating a third degree of intimidation in the City Code might not be effective as such a level of intimidation would be difficult to prove and that subsequently such a level of intimidation might be overturned by advocates of free speech. Mr. Lidz noted that there were legal remedies to address hate speech, but that it was often difficult for the district attorney and city prosecutor’s office to determine which legal remedy to use based on the facts of each case. He commented that he would welcome the challenge of drafting an ordinance that would serve as an effective deterrent to hate speech while at the same time respecting the civil rights of the community. Ms. Piercy recognized that the issue of respecting civil rights while addressing hate speech was difficult and complicated. Ms. Taylor recognized the difficulty in addressing hate speech in the community, but indicated that she was not interested in spending too much of the City’s time and money on the issue. Mr. Clark asked if there were any City Code charges of harassment that could be enhanced or strengthened in tandem with the Code’s intimidation charges. Mr. Lidz responded that such enhancement could be achieved by amending the harassment ordinance he previously mentioned. Ms. Piercy asked how the City Attorney’s office would go about redefining the harassment ordinances within the parameters set by the Supreme Court’s decision in State v. Johnson. Mr. Lidz replied that the ordinance would have to be examined in relation to the state statute that was declared unconstitutional and then compared to whatever response the state legislature made to that decision. Mr. Pryor appreciated that the current work session provided the opportunity to discuss the state harassment statute. Mr. Pryor, seconded by Ms. Taylor, moved to direct the City Manager to bring to a public hearing an ordinance that (1) defines Harassment to deal with the Oregon Supreme Court’s decision in State v. Johnson that declared the existing version unconstitutional, and (2) creates an offense of Intimidation in the third degree. The motion passed, 4:1 (Ms. Taylor voting in opposition). Ms. Piercy adjourned the meeting at 1:25 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Jon Ruiz City Manager (Recorded by Wade Hicks) MINUTES—Eugene City Council November 26, 2008 Page 5 Work Session ATTACHMENT C M I N U T E S Eugene City Council Executive Session McNutt Room – City Hall 777 Pearl Street—Eugene, Oregon November 26, 2008 12:00 p.m. COUNCILORS PRESENT: Chris Pryor, Andrea Ortiz, Mike Clark, George Poling, Betty Taylor. COUNCILORS ABSENT: Alan Zelenka, Jennifer Solomon, Bonny Bettman Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy, pursuant to ORS 192.6602(f), called an executive session of the Eugene City Council to consider the employment of a public officer, employee or staff member to order at 12:14 p.m. Mayor Piercy adjourned the executive session at 12:46 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Jon Ruiz City Manager (Recorded by Wade Hicks) MINUTES—Eugene City Council November 26, 2008 Page 1 Executive Session ATTACHMENT D M I N U T E S Eugene City Council Work Session McNutt Room—Eugene City Hall 777 Pearl Street—Eugene, Oregon December 10, 2008 Noon COUNCILORS PRESENT: Chris Pryor, Bonny Bettman, Betty Taylor, Jennifer Solomon, Andrea Ortiz, George Poling, Mike Clark, Alan Zelenka. Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the meeting of the Eugene City Council to order. Mayor Piercy recognized the work session as Ms. Bettman’s last official City Council meeting and noted the cake and flowers presented to Ms. Bettman to recognize her service to the City of Eugene. She noted some of the civic and community events that had occurred during Ms. Bettman’s tenure. Ms. Bettman thanked the mayor and those present. Councilors offered their thanks to Ms. Bettman. Mayor Piercy recognized Ms. Ortiz. Ms. Ortiz said she had recently been walking in her neighborhood and noticed the extremely long line for food at St. Vincent de Paul. As a member of the Human Services Commission, she was aware that food supplies were down, the need was up, and the quality of food boxes was down. She asked the council to consider donating $25,000 out of its Contingency Fund to Food for Lane County (FFLC) to recognize the increased community need. Ms. Ortiz, seconded by Mr. Zelenka, moved to donate $25,000 from the Contingency Fund to Food for Lane County. Ms. Ortiz suggested the possibility that the council could offer the community a challenge to match the amount. Mr. Poling believed the current economic times argued for the motion. He liked the idea of a challenge match. He was a strong supporter of FFLC and encouraged the City’s other governmental partners in Lane County to make some sort of donation given that the agency served all of Lane County and the need was being felt all over the county. Mr. Pryor agreed with Ms. Ortiz as to the need for the donation. He also liked the idea of a challenge. He believed it was up to the City to provide support for people in the community who needed it. Mayor Piercy emphasized that the City had not received a request for funding from FFLC. Ms. Bettman agreed with the remarks of Mr. Pryor and supported increasing the available food supply for the community’s needy. She asked if St. Vincent de Paul received its food from FFLC. Ms. Ortiz indicated the agency received a percentage of the food that went into its food boxes from FFLC. MINUTES—Eugene City Council December 10, 2008 Page 1 Work Session Ms. Ortiz accepted a friendly amendment from Ms. Bettman to direct that the money was to be used to purchase food. Ms. Bettman said she would support the motion without the challenge but she thought the challenge would motivate people to step forward. Mr. Clark determined that Ms. Ortiz was proposing to donate a dollar to FFLC for every dollar donated by the community, up to $25,000. Ms. Solomon arrived. Mr. Clark said he felt comfortable donating his own money to great organizations such as FFLC, but was somewhat challenged to donate other people’s money. However, he understood the need and for that reason supported the motion. Mr. Clark anticipated that the City would see more challenging times and would be approached for funds by many agencies at a time when it was facing budgetary shortfalls. Mr. Zelenka supported the motion and determined from the manager that the Contingency Fund contained sufficient funding to support the amount in question. Mr. Zelenka thought that it was important that FFLC be able to buy more food during difficult economic times. Mayor Piercy said that she understood from FFLC that it would address the mechanism of the challenge and work with the City to implement the motion. The motion passed unanimously, 8:0. A. WORK SESSION: Police Auditor Recruitment Process Acting Human Resources Director Alana Holmes and Becky Hopkins of Human Resources were present for the item. Consultant Eric Middleton joined the council via speakerphone. He provided an update on the recruitment process for the position of Police Auditor. He reported that 33 applications for the position had been received as of the closing date, which was December 8, 2008. Twenty-five of the applicants had a juris doctorate degree; eight were from Oregon, and three were from the Eugene area; four were currently working in a law enforcement oversight agency; and three of the applicants had judicial experience. Mr. Middleton said based on his review of the resumes, he had sent supplemental information to 17 of the 33 applicants requesting additional written information. He asked them to describe their philosophy of civilian oversight, to respond to the challenges they perceived in the field, and to discuss their interest in the position and any barriers they faced in accepting the position. Mr. Middleton anticipated that between now and the next council check-in he would vet the applicants who applied by reviewing their supplemental information and would conduct screening interviews with the applicants to verify current employment, employment history, discuss the position, and to answer any questions they might have. He noted that article checks through LexisNexis were now in process. Mr. Middleton indicated that he planned to submit a bound progress report identifying the strongest applicant by January 9 to give the council time to review it before he next met with them on January 14. MINUTES—Eugene City Council December 10, 2008 Page 2 Work Session Responding to a question from Mayor Piercy about the size of the applicant pool, Mr. Middleton thought the City had some strong applicants but he was disappointed by the response as compared to the last time the City advertised. However, the requirements had changed since that time. He believed the economy also made some potential applicants hesitate to make a move. Mr. Clark asked Mr. Middleton if thought the applicant pool was large enough for the City’s needs. Mr. Middleton acknowledged that he would prefer a larger pool of applicants. He noted that only two of the four applicants currently in an oversight position had a juris doctorate degree and he would like to see one or two more such applicants. Mr. Clark recalled his discomfort with that requirement and asked if the City could benefit from having a larger pool. Mr. Middleton said he did have some applicants with juris doctorate degrees with extensive public law experience, although not in police oversight, and would like to explore the merits of those applicants in more detail. Mr. Clark wanted to move forward with all deliberate speed without rushing. He said he would prefer to open up the pool to more applicants sooner rather than later. Ms. Taylor thought the City had plenty of applicants and that Mr. Middleton could eliminate those without a juris doctorate degree. She would only want to reopen the position if the City could not find anyone to take the job. Ms. Bettman asked at what point the consultant would provide the council with the applications. Mr. Middleton said he intended to provide the council the names in January. Ms. Bettman recalled that when the council last hired the auditor, councilors were provided with the full applications for all applicants. She thought councilors who wanted that should have them well before the January meeting. She thought it was premature to suggest there were too few applicants until the council saw all applications. Mr. Middleton indicated that could be done, and he believed that the supplemental information could be provided to the council as well. Ms. Bettman throught it great that people from oversight agencies had applied but she believed the juris doctorate degree was a more important requirement. Mr. Zelenka also believed the council had received enough applications and he wanted to review them all. He hoped to receive a recommendation from Mr. Middleton in regard to the relative strengths of each applicant. Mr. Middleton indicated that would happen. Mr. Zelenka did not want to change the requirement that candidates have a juris doctorate degree but wanted to see the applications of otherwise well-qualified applicants. Mr. Clark said that he also believed the council had a good pool of applicants and wanted to move forward as quickly as possible. He asked Mr. Middleton if there was a point at which he did complete background checks on all applicants. Mr. Middleton indicated that occurred during the end of the process. One of the goals of the January meeting was to identify applicants and interview dates, and at that time he would seek authorization for the background checks. He emphasized the importance of process confidentiality once the council received that information, and cautioned against informal referencing as well. B. WORK SESSION: Infill Compatibility Standards The council was joined by Planning Director Lisa Gardner and Senior Planner Terri Harding of the Planning and Development Department, who provided a PowerPoint presentation entitled Infill Compatibility MINUTES—Eugene City Council December 10, 2008 Page 3 Work Session Standards. Planner Patricia Thomas and Infill Compatibility Standards Task Team co-chair Sue Prichard were also present. Ms. Harding’s presentation included background on the project, information on the task team process, identification of preliminary issues, and next steps. Mayor Piercy asked if there was general agreement on the task team about what constituted good and bad infill. Ms. Harding said yes, but acknowledged it was difficult to describe. She said the Infill Compatibility Standards (ICS) Task Team began to rely heavily on photographs and she thought such tools would be similarly important when the task team went out to the community. Mayor Piercy suggested a model could be used but she acknowledged that context was very important and hard to model. Ms. Harding said the issue was reflected in the task team’s concerns about design review, as good design could dramatically lessen impact. Mayor Piercy did not see anything in the presentation related to neighborhood preservation. She thought that was a different question from the question of what constituted acceptable infill as it touched on what residents found important to maintain in their neighborhood. She thought it important to keep that in mind. She thought the council had heard examples about how that occurred in the Moving Forward Together conference. Ms. Taylor determined from Ms. Harding that the council would consider code language related to the item in July 2009. Ms. Taylor commended the quality of the task team. At her request, Ms. Harding reviewed the proposed public process, noting it included both outreach to the general public and focus groups. She also anticipated the neighborhood organizations would host workshops. Ms. Taylor asked if the task team was discussing the issue of building heights in the case of a single new building in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Ms. Harding said no, and the item was not on the ICS work plan. Ms. Taylor thought that issue should be addressed as she was seeing much incompatible development in the R-1 zone. She also asked if the ICS Task Team had discussed eliminating flag lots. Ms. Harding said the task team had some interesting discussions on the topic but there was no preferred solution at this point. The task team was recommending that all the related issues, such as setbacks and building heights, be examined in greater detail. Ms. Taylor determined from Ms. Harding that the ICS task team had discussed the placement of windows. Ms. Taylor said window placement made a big difference to residents. Mr. Clark thanked staff and the task team for their hard work. He noted the impact issues identified as a result of multi-unit dwelling infill, which were being evaluated in regard to aesthetics, convenience, and livability. He asked what analysis was being done in regard to impacts on public utilities and the public infrastructure and said he would be interested in hearing more information about that and how increased densities in particular areas affected the existing system and system capacity, and what would be required to bring the system to capacity if it was not. He hoped that those issues were being given adequate study. Ms. Bettman spoke of the long time she perceived it was taking the City to complete work on design standards so that it accomplished infill and density in a way that preserved neighborhoods and decreased vehicle miles traveled. She said that the research about those issues had been done and was readily available. She encouraged staff to take advantage of the work done “way back when,” such as the 1994 visual preference survey. She said it cost a lot of money to have the discussions “over and over again” and get to the end and “not do what we needed to do.” Ms. Bettman asked if the task team was looking at minimum density requirement. Ms. Harding suggested MINUTES—Eugene City Council December 10, 2008 Page 4 Work Session the solutions would test that question. The task team was still in the stages of issue identification so there had been no discussion of that topic. Ms. Bettman maintained that was an equity issue. She said that the R- 2 zone used to have lower densities, and then the R-2 definition changed and “all of a sudden” residents living in single-family homes in those neighborhoods were facing undesirable infill. Without a minimum density, there was no equity to the City’s density requirement. The City planned to absorb new residents inside the urban growth boundary, but certain neighborhoods were “taking” the density while in other neighborhoods, even those zoned R-4, developers had the choice to build more expensive homes at much lower densities. Without a minimum density, the City would never achieve equity among neighborhoods or the goals of absorbing the housing units it needed. Mr. Poling asked if it was possible to have Metro Television broadcast a community workshop on the subject or make it a topic of the City’s “Working City” program. Mr. Zelenka also thanked staff and the task team for their work on the topic, which he thought was the council’s highest priority for the next year. He suggested a focus group of “regular” residents be convened. He also liked the idea of visual preference surveys and the use of pictures and asked how staff would translate pictures into code language. Ms. Harding said the task team had indicated its preference to focus on clear and objective standards to be applied to all new development. She acknowledged that turning a recommended solution into actual code language was somewhat challenging, but staff would research what other communities had done and test the application of the new code language through actual case scenarios. Mr. Zelenka asked if the task team was considering incentives such as ‘feebates.’ Ms. Harding said that the topic of incentives had come up. The task team had discussed facilitating the type of development preferred by the code, but had not determined how that would occur. Speaking to Ms. Bettman’s remarks, Mr. Zelenka suggested the council continued to have the conversation because neighborhood associations and residents objected to infill developments. They did not like them for one reason or another. He asked how that could be addressed through the process. He hoped the committee could consider a process that “headed off that kind of negative input” into the process. Ms. Harding said the issue had come up, and the Single Dwelling Committee was considering the issue of notification and ways of fostering earlier collaboration or cooperation between the developer and neighbors, particularly in regard to development proposals that otherwise required no notice. She reiterated her comments about the task team’s preference for clear and objective standards, suggesting that such standards would give developers certainty while protecting those things that neighbors like. Responding to a question from Mayor Piercy, Ms. Harding said that the task team had no representative from the Bethel neighborhood. She said not all areas of the community were represented on the task team, which was why the task teak was planning its exhaustive public input phase commencing in early January 2009. She added that those areas not represented on the task team could have similar issues to those who were represented. Mayor Piercy noted many examples of flag lots in the Bethel area. She also noted an attractive example of the use of the panhandle lot approach near Washburn Park. Ms. Ortiz encouraged more direct outreach to the Bethel and Trainsong neighborhoods. Ms. Bettman said an issue related to flag lots, particularly larger lots farther out from the core, was that they required many curb cuts, with an impact on pedestrians and bicyclists. MINUTES—Eugene City Council December 10, 2008 Page 5 Work Session Ms. Bettman expressed concern that the City was moving forward with infill compatibility standards and opportunity siting in different processes. She questioned what happened when the Lane County Homebuild- ers Association appealed the compatibility standards to the State, leaving the City with only opportunity siting. Ms. Harding said the goal was to adopt a process for opportunity siting that incorporated infill compatibility standards into the approval process for a particular project. Ms. Bettman asked if remand or delay of the design standards meant that opportunity siting would not go forward. Ms. Harding anticipated that the infill compatibility standards would be included in the code and would apply to development throughout the City where applicable, dependent on the standard. In regard to the opportunity sites, she anticipated a process that included compatibility criteria as part of the approval process. Ms. Bettman expressed concern about the proposed approach. She feared that the City would end up with density without design standards. She had opposed the bifurcation of the two processes because she feared the design standards would be challenged and “fall behind.” She saw that as a recipe for destroying neighborhoods. Responding to a question from Mr. Clark about how she would proceed, Ms. Bettman recommended that the City explore model codes from other communities, such as Portland. Otherwise, she feared the outcome would be unregulated density. Mayor Piercy concurred with Ms. Ortiz’s remarks about outreach to the Bethel and Trainsong neighbor- hoods and suggested that the residents might want to have something to say about how the areas near their neighborhood developed and grew. Mayor Piercy adjourned the meeting at 1:20 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Jon Ruiz City Manager (Recorded by Kimberly Young) MINUTES—Eugene City Council December 10, 2008 Page 6 Work Session ATTACHMENT E M I N U T E S Eugene City Council McNutt Room—City Hall—777 Pearl Street Eugene, Oregon January 12, 2009 5:30 p.m. COUNCILORS PRESENT: Chris Pryor, Betty Taylor, Andrea Ortiz, Jennifer Solomon, Mike Clark, Alan Zelenka, George Poling, George Brown Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the work session of the Eugene City Council to order. A. Committee Reports and Items of Interest from Mayor, City Council, and City Manager Ms. Piercy welcomed Mr. Brown to the council. She noted that the City had received a grant for $100,000 for its comprehensive land study. She thanked Acting Chief Pete Kerns, the Eugene Police Department and the City Manager’s Office for their quick action in response to recent bomb threats to local schools. She thanked staff and others who helped make the State of the City address a successful event. She would be attending the Conference of U.S. Mayors in Washington D.C. next week. She called attention to the Martin Luther King event at the Hult Center on January 19, as well as dedication of the Rosa Parks statue at the downtown bus station. Mr. Pryor commended the Springfield State of the City address. Mr. Poling welcomed Mr. Brown to the council. Ms. Taylor welcomed Mr. Brown. She listed goals and hopes for her next four-year term: protection of the environment, support for the arts, acquisition of the rest of the Amazon headwaters, a downtown park, empowerment and protection of neighborhoods, a living wage ordinance, regulation of “big box” stores, assistance to local businesses, change in the street assessment policy, elimination of all tax exemptions for developers except in the downtown core, new sources of revenue, a performance auditor and guidance of the entire government—staff and council—by a commitment to justice for everyone. She hoped the Sustainability Commission would be successful and was pleased with the time allocated to public forums by Ms. Piercy. Mr. Clark welcomed Mr. Brown. He agreed with Mr. Pryor that the Springfield State of the City event was very good and thanked Ms. Piercy for her courtesy to him during the Eugene State of the City address. He spoke to a number of businesses at a Downtown Eugene, Inc. meeting about the downtown parking issue. He noted there would be a Martin Luther King march on January 19 at 10 a.m., beginning at Eugene Water & Electric Board and going into the downtown area. Ms. Ortiz commended the efforts of Public Works staff during the recent snow. She expressed her appreciation to former County Commissioner Bobby Green for his many years of service to the community. She thanked EPD officers for speaking to residents in the Trainsong neighborhood about Neighborhood Watch. She announced that the match for the council’s $25,000 grant to Food for Lane County had been reached and distributed a letter of appreciation for EPD from Reuben Garcia. She encouraged everyone to participate in Martin Luther King Day events on January 19. MINUTES—Eugene City Council January 12, 2009 Page 1 Work Session Mr. Zelenka welcomed Mr. Brown to the council. He commended the Eugene and Springfield State of the City events, and the Lane County State of the County event, as well as the Citizens’ State of the City and County event. He said the Police Auditor Ordinance Review Committee was meeting on January 13 and encouraged councilors to watch the webcast or attend the meeting. He also thanked Public Works snow crews and complimented the completed road system in the federal courthouse/Franklin Boulevard area. Ms. Solomon said the Wastewater Management Commission, to which she was newly appointed, had a meeting last week. She said wastewater management was a very complex issue, but it was an important government service and she looked forward to her work on the commission. She would also continue to participate on the Public Safety Coordinating Council. She said that a final meeting to discuss the Elmira Road/Maple Street project was canceled in December due to snow, but had been rescheduled for January 22. Mr. Brown remarked that he attended a Police Commission meeting and a meeting of the Police Auditor Ordinance Review Committee. He felt the committee was committed to moving along swiftly to complete its tasks. He attended the Citizen State of the City event at which many worthy goals were discussed. City Manager Jon Ruiz announced that Kristie Hammitt had been appointed Acting in Capacity (AIC) Director for Central Services. He thanked the police department and support personnel involved in the recent bomb threats and commended their swift response and Chief Pete Kerns' leadership. B. WORK SESSION Preparation for Joint Elected Officials Meeting Planning Director Lisa Gardner explained that the agenda for the Joint Elected Officials (JEO) meeting was established by the mayors of Eugene and Springfield and the chair of the Lane County Board of Commissioners. She said five items identified by the County were prioritized and the two items selected for the first JEO meeting were: ? Metro Plan Description of Urban Services ? Jurisdictional Autonomy/Metro Plan Boundary Adjustment Ms. Gardner said the Metro Plan was developed pursuant to Senate Bill 100, which provided a legislative framework for statewide growth management and natural resource preservation. She said the requirement for metropolitan areas to establish local comprehensive plans emphasized the need for local coordination. She highlighted three key boundaries that would be important in JEO discussions: city boundaries, the urban growth boundary (UGB) and the Metro Plan boundary. She said refinements to the Metro Plan included Trans Plan, growth management policies and land use codes adopted by the three jurisdictions. Ms. Gardner stated that the City provided most of the key urban services—fire, water, wastewater, public safety, etc.—needed for annexation and development. She said the County provided services that were used by City as well as County residents, such as animal control, sheriff, prosecution and regional parks and had been discussing how to fund those services and the Metro Plan’s relationship to the County’s ability to develop funding strategies. Ms. Gardner said the different boundaries within the Metro Plan translated into the issues of jurisdictional autonomy and regional relationships. She said the recent Delta Sand and Gravel application for a Metro Plan amendment was an example of that because the property was outside of the UGB, but within the Metro Plan boundary and Eugene and Lane County both participated in the process. She said the Metropolitan Policy Committee (MPC) was responsible for resolving disputes related to the land use process and the County had raised concerns about a single MINUTES—Eugene City Council January 12, 2009 Page 2 Work Session jurisdiction veto because the MPC bylaws required an affirmative vote by each jurisdiction in order for something to pass. The County felt that presented a barrier to land use decision-making resolution. Ms. Gardner reminded the council that House Bill 3337 required Eugene and Springfield to conduct comprehensive lands assessments in order to establish separate UGBs. She said the County had raised the possibility that the Metro Plan amendments necessitated by HB 3337 could present an opportunity for the County’s goals to be considered. Ms. Piercy clarified that the two items for initial discussion by the JEO from the County’s list were selected because it was felt they presented the best opportunity for moving forward quickly and establishing a positive working relationship among jurisdictions, not because they had any greater priority than the other issues. She said commis- sioners seemed particularly interested in the issue of representation of County residents and recognition of the services the County provided. Mr. Clark agreed that the County was concerned about representation of County residents and he shared that concern. He had voted to limit the City’s annexation policies with respect to residents who did not wish to be annexed, especially in the northern part of the City. He asked if there was an interest in looking at whether the Metro Plan was even necessary. Ms. Gardner said there was a land use framework for the Metro Plan and the two UGBs that would result from HB 3337 compliance could produce two comprehensive plans instead of a single metropolitan plan. She noted that even if there were two plans, other regional relationships, such as wastewater, would remain and those would need to be codified in some form. She said Eugene, Springfield and Lane County planning directors had discussed the need to identify all of the issues before making any decisions. She said not all of the County’s concerns related to land use and those should be part of a separate discussion of things such as financing strategies. Mr. Clark asked for staff’s interpretation of the County’s basic public safety obligations under State law as there appeared to be differing opinions among residents and commissioners. Ms. Taylor recollected that at a previous JEO meeting a majority of those present were in favor of eliminating the Metro Plan. She asked if the poor condition of County roads was considered when the City annexed land. Ms. Gardner said that question could be better answered by Public Works staff. Ms. Taylor asked who had jurisdiction over land that was within the Metro Plan boundary, but outside the UGB. Ms. Gardner explained that was County land, but the City had a role in land use decisions involving that land if a Metro Plan amendment was involved, such as the Delta Sand and Gravel example. She said the City’s concerns when participating in those land use decisions were to maintain a 20-year supply of buildable lands, efficient delivery of services and future development patterns. Mr. Ruiz said staff could research any of the council’s specific questions and provide additional information. Mr. Zelenka indicated he was not clear what problem the County was trying to address. He noted that the issue of public safety special districts for funding purposes was an issue that had been frequently raised by the County. He asked what the original rationale had been for allowing cities to participate in land use decisions involving land outside their UBG. Ms. Gardner said the purpose was to allow cities to have some influence over development patterns as they related to the supply of buildable lands and growth management. Mr. Zelenka remarked that he did not want to relinquish the City’s role in those land use decisions or modify the current conflict resolution rules. MINUTES—Eugene City Council January 12, 2009 Page 3 Work Session Mr. Brown asked when the City’s inventory of buildable land would be completed. Ms. Gardner said that the assessment would be finished by December 31, 2009. She said staff would provide regular updates to the council on progress. Mr. Clark used the River Road Parks and Recreation District as an example of how residents who wanted to develop their County property were required to annex to the City under the City’s ORS 190 agreement with the County; which then resulted in the parks district losing a part of its tax base. His chief concern with changes at the County level was the City’s response to the issue of public safety as the County’s financial problems diminished its role. He asked for information about the potential adverse impacts to or burdens on the City if the Metro Plan was eliminated. Mr. Zelenka stated there should be council involvement in the development of the buildable lands inventory and key points at which the council could participate. Ms. Gardner said staff would provide ample opportunity for the council to be involved before decisions were made and scenario development began. Ms. Piercy commented that the county commissioners seemed to be concerned that the cities planned to annex County land and that was a fundamental question that needed to be addressed during JEO meetings. C. WORK SESSION Police Auditor Recruitment Process Mr. Ruiz introduced AIC Human Resources Director, Alana Holmes, and Recruitment and Selection Manager, Becky Hopkins, to review aspects of the police auditor process. Ms. Holmes stated that recruitment was closed on December 8 and applications would be reviewed on January 14. Ms. Hopkins said the discussion of interview questions for candidates and interview process elements would need to be discussed in executive session. Ms. Piercy called the Eugene City Council into executive session to consider the employment of a public officer, employee or staff member, pursuant to ORS 192.660(2)(a). The work session reconvened at 7 p.m. Ms. Hopkins asked for suggestions for the internal and stakeholder interview panels. Mr. Poling asked if internal panel members had been chosen during the city manager hiring process based on their positions and were some members of the stakeholder panel from the community at-large. Ms. Hopkins said people were chosen internally based on the positions they held; stakeholder panel members were invited based on recommen- dations from the council and their activities in the community. She said that stakeholder members listed their own affiliation. Mr. Clark felt the current composition of the community stakeholder panel did not reflect a balance of perspectives and suggested expanding it to achieve a better cross-section of the community by adding representation from the business community and more neighborhoods. Ms. Piercy noted that councilors could forward their recommendations for panel membership to Ms. Holmes and Ms. Hopkins. She supported expanding the community panel as long as the group remained at a manageable number. MINUTES—Eugene City Council January 12, 2009 Page 4 Work Session Ms. Ortiz concurred with the need for more balance on the community panel to achieve broader stakeholder representation. Ms. Hopkins asked if the council preferred to have Civilian Review Board (CRB) members on the internal panel or the community stakeholder panel. Mr. Poling suggested reducing the number of representatives from the Police Commission on the stakeholder panel and adding two representatives from the CRB. Mr. Zelenka suggested inviting all five CRB members to participate. Ms. Taylor agreed with reducing the number of Police Commission members and inviting all CRB members. Mr. Clark hoped to see more representation from youth on the community panel. Ms. Holmes said she would email councilors with dates for steps in the process. In response to a question from Mr. Zelenka, Mr. Ruiz said he found it helpful to have a written copy of the interview questions available at the interview for city manager. He enjoyed the community panel process. The meeting adjourned at 7:13 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Jon Ruiz City Manager (Recorded by Lynn Taylor) MINUTES—Eugene City Council January 12, 2009 Page 5 Work Session ATTACHMENT F M I N U T E S Eugene City Council Regular Meeting Council Chamber—Eugene City Hall 777 Pearl Street—Eugene, Oregon January 12, 2009 7:30 p.m. COUNCILORS PRESENT: Chris Pryor, George Brown, Andrea Ortiz, George Poling, Jennifer Solomon, Mike Clark, Alan Zelenka, Betty Taylor. Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the meeting of the Eugene City Council to order. 1. ACTION: Election of City Council Officers for 2009 Councilor Pryor, seconded by Councilor Taylor, moved to elect Councilor Zelenka as Pre- sident of the City Council for 2009. Roll call vote; the motion passed unanimously, 7:0. (Councilor Solomon had not yet arrived.) Councilor Pryor, seconded by Councilor Taylor, moved to elect Councilor Clark as Vice President of the City Council for 2009. Roll call vote; the motion passed unanimously, 7:0. Councilor Solomon arrived at 7:31 p.m. 2. PUBLIC FORUM Mayor Piercy reviewed the rules of the Public Forum. th Deb Frisch , 3003 West 11 Avenue, recalled 2008. She believed that she should take “partial credit” for the departures of the former police chief and former police auditor. She felt that money for the arena was tantamount to embezzlement. She was pleased to see that the conditional use permit for the planned University of Oregon basketball arena would be appealed. She related her belief that convicted murderer, Diane Downs, had been wrongfully convicted and incarcerated. She added that she was pleased that the City’s former Internal Affairs officer had left the City to work for the University. She called for the resignation of the current Acting in Capacity (AIC) Police Chief, Pete Kerns. She was dismayed at how the bomb threats made to local private schools had been handled. Zachary Vishanoff , Ward 3, averred that Councilor Zelenka and University President, David Frohnmayer, had gotten the arena “stuck in the mud.” He said he had brought homework for the council. He explained that a committee had previously gone through an enormous amount of work and had held a public hearing. He thought the new Police Auditor Ordinance Review Committee (PAORC) should review it. He had felt stonewalled by the former committee. He suggested that the City Manager’s Office provide a binder containing all of this information so that members of the public could peruse it. He believed that the Fairmount Node, which he described as a project that was supposed to happen with the University, the City, and the University Foundation “in collusion with each other,” would not work out. He said he would send MINUTES—Eugene City Council January 12, 2009 Page 1 Regular Meeting the You Tube link so that the council could access six videos he had posted. He welcomed reactions and feedback. He closed by wishing the council a happy new year. Gordon Anslow , 4493 Paddock Drive, asked the council to approve the Multiple-Unit Property Tax Exemption (MUPTE) for the Pearl on Campus project. He said he had been involved in several other projects but this was the first one in which he had ownership. He acknowledged that it was reasonable to question whether a MUPTE made a reasonable difference; would a project get built without the exemption? He stated that the program had been in place for a number of years and was recently modified with refinements made to the qualification process. He believed that the intention was to incentivize the building of multi-family projects which incorporated sufficient desirable characteristics so as to further goals the City Council had identified. He averred that given the time and commitment of resources required to design a complex infill redevelopment project, the investment was sufficiently great that there was a strong potential that a project would not get built or it would be redesigned to reduce costs without the MUPTE. He said in practice the MUPTE functioned as quid pro quo; the City would invite participants to use the program, investors would make the decision to design a project with MUPTE approval in mind, the affected neighborhood group would meet with the applicant and would be asked to vote in favor and the designer then integrated the input garnered from such a meeting, and the applicant, having proceeded in good faith, would come before the council for approval. He underscored his ongoing involvement with the West University Neighbors (WUN). He said they had generally seen their projects approved for the MUPTE and had always received approval from the neighborhood group. He attributed this to their willingness to shape the projects with neighborhood input in mind. He noted that he currently served as co-chair of the Infill Compatibility Standards Task Team and the Multi-Family Subcommittee, on which the president of WUN served as chair. He felt their approach should exemplify how MUPTE could and should work, bringing infill projects to the table with neighbors and providing an incentive which empowered the neighbors to ask for consideration in design of the projects. He believed this would ultimately result in better projects for the benefit of the owner, neighbors, tenants and the City. He provided a copy of his testimony in writing. Kevin Matthews , P.O. Box 1588, stated that he was President of Friends of Eugene. He welcomed the council to a new year. He averred that even though the City of Eugene received “appropriate accolades” for being green, it had a long way to go to “start dealing with our share of the climate change issue.” He thought the City was in a position to provide leadership in the state and in the country. He acknowledged that the City had conducted inventories and had state-established goals, but he believed those would be shown to be too weak in the next couple of years. He advised the council that the City should “get in place” plans that they could simulate and project into the future. He felt they would be “big picture plans” that would help the City understand the kinds of reductions in emissions that were necessary. He declared that the sooner they understood the necessary reductions, the sooner the City could be “out in front” of it. He suggested that the City could use the challenge as the economic opportunity he believed it would be. He asserted that if the City plotted out the vehicle technology adoption rates and looked at the turnover in vehicles and then understood that driving in Eugene comprised half of the carbon emissions the City would come to understand that there needed to be a 50 percent reduction of gross Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT). He opined that they needed to “get into a mindset” where all transportation issues such as maintenance and infrastructure planning should consider that there would be “fewer and fewer car miles driven.” Mayor Piercy closed the Public Forum. Councilor Zelenka wished to point out that the City Council had unanimously adopted as a goal for the City that it would be carbon neutral by 2020. MINUTES—Eugene City Council January 12, 2009 Page 2 Regular Meeting 3. CONSENT CALENDAR A. Approval of City Council Minutes - June 25, 2008, Work Session - July 21, 2008, Public Hearing - October 13, 2008, Work Session - October 20, 2008, Public Hearing - October 22, 2008, Work Session - October 27, 2008, Work Session - October 27, 2008, City Council Meeting - October 29, 2008, Work Session - November 10, 2008, Work Session - November 10, 2008, City Council Meeting - November 12, Work Session B. Approval to Tentative Working Agenda C. Adoption of Resolution 4960 Acknowledging Receipt of the City of Eugene, Comprehen- sive Annual Financial Report for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 2008 Councilor Zelenka, seconded by Councilor Clark, moved to approve the items on the Con- sent Calendar. Councilor Taylor offered the following correction to the minutes of the work session held on October 27, 2008: ? Ms. Taylor, seconded by Ms. Bettman, moved to substitute Sarah Whitney for Position 3. The motion failed, 4:3; Mr. Zelenka, Ms. Taylor, and Ms. Bettman voting no yes. The correction was deemed, without objection, approved. Roll call vote; the motion passed unanimously, 8:0. Mayor Piercy adjourned the meeting of the Eugene City Council and convened the meeting of the Eugene Urban Renewal Agency at 7:46 p.m. 4. ACTION: Adoption of Resolution 1050 Acknowledging Receipt of the Annual Financial Report of the Urban Renewal Agency of the City of Eugene, Oregon, for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 2008 Councilor Zelenka, seconded by Councilor Clark, moved to adopt Resolution 1050 ac- knowledging receipt of the Annual Financial Report of the Urban Renewal Agency of the City of Eugene, Oregon, for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2008. Councilor Pryor said it was important to note when an audit was done and done well and an organization had a “clean” audit letter. He wanted to recognize that this was good work financially and good work in terms of performance. Roll call vote; the motion passed unanimously, 8:0. Mayor Piercy adjourned the meeting of the Eugene Urban Renewal Agency at 7:48 p.m. and reconvened the meeting of the City Council. MINUTES—Eugene City Council January 12, 2009 Page 3 Regular Meeting 5. ACTION: Adoption of Resolution 4961 Approving a Multiple-Unit Property Tax Exemption for Residential thth property Located at 435 East 15 Avenue, Eugene, Oregon (East 15 Townhouses; Newman Family Partnership, Applicant) Councilor Zelenka, seconded by Councilor Clark, moved to adopt Resolution 4961 approv- ing a Multiple-Unit Property Tax Exemption for residential property located at 435 East thth 15 Avenue, Eugene, Oregon (East 15 Townhouses; Newman Family Partnership, appli- cant). Councilor Taylor reiterated her opposition to the Multiple-Unit Property Tax Exemption (MUPTE). She said she could not support any tax exemptions at this time given the current economic conditions and that so many people were losing their jobs and struggling. Councilor Brown echoed Councilor Taylor’s sentiments. He believed the MUPTE to be a good tool to stimulate development. He understood that it was intended to help promote development in undesirable areas. He could not recall the last time the University had built a dormitory. He did not believe the University area needed inducements for development as he felt it would occur regardless of whether projects there were given a tax exemption. He added that he thought Mr. Anslow was a responsible developer and that there should be more developers like him. Councilor Zelenka averred that both of the projects that were requesting a MUPTE were good. His objection lay in that the City was facing an $8 million deficit. He believed that tax exemptions would only make “the hole deeper.” He also believed that the projects would be built in the University neighborhood whether the exemption was granted or not. Councilor Clark stated that the application process asked if the exemption would be necessary for the proposed project to be successful. He appreciated Mr. Anslow’s testimony because he had highlighted that the process that had been created for the exemption included working with neighborhood residents and building a project that conformed to the environment it would be built in. He underscored that, by definition, the project before them would not be built without the MUPTE. He said instead something else would be built, something that the neighbors might not like as much. He agreed with his colleagues that it was important for the council to be cognizant of people who were concerned about their jobs. He pointed out that just one of the proposed projects would generate dozens of jobs. He questioned how they could, in good conscience, not promote providing people with high-paying family-wage jobs doing this type of work in the community. He indicated he would support the motion. Mayor Piercy respected the different points of view that were voiced. She wished to point out that all of the councilors cared very much about the tax needs before the City. She acknowledged that one person saw a loss of tax revenue and another person saw an increase in the work force. She reiterated that the council had supported the continued use of the MUPTE in the University neighborhood only several weeks earlier. She felt the MUPTE would be used to try to have the kind of housing the neighbors wanted in that area and to provide housing for a variety of people and for the students who came to live in the community. She indicated her support, given the staff finding that the projects could not be built without the MUPTE, the City’s other community goals aimed to provide housing so that people could “live, work, and play” in close proximity, and that the proposed project was aligned with City growth management policies. She felt the developers had gone to great efforts to work with the neighbors and had gotten their buy-in. Councilor Solomon wanted to make sure that it was understood that this was not an exemption for the “rest of time,” rather it was a ten-year exemption on the improvements made to the property. She stressed that the MINUTES—Eugene City Council January 12, 2009 Page 4 Regular Meeting owner of the property would continue to pay taxes on the property and then after ten years the property would come back on the tax rolls at the full assessed value. Councilor Taylor clarified that there was no guarantee that someone who followed the guidelines for application would be granted the MUPTE. She opined that there were lots of people who could use the benefit of the MUPTE. Councilor Brown averred that if the City Council would allow the MUPTE to be used in the University area, which he considered to be “pretty privileged,” then it should be allowed for all parts of the City. Roll call vote; the motion passed 5:3; councilors Taylor, Brown, and Zelenka voting in op- position. 6. ACTION: Adoption of Resolution 4962 Approving a Multiple-Unit Property Tax Exemption for Residential th Property Located at 693 East 16 Avenue, 1584 and 1586 Hilyard Street, Eugene, Oregon (The Pearl on Campus, Dean Hansen and Gordon Anslow, Applicants) Councilor Zelenka, seconded by Councilor Clark, moved to adopt Resolution 4962 approv- ing a Multiple-Unit Property Tax Exemption for residential property located at 693 East th 16 Avenue, 1584 and 1586 Hilyard Street, Eugene, Oregon (The Pearl on Campus, Dean Hansen and Gordon Anslow, applicants). Councilor Taylor reiterated her opposition to approving a MUPTE in the University neighborhood. Roll call vote; the motion passed, 5:3; councilors Zelenka, Brown, and Taylor voting in op- position. The meeting adjourned at 8:02 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Jon Ruiz City Manager (Recorded by Ruth Atcherson) MINUTES—Eugene City Council January 12, 2009 Page 5 Regular Meeting ATTACHMENT G January 13, 2009 Joint Elected Officials Meeting City of Springfield City of Eugene Lane County Page 1 of 10 MINUTES OF THE JOINT ELECTED OFFICIALS MEETING OF THE SPRINGFIELD CITY COUNCIL, EUGENE CITY COUNCIL, AND LANE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS HELD MONDAY, JANUARY 13, 2009 A joint elected officials meeting with the City of Springfield, City of Eugene, and Lane County was held in the Library Meeting Room, 225 Fifth Street, Springfield, Oregon, on Monday, January 13, 2009 at 12:00 p.m. with Lane County Commissioner Chair Sorenson presiding. ATTENDANCE Mayor Leiken opened the meeting of the Springfield City Council. Present from Springfield were Mayor Sid Leiken and Councilors Terri Leezer, Hillary Wylie, Dave Ralston, John Woodrow, and Joe Pishioneri. Councilor Lundberg was absent. Mayor Piercy opened the meeting of the Eugene City Council. Present from Eugene were Mayor Kitty Piercy and Councilors George Brown, Betty Taylor, Alan Zelenka, George Poling, Mike Clark, Jennifer Solomon, Andrea Ortiz, and Chris Pryor. Board Chair Sorenson opened the meeting of the Lane County Board of Commissioners. Present from Lane County were Board Chair Pete Sorenson and Commissioners Bill Fleenor, Faye Stewart, Bill Dwyer, and Rob Handy. Chair Sorenson, introduced Terri Leezer, the new City Councilor in Springfield. Councilor Leezer said she was excited to be part of this group. She had been following this issue for some time and was anxious to get up to speed and participate. Chair Sorenson introduced George Brown, the new City Councilor in Eugene. Councilor Brown said he was looking forward to the opportunity to learn about this process. Chair Sorenson introduced Rob Handy, the new Lane County Board Commissioner. Commissioner Handy said he was at Springfield’s State of the City Address and congratulated Mayor Leiken on his fine remarks, the efforts of the City Councilors, and the accomplishments that were highlighted in Springfield over the past year. Chair Sorenson referred to the agenda and noted that Kent Howe, the Lane County Planning Director, would be making today’s presentation. Mr. Howe said the packet materials for today’s meeting had been given to the Lane County Board of Commissioners (LCBC) at their November 12, 2008 meeting. During that meeting, the commissioners ATTACHMENT G January 13, 2009 Joint Elected Officials Meeting City of Springfield City of Eugene Lane County Page 2 of 10 identified five issues that needed to be addressed strategically with the cities of Eugene and Springfield. Those issues were as follows: 1. Annexation Policies: A hearing process to address disenfranchisement of citizens outside of city limits, but inside the urban growth boundary (UGB) over development and annexation issues. 2. Metro Plan Description of Urban Services: Fundamental principals and language in the Metro Plan that the cities were the logical provider of urban services. 3. Rural Reserves. 4. Adjustment to the Metro Plan boundary to address jurisdictional autonomy. 5. Dispute resolution policies. The Mayor and Board Chairs met on October 1 and determined it would be too complex to address all five issues at once, so it was suggested staff start with bringing two issues to the Joint Elected Officials: 1) the Metro Plan description of urban services; and 2) the Metro Plan boundary change to address jurisdictional autonomy. Staff would continue to work on the remaining issues and bring those forward at a later date. Staff was looking for direction on possible amendments to the Metro Plan on County issues that could be incorporated with the cities’ amendments related to HB3337. Mr. Howe spoke first regarding the description of urban services. Within the Metro Plan, a number of different, inconsistent terms were used when referring to various services provided by local governments and other agencies. Problematic for Lane County, was that the terms used in the plan didn’t recognize key services provided by the County, including the Sheriff and corrections services, criminal prosecution and District Attorney (DA) services, parole and probation, elections, regional transportation facilities, mental health services, public health services, etc. The Metro Plan was a land use allocation and policy document for the metro area; the definitions and policies of which may affect or exclude consideration of other services not provided by cities in ways not related to land use planning. Failure to recognize the County as provider of those key urban services in the Metro Plan was fundamentally unfair and potentially detrimental to the County’s long term ability to maintain them. A proposed solution was to modify the existing fundamental principles or goal and policy language within the Metro Plan to provide this needed clarity, however, that may cause far reaching and unintended problems with the cities land use and annexation review criteria and processes. Revisions to correct these deficiencies may include modifications and clarifications to the text of the principles, to goal language and definitions to the key urban services and public services in the Metro Plan glossary. Those revisions would clarify the cities’ and county’s roles as providers of various key urban services within the Metro Plan area. Metro planning directors discussed this at their December 15, 2008 meeting and discussed how to address these issues. They were recommending that a more comprehensive analysis continue to be conducted to determine which specific components of the Metro Plan would require revision to acknowledge the County’s role as a key urban service provider and to determine what possible externalities those revisions would have on existing city processes to avoid impacting existing City land use and annexation review criteria. Staff was recommending that any future Metro Plan revisions to address this issue be coordinated with the cities as they develop their amendments associated with HB3337. Mr. Howe spoke regarding the jurisdictional autonomy adjustment. Over the years, there had been infrequent but highly publicized incidents where cities had held a deciding vote on land use proceedings involving private properties with the governing body’s primary jurisdiction. The proposed solution involved limiting applicability of the Metro Plan by modifying the plan boundary so it was coterminous with the Eugene and Springfield UGB and modifying key policy language within the Metro Plan that ATTACHMENT G January 13, 2009 Joint Elected Officials Meeting City of Springfield City of Eugene Lane County Page 3 of 10 spoke to the applicability of the plan beyond the UGB. These revisions could be implemented and concurrently adopted along with other upcoming HB3337 amendments. Mr. Howe said in summary, the Board was trying to position itself with its metro partners to address changes to the Metro Plan as Eugene and Springfield made changes to implement HB3337. Doing this strategically was all the more important with recent County staff reductions made in the planning program because of the current economic downturn. Staff requested the elected officials’ consideration of the two issues and direction to continue coordinating these Metro Plan efforts with the work done to implement HB3337. Chair Sorenson thanked staff for the report. He suggested starting with the elected officials to his right and moving around the room for comments. He asked that they keep their comments to 2 minutes. Mayor Leiken thanked Mr. Howe for a nice presentation. He said the Springfield Council hadn’t had much chance to discuss this issue, so he would like to listen to the County Commissioners’ thoughts on these issues. Some of the issues regarding HB3337 affected all three jurisdictions, but he was interested in hearing what the Commissioners were looking for. They had his attention and the attention of the Springfield City Council. He noted that he had discussed rural reserves with the Springfield Commissioner Bill Dwyer and was supportive of Commissioner Dwyer’s concepts regarding that issue. Mayor Piercy also thanked staff for their presentation. She said that when she and Mayor Leiken met with Commissioner Stewart to look at the five issues brought forward by the Lane County Boundary Commission (LCBC), their thought was to pick a couple of issues that could easily be worked on together with success as a start. It was not a matter of determining the two issues that were the most significant, but rather the easiest. They did understand that all of the issues were important. She watched the LCBC meeting when these issues were discussed. During that meeting, the Commissioners said they wanted to listen to the cities and now the cities wanted to listen to the County. Last night the Eugene Council talked about these issues and wanted to understand which problems the County wanted dealt with and what questions they wanted answered. Councilor Ortiz passed. Councilor Zelenka spoke regarding issue #2. He said he understood the proposed solution, but was not clear on the problem. From the information provided, he gathered it was the lack of definition which made it more difficult for special districts to get funding. He had heard about a public safety special district, and while he was in favor of funding public safety, he had concerns about creating another layer of accountability to the voters in forming a district. He spoke regarding issue #4. He said he was not supportive of either solution on that issue. Commissioner Fleenor thanked staff for their good work. He did not disagree with all the proposed solutions, although he felt the question should be whether or not the Metro Plan should continue to exist. That needed to be resolved before changes were made. It may no longer be the right vehicle. The Metro Plan had evolved over the years and staff’s recommendation was to just add more to it, and he didn’t think that was good for any of the jurisdictions. He had always promoted separating the Metro Plan into separate Comprehensive Plans and with HB3337, now may be a good time for that discussion. Fixing issues # 2 and #4 was premature and could be a waste of time if they determined the Metro Plan was not the vehicle by which they want to move ahead. He would like that discussion today, at the next JEO, or in ATTACHMENT G January 13, 2009 Joint Elected Officials Meeting City of Springfield City of Eugene Lane County Page 4 of 10 an Ad Hoc committee made up today of members in this meeting. That discussion could include taking a look at what the Metro Plan was supposed to do, what it was doing, and determining whether or not we could resuscitate the plan or develop something else. Councilor Ralston said he felt that dealing with two of the five issues was a good idea, and issues #2 and #4 were the easiest to work through first. Describing the services should be fairly easy. He agreed with Commissioner Fleenor that the Metro Plan may not be applicable anymore, especially regarding jurisdictional autonomy, but the solution of modifying the current bylaws made a lot of sense. His opinion was that Springfield would like some autonomy. Councilor Poling said he was willing to have the discussion of the viability of the Metro Plan, but he would first like to see the pros and cons of the Plan and a lot more information. If the group proceeded in going into this format, he was interested in resolving issue #4 regarding autonomy. Under the current policy, there had been projects that had been put before the group that were stopped due to objection of one of the jurisdictions for one reason or another, when the project could have been beneficial for all. He spoke regarding public safety and a lawsuit that was filed in the 1970’s regarding police patrols in unincorporated areas. The judge in that case ruled that the requirement in the ORS to ‘maintain peace and order and arrest those that violated that’ was fulfilled in the sheriff’s drive from the office to the courthouse. He was not sure he agreed with that, but felt there was a way to address Councilor Zelenka’s concerns about a public safety district. He discussed a tax levy for those that benefited from extra patrols. He explained. He was willing to discuss the Metro Plan. Councilor Leezer said she agreed with Councilor Ralston and Commissioner Fleenor to look at the Metro Plan to see if it was still serving everyone. Commissioner Stewart said the LCBC did believe that the Metro Plan was not working, but he had been told we could not get rid of it. The only way to make it work was to fix it. The LCBC had listed five items they had concerns about. He noted issue #1, and said the County had constituents that lived in the UGB, but were not represented by the cities, such as Santa Clara/River Road citizens. That caused problems that needed to be addressed. In regard to Issue #2, LCBC did try to form a public safety district to fund County public safety, without taking away authority from either of the cities. That was one way they tried to improve that situation. He said he was interested in looking at whether or not a public safety district was feasible in the future to fund services for everyone. He spoke regarding rural reserves, and the concern that the agricultural and forest land was being taken by development. He addressed jurisdictional autonomy and the issue of those residents outside the UGB and inside the Metro area that had no representation. He spoke regarding the dispute resolution currently in place. The current system did not work and a solution needed to be found. He said he didn’t believe they could do away with the Metro Plan, so they needed to amend it to make it a useful tool. Councilor Taylor asked for clarification of the coterminous boundary and if it meant shrinking the Metro Plan area. She remembered talking about the Metro Plan and that many of the elected officials wanted to get rid of the Plan, but it couldn’t be done. There was also a suggestion to get rid of County government at that meeting. She said she was here to listen to the County. Councilor Clark said he had watched the LCBC meeting on January 7. Last night at the Eugene City Council meeting, they discussed the LCBC meeting and Commissioner Fleenor’s question about looking at whether or not to proceed with the Metro Plan amendments. He has asked staff to prepare information ATTACHMENT G January 13, 2009 Joint Elected Officials Meeting City of Springfield City of Eugene Lane County Page 5 of 10 on what it would mean to the City of Eugene if they disengaged from the Metro Plan, and some of that had been provided this morning. Some of the information included costs shared by the jurisdictions with joint planning. He was interested to see what kind of money would be required if we did separate and what financial burdens each jurisdiction would bear. It was also mentioned in the report that new agreements would need to be entered into in place of the Metro Plan as required by the State. He would like to learn more about those requirements. He spoke regarding the issue of disenfranchisement. Since he began serving the City residents, he has felt that no one should be forced to annex into the City of Eugene. He regularly met with County residents in that area to hear their issues and concerns. He discussed agreements Eugene had made with the County that indirectly forced people to annex into the City in order to gain certain services. He would be in favor of making new agreements that weren’t so hard on those residents. Making sure those County residents had adequate services as well as adequate voices was important. Councilor Wylie said she supported a lot of what Commissioner Stewart said. If the Metro Plan was outdated, they needed to work on making it relevant with thoughtful amendments and looking at the future needs of our community. Regarding Public Safety Districts, she said each jurisdiction had individual interest in special districts. Through remaking the Metro Plan, each jurisdiction may gain more respect and cooperation for each other’s projects. Each was working hard to make things better for their citizens. Commissioner Handy said Commissioner Stewart gave a good review of the issues from the County. He also thought Councilor Fleenor addressed the Board’s concerns regarding the current Metro Plan. He discussed the Martin Luther King Jr. event at the County earlier in the morning, and the poignancy of the statement “now is the time” and the “urgency of now”. It was incumbent upon the elected officials to keep in mind the needs and desires of the people. He asked Eugene staff for an update on the process of updating the Refinement Plan for the City of Eugene, particularly the River Road and Santa Clara areas. Eugene Planner Muir said in the work plan for the City of Eugene was a neighborhood based plan update process for the Refinement Plan. The goal, consistent with the Neighborhood Empowerment Initiative work they had been doing, was to come up with a more current way of reflecting local plans and priorities either in a Refinement Plan or District Plan. They had not yet gotten to prioritization other than to develop a system that allowed those areas that were most ready to move forward. They were working closely with the neighborhood associations and City staff developing a framework to do that. Councilor Woodrow said he was also hoping to hear what the LCBC was looking for during the meeting. He had no issues with the proposed solutions regarding the Metro Plan descriptions, as long as the solution was the same for all three entities. He discussed a past attempt by Springfield to form a special district that was stopped by another jurisdiction. He empathized with the citizens that lived in the County and didn’t have County or City representation. Some resolution should come out to those citizens and he would like that resolved. Councilor Solomon thanked the Board for bringing this to the City’s attention. She agreed with Councilor Wylie that if all three jurisdictions had to follow the Metro Plan, all should benefit. There needed to be a way for all three to use the Plan fairly and she believed they could get to that point. Councilor Pishioneri referred to the comments from Commissioner Fleenor and Commission Stewart, and noted that the Springfield’s Planning Commission would likely have their opinions about the Metro Plan. ATTACHMENT G January 13, 2009 Joint Elected Officials Meeting City of Springfield City of Eugene Lane County Page 6 of 10 He believed each jurisdiction could establish Refinement Plans that could allow autonomy for each jurisdiction and that the Metro Plan could be amended or reduced to address the major common concerns. He felt the Metro Plan should be reduced. Commissioner Dwyer thanked everyone for attending. He discussed the different bills and plans he had witnessed during his years in this area. The Metro Plan reminded him of the United Nations Security Council: it was too easy to have one entity say no and stop the process. The MPC was not an effective mediation concept. There was a concept in the Metro Plan called developed and committed. When the UGB was expanded, everything within that boundary, regardless of whether it was prime farm land, was considered developed and committed. That made it impossible to protect prime farm land inside the UGB. He gave an example in Eugene. He discussed the issue in River Road of no taxation without representation and that those residents didn’t know who they should call. Cities could only grow at the County’s expense because as the County shrinks, resources diminished. The cities needed to remember that and consider how to keep it whole. He noted a man in the River Road area that was very interested in annexation in 1987 and the expense to the County when Eugene grew. Councilor Brown said it seemed no matter how imperfect, the Metro Plan was a useful vehicle for land use. Without it, Lane County could look like counties in California where all the productive farm land got used up. In the absence of a better plan, they needed to make the Metro Plan work. Cities could expand in responsible ways and that’s what they wanted to do in Eugene. Councilor Pryor said in order for him to be supportive of something, he needed to understand it, and this had become unclear. Why the Metro Plan was needed and the purpose of the plan were questions that needed answered. The question was whether or not this system, or whatever system they created, provided the services and met the need. He used an example of three people living together in an apartment without an agreement of how they would live and the chaos that could ensue. The group needed to decide what type of agreement worked now and how we could make that agreement work. Commissioner Sorenson said because the cities wanted to hear from the commissioners, he would have another round of input from the commissioners, and also hear from Councilor Ortiz, who did not speak the first time. He noted that the statement ‘we are in this together’ was important during the current economic conditions. They needed to work together not only with other public agencies, but also with the private sector, and they needed to have a Metropolitan Plan that respected that fact. There were things in the Metro Plan that weren’t pertinent anymore. He gave the example that cities were the logical providers of services within the City. There were, however, questions regarding what services the County would provide within cities, such as solid waste and law enforcement. He felt the County should be involved in establishing and modifying urban growth boundaries. He would like to see the support of the cities for the rural reserve concept. The LCBC hoped to have Clackamas County Commissioner Lynn Peterson, who got this through in Clackamas County, on the phone at the next LCBC meeting. The LCBC would like to keep the cities informed on the impact of that upon cities. He didn’t expect they would finish this discussion today. He suggested the Commissioners comment on where they should go from here. Councilor Ortiz thanked Commissioner Stewart for his summary of the LCBC thoughts on these issues. She did not care for the Metro Plan, but felt it was a necessary document that was well thought out when it was created. Something along those lines was needed. She didn’t feel they lived in a vacuum and she considered all of the constituents in Eugene and Springfield when making decisions. She was glad River ATTACHMENT G January 13, 2009 Joint Elected Officials Meeting City of Springfield City of Eugene Lane County Page 7 of 10 Road and Santa Clara were finally getting some notability, because when Bethel was incorporated, there was not conversation with those citizens. That needed to be avoided in the future. Commissioner Fleenor said he was not proposing to destroy the Metro Plan, but rather evolve it to a point where they looked at it layer by layer to see where the Metro Plan ended and the Comprehensive Plans began. He believed that the vast majority of the Metro Plan was the individual Comp Plans that had been incorporated. Every city had to have a Comp Plan. His proposal was to look at what was under the umbrella of the Metro Plan, and determine if there was a way to separate it into the separate Comp Plans, and he felt this could happen. He disagreed that there was no way to get rid of the Metro Plan. He was interested in looking at the Metro Plan only if we could get more efficiency at a lower cost. In the process of their analysis, they needed to make sure efficiencies and costs were considered. Commissioner Stewart said he would like to know from staff the status of the Metro Plan and what could or could not be done with the plan. He believed that in the current economic times, we needed to work together as partners, with the ability to have good communication and the ability to make decisions. Some of the frustration was not being able to make final decisions in these joint meetings. He would like to be able to make decisions, make a case about the issues and work together as team. They were all equal partners and all dealt with these issues. Commissioner Handy said he appreciated the comments from Commissioner Stewart. How we worked together was important. A large number of residents in Santa Clara and River Road were impacted by these issues. He asked staff for the relationship of urban and rural reserves and the coterminous of changing the Metro Plan boundaries. Mr. Howe said the Metro Plan boundary proposal to move the outer Metro Plan boundary to the inner UGB was somewhat separate from the discussion of urban reserves and could be done by this body. There were provisions in the statutes for how the urban reserves were identified. Rural reserves were only in State statutes for the Portland Metro area, not outside that area. That didn’t mean that farmland protection areas couldn’t be developed by the Metro partners and adopted to apply in the same fashion as a rural reserve area. Commissioner Dwyer said rural reserve concepts were not only for the metropolitan cities. The County didn’t need the cities’ permission and could do it on their own. If they were created unilaterally, there would be benefit as the cities moved towards those areas. He felt a smaller subcommittee was needed (2 Commissioners and 2 Councilors from each city) to figure out the issues and package them. They could then vote as an entity on the whole package. He said he loved this community and wanted to preserve the quality of life for his family and future generations. They needed to think about their strategy as a whole package. Eugene City Manager Jon Ruiz said he had grown up in Los Angeles and appreciated the interest by this group in trying to do some current and long-range planning of land use. The way Eugene staff could help the most was to know what the policy makers wanted to accomplish so they could work with staff from the other jurisdictions to figure out how those things could be accomplished. They would work at the timing requested by the policy makers. Lane County Administrator Jeff Spartz said they all served the same constituents whether the Metro Plan was in place or not. They needed a vision on how to work together and that could be the appropriate task ATTACHMENT G January 13, 2009 Joint Elected Officials Meeting City of Springfield City of Eugene Lane County Page 8 of 10 for a smaller subgroup. At the same time, the problems that had been identified here needed to be solved. They also needed to determine how to represent the people in the unincorporated urban areas. He felt a reduced number of people in two subcommittees could work on long-range and short-range issues. Springfield City Manager Gino Grimaldi said it would be unfortunate if staff walked away from tonight’s meeting without some direction. There was potential for consensus to move forward on two of the issues identified and he would recommend moving forward on those two issues. The Metro Plan was a large issue and there was interest from the group to discuss it further. The work on the two individual issues could be folded in to work done with the HB3337 work. Chair Sorenson suggested the LCBC appoint Commissioners Fleenor and Handy to the work group. He asked if Eugene and Springfield could appoint two councilors each. This subcommittee could then meet and determine the issues they would work on and bring that back to the larger group in a reasonable amount of time. Mayor Piercy asked for clarification of the smaller group and their purpose. She had heard there could be two groups: one to look at the Metro Plan and one to look at the two smaller issues. She said she was supportive of doing that. Mayor Leiken said he was also supportive and would discuss who to appoint during the next Springfield Agenda Review meeting. He asked staff to contact Bob Cortwright at the DLCD, before considering the Metro Plan discussion, to find out if we would be wasting our time. He appreciated Commissioner Fleenor’s passion regarding this subject, but felt we first needed to hear from the State. Mayor Piercy said the first issue was whether or not we could do away with the Metro Plan. Another issue was how it could be changed to make it workable. Discussion was held regarding whether or not to have one or two groups and the roles of each group. Chair Sorenson asked if the MPC could address the Metro Plan issue. Yes. Commissioner Fleenor understood the MPC would tackle the two smaller issues. Discussion was held regarding the two subcommittees. Commissioner Fleenor said he would like to see one of the subgroups tackle identifying various layers of the Metro Plan with an emphasis on where the Comp Plan stopped and the Metro Plan started. They also needed to look at what would be the required layers to satisfy the State goals. He thought the Ad Hoc committee should look at that bigger picture. Commissioner Handy asked for clarification of the two small issues for the subcommittee. Items # 2 and #4 would be for the smaller committee. Commissioner Fleenor said he did not want to be on that committee and would defer to another commissioner that might wish to serve. ATTACHMENT G January 13, 2009 Joint Elected Officials Meeting City of Springfield City of Eugene Lane County Page 9 of 10 Commissioner Handy referred to Commissioner Dwyer’s comment regarding the subcommittee bringing back solutions for the whole body to vote on and suggested they bring something back for the community to vote on. He had heard from citizens in the River Road and Santa Clara that felt they did not have a voice on matters. If an Ad Hoc committee was formed, they needed to identify other stakeholders that should be there such as River Road Park District, Santa Clara/River Road Neighborhood Organizations and others. It was premature to assign a committee until they identified the stakeholders. They could bring a proposal for that committee to the next meeting. Mayor Leiken said these were significant issues. The reasons he and Mayor Piercy had chosen the two issues to focus on was to bring success. They would be working on the rest of these issues for some time. The Metro Plan was very large with the land use piece as the largest part, which had been tackled through HB3337. Delivery of services was the piece that needed the most clarification, but often got ignored. The responsibility and delivery of services was now the large issue. He felt they needed to discuss this with DLCD first. He noted the cost and appeals if this was not done correctly. Mayor Piercy said in the short run, the subcommittee could work on the two issues between now and the next JEO meeting. Some conversations and work could also be done around the Metro Plan. In the meantime, they could determine a plan of how they would address the representation issue. That would take thoughtful community input. Chair Sorenson asked when the next JEO meeting was scheduled. March 3 in Springfield. Councilor Zelenka said if the subcommittee looked at Issue #2, he would like to see if staff could show a generic, hypothetical solution and the effects of that solution. Councilor Woodrow said he agreed with Commissioner Stewart’s idea of this joint group making decisions together. He suggested directing staff to determine if there was a method where the elected officials from all three jurisdictions could make a joint decision. Commissioner Dwyer said the City of Eugene had the opportunity to deal with a lot of issues in the past. He relayed his experience in Washington DC and representation there. The City of Eugene could invite someone from River Road and Santa Clara to sit at the table to have the discussion. Even if they couldn’t vote, they could influence the decision. Councilor Pishioneri referred to Commissioner Stewart’s idea of the group making decisions jointly. He said it was a privilege to participate in these meetings, but it was also incumbent upon the elected officials to accomplish something while they were here on the citizens’ time. He would like direction provided to staff. Mayor Piercy asked if they could have agreement to put together a subcommittee on the two issues. Commissioner Handy said if he was to sit on this committee, he felt it was important to identify stakeholders. He would also like to find out from DLCD what could be done in regards to the Metro Plan and have staff come up with a robust plan that would involve the public. They could bring back the plan at the next JEO meeting. ATTACHMENT G January 13, 2009 Joint Elected Officials Meeting City of Springfield City of Eugene Lane County Page 10 of 10 Mayor Piercy said the subcommittee could work on the definition of urban services, and moving the Metro Plan boundary. Staff could do prep work for the other things for future discussion. Commissioner Stewart said he would offer to be a member of the subcommittee to address the two items. Commissioner Fleenor asked Mr. Howe if he required policy maker participation in technical corrections, or if that was more a function to conform to the law. Mr. Howe said it was an identification of inconsistencies of the language in the Metro Plan and was technical in nature. Staff could provide the subcommittee with the information and the subcommittee could bring it to the full body. Councilor Zelenka said policy issues were also involved. Mr. Howe said the inconsistencies could be addressed at the staff level. Chair Sorenson wrapped up by summarizing the next steps. The next JEO meeting would be held March 3. Lane County staff would contact DLCD to acquire more information about the requirements of the State, especially involving HB3337. They would also hear staff’s suggestion about how to proceed beyond March 3. Mayor Piercy asked if anyone objected to having a subcommittee work on the two issues between now and March 3, including two representatives from each jurisdiction. Chair Sorenson said each jurisdiction could make those appointments. An advisory vote was taken for the three entities, with two representatives each, to form a subcommittee to address Issues #2 and #4. It was unanimously approved. ADJOURNMENT The Springfield and Eugene City Councils adjourned at 1:33pm. The Lane County Board of Commissioners recessed at 1:33pm. Minutes Recorder Amy Sowa ATTACHMENT H M I N U T E S Eugene City Council Executive Session McNutt Room – City Hall 777 Pearl Street—Eugene, Oregon January 14, 2008 12:00 p.m. COUNCILORS PRESENT: Alan Zelenka, Chris Pryor, Andrea Ortiz, Mike Clark, George Poling, Betty Taylor, Jennifer Solomon, George Brown. Eugene City Council member Alan Zelenka, noting the absence of Mayor Kitty Piercy from the proceedings and pursuant to ORS 192.6602(2)(a), called an executive session of the Eugene City Council to consider the employment of a public officer, employee or staff member to order at 12:01 p.m. Ms. Zelenka adjourned the executive session at 1:31 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Jon Ruiz City Manager (Recorded by Wade Hicks) MINUTES—Eugene City Council January 14, 2009 Page 1 Executive Session