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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCC Minutes - 09/14/09 Regular Meeting M I N U T E S Eugene City Council Regular Meeting Council Chamber—Eugene City Hall 777 Pearl Street—Eugene, Oregon September 14, 2009 7:30 p.m. COUNCILORS PRESENT: Chris Pryor, George Brown, Andrea Ortiz, George Poling, Mike Clark, Betty Taylor, Jennifer Solomon. COUNCILORS ABSENT: Alan Zelenka. Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the meeting of the Eugene City Council to order. 1. PUBLIC FORUM Mayor Piercy reviewed the rules of the Public Forum. stth Jim Wilcox , 205 West 31 Avenue, wished to speak about the development site located at 10 Avenue and Olive Street. He related that in 2008 he had collaborated with Plug in America to come up with a plan and they had developed a housing/transit station idea in which residents could receive credits for having no car and that included amenities such as electric car charging stations, among others. He had submitted the plan in response to the City’s request for proposals, but WG Development had been awarded the project. He had worked on the design criteria and tried to talk to the City further as the project appeared to be faltering after six months, but the City was not interested in looking at other proposals. He believed that in the interim the Obama stimulus grants had come through for a possible $20 million for a “unique transportation development” and he could have accessed that money, but the City still had not been interested. He observed that WG Development had bowed out and now it seemed Lane Community College hoped to build on that site. He said it had been 18 months and he wanted to provide copies of the plan to the council. He encouraged the council to consider the design criteria and the plan. He averred that it would help lead toward a more sustainable Eugene. th Eugene Drix , 307 ½ 14 Avenue, declared his love for Eugene. He welcomed the council back after the summer break. He said new was only new until it was known. He related that he had gone to the Eugene Celebration and as he had walked by the Lane Community College (LCC) downtown center three women were working to get the door closed and locked. He had offered to help them to move “into one of the holes” and one of them had said they had the money and just needed a place to move to. He commented that he was passing that message along to the council. He stated that branding was important; Eugene was a beautiful community. He suggested that Eugene could be the “city of thought.” He thought the City could have a new expression: “How are You-gene?” Howard Kopp , 2175 Polk Street, Executive Director of Nearby Nature and affiliated with the Network Charter School (NCS), explained that NCS was a collaboration of a number of non-profits and alternative schools, including Nearby Nature, MECCA, Peace Village, Le Petit Gourmet and Eugene Glass School. He stated that they were a provider of community-based education with teachers who provided expertise in community issues. He said NCS was a collection of campuses where “kids get involved” in hands-on learning in small-group settings. He believed that the NCS was a haven for “innovative creative kids” who would be lost in larger public school class rooms. He said NCS had an interest in remaining downtown and was interested in occupying the building at 858 Pearl Street. He thought it would provide a use for a vacant City-owned building and they intended to attract other non-profits as occupants in the building, such as the Saturday Market. He noted that the Market was interested in forming a MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 14, 2009 Page 1 Regular Meeting coalition with NCS in order to move into the building. He thought they would be able to pay for improvements and they would provide a long-term presence there. He stated that the location would allow their students easy access to all of the satellite campuses because students used Lane Transit District (LTD) buses and the bicycle paths for transportation. Joyce Holmes Benjamin , 1375 Olive Street, Apt. 502, stated that she was an attorney. She noted that she lived at the Tate Building and was one of the developers along with Jean Tate. She was very interested in the NCS because she was interested in education. She related that she had spent 22 years of her life on different boards of education, including the State Board of Education, and she had spent 11 years working for the Department of Education in Salem. She had sat in on NCS classes and thought they were doing an excellent job with the children. She understood the school needed a home and believed the Pearl Street building was a good fit and would solve the problem the City had in needing to make good use of the building. She said they had submitted a proposal to the City Manager. She urged the council to commit to an interest in the proposal. th Sally Snyder , 1134 West 8 Avenue, stated that she was a child and family therapist and her daughter was a senior at NCS. She related that her daughter had started at South Eugene High School and it had not worked for her, but the NCS had been “a great fit.” She said her daughter had flourished there and would graduate after the current semester and begin classes at LCC in the spring. She urged the council to help the NCS remain downtown. She related that in addition to access to transit and the bicycle path, being in the downtown area provided easy access to the library and to art galleries. She added that parents also spent more time downtown because of having to transport their children. She echoed the sentiment that the NCS would be a good match for the building. Pauline Hutson , 1025 Taylor Street, accused Councilor Pryor of making remarks at a work session on August 12 that she perceived to discredit Residents for Responsible Rapid Transit (3RT). She quoted Councilor Pryor as having said that some people were spreading “misinformation and scary stories” about the proposed west Eugene EmX corridor project. She had taken umbrage at this remark. She averred that 3RT did not lie or make up stories and anyone was welcome to go through their files. She asserted that the councilor had been “lying and making up stories.” She found this to be unpleasant and upsetting and asked that it stop. Herschel Henderly , 1493 Queens Way, spoke in support of keeping the NCS in the downtown area. He asserted that the NCS was important to the school system. He related the story of his son, who had difficulty focusing in class and distracted other students. His son had transferred to NCS and he lauded the benefits it had provided for him. He averred that the NCS teachers did a great job of handling a diverse group of young people. He stated that his son had graduated the previous spring. He felt that the NCS provided a safety valve for the school districts because kids who were disruptive in class caused no one to learn. Lisa Anderson , 1230 Arthur Street, said a neighbor had told her about the draft plan to put a bus line through her neighborhood. She had spoken with her neighbors and none of them had heard about it. She asserted that LTD had not notified anyone in her neighborhood. She had attended an LTD meeting to ask about a specific section of the draft proposal for a route along the Amazon Canal and LTD staff did not know anything. She related that staff had informed her that they would hold a meeting with the neighborhood in September and she was displeased that they had not done so yet. She had asked staff repeatedly when the plan would be ready to present in a meeting and no one every seemed to know. She was concerned that they would run a bus down a section of the bicycle path which she believed would be costly to the taxpayers, harmful to wildlife, would require eminent domain, would take out low- income housing, and would disrupt a peaceful neighborhood. Darren Reiley , 129-A North Polk Street, Executive Director of Peace Village, stated that he had worked as an educator for 12 years. He had been working with Peace Village for eight years. He explained that Peace Village offered non-violence education through summer camps and for the past five years Peace Village had contracted with the Churchill Alternative High School and NCS to offer non-violence training to teenagers. He averred that they did MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 14, 2009 Page 2 Regular Meeting “good work” and offered young people non-violent alternatives to resolving their conflicts. He related that they had taken a group of young people on a service trip to the Navajo Nation and they had, among other things, chopped wood for the elders. He felt they had done a lot of good work with the youth. He noted that their biggest contract was with NCS. He urged the council to consider the proposal to allow NCS to move into the Pearl Street building. He said NCS had outgrown 45 Broadway and the City had informed them that because of the size, the code would no longer allow them to be in that building. They had been looking for a year to find a building that would meet their needs and 858 Pearl Street would be an ideal location for them. th Sandra Bishop , 591 West 10 Avenue, Ward 7, understood that the councilors would be selecting a preferred alternative route for the West Eugene EmX corridor within the next nine or ten months. She believed that the final decision made by LTD on the EmX route through West Eugene’s historic neighborhoods would be one of the most significant decisions to be made. She declared that where the EmX was routed would have a profound effect on the livability and the long-term viability of the local neighborhoods. She asked the council to support the neighbors and business owners who oppose the development of EmX routes on residential streets and along the Amazon Canal. She asserted that at times the LTD staff had taken undesirable alternatives off the list only to have them “mysteriously reappear.” She asked that the council let LTD know that it was unacceptable to “destroy” close-in downtown th neighborhoods by routing EmX “inappropriately.” She asked the council to join her in opposing the use of West 13 th Avenue, the Amazon channel, and West 11 Avenue west of Garfield Street and to support the establishment of an thth EmX corridor on 6 and 7 Avenues. th Ilona Koleszar , 871 West 11 Avenue, stated that she was a member of 3RT and also sat on the West Eugene EmX Extension Corridor Committee (WEEECC). She alleged that there were detailed maps of proposed route corridors and the committee had looked at them. She wanted the council to request copies of the maps and review them. She thought the council would take away “the obvious conclusion” that the impacts of the Amazon Canal and West thth Garfield Street alternatives were “huge” compared to the impacts on 6 and 7 Avenues. She urged the council to take the time to read the draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) when it was available. She also asked the council to think about the Multiple-Unit Property Tax Exemption (MUPTE) extension and what they were trying to thth accomplish with it. She believed that if they considered the MUPTE and the 6/7 Avenue alternative, they would th find them to be compatible. She asked the council to remember that 13 Avenue was “smack dab” in the middle of the neighborhood. She averred that they “kept hearing” from LTD that it was on the edge of the neighborhood. She urged them not to view it that way. Anand Keathley , 389 North Polk Street, Ward 7, noted that he represented the Whiteaker Community Council on the WEEECC. He related that Robert L. Hirsch had updated his report on peak oil in 2008 and had concluded that things could be much worse than he had initially believed. He said Mr. Hirsch thought this would be because of the tendency of nationalistic resource withholding which would cause oil prices to rise sooner than had initially been projected. He asserted that the Oregon Department of Energy Senior Energy Analyst Christopher Dymond had projected that oil peaking would occur between 2012 and 2015. He believed that with newer conclusions, it could happen more rapidly. He provided copies of both Hirsch reports on discs for the councilors. He averred that the route for the EmX needed to be chosen with both the future and present in mind. He conveyed the Whiteaker thth Community Council’s preference for the 6/7 Avenue corridor. Charles Rintalan , 391 La Casa Street, recalled past mayors of the City of Eugene and commented that there had been decisions made throughout the past that affected the well-being of Eugene residents and influenced Eugene in a thth good manner. He hoped that the council would consider the 6/7 Avenue corridor for a new EmX route. He th believed that routing it closer to the Amtrak and a dogleg closer to West 11 Avenue would be workable. He commented that he could remember the 1980s, a time when “trees were a sensitive subject.” He asserted that trains brought old growth logs through the City in the night and people were not aware of it. He averred that trees were one of the three things most important to Eugene. He alleged that the Parks Division was spraying Roundup around the bases of trees and it was killing them. MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 14, 2009 Page 3 Regular Meeting th Ron Doerr , 3012 West 11 Avenue, representing M & G Collision Specialists, stated that of the three routes being thth set forth for a west Eugene EmX corridor, the 6/7 Avenue route was being strongly suggested. He stated that the th suggested Amazon Canal and West 11 Avenue route would impact both of the businesses’ tax lots and its structures. He said the business had made it through tough times and supported 12 families. He noted that the 12 employees had a total of 120 years of service in the business between them. He was concerned that building an EmX route through their tax lots would cause them to lose their business. He pointed out that the business had been in its th location long before West 11 traffic had become dense. He thanked Councilor Pryor for holding a meeting with thth area residents and businesses. He asked the council to consider the routes carefully and to pick the 6/7 Avenue option. Jozef Siekiel-Zdzienicki , 1025 Taylor Street, Ward 1, said the draft EIS for the West Eugene EmX corridor project had been slated to come out on January 1, 2010, but had been delayed a couple of months. He had attended the thth workshops on the corridor and he had not noted the attendance of anyone from 6 or 7 Avenues nor from any th businesses on 13 Avenue. He said the proposed routes would traverse Councilor Ortiz’ ward and recommended that she hold a meeting for residents that might be affected by them. He asserted that LTD was not doing their job in talking to people. He averred that this was a major decision. He urged the council to start some stakeholders groups. thth George F. Cole , 2760 West 11 Avenue, noted that he also owned the properties at 2770 and 2780 West 11 Avenue. He was concerned about the potential EmX route by the Amazon Canal. He recalled a conflict he had with LTD six years earlier – LTD had wanted most of his property for a park and ride facility and it allegedly cost him $160,000 in legal fees to keep the property. He was suspicious that objections to how his property looked had something to do with it. He related that his father had started the business in 1935 and it had grown from then. He had started his own construction business because there had not been enough income generated by the small furniture business. Because of this, he had acquired several pieces of obsolete equipment. He said after the bicycle path had been developed, people had complained about the view. He stated that since then he had planted an “urban forest” to th obscure the equipment. He requested that the council listen to the business owners of West 11 Avenue. th Brent Woodrich , 2700 West 11 Avenue, representing Autocraft Auto Body and Repair, said an EmX corridor along the Amazon Canal would take out part of their parking lot, which he needed to store the vehicles they were working on. He did not think the councilors understood just how many businesses and residents would be affected by thth choosing this corridor. He said the 6/7 Avenue corridor would not affect as many people. He underscored that th West 11 Avenue was an industrial area. He did not believe it could be developed into something akin to what would be found in the City’s core. Kimberly Gladen , 361 West Broadway, supported moving the NCS into the Pearl Street building. She commented that anything that kept drug dealers and panhandlers off the streets would benefit the community. She stated that she lived and worked in the downtown area and did not own a car. She liked to have everything within walking distance. She remarked that she liked to smell the petunias and watch ducks in the fountain. She said there were problems in the downtown core and strongly suggested that the bicycle patrol be expanded to work at night, from 9 p.m. to about 4 a.m. which was when most of the vandalism happened. She thought a night time patrol should be deployed from Wednesday through Saturday nights, if not all week long. She believed a bicycle patrol was the only way to police the area, because an officer in a patrol vehicle would not be able to tell the difference between patrons of a bar or restaurant outside having a cigarette and panhandlers and drug dealers hanging out on the corner. She also felt that bicycle officers would be better equipped to thwart vandalism that occurred after the bars closed because they could hear the noisy bar patrons from a distance and could monitor their activities. She believed a foot patrol officer would be a waste of taxpayer money. As for panhandlers, she remarked that there were some that she gave money to every time she saw them, but there were too many of them. She averred that most people did not want to walk downtown because they would get panhandled five or six times on every block. She related that she had been panhandled five times just walking by the library and around the corner to the Kiva grocery store. She said she had been yelled at MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 14, 2009 Page 4 Regular Meeting “aggressively” by young men when exiting the Kiva if she did not have change for them. She noted that there was one man with a damaged hand that regularly panhandled, ostensibly for medical care and commented that “this stuff scares people.” She was used to it, but for a lot of people it was off-putting. She underscored the need for foot traffic in the downtown area for it to be viable. People needed to come downtown to shop. She declared that Eugene was a beautiful town that “just needed some TLC” and the downtown had been neglected for too long. She added her feeling that the downtown should be its own council ward. Mayor Piercy closed the Public Forum. She asked the City Manager to direct someone from the Planning Division to speak with Mr. Wilcox about his proposal. She thanked all of the people representing the NCS for coming and speaking. She also thanked the members of the public who spoke about the EmX Corridor. She remarked that it was a “long journey,” the ultimate goal of which would be to have a fully developed transit system that would make it easy to choose to use it instead of driving. She said it would help growth and development and would be good for neighborhoods and businesses. She felt the first route had been successful, and they would soon understand how the second route would be. Because the third route was planned for a very built-out area, she found it hard to imagine that “somebody’s ox would not be gored” in the process. She assured them that they would try to get the best route possible. She noted that when her family was young, they had bought a lot of furniture from Cole’s. Regarding the downtown area, she stressed that there were issues to work on and they continued to struggle to get developments underway. She commented that the financial crisis had not helped things move along. Councilor Pryor expressed appreciation to everyone who spoke, especially those who spoke about the EmX. He underscored that it was his principle interest to find the best route possible. He thought he could provide reasonable and passionate arguments for and against all three routes. He was interested in gaining as much input as possible and had strongly recommended to LTD that it increase opportunities for input. This was one of the reasons he had held the meeting during the previous week. He reiterated that he was not interested in disrupting businesses on West th 11 Avenue; whatever solution they arrived at needed to be undertaken in the way that would least damage the businesses that were there. He observed that figuring out a way to put another transit route through West Eugene would be challenging. He stressed the importance of understanding that the process was not at a point of making a final decision; there were a lot of opportunities still to provide input and to shape the ultimate result. He hoped that LTD and the City would hold more public forums. He planned to help in as many ways as he could to help LTD have more forums and collect more information. He underscored that the participation of the people who were concerned about it was very important. Councilor Ortiz thanked everyone for their input. She expressed appreciation to Councilor Pryor for helping to make sure the conversation “stayed broad.” She had thought LTD had done a pretty good job of presenting the thoughts they had, though there was always room for improvement. She had asked LTD to make sure they had contacted businesses and was glad that they had done so. She said she planned to hold a meeting with her constituents in the thth 6/7 Avenue corridor. She noted her support for the NCS and said it would be a good match for the Pearl Street building. She thought the NCS provided a “natural pathway” to education for those young people. Additionally, she commented that Ms. Gladen was very brave. She appreciated her commitment to the downtown area. She remarked that the 2010 census could demonstrate that the downtown could be its own ward. Councilor Poling said Councilor Pryor had made his points about the EmX corridor proposals. He wanted to reiterate that nothing had been “chiseled in stone.” He expressed resentment toward the comment made about Councilor Pryor regarding misinformation. He related that as far back as four or five months ago he had received calls from business owners saying that someone was coming into their shops and claiming that LTD would be placing the EmX route there. He stated that there were lies and misinformation being passed around regarding the West Eugene EmX corridor and he did not know where it was coming from. For someone to claim that Councilor Pryor’s comment was aimed specifically at one group was “just bad” and wrong. MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 14, 2009 Page 5 Regular Meeting Councilor Clark appreciated everyone’s testimony and especially Ms. Gladen’s remarks. He reiterated that he was downtown every day, adding that he thought the situation was even worse than Ms. Gladen had presented it. He believed there was a significant public safety problem in the downtown area that the City needed to do a better job of mediating. He looked forward to the conversation that was planned in the next couple of months about increasing police staffing. He added his appreciation to the dedication of the business owners and the advocates regarding the EmX corridor. He requested that the City Manager provide copies of the map that Ms. Koleszar referred to for the councilors. Councilor Brown thanked everyone for coming down. He observed that though the topic of the EmX corridor kept thth coming up, no stakeholders from the 6/7 Avenue areas came. He did not think there was a very good representa- tion on the stakeholder group for the West Eugene corridor. He was concerned that outreach was not being conducted in an indepth way in advance of the public hearing process. He thought the complaints were valid and needed to be addressed. He felt that if people were shut out, it would make the determination of which corridor to develop more difficult. 2. CONSENT CALENDAR A. Approval of City Council Minutes - May 11, 2009, Work Session - June 8, 2009, Work Session - June 17, 2009, Executive Session - July 8, 2009, Work Session - July 13, 2009, Work Session - July 15, 2009, Work Session - July 20, 2009, Civilian Review Board Interviews - July 20, 2009, Public Hearing - July 21, 2009, Joint Elected Officials Meeting - July 22, 2009, Work Session - July 22, 2009, Executive Session - July 27, 2009, City Council Meeting - August 10, 2009, City Council Meeting - August 10, 2009, Executive Session B. Approval to Tentative Working Agenda C. Adoption of Resolution 4986 Renaming the “Autzen Footbridge” as the “Dave and Lynn Frohn- mayer Pedestrian and Bicycle Bridge” Councilor Clark, seconded by Councilor Taylor, moved to approve the Consent Calendar. Councilor Brown pulled Items A and C. Mayor Piercy pointed out that it would not be necessary to pull Item A in its entirety to make a correction to the minutes. Councilor Brown left Item A in the Consent Calendar. Councilor Ortiz wanted to pull the minutes from the Council Meeting held on August 10. She asked that the minutes recorder review her comments reflected in the last paragraph on page 3 in order to clarify her intent. Councilor Brown offered the following correction to the Work Session held on May 11: ? Page 8, paragraph 11, last sentence: “If the funding was used as proposed, nothing was left in the Facility Reserve for seismic upgrades for two fire stations, the airport fire station main terminal building, or any other first responder site.” MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 14, 2009 Page 6 Regular Meeting Roll call vote; the motion to approve the Consent Calendar with the exception of the minutes from August 10 and Item C, and with the aforementioned amendment to the minutes of the Work Session held on May 11, passed unanimously, 7:0. Councilor Brown stated that he meant no disrespect to the Frohnmayers. He said he was “old school” regarding the naming of structures and he thought it was too soon after the Frohnmayer’s departure. He thought the renaming would pass and he was not strongly opposed to it, but he intended to vote against it. Councilor Pryor understood the concern, but he thought the naming of the DeFazio Bridge had set a precedent for doing so. He averred that Representative DeFazio had richly deserved having a bridge named for him because he had done an enormous amount of good for Oregon and the Eugene/Springfield area. He believed that Dave and Lynn Frohnmayer had also done great things for the area and for the state. He recalled his long relationship with Mr. Frohnmayer, one in which they had not always agreed about things. He listed Mr. Frohnmayer’s accomplishments which included adding new academic centers and a great deal of fundraising, noting that he had excluded listing the athletic facilities. He declared that Mr. Frohnmayer and his wife, Lynn, had done an enormous amount of good for the University of Oregon and the community in which it resided and he believed that this tribute was at a reasonable level and was a good thing to do. He supported the renaming “wholeheartedly.” Councilor Taylor noted that she had voted against naming the bridge after Rep. DeFazio, though she was a great admirer of his. She thought they needed a policy regarding naming and to determine whether the public should be involved in such activities. She indicated she would vote against the item. Councilor Clark agreed that a discussion on a policy for a naming process would be in order. Nonetheless, he was very happy to support this particular item. He believed that there were children all over the state and even all over the country who would benefit from the work of the Frohnmayers. He could not think of a more fitting tribute to two people who had “spent a lifetime building bridges between people in the State of Oregon.” Mayor Piercy remarked that it would be tough to have a discussion on the process at this point without sending a message they might not want to send. She believed that the naming of this bridge was a good choice. The motion passed, 5:2; Councilors Taylor and Brown voting in opposition. The meeting adjourned at 8:44 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Jon Ruiz City Manager (Recorded by Ruth Atcherson) MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 14, 2009 Page 7 Regular Meeting