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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCC Minutes - 09/17/08 Work Session M I N U T E S Eugene City Council McNutt Room—City Hall—777 Pearl Street Eugene, Oregon September 17, 2008 Noon COUNCILORS PRESENT: Chris Pryor, Betty Taylor, Jennifer Solomon, George Poling, Andrea Ortiz, Mike Clark. COUNCILORS ABSENT: Alan Zelenka, Bonny Bettman. Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the work session of the Eugene City Council to order. A. WORK SESSION: Low-Impact Development – Results of Review Fred McVey, Public Works, reported on the results of a review of Low Impact Development (LID) practices for stormwater management in Eugene. He said the purpose of the review was to identify opportunities and barriers to LID, which he defined as a stormwater management and site development strategy that emphasized use of onsite natural features to mitigate impacts of increased stormwater runoff and pollution through practices and design techniques that infiltrated, filtered, stored, evaporated, reduced and detained runoff close to its source. He said those practices included use of swales, rain gardens, green roofs, pervious pavements and other impervious surface reductions and onsite tree and open space preservation. Mr. McVey said key findings determined the City had a solid foundation in place to support LID principles and a range of regulations and programs that supported the use of those practices. He said the City’s progress in this area was substantial, but a variety of opportunities existed to increase the use of LID and were detailed in the report, as were barriers to LID practices. He said the recommendation was to pursue increased implementation through several avenues: administrative adjustments, additional integration of LID practices with other initiatives, development of proposals for land use code amendments and proposals for program enhancements. He said if land use code amendments were pursued, proposed modifications should be developed within the framework of the Planning Division’s annual work plan and Planning Commission priorities. He said policy questions related to whether LID practices should be required or available as an option that was encouraged and facilitated and how best to balance LID with other council priorities. Ms. Piercy noted that the report did not address trying to maintain the character of the neighborhood in which LID practices were implemented. Mr. McVey agreed that maintaining neighborhood character might be a benefit of LID, but the charge was to look at the issue from a stormwater management perspective so that subject was not addressed. Ms. Piercy asked if LID practices were less expensive for the City in the long-term because there were no curb and gutter maintenance requirements. Mr. McVey said that some financial analysis had been done by other communities and in some cases it was less expensive to construct, operate and maintain LID MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 17, 2008 Page 1 Work Session stormwater management practices, but with both types of stormwater management practices in place the City would need to be equipped to maintain them. Mr. Clark asked if the Planning Commission’s current work plan could accommodate LID code amendments or would it need to be incorporated in next year’s work plan. Mr. McVey said there was no explicit part of the current work plan that addressed the subject directly, although some elements were related. He said one approach would be to scrutinize proposed code amendments from the perspective of how they would impact the City’s efforts to implement LID; a more focused effort would need to be specifically included in the work plan. Mr. Clark asked if any of the administrative integration elements would need to be taken into consideration as the City worked toward compliance with House Bill 3337 and analysis of the buildable lands supply. Mr. McVey said the initial administrative adjustments would not have any significant affect on buildable lands, but that would need to be addressed in any proposed code amendments. Ms. Taylor preferred not to use the acronym LID as it was already in use for other subjects. She asked why maintenance costs for LID stormwater management would be comparable to costs for more traditional approaches. Mr. McVey said LID maintenance would require different methods and equipment and the City would need to be equipped to maintain both types of infrastructure. Ms. Taylor asked what council priorities might be in conflict with LID. Mr. McVey said LID regulated development and could create counter-balancing purposes if using natural features onsite was not feasible, such as on a densely developed downtown site. City Manager Jon Ruiz clarified that it could be physically challenging to install LID infrastructure in a densely developed environment. Ms. Taylor asked if reviving the City’s dormant tree ordinance would assist with implementing LID. Mr. McVey said there was some potential to further restrict tree removal, consistent with LID practices, although there was some tree protection already in place. Ms. Taylor asked staff to determine the status of the tree ordinance that had been remanded by the Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA). Mr. Pryor expected there would be conflicts between LID implementation and other policies and encouraged the City to actively seek out those points of conflict so they could be resolved early in the process. He said preserving the ability to incorporate new technologies as they emerged, such as permeable surfaces, was an important aspect of LID implementation. Ms. Solomon said the conflicts alluded to underscored the importance of maintaining LID practices as elective, not mandatory. She said the City should encourage the use of LID principles, but not require them. She urged staff to continue to develop incentives to use LID practices as that was a more productive way to increase participation. Mr. McVey said making LID optional or mandatory was one of the policy decisions the council would need to make. Ms. Piercy agreed with the use of incentives to encourage green practices. She said that Portland was a leader in the area and there were many good examples that could be studied. Ms. Taylor preferred to require the use of green practices instead of making them discretionary. MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 17, 2008 Page 2 Work Session Mr. Pryor, seconded by Ms. Solomon, moved to direct the City Manager to move forward with efforts to increase implementation of Low Impact Development (LID) practices through administrative adjustments, additional integration of LID practic- es with other initiatives, development of proposals for land use code amendments, and development of proposals for other program enhancements. Mr. Clark asked how staff interpreted the motion in terms of administrative adjustments and creating incentives. He wanted to support the motion, but did not want to make LID practices mandatory as that could increase the cost of housing in the community. Mr. McVey explained that easily implemented administrative changes could range from clarifying project design and management standards to modifying design standards to specifically recognizing incorporation of LID practices and principles. He said that the more complex actions, such as code amendments, would take more time and ultimately be a policy decision by the council. Ms. Ortiz said she could support the motion and hoped that as LID implementation progressed it was not made mandatory because of the potential conflicts with development in a densely developed area. The motion passed, 6:0. B. WORK SESSION: City Manager Performance Evaluation Process Alana Holmes and Denise Smith, Human Resources, presented an overview of the framework for the City Manager evaluation process. Ms. Holmes noted that the evaluation would not be conducted until spring 2009, but she wanted feedback and direction from the council on the proposed process in order to finalize the timeline and materials. Ms. Smith reviewed the proposed categories to be addressed in the evaluation: policy facilitation and implementation, financial management, community leadership and organizational leadership. She said three to five behaviors would be identified in each category. Ms. Taylor expressed concern with being asked to judge behaviors of which the council had no knowledge. She thought that more communication from the City Manager about what he was doing in each of those areas during the year would be helpful. She said it was good to have two-way communications about the council’s expectations and the manager’s activities well in advance of the actual evaluation. Ms. Smith said that the council would identify behavior measurements and how the relevant information would be obtained; the City Manager would then be aware of what information the council required and how that could be provided, such as through discussions or written reports. She said part of the process would include gathering feedback from others to help inform the council’s actions. Ms. Taylor reiterated that it was important to her to have the City Manager inform the council about his actions, such as deciding the shift responsibilities among departments or implementing other organizational changes or use of resources. Mr. Ruiz said it would be helpful to understand how best to provide the council with the information it required. He wanted to know if communications, including one-on-one meetings with councilors, were not working well. MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 17, 2008 Page 3 Work Session Ms. Taylor suggested that a report from the City Manager should be a regular agenda item as typically the one-on-one meetings were focused on issues related to wards or individual councilors’ interests. Mr. Ruiz asked what type of information should be in the report. Ms. Taylor said the report should inform the council about things the City Manager was planning or thinking about, improvements to the organization or problems the council should know about. She said the manager was engaged in many activities of which the council was not aware. Mr. Pryor said it was challenging to measure the performance of a chief executive when the council was not aware of many activities, which is why many organizations had moved to a 360 degree evaluation approach. He said that type of evaluation could include the type of information the council would need to assess performance. He did not feel the need to pass judgment on the City Manager’s decisions and plans; he did feel the need to determine whether those decisions had worked. He said the council’s role was to evaluate the City Manager’s success and accomplishments and felt it would be relatively easy to obtain feedback from the organization and community to make that determination. His role was to evaluate the results of the City Manager’s decisions and actions, not micromanage City operations. Mr. Clark echoed Mr. Pryor’s remarks. He felt the information provided in weekly newsletters and briefings was useful in determining how the organization was succeeding. He said the council should evaluate whether the organization was high functioning in areas such as public safety. He noted that during the City Manager selection process many questions related to issues, goals and concerns had been developed and those could be helpful in crafting the evaluation document. Ms. Ortiz was satisfied with the four proposed evaluation categories. She said she hoped the personal attacks that had occurred during previous City Manager evaluations could be avoided in future evaluations. She said it would be helpful to have information about how the City Manager’s time was spent and the groups and individuals with whom he had contact. She wanted to know if the City Manager interacted primarily with executives and managers or also talked to line employees as she felt it was important to acknowledge and validate all employees. Mr. Poling said it was good to receive feedback from the City Manager, but did not want to burden him with providing the details of his daily activities. He said the primary question was whether the City Manager and the organization, through his direction, accomplished the goals and directives the council set forth. He liked the four evaluation categories, but did not like assigning numerical values to levels of performance. He felt the City Manager did a good job of keeping the council informed and liked receiving phone calls about emerging issues. He wanted feedback from others inside and outside the organization before conducting a performance evaluation. Ms. Piercy wanted the evaluation process to be helpful and provide feedback that would help the City Manager achieve his goals and the council’s goals. Ms. Taylor also did not like the numerical scoring method of evaluating performance. She wanted information about the City Manager’s activities from a broad perspective, not the details of daily activities. She said not all projects were successful and would not condemn someone just because of a failure that might be out of their control; it was commendable that the effort was made. She was not comfortable with receiving anonymous feedback. Ms. Smith explained there were advantages and disadvantages to anonymous feedback; it was sometimes difficult to interpret anonymous information, but often people provided more honest information if people could provide it anonymously. She said the council could MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 17, 2008 Page 4 Work Session receive a wide range of information from very positive to very negative and its challenge was to interpret that information and identify themes. Ms. Ortiz emphasized that her interest was in having enough information to conduct a positive and constructive evaluation and identify the City Manager’s goals, achievements and successes. Mr. Poling said the City Manager’s self-evaluation could include his personal goals and perceptions of the council’s expectations. He liked Mr. Clark’s suggestion to incorporate some of the selection process questions to craft the evaluation instrument. Mr. Pryor stressed the importance of defining and developing measurements of success. He said success was not always the end result; it could also be the attempt to do something. He said if the 360 degree evaluation approach was used, anonymity was not helpful, but assuring confidentiality of information provided was. He would also prefer not to have a numerical scale as part of the evaluation. Ms. Piercy commented that many organizations used an online tool to obtain feedback during an evaluation. Mr. Clark encouraged an analysis of the City Manager’s work through the lens of innovation. Mr. Ruiz commented that the council’s retreat in early 2009 could include a discussion of a feedback loop for the council, City Manager and staff to assure that policies and goals were being addressed by the organization. Ms. Holmes determined that the council agreed with the proposed timeframe. The meeting adjourned at 1:05 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Jon Ruiz City Manager (Recorded by Lynn Taylor) MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 17, 2008 Page 5 Work Session