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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCC Minutes - 09/29/10 Work SessionMINUTES Eugene City Council McNutt Room — Eugene City Hall 777 Pearl Street Eugene, Oregon September 29, 2010 Noon COUNCILORS PRESENT: Mike Clark, Betty Taylor, Jennifer Solomon, Andrea Ortiz, George Poling, Alan Zelenka, George Brown, members. COUNCILORS ABSENT: Chris Pryor. Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the September 29, 2010, work session of the Eugene City Council to order. A. WORK SESSION: Triple Bottom Line Framework City Manager's Office Division Manager Keli Osborn presented an update on the City's use of the triple bottom line (TBL) framework and TBL analysis tools. She introduced Service Improvement Manager Terri Monroe, Sustainability Liaison Babe O'Sullivan, Recreation Division Manager Craig Smith, Parks Maintenance Manager Kevin Finney, Planner Lydia McKinney, and Library Customer Experience Manager LaVena Nohrenberg. Ms. Monroe provided a PowerPoint presentation on the development of the City's TBL framework that touched on what the framework was and was not, how it worked, and what staff expected from the tool in the future. She emphasized that the tool was not a decision - making tool but rather a "thinking tool" that helped to supplement one's individual thought process and was designed to identify issues that otherwise might not surface in discussion. Mr. Smith, Mr. Finney, Ms. McKinney, Ms. Nohrenberg, and Ms. O'Sullivan offered examples of how City staff had used the TBL tool. Mayor Piercy suggested that in the future, the State of Oregon would be looking more carefully at the true costs of things, and the information provided by the TBL tool would for example help to provide accurate data for the purpose of grant applications. Mayor Piercy solicited council questions and comments. Ms. Ortiz thanked staff for the work it had done on the TBL framework and related tools, and suggested the City had something to celebrate. She commended staff's commitment to the TBL framework and looked forward to using the tool herself. Responding to a question from Mr. Poling about the applicability of the TBL framework to the private sector, Ms. Osborn said the "triple bottom line" has been used in the private sector under different names. She suggested the City could partner with the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce and similar entities to share the TBL framework and tools with the business community and learn from one another. MINUTES— Eugene City Council September 29, 2010 Page 1 Work Session Mr. Poling encouraged staff to reach out to the private sector to form such partnerships to help obtain the goals the council sought throughout the entire community, and not just the organization. He hoped the City's copyright was not a barrier to expanding the use of the tool. Mr. Zelenka agreed with Mr. Poling about reaching out to the private sector and noted that such filters were used quite often by the private sector. He commended the examples offered by staff. Mr. Zelenka acknowledged the many staff members who had worked on the tool and suggested it would lead to better decisions based on more well- rounded thinking. He reported that the Sustainability Commission had looked at several different TBL models and he thought the City's tool was one of the best. It struck a good balance between simplicity and complexity. Speaking to Mr. Poling's comment, Mr. Zelenka suggested the City had copyrighted use of the tool not to limit it, but to protect it and maintain its integrity. Mr. Zelenka noted staff's application of the TBL tool to the next agenda item and reported that he found the resulting information to be valuable. He wanted to see the TBL tool regularly reflected in future council agenda item summaries. Mr. Brown thought the TBL tool a good supplement to the analytic tools already in use by the City. He did not find it particularly revolutionary and suggested that depending on the project, half of the questions were unlikely to apply to most situations. He suggested they represented a useful checklist to remind the staff and council of things that they could have forgotten. Responding to a question from Mr. Brown, Ms. Osborn said the Sustainability and Planning commissions had formed a joint committee that planned to analyze the West Eugene EmX route options using the TBL tool. Mr. Brown was skeptical about that as he did not see how it would be useful but looked forward to seeing the outcome and acknowledged he could be proven wrong. Mayor Piercy suggested the TBL was a supplemental analysis tool that touched on three factors — environment, economics, and equity —that were associated with everything the City did. The tool was an attempt to keep all three factors at the forefront of the City's thinking all the time. Mayor Piercy believed the tool would help the community become more sustainable. She considered the TBL framework to be important work and hoped the City shared it with some of the national organizations it worked with as she thought they would be very interested. Mr. Smith reported that he had presented the TBL framework to attendees at the Oregon Recreation and Park Association Conference and he hoped to take it to the national convention. He emphasized the interest of those in attendance, who had evaluated the conference using the TBL tool. Ms. Taylor suggested the potential of the TBL tool would be ignored in the same way she thought the City's Growth Management Policies had been ignored. She tended to be skeptical of formulaic approaches as it was easy to fit anything into a formula. She hoped that when people talked about social equity they were thinking of long -term social equity rather than short-term social equity. There were things that might be good for the future but could appear to be hurting someone right now. Ms. Taylor asked if staff considered social equity when the library instituted fees for reshelving reserved books patrons failed to pick up. She pointed out that was harder on poor people than the more affluent. She also asked if social equity was considered when the City closed Amazon Pool for swim meets at the MINUTES— Eugene City Council September 29, 2010 Page 2 Work Session expense of regular users, or when it closed the facility earlier. Ms. Nohrenberg emphasized that access to services was a high priority for the Library. She said that social equity was considered in the decision to increase fees, which was tied to the desire to provide public access to as many services as possible. Mr. Zelenka believed the tool would receive national attention because it was so well done and because there were so few such tools. Mr. Zelenka observed the most difficult element of the TBL was the social equity element. He asked those who had used the tool their experience in that regard. Mr. Finney agreed that element was challenging. However, he thought the TBL tool had resulted in much richer conversations and expanded the way that people thought about issues. He cited park lighting as an example, pointing out that such lighting had disparate impact on those with different levels of vulnerability, such as women and children. He anticipated that as staff had more such conversations, the tool would become more institutionalized in its application. Ms. McKinney agreed. She believed that the TBL had spurred more thinking on the part of staff. Ms. Nohrenberg said that some of the questions might not be relevant to an issue but got one thinking about things differently. Responding to a question from Mr. Zelenka about how the framework would be integrated into City operations, Ms. Osborn discussed some of the steps staff was taking to ensure that would happen, including iterative discussions with the council, roundtable staff discussions, and a "stretch leadership" opportunity involving multiple staff from different departments who could serve as mentors to other staff. She had also presented to department management teams on how the tool could be applied. Mr. Zelenka thought including the TBL analysis in the council's agenda item summaries would help integrate its use. He suggested that the proof of the tool's utility would be its continued application. Ms. Ortiz hoped that staff not only thought about affected groups when using the TBL tool, but also brought them into the conversation. She acknowledged that the social equity element was challenging for those members of the communities of color not involved with the City's Human Rights Program. They considered it a catchphrase and questioned how it actually affected the work the City did and its hiring and retention of members of the communities of color. She thought the City needed to articulate how the TBL framework affected those individuals. Ms. Taylor suggested staff make a similar presentation to the neighborhood groups for the purpose of additional review. She also suggested that staff ready a discussion group for the 2011 National League of Cities Convention. B. WORK SESSION: Food Security Scoping and Resources Plan The council was joined by Ethan Nelson of the Waste Prevention and Green Building Program. Permit Review Manager Mike McKerrow, Senior Planner Alyssa Hansen, and Compost/Urban Agriculture Coordinator Anne Donahue were also present to follow up on the council's direction from February 2009, that staff investigate the development of a food security plan in conjunction with City partners. Mr. Nelson also recognized Shawn Boles and Dan Armstrong, members of the City's Project Advisory Team, and thanked them for their time. He provided a PowerPoint presentation on the City's Food Security Scoping and Resources Plan, including near -term and long -term recommendations. Those recommendations included: MINUTES— Eugene City Council September 29, 2010 Page 3 Work Session Near -Term • Dedicate City resources to increase the level of neighborhood -scale urban agricultural activities • Completion of a local food market analysis by the University of Oregon (UO) in partnership with Lane County, the City of Eugene, and Eugene Water & Electric Board • Align the recommendations from the Community Climate and Energy Action Plan with food security, urban agriculture, and related City services and planning efforts Long -Term Complete a comprehensive community food security assessment and gap analysis Complete a disaster food access and distribution analysis and plan Revise the Eugene Code to address urban agriculture and homesteading opportunities Mr. Nelson said he completed a triple bottom line (TBL) analysis of what it would take to accomplish the recommendations in the plan and found that there were positive effects for environmental and social equity, but neutral effects for economic development. He found that the plan recommendations scored high in terms of social equity if emphasis was placed in implementation on building community access to healthy, affordable, culturally affordable food; if emphasis was placed on boutique products that was not the case. The recommendations scored high in regard to the environment if emphasis was placed on organic and low- carbon farming methods rather than conventional farming methods. Based on the outcomes from the food market assessment, the economic element was marginal. Mr. Nelson called the council's attention to two draft motions regarding a related topic, the keeping of chickens inside city limits. He recalled the May 24 public hearing and the oral and written testimony received. He said following that, the Building and Permit Services Manager had suspended enforcement of the code if a complaint was based solely on the number of hens. The City continued to enforce other elements of the code related to noise and odor. The first draft motion continued that suspension at no cost to the City; the second motion directed staff to initiate code revisions at a cost of $10,000 to $40,000. Mayor Piercy solicited council questions and comments. Ms. Taylor was pleased to see the City work with the UO and use student work, suggesting it helped to improve the municipal and university relationship. She noted the close connection between the topic and the City's sustainability goals. She said that eating food produced locally had benefits for health and carbon reduction, which was important. In regard to chickens, Ms. Taylor questioned if the City would regulate the sale of eggs and if it would allow slaughterhouses on private lots. She also noted the potential of health hazards from eggs produced in unsanitary conditions. She asked if the City had heard from farmers who already produce and sell eggs. She anticipated all kinds of neighbor disputes arising. Ms. Taylor pointed out if there was no enforcement of the number of chickens that could be kept, a resident could have a whole flock of hens, which could be a problem. A constituent had pointed out to her that chicken food could attract rodents and manure both smelled bad and attracted flies. Ms. Taylor also pointed out that chickens were hard to sex when young, and she asked what happened when a chick turned out to be a rooster. Mr. Clark thanked staff and the project advisory committee. He acknowledged that a three -day food supply could be a problem in the case of emergency. He had a large garden and said he would like to see MINUTES— Eugene City Council September 29, 2010 Page 4 Work Session more people have gardens. He said that access to the City's community gardens was a high value for many residents, and reported that he had received a number of complaints about the recent fee increase, which he thought was a problem the City needed to address. Mr. Clark wanted to expand access to the community gardens to allow more people to participate. Mr. Clark noted the lack of information in the presentation in regard to transportation and the storage and processing of food from both a food security standpoint as well as from the economic standpoint. He called for a richer discussion of what the community could do to enhance its infrastructure for food transportation, storage, and processing. Speaking to the proposed motions, Mr. Clark indicated he would support continuing suspension of the ordinance governing the number of chickens that could be kept inside the city limits to permit further discussion. Mr. Poling thought the proposed motions related to the keeping of chickens deserved a separate work session. He said the issues raised by Ms. Taylor were also of concern to him. He cited potential safety concerns about home - raised eggs and the fact chicken feed attracted rodents. He also questioned the cost estimate for the code revision process. Ms. Hansen anticipated that most of the cost would be due to the cost of notice. It was possible notice of the process could be folded into the notice for the Envision Eugene process. Mr. Poling preferred changing the code to continuing suspension of code enforcement. He asked if staff was monitoring complaints about chickens. Mr. McKerrow reported that the City averaged six to eight complaints each year and all regarded the noise roosters made. Ms. Solomon agreed with Mr. Poling. She was willing to double the number of chickens allowed and perhaps even raise the number to five because otherwise she feared there would be abuse. She objected to the burden that fell on neighbors to have to be the complainant. Ms. Solomon did not see the nexus between food security and the issue of how many chickens one could keep. She thought people were supposed to be growing eggs for personal consumption, and was concerned that if people sold eggs there could be cases of salmonella. She expressed disappointment about how the item was presented to the council and said people who were following the issue would not be able to discern from the agenda item title that the discussion was about chickens. Mr. Brown indicated support for continuing the suspension. He requested a copy of the Lane County Local Food Market Analysis and a copy of the food security assessment. Mr. Nelson indicated he would provide that information to all councilors. City Manager Ruiz clarified that staff did not intend for the agenda item title to be deceptive and he anticipated additional public conversation. He said the City was not actively enforcing the limit on the chickens a resident could keep, and the proposed motions recognized that and moved onto the next step of revising the ordinance. He suggested there was a nexus between the issue of chicken keeping and the larger issue of food security. Ms. Ortiz asked if the food security analysis would include discussion of a standard regarding how close one should live to a fresh food source. She suggested that staff take advantage of the information in the Obesity Prevention Toolkit funded by Health Policy Research Northwest (HPRN). MINUTES— Eugene City Council September 29, 2010 Page 5 Work Session Mr. Zelenka asked what the City was doing to increase the amount of food available after a disaster. Mr. Nelson said that when staff consulted with emergency managers it found that in most emergency situations, food was readily available from outside sources after three days had passed. The issue was most pertinent in the case of the most prolonged disasters, like a Hurricane Katrina. Mr. Zelenka wanted the City to do more to extend the three days food availability to a longer period. Mr. Zelenka determined from Mr. Nelson that the City would continue to regulate chickens for noise and odor, and determined from Mr. McKerrow that the City would work with residents keeping chickens above the limit on management options that allowed them to retain the chickens. Mr. Clark, seconded by Ms. Taylor, moved to direct the City Manager to continue suspension of enforcement on the number of adult female fowl allowed on residential lots under 20,000 square feet, until the soonest time practicable where it may be revised, Eugene Code provision 9.5250(1) can be made. Ms. Taylor, seconded by Mr. Zelenka, moved to extend the meeting for one minute. The motion passed unanimously. Ms. Taylor agreed with Ms. Solomon that it was not fair to place the burden of enforcement on neighbors. Mayor Piercy pointed out the council had not finished its discussion of the topic. The motion passed, 4:3: Ms. Taylor, Ms. Solomon, and Mr. Poling voting no. Mayor Piercy adjourned the meeting at 1:31 p.m. Respectfully submitted, 6y� Beth Forrest City Recorder (Recorded by Kimberly Young) MINUTES— Eugene City Council September 29, 2010 Page 6 Work Session