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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCC Minutes - 06/20/11 Public HearingMINUTES Eugene City Council Council Chamber —City Hall 777 Pearl Street—Eugene, Oregon June 20, 2011 7:30 p.m. COUNCILORS PRESENT: Betty Taylor, George Brown, Andrea Ortiz, George Poling, Mike Clark, Chris Pryor, Alan Zelenka, Pat Farr. Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the June 20, 2011, public hearing of the Eugene City Council to order. PUBLIC HEARING: Resolution Adopting a Supplemental Budget; Making Appropriations for the City of Eugene for the Fiscal Year Beginning July 1, 2010, and Ending June 30, 2011 Assistant City Manager Sarah Medary reported that the supplemental budget recognized new revenues and authorized other unanticipated changes and legal appropriations. The council was scheduled to take action on the supplemental budget on June 27, 2011. Mayor Piercy opened the public hearing. There being no requests to speak, Mayor Piercy closed the public hearing. Mayor Piercy closed the meeting of the City Council and convened a meeting of the Urban Renewal Agency (URA). 2. PUBLIC HEARING: Resolution Adopting a Supplemental Budget; Making Appropriations for the Urban Renewal Agency for the Fiscal Year Beginning July 1, 2010, and Ending June 30, 2011 Assistant City Manager Medary reported that the supplemental budget for the URA recognized new revenues and authorized other unanticipated changes and legal appropriations. The council, acting as the URA Board of Directors, was scheduled to take action on the supplemental budget on June 27, 2011. Mayor Piercy opened the public hearing. There being no requests to speak, Mayor Piercy closed the public hearing. Mayor Piercy closed the meeting of the URA and reconvened the meeting of the City Council. 3. PUBLIC HEARING: A Resolution Adopting the Budget; Making Appropriations, Determining, Levying and Categorizing the Annual Ad Valorem Property Tax Levy for the City of Eugene for the Fiscal Year Beginning July 1, 2011, and Ending June 30, 2012; A Resolution Electing to Receive State Revenue Sharing Funds Pursuant to Section 221.770 of Oregon Revised Statutes; and a Resolution Certifying that the City of Eugene Provides the Municipal MINUTES— Eugene City Council June 20, 2011 Page 1 Public Hearing Services Required by Oregon Revised Statutes Section 221.760 in Order to Receive State Shared Revenues Assistant City Manager Medary reported that the council was scheduled to take action on the proposed fiscal year (FY) 2012 budget on June 27, 2011. Mayor Piercy opened the public hearing. Claire Syrett, 363 Adams Street, Chair of the City of Eugene Budget Committee, thanked City Manager Jon Ruiz and City staff for their work preparing the FY 2012 budget and thanked the council for its work with the citizen members of the committee to amend the proposed budget. She acknowledged that the council had the authority to make further amendments to the budget but she asked the council to approve the budget as passed by the committee in May. She believed the committee's efforts should be honored. Ms. Syrett thanked outgoing Budget Committee member Terry McDonald for his long -time service on the committee. Gene Obersinner, 2923 Dry Creek Road, an employee of ShelterCare, thanked the council for its past and continued support of human services funding. He expressed ShelterCare's support for the Budget Committee's recommendation to provide an additional $150,000 to the Human Services Commission. He said the funding would go a long way toward empowering his organization's clients to live more independently. John Barofsky, 2010 Hubbard Lane, thanked City staff and the City Council for their hard work on the budget. He believed the recent budget review process had been a good one. He thanked Ms. Syrett for her leadership of the committee and concurred with her remarks. Mr. Barofsky asked the council to be clear if it intended to make additional changes to the budget to give the public an opportunity to respond. Scott Olmos, 3765 Meadowview Street, President of the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF), Local 851, recalled a past union president's warning to a past Budget Committee of the potential the proposed closing of Fire Station 9 could result in an unfortunate accident, a prediction later proven true by a fatality at Delta Ponds that occurred because it took the nearest fire company more than seven minutes to arrive at the scene. A later analysis attributed that fatality to the response time coverage gap in the area and a system wide drop in reliability and response time performance created by the absence of a staffed fire company in the neighborhood. He emphasized the fact of the system wide drop. Mr. Olmos said that Fire Station 2 was far busier than Fire Station 9, and the closure would have a greater impact on the community. He said since the closure of Fire Station 9, the city's population and number of calls had increased. Mr. Olmos did not think the community needed to relearn a painful lesson. He asked the council to retain the fire company slated for elimination. There being no other requests to speak, Mayor Piercy closed the public hearing. She thanked those who spoke. She also thanked the Budget Committee, Ms. Syrett, and recognized Mr. McDonald's service. Councilor Clark thanked Ms. Syrett and recognized Mr. McDonald's long -time service on the Budget Committee. Councilor Clark indicated he would likely offer the council a motion to restore staffing at Fire Station 2, as well as modify the funding sources for jail beds and gang prevention. Councilor Zelenka also thanked Ms. Syrett for her work as chair and thanked the other members of the committee, particularly Mr. McDonald. MINUTES—Eugene City Council June 20, 2011 Page 2 Public Hearing Councilor Zelenka clarified for the benefit of the public that the City was not proposing to close Fire Station 2. He asked staff to provide information to the council about the percentage of calls the second truck company responded to that were in the Whiteaker neighborhood. Councilor Zelenka indicated his support for Councilor Clark's intention to change the funding source for additional jail beds. Councilor Ortiz planned to support any motion that restored funding for the fire truck company eliminated in the proposed FY12 budget. She considered it a one -time fix. While she recognized all the hard work staff did to prepare the budget, she also knew how hard the fire fighters worked and she looked forward to Councilor Clark's motion. Councilor Clark acknowledged the creative and innovative solutions to the department's financial problems that had been offered to the Budget Committee by Fire Chief Randy Groves and his management team. He was proud of the chief and recognized the challenges he faced. He suggested that people could differ as to the appropriate solution to the department's funding shortfall. Mayor Piercy closed the meeting of the City Council and convened a meeting of the URA. 0711 - A 14l_ 1 – ". Itr0 a A Resolution of the Urban Renewal Agency of the City of Eugene Adopting the Budget, Making Appropriations, and Declaring the Amount of Tax to be Certified for the Fiscal Year Beginning July 1, 2011, and Ending June 30, 2012 Assistant City Manager Medary said the public hearing concerned the FY12 Urban Renewal budget. The URA Board of Directors was scheduled to act on the budget on June 27, 2011. Mayor Piercy opened the public hearing. Randy Prince, PO Box 927, Eugene, suggested that a lively urban renewal district should have telecommunications services. However, there was nothing in the URA budget related to telecommunications. He pointed out that the City had established a Telecommunications Fund dedicated to projects of widespread community benefit. He recalled that at the inception of the fund the revenues had been dedicated to public purposes such as wi -fi hot spots at the library. Increasingly, the money was used to benefit City departments. Mr. Prince said that in 2010 the neighborhood associations were told that $30,000 from the fund would no longer be available for neighborhood communications but that year the City transferred $500,000 in Telecommunications Funds to pay for the City's telephone expenses. He maintained the ordinance governing the use of the funding limited the funds to projects such as the library wi fi hot spots and the eliminated neighborhood communications funding. Mr. Prince noted that the ordinance precluded Telecommunication Funds from being used to replace property tax revenues. However, he believed that was occurring through the General Fund transfer. He maintained that the transfer was clearly illegal and contrary to the desires of Eugene citizens. He asked the council to review the record of the General Fund transfer. He predicted the City would incur legal bills defending it. Mayor Piercy closed the public hearing. MINUTES — Eugene City Council June 20, 2011 Page 3 Public Hearing Councilor Zelenka asked staff to respond to Mr. Prince's remarks before June 27. Mayor Piercy closed the meeting of the URA and reconvened the meeting of the City Council. 5. PUBLIC HEARING: An Ordinance Concerning Amendment of Animal Regulations Regarding Service Animals and Amending Sections 4.330, 4.335, 4.340, 4.395, 4.410, 4.427, 4.435, and 4.440 of the Eugene Code, 1971 Assistant City Manager Medary reminded the council it held a work session on changes to the City Code recommended by the Human Rights Commission's Accessibility Committee to provide stronger sanctions for attacks on service animals. She said at the council's request, staff had also talked to Lane County Animal Services about the possibility of providing different tags to licensed service animals to make the distinction between service animals and pet animals clear. Mayor Piercy opened the public hearing. Heather Merlin, 77 Red Cedar Street, St. Helens, on behalf of the Willamette Valley Assistance Dog Club, said in her discussion with the owners of assistance animals, she learned they were concerned about interference with their service animal from a pet dog and believed that such incidents were not dealt with appropriately. They believed an attack on the service dog was an attack on the handler and should be viewed as such. Leash laws should be strictly enforced and injuries to a service animal should be addressed in the same way as a car accident. Ms. Merlin called for publicly funded dog ownership classes to be made available to the general public and required of any pet owner whose animal attacked a service animal. She said that assistance dog owners believed pet dog owners were not informed of appropriate methods of controlling their animals, which were readily available through dog training classes. She advocated for more education about service animals and stricter consequences for pet dog owners who allowed their dogs to interfere with or attack a service animal. There being no other requests to speak, Mayor Piercy closed the public hearing. Mayor Piercy adjourned the meeting at 7:56 p.m. Respectfully submitted, /6lt� ;AILA Beth Forrest City Recorder (Recorded by Kimberly Young) MINUTES — Eugene City Council June 20, 2011 Page 4 Public Hearing