JEO Meeting - Eugene Issues List

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Joint Elected Officials Meeting Issues List February 12, 2008 Presented by City of Eugene Homelessness – “Helping the homeless” has been one of the Eugene City Council’s annual goals o since 2005. Homelessness is a serious regional issue, because on any given night 2,300 homeless individuals impact the health, welfare, and budget of each local jurisdiction. These impacts are felt through public safety and public health, and in the schools and hospitals. Ninety-five percent of local homeless people are from this area. Many have a disability and one-third are children. In November 2006 Lane County adopted a “Ten-Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness.” The plan was aided by cooperation from Eugene and Springfield. In 2007 Mayor Piercy appointed a 21- member committee to consider funding options to address homelessness. The committee, which includes a County Commissioner and a Springfield Councilor, studied the issue and found that in addition to personal suffering, the impact to the community is significant and costly. Their final recommendations, expected in February or March, are expected to promote prevention programs and the “Housing First” model, which places people directly into service-enriched housing rather than into emergency shelters. Project Homeless Connect is an event that brings the public sector and greater community together to provide a range of services to homeless people in one place—on one day. The event results in long-term benefits and significant public awareness and education. Metro Plan – HB 3337 mandates separate UGBs and residential lands analyses for the cities of o Eugene and Springfield. The Metro Plan was written for a single UGB and allows buildable lands inventories to be shared between Eugene and Springfield. It contains shared policies about growth management, service provision, annexation, and processing amendments. The establishment of separate UGBs will create the need for various Metro Plan amendments as the Metro Plan currently references a single UGB. Public Safety – Public safety issues require inter-jurisdictional strategies and cooperation. Some o (like Fire-EMS responses and information support systems) are working very well. Those that carry larger financial requirements (such as ambulance transport) and for which different system components are the responsibility of different governmental entities (like the criminal justice system) are much more challenging due to severe budget constraints on all of the jurisdictional partners. Ambulance transport service, in particular, faces critical short-term sustainability issues due to sharply reduced Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, and interagency solutions should be among the options evaluated. Criminal justice system partners also face critical short-term issues in the form of reduced county secure schools payments. Cross-jurisdiction, system-wide strategies will be needed to address these issues. Enhance Understanding of Race Issues and Improve Race Relationships – The council priority on o race outlines a plan that the council as a body, and the Mayor and councilors as individuals, can engage in to build a better understanding of race issues among themselves and improve race relations in the community. The plan focuses on community input and Mayor and council education on issues of race as a background for action. By acknowledging and illuminating instances of bias in the community and making a commitment to change, the City Council is in a unique position to set the tone for race relations in Eugene and the metropolitan area. To this end, the Mayor and Council met with a broad group of representatives from the communities of color and later formed the Community Committee on Race