MINUTES OF THE
JOINT ELECTED
OFFICIALS MEETING OF
THE SPRINGFIELD
CITY COUNCIL,
EUGENE CITY
COUNCIL, AND
LANE COUNTY
BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
held Tuesday,
March 3, 2009
APPROVED
4/29/2009
A
joint elected officials meeting with the City of Springfield, City of Eugene,
and Lane County was held in the Library Meeting Room, Springfield City Hall, 225
Fifth Street, Springfield, Oregon, on Tuesday, March 3, 2009 at 12:00 p.m. with
Lane County Commissioner Chair Sorenson presiding.
ATTENDANCE
Mayor Leiken
welcomed the elected officials to Springfield City Hall for today’s meeting.
Members of the meeting introduced themselves.
Board Chair
Sorenson said the Lane County Board of Commissioners was resuming their meeting
from earlier in the day. Present from Lane County were Board Chair Pete Sorenson
and Commissioners Bill Fleenor, Faye Stewart, Bill Dwyer, and Rob Handy. He
asked Mayors Leiken and Piercy to open their meeting.
Mayor Piercy
opened the meeting of the Eugene City Council. Present from Eugene were Mayor
Kitty Piercy and Councilors George Brown, Betty Taylor, Alan Zelenka, George
Poling, Mike Clark, and Chris Pryor. Councilors Ortiz and Solomon were absent.
Mayor Leiken
opened the meeting of the Springfield City Council. Present from Springfield
were Mayor Sid Leiken and Councilors Christine Lundberg, Terri Leezer, Dave
Ralston, John Woodrow, and Joe Pishioneri.
Councilor Wylie was absent.
Board Chair
Sorenson referred to the agenda which included two topics for today’s
discussion: Metro Plan Overview and Economic Development Response Team. He asked
staff for their estimated time on the presentations.
I.
Metro Plan Overview.
Kent Howe, Lane
County Planning Director, said about 12 minutes for staff presentation, then
time for questions.
Mr. Howe presented
a power point presentation. He noted that during the last JEO meeting, they
discussed the following five Lane County issues: 1) Annexation Policies; 2)
Metro Plan Description of Urban Services; 3) perceived Citizen
Disenfranchisement; 4) Jurisdictional Autonomy/Metro Plan Boundary Adjustment;
and 5) Dispute Resolution Policies. Direction was given for a subcommittee to
meet and report back today, but the subcommittee was not able to meet during
that time, so staff would be presenting an overview of the Metro Plan, following
up with the subcommittee’s work later in the month.
Today’s JEO
presentation would include background, Metro Plan, emerging issues and
conclusions.
Mr. Howe discussed
Oregon Senate Bill 100 which was passed in 1973 which required jurisdictions to
adopt comprehensive plans which established the concept of urban growth
boundaries. Statewide planning laws required comprehensive land use plans,
locally coordinated and consistent with state goals. There were five metro areas
in the State of Oregon: 1) Eugene/Springfield Metro Area; 2) Portland Metro
Area; 3) Salem; 4) Bend; and 5) Medford. Lane County had the rural comprehensive
plan which applied outside the metro plan boundary and outside the urban growth
boundaries of the other 10 small cities in the County. The jurisdiction of Lane
County was all the lands outside of city limits and the Lane County Rural
Comprehensive Plan outside the urban growth boundary and Metro Plan boundary.
Mr. Howe said
there had been formal planning efforts in this area since 1945, with the
formation of the Central Lane Planning Commission. In 1959, the Central Lane
Planning Commission developed the first development plan for Eugene and
Springfield. The 1972 to 1990 plan was adopted. In 1973, Senate Bill 100 passed
requiring the Comprehensive Plan and in 1982 the Eugene/Springfield Metro Plan
was adopted, followed shortly after with the County’s adoption of their rural
plan. The Metro Plan had gone through a couple of periodic reviews since then.
In 2007, HB3337 required separation of the urban growth boundary (UGB).
Mr. Howe said
citizens inside city limits were represented by their respective City Council.
Citizens in the area within the Metro Plan UGB were represented by the Lane
County Board of Commissioners. Land available inside the UGB’s had been
available for development to try to prevent development outside the UGB. At this
time a single UGB existed, but with HB3337, each city would have its own UGB and
separate inventories.
Springfield
Planning Manager, Greg Mott, said the underlying premise for everything in the
Metro Plan came from the fundamental principles in Chapter 1 of the Metro Plan.
He summarized those principles. Even though the Metro Plan was designed to
provide a twenty-year time horizon for growth and development change to occur,
it also needed to remain a timely document. The State required an update every
once in awhile. Each community could also develop refinement plans for
neighborhood planning. The Plan diagram was a graphic representation of the
goals and objectives of the Plan. The policies in the Plan, in Chapter 3, were
the things used to make decisions regarding development. Although it seemed that
some of the policies in the Metro Plan conflicted with each other, that was part
of the balancing act that was inherent to the comprehensive planning process.
Mr. Mott said the
current Metro Plan was in its third iteration and it was now on the verge of a
fourth amendment. He explained the effect of HB3337 and that each City would
have their own UGB. Each city would be responsible for all actions that occurred
inside each UGB, such as land inventory and provision of services, as well as
preparing a Local Transportation Plan in order for the land use inventories to
be developed. Another affect was the abolishment of the Lane County Boundary
Commission, who had been the authority for annexation for the two cities. Now
each city was responsible for their annexation procedures. Something else that
tied in with this was the Little Look process that was done at the State level.
He further discussed how each city would be obligated to comply with State land
use laws within our UGBs, and relying on Metro Plan policies to establish that
they were consistent with State goals. Where there was a conflict, the Metro
Plan needed to be amended. Currently, the Metro Plan didn’t included two
separate boundaries.
Mr. Mott discussed
service provision in relation to public safety and libraries. The Metro Plan as
it was now hindered standing services through service districts, as it relied on
the cities as the service providers. There was no law that prohibited that, but
had been left in the Plan. Another element from HB3337 was that each city needed
to have their own population forecast to comply with the law and that we
determine we have a twenty-year inventory of land. He pointed out that we did
not currently have rural reserves in this county. Urban reserves, located
outside the UGB, were a requirement in the law that could apply here, but only
if certain standards were met. The designation of urban reserves would be the
first area considered if expanding the UGB. Each city had developed an
independent Transportation System Plan (TSP) that would support the land use
planning currently underway in HB3337. Also, the cities, in partnership with
Lane County, Lane Council of Governments (LCOG) and the City of Coburg, were
developing a Regional Transportation System Plan (RTSP) that would take the
place of the current TransPlan.
Lisa Gardner,
Planning Division Manager from the City of Eugene, said some of the issues
outlined by Mr. Mott related to the Metro Plan from a land use perspective,
while others may have connections to the Metro Plan, but were much broader
relational issues. She discussed some of those regional relationship issues.
Ms. Gardner said
some of the issues included how services were provided in Lane County, both
urban and rural; how services were defined; and how services were delivered and
paid for. Urban services defined by the Metro Plan were key services, such as
water, sewer, fire and schools. There were also key urban services in the Metro
Plan for land use decisions on how and where we would grow. The County also
provided several services, such as animal control, sheriff, prosecution and many
others. These services were used by both city and county residents. The question
before the JEO members, was how to continue to fund and deliver these services
countywide, both urban and rural.
Ms. Gardner
referred to many regional partnerships that were not tied to the Metro Plan, but
were important in terms of quality of life. These included regional
decision-making and dispute resolution through the Metropolitan Policy Committee
(MPC). Jurisdictional autonomy was another issue the elected officials had
expressed interest in discussing further. She discussed the jurisdictional
boundaries.
Ms. Gardner said
the planning framework in the Metro Plan identified many of the relationships
between jurisdictions. Regardless of the form the Metro Plan took, the
relationships still existed, some in the Metro Plan and some in other plans.
There would always be both formal and informal relationships. There would always
be decisions made that would affect one another. If they continued to look at
how to efficiently provide services, those would be formally and informally
codified through special districts, the Metro Plan, transportation plans, etc.
Ms. Gardner said
in conclusion, the issues emerging were broader ranging issues. As the group
started addressing some of the issues, it was important to identify problem
areas and identify a broad range of solution sets or options. Some of the issues
would find resolution within processes already in place, such as HB3337, while
others may need new processes. Staff would provide the information the elected
officials needed to proceed.
Board Chair
Sorenson said staff had provided an excellent overview of the situation. He
suggested going around the table for comments or questions.
Commissioner
Stewart said he had no questions at this time.
Commissioner
Fleenor referred to Ms. Gardner’s presentation regarding identifying a broad
set of solutions. They needed to ask why they were doing this, and what was the
purpose. He would like to look at whether or not we had a system that worked and
addressed the constituents’ needs. More or less it was, but the bigger
question was whether or not the jurisdictions were taking care of the individual
constituents in the different metropolitan areas. There were many philosophies
that caused a lot of friction and friction caused distrust. He was more
interested in what they were trying to accomplish as a group of three public
bodies, who they represented and what their needs were. He believed in
jurisdictional autonomy, but questioned whether or not the Metro Plan offered
that flexibility. He asked if the Metro Plan gave the ability to adapt and if it
was agile. Most of the answers were ‘probably not as good as it could be’.
Possibilities included fixing the Metro Plan or preparing two separate
Comprehensive Plans. As policy makers they needed to look at the big picture and
determine what they wanted to accomplish as efficiently and effectively as
possible. He would prefer two separate plans that allowed flexibility.
Councilor Clark
said he liked the way they were considering tackling one problem at a time. As
times changed, priorities also changed. He appreciated Commissioner Stewart’s
letter in the paper today. There were a lot of issues around the Metro Plan
regarding provision of services and a lot the group could talk about, but he
felt discussion on regional coordination on public safety should be a priority.
He supported working together to address that issue.
Councilor Ralston
asked about the results of the Little Look.
Ms. Gardner said
that was a compilation put together by Betsy Shepherd, the consultant the
jurisdictions worked with a couple of years ago.
Councilor Ralston
said he agreed with the following statements from the agenda packet:
·
The Metro
Plan should be reviewed collaboratively as parts of it seemed outdated or too
restrictive.
·
The Metro
Plan is less relevant today and could warrant further collaborative review.
·
The Metro
Plan could better meet the current and future needs in the areas of housing,
buildable lands and UGB’s.
He felt that the
Metro Plan either needed to be changed to make it more agile, or they needed to
look at two separate Comp Plans.
Commissioner Handy
referred to staff discussion regarding HB3337 and the options to either amend
the Metro Plan or amend our actions. He asked for further explanation.
Mr. Mott said
currently the Metro Plan had a single UGB and there were a number of references
to that in the Metro Plan. The assumptions about the inventories for Eugene,
Springfield and Lane County were based on areas within the single UGB. There
would now be two distinct UGBs, so that information in the Metro Plan would need
to be changed. Each City would be making changes that would substitute that
information. When he said they would be using the Metro Plan policies to guide
our compliance with the Statewide goals, he meant they would be working
succinctly on inventories and would be subject to the rules and goals for those
inventories. The development of that would be based on policies that were in the
Metro Plan unless instructed to adopt different policies. There were decision
points along the way for elected officials, about how that work would unfold and
how it would affect the Metro Plan. We were under no obligation to maintain to
the current structure if the elected officials chose another structure.
Regarding HB3337, there would be a package with recommendations of changes in
the Metro Plan for the new reality in Springfield regarding inventories.
Commissioner Handy
discussed the economic opportunity analysis Springfield was undergoing and how
it related to nodal development.
Mr. Mott said the
analysis regarding commercial and industrial inventories assigned a certain
level of employment opportunities to nodal development sites. The number of
sites the City currently had achieved some satisfaction of that demand. Other
sites could be designated to accommodate. He explained some of the factors that
could affect nodal sites, such as transportation. The residential lands study
also attributed a certain development with minimum flow.
Councilor
Pishioneri said the presentation made a lot of sense. The Metro partnership was
important and he didn’t want to lose sight of that. The key was to get through
the five issues and get rid of some of the clumsiness of the Metro Plan by way
of refinement plans. That allowed each city entity to retain some control while
still meeting the needs of the whole. He felt they could eliminate the current
issues through refinements plans.
Commissioner Dwyer
said three or four years ago, the County Commissioners sent a letter to the
cities with fifteen important questions and did not get a response. They were
now dealing with those issues. They talked about the preservation of farmland,
but the Metro Plan had saved no farmland. In order to preserve farmland, they
needed to get rid of the phrase ‘developed and committed’ from the Metro
Plan to allow the City the latitude to allow a producing farm to exist in an
urban setting. He felt the Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD)
did not support that concept. The cities didn’t want to amend the Metro Plan
so the cities would collect the park SDC’s inside the UGB, but they wanted
control over building and development in those areas. They needed to walk the
walk and have a plan of what the problems were. The cities needed to work with
the County to meet their needs and not just the needs of each city. He discussed
the concept of charging the citizens for highest and best use and how that
didn’t encourage use other than development. He felt the system was broken. He
would prefer to identify two to three things over the next 6 months, then two or
three more, and put some time constraints to address those issues. He wanted to
identify how farmland could be preserved. He felt Eugene was the biggest user of
farmland in the Willamette Valley and would like to find ways to preserve that
land. He was unhappy with the process.
Councilor Taylor
said the system was broken and they needed to rebuild farmland. She thought the
most important thing they could do was save farmland and put rural reserves into
place. They would need food close to the people. She didn’t understand
increasing the UGB because they would eventually all meet up with each other
leaving nothing in between. She recommended two books, Geography of Nowhere
and World Made by Hand.
Board Chair
Sorenson asked about the relationship between the Metro Plan and new legislation
that had been introduced to create an Area Commission on Transportation (ACT),
which the State may require.
Mr. Mott asked
Transportation Manager Tom Boyatt to respond.
Mr. Boyatt said
there was no legal relationship. There was not a requirement in the law for ACTs
to be created, but it was something the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT)
had been promoting. It was another way to coordinate transportation decision
making at the programming and project level. There might be some policy overlap.
Board Chair
Sorenson asked Mr. Boyatt to send an email to the elected officials regarding
the status of any legislation dealing with ACT.
Mr. Grimaldi said
the City may not be in the best position to do that as it was unclear where the
bill started.
Assistant Public
Works Director Len Goodwin said there was something in legislative counsel, but
it had not been introduced. He said he would send out an email regarding that
issue.
Board Chair
Sorenson asked about the relationship between the Metro Plan and the economic
development function of the cities, Chambers of Commerce, Lane Metro
Partnership, Lane Community College, and Lane Council of Governments (LCOG). He
asked if there was an economic development function in the Metro Plan.
Mr. Mott said
Chapter 3 of the Metro Plan included an economic element, which was a
requirement of Goal 9. There had been changes to Goal 9 with respect to
communities having an economic opportunities analysis and economic strategies
incorporated in their Comp Plan, and the relationship between the land that was
needed for employment opportunities and attributes of that land. The analysis of
the opportunity the community had to bring jobs would develop economic
strategies and land use applications, development standards, financial policies
etc. The existing elements in the Metro Plan were fine when it was written, but
things had changed. They hadn’t consulted the Metro Plan regarding the
economic element in a number of years.
Board Chair
Sorenson said since the Metro Plan was written, new things such as
sustainability had come to the forefront when considering economic activity and
making decisions. He asked if they could change the name from economic
development to sustainable development in the Metro Plan, incorporating some of
the concepts of sustainability. He asked if that could be done under current
land use codes.
Mr. Mott said the
elected officials in this community had a lot of latitude on how to address the
economic development interest, as long as they were consistent with Goal 9. It
could be renamed whatever they chose and they could have policies in the
individual jurisdictions that didn’t need to be in a Comprehensive Plan. At a
higher level, if it was an either/or scenario, it could be more problematic.
Staff was available to tell the elected officials what the law allowed them to
do.
Board Chair
Sorenson said the elected officials could possibly make such a change if all
agreed. He asked about the timeline leading up to the separation of the UGB’s.
Ms. Gardner said
Springfield was about a year ahead of Eugene in terms of amendments for the UGB
change. Springfield would establish its own UGB, but until Eugene took action,
their UGB would remain as it was today. They would work through those issues
with DLCD. Springfield would have its own UGB prior to Eugene establishing their
own.
Board Chair
Sorenson asked when the Lane County Board of Commissioners would see a proposal
from Eugene or Springfield to make a change and take action.
Mr. Mott said the
target date was the end of the 2009 calendar year.
Board Chair
Sorenson asked if there was any controversy on where the new line would be
going.
Mr. Mott said he
didn’t believe there was any controversy, but before committing to that, they
needed to get emergency services on board.
Board Chair
Sorenson discussed public safety and said Springfield was involved in their jail
project, Eugene was not and Lane County was facing difficulties in this area. He
asked what the role was in the Metro Plan regarding public safety planning and
how that was coordinated.
Mr. Howe said the
Metro Plan spoke only to police services. That was one of the definitional
questions staff would like to explore with the JEO subcommittee.
Board Chair
Sorenson clarified the Metro Plan referred to police protection, not public
safety, which encompassed corrections and other public safety issues. He said
that showed the terminology issues over the last twenty to thirty years for many
of the topics in the Metro Plan. He discussed some of the many areas that were
included in public safety. He wanted to know the role the County had with the
cities regarding siting public safety services.
Ms. Gardner said
the Metro Plan identified services for the purposes of planning and extending
the urban services into the planned area. There were other things that had
relationship to the Metro Plan, but were not the land use relationships. There
were things that needed to be discussed, but not all were in the Metro Plan and
changing the Plan may not address those issues.
Board Chair
Sorenson asked about reserving farmland. It had been mentioned that the Metro
Plan facilitated growth of cites out on to the farmland. He asked what staff
would recommend if the elected officials wanted to pursue a more aggressive plan
to protect farmland and what type of guidance they could give regarding how to
structure that discussion.
Ms. Gardner said
communities around the state were struggling with trying to preserve land yet
meeting state requirements for adequate buildable land. The policy makers could
look at the issues and participate in the statewide dialogue regarding that
issue. Some of the definitions for density were statutorily defined.
Mayor Piercy said
they all had strong feelings about their jurisdictions, but also shared a lot of
things that were done together. She didn’t hear anyone saying they wanted to
get rid of the Metro Plan, but rather fix it. They needed to identify which
questions needed to be addressed to begin that process, such as what could be
changed to protect farmland. She saw the separation of the UGB as an amicable
divorce and there would be some work to do. Some of the issues regarding public
safety didn’t fit in this discussion, but needed to be held. She suggested
looking at what needed to be fixed in the Metro Plan to address the issues such
as farmland. One of the questions at hand was whether or not they agreed with
the policies that governed the Metro Plan and if not, which ones they did not
agree with and which ones they could add. She understood that some wanted to
look at this more carefully individually.
Mayor Leiken asked
staff to explain the difference between the Salem/Keizer metro area and the
Eugene/Springfield metro area.
Mr. Mott said
Salem/Keizer had separate UGBs, but were guided by the same policies regarding
development so densities remained the same. There was a single transportation
system for both communities and one transit provider. Their Council’s acted
independently with their individual Comp Plans. They also had more than one
county involved.
Mayor Leiken
clarified that the Bend metro area only included Bend and the Medford metro area
only included Medford. He discussed his disappointment with the Big Look that
was recently concluded. He was concerned the Metro Plan would be diluted. With
the implementation of HB3337, the major components of the Metro Plan would be
taken out, and now each jurisdiction was putting forth separate Transportation
Plans. He asked if the Metro Plan would be in name only in order to save money
on developing separate Comp Plans. That was fine if it was needed to save funds,
avoid legal costs and be supported by DLCD. He felt they would end up developing
separate Comp Plans with the title of Metro Plan. He did not want to dilute this
and develop a Metro Council. He was totally opposed to that. Those were issues
to consider. There would be separate autonomy between the two cities. Future
elected official, could decide to move toward developing separate Comp Plans.
Councilor Lundberg
said she totally agreed with Mayor Leiken and was fine with having a discussion
whether or not the Metro Plan was a viable document. There was now a method to
deal with Fire and Life Safety, water and sewer and other metro services. Once
they had separate plans and separate UGBs, there wasn’t much left. There would
still be times when they would want to collaborate and cooperate when
appropriate, but she wanted to know what the jurisdictions wanted to do with the
Metro Plan. Some of the issues such as farmland and sustainability may not all
lead to the Metro Plan. Autonomy
was very important.
Councilor Zelenka
said the next meeting needed to be more specific, with a conversation about the
threshold of questions the Mayors mentioned. They needed to talk about specific
fixes within this conversation. He asked staff to work on focusing the issues by
calling their elected officials. He noted that he had grown up in the Bay Area
where there was no planning, and felt that planning had served our area well and
prevented a lot of bad things from happening. He was concerned this would go to
an anti-planning conversation. He would like staff to work on focusing this
conversation for the next meeting.
Councilor Pryor
said he could live with whatever was decided.
The outcomes created less friction than the process. They needed to come
up with a clear outcome, a way to get there and how they would govern how we got
there. They needed to work hard to reestablish trust and accountability. He
wanted respectable interactions along the way.
II.
Economic Development Response Team.
Eugene City
Manager Jon Ruiz said the planning for this item came out of a meeting with the
Mayors and Commissioner Fleenor regarding economic development and job creation.
They thought there could be value in creating a JEO subcommittee to have a
coordinated effort around this topic, recognizing each jurisdiction would pursue
some independent job creation and economic development, but that there was also
value in coordination around this issue. The subcommittee could be represented
by elected officials and coordinated through Springfield/Eugene/Lane County (SEL).
They could help to form an economic development summit and could be used to help
form some of the coordinated responses for stimulus packages. That coordination
was already happening at the staff level. It could also help plan for some
regional coordination around specific economic development tools and what they
wanted the region to look like in the next economy. They were not asking to
solve all of those issues today, but to get support from each jurisdiction to
assign elected officials to work with staff to coordinate those efforts.
Board Chair
Sorenson asked what staff was asking of the elected officials.
Mr. Ruiz said they
were being asked to appoint a couple of elected officials from each jurisdiction
to be part of this subcommittee.
Mayor Piercy said
she was very supportive and they had three councilors who were interested.
Mayor Leiken said
they had not identified elected officials yet to serve on this, but he was
interested in pursuing. After discussion with the Council, they would identify
two members to participate.
Commissioner
Stewart said it was a good suggestion, especially in the current economic times.
They did need to be ready for any stimulus funding.
Commissioner
Fleenor said he brought this before the Board a couple of weeks ago and received
support. He had volunteered to be part of this subcommittee, along with
Commissioner Stewart. He was prepared to move forward. They would like to try to
answer some of the bigger questions and get the policy makers engaged.
Councilor Clark
said he was interested in participating.
Councilor Poling
said this was far reaching outside of Eugene and Springfield. Any discussions
needed to address or involve leaders from the other communities in Lane County.
He discussed the closure of the motor home factories and the effect it had on
the whole region. He also suggested inviting real business leaders that had run
successful businesses for years to the summit.
Councilor Ralston
asked what this subcommittee would be doing that would be different than Lane
Metro Partnership or the Chambers.
Mr. Ruiz said the
Chamber had more focused interest in supporting local businesses. The elected
officials represented the political leadership for the jurisdictions. Having
them lead the charge was important. He didn’t know if Lane Metro Partnership
could change quickly enough to the changing landscape.
Councilor Zelenka
said he liked the concept and thought an economic summit was a good idea. The
Lane Workforce Partnership had agreed to facilitate this summit and he felt they
should be drawn in to help. The smaller cities didn’t have staff available to
participate, so this would most likely be metro driven.
Councilor Pryor
said he supported Mr. Zelenka’s comments and bringing in people that had
knowledge and experience. The region’s workforce was what brought businesses
to our area, so it made sense to include the Lane Metro Workforce.
Commissioner Handy
said the idea of being ready to go in the next 12-18 months as the economy
changed was important. He appreciated the last four comments and questions. He
would like the Board to have a more focused discussion on this topic. The County
was also going through some changes and was trying to focus the energy of their
efforts and make sure they were clear where they were targeting their efforts.
They had been told recently that there may be 13-14 economic development
functionalities of the County.
Councilor
Pishioneri said he thought this was a good way to go. Lane Council of
Governments (LCOG) could also be called in as an outside agency.
Commissioner Dwyer
said this was a great idea great regarding reviewing opportunities. He didn’t
want to duplicate the services of the Chamber and the Lane Workforce. It was
best to coordinate and take advantage of the federal stimulus. He thought it
would be a good idea to have a sunset date. Springfield’s Community Service
Manager John Tamulonis knew more about economic development than most of them
would ever know, as well as Jack Roberts and others.
Board Chair
Sorenson said Eugene knew who they were going to appoint, Springfield was going
to appoint someone after discussion, and Lane County was supportive. He would
like to see a rough draft of what this group would be discussing to help
identify which commissioners to appoint.
Mayor Piercy said
the longer spent talking about this, the less able they would be to act quickly.
This subcommittee needed to be moving forward now.
Mayor Leiken said
the Lane Metro Partnership had a database, information and direct contact with
DLCD. The elected officials could use the bully pulpit, use the information from
the Lane Metro Partnership, and move forward, with a six month sunset.
Commissioner Handy
asked if they could get this on their agenda in two weeks to discuss and
address.
Councilor Clark
said he was supportive of moving ahead quickly. The elected officials could do
something the other organizations couldn’t such as deal with the regulatory
environment the businesses were operating under, which Springfield had done so
well.
IT WAS MOVED BY
SPRINGFIELD COUNCILOR WOODROW WITH A SECOND BY EUGENE COUNCILOR CLARK TO
AUTHORIZE THE CITY MANAGERS TO CREATE AN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT RESPONSE TEAM.
COUNCILOR WOODROW MADE AN AMENDMENT, AGREED UPON BY COUNCILOR CLARK, FOR THIS
SUBCOMMITTEE TO SUNSET AFTER 6 MONTHS. MEMBERS WOULD BE SELECTED BY EACH
JURISDICTION.
Councilor Fleenor
noted that the County Administrator was not part of the motion.
COUNCILOR WOODROW
MADE AN AMENDMENT, AGREED UPON BY COUNCILOR CLARK, TO INCLUDE THE CITY
ADMINISTRATOR AS THE AUTHORITY TO CREAT THIS SUBCOMITTEE FOR THE COUNTY
INVOLVEMENT.
Councilor Woodrow
restated the motion: TO AUTHORIZE THE CITY MANAGERS AND COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR TO
FORM AN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT RESPONSE TEAM WITH A SUNSET OF 6 MONTHS AND TO GO
FORWARD WITH THE PROCESS WITH TWO MEMBERS FROM EACH JURISDICTION APPOINTED BY
THE BOARD CHAIR AND MAYORS.
THE MOTION PASSED
WITH A VOTE OF 17 FOR AND 1 AGAINST.
ADJOURNMENT
The Springfield
and Eugene City Councils adjourned at 1:39pm.
The Lane County
Board of Commissioners recessed at 1:39pm.
Minutes Recorder
Amy Sowa
______________________
Sidney W. Leiken
Mayor
Attest:
____________________
City Recorder