MINUTES
OF THE
JOINT
ELECTED OFFICIALS OF
THE
SPRINGFIELD CITY COUNCIL
AND
LANE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
WEDNESDAY,
JULY 22, 2009
APPROVED BY THE BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS 9/16/2009
A
joint elected officials meeting with the City of Springfield and Lane County was
held in the Library Meeting Room, 225 Fifth Street, Springfield, Oregon, on
Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 5:31pm with Mayor Leiken presiding.
ATTENDANCE
Present
from Springfield were Mayor Sid Leiken and Councilors Christine Lundberg
(5:35pm), Hillary Wylie, Terri Leezer, Dave Ralston, Fred Simmons and Joe
Pishioneri.
Present
from Lane County were Board Chair Pete Sorenson and Commissioners Bill Dwyer,
Faye Stewart and Rob Handy. Commissioner
Fleenor was excused.
Mayor
Leiken opened the meeting of the Springfield City Council.
Board
Chair Sorenson opened the meeting of the Lane County Board of Commissioners and
read
the second reading of the ordinance.
PUBLIC
HEARINGS -
Please limit comments to 3 minutes. Request
to speak cards are available at the desk of the minutes’ recorder.
1.
Amendments
to the Eugene-Springfield Metropolitan Area General Plan (Metro Plan) Consistent
with Policy g.3 of Chapter III, Section G. Public Facilities and Services, and
Amendments to Table 6, Table 18, Table 19, Map 3 and Map 8 of the Public
Facilities and Services Plan, a Functional Plan of the Metro Plan (Case No.
LRP2008-00016), City of Springfield Public Works Department, Applicant.
City
Planner Andy Limbird presented the staff report on this item.
The
City Council initiated the plan amendments on October 21, 2008 in response to
recommendations contained in the City’s recently adopted Stormwater
Facilities Master Plan. All of
the projects included in these amendments are considered significant by Oregon
statute, and are necessary to provide capacity for planned development within
Springfield’s urban growth boundary. Implementation
of the City’s new stormwater Systems Development Charge (SDC) rates is
contingent upon adoption of the plan amendments.
All
of the recommended projects (amendments) are derived from the adopted Stormwater
Facilities Master Plan (2008), a Springfield city-wide stormwater plan that
evaluates existing and future demand and makes recommendations for system
improvements including capacity, efficiency, flood control, and water quality
enhancement. All of the listed
projects rise to the level of “significant” projects as defined by Oregon
statute. The listed projects are
necessary for Springfield to accommodate planned growth within the existing
urban growth boundary. City Council
recently adopted a new stormwater SDC Methodology and Project List and, once the
plan amendments are approved, new rates will be adopted in accordance with those
actions. Because this is the last
scheduled meeting before Council recess, staff is presenting the Ordinance with
an emergency clause. Without an
emergency clause, Springfield may not be able to implement new SDC rates sooner
than 30 days after second reading and adoption of the Ordinance by City Council
– projected as October 21, 2009 – and the City would be unable to recoup
lost SDC revenue during this period. The
Springfield and Lane County planning commissions conducted a joint public
hearing on these amendments on June 30, 2009 and forwarded recommendations of
support to their respective governing bodies.
The Lane County Board of Commissioners gave first reading to the adopting
Ordinance on July 8, 2009 and will be in a position to adopt the ordinance after
second reading.
Mr.
Limbird presented a revised AIS cover sheet to the Commissioners which had minor
revisions identifying the next steps that would be made following the public
hearing which were slightly different from the cover sheet the county received.
He
gave an overview of the plan amendments under consideration, along with
testimony received at the previous public hearing for the Planning Commission,
Planning Commission recommendations and staff response incorporated into the AIS
packet together with additional testimony received by the City today that could
be entered into the record as well.
Mr.
Limbird stated the purpose of the plan amendments was to update the adopted
public facilities and services plan. The plan was prepared in the early 1980s
and since that time the City has adopted a new stormwater facilities master plan
as of October 21, 2008. The recommendations in the adopted plan identified
projects that were to be revised, eliminated, and consolidated. It also
identified projects that had been completed in the time since the initial
adoption of the public facilities and services plan. He explained that the changes to these plans and maps
warranted the amendments being presented. This
was a metro wide plan amendment and the intent was to identify projects that
were of a specific magnitude as identified in state statute and therefore
warranted inclusion on the City’s capital improvement plans for future
budgeting and planning and design.
The
specific projects for amendment were listed on Attachment 7.
Staff had identified the proposed Table 6, 18 and 19 along with amended
maps 3 and 8 for inclusion in the public facility and services plan.
The
testimony provided at the meeting of the planning commissions identified
potential downstream impacts to property owners outside the Springfield urban
growth boundary (UGB). There had not been detailed planning for any stormwater
facilities in the area yet, however future facilities were identified in the
vicinity and therefore adoption of the PFSP amendments would allow for future
planning, financing and detailed design for stormwater facilities in the area as
urban growth continued and developed in this region of Springfield.
He
noted that both planning commissions adopted recommendations of support for the
plan amendments, provided direction to staff to identify downstream or
potentially impacted downstream properties and provided some type of response to
the testimony that was provided. He
stated that in Attachment 4, the motions were listed and in Attachment 5 staff
provided an overview of the existing policy frame work for stormwater management
in the City along with maps identifying potentially affected downstream
properties as discussed and directed by the planning commissions at the previous
meeting.
Mr.
Limbird summarized that staff advised that the Metro Plan amendment allowed for
long range financing, planning and urbanization of the Springfield urban growth
area. The plan amendments only contemplated development within the existing
urban growth boundary and incorporated drainage that naturally drained into the
urban growth boundary as contemplated in the Metro Plan.
The stormwater facilities master plan was a refinement plan of the
adopted Metro Plan and did contemplate and encourage documents such as the
adopted stormwater facilities master plan that provided further detail and
discussion about projects affecting the entire city.
From that the City was able to prepare and plan for the projects that
were required to provide urban services in the urban growth boundary areas.
Commissioner
Dwyer stated he had concern that normally when ordinances were passed at the
County level and people didn’t like them, they had the ability to refer them.
The ordinance had an emergency clause and state law prohibited an
emergency clause on a revenue measure. SDCs
were a revenue measure so he questioned whether the emergency clause could be
included in the ordinance if it had the potential to raise revenue without the
ability of the people to refer it if it went into effect immediately.
He questioned why the emergency clause was needed.
Mr.
Limbird advised that the plan amendments would be in effect immediately, however
the City would have to adopt other measures to collect system development
charges through stormwater SDCs under a separate action.
The Lane County Board of Commissioners had already given a first reading
and tonight a second reading. The emergency clause was proposed so the City of
Springfield, in order to be in a position to act upon it before Council went
into summer recess, could adopt the ordinance more or less concurrently with the
Board of Commissioners. There was
no emergency clause in the County ordinance.
Commissioner
Dwyer asked what would happen if the people in the County decided to refer their
portion.
Mr.
Limbird stated it would not become effective until adopted by the County.
Commissioner
Dwyer asked how the people of Lane County could respond, such as referring and
gathering signatures, to something that had already happened.
Mr.
Limbird stated it was his understanding that, notwithstanding the Springfield
City Council adoption of the potential emergency clause, the actual plan
amendments would not go into effect until co-adoption by the County
Commissioners. This would happen shortly after the adoption.
Mayor
Leiken opened the Public Hearing for the City of Springfield.
Commissioner
Sorenson opened the Public Hearing for Lane County and turned the hearing over
to Mayor Leiken to conduct.
1.
Mike
Kelly, 86965 Mahogany Lane, Springfield, OR.
Mr. Kelly stated he was present to talk specifically about Project #3,
the Jasper-Natron Channel and Pipe Improvements. He commended Council for adopting the storm drainage master
plan which was well over due and welcome. He
was happy with the big picture of what was being done, but had concerns about
the one project. Project #3 showed
channel and pipe improvements serving the Hayden and Jasper-Natron development
areas and basically showed conceptual pipes from channels coming down to Jasper
Road with no provisions for what happened to the water after it went outside the
urban growth boundary at Jasper Road. The
master plan showed it would take the water and put it into rural channels that
were not public, not maintained and constantly clogged with vegetation and
beaver activity, and had limited capacity. The Planning Commissions recognized
that in their discussion and the spirit of their motion was to identify
downstream property owners who might be impacted and proposed some solutions for
their Council and Commissioner’s consideration.
Staff indicated that there was a map that identified downstream impasse
as far as properties being affected. He
was concerned that if the plan amendments were approved and the Master Plan
codified, they would move into the CIP of the City and become law. If a
developer in Jasper-Natron or Hayden came in to develop land in the area, the
only thing they had in front of them was a master plan that showed channels
constructed down to Jasper Road with no requirements thereafter.
If someone came in at that time and objected, it would be said they were
too late; they should have been there when the master plan was adopted and
voiced their concerns. There would
be discussions as to who paid for the channel, etc.
Mr. Kelly suggested Project #3 be
removed from the project list until there could be a comprehensive solution on
how to handle the water all the way from Jasper Road down to the river.
He stated he was affected personally and represented some of the
neighbors in that area. They would provide easements or whatever was needed to
be done so that a solution could be satisfactory to inside residents and rural
residents. If that wasn’t
possible, then he suggested putting a stipulation on Project #3 that upstream
contributions were limited to no-net increase from historical flows.
There was a certain amount of water that flowed through there currently
which could be maintained, but the objection was to increased water.
Upstream developers would be required to put in retention and detention
ponds so there was no net increase that affected the downstream owners until
there was a comprehensive solution. Leaving
it up to staff to do administratively lacked the force of the law. He would like
to see a stipulation in the master plan that put that stipulation on the
project.
The
ordinance was read into the record: AN ORDINANCE AMENDING THE EUGENE-SPRINGFIELD
METROPOLITAN AREA GENERAL PLAN (METRO PLAN) CONSISTENT WITH POLICY G.3 IN
CHAPTER III, SECTION G. PUBLIC FACILITIES AND SERVICES ELEMENT; AMENDING TABLE
6, TABLE 18, TABLE 19, MAP 3 AND MAP 8 OF THE PUBLIC FACILITIES AND SERVICES
PLAN (PFSP) TO UPDATE THE PROJECT LISTS AND MAPPED LOCATION OF THESE FACILITIES;
ADOPTING A SEVERABILITY CLAUSE; AND DECLARING AN EMERGENCY.
Mayor
Leiken closed the Public Hearing for the City of Springfield.
Commissioner
Sorenson closed the Public Hearing for Lane County, but kept the record open.
Commissioner
Dwyer stated there were legitimate concerns and he felt that Mike Kelly had
legitimate concerns, too. He felt that staff should think about what they were
going to do with the water.
Mayor
Leiken asked if the Planning Commission’s motion stating “with the added
condition that the City Council consider options provided by the staff for
treating downstream stormwater flow onto downstream properties” was made
specifically for Project 3.
Mr.
Limbird stated that in response to the testimony it was directed to Project 3,
and in a general sense both Planning Commissions had adopted the motion.
Mayor
Leiken stated he was going to refer to significant knowledge from Mr. Kelly on
certain issues because what he raised is something that clearly needed to be
addressed if the ordinance was going to be adopted with an emergency clause.
He further stated that what Mr. Kelly brought forward this evening was
going to weigh heavily on him personally, although he couldn’t speak for the
rest of the Council. He didn’t
know what the Planning Commission’s motion was based on, but was fairly broad
in the way the motion was stated.
Mr.
Limbird stated the written, as well as the verbal testimony, provided at the
Planning Commission meeting was not exclusively directed to Project 3, but that
obviously helped weigh with the decision by the Planning Commission because that
was the specific area of concern. There
was other verbal testimony provided regarding other potential sites and staff
was able to address and clarify with the persons providing testimony that those
properties either weren’t affected or there would be additional planning in
the future.
Mayor
Leiken asked if Mr. Spies letter was entered into the record.
Yes.
Commissioner
Stewart asked what the options would be if Project #3 was removed and said he
would prefer to see it moved out of the comprehensive plan.
He also asked about Mr. Spies letter being entered into testimony and his
question about if we could discharge stormwater into the Willamette River
without treatment. He questioned if
that was legal or not.
Len
Goodwin, Assistant Public Works Director, stated that it was clear from his
understanding that the policy of the Council had directed him to assure that
there was no significant unmitigated peak weather flow with downstream impacts
to the greatest extent practical in being in compliance.
That was the direction that the Council had given staff in a number of
policies particularly in the document that Mr. Limbird provided this evening.
Staff understood that it was important to litigate those impacts and it was
important to have the projects in a plan so that when development occurred, a
developer was on notice that they may be required to provide mitigation of any
potential impacts. For that reason,
he suggested that it was probably not prudent to remove the project since that
would leave a situation where a developer would not have good notice that there
was some reason to be concerned out there.
That was the Council policy that provided him with direction. If the Commissioners and Council felt it was more prudent to
assure that was the case, he suggested that the Council adopt a motion
specifically directing him to implement the policy of providing that there was
no significant unmitigated peak weather downstream impact to the greatest extent
practical. If that provided comfort
to the public and to the Commissioners as a whole, it would certainly be
appropriate to do.
Commissioner
Sorenson asked about Map 8 in the packet and if the projects corresponded to the
numbers in the table. Yes.
He asked if geographically there was any sequence of doing these on the
perimeter of the urban growth boundary as opposed to the interior of the City of
Springfield, if they were going to be moved faster on the periphery, or if it
was a matter of a lot of factors.
Mr.
Goodwin said it was the latter. The
precise order of the projects would be dictated by the needs of development, and
if development happened in the interior of the City those projects would
certainly be needed first. If there was specific development in other areas,
that may accelerate the need for that particular project. Also funding was a critical issue; some of the project costs
were radically different and the more expensive projects could take longer to
develop no matter how urgent they may be.
Commissioner
Sorenson asked if the sequence of the projects was part of the plan.
Mr.
Goodwin said it was the rough timing, but not the sequence.
Commissioner
Sorenson asked about Table 18 which showed projects that were being deleted, and
if they had been completed.
Environmental
Services Supervisor George Walker stated that the majority of those projects
were encompassed in newly defined projects. When the original plan for those
projects was first generated, only flood control was looked at and they didn’t
look at some of the improvements that had taken place in that area since that
time. The original plan was done in
1978 or 1982, so they were very old plans. They had redefined those projects
into the new projects that they had.
Commissioner
Sorenson asked if there was a sequencing of cost to segregate the projects to be
done sooner and the ones to be done later.
City
Engineer, Ken Vogeney, stated that Table 18 provided an estimated cost for
constructing a particular project. At
this point in time, the projects had not been graduated through the capital
improvement program to actually sequence them in terms of when projected funding
would be available.
Commissioner
Sorenson asked what the total cost was in Table 18.
Mr.
Walker stated approximately $65M.
Commissioner
Sorenson asked where the money was expected to come from.
Mr.
Goodwin stated that ultimately a substantial portion would come from future SDC
dollars. There may be other sources
of financing that were required as projects developed and got refined.
If a project was needed for a particular reason and system development
charges were inadequate, the Council would have to look for alternative sources
of revenue.
Commissioner
Sorenson asked if it was the policy of the Springfield city government to
finance the projects solely with system development charges or with a
combination of charges, including SDCs.
Mr.
Goodwin stated the policy has been to fund them with SDCs to the maximum extent
possible. Not all the projects were
100% growth, so some of them could not be fully funded by SDC dollars.
Commissioner
Sorenson asked what the current expenditure for capital projects was at this
time.
Mr.
Goodwin stated that current capital spending for stormwater was $1M, possibly
$2M. The Council may be
contemplating in the near future the possibility of a revenue debt issuance
which would fund approximately $10M in projects in the short term.
Councilor
Ralston stated he wasn’t interested in pulling Project #3; it needed to be
dealt with now. He said it looked like the intent from the Lane County Planning
Commission was the stipulation that the City identify potential downstream
properties affected by the proposed project. It seemed the Springfield Planning
Commission made a similar motion and he felt it important that a motion be made
at this time that specifically addressed this issue so there was certainty in
the future. He didn’t want there to be guess work later on.
Councilor
Lundberg stated she had been working with neighbors in the T Street area and
wanted to address Project 115, Channel 6 Detention Pond. Development caused an
issue in this area. She asked if the Channel 6 Detention Pond was going to solve
the issue that caused those residents to be required to buy flood insurance.
City
Manager Gino Grimaldi stated it would have an impact on the studies that were
needed to establish what they are trying to establish, but it would still be the
responsibility of the developer.
Councilor
Lundberg asked if the installation of a detention pond because of an additional
development would alleviate the need to buy flood insurance.
Mr.
Goodwin stated only if the study documented that, in fact, those properties were
no longer in the flood plain.
Mr.
Vogeney stated that in order to change the regulations for flood insurance, it
would not be part of the proposed project in the PSFP. That would take a
separate study and analysis and would actually be adopted and implemented in the
National Flood Insurance Program. That would take an amendment to those maps
with FEMA to be able to accomplish that change in the insurance rates regardless
of what the projects were.
Councilor
Lundberg asked what potential impact, other than the fact there was water that
was not anticipated, would the project have on other neighbors regarding the
flood plain. She referred to the situation in Jasper. She asked if those that
lived downstream from a development would become liable for flood insurance if
we were diverting the water from the development.
Mr.
Vogeney stated he looked at the adopted flood insurance maps in the vicinity of
Mr. Kelly and Mr. Spies’ properties. In evaluating those maps, there was
already existing mapped flood plain areas on those properties and many of the
other properties in that vicinity, with the source of the flooding being
overflow from the Willamette River as the key source of the flooding, not from
development.
Commissioner
Handy stated he appreciated the City of Springfield’s intent to want to move
the matter forward because of the SDC issue, but that he felt the plan was not
ready. Reading the plan and hearing
some of the initial plans and testimony led him further in that direction.
He referred to Mr. Spies letter and said he felt that some of the
questions hadn’t been fully answered. He
appreciated Mr. Kelly’s testimony and had read his written testimony.
He thought one piece really captured it that it was kind of a ‘shut
your eyes and hope everything worked’ out plan.
He appreciated Commissioner Sorenson’s questions which might have
helped him about a sequencing commitment, particularly with the larger UGB
expansion discussions that had happened with the Metro Plan. He felt the plan
needed a lot more work before he could support it.
He also referred to Mr. Hledick’s testimony raising concerns in
Glenwood. He talked about the staff
report and the mention of Salem and Marion County situation where they worked on
trying to come up with common stormwater standards. He wondered if anything more
could be shared with this situation.
Civil
Engineer Supervisor Matt Stouder stated he talked with the City of Salem.
Basically the City of Salem did not have an IGA, but more of a handshake
agreement with the County. When
they worked with stormwater discharge in Marion County, they had a meaningful
consultation before they could increase the stormwater discharge into the County
or they took care of it onsite through potential stormwater runoff. The City of
Eugene had adopted stormwater standards for development that were very similar
to what Springfield had, both of which were based on the City of Portland’s
stormwater standards and water quality and quantity design.
Springfield and Eugene were working together to come to one set of
standards. In regards to clean
water services, their approach was to work with the impacted property owners on
a property-by-property basis or project-by-project basis as they came up.
Commissioner
Handy stated that being on quite a few committees involving metro planning
issues and looking at some of the joint issues, staff had indicated a commitment
to analyze the code and policies as a priority and recognizing that there were
some holes. He asked if staff could
help him reconcile that commitment with the people on the Council and the Mayor.
He had heard that funding for planning was not really a priority within
this climate of not having enough funds, but rather funds to put things on the
ground. He asked how this
commitment articulated in regard to dealing with things that planning
commissions address and maybe some elected officials had questions about.
Mr.
Goodwin said planning was always a challenge, but the reality was that we could
not build a project until it had been thoroughly and completely planned.
We had not done that exercise in preparing the Public Facilities and
Services Plan, nor for that matter should we.
This was the first step to articulate those general projects that would
be needed so as interested development occurred, we could conduct the more
detailed planning on a specific project-by-project basis, and then effectively
determine how a project could or should be constructed.
First they got the general concept out, layup and articulate where these
things would generally go when they generally might occur, and then as the need
became more immediate for a specific project, would move that into a more
detailed plan, including among other things, specifically how to comply with the
requirements that we not, basically flood the downstream property owners which
created tremendous liability on the part of the City.
They didn’t do that until they were at the point of having a real
development to plan for so they were not designing something on speculation in
the hope that when development happened, they would have happened to design the
right thing. The City spent our
planning dollars generally when there was something very specific to plan for
and then devoted specific planning dollars to the detailed planning which was
then followed by designing something specifically before we constructed it.
All through this of course, there was considerable public process because
all of the property owners, who were or could be affected, had a right and we
expected them to become a part of the process to help us find a solution that
worked for all of them.
Mr.
Grimaldi stated tonight the elected officials had the opportunity to put some
parameters on how staff moved forward with that plan. The language that Mr.
Kelly suggested did that, as did the language that Mr. Goodwin was talking
about. That would give staff guidance.
Councilor
Wylie asked if the language was ready to be read to Council so they could vote
on that which covered the concerns of Mr. Kelly.
Mr.
Goodwin read the statement; “It would be our goal through existing policies is
that there will be no significant unmitigated peak wet weather downstream impact
to the greatest extent practical in full compliance with all applicable local,
state and federal law”.
Mr.
Kelly said that language did not address his concern and he was willing to
explain why.
Councilor
Wylie stated that Council couldn’t move ahead until they understood what they
needed to do in order to move ahead. They
needed to get the correct language so the alteration could be done in order to
move forward.
Commissioner
Dwyer stated it was more complicated than they thought.
He asked how they could justify SDCs on someone when the water was going
on the County land outside the urban growth boundary and nothing was being done
about it. Once SDCs were a system,
but where was the system that was going to handle the stormwater.
He said he had personal experience with the City of Springfield,
stormwater and and systems development charges. The City of Springfield had him
design a stormwater system on a piece of property and spend about $25,000, then
after several months told him the City didn’t have any capacity, so what he
had designed had nothing to hook up to. He
developed his own onsite system because the perk rate (he explained the perk
rate) was adequate and he could develop his own stormwater system, a series of
ponds that went into the ground. In the 1996 flood, no water accumulated, which
was a pretty good test of how it worked. When
he went to get building permits the City said they were going to charge him for
stormwater, but he explained he didn’t use the City’s stormwater, so
didn’t have to pay. He questioned collecting SDCs when the water was being
dumped somewhere else.
Commissioner
Dwyer stated the County Commissioners disagreed with their Planning Commission
quite often, and were not bound by anything the Planning Commission did. He had
some real concerns about having the plan work and doing it right and knowing
what was going to happen. Collecting
SDCs from somebody for something that didn’t exist seemed to be ludicrous.
Having an emergency clause that allowed the City to do it right away was
even more ludicrous. He quoted Ronald Reagan.
Councilor
Pishioneri stated he didn’t like pulling any projects off the plan and he felt
the plan was fairly comprehensive. The
base plan and work in the area could be done by way of refinement plan.
This was something to start with.
COUNCILOR
PISHIONERI MOVED, AND COUNCILOR WYLIE SECONDED, TO DIRECT PUBLIC WORKS TO ASSURE
THAT STORM LOW DOWNSTREAM IN PROJECT #3 IS MITIGATED TO THE GREATEST EXTENT
POSSIBLE TO PREVENT INTAKE STORM FLOW AND/OR DURATION THAT WOULD OTHERWISE
NEGATIVELY IMPACT DOWNSTREAM PROPERTY OWNERS.
Councilor
Ralston stated he was fairly certain the City’s intent was not to adversely
affect other citizen’s property due to liability issues. It was not the intent
of what they were doing tonight to specifically design standards for future
development. That occurred at the
time development actually happened. Tonight,
they were simply modifying and updating maps, and putting things on project
lists so they were there as placeholders to allow them to do things in the
future. He didn’t feel they were
here to micromanage things and talk about specific details.
The best they could do was as the proposed motion implied, which was to
do everything possible not to adversely affect property owners.
Commissioner
Sorenson asked about the last 2 maps in the County’s packet, which included
CIP project areas. There were two
of them that looked similar. He
asked about the more detailed map. He
referred to Project #2, on the Thurston side (Gray Creek Channel) and Project #3
(Jasper Natron). He asked why these
projects in 26, 42, 24, 37, 31, 32, and 28 seemed to be low priority, but the
projects on the periphery, 1, 6, 18, 2 and 3 were on the high priority.
Environmental
Services Supervisor George Walker stated that a number of criteria were picked
to prioritize these projects. The initial reason why we did a facility master
plan was because the old plans only dealt with flood control which seemed to be
the biggest issue here this evening also. The
new facility plan looked at flood control as one priority, water quality as one
priority, and the regulatory environment which was much different than it was in
the 1980s. The last criterion used
in order to prioritize these projects was development need and expected
priorities in that area. All of
this was wrapped up into a steering committee that sat down at a table and came
up with a matrix and a table that put these numbers on this.
So project #1, which was Glenwood, was a high priority for flooding, for
water quality because there was a lot of risk in that area, and in the
regulatory environment because it was a direct connect to the Willamette River.
That put it at the top of the list. Some
of the other projects with the low priorities were already developed areas, they
were not a direct connect with the river or the regulatory side that was pushing
us, they were not flooding, but we know that there were issues there where we
needed to make some improvements in the system.
Commissioner
Sorenson asked if the numbers on the projects in those circles were reflective
of the sequence. Yes.
He asked if the numbers meant anything in terms of the sequencing.
Mr.
Walker stated it meant that those projects were high priority. If something
changed in the reason that they got the high priority, which could easily happen
if development plans fell through, or the regulatory environment changed, a
number of these projects encompassed a fairly large area and when the refined
design came in, they would most generally be built in small pieces. One segment
at a time would be built as the need arose and as funding was identified. That
could all be done in one area.
Commissioner
Sorenson asked if there was a matrix that was used with criteria and rating. He
asked if there was a matrix on each project.
Mr.
Walker said they created a matrix with that information during the steering
committee meetings. He didn’t recall if he had that matrix, but had the
information in a file. Much of it
was done on a white board and may not necessarily be in a format he could email
it to Commissioner Sorenson.
Commissioner
Sorenson asked if the process could be described as a group of people trying to
assess the importance of each project as opposed to your engineering staff
saying this was a high priority because of flooding, this was a high priority
because of impending development, etc. He
asked if it was more of a group decision or a decision based on the numbers and
how each project ranked.
Mr.
Walker stated he would characterize it very much as a group decision because
only about half of those sitting around the table were engineering staff.
There was maintenance staff, planning staff, and regulator.
It was not an arithmatic, engineering decision.
Commissioner
Dwyer stated he didn’t think they would have enough votes from the Commission.
Mayor
Leiken said after listening to the questions he was thinking the same thing.
He asked staff what the next steps were on a timing issue and from the
prospective of the City Council, if the board wasn’t inclined to move forward
on the matter tonight.
Mr.
Grimaldi said a work session could be scheduled with the Board of Commissioners
and City Council to go over the process and the Master Plan and information that
could be shared. In the interim,
staff could sit down with the neighbors and see if there was language that they
could come up with that was acceptable to them.
Commissioner
Dwyer stated he wasn’t only concerned about Project #3, but wherever
stormwater left and went onto someone else’s property.
It was not right to collect SDCs from the people that built and pass it
off on to somebody else and call it a system. That was not a system.
Mayor
Leiken asked about the timing perspective and the emergency clause.
Mr.
Grimaldi said the emergency clause was to get this approved before Council went
on recess. If the Board of
Commissioners approved the ordinance tonight, it would go into effect in 30
days.
Mayor
Leiken stated that the City did not have the emergency clause because we are
pressed for major timing issues, but it was basically based on the Board of
Commissioner’s first reading.
Mr.
Grimaldi said that if Council did not act tonight, it would delay the
implementation of the SDCs.
Councilor
Simmons stated the whole process was predicated on SDCs.
He said there were some really interesting questions.
He discussed Mr. Kelly’s property and others effected in that area.
He felt we needed a complete process in dealing with the NPDES permits.
The stormwater runoff did go into the river in some way.
The PFSP needed to be adopted for the original purpose, but tonight’s
discussion showed the failure of that process.
He felt there needed to be a more comprehensive look at it. None of the major developments that had occurred in
Springfield had been within the scope of the drawn plan.
They had all required significant major plan amendments to accomplish
those goals. He thought they needed
to look at this comprehensively. If
they didn’t do this, it could cause some serious problems in potentially
collecting the SDCs in a timely fashion.
Commissioner
Dwyer stated they would be new and higher SDCs.
Councilor
Simmons stated he was on the committee. The
City needed to collect the money to do the projects because we didn’t’ have
the resources to do that. If we
didn’t’ collect it from the developments, then it had to come from the rate
payers. If you talked about a
revenue bond, that was a lot of money to be paid every month by every family in
the community. We had to have some completeness in this plan, but we also needed
to have some rapidity in adoption of it in order to offset the cost.
He felt there were flaws in the generic plan which needed to be corrected
in a timely fashion and then moved forward in the adoption in a way that made
sense.
Commissioner
Dwyer stated as far as the sequence and numbering he had no problem, he
understood that. The priorities as
a City were in trying to entice development in areas where we had to have
capacity; Glenwood and Natron and those areas were some of our priorities.
It was not surprising that they were # 1, #2, and #3 on the list.
There was no plan in how the City would deal with it as it came up and he
was not ready to go there tonight.
Commissioner
Handy stated he felt the stormwater staff understood what needed to be done, so
he trusted them and technical level work could be done to make the plan more
complete. Politically we needed to
have some more frank discussions regarding assumptions about our urban growth
boundary discussion which may be a little premature. He knew they wanted to keep the plans separate, but the issue
of stormwater on land outside the UGB needed to be addressed more.
Mr.
Grimaldi clarified that the projects in the list were for development within the
existing urban growth boundary, so there was no connection to the expansion of
the UGB with the project list before the Board tonight.
Commissioner
Handy stated that in the staff report there were comments about some of these
projects also addressing potential future projects outside the UGB.
Commissioner
Sorenson suggested Springfield City Council take action and then the County
would have a third reading.
Mayor
Leiken asked if the City would need to remove the emergency clause if they chose
to move forward on the matter tonight.
City
Attorney Matt Cox stated it could be effective on approval by the County
Commissioners which would be the effective date.
Mayor
Leiken suggested the emergency clause be removed because if the Board decided
not to take action tonight, then they would defer to have future conversations.
Mr.
Grimaldi stated one of the issues was that the actions of the Board of
Commissioners and the actions of the City Council needed to line up exactly.
It looked like this was going to take a little more discussion and it may
not be prudent to pass the ordinance on the City side.
Mayor
Leiken suggested that it might be better if the Board moved first so they could
get an idea of where their vote. If
the Board decided not to go forward on this, the Council could have future
conversations.
Commissioner
Sorenson stated the Board would set the matter over until at least August 5th.
They would schedule another reading of the ordinance on that date.
Perhaps Springfield staff could attend and provide them with an update.
That would keep the process moving.
Commissioner
Dwyer stated if any major changes were made it would require another meeting and
notice.
Councilor
Pishioneri withdrew his motion and Councilor Wylie withdrew her second.
Mayor
Leiken asked the City Manager to make sure staff was available on August 5th
to attend the County Commissioner’s meeting to listen and offer answers to any
questions.
Commissioner
Stewart stated he was fine with that, but would like to see a suggestion similar
to what Councilor Pishioneri stated, providing there was no increase in peak
water flow to the existing drainage canals outside the planning areas until a
comprehensive plan for that area was established.
He would like to see it cover any area because he agreed with
Commissioner Dwyer there were other courses to the plan that may be displacing
water into other areas.
Councilor
Ralston stated he didn’t want to put words into Commissioner Dwyer’s mouth,
but it sounded to him that he was opposed to the City’s SDCs.
Without the SDCs, the City did not have the money for development.
It was a Council policy that development should pay more than its fair
share for the expense that they created. They
would not pass this off to all the rate payers in the City for future
development. It put everything on
hold until then. If that was the
philosophical difference they had to overcome, they had a bigger problem than he
thought.
IT
WAS MOVED BY COMMISSIONER DWYER, AND SECONDED BY COMMISSION HANDY, TO SET THE
ORDINANCE OVER FOR A THIRD READING ON AUGUST 5, 2009 AND LEAVE THE RECORD OPEN.
THE MOTION PASSED WITH A VOTE OF 4 FOR AND 0 AGAINST (1 ABSENT –
FLEENOR).
Mayor
Leiken adjourned the meeting for the Springfield City Council at 6:46 p.m.
Commissioner
Sorenson adjourned the meeting for the Lane County Board of Commissioners at
6:46 p.m.
Minutes
Recorder
Trudy
Borrevik
Clerk
III
______________________
Sidney
W. Leiken
Mayor
Attest:
____________________
City
Recorder