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HomeMy WebLinkAboutApproved Minutes - 2009-01-17 SpecialCITY COUNCIL SPECIAL MEETING MINUTES January 17, 2009 W [(,ON Mayor Jack Hoffman called the special City Council meeting to order at 8:45 a.m. on January 17, 2009, at the West End Building, 4101 SW Kruse Way, Santiam Room. Pres nt: Mayor Hoffman, Councilors Jordan, Hennagin, Johnson, Olson, Moncrieff, and Tierney. Staff Present: Alex McIntyre, City Manager; David Powell, City Attorney; Robyn Christie, City Recorder; Joe Hertzberg, Facilitator 3. GOAL SETTING Mr. Hertzberg asked if anyone wanted to clarify anything from yesterday. Councilor Jordan clarified her statement about the Council's West End Building (WEB) decision- making process. She said that her point had been that whichever way the Council went, it would have to set aside money in next year's budget to carry the building until it made a decision. Mr. Hertzberg indicated that the two substantive objectives for the day were to discuss goals and to come up with a Council work plan for the year. • Introductory exercise Mr. Hertzberg asked each Council member and staff person to mention things about him/herself that the others might not know, and what their areas of expertise, interests, and experience were. Councilor Jordan mentioned that she majored in journalism at the University of Oregon, and worked in public information for a variety of companies before moving into real estate, which she has since left. She indicated that she thought that her background in public service helped her understand the public process, public budgeting, dealing with conflict, and the need for openness and communication. Councilor Olson said that she worked in accounting and management analysis for the Portland Public Works Department as her first job out of undergraduate school. After working in the private sector for a number of years, she stayed home with her children, and only recently has gone back to work part-time. She indicated that she thought she brought to the Council, in addition to her background in finance and accounting and her perspective as a former city employee, her experience and perspective as a volunteer for the City and the School District. Mr. McIntyre mentioned that his grandfather had been a British trapeze flyer in a circus. He noted that that was a high-risk occupation. He commented that he had always seen himself as a human resources person, geared towards staff and organizational development, but recently he realized that he has gained strong financial, administration, and labor relations expertise during the course of his career. Mayor Hoffman said that after college, he joined the Army where he worked as a parachute jumper. He has worked as a nationally certified ski instructor at Mount Hood Meadows, and as a nationally certified soccer referee. He explained that his passion and understanding of the need for affordable housing came from his wife, Agnes, and he having housed a variety of people in the downstairs of their home over the past 30 years. He stated that he had a master's degree in environmental science and in law. He mentioned his experience in labor relations negotiations and his expertise in land use, civic engagement, and parks and recreation. He commented that Councilor Olson, when she served as the Parks & City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 1 of 26 January 17, 2009 Recreation Advisory Board Chair, had mentored him and urged him to take a leadership role, including running for the City Council. Councilor Hennagin mentioned that he worked on his grandparents' cattle ranch in junior high and in construction during college. He said that he has a political science degree and a law degree. He has practiced law as an Oregon State Hearings Referee, a Multnomah County Deputy District Attorney and an in-house trial lawyer for Burlington Northern Railroad; his current private law practice as a trial lawyer focused on employment law, handicap discrimination cases, and contracts. Mr. Powell mentioned that he has worked as a cab driver, a surveyor, and as the Lippinworth Cinnamon Bear. Councilor Tierney mentioned his graduate degree in public administration, followed by working for both local government and the federal government before he went into the private sector. He described his experience in managing P&Ls as bringing an interest and an expertise to the Council that was more short-term than long-term. He recalled that he began his work career at 16 as a cashier at McDonald's. Councilor Moncrieff said that following her graduation from the University of Oregon and marriage, she moved to Saipan, a small island by Guam in the South Pacific, where she worked for the local telephone company. Although officially in sales, she did a bit of everything. She commented that living in a place where people paid low taxes gave her the understanding that one could choose to pay more in taxes and get more, or pay less in taxes and get less; Saipan did not have 24-hour water or electricity, or paved roads, police, fire, and maps, etc. She indicated that she had been a political science major but had a sales background, which led to her seeing everything as a series of needs and how to meet those needs, especially through volunteer efforts. She said that her skill was finding people's talents and skills and figuring out how to bring all the pieces together to solve a problem. Councilor Johnson mentioned that she has had a series of jobs, including the cafeteria late night shift at Boston College and working as a paralegal dealing with asbestos litigation, which led to a job working as an industrial hygienist. She commented that growing up around the family firm, Denton Plastics, and now working for it, gave her an interest and specialty in recycling. She explained that she looked at recycling as a business, and understood sustainability in terms of bringing in the economics and making it work. She described her work as a volunteer for the American Legion Auxiliaries Program for Girl State, including teaching "Legislative Process in Government" at Girl State. Mayor Hoffman observed that this was the most diverse City Council he has served on in terms of age and experience. He anticipated a variety of opinions on issues. Ms. Christie mentioned that she was the 15th grandchild to graduate from Oregon State University, from which she earned a degree in International Business and Spanish. She mentioned her expectation of finishing her Masters in Public Administration this year. • Discussion Mr. Hertzberg reviewed the items that were already in process and would come to the Council in any event, although the Council had some discretion on how much it did on these issues. The issues included periodic review/code revision, infill, sensitive lands, Metro urban/rural reserves, the furnace, Lakefront Park, and emergency response. Mayor Hoffman indicated to Councilor Tierney that they were anticipating a study session on urban renewal in Oregon and the Lake Oswego Redevelopment Agency, including the Agency project list. Th Council discussed the lists of items on the board. City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 2 of 26 January 17, 2009 • Affordable Housing Councilor H nnagin pointed out that the term 'affordable housing' had connotations of a kind of housing that might not pass Lake Oswego Code. He mentioned the concern shared by the Council as a whole that a primary reason for the declining school population in Lake Oswego was that families with young children saw Lake Oswego as not having housing attainable for them. He indicated that he would like to do something to address this issue. Councilor Moncrieff suggested defining the term 'affordable housing.' She commented that to her, the $350,000 ranch homes in her neighborhood of Palisades were affordable housing. She asked what the city's inventory was of apartments, condos, townhomes, and the number of vacancies. She spoke to verifying whether Lake Oswego had affordable housing. She described choosing where to live as a choice of how to spend one's money. Councilor Olson commented that she saw affordable housing as including, not only the house price, but also the property taxes and other costs of living in Lake Oswego. She cited the large number of bond measures that just passed in observing that people would likely be surprised at their property tax bill next fall. She spoke to the Council doing what it could with its financial decisions to keep Lake Oswego affordable. She mentioned that she also saw affordable housing as starter homes. She pointed out that the Council's decisions about the Comprehensive Plan and the code, especially regarding infill, affected the number of starter homes torn down and removed from the inventory, and no longer available to young families. Councilor Jordan indicated that she viewed affordable housing in a broader range than individual single-family housing. She pointed out that during the recent real estate boom, many apartments converted to condos. Investors who bought buildings and then rented them out to cover the mortgage costs often charged higher rents for condos than those same units went for as apartments. She agreed with Councilor Moncrieff that Lake Oswego had a lot of affordable homes for families with school age kids, despite the misperception that Lake Oswego had mostly $1 million plus homes. She observed that those families, lacking the information to compare the communities as a whole, were buying brand new homes with tiny yards elsewhere and in a lesser quality school district. She commented that she did not know how to overcome that misperception, which real estate advertising fostered by putting the expensive homes at the top of the list and the affordable homes at the bottom of the list. She spoke of bringing on new housing stock of apartments to provide temporary housing for those not yet ready to purchase a home, or those who lived here six months out of the year and travelled the rest of the year. She pointed out that right now, someone who has lived in Lake Oswego for 30 years and wanted to sell his/her house would find a smaller condo costing about the same as the purchase price of the house. Councilor Johnson noted the three groups that she wanted to attract to Lake Oswego using affordable housing: young families, the resident elderly who wanted to age in place, and young professionals. She suggested secondary dwelling units as a discussion topic. She spoke of creating a walkable area in Mountain Park, with its many apartments and condos, and making it feel more a part of Lake Oswego. She mentioned the unincorporated area of Rivergrove, with its housing stock of starter homes that were being torn down and replaced with less affordable houses. She pointed to Foothills as another discussion point on affordable housing. She asked what role did the Council want to have in providing a diversity of housing stock as part of affordable housing. Mayor Hoffman pointed out that the City did have a definition of affordable housing, as explained in the Affordable Housing Task Force report: 50% of the median income in Lake Oswego. He noted that the report identified affordable housing as a problem in Lake Oswego in the loss of its City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 3 of 26 January 17, 2009 diversity of housing stock, and in the loss of its diversity in demographics. He recalled hearing at the recent round tables many people speak of the lack of housing available for the elderly to age in place. He posed a question for determining whether Lake Oswego had affordable housing: could one afford today to buy the house one lived in today? If not, then there were issues to discuss. He concurred that the School District losing children was directly related to the inability of young families to live in Lake Oswego. He explained that these issues were part of the reason that he wanted to do the visioning: what would the community look like in 20 years? He mentioned another question with regard to the housing stock in Lake Oswego: who would buy a 4,000 to 5,000 square foot house in 20 years? Did Lake Oswego have a socially sustainable diversity of housing stock? He spoke to bringing back the 50+ Task Force and the Affordable Housing Task Force to discuss these issues with the Council. Councilor Tierney commented that he preferred the term 'attainable housing' over 'affordable housing' because Councilor Hennagin was right about the connotations of 'affordable housing.' He mentioned the issue of the diversity of the Lake Oswego population demographic. He observed that policy issues often transcended specific Council decisions. He described attainable housing as part of sustainability. Mr. Lashbrook mentioned that a tremendous number of affordable housing units in Lake Oswego have disappeared. He recalled that during the course of the Task Force's work, hearing from people who could no longer afford to live in Lake Oswego, once one large apartment complex was torn down and another one converted to condos. He urged the Council members to read the first five pages of the five-year-old Task Force report to see if they wanted to move forward on any recommendations, other than the secondary dwelling units already in progress. He cautioned the Council against starting another process if it was not really committed to it. Councilor Johnson suggested having a 50 minus Task Force to look at the other side of the issue. Councilor Hennagin concurred that there was a perception outside of Lake Oswego that it was an unaffordable place in which to live. He observe that the affordable houses in Lake Oswego, such as 1960s ranch style homes, did not meet people's expectations today for what they wanted to buy. Ms. Christie mentioned that in shopping for a home that was ready to live in, as opposed to a starter home, she was not finding anything in Lake Oswego comparable to what she had in Newberg. She observed that the perception issue was very real, in that she and her husband wondered if they would be able to keep up with the community. Mr. McIntyre commented that in the course of working for relatively affluent communities, he has heard this same conversation from other Council members in those communities as they struggled with exactly these issues of housing stock and perceptions/expectations. He indicated to Councilor Tierney that no one has solved the issue. He mentioned that the final issue was the policy makers' perception of what existed in the community. Denigrating the value of the community could lead to the introduction of housing stock that brought down the overall quality of the community, which was something that policy makers would never publically admit. Councilor Jordan gave an example of her oldest daughter and son-in-law, before they had children, deciding to move back to the Portland area and choosing to live elsewhere than Lake Oswego because they did not want to go through another house remodel. Now that they had two kids and wanted the community services offered in Lake Oswego, they wished that they had bought the house in Lake Oswego that needed remodeling. Mayor Hoffman suggested that Mr. Lashbrook present the five page executive summary of the Affordable Housing Task Force report to the Council this spring. City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 4 of 26 January 17, 2009 • Other issu s Mr. Hertzberg observed that the 50+ issue touched on a variety of different things. Councilor Johnson spoke of setting a Council policy to encourage the involvement of 50+ citizens in the ACC programs. She recalled that the ACC director focused on getting people to the ACC. She suggested moving programs out into the community, such as partnering with local restaurants, etc. Councilor Jordan commented that transportation was another 50+ issue, especially for those who could not drive but did not see themselves as ACC people. Mr. Lashbrook indicated to Mr. Hertzberg that the staff person assigned to secondary dwelling units would be bringing it to the Planning Commission for study session soon. Mr. Hertzberg recessed the meeting for a break at 9:55 a.m. Mr. Hertzberg reconvened the meeting at 10:05 a.m. He noted that annexation was an issue that has sometimes been divisive on the Council and explosive in the community. Therefore, it was important for each Council member to give his/her perspective on the issue. He clarified to Councilor Olson that at the end of the day he hoped to have clear goals with clear outcomes associated with them. He noted that on the left of the white board were the items with clear outcomes, to which the Council has already made a commitment, except for the infrastructure issues. He pointed out the second list of items coming to the Council in any event, unless the Council stopped them, and a third list of tasks for discussion. • Annexation Mr. Lashbrook declared a potential conflict of interest on annexation because he had family members who owned homes in the Rosewood/Rivergrove area outside the city limits, and which were not yet receiving City sewer service. Councilor Johnson indicated that she was in a similar situation. Mr. Lashbrook reminded the Council that Lake Oswego was the designated urban service provider in the unincorporated areas within its Urban Services Boundary (USB), and that no other city could annex those areas. He indicated that currently the population of the Lake Oswego unincorporated USB was around 7,000 people, with a potential build out population of up to 15,000 people. He pointed out that many of the unincorporated USB areas had poor facilities and services in place now; i.e., lousy streets, no storm drain system, no sewer system, no water system, and no parks. He spoke of the unique situation in Lake Oswego that the City's property tax revenue actually supported the services provided by the City. In most cities, providing services to their residential areas meant a net drain on the city. He pointed out that the point of annexation was to provide services to the annexed areas. He wondered whether the City wanted to annex aggressively these areas because of the potential financial drain on the City to provide upgraded services. Councilor Johnson indicated that she did not see the Council taking a proactive stance on annexing X amount of acres in 2009. She spoke of holding an open conversation with the USB areas about how to work together, with one of the options being annexation. Councilor Jordan described the piecemeal method of annexation currently used by the City as costly to the City and the property owner because it often forced building infrastructure in an inefficient and costly manner. She commented that staff has proactively worked on ways to entice people to join an annexation process occurring in their neighborhood. She recalled that recently, the City agreed to provide sewer service to a property not contiguous to the city limits, but which had a totally failed septic system, with the proviso that once the property became contiguous to the city, the City would annex the property. She expressed concern about providing services without a date certain of annexation. She said that she did not want the City to City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 5 of 26 January 17, 2009 get in a position similar to Washington County, where it had various service providers providing urban services to unincorporated residents, who then had no motivation to annex to a city. Councilor Moncrieff indicated that she saw annexation as part of asset management. She spoke to taking a holistic look at how to provide sewer services in the most financially efficient way, since it was inevitable that the City would provide those services to its unincorporated USB residents. She concurred with Councilor Johnson that she did not see annexation as a goal this year, but she did think it was in the City's best interest to have a holistic plan. Mr. McIntyre pointed out that the business model of annexation broke the bank, while the community model raised the question of, "if they are part of our community, then why are we not serving them?" He noted the issues of environmental sustainability with respect to septic systems, and financial sustainability with respect to how to pay for providing services. He observed that it was a Catch-22 that he did not have a good answer for at this moment. He mentioned Clackamas County's stated desire to get out of the municipal services provision business because cities provided those services more efficiently and cost-effectively. He commented that the County might start pushing this on the City, and the City needed to figure out how to deal with it. He pointed out that given the fact that the County came out ahead on this renunciation of service provision and not the cities, there might be room for discussion about how to approach the issue. Councilor Hennagin stated that his primary concern over the past two years has been the piecemeal method of annexation utilized by the City, which has created islands in various areas of the city. He argued that it was in everybody's best interests and the most efficient method to annex the islands all at once. He recalled former Councilor Turchi's information that the Rosewood neighbors were concerned about their sewers' condition; it would be less costly for those neighbors to annex as a group and form a local improvement district to pay for sewers. Councilor Tierney concurred with Mr. McIntyre's remarks. He pointed out that piecemeal annexation did not offer good planning, nor did it make sense. He spoke of finding a model that worked. Mr. Hertzberg commented that he heard agreement on the idea of staff developing an annexation model to avoid piecemeal annexation, but not as a Council goal. Mr. Powell indicated to Mayor Hoffman that the City did not have to annex any property unless there was a health hazard annexation order by the Council. Mayor Hoffman noted that there was the business model, the community model, the sustainability model, and the political model for annexation. He recalled discussions in 1999 regarding the political model, or fairness/equity model, in terms of people living outside the city limits receiving city services without paying for them. He commented that Lake Oswego backed off forced island annexations after the Nike/Beaverton battle and the Tigard battle, yet people were still angry today over the imputation of not paying their fair share. He observed that both Councilor Tierney and Mr. McIntyre have spoken to looking at the infrastructure model. He described that model as deciding on annexing large areas based upon the potentially lower costs of providing infrastructure to many properties at the same time, as opposed to the more expensive method of providing infrastructure to one property at a time. Mr. Powell clarified that the 1999 discussion was not on island annexations but rather on Chapter 195, which allowed bringing in a huge area via election under urban service provider agreements. He noted that the Tigard -Bull Mountain challenge suggested that the election must have a positive vote in both the inside and the outside area, which killed that annexation. He agreed that the City backed off island annexations after the battles, even though island annexations were a different situation. Mr. H rtzberg reiterated that there seemed to be agreement on developing an infrastructure model to avoid piecemeal annexation, but not as a Council goal. City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 6 of 26 January 17, 2009 • Neighborhood Plans Councilor Moncrieff commented, as a person who has just gone through the neighborhood planning process, that before the City embarked on another plan, the neighborhood going into the process needed to understand clearly what the Council's goals and vision were. She observed that the neighborhood's vision not jiving with the City's vision became problematic at the time for Council adoption, and frustrating for the neighbors. Councilor Jordan spoke to concentrating on implementing the four completed but not implemented neighborhood plans before moving ahead with another neighborhood plan. Mr. Lashbrook indicated to Councilor Jordan that two or three neighborhoods have contacted City staff about applying for the neighborhood plan process. Mayor Hoffman raised the question of what would be Lake Oswego's urban form. Should it be driven by the neighborhood urban form, or would the community decide on a different urban form? He speculated that a visioning process might help answer that question. Councilor Tierney agreed that the question was whether Lake Oswego was a city or a collection of neighborhoods. Councilor Moncrieff reiterated that whatever the Council's vision was, the Council needed to communicate that to the neighborhoods. Councilor Jordan questioned how they could tell a new neighborhood wanting to design its plan what the City goal was until they cleaned up the current code. Councilor Tierney commented that they could not answer that question until they have answered the question on urban form. Mr. Powell pointed out that the neighborhood planning staff was put into an impossible position when the Planning Commission and the City Council were critical of the very plan that they had been assigned to help the neighborhood design in compliance with the City code. He concurred with Dan Vizzini and Mr. Lashbrook that the Council needed to look at the philosophy behind neighborhood planning. Mr. Lashbrook said that while he was an advocate of neighborhood planning, he was concerned about embarking on new neighborhood plans without completing many other items already on the Council list. He acknowledged that it was a hot button issue in the community, but reiterated that the Council's list so far was very planning -intensive. He noted that Planning was down two people with no plans to fill the positions in this economy. He explained that he was moving Development Review staff (the workload was down 50% from last year) to Long -Range Planning, but staff has not yet started on the biggest projects, including the master plans. He agreed that there was a lot of clean up needed on the existing neighborhood plans, but emphasized that Planning could not take on another neighborhood plan at this time. Mr. McIntyre agreed that this was a capacity issue in terms of providing a quality product. He concurred with a point raised previously by Councilor Jordan that a key component missing from the neighborhood plans was an economic analysis, or the cost factor for implementation. He commented that adopting something that the Council has said it would support without knowing the cost should concern the Council. He referenced the 'heartburn' experienced by the prior Council in having to allocate $100,000 to clean up the FAN alleys based upon a past Council's agreement to do that. He held that the neighborhood plans were on the shelf because there was no money behind them. Councilor Jordan commented that the economic analysis was where neighborhood planning fit into the overall City goals, because it was a prioritization of how the City spent money. Mr. Lashbrook commented that one of the things that he thought the City has done wrong in these planning processes has been how it conveyed the message at the start of the process. He cited the infill task force process, in which eight years ago, the Council did not set a date certain for completion, or set a limit on the staff resources assigned to the task. City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 7 of 26 January 17, 2009 Mr. Hertzberg summarized the discussion as the City needed to have clear communication with respect to neighborhood plans, any movement forward should focus on cleaning up the existing plans, and the City should not take on additional neighborhood plans at this time. Infill Councilor Olson agreed with Mr. Lashbrook that the Infill Task Force needed to end, even though she questioned whether the Infill Task Force has actually finished its task. She commented that she had not felt that the Planning Commission had received a product because there were so many issues left up to the Commission to decide. Councilor Tierney mentioned hearing an Infill Task Force member say that the Task Force was evenly divided and could reach no resolution on a number of issues. He pointed out that putting an end date on a process might result in the Council getting nothing out of it. Councilor Olson spoke strongly in support of the Planning Commission getting its recommendation on the Infill Task Force work to Council so that the Council could make a decision on it in 2009. Mayor Hoffman confirmed to Mr. Lashbrook that the Council wanted a date certain by which the Planning Commission would forward its recommendations on this issue to the Council for a decision. Councilor Olson mentioned that one of the issues on which the Task Force evenly split was single -family residential design review, a complicated topic that meshed in with visioning and periodic review. Councilor Olson confirmed to Councilor Jordan that she wanted this Infill Task Force to end because this group was not productive, and what they have sent forward was not well-defined. • Parks Mr. Hertzberg commented that earlier conversation had indicated that the Parks plan should be part of the mix of doing master plans, as opposed to a separate Council goal. Mr. McIntyre indicated to Councilor Johnson that he would take Council direction on the Parks Comprehensive Plan based on the Council's allocation of resources and prioritization of projects. He agreed that the Council needed a study session on the topic. He commented that the budget process was another way for the Council to approve or disapprove which master plans staff worked on this year. Councilor Johnson indicated that whichever mechanism Mr. McIntyre chose was fine with her. She spoke to the Council stepping back after the budget process and looking at all the infrastructure master plans in order to get the big picture for prioritizing all of them, including the top ones that surfaced during the budget discussion. Mr. Lashbrook indicated to Councilor Hennagin that the Comprehensive Plan included master planning for the parks. He explained that the City could not charge SDCs for things that were not master planned, which included parks as well as other infrastructure. Councilor Hennagin asked how the City would approach the parks master planning: as part of the Comprehensive Review update process or as part of the asset management/infrastructure master planning effort? Mr. Lashbrook clarified that the City had master plans for all its infrastructure areas but they were all out of date. Staff would continue to use these old plans for as long as necessary. He emphasized that staff could not undertake updating all the master plans at the same time. Councilor Jordan pointed out that the push on the parks plan has been specifically focused on Luscher Farm, and not on the overall parks system. The Luscher Farm Master Plan, as a specific piece within the Parks System Comprehensive Plan, was out of date because the City has acquired so much additional property in the area. She argued that Luscher Farm was a different discussion than the City's overall asset management plan for its Parks & Recreation system. She recalled attending a lecture at Metro last year at which she learned that contrary to the common perception that land use drove the engineering process, the engineering process actually City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 8 of 26 January 17, 2009 drove the land use. She noted the example of how access and connectivity drove what was built on land. She stated her preference that the Council discuss its philosophy for asset management and its priorities before beginning the budget process. Mr. Hertzberg noted that there was agreement to have a study session on asset management plans for infrastructure before the budget process. Mr. McIntyre clarified to Mayor Hoffman that he saw the asset management plan as dealing with what the City currently owned and operated. He noted that he has been using the terms 'asset management plan' and 'master plan' interchangeably, which might be inappropriate. Councilor Jordan commented that they needed to update the plans not only to manage the assets currently in place, but also to look at how to move forward with the priorities for making the connections already in the plan. Councilor Olson indicated that she heard Mr. McIntyre's concern as the City acquiring things without a plan. She spoke to assessing first what the City had and how it would manage those assets before continuing with indiscriminate acquisitions. Mayor Hoffman commented that the Parks Master Plan indicated what the future need was, and not whether the City would maintain a particular park. Councilor Olson agreed that those two functions were separate. Councilor Johnson concurred, observing that that was why they did management plans. Councilor Olson indicated to Councilor Hennagin that if something was already in a plan, such as a trail, then the Council needed to figure out how to pay for that element. She argued that the City needed to take care of all its open space. She spoke of prioritizing and looking at trade offs; if they did one thing, then they did not do something else. Mr. Hertzberg summarized the discussion as infrastructure management plans took the big picture view of what the City already owned. Another issue was how to stage the work because staff could not do it all at once. Councilor Johnson spoke to having a study session on infrastructure management plans, during which the Council could talk about managing elements within the plan, such as managing the City's open space or Luscher Farm. Councilor Tierney asked if Mr. McIntyre needed an expectation of what the Council expected to see for a budget number, or would he bring back a budget based on assumptions. He commented that he did not want staff to do a lot of work and then the Council said no, and staff had to start over again. He indicated that he wanted to discuss assumptions in the budget, such as the 3% increase built in by state law. He observed that a challenge to that increase would inform the discussion. Councilor Jordan cited the example in the Transportation System Plan of the City identifying trails crossing private property, which sometimes the developer then did not want to put in. She spoke to looking at how to handle that sort of situation, as it occurred within the City's current plans. • Sensitive Lands Mr. Lashbrook indicated to Councilor Jordan that changing the scope of Clean Streams to basin plans would not affect the upcoming Sensitive Lands Ordinance, as those changes related to code language. He pointed out that stream basin planning was a different topic not yet taken on by the City. Councilor Olson recalled that the sensitive lands discussion at the Planning Commission had been very heated, as many in the community were unhappy about how the City was handling the update. She mentioned the Planning staff's attempt to separate code revisions from the sensitive lands mapping, and to get the revisions done before showing people the maps. She said that the Commission directly asked staff numerous times not to separate the two issues and to do a better City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 9 of 26 January 17, 2009 job of informing the property owners of potentially mapped sensitive lands with respect to the code revisions. She indicated that many viewed the code revisions as public taking. Councilor Moncrieff described the sensitive lands conversation as an opportunity for the City and the Council to demonstrate transparency and receptiveness, and to practice good communication. She agreed with Councilor Olson that the current process had the change of language for sensitive lands coming first, and then the City notifying property owners that their properties were now on the sensitive lands map. Mr. Lashbrook indicated that not all the mapping was done. He pointed out that the Council, not the staff, adopted the maps and the code changes. He observed that Metro and State requirements that applied to sensitive lands complicated the whole subject. He mentioned that Lake Oswego received a lot of compliance with the regional and state entities because it had the strictest tree code in the region. He explained that pulling back from the tree code (he thought that there were good reasons to do so) would put more pressure to do more with wetlands and creek zones. He indicated to Councilor Johnson that doing the mapping first and reviewing the code language second meant putting the work done so far on hold until all the mapping was ready to go forward. He commented that it had seemed sensible to the staff at the time to push for adoption of the code language, yet that strategy has run into difficulty. Mr. McIntyre pointed out that the code language would also inform the maps. Councilor Olson indicated to Councilor Johnson that the planning staff was defining sensitive lands. She stated that the problem was not that staff wanted to do the code language first and the mapping second, but rather that the Planning Commission asked staff repeatedly to do the two tasks simultaneously, and staff fought and resisted that request. Councilor Hennagin commented that before having the sensitive lands discussion, the Council needed to know what the State and Metro requirements were, what staff was recommending, and what the differences were. Mayor Hoffman concurred. He suggested not discussing this topic at this time, but rather acknowledging that it was an issue coming to the Council that it needed to finish this year. Councilor Johnson commented that what was happening between the Planning Commission and the staff should not be happening. She spoke to the Council stepping in, giving direction, and ending the conflict. Councilor Moncrieff commented that many Lake Oswego citizens have been carefully reading all of the Metro and State requirements, which has brought up a trust and public perception issue. She noted the public perception that staff was arbitrarily deciding what were sensitive lands and what were not. Councilor Jordan commented that an apparent problem with adopting the code prior to seeing what lands the City would identify as sensitive lands in its plan was that once the code was in place, it was all black and white - there was no flexibility. She said that before adopting the code, she wanted to know why the City needed this particular code language. She wondered whether something in between was possible. She agreed that they needed to know what was legally required and what would be effective. Councilor Tierney observed that this had policy implications respecting who gave direction to whom. He acknowledged that there have been many issues, but held that was no reason for the Planning Commission to be angry with staff. • Tree Code Mr. Hertzberg pointed out that the tree code went on the Council's plate only if it put it there. Mr. Lashbrook observed that Lake Oswego had many citizens with strong opinions on both sides of the tree code. He described the situation with trees as being on a continuum. At one end, there City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 10 of 26 January 17, 2009 was no regulation and a private property owner could cut down any tree on his/her property as he/she wished. At the other end, a private property owner could not cut down anything without a permit and an arduous process. In between, there were many places to draw a line. He commented that this was a policy decision. He indicated that Lake Oswego's current tree code was closer to the regulated end of the continuum. He recalled a conversation that he had with a group of arborists who worked in the Lake Oswego area, during which they complained about the tree code and outlined what needed changing. He said that he could support many of those changes. He indicated that tweaking the tree code was a small project by itself. He pointed out that the tree code was so controversial that even tweaking one element would undoubtedly generate a huge public reaction. Mr. Powell mentioned another issue of deciding whether the tree code should stand on its own, as it currently did, or whether it directly implemented the Comprehensive Plan, and thus should be part of the Community Development Code using land use type processes. He indicated that the better argument was that the tree code implemented the Comprehensive Plan language about preserving trees. He noted that the tree code's current quasi-judicial set up followed land uses processes already, but, once the tree code came back up for discussion, someone could challenge it standing on its own. He recommended moving the tree code into the Community Development Code, if the Council intended to amend the tree code at all, and clarifying that it was a land use type decision with the associated appeal processes. Councilor Hennagin said that he received more comments from citizens on the tree code than on any other subject. He indicated the three areas into which the comments fell: 1) it was too complicated for me to understand, 2) it was enforced arbitrarily by staff, and 3) the trees have grown so tall that they have cut off my view, resulting in my property losing its value. He commented that even though he was trained in reading legislation, he found the tree code complex and difficult to understand. He said that he had no opinion about moving the tree code into the Community Development Code, although he saw an inter -relationship with the sensitive lands overlays. He mentioned that he would like to hear the arborists' recommendations. Councilor Jordan pointed out that there was a perception outside of Lake Oswego about its tree code, that it took away a private property owner's authority to cut down trees on his/her property, which made it an annexation issue. She mentioned the sustainability issue. It would take a long time for new trees to re -gain the environmental good that the community received from its canopy of tall fir trees. She noted that the solar access issue also was part of the sustainability mix. She indicated that she was not certain that this was the time to look at the tree code. Councilor Tierney stated that while he supported modifying the existing tree code, he was not firm on it because it was a complex code with many variables. He suggested that the Council study it in order to understand the implications of making changes, as preparation for making a decision. He pointed out that simplifying the tree code would free up staff time, as currently tree issues took up more staff time in Lake Oswego than in other communities. He indicated that he too would like to see the arborists' recommendations. Mayor Hoffman questioned whether the Council had the capacity to take on the tree code in 2009. He indicated that they could have a study session on it, but emphasized that either Council left it alone or it took on the whole thing. • Stafford Mr. Hertzberg pointed out that Stafford was coming to the Council because it was part of a process underway, of which Lake Oswego was a part. It was simply on the 'to do' list. City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 11 of 26 January 17, 2009 Councilor Jordan reported that the County group studying rural reserves has eliminated most of the Stafford Triangle from rural reserve designation, leaving urban or non -designated as the other two categories available for Stafford. She said that there was a feeling that Lake Oswego should be part of that County planning group now, but they did not want the same person sitting on the Steering Committee (Mayor Hoffman) to sit on the planning group. Mayor Hoffman mentioned that as a member of the Steering Committee, he needed to check in with the Council soon regarding its position on Stafford. Should Stafford remain rural, or could the City accommodate an urban Stafford with the City providing the governance in that area? He noted that the Comprehensive Plan stated that the City would oppose the urbanization of Stafford. He indicated to Councilor Hennagin that the Stafford area forming a new city was an option, but Lake Oswego could provide the governance in Stafford. Mr. Lashbrook pointed out that it would take a change in Council policy to accept growth in the Stafford area, as currently the City policy was that Lake Oswego would not grow out there. Councilor Jordan commented that West Linn had the same policy. • Projects - Centennial Mr. McIntyre mentioned that there has been discussion about holding a year-long Centennial celebration in 2010 with a myriad of events. He asked what the Council wanted to do. He pointed out that this was an opportunity for the community to celebrate something good together to counter the contention and disagreement around other issues. He indicated that he would push the Council hard to spend the money to have a community celebration, but he would defer to the Council majority decision. He observed that while there was nothing controversial about throwing a party, it did take a lot of planning. He needed Council commitment to allocate resources this year in the budget. He mentioned possibly forming a non-profit foundation to raise money also. He emphasized that this was a positive distraction. He hoped that after the celebration was over, the community would say, "Well done." Ms. Christie directed the Council to the background paper in the packet. She explained that events on the calendar were all events that the City already held, into which they could incorporate a Centennial theme. She spoke of throwing a separate party that also captured the Centennial celebration. She reported that 40 to 50 people attended the meeting with the community groups last fall regarding the Centennial celebration. She said that everyone there was excited about it and wanted to be a part of it. Councilor Jordan commented that she thought this would be great for economic development. Councilor Olson hoped to tie in the furnace restoration and the history of Lake Oswego. Mr. Hertzberg noted that planning the Centennial celebration was a 2009 goal. Councilor Olson asked if the Council would discuss the specific requests that it received from the Boards and Commissions as part of this discussion. Mayor Hoffman indicated that this process had three levels: Council goals and issues, Board and Commission issues and projects, and community group requests. - Lakefront Park Mr. Hertzberg noted that the Council already discussed the furnace. Mr. McIntyre stated that the previous Council had asked staff to hold an open house in order to allow neighbors and affected property owners to talk about the plans for the park. He noted that not many people showed up to the open house, but those that did offered their comments. He indicated that it was up to the Council to direct staff to do more outreach. City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 12 of 26 January 17, 2009 He recalled that one of the hopes for the Wizer project, had it gone forward, was that the owners of the motel might have taken over operating the hotel on the Wizer site, which might have made it easier to acquire the existing motel next to the park. He said that the prior Council never made a commitment one way or the other with respect to acquiring the motel. He reported that staff was in the final design process, which would come to the Lake Oswego Redevelopment Agency (LORA) for approval and funding. He noted the intent to complete the park for the 2010 celebration, with the Council possibly renaming the park to something like 'Centennial Park.' He observed that the park did not have a name; staff simply referred to it as `the lakefront park.' Councilor Jordan commented that the park was one of LORA's activities. She recalled that the prior Council had felt that it did not have enough connection with the redevelopment district and where it was going. She spoke to paying more attention to the downtown redevelopment on an ongoing basis. Mr. McIntyre indicated to Councilor Hennagin that Mr. Wizer signed the paperwork to do the development but Trammel Crow Residential lost the project's primary funding, and was in the process of finding new investors. Mr. Hertzberg noted that the lakefront park was also a Council goal for 2009. • Emergency Preparedness Mr. McIntyre observed that coming from California and its need for constant earthquake and fire emergency preparedness, he found the emergency preparedness element in Oregon sadly lacking. He acknowledged that this was not an exciting issue that people wanted to work on, yet it was necessary to plan for emergency situations because they would happen. He referenced the recent 40 -year snowstorm as an example. He said that he was a strong supporter of emergency preparedness. He would see to it that the staff was trained in how to respond to emergencies. He recalled coming in at 2 a.m. upon news of the house slide on Woodhurst, and wondering where everybody was. He mentioned threats to the community, such as wild land fires and volcanoes. He argued that staff should be ready, able, and trained to respond to any kind of emergency event. He pointed out that the City did not have enough staff resources on hand to deal adequately with the effect of a big event on a community of 36,000 residents plus the unincorporated area residents. Therefore, they needed a plan for prioritizing resources in the moment to know that they were going to the right place to preserve life and property. He indicated that while the firefighters and the police officers knew independently what to do, the City as a whole did not have a good plan. He expressed his hope that the Council would agree that this was important and commit the resources to developing a plan and training staff on the plan. Councilor Moncrieff mentioned that Larry Goff, the Assistant Fire Chief, had an excellent emergency preparedness response presentation that he presented at neighborhood association meetings. She asked if the City had existing resources, and whether it was a matter of going through the hazard mitigation plan. Mr. McIntyre indicated that the County was updating the hazard mitigation plan. Mr. McIntyre expressed concern about the coordination of resources and efforts. He mentioned possibly transferring the emergency preparedness resources out of the Fire Department over to his office, and creating a civilian unit responsible for planning. He commented that putting the planning process in the City Manager's Office might lend the power of the office to the idea that emergency preparedness was a serious issue. City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 13 of 26 January 17, 2009 Councilor Tierney commented that he expected the development and training of the plan to be part of the staff's normal work. Mr. Hertzberg pointed out that those things 'below the iceberg' also took staff resources and competed with the things 'above the waterline' for staff resources. Councilor Hennagin suggested tapping into the planning and discussions that occurred four or five years ago, when there was publicity about the due date for the next major earthquake coming up (it occurred every 300 years). Councilor Jordan concurred with Councilor Tierney that emergency preparedness should be part of the City staff plan. She mentioned a need to identify also which facilities would serve as emergency shelters. She spoke of utilizing the neighborhood associations already in place to help first responders in an emergency. She suggested possibly requiring neighborhood associations to meet once a year on their emergency response plan. Councilor Olson pointed out that another problem was that most of the City staff did not live in Lake Oswego; it could be difficult for them to get here to help the city residents. She agreed with Councilor Jordan about identifying places for people to go. • Schools Mr. McIntyre reported that he met with Dr. Korach last Thursday. He said that he explained to Dr. Korach that the Council had not meant to exclude the School District from the Monday night community group meeting; rather the Mayor wanted the Council to meet one-on-one with the School Board. He mentioned that the District was facing tough economic times, and that Mr. Korach had tactfully sent the message asking if there was anything that the City could do for the schools. He mentioned that the School District operation was about the same size as the City operation. It was a $50 million organization with twice as many employees and onsite facilities. He commented that he was not certain that the City had any additional resources lying around that it could shift revenues to the District. Councilor Jordan pointed out that that was illegal in Oregon. Mr. McIntyre mentioned the overlapping areas between the City and the District, such as facilities, fields, recreation programs, and maintenance. He commented that in his previous positions, he has never successfully gotten the School District and the City to merge overlapping areas because of 'turfism.' He commented that he gave Dr. Korach some hope by noting the possibility of opportunities to consolidate and coordinate certain functions between the City and the District in Lake Oswego. He indicated to Councilor Tierney that Dr. Korach's concern had also been that the Council was setting its goals without input from the District. Councilor Johnson commented that in two years, she has never been invited to a School Board meeting. Councilor Jordan said that the Council was told to stay out of School Board business. She agreed that it was a turf issue. She pointed out that the school funding set up in Oregon forced schools to be entrepreneurial and provide programs that competed with the City's Parks & Recreation programs. She commented that maintenance might be an opportunity for consolidation. Mr. Hertzberg commented that an underlying goal of the Council has always been to support and cooperate with the School District. He observed that if any cooperative arrangement moved ahead, the Council would be involve in extensive discussions to make sure that it all worked. Councilor Tierney mentioned that he heard from an audience member that one issue that the Council has not discussed was the potential school closures. He mentioned school enrollment as part of the attainable housing discussion. Mr. Hertzberg recessed the meeting for lunch at 11:55 a.m. Mr. Hertzberg reconvened the meeting at 12:10 p.m. City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 14 of 26 January 17, 2009 Mr. Hertzberg pointed out that the first three topics under the economic development heading— Foothills, streetcar, and downtown—all related to one another. He noted the other two topics of Lake Grove Village Center Plan and supporting, retaining, and recruiting businesses. Councilor Johnson asked how to fit economic development into the City Manager's Office in terms of resources and management. She asked if Mr. McIntyre wanted Council direction. Mr. McIntyre recalled noticing when he first joined the City that while the City did a lot of great `bricks and mortar' work in the downtown, it did not have much to do with the businesses themselves, outside of informal relationships with the Chamber and the Downtown Business Alliance. He raised the question of how to make sure that the downtown and Kruse Way—which had the highest per square foot leases in the area—remained an economic engine for the City. He mentioned an upcoming meeting requested by Norris & Stevens, the majority landowner in the Kruse Way corridor. He noted that the former Nature's, a brand new facility in the Lake Grove District, was still vacant today. He recalled hearing that the market would take care of filling the building, yet he wondered about that because vacant buildings contributed to decline in business districts. He spoke in support of shopping locally and living where one worked. He pointed out that in this economy, several businesses have already left town. He asked if there was a role for the City to play in attracting businesses. He commented that he did not want to conclude after the fact that this anecdotal information announced a trend to the City, and the City missed it. Councilor Johnson mentioned that particularly in the LORA meetings, she has missed the connection between the dollars LORA spent doing redevelopment and how that contributed to economic development. She spoke to making economic development a LORA goal. Councilor Olson concurred that the City needed to do abetter job at economic development. She suggested having at a minimum, one full time employee (FTE) assigned to economic development. She agreed with Mr. McIntyre that they could not sustain the city economically if there were vacant store fronts. Councilor Moncrieff concurred with the previous comments. She suggested that the economic development staff person be someone passionate and educated about economic development. She spoke to making sure that economic development included all the city's business areas, Lake Grove, Kruse Way, Westlake, Mountain Park, and Downtown. Mayor Hoffman pointed out that the separate agency LORA was limited to the East End. He concurred with Councilor Johnson that there should be an economic development staff person within the City Manager's Office. He commented that other cities have undoubtedly taken similar steps to encourage businesses in their business communities. Councilor Jordan discussed a long-range possibility regarding the Kruse Way corridor, which she thought needed to be on the Council's radar. She pointed out that eventually the surface parking lots would become too expensive to remain as surface parking lots. She spoke to having housing as a component of any new buildings or enlarged buildings. She mentioned another long-range possibility regarding the city's light industrial zone near 1-5. She suggested creating an office campus, using green energy elements to support new companies, where the city now had light industrial. She held that these types of actions were what would keep the community viable as the city grew, and what would allow people to live and work in the same location. Councilor Tierney said that he could support economic development activities within the City, similar to Mr. McIntyre's suggestions to attract and retain businesses, but, without understanding the component elements, he could not agree that the City needed an FTE. Councilor Johnson said that one thing she wanted accomplished in economic development was a staff person to bring business issues to the Council's attention, such as modifications to the sign code. She spoke of having an ombudsman to help new and existing businesses navigate City City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 15 of 26 January 17, 2009 Code. She suggested a 2009 goal of dedicating one FTE to economic development, whether that was hiring a new FTE or Mr. McIntyre re -assigning an existing employee. Councilor Tierney said that he wanted to see what the plan, expected outcomes, and needed resources were. He reiterated that he would not vote for an FTE without understanding what the FTE would do and be held accountable for. He indicated that his 2009 goal would be for the Council to accept and for staff to begin to implement a plan. Councilor Johnson stated that she wanted to see Mr. McIntyre's plan address economic development from a management standpoint in terms of what resources he needed in order to make it happen. Mr. McIntyre indicated that what he heard the Council saying was that it wanted to dedicate resources to economic development. He stated that it was critical, in order to understand what the City would be taking on, that the Council clarify what it meant by economic development, and what kind of activities fell or did not fall within that category. He pointed out that how broadly or aggressively they pursued economic development would set the tone for what Lake Oswego was and what the City was committed to. Councilor Jordan spoke of developing a mission and goals for the City's economic development policy, and strategies to implement the policy. Councilor Olson commented that she had been narrowly defining economic development as supporting, retaining, and recruiting businesses. Economic Development Items Mr. McIntyre discussed the items listed under the economic development heading. He noted that the City had one staff person assigned to implement the downtown redevelopment plan, a plan that has been in place for 20 years. He mentioned receiving feedback asking whether the City has been aggressive enough in implementing the plan and assisting downtown businesses. He directed the Council to the briefing paper on the Lake Grove Village Center Plan prepared by Ms. Frisbee. He commented that the City could view this as an implementation plan conducted by the Planning Department, or as an economic development plan to revitalize a commercial area of the city. As an economic development plan, he would need to dedicate resources to it, depending on how aggressively the Council wanted to implement the plan. • Foothills/Streetcar Mr. McIntyre noted that Foothills and the streetcar went hand in hand. He spoke of the window of opportunity on the streetcar opening and closing in their professional lifetimes. He emphasized that if the City did not aggressively pursue the streetcar, then the Council should not expect it to come to Lake Oswego. Rather, it would stop at Nevada Street, as Portland Mayor Sam Adams wished it to do. He indicated that the question was what level of effort did the Council want to exert with respect to the streetcar. He mentioned that one of the criteria for consideration of federal funding for the streetcar would be the economic development piece, which was Foothills. He emphasized that the streetcar and Foothills were interwoven such that one could not happen without the other. If the Council said no to one, then it was saying no to the other also. He said that the Foothill property owners were anxious to move a project forward, and have just entered into an agreement with Williams & Dane, the developer of the South Waterfront. He indicated that City staff was working with the property owners to help them focus and move forward. He pointed out that the Council needed to understand the roles and responsibilities of the players involved. He emphasized that if the Council wanted to move forward on Foothills, then the City needed to invest in the process. He confirmed to Councilor Olson that staff would bring the intergovernmental agreement between the streetcar consortium agencies (which defined the financial obligations of each partner) to the Council in February. He concurred that that was a short time frame but pointed out that the City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 16 of 26 January 17, 2009 Council inherited a train running full speed ahead. He suggested that the Council look at the streetcar in terms of its contribution to the long-term viability of Lake Oswego. He reiterated that once the window on the streetcar shut, and the region reprioritized its projects, Lake Oswego would have to get back in line with everyone else and possibly wait another 40 years. Mayor Hoffman recalled that the 1999/2000 Council voted (4 to 3) to fund the trolley because if it did not do so, the City would lose the right-of-way. He commented that over the 30 years of this project, each Council has kept the project alive. He noted that now, according to Mr. McIntyre, it was 'fish or cut bait' time. Councilor Tierney asked if there was an action that the Council needed to take to confirm the previous Councils' decisions. Mr. McIntyre indicated that the intergovernmental agreement decision coming up in February would continue the City's investment in moving the project forward. He said that the question was whether this Council wanted to maintain the investment. Councilor Tierney recalled seeing community interest in continuing this project during the campaign. Councilor Johnson described this upcoming intergovernmental agreement as simply another step in a series of steps taking them towards the end result. The Council's goal was to discuss and define this next step. Mr. McIntyre indicated that this funding piece was for the Environmental, Social, Energy, and Economic (ESEE), with Lake Oswego as the third biggest contributor behind Portland and Clackamas County. Councilor Jordan indicated that there was a $4 million line item before JPACT and the Metro Council, asking for authorization for the Lake Oswego streetcar connection. She said that their project was the last project of the current planning for transit and light rail to start. They would fund the ESEE study out of that stream of money. She explained that doing all the preliminary work of the ESEE study and engineering studies as soon as possible could effectively jumpstart the process, which could mean lower construction costs if they built the project sooner rather than later, assuming that the studies showed that the project was viable. She commented that the Foothills property owners backing away from the idea that nothing could be developed in Foothills without moving the wastewater treatment plant has helped move that process along. The Council discussed the streetcar as a goal. Councilors Johnson and Tierney each supported keeping the project moving forward. Mr. McIntyre reiterated that the context of this discussion was economic development. Perhaps they needed to pull Foothills and the streetcar out of economic development and proceed with it separately. He indicated that he still needed to know what the Council believed economic development meant. He mentioned that he would prefer that the Council not direct him to implement a Main Street program in the City, per Ms. Shaw -Ryan's suggestion, but rather to direct him to research it and to make sure that it would be a good fit for Lake Oswego. Councilor Hennagin commented that he saw the economic development ideal as along the lines of what he understood Main Street to involve. He spoke to proceeding separately with Foothills and the streetcar, and facilitating the economic development process. Mayor Hoffman indicated that he saw economic development as the whole package from businesses to the streetcar. Councilor Moncrieff described economic development as both long- term (including the streetcar and Foothills) and immediate (helping businesses to not close their doors, attracting new businesses). Mr. Hertzberg noted that there was general consensus on the Council that economic development included both short-term efforts and long-term efforts, such as the Foothills/streetcar piece. Councilor Tierney disagreed, explaining that his concept of the void in the City with respect to economic development was a need to support, retain, and recruit businesses. He said that he wholeheartedly supported the long-term projects, but he understood that the economic development question under discussion right now focused on what the City was not doing. City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 17 of 26 January 17, 2009 Councilor Olson pointed out that long-term projects contained a huge planning element in contrast to supporting, retailing, and recruiting businesses. Councilors Tierney and Olson concurred with Mr. McIntyre's question describing Foothills and streetcar as sitting on the base of the iceberg. Councilor Johnson concurred with the previous comments. She reiterated the possibility of the City having one person dedicated to economic development working out of the City Manager's Office. She pointed out that it would be Mr. McIntyre's job to decide how to best address all the elements of economic development, both long-term and short-term. Mr. Hertzberg summarized the Council's comments as agreeing that the economic development gap in the City was a lack of supporting, retaining, and attracting businesses, and that the Council would continue to preserve the Foothills and streetcar options through Council decisions later this year. Lake Grove Village Center Plan Mr. McIntyre indicated that in addition to exploring the Main Street concept with respect to Lake Grove, the City needed to complete the request for proposals process for the transportation studies and get Council and public feedback on those proposals. He noted the next questions of how to pay for plan, and how to pay for the financial shortfall. He recalled Mr. Galante's comments yesterday that forming an urban renewal district in this community was easier said than done, given the controversy and the time factor. He mentioned that Mr. Seals had regretted not forming the district three years ago because they would have had a tax increment today. He commented that he was not clear on how to make the plan happen without tax increment financing. Councilor Jordan commented that all the various pieces of economic development, even the smallest pieces, had financial implications. She spoke to supporting the downtown and Lake Grove to the extent economically feasible. She mentioned looking at ways to improve the City's ability to facilitate economic development, including tax increment financing and other options. She pointed out that they could not do all that in one year. Mayor Hoffman commented that he had thought that they would discuss the funding mechanism at the same time as the RFP. He observed that there were only four options: passing the hat, a local improvement district, general tax revenues, or tax increment financing. He agreed with Mr. McIntyre that perhaps they should not do the plan if they had no funding mechanism and were only creating an expectation. Councilor Jordan argued that they should do the plan because they have already created the expectation, and because it was vital to the community. She pointed out that they had to do the transportation studies anyway in order to define the right-of-way, or private redevelopment would not happen. She noted that without a plan in place, the City could not ask Metro for street improvement funds. Mr. Hertzberg summarized the discussion as 'complete the study with the intention to follow through appropriately.' He indicated to the Mayor that 'follow through' meant not putting it on the shelf. Councilor Jordan said that she thought that part of the Lake Grove Village Plan had been to have a public discussion about the various financial mechanisms needed to make it work, which she acknowledged would probably not happen until 2010, following completion of the studies this fall. Mr. McIntyre indicated to Mr. Hertzberg that it was reasonable to expect staff to present the completed plan to the Council in the fall. Mayor Hoffman and Councilor Olson spoke of including the financing options in the plan. Councilor Jordan pointed out that the very least the Council needed to do was to adopt the transportation layout defining the right-of-way. City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 18 of 26 January 17, 2009 The Council discussed whether discussing the financing options should occur concurrently with the transportation studies. Councilor Tierney held that the Council did not need the recommendations coming out of the studies to begin a political dialog about financing options. Councilor Jordan held that the public discussion on financing options needed the study recommendations, and therefore, the two elements were sequential, and not concurrent. Councilor Olson mentioned the issue of LORA deciding whether to end the downtown urban redevelopment district, if considering districts in Foothills and Lake Grove, because the town would not tolerate three districts. Councilor Hennagin pointed out that the Council has essentially adopted the Village Center Plan, absent the traffic element, and that everyone expected the Council to move ahead with the plan. He supported having someone explore the funding options in 2009 concurrently with the studies. Mr. Hertzberg commented that they did not need to decide on a sequential or concurrent process right now. He summarized the Council discussion as the Council wanted to move ahead more quickly using a concurrent process, unless the sequential process proved necessary. The Council agreed by consensus. Councilor Jordan mentioned that the style handbook was another element needing staffing and financing. • Downtown Councilor Olson spoke to discussing what projects were left to do and the return of the district to the normal tax rolls. Councilor Johnson suggested re-evaluating the LORA plan before deciding if the Council wanted to end the district. Mayor Hoffman concurred. Mr. Hertzberg summarized the Council 2009 goal as asking LORA to determine the future of downtown redevelopment by December 31. • Is the list doable? Mr. H rtzberg reviewed the list items: - Infrastructure: Lake Oswego Interceptor Sewer work plan, Tigard/Lake Oswego Water Supply work plan, infrastructure management plans - Facilities: West End Building, other facilities - Future Planning: Periodic Review, ongoing planning issues - Economic Development - Miscellaneous: Library District funds decisions, emergency response plans, budget, Centennial planning, Lakefront Park, developing a model to avoid piecemeal annexations, clear communication, cleaning up neighborhood planning. Mr. Hertzberg pointed out that this list did not include visioning, attainable housing, or the tree code. It had very little on neighborhood plans and annexation, and nothing explicit on Luscher Farm. • Clean Streams Mr. Lashbrook expressed his concern that the Clean Streams plan might get pushed off for some time, yet the City has invested several years of work in it. He commented that the criticisms he heard of the plan focused on what had been left out, as opposed to what was in it. He hoped that the Council would adopt the plan as a good body of work that was worth moving forward on. Councilor Jordan asked for clarification on the use of the two FTEs in the Clean Streams plan. Mr. Hertzberg recessed the meeting for a break at 1:20 p.m. Mr. Hertzberg reconvened the meeting at 1:35 p.m. City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 19 of 26 January 17, 2009 Mr. Hertzberg noted that they had 12/31 targets for the planning issues, the economic development issues, and most of the small, routine issues. He described the plan to communicate with and engage the public as the warp in the weft of the Council's work plan. He noted that the only things left were the model for future annexations and clear communication regarding neighborhood plans. He asked if this list was doable from both the staffs and the Council's perspectives. Mr. McIntyre indicated that staff believed the list was doable from a technical perspective in delivering a quality product. He reiterated the importance of the Council being crystal clear on what it expected to see on December 31. He pointed out that the Council, not the staff, controlled the public process part of the workload, or how many meetings the Council held on any given topic. Staff could hold as many meetings as the Council wanted, but the tradeoff was that some things might not get done by December 31. He pointed out that if the Council wanted him to railroad through a controversial issue, such as infill, in order to get it done, then that ran contrary to the Council direction to make sure that there was sufficient public engagement and outreach. He asked for clarity on what the Council meant by 'public engagement.' He spoke of the burden on the Council members to get up to speed on the various issues. He emphasized that the only element that he did not control was how the Council chose to process an item. He advocated for the intergovernmental relations item that he had brought up before. He reiterated the importance of the City communicating with its local, regional, state and federal representatives on a regular basis, so that those legislators would remember Lake Oswego when it came time to allocate funding. He commented that while there was no guarantee that the City would receive funds to offset project costs from this investment of time and resources, local governments in contact with their representatives almost always did. He said that he would locate that resource in his office. Mr. Hertzberg asked the Council three questions: Was this the right list? Was it doable? Was anything missing from the advisory boards' perspectives? Councilor Olson suggested moving the furnace to the middle list. She spoke to setting sustainability as an overarching element running through everything else on the list (as opposed to a separate item), similarly to what they were doing with communication and engagement. She wondered how to fold in the advisory board requests, such as funding the Ironworker's Cottage and the Cooks Butte Management Plan, and supporting a Heritage Trail Task Force. Mr. McIntyre indicated to Councilor Hennagin that the Boards' request to address the Transportation Plan fell within the infrastructure category. Councilor Hennagin conceded the unlikelihood of revising the tree code in 2009. Mayor Hoffman asked whether the Council wanted to move any of these items to the left column: visioning, attainable housing, annexation, neighborhood plans, and Luscher Farm. Councilor Hennagin mentioned annexation as the only item he would be concerned about moving over. Councilor Hennagin indicated to Mr. Hertzberg that he did not think that the Council had much choice but to do everything on the list; most of it was either 'must do' or 'must make progress on.' Councilor Hennagin left at 1:47 p.m. Councilor Olson indicated that she would move Luscher Farm and neighborhood plans over because she heard continually during the campaign that those were important issues to the community. She mentioned that the neighborhoods felt ignored. Councilor Johnson held that they would address Luscher Farm in the Park Plan as part of the infrastructure management plans. Mr. Hertzberg pointed out that doing management plans did not mean doing all of them; it meant doing a plan to do management plans and sequencing the City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 20 of 26 January 17, 2009 plans. Councilor Johnson indicated that she would put the Parks Plan towards the top of that sequencing. Councilor Johnson asked what the Council wanted to accomplish with respect to neighborhood plans, if it moved the item over to the left. Councilor Olson spoke to continuing to help the neighborhoods that were trying to implement their plans, while not starting any new plans. Councilor Johnson commented that she did not see this as a Council goal, but rather as basic City business. Councilor Olson expressed concern that neighborhood plans might not receive sufficient attention if the Council did not recognize them as a priority. Mr. Lashbrook indicated that if the Council was silent on neighborhood plans, staff would continue working on implementing the four plans on a limited basis. He stated that given what was already on the list, he preferred to shift most staff resources to those tasks, including the neighborhood planners working on the Comprehensive Plan. Councilor Moncrieff described staff forming a neighborhood plan study group (in order to clear up communication/expectations and the neighborhood planning process) as being below the water line because the Planning Commission has already given staff that direction. Mr. Lashbrook reminded the Council that the Planning Commission has asked for a Councilor to serve on this committee. Doing so would demonstrate a clear policy of support. Mr. Hertzberg indicated to Mayor Hoffman that he was not hearing anyone argue for moving forward with new neighborhood plans. Mayor Hoffman noted a second issue of needing a planner to develop the code needed to implement the four neighborhood plans. Mr. Hertzberg directed the discussion back to whether this list was doable or not. He noted that Councilor Hennagin would include annexation and Councilor Olson would do something more about neighborhood planning and Luscher Farm. Councilor Moncrieff agreed with Councilor Hennagin that annexation could force itself upon the Council. She pointed out that it could fall into the infrastructure management plan item, if they looked at annexation from an infrastructure point of view. Mr. McIntyre stated that some of this work would require additional resources, which meant more money. As an example, he explained that although he had planning staff to shift around because development review work was down, shifting development review planners to long range planning work meant an increase to the general fund. Development review fees mostly paid for that work; the general fund paid for long-range planning work. He reminded the Council of his idea to form a small LOIS-type team to handle the water supply project. He observed that although the water revenues would pay for those dedicated resources, and not the general fund, it was still a cost. He felt that they would be fine with the infrastructure work because he had sufficient staff on board for the engineering work, although they might hire a consultant to help draft the plans. Economic development would need more resources directed to it. He emphasized that this was a time and resource issue. He explained that when the Council moved items from the right column over to the left column, it was pushing more demand for resources. He reiterated that staff could do the items on the work plan, and that it was affordable. He said that he needed the Council to understand clearly what the consequences were. Councilor Tierney indicated that he thought this was a doable plan. He suggested moving the tree code and annexation to the left column as items in process so that they would not leave the Council's field of vision. Councilor Johnson suggested moving annexation, neighborhood planning, and the tree code over to the study session column, along with attainable housing. She held that the Council needed to discuss these issues but not necessarily to make any decisions on them. She spoke to not starting any new plans or doing any code work until after the task force did its work. City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 21 of 26 January 17, 2009 Councilor Olson concurred with not starting any new plans. She reiterated that the neighborhoods would continue to feel neglected if the Council did not make neighborhood planning a goal. Councilor Johnson suggested a formal goal stating that the Council would go through a process of better defining the neighborhood planning process from inception to code amendments, and including the financial piece. She emphasized to staff that she did not want a planner working on code until they have clearly defined the process. Councilor Olson concurred. Councilor Jordan questioned why the neighborhoods felt neglected, given all the work that the Council and the City did on neighborhood planning last year. She observed that defining what neighborhoods should expect to get out of the planning process was different than developing code for an adopted plan. She discussed how to structure the goal list. She suggested putting neighborhood planning under Continuing Effort with two tasks identified for this year. Those tasks could be the task force work to clarify expectations and moving forward with implementation of one of the plans. Mr. Lashbrook indicated to the Council that barring Council direction, staff would codify the neighborhood plan. It would take a minimum of one staff person all year to codify the four neighborhood plans. He said that he would argue for shifting those resources to the Comprehensive Plan and coming back to neighborhood plans later. Councilor Jordan recalled hearing from the community groups that they did not want to do visioning because they felt that the City would put aside all the local issues that staff was currently working on and focus on the visioning instead. She noted that the groups did not say not to do the Comprehensive Plan, but they did want to continue work on implementing the adopted neighborhood plans. She commented that the public did not understand that working on the Comprehensive Plan itself would take staff away from working on the neighborhood issues. Councilor Tierney commented that he did not see where the resource constraint was. He pointed out that the City knew that the Comprehensive Plan update was coming up, and still hired two neighborhood planners to do the neighborhood planning work. Now that the update was here, the City had development review planners to shift to the Comprehensive Plan work. Mr. Lashbrook indicated that the Council setting time limits on when staff or task forces had to return with a report and a recommendation on a particular task would do more to help confine the process and make it manageable than anything else it could do. Otherwise these processes would go on for five years. He explained that because of state regulations, when they received a development application in, they had to have the staff resources to process that application within the required time limits. But if those applications were not coming in, then it made sense to shift those staff resources to other projects. He mentioned that they did have two fewer people in planning than they did two years ago. Mr. Hertzberg noted that the items on the left-hand column were doable within either existing or foreseeable resources. The suggested approach for the items on the right-hand column was Council discussion and incremental steps, because any significant work would require either additional resources or moving resources from the left-hand column items to the right-hand column items. Mayor Hoffman indicated to Councilor Jordan that he did not hear the public saying yes to Comprehensive Planning and no to visioning because they wanted resources focused on neighborhood issues. Councilor Moncrieff pointed out that infill, sensitive lands, secondary dwelling units, and the Comprehensive Plan were all neighborhood issues. She described infill as a big neighborhood goal to take on. Mr. Hertzberg noted that he has not heard agreement to move substantial resources to neighborhood planning. City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 22 of 26 January 17, 2009 Councilor Johnson suggested that a 2009 goal be developing a clear, comprehensive plan for how neighborhood plans would proceed, including creating, codifying, and incorporating the financial piece. She indicated that they would not take on a new neighborhood plan in 2009. She spoke to codifying the uncodifed plans only if they had staff resources available to work on that. The Council agreed by consensus. Councilor Johnson spoke to making sure that the neighborhood -related pieces of the Comprehensive Plan were highlighted during the update process. The Council agreed to fit Luscher Farm under the Parks Comprehensive Plan update as part of the infrastructure/facility management plans. Mr. Lashbrook confirmed to Mayor Hoffman that the City did not have the capacity to do a Luscher Farm Master Plan update in house. Mr. H rtzberg noted that while there were arguments for moving the Parks plan and Luscher Farm up on the priority list, it would not automatically happen unless the Council specifically said that it was a priority. Councilor Jordan argued for making the facilities plans the Council's big priority. She pointed out that the Council recently re -did the SDCs with respect to the current Parks plan. Therefore, even though both the Parks and Luscher Farm plans were out of date, re -doing them was not an imminent requirement. She acknowledged that the residents on the city's edge would like to know what was going to happen with Luscher Farm. However, the City did not have the money to do any projects out there anyway. Mr. Hertzberg described the next step as asking Mr. McIntyre to re -format this list into a clearer form. He mentioned thinking about the timing of the items. He suggested looking at the list from the advisory boards to see if anything has been overlooked. He commented that only co -housing was likely to take resources; the rest were small enough to fit in somehow. Councilor Jordan described the intergovernmental relations item as something under the waterline and as something that might affect the City's ability to do infrastructure. Councilor Tierney held that Mr. McIntyre had been suggesting that the Council could take a more active role in intergovernmental relationships than staff. The Council discussed how to handle the requests from the advisory boards and round table. Councilor Jordan indicated to Councilor Olson that the Cooks Butte Management Plan funding would come forward as a budget item. Mr. McIntyre indicated that once the Council adopted that plan, it moved underneath the iceberg and became incorporated into staff's regular work. Mr. McIntyre indicated to Councilor Olson that the Heritage Trail Task Force and the Ironworker's Cottage were both above the waterline for Council attention; neither was funded or planned to be funded, unless the Council directed otherwise. He commented that he did not think that the Heritage Trail Task Force would take City resources, but the Ironworker's Cottage needed an investment in the range of $100,000. Mayor Hoffman concurred with Councilor Olson that the Council needed to give credence and respect to the advisory boards' requests. Councilor Olson held that the process that the Council used to address these requests was the important part. Councilor Jordan suggested identifying which requests had financial implications and sending those through the budget process. Mayor Hoffman noted that they had yet to discuss Jean Baumann's request for a fulltime sustainability position in the City Manager's Office. Councilor Tierney pointed out that they have discussed sustainability. Councilor Jordan held that staffing was Mr. McIntyre's prerogative. The Council has set sustainability as a theme for staff to weave into all goals and policies; the Council should support however Mr. McIntyre decided to accomplish that direction. Mr. H rtzberg suggested, in the absence of a working process, holding another study session to discuss the advisory board requests. Councilor Jordan pointed out that the Council could not adopt goals next Tuesday based upon the work done so far. City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 23 of 26 January 17, 2009 Mr. McIntyre suggested scheduling a goal setting discussion for the January 27 study session. By then, he would have the draft goals laid out in a clearer format, showing a timeline and the resources needed to complete each goal by December 31. The Council could then fine-tune them for adoption at the February 3 regular meeting. The Council agreed by consensus to hold the study session. Mr. Hertzberg commented that while he hoped that what the Council heard from the advisory boards and citizens at the round table influenced their discussion of the goals, the Council also needed a formal way to affirm that. The Council decided to hold another study session next Tuesday for further discussion on the category headings and public input. • Board, Commission, and Liaison Assignments The Council discussed Council assignments. Audit Committee: Emergency Management Services Consortium: Unsung Heroes: Boards & Commissions Committee: Public Art Committee Member Selection Committee: Lake Oswego Interceptor Sewer (LOIS) Subcommittee Lake Oswego/Tigard Water Agreement: MACC: Olson, Jordan, Tierney Moncrieff Johnson Moncrieff Jordan Hennagin, Jordan, Johnson Johnson, Tierney, Olson Tierney Councilor Tierney disclosed that he was the first Executive Director of MACC before he switched to the private cable industry. He asked what useful function MACC performed today. He noted that MACC was divided into a regulatory piece and an access piece. He said that the access piece has done a terrific job. Stafford Hamlet: Olson, Jordan Mayor Hoffman mentioned that he wanted to set up a Stafford Hamlet forum. Councilor Jordan pointed out that all they could do was listen anyway because the City had no authority in that area. Regional Water Providers Consortium: Johnson C4: Jordan, Olson, Hoffman Willamette Shore Line Consortium: Hennagin MPAC: Hoffman JPACT: Jordan Metro Urban Reserve/Rural Reserve Steering Committee Hoffman, Jordan Councilor Jordan mentioned that Clackamas County was thinking of including the big cities on its own study committee. Unfortunately, the study committee met on the fourth Tuesday, which would make it difficult for a voting Council member to attend, although non-voting staff would attend. Inst. for Metropolitan Studies: Hoffman FUSION: 50 Plus Advisory Board: Historic Resources Advisory Board: Library Advisory Board: Transportation Advisory Board: Parks & Recreation Advisory Board: Natural Resources Advisory Board: City Council Special Meeting Minutes January 17, 2009 Hoffman, others alternating Johnson Hennagin Jordan Olson Moncrieff Olson Page 24 of 26 Planning Commission: Tierney Development Review Commission (DRC) Hoffman The Council discussed the history of Council relations with its Boards and Commissions. Mayor Hoffman recalled that before he was on Council, there had been an issue where Councilors could not even attend the meetings because a Councilor in the past had tried to influence a Board to do something. He described that as an urban myth. He indicated that the Council began assigning liaisons to attend the meetings, to talk with the members, and to report back during Councilor Information. Councilors Johnson and Jordan said that the prior Council did not report back. Councilor Jordan commented that she saw the bigger issue as how the Council used its Advisory Boards. She pointed out that the Council did not always go through the Boards with information and items that affected the purview of the Board. Mr. Hertzberg commented that the Council needed to discuss Council expectations regarding liaison responsibilities. Mayor Hoffman indicated to Councilor Tierney that there was no Council liaison to the DRC because, according to staff, the DRC heard many matters that came up on appeal to the Council. He indicated that when he raised Councilor Tierney's argument to Mr. Powell, that the Council member would only be listening to the record, Mr. Powell had not liked that argument. Mr. Powell clarified that a Council member could attend the meeting, but he/she should not talk to anybody in the audience about what was going on. He stated that attending the meeting was a situation ripe for ex parte contacts because people would naturally talk to a Councilor about the issue at hand. Councilor Tierney advocated for a Council liaison because the DRC was implementing City policy and determining City code in isolation from the Council. Mr. Powell recalled that the DRC agenda used to have an item for general planning discussion with staff. He said that a Council member could participate in that conversation. He reiterated that Council members attending land use hearings were his primary concern. Councilor Johnson suggested having more frequent communications between the DRC as a whole and the Council as a whole. Councilor Jordan indicated to Mr. Hertzberg that the expectation for reporting back to the Council from an Advisory Board was if the information was pertinent to the knowledge of the public. Otherwise, the liaison e-mailed any information of interest to the Councilors. Mr. Hertzberg asked if everyone was clear on how the Boards and Commission appointment process worked. He mentioned that the West Linn City Council, at its first meeting of the year, blew up around this issue of Board appointments. Mr. Powell indicated that the City Charter and Council procedure said that the Mayor made the appointments and the Council approved them. Councilor Jordan reviewed the current appointment practice. She mentioned that the prior Council had discussed any concerns about candidates at the Tuesday morning meeting. The Council agreed that if any member had concerns about a candidate, that he/she should express them to the interviewers before the interviews. Councilor Olson noted that those concerns had to be job-related, and not personal. Councilor Johnson commented that she would like to hear informally from Council members not on the interview committee if they knew a candidate or had experience working with them in other civic venues. Councilor Olson expressed concern that the Council has not given Mr. McIntyre the clarity that he requested. Mr. McIntyre stated his expectation that the Council would provide that clarity through the next two study sessions. City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 25 of 26 January 17, 2009 Mr. McIntyre gave the Council members the budget numbers that they had requested. He noted that the budget was 75% complete at 18 months into the biennium. He confirmed to Councilor Olson that the library district funding would be a budget discussion item. Councilor Jordan discussed the balancing act inherent in Council service. She pointed out that this was a seven member board. If a Council member had something that he/she strongly supported, it would not happen unless a majority of the Council bought into that item. She spoke to the Council working through how to reach a majority position on which it could move forward. She noted that another factor to balance was public opinion. She observed that it was difficult to tell what percentage of the population one or two voices speaking during Citizen Comment represented. The next week, 30 people might show up in opposition to the viewpoint expressed the previous week. She emphasized the need for balance in the Council's response to issues. 4. ADJOURNMENT Mayor Hoffman adjourned the meeting at 3:20 p.m. Respectfully submitted, City Recorder APPROVE .. - APPROVED BY THE CITY COUNCIL ON June2 2009 r, �\ r\ Jack D City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 26 of 26 January 17, 2009