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HomeMy WebLinkAbout09/15/2014 Work SessionCity of Springfield Work Session Meeting MINUTES OF THE WORK SESSION MEETING OF THE SPRINGFIELD CITY COUNCIL HELD MONDAY SEPTEMBER 15, 2014 The City of Springfield Council met in a work session in the Jesse Maine Meeting Room, 225 Fifth Street, Springfield, Oregon, on Monday September 15, 2014 at 6:00 p.m., with Mayor Lundberg presiding. ATTENDANCE Present were Councilors VanGordon, Wylie, Moore, Ralston, and Woodrow. Also present were Assistant City Manager Jeff Towery, City Attorney Mary Bridget Smith, Administrative Assistant AJ Ripka and members of the staff. Mayor Lundberg was absent (excused). 1. Review Proposed Draft Basic Plan of the Eugene -Springfield Multi -Jurisdictional Emergency Operations Plan. Ken Vogeney, City Engineer, presented the staff report on this item. Eugene and Springfield Emergency Management, Fire, Police, and Public Works staff have been working on a new Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) for the two cities. The new EOP provides a framework for the cities to improve their coordination, collaboration and support for each other during larger community -scale emergencies, as well as aligns with current practice at the federal, state, and county levels for providing Emergency Management coordination and support. The proposed EOP is comprised of the Basic Plan and numerous annexes. The draft Basic Plan is now ready for Council review prior to formal adoption. During the May 20, 2013 work session, Council was introduced to the idea of preparing a new EOP for the two cities that will provide the framework for improved coordination, collaboration and support for each other during larger scale emergencies. At that meeting, Council expressed their support for this approach and directed staff to develop the proposed EOP. In the past, staff has requested formal Council adoption of the full EOP whenever changes were made to the document. Staff has found that this is not a very effective approach for keeping the document current. In addition, the new structure of the EOP will lend itself to more frequent changes to the numerous annexes, with only occasional changes to the Basic Plan. Therefore, staff requests Council's direction on staff's recommendation that only the Basic Plan be formally adopted by Council, with authority to approve annexes being delegated to the City Manager. Consultant services were used to prepare the new EOP by assisting staff with developing the EOP content, as well as the overall structure, formatting and editing of the document. These services were primarily provided by the Oregon Office of Emergency Management using a grant from the Office of Grants and Training, United States Department of Homeland Security. Additional consultant services were procured by Eugene to help manage the plan development process, with Springfield contributing $4,950 (25%) toward the cost of these services. The EOC plan as proposed is compiled of five elements that can function as stand-alone pieces. The first piece is the Basic Plan which includes the overall information needed to make the other annexes City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes September 15, 2014 Page 2 and appendices work. Another section is Emergency Support Functions which is a different approach for delivering emergency services. The ESF were adopted by FEMA, the State of Oregon, Lane County, and Eugene and Springfield. Support annexes, incident annexes and operational annexes are checklists for staff to use for delivering emergency response services. Mr. Vogeney reviewed the Basic Plan. It was becoming more of a common practice for government agencies to only publish their Basic Plans for the public because it includes information that community would need. Many of the annexes were checklists on how staff personnel did the work, including phone numbers and contact information. Making those available on the public side may provide information to those that might want to disrupt services. Those annexes will be available on the internal website for staff to view. The purpose of the Basic Plan is to describe our legal authorities and why we are doing emergency response work. It also includes the context of how Springfield and Eugene will work together. The Basic Plan describes roles and responsibilities from the Council throughout the City organization. It includes how each agency activates the emergency operations centers (EOC), and how those centers can work together. Mr. Vogeney said the Basic Plan included six chapters: Introduction; Situation and Planning Assumptions; Roles and Responsibilities; Concept of Operations; Command and Control; and Plan Development, Maintenance, and Implementation. He gave a brief description of each. He acknowledged and praised the City of Eugene staff for their work on this plan. They have done the majority of the background work on this, and have volunteered their Emergency Manager to keep track of all of the changes, incorporate those changes, and distribute them out to the rest of the group. Mr. Vogeney said there is a method for how the response services are delivered. The standard functions provided under FEMA's guidance are the first 15 listed in the chart. Staff at Eugene and Springfield felt the last four items were important to add. The chart served several purposed: 1) to list all of the emergency support functions (ESF); and 2) which department will be assigned a primary responsibility, and which department will be assigned a support role for delivering those services. He provided an example. The support annexes are currently under development. City of Eugene staff is taking the lead on a debris management annex. Staff is building a new damage assessment annex, and will begin work on an employee services annex. He described what each of the annexes would include. Several annexes (Hazardous Materials, Terrorism, and Infectious Disease) are in the current emergency management plan, but are being re -written into more of a checklist format. There are five operational annexes: EOC Activation/Operations; EOC Position Roles and Responsibilities; Disaster Declaration Process; Leadership Communication Plan; and Incident Command System. Mr. Vogeney said a plan was prepared under contract by the State of Oregon with Ecology and Environment. Using this plan as a starting point, the cities put in a lot of work and coordination to bring the two cities together to create this Emergency Management Plan. Eugene hired a consultant and Springfield paid 25% of the contract in the amount of $4925 plus staff time. The document is set up electronically with links imbedded, and will be updated electronically. Councilor Wylie asked for an explanation of whole community planning, and access and functional needs population. Mr. Vogeney said the whole community planning is a concept that FEMA requires in all of the emergency planning work for the cities. That is to include input from throughout the community. That is part of the reason .staff is bringing this to Council. During this process, they have invited other partner agencies to participate in numerous meetings and provide input. The access and functional needs is to recognize that there are people in the Springfield community with access and functional City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes September 15, 2014 Page 3 needs that must be addressed as part of the planning work. As they continue to move forward, the goal is to reach out to those citizens and bring them into the planning efforts. Councilor Moore asked about Lane County's role in a disaster. Mr. Vogeney said Lane County has its own Emergency Operations Plan with many of the same pieces as that of the two cities. The city plan has things specific to the two cities. They spend a lot of time with Lane County's emergency manager on coordination of different activities. Next week there is an exercise at the Eugene Airport and Lane County will be involved in that training. This plan is focused on the two cities, but is very much connected to Lane County's plan. Staff from Lane County participated in the planning meetings for this plan. Councilor Moore asked if it would be a seamless operation between all jurisdictions. Mr. Vogeney said the goal is to be more seamless, and they are working on ways to improve that, including training exercises. This Plan is new and the majority of staff from both cities has not yet received training on this plan. Councilor VanGordon said he was pleased to see that a printed version of the plan would be on hand. He asked who was responsible to declare an emergency for property outside the City limits, but inside the urban grown boundary (UGB) - Lane County or the City. Mr. Vogeney said Lane County is legally responsible for that area. Because the County does not have the resources for much of the response work, they contact the cities for support per the intergovernmental agreement. Councilor VanGordon asked where the Fire Chief would report. Mr. Vogeney said if an emergency occurs, he will report to the EOC in whichever city he is in at the time. One of his other command staff will staff the other EOC. Councilor VanGordon asked if the fire department would act together or separately. Mr. Vogeney said they would respond as one. The Swanson Mill fire was an excellent exercise in regard to the emergency response and communications work. All of the coordination for the Fire Department was occurring in Eugene at the 9-1-1 center even though the event happened in Springfield. They brought in rural agencies to backfill the Eugene stations. It worked well. Councilor VanGordon asked about adoption of the Plan. Mr. Vogeney said his recommendation would be for Council to adopt a resolution that would approve the Basic Plan and delegate authority to the City Manager to approve and execute the annexes that go with the Plan. Those portions of the Plan would be changing more regularly than the Basic Plan. Councilor Woodrow said she is comfortable with that approach. Councilor Ralston said the State and local plans must all work together. Local jurisdictions do take precedent over the State, but can ask for help. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes September 15, 2014 Page 4 Councilor Wylie noted Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and how unprepared they were for that disaster. She asked if the cities' emergency plan went into the detail of evacuating people and providing food and water. Mr. Vogeney said there was a lot of discussion about those details, but they were not yet in writing. There are a number of things that had been identified as part of updating the multi jurisdiction natural hazard mitigation plan for Eugene and Springfield. He will bring that to Council for approval near the end of the year. Many community groups were brought together to talk about vulnerability by area, how they would address food supplies, etc. They need to look at how city government can influence the private sector in order to support the community. Similar discussions will be held with partners regarding fuel, water, and electricity. Councilor Wylie said she was in San Diego when they had the fires and had to evacuate and take care of the needs of over a million people. Because of their experience, they did very well. It is very important to have answers because citizens will come to Police, Fire and the front offices looking for help. The role of the city is to encourage those answers. Councilor Moore said educating the general public to be prepared is also important. She asked if that was part of this plan and who had that responsibility. Mr. Vogeney said that is part of the Emergency Management Program and September is National Preparedness Month. Springfield has an emergency management website that has a lot of information for people to prepare themselves. Springfield and Eugene host public gatherings and inviting the public to hear preparedness talks. They also have Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) trainings at no costs. Neither Springfield nor Eugene has addressed the evacuation planning issue other than to say something needs to be done. Lane County has started that work for a large scale mass evacuation for the central Lane County area. That work will be added to the city's emergency plan once completed. Councilor Wylie said this was especially important to her. When she ran Willamette Family Treatment Center, they often had about 100 people staying with them and she needed to know how to get them to safety and provide for them in an emergency. There are many levels to consider. She appreciated the work they were doing and encouraged him to push for answers to these questions. 2. Enabling Amendments to the Eugene -Springfield Metropolitan Area General Plan ("Metro Plan"). Len Goodwin, Department of Public Works Director, presented the staff report on this item. He introduced Emily Jarome, special counsel to the City of Springfield and one of the main authors of the document. HB 3337, adopted by the 2007 Legislative Assembly, requires the City of Springfield and the City of Eugene each adopt separate urban growth boundaries. The City of Springfield adopted such a separate boundary in 2011. The City of Eugene is planning to adopt such a boundary as part of its Envision Eugene process, now underway. Oregon Revised Statutes Chapter 197 requires, among other things, that a city adopt a comprehensive plan applicable to its Urban Growth Boundary. Current provisions of the Metro Plan are inconsistent with that requirement in that they subordinate local land use plans to the Metro Plan. Accordingly, it is necessary that the Metro Plan be amended so that each city has the ability to independently replace provisions of the Metro Plan with separately adopted local Comprehensive Plans over the next several years. This will not affect the ability to retain those provisions of the Metro Plan which the cities agree are regional in nature, particularly those elements City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes September 15, 2014 Page 5 which do not regulate land use within a UGB. Staff of each city and of Lane County have jointly prepared amendments to accomplish that purpose. This has been done with the assistance of Special Counsel Emily N. Jerome. These amendments will allow each city to proceed to adopt elements of local Comprehensive Plans on their own schedules and have those elements take precedence over the similar Metro Plan provisions as they are adopted by each city (and co-adopted by Lane County as appropriate). Mr. Goodwin said Springfield is not prepared to adopt a Comprehensive Plan today. That project will take several years. The residential element has been adopted, and the Council is in the process of adopting the Urbanization and Economic Elements and the possibility of an urban growth boundary expansion. Those are only two elements of a full plan. To make it possible for both cities to proceed in an orderly fashion, staff feels that a change in the precedence role is needed. As each city moves ahead to adopt part of its new Comprehensive Plan, that plan takes precedence over the equivalent in the Metro Plan. That allows both cities to continue to rely on the Metro Plan for those things they haven't dealt with yet, but allows each city the independence to make their own long term planning decisions. Council will have a number of opportunities to look at this and discuss it in more detail. A joint Planning Commission meeting of Springfield, Eugene and Lane County is tentatively scheduled for October 23, and a joint elected officials meeting with the same jurisdictions is tentatively scheduled for November 10. Tonight is an opportunity for Council to see the document, review it and ask any questions now or during the joint meeting. The first step in this process is for the Council to initiate the change in the Metro Plan during their regular meeting. This is an exciting opportunity to make a major change in how this region thinks about how the cities relate to each other, and is very important for Springfield. Councilor VanGordon asked if text would be removed from the Metro Plan as each jurisdiction adopted those sections separately. Mr. Goodwin said part of the adoption process for the City would be to include a section stating that `these sections in the Metro Plan no longer apply to Springfield'. Once both cities adopt the same sections independently, action will be taken to delete those sections from the Metro Plan. Ms. Jerome said it is specified in the Plan. The jurisdiction taking action after the other jurisdiction on a particular section has the authority to delete that section on their own based on provisions in Chapter IV. Councilor Moore said it sounds like there is more involved in the separation of the UGB's than originally thought. Mr. Goodwin said it was a change in a relationship. It is very unlikely they will ever eliminate a regional plan, but are working out a process where the Metro Plan will become something that does not constitute a land use regulation. It will regulate things like emergency management, or economic development as an example. It is true that there are a lot of things that followed separating the UGB. Councilor Moore said there has been an immense amount of work on this, and it sounds like that will continue for several years. Mr. Duey provided next steps for both items discussed. Mr. Vogeney will bring forward the Basic Plan (Emergency Management), separate from the annexes, for adoption sometime this fall. For the Metro Plan amendments, Mr. Goodwin will bring forward a motion during the regular meeting to City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes September 15, 2014 Page 6 initiate those changes. That will allow him to notify the Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD). ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned at 6:43 p.m. Minutes Recorder — Amy Sowa Christine L. Lundberg Mayor Attest: Amy Soa City Recorder