HomeMy WebLinkAbout09/15/2008 Regular
MINUTES OF THE
JOINT ELECTED OFFICIALS MEETING OF
THE SPRINGFIELD CITY COUNCIL,
EUGENE CITY COUNCIL,
COBURG CITY COUNCIL, AND
LANE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
HELD MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2008
A joint elected officials meeting with the City of Springfield, City of Eugene, City of Co burg,
and Lane County was held in the Library Meeting Room, 225 Fifth Street, Springfield, Oregon,
on Monday, September 15, 2008 at 12:00 p.m. with Mayor Leiken presiding.
ATTENDANCE
Present from Springfield were Mayor Sid Leiken and Councilors Christine Lundberg, Hillary
Wylie, Anne Ballew, John Woodrow, and Joe Pishioneri.
Present from Eugene were Mayor Kitty Piercy and Councilors Betty Taylor, Mike Clark,
Jennifer Solomon, Andrea Ortiz, and Chris Pryor.
Present from Coburg were Mayor Judy Volta and Councilors John Thiel, Jerry Behney and John
Fox.
Present from Lane County were Board Chair Faye Stewart and Commissioners Bobby Green,
Bill Fleenor, Pete Sorenson, and Bill Dwyer.
Mayor Sid Leiken opened the meeting of the Springfield City Council. He noted that Councilor
Ralston was absent.
Mayor Kitty Piercy opened the meeting of the Eugene City Council. She noted that Councilors
Zelenka, Bettman and Poling were absent. .
Mayor Judy Volta opened the meeting of the Coburg City Council. Councilors Judd, Pech, and
Watson were absent.
Board Commissioner Sorenson, as senior member of the Board, opened the meeting of the Lane
County Board of Commissioners on behalf of Board Chair Stewart who had not yet arrived.
Councilor Betty Taylor arrived at approximately 12:05 p.m.
Commissioners Green and Stewart arrived at approximately 12:15 p.m.
Mayor Leiken welcomed everyone and asked everyone to introduce themselves.
1. Regional Transportation Work Plan.
Joint Elected Officials Meeting Minutes
September 15,2008
Page 2
Tom Boyatt, Transportation Manager for the City of Springfield, started the staff portion of the
meeting. He was joined by Celia Barry, Lane County; Rob Inerfeld, City of Eugene; and Petra
Schuetz, Planning Director, City of Coburg.
Mr. Boyatt referred to the Regional Transportation Work Plan that was put together by the staff
from the four jurisdictions. This program was intended to bring our State required regional
transportation planning in consistency with the federally required regional transportation
planning. He noted that the City of Coburg had already made a finding of consistency that their
Transportation System Plan was consistent with the Federal Regional Transportation Plan, .
Because of those fmdings, it was not necessary that they approve the work plan presented. As
part of the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) boundary, however, Coburg needed to be
involved in the development of the Regional Transportation System Plan and that was why they
were participating in today's meeting.
Councilor Betty Taylor joined the meeting.
Mr. Boyatt noted an email from Bob Courtwright from the Department of Land Conservation
and Development Commission (LCDC) which addressed two issues with the work program: I) It
would take some time to complete the land use pieces for Eugene and Springfield, and that the
land use forecast needed to occur before the transportation planning could move forward; and 2)
The performance measures adopted by the LCDC in 2001 were addressed going ahead into the
future. He noted that there was language in the work program that addressed performance
measures. These were somewhat separate issues, but were connected in this process.
Mr. Boyatt said the work plan had been discussed once in a previous joint elected officials
meeting and at least once among jurisdictions during their individual meetings. The work plan
(Attachment A in the agenda packet) was not a policy document. Its purpose was to meet
transportation planning goal requirements and consistency between state, regional and federal
required plans. He noted that there were tasks and a timeline set out in the work plan shown in
Attachment A as two columns. He explained the two columns: Major Work Plan Milestone and
Ongoing Coordinated Local and MPO Planning Activities. There were two areas iri the memo
that were the chief areas of inconsistencies at this time. The first was the planned horizon year.
The Local Transportation System Plan (TransPlan) had a planned horizon year of 20lS, which
was the same as the Metro Plan horizon year. The 2007 Federal Regional Transportation Plan
had a horizon year of2031. The second area of inconsistency was project list consistency. No
amendments had been made yet to the TransPlan project list since the 2002 adoption. Some of
those amendments had been initiated. When they went through the 2031 Federal Plan, all
jurisdictions reviewed the project list and updated it based on projects that were feasible and
made sense. He gave examples.
Mr. Boyatt summarized the bullets in the right hand column of the table in Attachment A. This
work plan went out a number of years and flexibility was needed to adapt the plan as needed.
Each jurisdiction had policy discussions in that direction. Those discussions were outlined on
page 3 of the memo included in the agenda packet. There was agreement to amend the existing
TransPlan from planning horizon 20lS to 2023. He explained some of the projects that would be
moved from this plan.
Commissioners Green and Stewart joined the meeting.
Joint Elected Officials Meeting Minutes
September 15,2008
Page 3
Ms. Barry said the Commissioners met on this item on September 3 and gave helpful comments
on what they wanted to see in the plan. Staff had tried to incorporate those ideas in this
document, such as more detail on the population forecasting process, that the Lane County board
. would begin discussions on Metro Plan policy direction and that rural reserve concepts would be
included into the work plan. This work plan would evolve and further policy decisions and
direction could be incorporated, primarily work done by land management division that affected
transportation in the Metro area. She thanked the Commission for their direction.
Mr. Boyatt asked if there were questions or if they preferred staff went through the table.
Commissioner Sorenson asked about the nature of approval. He asked at what point this became
a policy issue and would require further decisions.
Ms. Barry said there would be an extensive public involvement process for items related to both
the work plan milestones and local and MPO planning activities. The jurisdictions would have
their own formal public hearings at which time they would be asked to provide policy decisions.
Mr. Boyatt agreed. Each of the jurisdictions still had the same policy decisions that they would
normally have. They would then determine how to bring the different priorities for jurisdictions
together. The work program did its best to identify when policy decisions were needed.
Commissioner Sorenson asked if they could give authority to staff to pursue this for only one
year to see how things developed.
Mr. Boyatt said the approval requested was to take the work plan to the LCDC who had the legal
authority to approve it or not. All of that was intended to meet that requirement in the
transportation planning rule (TPR) that our plans needed to be consistent.
Ms. Barry said they were required by the transportation planning rule to bring a work plan.
Commissioner Sorenson asked what would happen if they didn't like what staff was doing in a
year and didn't want it to continue.
Ms. Barry said they didn't feel the LCDC would support that as complying with the TPR. She
noted that staff from the LCDC were in the audience.
Mr. Boyatt said if that was the collective will of the jurisdictions, staff could go to the LCDC
with a one year work plan.
Commissioner Sorenson asked how much money LCDC was giving the jurisdictions and how
much implementing the six-year plan would cost.
Mr. Boyatt said it was difficult to know how much it would cost and he wasn't aware of any
funding from the LCDC. There would be discussions with ODOT regarding what fair share of
state planning and research funds we could expect for this unfunded mandate.
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September 15, 2008
Page 4
Commissioner Sorenson asked what other projects would not get done if the County diverted
their resources to this work plan.
Ms. Barry said the primary work was City work that was related to urban projects and a lot of the
analysis would be done by Lane Council of Govemments (LCOG). The County staff's plan at
this time was to be in the loop on regional discussions. There was some debate among staff about
what it meant to comply with the regional language in the TPR. County staff was having
discussions with legal counsel who were inclined to think there was a minimal approach, with
minimal County staff work.
Commissioner Dwyer said there was so much in the horizon. He felt that land use should come
before transportation planning.
Ms. Barry said she agreed. She referred to the right side of the chart in Attachment A which
showed the land use work that had been going on and was a priority.
Commissioner Dwyer said the County was looking at rural reserves. Under current law, any time
the urban growth boundary (UGB) was increased, everything inside was developed and
committed. If farmland was put into the UGB, it was gone and used by the cities for other
purposes. He gave examples. He felt they needed to think about that for the future to Insure that
those people that provided the food source didn't have to pay exorbitant transportation costs in
order to grow food. The Board was looking into what they could do to establish rural reserves.
He noted that Springfield had an element in their plan that referred to critical soils, and he felt
the City and County needed to work together collectively. There was nothing definitive in
Eugene's plan about preserving critical soils.
Commissioner Fleenor said he agreed with Commissioner Dwyer that we needed to move
forward cautiously. He recommended that the City of Eugene move the West 11th Avenue out to
Veneta, rather than just Terry Street. With respect to the draft document, he asked if there were
any choke points that could stop the process.
Ms. Barry said there was co-adoption required at certain points following the public process. If
there was disagreement, it could delay the process.
Commissioner Fleenor said the elected officials needed to maintain the highest level of
communication and cooperation so they agreed at those junctures.
Ms. Barry referred to the West 11th and Terry issue and noted that it was a short term measure so
they could move forward for longer term planning. Beyond Terry would be something the
County would look at as far as transportation efforts. That was simply to comply with the
consistency requirements of the TPR regarding projects. What Commissioner Fleenor was
promoting would not be precluded by this project list.
Mayor Leiken referred to the final paragraph on page 2 which he felt summed up the plan. He
read from the document, "While the work plan provides an estimated timeline for completion it
should be noted that the work plan will need to remain flexible in order to respond to data and
policy direction derived from the activities in the right-hand column." He said Springfield
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September 15,2008
Page 5
Council held City staff's feet to the fire regarding flexibility. Planning was very challenging
because of the global community. He complimented staff for including' flexibility' .
Councilor Ballew said staff had done a goodjob oflaying out a program of how to get where we
needed to be. There was a lot of public involvement. There would be bumps along the way, such
as the land studies and Comprehensive Plan discussions, but this was a starting point and it
worked. They all had the ability to convene if they felt they needed to change course.
Commissioner Green complimented staff on their work. He asked what would happen when
there was no co-adoption of some of the elements. He asked how that would be resolved.
Ms. Barry said the code and plan allowed for the MPC for conflict resolution.
Commissioner Green said that needed to be discussed because MPC was not the best source for
resolution. Some agency needed to step up to facilitate in those situations. He asked if not having
a major arterial such as the West Eugene Parkway could be a barrier for development in that
area.
Ms. Barry said the Board would have to co-adopt. The west Eugene area would be up to the City
of Eugene.
Mr. Inerfeld from Eugene said before coming to the Eugene City Council and Lane County
Commissioners, staff would do an analysis of the impact of removing the West Eugene Parkway
(WEP). In order to remove it, they would need to show that they could balance projects.
Removing the WEP from the constrained list would help with that, but they had not yet drawn
the model to determine the impact. To address removal of the WEP, they would need to address
it on the transportation side. They would work with LCOG to run the model.
Commissioner Green asked about the schedule for looking at alternatives for west Eugene. He
asked if that was more of a land use issue in working with the property owners in that area.
Mr. Inerfeld said adopting of the plan amendment to remove the WEP was scheduled for the first
quarter of 2009. They may also make some assumptions that the ErnX alignment in west Eugene
would be part of the plan in that area.
Commissioner Dwyer further discussed rural reserves and noted that they would be outside of
the UGB and the Metro Plan.
Ms. Barry said part of the Metro Plan included areas outside of the UGB. Coburg was included
in the metro planning.
Commissioner Dwyer said that was for transportation only, but not land use planning. The Lane
County Board needed to think about how to maintain security of our community outside the
wishes of any specific jurisdictions. He viewed the concepts of rural reserves as a County
function, not metro.
Mayor Piercy said the Eugene Council had reviewed the work plan at their last Council meeting,
appreciated the work by staff, and had been supportive of the plan. She also noted that Eugene
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September 15,2008
Page 6
was committed to land use and transportation being addressed together. There was a group of
west Eugene leaders that were working together on proposals for how to better move traffic in
that area. Those proposals would be brought to the Lane County Commissioners in December. A
lot of the people working on the proposals were very vested in transportation and land use.
Councilor Wylie said they were in the middle of an election process. She asked what would
happen if a new set of politicians came into positions in January of2009 that didn't want the
WEP removed, and how that would affect the planning process.
Mr. Boyatt said our land use effort looking to 2013 and transportation system planning would
keep moving.
Mr. Inerfeld said this was a five year or longer work plan so would go through several possible
changes in elected officials. This tied in other work that was currently in place. He gave
exampled. One of the requirements was to make our local transportation plans consistent with
the RTP and the WEP was already removed from that. From Eugene's perspective it was more a
question of when they would remove the WEP, not whether or not it would be removed. He
noted that the City of Eugene had initiated the amendments to remove the WEP, but it would not
be removed until both the Eugene Council and Lane County Board of Commissioners took
action to remove it. That was targeted for the first quarter of 2009 in the work plan.
Commissioner Fleenor referred to Councilor Wylie's comments regarding changes in electors in
the near future and Commissioner Sorenson's suggestion for one-year check-ins on the work
plan. He said a recommendation could be to approve this plan for 6 years, with annual reviews to
make sure benchmarks were met, co-adoption issues addressed, and issues regarding political
changes addressed. That could offer some control on a year to year basis.
Councilor Ortiz thanked Springfield for hosting today's meeting. She said she appreciated that
staff wanted the plan to remain flexible. When the community spoke to her, she tried to fight for
their values as she expected other elected officials did. She respected others goals and priorities
and asked for the same. She noted that the wEP was being removed, but something did need to
be done in that area of town as it affected the whole County. She hoped that when the
collaborative group that Mayor Piercy put forth brought their ideas to the table, the City of
Eugene could move forward.
Commissioner Sorenson said several staff had mentioned working with LCOG on the modeling.
He asked where funding came from for LCOG and how much staff energy they were putting into
the six-year effort.
Mr. Boyatt said LCOG was funded by federal pass-through dollars from ODOT, and by the
authorization of STP-U ("urban") funds through the MPC. LCOG staff concurred. There was a
combination of options working with LCOG. All of the model work LCOG did for the federal
plan should have benefit to development of our local and regional plan as they overlapped.
LCOG as the MPO had some prohibition on spending of those dollars. Some of the money the
cities and county had identified for these projects could be used for some outside modeling.
Commissioner Sorenson discussed rural reserves. He asked what the current work plan was for
rural reserves. He didn't want that to stop in order to implement this policy.
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September 15,2008
Page 7
Commissioner Dwyer said a rural reserve policy was not limited to the metro area.
Ms. Barry said their policy decisions on rural reserves had been with the land management
division and she was aware of those. This work program would not preclude them from forming
a policy on rural reserves. She would continue to keep in contact with that division regarding that
policy.
Commissioner Sorenson asked why transportation staff was involved in land use on this project,
but not in the development of rural reserves.
Ms. Barry said transportation staff was not involved in land use, but they did have a
responsibility to ensure that transportation didn't conflict with policy direction from the
Commissioners on land use issues. They were required by the TPR to coordinate land use and
transportation planning. Transportation planning staff had a responsibility to listen to the
conversations on the other issues.
Councilor Clark thanked Springfield for hosting today's meeting. He asked when the work plan
needed to be submitted to the LCDC.
Mr. Boyatt said staff had an appointment with that commission on October 16. They could
submit the plan in advance for their discussion. Public testimony would be held on October 16.
Councilor Clark said that was prior to the Eugene Council removing the WEP, which was
scheduled for the first quarter of 2009. He asked how that would be reflected in the work plan.
Mr. Inerfeld said the work plan showed that it was anticipated the Eugene Council would remove
it in 2009.
Councilor Clark asked if the LCDC would make a determination at that time if the land use
plaiining in west Eugene was consistent.
Mr. Boyatt said LCDC would just be approving the work plan, not the detail. There was an
appeal process if needed.
Councilor Clark wanted to know if action taken to this point would put them in conflict with the
plan.
Mr. Inerfeld said the modeling would identify what was happening in west Eugene and what the
future would hold in terms of land use and transportation.
Ms. Barry said there had been discussion with legal counsel and staff about what to give to
LCDC. One possibility was to only give them what was in the left hand column, because that
was the only work in complying with the TPR. The right hand column was for the elected
officials' information.
Councilor Taylor said Eugene had already approved the plan. She thanked Springfield for the
lunch and for hosting. She noted Councilor Wylie's remark about the difficulty in making these
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September 15,2008
Page 8
types of decision during an election year. She said she appreciated Commissioner Dwyer's
comments regarding rural reserves and noted that it tied in with what Eugene had been doing in
response to Mayor Piercy's sustainability. It was important to have food sources close to the
people. Cities did have their part in protecting the urban growth boundary.
Commissioner Fleenor said consideration needed to be taken regarding financial challenges that
all jurisdictions would be facing. Unless there was major property tax reform, each had structural
deficits. When they asked where the money would come from for the long-range planning
sessions, it was not a trivial question, but significant. Perhaps the jurisdictions needed to
consolidate some of the planning activities. He gave examples. It was time to consider how those
services could be consolidated to provide better services to our citizens.
Mayor Piercy said the task at hand was to align the planning processes. She addressed the issues
of removal of the WEP. ODOT removed the WEP months ago, so that was no longer debatable.
The issue was aligning the plans and dealing with transportation issues in west Eugene. '
Mayor Leiken asked staff to clarify the role ofODOT with the WEP.
Mr. Boyatt said in 2007, the federal regional transportation plan adopted by the MPC did not
include the WEP. Several months after that, ODOT reached a no vote conclusion and shut the
file, selling off acquired right-of-way. The Eugene Council initiated the proposed TransPlan and
removed the WEP from that plan.
Commissioner Dwyer agreed the WEP was no longer an issue. He spoke regarding
Commissioner Fleenor's suggestion for check points, tentative adoptions, and choke points and
said it was a good idea to include those in the plan.
Mayor Piercy noted that Senator Prozanski and Representative Holvey had requested funding for
an analysis ofthe bottleneck area during the upcoming legislative session.
Mr. Inerfeld said during the first year, there would be a lot of regional dialogue throughout the
process. He explained.
COMMISSIONER GREEN MADE A MOTION TO APPROVE THE REGIONAL
TRANSPORTATION WORK PLAN AND FORWARD IT TO THE LAND CONSERVATION
AND DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION. EUGENE CITY COUNCILOR CLARK SECONDED.
Commissioner Green said he was supportive of the concept of rural reserve; there was a pilot
program being tested by the metro area in Portland and the Board became intrigued by that
concept. He suggested caution, however, because they didn't know what all it meant and the
impact it would have on those that lived in the rural areas that may want to make application to
develop their own property. He was supportive of this work plan and it should be moved forward
to LCDC. The jurisdictions could come back together to determine how to proceed the rest of the
way.
Councilor Lundberg said she was comfortable with the plan. Eugene had already approved the
plan, and it was a simple work plan that would get us where we needed to go. Within this plan
was a myriad of ability for the public to weigh in. She supported forwarding it on to LCDC.
Joint Elected Officials Meeting Minutes
September 15,2008
Page 9
Councilor Ballew made a friendly amendment to the motion, to adopt the plan, but DIRECT
STAFF TO BRING IT BACK TO THE JOINT ELECTED OFFICIALS EACH YEAR TO
ADDRESS ANY ISSUES.
Commissioner Green accepted the amendment.
Legal Counsel for Lane County advised that each jurisdiction should have their own motion and
second.
COMMISSIONER GREEN MOVED, AND COMMISSIONER STEW ART SECONDED, TO
APPROVE THE REGIONAL TRANSPORTATION WORK PLAN AND FORWARD IT TO
THE LAND CONSERVATION AND DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION.
Commissioner Fleenor asked that a friendly amendment to the motion be added that PRIOR TO
SEPTEMBER 15 OF EACH YEAR STAFF PROVIDE AN ANNUAL UPDATE MEETING.
Commissioner Stewart said yearly check-ins may not be necessary as there would be many
occasions when staff would bring this to each jurisdiction. He didn't want to put a specific date
on when it needed to come back to them.
Commissioner Fleenor said those meetings would be on specific issues and he would like the
annual discussion to be on the broad range of issues.
Commissioner Dwyer said he supported the motion as amended.
Mayor Leiken clarified that each jurisdiction needed to vote on this separately.
Discussion was held regarding the current motion and the need to be consistent.
Legal counsel suggested all jurisdictions withhold voting until all agreed on the motion.
Councilor Ballew said she agreed they should approve the work plan, but direct staff to meet
each year with the elected officials to report back. Councilor Woodrow agreed.
Commissioner Green noted that having the motion stated in the packet would have been helpful
and also notation that the motion needed to be voted on separately by each jurisdiction. He asked
that staff provide that information in the future.
Discussion was held regarding the motion that was on the table.
Legal counsel said it might be beneficial to separate this into two motions: the first to approve
the work plan and the second motion could be related to an annual check-in meeting. '
ON BEHALF OF THE EUGENE CITY COUNCIL, COUNCILOR CLARK MOVED,
AND COUNCILOR PRYOR SECONDED, TO APPROVE THE REGIONAL
TRANSPORTATION WORK PLAN AND FORWARD IT TO THE LAND
CONSERVATION AND DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION.
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September 15, 2008
Page 10
Mayor Volta asked if there was an issue because they did not have a quorum.
It was noted by Coburg staff member, Petra Schuetz, that Coburg did not need to be a party to
the work plan so did not need to vote.
ON BEHALF OF THE SPRINGFIELD CITY COUNCIL, COUNCILOR WYLIE
MOVED, AND CQUNCILOR PISmONERI SECONDED, TO APPROVE THE
REGIONAL TRANSPORTATION WORK PLAN AND FORWARD IT TO THE
LAND CONSERVATION AND DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION.
Councilor Pishioneri said it made sense to collaboratively accept the plan, but he felt Springfield
staff automatically gave Council updates on issues as they arose. Each jurisdiction could follow
their own policies on the reporting issue.
Commissioner Fleenor said Lane County needed to vote or remove the motion regarding annual
check-ins.
COMMISSIONER GREEN WITHDREW HIS MOTION AND COMMISSIONER STEWART
WITHDREW HIS SECOND ON THE ORIGINAL LANE COUNTY MOTION.
ON BEHALF OF THE LANE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS,
COMMISSIONER GREEN MOVED, AND COMMISSIONER STEWART
SECONDED, TO APPROVE THE REGIONAL TRANSPORTATION WORK PLAN
AND FORWARD IT TO THE LAND CONSERVATION AND DEVELOPMENT
COMMISSION.
THE MOTION PASSED WITH A UNANIMOUS VOTE OF ALL THREE
JURISDICTIONS.
****************************************
ON BEHALF OF THE LANE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS,
COMMISSIONER DWYER MOVED THAT STAFF GIVE THE COMMISSION A
ONE YEAR CHECK-IN ON THE PLAN.
COMMISSIONER SORENSON SECONDED, AND ASKED FOR A FRIENDLY
AMENDMENT TO RECEIVE AN UPDATE IN ABOUT A MONTH, ON THE
RURAL RESERVE PROGRAM.
Ms. Barry noted that she would not be the staff person on the Rural Reserve issue. It was noted
that Mr. Spartz, would coordinate with the appropriate staff. She asked about regular check-ins
with the joint elected officials and ifthat would be sufficient.
Commissioner Fleenor said he wanted a comprehensive view once a year versus point by point.
Commissioner Stewart noted that this motion was for Lane County Board of Commissioners
only.
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September 15, 2008
Page 11
THE MOTION PASSED WITH A VOTE OF 5 FOR AND 0 AGAINST.
Mayor Leiken thanked the staff from the LCDC for being in the audience today. He said it was
key to communicate with staff as we moved forward.
Mayor Piercy asked the Eugene City Manager to provide an update on the fires in west Eugene
and expressed appreciation for the partnership effort to put out those fires.
Mr. Ruiz said there was a significant wildland fire in west Eugene over the weekend. He thanked
all the jurisdictions for their help. They were able to control the fires, which could have been
significant fires that were threatening structures. It was a good example of regional cooperation.
ADJOURNMENT
Mayor Leiken adjourned the meeting at 1:25pm.
Minutes Recorder - Amy Sowa
Attest:
~<~
Amy So
City Rec rder