Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout01/24/2011 Work Session~ , City of Springfield, Work Session Meeting MINUTES OF THE WORK SESSION MEETING OF THE SPRINGFIELD CITY COUNCIL HELD- MONDAY, JANUARY 24, 2011 The City of Springfield Council met in a work session in the Library Meeting Room, 225 Fifth Street, Springfield, Oregon, on Monday, January 24, 2011 5:38 p.m., with Mayor Lundberg presiding. ATTENDANCE _ Present were Mayor Lundberg and Councilors Ralston, VanGordon, ~~Vylie, Moore, Woodrow, and Pishioneri. Also present were City Manager Gino Grimaldi, Assistant City Manager Jeff Towery, . Assistant City Attorney Mary,Bridget Smith, Administrative Specialist James Larson, and members of the staff. 1. Human Services Commission (HSC) Update. ' r Assistant City Manager Jeff.Towery presented the staff report on this item. He introduced Steve Manela, Executive Director of the Human Services Commission, who would be presenting the information to the Council.. The City of Springfield provided funding from its General Fund to the Human Services Commission . to serve Springfield residents in need. With the current economy, more people were in need of these services. 1VIr. Manela introduced Pearl Wolfe, services supervisor, and Kate Bloch, planning and development coordinator. He distributed an overview of the Human Services Commission. He noted that their department was in the second or third year of the recession and was struggling to keep up with the _ demand for the services they provided. Human Services Commission was a partnership between the cities of Eugene, Springfield, and Lane County and had been in existence since 1982. They .coordinated planning for federal, state, and local dollars that flowed through the County and cities, such as Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds; and allocated them out to non-profit, social service agencies and some public agencies such as Senior and Disabled Services and the Housing Authority. During the current fiscal year,, the HSC contracted about $SM to local non-profit . programs and had just completed a planning process in which they discussed three different approaches to addressing the funding issue.. The planning was very helpful as they were able to ; determine how to implement a fiscally constrained effort in the community at that same time the need was growing.... Mr. Manela said the demand for services has increased over the last two years by as much as seventy percent. The food services, such as Food for Lane County, had seen an increase of about thirty-f ve percent over the last two years. The poverty rate within the County over a two year period increased by three percentage points. This rate had been fairly stable for about a decade prior to the recession: This fall, the HSC managed the low-income energy assistance program. Because of the high volume of need, they had to shut down the waiting list at the end of November, yet there were still nearly 6000. people on the waiting list. They didn't anticipate having the resources to serve those in need. Also, the past two years included federal funds for economic recovery, allowing them to help about 890 people a year with rent assistance. At the end of this fiscal year, those funds would no longer be available. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes January 24, 2011 Page 2 Mr. Manela said they had reallocated about $SM this year, and their target for request for proposals was about $4M, but with funds available from local jurisdictions, the actual funds would be about $3.6M. They were anticipating there would also be reductions from State funding. The only thing that was certain at this time was that things were uncertain. Thinking about those they were helping in the community kept them going. Ms. Wolfe distributed a document to the Mayor and Council. Ms. Wolfe said in the past, she worked for WomenSpace for five years and Lookingglass for eleven years.. Until she came to work for the - HSC, she was unaware of all they did to bring funds to the community: She said the HSC had fifty different funding sources, thirty revenue contracts, seventy-five expense contracts, and worked with twenty-three different agencies that they provided funding for. They also monitored all of the programs funded through HSC. They recently went through a lengthy; thorough process, that included the community of planning a guide for the HSC for allocating funds. Their office also writes a major grant (about 500 pages) each year to bring in about $2.3M dollars of homeless funds into the community.- She noted that Lisa Stewart ran the management information. system and had provided a summary for tonight's discussion. Last year, out. of 15,000 households that were inputted into the system, over 100,000 transactions had occurred. The transactions included rental assistance, substance abuse counseling, daycare or legal services, etc. This information helped them understand the quality of the services provided in the community. Ms. Wolfe spoke regarding the low-income energy program and referred to one of the handouts distributed with information about this program. Last year the HSC gave out approximately $1 M to Springfield residents to pay their energy bills. One of the precursors to homelessness was not being able to pay utilities. Ms. Wolfe said through the HSC Office, they managed a Home Tenant Based Assistance program, which gave people rental assistance. They also did some special projects, such as Project Homeless Connect: During last year's event, they brought in 581 community volunteers, 301 service providers, and 1402 people that were homeless or at risk of being homeless at the. Lane Events Center to receive services. She acknowledged Kevin Ko, Springfield Housing Manager, who had been the event's logistics team leader. They started meeting in November, with. the event scheduled March 17, 2011. She recognized those on the Council that had attended this event in the past. Kate Bloch spoke regarding the One Night Homeless Count, which was occurring now. This event happened across the country, and tracked information on the homeless population in our community .that helped with decisions on policies, programs, and resource allocation. People from all agencies that provided services to the homeless community came together to plan the best possible strategies to help as many homeless people as possible in Lane County. They went out into the streets, under the bridges and to the parks to count people. This count had been done for about 10 years. While out there, they provided socks, bus passes, and other incentives for people to share their information. Last year 85 staff members, along with 30 volunteers, went out on the streets to do this count. The good news was that they did a good job. in collecting data; the bad news was that there was a 47% increase in homelessness in Lane County from 2009/2010. This was an opportunity to connect with people and share the resources available. She said 2500 of the 4000 they identified were completely unsheltered. Almost 500 of those were in an emergency shelter such as the Mission, and another 400 were in transitional housing. This year's count allowed them to count chronically homeless families. The other focus was counting veterans that were homeless. The information helped determine the services. needed in the community. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes January 24, 2011 Page 3 Ms. Bloch spoke regarding. the Egan Warming Center, which came out of the One Night Homeless Count and involved the same people that took that count. People from the faith based community, :social justice community, and from the provider community were already working with the homeless. During the winter of 2008, it was particularly cold in December and churches in Springfield opened their doors to the homeless to get them out of the freezing cold. They wanted to do more and approached the Human Service Commission and Lane County Board of Commissioners. The HSC and Board responded immediately and within a couple of weeks, the Armory was- opened in Eugene. The first year during the first five nights of January and February, they served about 650 beds. The Springfield School District brought in chairs, the Veteran's Administration brought in cots, and the. Serbu Center made food from Food for Lane County. Last year, they tried to stabilize this project, and contracted with St. Vincent DePaul to manage this effort. She explained why the center was called the Egan Warming Center, after a veteran who had died homeless in the area. There were about seven different sites and churches and synagogues in Springfield and Eugene, as well as Veneta and Cottage Grove, who opened their doors to the homeless. More than 400 volunteers worked at these centers, many of which were homeless: Last year they served about 450 individuals over about 11 nights. This year, they had been opened for eight nights and had served more than 400 people. She relayed a story about a homeless man who had received assistance and also volunteered at the Egan Warming Center. Ms. Bloch spoke regarding training and technical assistance for all of the providers. They provide the needed data to the agencies to help them do their jobs better. They also provided training for staff at these agencies. She noted the amount of training they had conducted. They received a lot of feedback . on how favorably the training had benefited their organizations. Ms. Bloch spoke regarding the veteran's program, which included assisting people file disability claims, get military records, apply for VA healthcare, receive education benefits, and receive survivor spouse benefits. In 2009, the Veteran's Program helped veterans and their families access $1.1M in . continuing monthly benefits and $7.8M in retroactive pay. Mr. Manela explained where HSC currently was in terms of finances and request for proposals. He. distributed some additional information. He thanked Councilor Ralston who had been serving on the HSC for a number of years and also, the newest Springfield representative, Chris Stole. The HSC was an intergovernmental entity and the policy board included representatives elected and appointed by the jurisdictions. Mr. Manela said the HSC recently completed their request for proposal (RFP) process. One of the documents distributed showed the results for this process. The items highlighted in yellow on the document were not funded. Last year, the HSC made a presentation to Springfield and noted that they would like to set a target that Springfield's contribution would be the same as cities of similar size . across Oregon. He understood it was a difficult year for the City of Springfield. At this point, the HSC was not sure how to fund the Egan Center. In previous years, people had spoken up about funding the Veteran's program, the Buckley House and other critical needs in the community. This year, the HSC allocated funds geographically based on the number of low income. people in an area. Springfield and East Lane County represented about 25% of the people that received services, 'with a little over 60% in Eugene and Central Lane County, and the balance in the rural areas. He referred to an Emergency Shelter in Springfield which was funded, but not the Family Shelter in' Eugene. There were still critical issues to work through. He appreciated the help and concern of the Council and community. Councilor Pishioneri asked how much of their total budget came from the Lane County General Fund. City of Springfield , Council Work Session Minutes. . January 24, 2011 Page 4 . Mr. Manela said about $850,000. Councilor Pishioneri said it looked like Springfield was contributing $99,000+ this year in terms of CDBG funding. He asked how much it was last year. Mr. Ko said it was $99,000. They were assuming the amount would be the same this year, but they hadn'.t yet received the CDBG allocations. Councilor Wylie asked when the funding decisions were made. . 1VIr. Manela said the committees met during the month of November, and the recommendations were taken to the Board of Commissioners in December. The Board approved the recommendations with the exception of the section to Increase Access to Services. The HSC would be going back to the Board of Commissioners with that topic. There was an appeal by Centro Latino, so the funding had, not yet been allocated. Councilor Wylie asked when this funding year began. Mr. Manela said July 1, 2011. Councilor Wylie confirmed they had done all of their budget work. Yes. She said it was sad to see how many good programs were not being funded. She felt they had done a good job of representing the highest priorities. She asked if there were next steps for the items not funded. Mr. Manela said they would be meeting with the HSC tomorrow to discuss next steps. He would be " presenting a gaps analysis of what should be funded. They were waiting for the conclusion of the last piece of the RFP process before looking at gaps and how to address those gaps. They wanted to be equitable to. all groups that had applied in this process. , Councilor Wylie asked if any:of those highlighted were currently funded, but would no longer be funded. Mr. Manela said that was correct. He said he could email Councilor Wylie a list once completed. Councilor Ralston said last year Block Grant funds (CDBG) were $99,000, and that would most likely remain the same. The HSC was, however, asking the City to increase their contribution from $148,000 to $163,000. He asked where those funds came from.. . Mr. Grimaldi said from the General Fund. Councilor Ralston said over the last three years,. they had given one time additions of $20,000 each year. Mr. Manela said the City had contributed $128,394 plus $20,000 over the last three years. They had a similar situation in Eugene with one time additions each year for the past five years, and with the County over the last three years. These. were based on how each jurisdiction was doing during those . years, but it also conveyed that even with these additional contributions, the need was not going away. ..They were going into unchartered territory this year with everyone experiencing a downturn in funds. City of Springfield . . Council We:k Session Minutes .. 7anuary 24, 2011 Page 5 Councilor Ralston said they hadn't heard from the State yet, so couldn't make any decisions until they had that information. It wouldn't do much good for Councilor Wylie to fmd out if a program was funded last year unless she also asked how much of the funding was stimulus funds. Mr. Manela said about $780,000 was. from stimulus funds that would not be available this year. Councilor Wylie said her question to Mr. Manela was what was being recommended for funding, what had been funded, and what was a totally~~ew program that was requesting funding. Councilor Pishioneri said it would be good for him to see if the $148,394 included the one time contribution of $20,000. Yes: The original amount was $128,394, so the amount requested this year of $163,000 was a larger increase than previously noted. Councilor Pishioneri referred to the questions by Councilor Wylie and Ralston. Mr. Manela said without the stimulus funding; the HSC was at about $4.3M per year, so they targeted their RFP at $4M, about a seven percent reduction from before the American Recovery Act. The $3.6M was the figure without the one-time contributions for the jurisdictions, which was about a 20% reduction from the point of not having the stimulus funding. The document presented represented their funding prior to the stimulus funds. Councilor Moore referred to the Energy Assistance stats. She didn't understand ail of the acronyms on. the document and asked why SUB wasn't shown. Ms. Bloch said SUB administered their own energy assistance program. Although HSC didn't administer that program, they provided energy assistance to ,Springfield residents through other programs. She said she-could send information on the acronyms to the Mayor and Council, The numbers indicated the programs that HSC administered. Mr. Manela said the part of the budget he was speaking about tonight were agency payments with non- profit agencies. There was also a line item in the budget called fine assistance funds, which included rent assistance and energy assistance. They had contracts with all of the utilities in the County with the exception of SUB and Lincoln City. Mayor Lundberg thanked Mr. Manela, Ms. Wolfe, and Ms. Bloch for their update. This presentation led into Springfield's upcoming budget discussion. The current high unemployment caused a strain on all of the services. She suggested they look at ways to consolidate some of the services to allow them to be provided at a reduced cost. The Council would be revisiting this in the near future during the " _ Budget Committee meetings. She thanked them for all of their hard work and said she was a strong proponent of Project Homeless Connect and would be volunteering again this year. Ms. Wolfe distributed a list of the acronyms that was requested earlier in the meeting. 2. Annual Joint Work Session with Springfield Museum Board. Development Services Director Bill Grile presented the staff report on this item. The City owned the v Springfield Museum building and its permanent collection of historical artifacts. Under an agreement that renewed annually, the City contracted with Springfield Museum Board (a non-profit corporation) to manage the Museum for the benefit of the. community. The City /Museum Board management c City of Springf eld Council Work Session Minutes January 24, 2011 Page 6 .. agreement sets forth obligations for both parties.. The Work Session would allow a discussion of these. The Management Agreement at Section 7 (Attachment 2 of the agenda packet, page 5) addressed compensation for Museum Board services. The base fee for 2010/2011 remained at $45,000. In addition, the City granted an additional one-time award of $10,000 to the Museum Board this fiscal year to fund the construction of display equipment for new interactive educational programs directed toward school aged children: Attachment 4 of the agenda packet was a lengthy PowerPoint slideshow that was intended for viewing before or after the Work Session. . Mr. Grile introduced Museum Board Chair Jack Gischell. Mr. Gischell said he had been on the Board off and on for many years. Under the direction of Museum Director Debra Gruell, the Springfield Museum was one of the most viable and best operating museums Springfield had in years. He introduced Ms. Gruen. Ms. Gruen thanked the City of Springfield and the City Council and Mayor for supporting the Museum. She was honored to be part of the Museum and the events that went on there. She was also honored to know the people on the Board of Directors. She personally thanked Mr. Grile and City Manager Gino Grimaldi for supporting the Museum by being members. She referred to the CD that was provided to the Council showing events that occurred at the Museum in 2010. A VIP Reception was held in the Museum to give them an opportunity to see some of the things that had happened at the Museum over the last year, and to view some of the exhibits. She referred to a new permanent exhibit in the Museum and said it would be explained later in the meeting. Ms. Gruen spoke regarding the new interactive exhibit that the City Council helped sponsor with funding last year. Since it opened in December, they had close to 500 students that had come through and enjoyed it. Ms. Gruen -said she was very proud of the activities that had happened during the past year. In 2010, the Museum had 11 exhibits in the Gallery, three fundraisers, and several spatial events. The exhibits and events were more attended than ever and often had standing room only. They offered music, refreshments, and often demonstrations of the exhibits. She spoke regarding the exhibit that honored all firemen in Springfield, and said the firefighters worked hard to make sure the event was good for 'everyone to enjoy. Every Saturday, the firefighters came out to the parking lot with the 1949 Pumper Truck so the kids could get their photos taken on it. They also had a slide for the kids to play on and. . hooked up the fire. hose so the kids could pretend they were putting out a fire. Ms. Gruen said the Museum had thousands of visitors, including children. It was not easy, but they were fortunate to get good publicity. It took a lot of work building relationships with the media. In 2010, the Springfield Museum had four feature stories in the regular Register Guard and that really made a difference. Two of their fundraisers had gotten so -big that they had requested to hold them in City Hall. During the Trash and Treasure event, there were hundreds of people in attendance, in part because 'of the great article in the Register Guard. The Museum had been on TV, Radio, and other media. Thanks to the City Council for their continued support, they were able to let kids into the Museum for free. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes January 24, 2011 Page 7 Ms. Gruell said every school group that came into the Museum for a tour received a question and a challenge as they left. If they could come up with the answer, she would come to their school for an ice cream party. This year, Yolanda won the event. This year they were taking the challenge out to the community because it was the community's Museum, and they would be asking the community to support the Museum. Mr. Gischell said the Museum had changed a lot over the years. They were trying to move ahead to be more viable for the City and become more of a community Museum. He introduced the rest of the Museum Board members: Michael Walker, Treasurer; Patty Sage, Secretary; and Shannon Mudge, member. Mr. Walker spoke regarding the Art Gallery. The Museum had exhibits from world ,class and local artists, and brought in people not only during the day, but in the evenings. Ms. Sage referred to the photo that was distributed to the Mayor and Council, which depicted the daisy, the Springfield flower. They felt the Museum was helping the City bloom. She spoke regarding the educational programs at the Museum. She had been involved in a Teach America History grant over the last several years. The Museum's grant had brought $10,000 to the Museum that had been used in part to purchase pioneer costumes for students to wear and museum quality trunks for the costumes. Ms. Gruell had used those on her field trips to the schools. There were four middle school. teachers involved in this project. Ms. Sage volunteered at the Museum in the summer and' noticed there were a lot of people that came by with their families. Some of the Museum docents couldn't make it up the stairs, so they had come up with a 'few things they could give families to tour the Museum. One of them .was "I Spy with My History Eye". She explained that game. Ms. Sage said some of the Museums had a phone number to call to get more information on particular exhibits. The Springfield School District helped the Museum set up a phone tree that connected the caller to a recording with information. The information was also available on a MP3 player" that people could check out at the Museum. Ms. Sage said she had been involved in a project of the history of the Springfield School District. They had a lot of photographs of the buildings and information. They built a small replica of a school built in the late 1800'x. The school opened up and became a stage that Ms. Gruell took on field trips to the schools: These were some of the things they were doing to bring people into the Museum. Mr. Mudge said when visiting the Lane County Museum, he found there were few references to . Springfield, other than it was east of Eugene. From that point, his passion was to find out what happened in Springfield. In the 1930's and 1950'x, downtown buildings, museums, and historical . archives were not considered important anymore. It wasn't until the 1990's that people started getting excited about the museums and preserving cultural heritages. There was an opportunity to keep that preservation. He felt that in about 10 years there would be a subscription system allowing people to go online and learn anything about their ancestors and different areas in the City of Springfield. He found that no one had done documentation on the Mayors of the City of Springfield. Crystal Fogle had provided a wealth of information about her life as a schoolteacher in the 1910's. This was the 100' year of the Springfield Museum building and with their passion, it would remain for another 100 years. , Judith Bushnell, another Museum Board member, spoke regarding some of the fundraisers put on by the Museum. The City Hall Lobby was used for the WineFest in which they sold about 100 tickets and City of Springfield Council Work Session Muiui.es - . January 24, 2011 Page 8 raised about $2800. They had food and wine at the event. Another fundraiser was the Garden Tour. In 2010 they had entertainment and food at every garden. Each Board member stayed at one garden each and heard a lot of positive comments. There were about 300 people and they raised $4185. She invited the Mayor and Council to attend all of their fundraisers. Mr. Gischell noted that Councilor Woodrow was a former. Museum Board member, as was Councilor Ralston many years ago. Ms. Gruell said the 3'~ Annual WineFest was scheduled April 16 in the City Hall Lobby. They had already sold two full tables. There was a gentleman that donated wine, and also donated his time and expertise. She noted some other upcoming exhibits and events for the coming year that involved the . Eugene Ballet and the Eugene Emeralds. Mr. Gischell asked if the Council had any questions for Ms. Gruell or anyone on the Board. Councilor Woodrow said she noticed the Museum was 75% through the inventory and she commended them on that. She had heard a lot of comments from people in the community of the great job being done by the:Museum. Councilor Pishioneri said last year the City provided an additional $10,000 in funding for the children's educational programs, which were highlighted in the slide show, He asked what they had planned with the rest of the money coming to them. Ms. Gruell said the interactive center had four sections. One section was totally completed. With the additional funding, they were starting with two more sections. They were also fortunate to get funding from Weyerhaeuser, so all four sections would be complete. Every. time it came up, it would have a different theme, giving students an opportunity to experience different events as they went around the four units. It was a way to engage all students at one time. 1 Councilor VanGordon said it was so important that they were thinking of the Museum as a.living thing for kids. That's what built a love of history. He noted podcasting as a way to get even more information out to the public about the objects in the Museum and suggested they look into implementing something like that. Mr. Gischell noted, that there would be military models set up in mid-February. He invited all of the Mayor and Council to visit the Museum. Mr. Mudge said they would be working on a-new Trash and Treasures event in 2011. Mayor Lundberg said the flower was a perfect example of how far the Museum had come and what an asset it was for downtown. They were appreciative of the Board's hard work in keeping the Museum so special. ~~ 3. Developer Input Process Update. Planning Supervisor Jim Donovan and Civil Engineer Matt Stouder presented the staff report on this item. The Developer Input Process (DIP) was an element of the Development Fee Study and Cost Recovery Project, which was initiated by Council in early 2010. Select members of the development . City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes January 24, 2011 Page 9 community were coordinating with City staff and had formed a collective Joint Work Team (JWT) to .review and streamline the City's Site Plan Review process. A nine member self selected JWT representing local developers and professionals from the development community. had been coordinating and working with City staff to review and streamline the City's Site Plan Application Checklist, identifying potential savings to applicants and consultants while maintaining the integrity of City review standards and procedures. The JWT determined that Site Plan Review, City departmental roles in development review procedures and overall customer service were the top areas of concern. The JWT's progress on these subjects and further information regarding this discussion was contained in Attachment 1 of the agenda packet. Mr. Donovan gave a brief background on why this group was formed as a way to improve . communication between the City and the development community, and to gain efficiencies in the development review process. A spokesman for the development community, Shaun Hyland, had been chosen during the early meetings. The members on the JWT included the following: Rick Satre, landscape architect and principal of Satre and Associates; Craig Horrell, engineer with Hayden Homes; Renee Clough, engineer, surveyor and planner with Branch Engineering; Eric Hall, principal architect with Eric Hall Architects; Monica Anderson, engineer and principal partner with Balzheizer, Hubbard; Carole Knapel, project manager with KPFF; Kristen Karle, project manager with St. Vincent DePaul; and Mike Evans, partner and planner with Land Planning Consultants. Mr. Donovan said the group had met five times. They started out by choosing the site plan review process as the model to allow them to get to the top three priorities -customer service, site plan review, and planning and public works' role in development review. They broke down the site plan topic into two basic parts: 1) submittal requirements including costs and timing; and 2) expanding one type of land use review and reduce site plan review applications at certain levels of development. Mr. Stouder said the group had another meeting scheduled for tomorrow. Three of the meetings were dedicated to going over the City's site plan review application checklist. The checklist was a summary of the City's Development Code requirements and other items the applicant may need to do to get approval at the site. The group identified several efficiencies in the process. He described some of those, especially regarding title reports. The City would implement the title report at a stage in the process that would require only one filing of that report. The group also wanted to reduce the amount of paper associated with the plan review. He explained the current process which included multiple copies of plans at a high cost. They looked at increasing the preparer's list. Mr. Stouder said an off-line discussion had occurred with the traffic engineers regarding improvements to~ the traffic impact analysis. Some of the improvements would include standardizing and looking at what other cities were doing. The group also looked at all the detailed planning and engineering requirements to see what could be made more efficient or pushed out further. They would be going back to look at those further. Mr. Donovan said there were many other submittal requirements that had been discussed in detail. The feedback from the developers group was not only about the amount of information required, but where it was required in the process. Deferring some of that information in the process was a cost savings and allowed people to develop a conceptual plan and receive their land use review and approval prior to significant engineer detailed plans. - City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes January 24, 2011 Page 10 Mr. H}land said he felt they were moving in the right direction. He had been pleased with how things were going. It was a large group with differing ideas, but was able to get back on track with Mr. Stouder's he1p..The ultimate goal was for a developer to be able to go through site plan review concurrent with permit set, similar to how it was handled in Eugene. He felt they were getting to that goal. There was a huge cost in the site plan review, and helping to eliminate some of those costs was a big benefit to the developers. Former Councilor Fred Simmons had mentioned in one of the meetings that the cost for a small project was about $4500, which was the base cost for any project. That cost would be reduced to make it more feasible for small businesses to expand or put in a small project. That would help the community a great deal. Mr. Donovan said they did look at how other communities, such as Eugene, approached the `one size fits all' .scenario for site plan review. They found that all the cities looked at had some type, of site plan review in varying degrees of complexity and levels of application. He discussed the different levels in the City of Springfield. Staff proposed that they target minimum development standards and work with that. One of the points they had focused on was increasing the cap from 5000 to 25.,000 square feet. When they brought this back to Council for a fee analysis, they would be recommending some reductions in site plan fees, and possibly a new fee to coincide with this process. He explained the size differential regarding the square footage. They would also extend the proportionality clause that already existed in the minimum development standards (MDS). He explained. By expanding the MDS, it moved the project down to a lower step in the site plan review and in some cases eliminating site plan review. They felt that would be a good first step. Communication and conversation with the .development community was very important and had been vastly improved by getting together with " the large and small groups. The group would continue to report back to the homebuilders, the Springfield Chamber of Commerce and other groups as appropriate. Mr. Ed McMahon from the HomeBuilders' Association had been a great resource and staff would continue to work with him. Nlr. Donovan said the next steps in the process would be to finalize some products and begin to bring them forward through the formal adoption process. A work session would be held with the Planning Commission and staff would bring back to Council a more detailed discussion about the Code provisions sometime this Spring. They would also be looking at any changes to the fee analysis. Councilor Pishioneri asked about expanding the eligible people that could submit plans. He asked if the State had a licensure authorizing people to prepare plans based on criteria. Mr. Stouder said there were State requirements that told people where they could practice, and what . they could be responsible for. The Springfield Code stated that the plan needed to be submitted by an engineer, but a surveyor could prepare the plan. Councilor Pishioneri said it would make sense that anyone with the proper certification should be allowed to provide the service in all cities in Oregon. He felt it was important to make the proposed changes to the Code as soon as possible. He had a question about determining traffic at different locations along Main Street and the proportionality clause. Mr. Donovan explained the example he had used for this type of project. The proportionality clause was there to allow the, City to .focus on one .side of a building, rather than one side of a 20 acre site. Councilor Moore spoke regarding the mall on Q Street and the large fees that had been incurred at that site. She asked how that related to what was happening in this process; . -i _ City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes January 24, 2011 Page 11 Mr. Stouder said the large fees associated with the development Councilor Moore was referring to were associated with SDCs. Staff was working on creative ways to ease some of that stress. The fees were not planning fees. Mr. Hyland .said that in the group meetings they discussed the change in use and how that affected the SDCs. They would be looking to combine the SDCs into a bigger pool so smaller changes would not cause large increases in SDCs. Councilor Moore said if they were looking to redevelop those sites, it was important to make it work. Mr. Donovan said the communication process was something that needed to occur from the .beginning and SDCs needed to be discussed at that time so they were a known factor.: Mr. Stouder said they had created an SDC sheet available at the front counter. Mr. Grile said without a business license, they couldn't say something like that wouldn't happen again. Uses. were changing that the City didn't know about until later in the process. .Mayor Lundberg thanked them for doing this. It was Council direction to be a leader for our development community and being proactive with our development community. She also thanked Mr. Hyland for his participation, and the rest of the committee. Councilor Ralston said he would like to see this move forward as quickly as possible. There were developers waiting to get started on projects. Mr. Grile said there was a balance they were trying to maintain. Also, during the meetings with the r developers, there was a lot of information that the City needed to know, which brought them to reduce the amount of paper required by 80%, saving time and. money. , 4. Council BCC Assignments Discussion. City Manager Gino Grimaldi presented the staff report on this item. The Springfield Charter and Council operating policies,required that the Mayor make and formally confirm Mayor/Council committee assignments. Mayor Lundberg would like to discuss the existing board, committee and commission assignments with the Council to determine their interests and assist in making her decision about their 2011 assignments. Mayor Lundberg asked the Council to look over the assignments and let her know what they were interested. in serving on. .Each of the Councilors voiced their interests regarding the Boards, Commissions, and Committees. The formal assignments would be made by Mayor Lundberg during the February 7 Regular Meeting. ADJOURNMENT 1 The meeting was adjourned at approximately 7:45 p.m. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes January 24, 2011 Page 12 Minutes Recorder -Amy Sowa Attest: ~~~~~~- Amy Sow City Reco der