Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout07/11/2011 Work SessionCity of Springfield Work Session Meeting MINUTES OF THE WORK SESSION MEETING OF THE SPRINGFIELD CITY COUNCIL HELD MONDAY, JULY 11, 2011 The City of Springfield Council met in a work session in the Jesse Maine Meeting Room, 225 Fifth Street, Springfield, Oregon, on Monday, July 11, 2011 at 5:30 p.m., with Mayor Lundberg presiding. ATTENDANCE Present were Mayor Lundberg and Councilors Moore, Woodrow and Pishioneri. Also present were City Manager Gino Grimaldi, Assistant City Manager Jeff Towery, City Attorney Joe Leahy, City Recorder Amy Sowa and members of the staff. Councilors VanGordon, Wylie and Ralston were absent (excused). 1. Open Banner Program Update & Sign Code Conversation. Management Analyst Courtney Griesel presented the staff report on this item. She distributed a staff response to a business owner on Q Street regarding issues with the Sign Code. In 2008, at the direction of City Council, staff designed and implemented the Downtown OPEN Banner Program to address downtown business owner's frustration with signage. Over the last 3 years the urban renewal funded program had grown to include 62 downtown businesses and banners. Additionally, the program had been replicated in the Mohawk business area which now boasted 18 banners and 13 business participants. The introduction of the Banner Program into the Mohawk area had been successful thus far and received well by the businesses participating. When initiated, staff felt that the Mohawk program area might serve well as a test location for a larger, city-wide, program. Driven by recent issues with the use of temporary signage and the conflicting language in the Springfield Sign Code, staff was proposing to expand the OPEN Banner Program to the larger Springfield area, allowing businesses outside the Downtown Urban Renewal and Mohawk Areas the opportunity to participate. Expansion to a city-wide program would replicate the cost and structure of the Mohawk Program (Attachment 2 of the agenda packet). While the expansion of the program might alleviate some business' frustration with the Sign Code, it would not completely fix the conflicts. Staff felt the expansion of the OPEN Banner Program was an immediate remedy that should ultimately be paired with revisions to the Code. It was the intent of Development Services and City Manager's Office staff to examine the Springfield Sign Code and assess its perceived conflicts, reassess the overall goal and present recommended updates back to Council later this Fall. Ms. Griesel said she had received interest from some businesses outside of the two banner areas for the OPEN Banner program. There may be some areas that the banner program may not be as appropriate due to logistics. Those would need to be considered case-by-case. U> City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes July 11, 2011 Page 2 Ms. Griesel noted some issues that had come to the attention of staff regarding conflicts in the Springfield Sign Code. Staff proposed looking at the Sign Code, analyzing where conflicts may be in the Code and looking to update the Code. Ms. Griesel introduced Jackie Murdoch, Assistant Community Services Manager who was available to answer any questions about the Sign Code. Councilor Woodrow asked how complicated it would be to allow the OPEN Banner program citywide and if it would impact the Sign Code. Ms. Griesel said the OPEN Banner program was not covered under the Sign Code and its enforcement. Staff was proposing expanding the OPEN Banner program in conjunction with updating the Sign Code to identify and address the root of some of the issues. Mayor Lundberg said signage was the most basic way for a business to advertise themselves at their location and was very critical for the business. The City didn't allow sandwich boards and some business owners were surprised by that. She asked if we could allow sandwich boards for a limited. amount of time such as banners. Ms. Murdoch said the banners were allowed twice a year for 30 days each time. There was a deposit that was returned once the banner was taken down. That provision was set up for businesses to have a banner or sign displayed during a special event or sale. Councilor Moore said there was a sandwich board in front of the Emerald Arts Association during the Farmer's Market. She asked if we made exceptions. Ms. Murdoch said normally sandwich boards were not allowed, but City event signs were allowed. Mayor Lundberg said the banner program was developed to address the fact that sandwich boards were not allowed. She would like to see what they could do to help businesses be successful, but not infringe on the public. She would like the Sign Code reviewed and updated because there were discrepancies in some parts of the Code. If there was a way to update the Code and help businesses, she would support doing that. We needed to have consistency. A business license was also a way to get the information to business owners up front, so the business owners knew right away what was allowed and what was not. Councilor Pishioneri said it was the right thing to do to look for those discrepancies in the Sign Code and address those. He did note that there was a reason for the Sign Code and we wanted to keep the City looking in order. Councilor Moore asked about people walking around with signs advertising businesses or products. Ms. Murdoch said that was under the Free Speech umbrella. Ms. Griesel asked if there was interest in expanding the OPEN Banner program. She could draft something over the next few months to bring to Council. Mayor Lundberg said she supported expanding the program in a way that paid for itself. Councilor Woodrow would like to see parameters of what was allowable and what was not, regarding size and location of signs. Councilor Pishioneri said he liked the OPEN Banners. He would like to see the areas that would be part of that program. Ms. Griesel said it would be more of an expansion of the Mohawk program.. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes July 11, 2011 Page 3 Mr. Leahy said staff would present a proposal to the City Attorney's Office. They did better with setting size, location and zoning rather than content. Councilor Pishioneri said he wanted to keep the content issue in mind as it could surface. Ms. Griesel said staff would be back later in the Fall with more information. 2. Strategic Plan. Assistant City Manager Jeff Towery and Management Analyst Courtney Griesel presented the staff report on this item. Ms. Griesel handed out a cleaned-up version of the Council goals. Staff was presenting Council with recommended Strategic Plan and Goal updates that attempted to reflect the organization's work towards more efficient and effective processes. In a number of cases, reflections over the last year lead staff to recommend that some targets be removed, others added and some amended. The attachments detailed all of those suggestions for the Council's consideration. The City Council adopted the Strategic Plan, Goals and Targets for the first time in April 2009 followed by a review and adoption of amendments in July 2010. As the Strategic Plan was made up of a detailed set of targets specific to the work of each department and supported by Council's goals, and over time Council's goals shifted and evolved, each department was constantly working to improve and advance the success of the organization. The attached recommended updates attempted to reflect the evolving goals and priorities. The goal and targets adopted and the supporting department level goals and targets would continue to be used to measure and report efficiency, effectiveness and innovation as well as to prioritize services, projects and policy initiatives. The Strategic Plan provided Council and staff with a tool to ensure both progress and accountability while also serving as a useful tool when allocating resources. Mr. Towery said Attachment 1 of the agenda packet showed the goals as written in legislative format based on feedback from Council during their previous work sessions. He noted the changes shown in the targets listed in Attachment 2 of the agenda packet. Councilor Woodrow said after reviewing the documents, she had no comments or concerns Mayor Lundberg said they understood this took a lot of work from staff. Mr. Towery said every. department had people actively involved in the work on this project. Councilor Moore said she was very impressed how staff took all of Council's discussions and put them into the goals into such a concise way. She appreciated that they had started each goal with an action verb. Mr. Towery said the guidance for the goals had come from the Council through their work during their meetings. Councilor Moore said as her first year through this process, she was impressed with the amount of involvement by Council. Council was supportive of bringing the Targets and Goals back for formal adoption as presented. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes July 11, 2011 Page 4 3. Council Ward Redistricting. City Recorder Amy Sowa, City Attorney Joe Leahy and Bill Clingman from Lane Council of Governments (LCOG) presented the staff report on this item. Every ten years the U.S. Census Bureau conducted a census of the population. The data was used for a variety of purposes, including reapportionment of election districts. In 1981, 1991, and 2001, Springfield contracted with LCOG to, analyze the previous years' Census data and determine several ward boundary scenarios. Ultimately, the City Council adopted new ward boundary systems that were used. It was not mandatory that the Council ward boundaries be redrawn after every census. The Springfield Municipal Code, Section 2.005, simple stated that "There are hereby established in the city, six wards with Lane County election precincts .. " and "The boundaries of said wards shall be established by special ordinance." In April, 2011, the City Manager entered into an agreement with LCOG in an amount not-to-exceed $3640. The first phase of the agreement included preparation of a table by LCOG showing: a) the 2010 population by existing City Council Ward; b) the equal population figure if wards were perfectly balanced and c) the degree of variance between the 2010 population of existing wards and the ideal equal population (Attachment 2 of the agenda packet). During the second phase, with direction from Council, LCOG would prepare scenarios for revisions to City Council Wards for Council review during an interactive work session scheduled for Fall 2011. City staff may also perform some of the mapping work on this project.. During the last redistricting process, the City Council asked for three scenarios and adopted a growth scenario. Mr. Leahy referred to the memo from the City Attorney. Because Springfield Councilors were elected at-large, we were not bound by the one percent deviation among wards. The question of the boundaries related more to candidate eligibility since a candidate must live in a particular ward in order to be elected. Traditionally in Springfield, Council had chosen not to have a deviation of more than 5 percent in terms of population within a ward so that each councilor lived and represented close to the same number of people. He referred to Mr. Clingman's memo in the agenda packet which identified. the criteria, including equal population in each Ward within a 5 percent range. The City Attorney's Office Recommended that 5 percent range. Mayor Lundberg said they were curious what happened to cause such a large amount of growth in Ward 4. Mr. Clingman said there could have been some infill. There was a large development near the tracks in that Ward, which increased the population in that area. He displayed a map showing the current wards with figures showing population in blocks. He noted that they considered the 5 percent range as a starting point. Mr. Clingman said in order to achieve a balance in population, Ward 4 would need to shrink in area to lose population and Wards 1, 2 and 3 would need to grow in area to gain population. Wards 5 and 6 were very close to the target population, but could be slightly modified. Council could start out with a degree of variance to account for expected growth as was done 10 years ago. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes July 11, 2011 Page 5 Mayor Lundberg recalled that she and another councilor had gone over the map with Claire VanBloom ten years ago to move the lines and determine how best to adjust the boundary. Discussion was held on development and growth in different Wards throughout the City. It was noted that'several of the councilors lived very close to the boundary of their Wards. Mr. Clingman referred to the considerations that could be taken into account as listed on Attachment 2, page 2, which included where the incumbents were living in relation to the boundary. The list of considerations could be taken into account, or not, by the Council. Councilor Woodrow asked how Mr. Clingman felt the projections from ten years ago went and if it was worth looking at that type of change again. Mr. Clingman said it was difficult to say. The projections from ten years ago were working well until about 2008 when development slowed. Councilor Woodrow said because the Councilors weren't elected by Ward, they had some leeway to consider a growth scenario within the 5 percent range. That was correct. Mayor Lundberg said ten years ago, they tried to even out the Wards and looked at different ways that might impact different neighborhoods. She would like to use an interactive map like that during their next work session. Mr. Clingman said he could bring several scenarios to Council with statistics for their review and consideration, or they could set up an interactive session with software so they could adjust the boundaries online and see the impacts. It was a question of achieving the right balance of being equal in population, yet preserving certain neighborhoods. The Springfield Council had flexibility that others, such as the State Legislature, didn't have. Five percent was defensible. Mayor Lundberg said the interactive session was very helpful to see the impacts immediately. Each Councilor had their ward that they were familiar with. Councilor Woodrow said it would be interesting to be part of that interactive process. Mr...Grimaldi asked if they could bring three scenarios and also provide the interactive session. Mayor Lundberg said that would be a good idea. Mr. Clingman said he could bring the following scenarios: (1) population balance with as little change as necessary to the boundaries; (2) growth scenario with projected growth over the next ten years; and (3) something between the least possible change and the growth scenarios. He could also bring the technology to allow hands on interaction by the Council. Councilor Pishioneri said he would like to keep in mind geographic features for boundaries as they adjusted the lines. He would like the boundaries to be more common sense regarding where they were divided. Mr. Leahy said they may find, after talking with staff, that Glenwood would see the most growth. Mr. Clingman noted that one of the considerations listed was consideration of other boundaries. If possible, the County Election's Officer would like the City to take into account the new State City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes July 11, 2011 Page 6 legislative districts that had been enacted. When City, County and State boundaries didn't coincide, small pockets of voters were in separate precincts, which was costly for Elections. Mayor Lundberg said that was a valid consideration. Mr. Leahy said staff would bring more back to Council in a work session in the Fall. ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned at approximately 6:18 p.m. Minutes Recorder - Amy Sowa Christine L. Lundberg Mayor Attest: Amy So City Recorder