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1 Air li <br /> September 24, 2004 <br /> EUGENE <br /> Parks and <br /> Open Space <br /> a division of Public Works <br /> 1820 Roosevelt Blvd. Harold Ogren <br /> Eugene,Oregon 97402 500 Terra Linda Avenue <br /> (541)682-4800 Eugene, OR 97404 <br /> (541)682-4882 Fax <br /> www.ci.eugene.or.us/pw/parks Dear Mr. Ogren: <br /> This letter is in response to your letter of August 19, 2004 where you <br /> expressed dissatisfaction with both the acquisition process and ongoing <br /> maintenance of the parcel we purchased from you in 2002. <br /> I'm very sorry the City's acquisition and ongoing maintenance of the property <br /> has not met your expectations or satisfaction. I want to assure you that we <br /> feel that there is still a need to retain the property for public parkland and that <br /> we take seriously the need to provide proper maintenance to our park land. <br /> Parks and Open Park Planning staff studied your neighborhood looking for the best possible <br /> Space Planning available site for a neighborhood park. Your property was considered to <br /> satisfy the conditions for such a park. As you indicated, you were initially <br /> Parks Maintenance contacted by Park Planning personnel to determine any interest in selling your <br /> Urban Forestry property to the City for eventual use as a park. <br /> Wetlands and Open In your letter, you addressed a few points where you feel you were not dealt <br /> Waterways with "truthfully." The bulleted items below will address some of these: <br /> • "We've paid over $100,000 an acre to acquire parks." You cite John <br /> Weber, retired parks planner, with this statement, and add "they had <br /> no intention of offering us that kind of money." <br /> John was correct that the City has paid $100,000 an acre for some <br /> developable land for parks acquisition. The City is obligated to pay just <br /> compensation for public acquisitions. Any early discussions about values, <br /> based on acquisitions around other parts of town, are only initial discussion <br /> points — it takes an appraisal for the City to be assured that it is offering to <br /> purchase property for its fair market value (and pay just compensation). <br /> There are a lot of factors that determine value and that is the reason the City <br /> had an appraisal done prior to making an offer to purchase your property. <br /> When we have paid a higher price per acre than that offered to you, the <br /> appraisals for those properties supported such offers. In the instance of <br /> purchasing your property, the appraisal was performed and we based our <br /> offer on the comparable sales within that <br /> marketraisal. lf value,comparable <br /> he hour offer the appraisal would have supported ahigher <br /> would have reflected that. <br /> EUGENE <br />