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Page 1 of 2 RUFFIER Peter J From: SMITH Susan Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2006 11:26 AM To: BALLEW Anne (SMTP); leikensw@comcast.net; Springfield Mayor Cc: BROWN Dan; RUFFIER Peter J Subject: Direction on Coburg Cost Study Attachments: Coburg Scope Roles and Sked 4-06.doc Greetings Mayor Leiken and Councilor/Commissioner Ballew. I appreciated the opportunity to seek your guidance on Monday evening about how to proceed in working with County staff on the project the County is now funding and managing to further refine the Cities' estimated buy-in costs for Coburg. I'm emailing you to summarize what I heard as your guidance and bounce it off of you to make sure I get this exactly right, before I ask Peter Ruffier (who is our Eugene-Springfield lead on this project) to convey it to Peter Thurston at the County. Please note that the attachment was drafted by County staff, and has not been accepted by City staff as appropriate or responsive to our Council direction. Status of Springfield's commitment to the project in a nutshell: The Cities, using MWMC as a conduit for the money, agreed to develop a refined cost estimate of the costs Coburg would pay to hook up (buy-in cost), under the following conditions: 1. The project is to be funded by Coburg or grants on Coburg's behalf, 2. The money is to directly fund the two cities', staff and consultants managed by City staff to conduct the work, 3. The framework/assumptions for the study are those established by the Council using the staff-provided materials at the JEO and following Council work session,-and based on that, the consensus direction from Council that further refinement of the numbers would result in a narrower range of costs somewhere between $7.5 and $12.5 million, 4. Coburg representatives need to be "at arms length," or "in the room but not at the table" in order for the resulting numbers to have credibility with the Councils. While Coburg will have and opportunity to review and comment at an appropriate point, and 5. The County and the State are not to influence the parameters, methods or outcomes of the study. Status of the Project: 1. The County and State have approved funding; however, MWMC is not an eligible borrower from the State, so the County unilaterally decided to be the grantee from the State, and to manage the State and County funds and the project itself. The County has assigned Peter Thurston to manage the project. 2. Peter Ruffier and Susie Smith crafted a scope of work, anticipating that Eugene and Springfield staff would receive funds and manage the project. However, Peter Thurston developed the attached scope of work, which is not consistent with the one we provided and it is not consistent with the conditions under which Springfield agreed to participate in the project. The County approved Peter Thurston's submittal by consent calendar. 3. The County also is in the position of having to comply with the State's conditions for issuing the grant,- which .(based on an email sent to Peter Thurston by the State) include broadening the scope of the project, and to have a steering or stakeholder committee which would include the County, the State, and Coburg. 4. Peter Ruffier and I met with Peter Thurston to review his project scope/roles/responsibilities following a meeting we had with Anne Ballew, Faye Stewart, and Dan Brown. We advised Peter Thurston that Springfield leadership had confirmed once again its conditions for participating in the study (as noted above), and that the . scope must be revised to reflect that: 1) the County staff role will be limited to being a "facilitator" of the process and that Peter Ruffier and Susie Smith will have the role/responsibility of managing the consultant work under the 4/24/2006 _ _ _