Eugene Council to Consider Postponing Transportation Fee

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i City Manager's Office City of Eugene E S RE L E A S E 777 Pearl Street, Room 105 Eugene, Oregon 97401 (541)682-5010 (541) 682-5414 FAX (541) 682-5045 TTY www.ci.eugene.or.us my 30, 2003 OMTACT: J n Bohman, Community Relations Director, 682-5587 Eugene Council to Consider Postponing Transportation Fee At last ni ht's meeting, the Eugene City Council scheduled a work session for Monday, ugust 11 to dislcuss postponing implementation of the Transportation System Maintenance Fee TSMF.) Councilor Nancy Nathanson distributed a proposed motion that would direct the city manager o refrain from i plementing the TSMF until July 1, 2004, for the purpose of allowing renewed egotiations wit Lane County regarding possible funding sources for transportation system needs. he counci! will onsider and act on the motion at the work session. Councilor Nathanson said, "We originally adopted this fee with the understanding we were oving parallel with the City of Springfield as partners, with both cities adopting both the gas tax and he TSMF. We had talked with Lane County and the county had declined to assist with other solutions, so th two cities felt it was necessary to move ahead with these mechanisms to address our serious transpo ation system needs. Since then, Springfield has repealed their TSMF and apparently Lane County is Twilling to again discuss other options." The council agreed that reconsideration was warranted, give changing circumstances. The Co ~ ncil adopted the TSMF in December 2002 as part of a revenue package intended to address Eugen 's $93 million backlog of street repair projects. The other part of the revenue package, a 3-c nt-per-gallon local gas tax, goes into effect Friday in Eugene, Springfield and Cottage Grove. The proposed motion is: 1 move to direct the city manager to refrain from implementing the TSMF until Jul 1, 2004. If the City and County have reached agreement by that date about a different source of fund to replace the TSMF, then the manager shall bring back to fhe Council an ordinance repealing the SMF. If such an agreement has not been reached, then the manager should implement fhe TSMF as soon as he is able to do so. "This would give us time to again reach out to the county in good faith to develop a broader solution to this ;problem that all Lane County cities are facing, "said Nathanson. "There is no dispute _ or doubt about the need, and it won't go away by itself. In fact, the need is growing. We need to find equitable ways to fund the solution. "