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designed the facility with local architects and landscape architects through a pro bono arrangement. The building will be built on school district land near North Salem High School but used by the community as well as regular environmental education classes that will be taught there. An executive director will be hired to operate the center and operating revenue will come from a variety of sources including school district (building maintenance), the City (partial staff funding), OWEB (a regional watershed council coordinator), and other non-profit group funding. Section VI :Public Works Internal Discussions In early 2000, BLM and Public Works Department managers and staff met to discuss the role of the Public Works Department primarily in the education center. The plans for the non-profit were not as significant as they are now. Chris Andersen, Les Lyle, Therese Walch, and Scott Duckett represented the Public Works Department. Julia Dugan and Pat Johnston represented the BLM. The meeting was called because of apparent differences in priority and intensity of participation in regards to the education center as a component of the West Eugene Wetlands Program. Chris Andersen presented the Departments position that we are not interested in owning a facility due to the costs and workload associated with caretaking and building maintenance. She did indicate that the Department is very interested in continuing to support the effort with staff assistance. She cautioned however that City staff need to be clear about their role and should avoid membership as staff with non-profit organizations. Chris explained that the City is approached by many non-profit organizations from the community for support and therefore needs to be careful about the level of support, participation, or other relationships with one non-profit compared to others. At the same meeting mentioned above, Les Lyle, offered that the Department may have an interest in the. education center facility for operational support in managing the West Eugene Wetlands. This was implied to mean building space for permanent and/or seasonal staff, equipment, and central coordination for work activities associated with the Wetlands Program (e.g. seed cleaning, wetland maintenance, youth crew orientation, botanical monitoring crews, etc.). Les also mentioned that the Department may be able to assist by providing some traditional Public Works services such as pre-development scoping for the building site or other infrastructure coordination for planning purposes. He made it clear, however, that the Department is not interested in long term ownership of the facility and that a lease or space rental may be an option if we desire to have space for the items mentioned above. Section VII: Benefits to the Public Works Department The Department, and the Wetlands Program in particular, could benefit from the education program in a number of ways, including the following: 1.) Carrying out the West Eugene Wetlands Plan Fulfillment of recommendations and policies in the adopted West Eugene Wetlands Plan.