Eugene weekly., January 13, 2011, Page 10, Image 10

news
BY ALAN PITTMAN
State of Eugene
Piercy touts downtown projects, celebrates city
E
ugene Mayor Kitty Piercy cheered the city’s
accomplishments, including $100 million in
downtown redevelopment projects in a recession, and
gave a preview of coming work, including a possible city tax
for schools, in her State of the City Address Jan. 4.
“We’re here tonight to celebrate living and working
together in this community,” Piercy told a crowd of several
hundred gathered in the Hult Center lobby for the annual
event.
“We know the most important thing about our lives, our
jobs and this city we call home is how we care for each other,”
Piercy said. “It is about how we do this in the best and worst
of times.”
Piercy called the recession the “number one issue” for the
city last year. “Incomes suffered and unemployment stayed
high. Our city fi nances remained tight, and regular services
were more diffi cult to provide” Piercy said.
“We responded by focusing on smart governance, using
the triple bottom line of social equity, economic development
and protecting our natural resources as a lens, to maximize
our dollars and our service while cutting over $17 million
“Our Independent Police Auditor and Civilian Review
Board are functioning well,” Piercy said. “Several high-
profi le cases were handled and resolved with great sensitivity
and transparency. The oversight process we so painstakingly
put into place is running more smoothly, building confi dence
in the integrity of our civilian review system and our Police
Department.”
Last year the Civilian Review Board found that a police
offi cer used excessive force in Tasering a Chinese student,
contrary to a ruling by the police chief absolving the offi cer.
The city council, city manager and mayor largely ignored the
review board’s advice in the high-profi le case.
“We maximized our resources and our fi refi ghting
capacity through the collaborative merging of services with
Springfi eld and single fi re chief oversight,” Piercy said.
“With careful use of your tax dollars, our public works
department repaired and rebuilt more roads than ever before
in the history of this city,” she said.
“Eugene sponsored a state rail summit to initiate work
on the Cascadia Rail Corridor from Eugene to Vancouver,
British Columbia,” Piercy said. “Along with Portland
‘We’ll take a look at how we might locally support our public schools
during this time of state funding crisis.’ — Mayor Kitty Piercy
from our general fund budget over the last two years,” the
mayor said.
“We recognized that while we strain to deal with the
lasting effects of the recession, we must also plan for a better
and more prosperous future,” Piercy said. “Eugene is a great
place, full of talented people and resources — capable of
strong leadership in our state and in our nation.”
Given the recession, the city accomplished an “amazing
amount,” Piercy said. “We have fi ve downtown revitalization
projects on the move. Whoopee! You told us that having a
successful downtown is a major community priority and after
many ups and downs, we are fi nally seeing our work come to
fruition.”
Piercy listed planned and ongoing projects downtown.
“There’s the Beam’s renovation of Centre Court, Bennett’s
offi ce building fi lling the Aster pit, Lane Community
College’s innovative Green Learning Centre and fi ve-story
student housing complex in the Sears pit, Masters’ apartments
[in a former city-owned building] on Pearl and former Mayor
Brian Obie’s Inn at 5th.”
“When you add in Lord Leebrick opening on Broadway,
the Jazz Station expansion, opening of OPUS 7, great
restaurants and waterholes, there’s a lot going on,” she said.
“That’s about $100 million in new investment in the heart of
our city.”
“We’ve incrementally improved our public safety response
and capacity,” Piercy said. “You told us public safety is key to
the livability of our community and a responsive police force
is important.”
“We’ve added police offi cers and training, a renovated
and effi cient police facility,” Piercy said, citing a project
that would move the police headquarters and hundreds of
employees across the river.
business leader John Russell, I’ve agreed to co-chair a state
committee to develop a preferred rail alignment for both
passenger and freight between our city and Portland. Millions
of dollars have been infused into the corridor, which holds
the economic promise of great travel through two states and
two countries.”
“Eugene moved along our public transit system vision for
the future,” the mayor said. “We know that EmX enables us to
achieve a number of council and community goals in terms of
accessible transportation, transit-oriented development, green
house gas reduction and reduced reliance on fossil fuels.
We’re part of the process to determine the preferred way to
extend EmX out into west Eugene, and we’re working our
way through community concerns to fi nd the right solutions.”
“Eugene continued to be a national leader in bike system
improvements with one of the highest percentages of bike
usage in the country,” Piercy said. “With our continued focus
on transportation planning that considers bicycle infrastructure
improvements; it’s only going to get better.”
“We moved forward our sustainability goals through the
completion of our Climate and Energy Action Plan, and used
the triple bottom line lens to make city decisions,” she said.
Piercy said “Sustainability is imbedded in economic
development initiatives aimed at reducing the costs of business
and positioning us for a carbon-constrained economy.”
“We helped provide for our most vulnerable population
through the Human Services Commission, Courthouse
Gardens, Project Homeless Connect, the Egan Warming
Shelters and partnering to build our stock of affordable
housing options,” Piercy said.
The mayor said city government has collaborated with
“government partners throughout the area and state—and we
have done it successfully while holding true to our values.”
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“We’ve led an enormous community planning effort
encompassing land use, transportation, social equity,
economic development and environmental stewardship,” she
said. “This is Envision Eugene and you’re all invited to be
part of it.”
“This city commitment to people, planet and profi ts has
grown and strengthened over the last few years with careful
and smart work by many people,” the mayor said. “It has not
always been easy, nor do I suspect it will be in the future. The
life of a city is complex.”
“ICLEI, a national coalition of local governments for
sustainability, recognized our leadership in sustainability
initiatives and innovation,” Piercy said. “We were named
among the top bike cities in the country by Bicycling
magazine. We were named one of the 100 best cities for
business by Forbes; a best place to retire; a great place for
people with pets; home of a great university that is a member
of the prestigious Association of American Universities; a
best small city for families; a smarter city; and a best place
to live. ‘Eugene is a breath of fresh air, unlike other places
which duplicate each other across this land,’ and ‘considered
paradise’ are just a couple of the quotes about our city I’ve
found.”
Piercy said Eugene has also been cited as “one of the
nation’s most progressive communities and that is only
possible because of all the work, cooperation, and vision
coming from our citizens, council, staff and leadership,
working in a new era of collaboration to make Eugene a great
city and place in the 21st century.”
“In 2011 we will continue to move our economic plan,”
Piercy said. “People must have jobs — jobs that pay well and
keep our community unique, healthy, clean and strong. We
have a lot to build on.”
“We’ll take some specifi c additional steps to further
address homelessness and the needs of our young people,”
the mayor said. “In particular, we’ll take a look at how we
might locally support our public schools during this time of
state funding crisis.”
“We’ll see all our downtown projects come to fruition and
work on adding more,” she said. “We’ll work on creating a
safer community.”
“We’ll focus city efforts on an arts and culture district,”
Piercy said. “Although we’ve lost some ground in the visual
arts due to the recession, we remain committed to supporting
the wealth of talent we are so fortunate to have in this
community.”
“We’ll decide the future of our City Hall and plan
accordingly,” she said. “We’ll implement our ambitious
climate and energy plan to ensure that we are as prepared
as we can be for an uncertain future, and we’ll maintain our
huge commitments as a Human Rights City. We’ll fi nish
Envision Eugene and integrate it into all our other planning
processes.
“We’ll evaluate the proposed third segment of EmX in
order to continue to build our world-class transit system.
We’ll support strengthening our state’s passenger and freight
rail system, ensuring that Eugene benefi ts economically,” she
said. “We’ll move up to platinum status in bike friendliness
through implementation of our bike and pedestrian plan.”
“And we will care for each other and take pride in our city
where so much is done and so much is possible,” Piercy said.
The mayor also used the event to announce a parade from
the UO to downtown Jan. 22 to celebrate the accomplishments
of the Duck football team and others in the community, and
the connection of the city with the university.
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