EUGENE, Ore. (KMTR) – Eugene City Council is getting very close to a final decision about the future of City Hall, but before making their minds up, councilors are turning to the public to see what everyone else thinks.
The city will hold two open houses and one public forum in the next week to find out what people think about the three ideas on the table.
The ideas include building a totally new building, doing an extensive remodel of the existing building or buying a chunk of the EWEB headquarters on the river and doing some remodeling work inside.
Each option would cost 15-million dollars and would only represent "phase one" of a multi-phase project.
Phase one will likely bring together the Eugene City Council, Mayor and City Manager’s offices. The plan is to eventually move public works, planning and development, information technology services, human resources, municipal court and risk services into the same building, in the years to come.
With the potential future buildings drawn up, the city wants the public to get involved. once again in the final decision process. Back in 2007, the city began gathering input on this project.
“We've been gathering a lot of public input over the years and that information really helped create the values that are guiding council’s conversation about which option we would move towards,” says Laura Hammond, Outreach and Participation Coordinator for the city of Eugene.
“We love to see people at our open houses or the public forum to provide more input to the council as they think about this decision,” says Hammond.
The city hall ideas "open house" events are this Friday, December 7th, 2012, from 4 to 6 p.m. and Monday, December 10th, 2012, from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Atrium Building on 10th and Olive in downtown Eugene.
Later in the evening on December 10th, 2012, the city will hold a public forum at 7:30 p.m. in Harris Hall at the Lane County Public Service building.
If you can't go, you can email your comments to the following email address: mayorcouncilandcitymanager@ci.eugene.or.us.
Councilors talked in-depth about the city hall options at a meeting on Tuesday evening, December 4th, 2012. Most councilors are learning towards something on the existing city hall site at 7th and Pearl, however, nothing has been decided.
A vote on a final direction could come as early as a city council meeting next Wednesday, December 12th, 2012.
