Chamber conditionally supports local gas tax.

Byline: GUEST VIEWPOINT By Ron Farmer For The Register-Guard

The Eugene City Council is thinking about increasing its motor vehicle fuel tax to pay for the city's $94 million backlog in street maintenance and repair. Which just makes you wonder: How on Earth did the city allow the problem to grow so big?

Answering that question is made all the more difficult when people see the city spending its transportation money on traffic-calming projects such as those along Polk Street and 24th Avenue, or landscaping and urban forestry. And then there are costly design and construction standards that produce a street such as Ayres Road, which nobody seems to like.

The sad fact is that for many years, the city of Eugene has simply not made actual street maintenance a priority. It has been unwilling to commit or reallocate existing funds to the maintenance backlog. Without that prioritization or commitment, we are left with only two difficult options: We can do nothing and watch our streets deteriorate further while the cost to fix them keeps growing, or we can impose new fees or taxes with no assurance that the city will spend all the money collected on the curb-to-curb maintenance that is needed.

The Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce could argue that the city should not ask the public for additional money to fix the problem that it caused by ignoring street maintenance needs. Unfortunately, we cannot turn our back on important city infrastructure.

There is just too much at stake.

We could wait for the city to commit to giving street maintenance the priority it deserves or to exercise the fiscal discipline required to pay for basic street maintenance with existing revenues. But that would mean allowing our streets to continue to deteriorate, which would only cause our community to incur extraordinary and unnecessary repair and replacement costs in the future.

On the other hand, it is just as impractical to expect the public to pay an estimated $4.5 million every year in new fees or taxes that city staff says is needed to deal with the backlog problem over time. That's simply asking too much.

Instead, the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce believes an incremental approach is the wiser course.

Yes, we need to get the problem under control. But any long-term solution must be fair and equitable. And any long-term solution requires the city's commitment to spend the money it receives for street maintenance between the curbs, where the problem exists.

The Chamber and many in the community cannot support a trip-generated assessment such as the Transportation System Maintenance Fee proposed by city officials because, among other reasons, it is inequitable and unfair to business and residential property owners. The proposed increase to the motor vehicle fuel tax, however, is a more reasonable funding mechanism - if the city implements it properly.

Therefore, as an incremental step that would generate an additional $1.4 million annually to pay for reducing the backlog in street maintenance, the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce offers conditional support for a 2-cent increase to Eugene's motor vehicle fuel tax. To gain our full support, the city must agree to do the following for both the current 3-cent tax and any increase:

Include a diesel fuel exemption that is consistent with Springfield's exemption policy and for businesses that voluntarily agree to participate in the Lane Clean Diesel Project.

Dedicate the tax revenue to curb-to-curb maintenance and not use it for any other purpose, such as engineering, traffic calming, landscaping or urban forestry.

Limit the city costs for this program, using a maximum of 5 percent of the total budget of the street maintenance program for administration.

Contract all street maintenance work to the private sector.

Actively lobby Congress for the reauthorization of Lane County's federal forest payments, which would enable the county to help address the street maintenance needs of all cities in Lane County, including Eugene.

This incremental approach will make the solution to the problem a priority. It will provide enough funds to begin chipping away at the street maintenance backlog while the City Council begins to earn the trust of citizens and the business community for responsible use of public funds.

Ron Farmer, the regional president of Bank of America , is the 2004 chair of the Board of Directors for the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce.