Mayor, councilor debate merit of police station bond.

Byline: Edward Russo The Register-Guard

CORRECTION (ran 10/19/04): An estimated bond issue to replace all of Eugene City Hall, including construction of a police station, would cost $70 million. Quoted in an Oct. 16 article, City Councilor David Kelly, during a debate with Mayor Jim Torrey about Measure 20-88, used an incorrect dollar figure.

Eugene Mayor Jim Torrey describes the $6.79 million bond issue as a needed first step to replace city offices in downtown Eugene. City Councilor David Kelly calls it fiscally irresponsible.

Eugene voters will decide on Nov. 2 which description best fits Measure 20-88, the bond issue to pay for extra space and features in and around a new police station.

Torrey and Kelly on Friday sparred over the financing proposal during a debate at the City Club of Eugene. The bond issue is an "incremental first step" that eventually will lead to construction of a new City Hall, but Kelly argued that the city would be wiser to wait and ask voters for a larger bond issue to replace both the police department and the rest of City Hall all at once.

City staff members are counting on $29 million in currently available and projected funds to pay for a 67,000-square-foot police station that would be built on the parking lot across East Eighth Avenue from City Hall, where the police department is now located. Most of the $6.79 million that Measure 20-88 seeks to raise would pay for 25,000 square feet of extra space in the building to house victim services agencies and to accommodate the police department's expected growth until 2018.

Some social service agencies back the bond issue, saying the victims of domestic violence would be better served if they could get counseling in a location closer to police, prosecutors and the courts.

About $1.3 million of the bond issue would go for improvements to the Park Blocks at East Eighth Avenue and Oak Street, and for sidewalk and street work along East Eighth Avenue, from Willamette Street to the Wayne Morse Federal Courthouse that's now under construction.

Kelly, one of three city councilors to oppose putting the bond issue before voters, called the proposed bond and the plan to spend $29 million in city savings "fiscally irresponsible."

"It completely depletes all available internal city funds, $29 million to only build a police station, and it's shortsighted because it builds a police station with only 10 years of expansion space," he said.

Kelly said it makes more sense to use the $29 million in conjunction with a larger bond issue, for perhaps as much as $110 million, in 2006 for a full City Hall replacement.

The current proposed bond issue would cost the owner of a home assessed at $154,000 - the city average - about $10 annually for 20 years.

A much larger bond issue could cost the average homeowner as much as $130 a year, Kelly said, but he said voters could be persuaded to support it.

"If the citizenry is ultimately interested in a project, they will be willing to step up for it," Kelly said. "We've seen that with library operations. We've seen that with parks and open space measures. The reason that we speak about waiting for 2006 is to build the (public) awareness."

Kelly said the space needs of other city agencies, some of which need to be consolidated from scattered downtown offices, "are just as great as the police department. And those needs are not going to go away if we just pass the police measure."

Torrey said he believes that there are enough votes on the City Council to build the police station with internal funds even if voters kill the $6.79 million bond measure.

But the community would be better served if the building contains space for counselors to help crime victims, he said.

If the bond issue fails, Torrey said, "what we will have is a police station that we need, but we only will be dealing with the people who commit the crimes rather than those people who are impacted negatively by the crimes."

The bond measure "allows us to move forward with public safety and victim services, and at the same time it provides us with the groundwork to go forward with a new City Hall," he said. "And we can go forward with that two years from now, or four years from now."

City Club members and guests also heard Dr. Raymond Englander of Eugene and Dr. Tom Saddoris of Portland debate state Measure 35, the proposed constitutional amendment to limit pain and suffering awards in medical malpractice cases to $500,000.

Englander said large awards in medical malpractice cases are driving up the cost of medical insurance for doctors, forcing many of them to leave Oregon's smaller communities.

"We must pass Measure 35 to begin to change the environment to avoid worsening Oregon's health care crisis," he said. "The Legislature is watching this measure closely. If it passes, it will give the message loud and clear that Oregonians are concerned about access to care. If it fails, they will get the message that Oregonians don't care."

Saddoris countered that there is nothing in Measure 35 to reduce medical malpractice insurance rates or health care costs. "It's an arbitrary, knee jerk, one-size-fits-all attempt to protect the bottom line of insurance companies, HMOs (health maintenance organizations), hospital systems, groups of doctors and pharmaceutical companies," he said. "And it's going to be done at the expense of limiting Oregonians' rights."