Springfield council kills road fees.

Byline: Matt Cooper The Register-Guard

SPRINGFIELD - The City Council bet big Monday on the Lane County commissioners, unanimously repealing unpopular new road fees in hopes that the county will follow through with more money later.

Early signs suggest, in fact, that the councilors played their cards wisely: Three of the five commissioners said Monday that they'll consider passing along a new pot of money from a pending House bill to help fill the $6 million pothole in Springfield's road budget, as well as those in other cities' road budgets.

Because of Commissioner Bill Dwyer's petition, Springfield faced a Wednesday deadline to repeal the transportation maintenance fees - residents and businesses would have paid them monthly starting late this year - or put them up to a Sept. 16 vote.

With Springfield's repeal, Dwyer said he was inclined to consider voting to distribute, among the local cities, the additional $1 million-plus annually that would otherwise go to the county under House Bill 2041, a transportation bill that has passed the House and is currently in the Senate.

"I wouldn't rule it out, because (road funding is) everybody's problem," Dwyer said.

Commissioners Peter Sorenson and Anna Morrison also said the "pass-through" of county money is possible, although Morrison cited a number of conditions meant to protect the county's own road budget.

Commissioners Bobby Green and Tom Lininger could not be reached Monday.

As part of their plan to pay for roads, Eugene and Springfield plan to add a 3-cents-per-gallon gas tax on Aug. 1.

The other leg of the plan is the road fee: In Eugene, residents would pay $2.90 or less a month and businesses, depending on car trips generated, from $3 to $1,600; in Springfield, it was to be $1.75 for residents and from $20 to $550 for businesses.

Eugene wants the road fee because it means stable, long-term funding, and because the amount of money Eugene would potentially see from the state bill - about $800,000 annually - would barely dent a backlog of projects totaling $93 million.

The fee could start in September, although Green, who has tried twice in the past six months to gather the signatures necessary to put Eugene's fee to a public vote, has said petitions could hit the streets again by the end of this month.

The road fee was also part of Springfield's solution to chip away at the backlog of necessary road repair.

Technical Services Manager Len Goodwin said Monday that receiving a portion of the county's money from the bill - coupled with federal transportation dollars - would generally compensate for the fee.

Councilor Stu Burge was among the first to suggest repealing a city road fee that had been approved in December, before he joined the board.

"I'm hopeful the county commissioners will find it in their hearts and methodologies to assist us in these street repairs," Burge said Monday. "Hopefully we - all of us - will come together and find a method that's appropriate."

Morrison, thought by some to be resistant to passing through the new county money, said she's open to discussion.

But, Morrison added, her support hinges on guarantees that the cities will use the money for specific, necessary projects; that the cities will support county efforts to ensure that federal funding remains tied to the historic timber harvests from which the county once prospered; and that, in the event that funding to the county drops, the commissioners can tap the money in the bill rather than pass it to the cities.

"I would say that the majority (of the commissioners) are willing to have the conversation," Morrison said, as long as "we don't put ourselves at risk."

It's unclear when the commissioners might vote on the matter. Sorenson plans to raise the issue for discussion Wednesday, although all sides agree that the bill must be approved and all of the county's cities brought into the talks before the commissioners determine how - or whether - to redistribute the money.

WHAT'S NEXT

The Springfield City Council hopes the county commissioners will provide money from a state transportation bill to pay for city streets. The county board may discuss the issue Wednesday. Call Lane County at 682-4207; city of Springfield at 726-3700.