Editing 1990 Plan, Amendment Hit by Mayor McCulley

==1990 Plan, Amendment Hit by Mayor McCulley==

Two Lane County proposals, the 1990 General Plan and the charter amendment to restructure county government, received sharp criticism this week from Springfield Mayor John McCulley, the Republican candidate for a seat on the Lane County Board of Commissioners.

McCulley, speaking to members of the Springfield Board of Realtors Tuesday noon, said he could not accept the proposed 1990 plan in its present form and that he disagrees "one hundred per cent" with proponents of the charter amendment.

The two issues, McCulley said, are of vital concern to the residents of Lane County.

The charter amendment proposes that the three-man board of commissioners for Lane County be changed to a seven-member board. One would be a full-time salaried board chairman and the other six would serve on a part-time basis at $2,000 annual salaries. In addition, a "county administrator" would be hired.

McCulley said he is opposed "whole-heartedly" to the proposal for a seven member board, and he took exception Tuesday to the backers' arguments that the larger board would be more representative.  "It will decrease representation," said McCulley. "Numbers alone do not enhance representation."

Likening the restructured board to a "limited type of dictatorship," McCulley told the real estate organization Tuesday that the full-time board chairman would be the only one "with any knowledge of what's going on."

While he congratulated the members of the charter review committee, which made up the proposed amendment, he charged that "not one... has had any experience in local government." They therefore are not aware of the problems, he added.

McCulley called the charter amendment proposal an "unfortunate misrepresentation." The people of Lane County "are not going to get as much representation (with the proposed seven-member board) as they are getting now," he said.

On the 1990 plan, McCulley, who was a non-voting member of a citizens committee which helped prepare it, said the theory and philosophy of the plan were good when the planning began, but he said he is not in favor of the plan in its present form.

"I'm for good planning... it's essential... but I'm not for the 1990 plan as it is today," McCulley said.

The original idea was that conclusions and findings of the plan would be used as guidelines in planning, but now "there are too many indications that the plan will be used as a 'Bible' of zoning'," the mayor said. There are indications that planning agencies in the metropolitan area have already used the 1990 Plan in making decisions, even though it is still in the planning sages, he said.

McCulley said he would do everything in his power to see that Springfield will not accept the plan in its present form. The plan is still a proposal, and right now is going through public hearings and review by the three area planning commissions, including Springfield's.

(At a work session Monday night, representatives from the Lane Council of Governments, formerly Central Lane Planning Commission, asked for the Springfield Planning Commission's recommendation on the 1990 Plan by September 15.)

The "Metropolitan Services Boundary" concept of the plan was hit Tuesday by McCulley, who said that the boundary originally was supposed to be "invisible and flexible." But it is "visible and most inflexible," McCulley said.

"I shudder to think what would have happened to Springfield in the 1940's" if such a boundary had been in effect, he said. "We wouldn't have Weyerhaeuser and many other industries vital to our economy" said McCulley.

The 1990 plan either needs serious revisions to reflect the ideas of the people, McCulley said, "or it has to meet the fate of the doctor who made a mistake."