From: John Quetzalcoatl Murray <br />To: Eugene RR -SC Plan; ANDRADE Fabio; KOEHLER RAY Cindy J; Clare Strawn; BELCHER Jon (SMTP); PERLE Kate <br />SMTP <br />Cc: Rep.PaulHolvey oregonlegislature.gov; Rep Conrad <br />Subject: Though RRCO-SCCO volunteers" efforts may not appear in the final plan, you can still recognize and reward <br />them for their time <br />Date: Friday, April 5, 2024 10:38:17 AM <br />You don't often get email fromjohnq@publicnewspapers.org. Learn why this is important <br />[EXTERNAL <br />Hi <br />John Q here for KEPW 97.3 Whole Community News. <br />In the course of reporting on the River Road - Santa Clara Neighborhood Plan, I have heard <br />members of the Eugene City Council, the Lane County Board of Commissioners, the River <br />Road Community Organization and the Santa Clara Community Organization widely praise <br />and recognize the residents who volunteered thousands of unpaid hours contributing to this <br />project. <br />I also heard that as circumstances changed over the years --- including reduced budgets and <br />state legislative mandates that reduced local options --- many of the volunteers' recommended <br />zoning changes, code amendments, and other policy documents were discarded and do not <br />appear in the final plans submitted for approval in April 2024. <br />While this unfortunate outcome was largely out of your control, it is possible to curb the <br />resulting disappointment, disillusionment, disengagement, and decline in trust in local <br />government. It is possible to recognize your volunteers, reward their efforts with a promise of <br />material benefit, and continue to build community --- by recording the number of volunteers' <br />hours in time bank accounts. <br />A time bank is a network of individual, organizational, and business 'members' who provide <br />services, track and bank their hours, and then spend those hours to get their own needs met. <br />There is no barter or exchange; one member does a friendly, neighborly favor for another and <br />records the time they spent doing so. Members share their talents and services, record their <br />hours, then 'spend' them later on services they want. Everyone's hours are treated as equal in <br />value. <br />After seeing a TED talk about how a New Zealand time bank helped its community recover <br />from two major earthquakes, Eugene neighborhood preparedness committees created their <br />own local time bank. The time bank can foster relationships and catalog resources to help our <br />community prepare for and recover from disruptive events, such as major winter storms, high <br />winds, power outages, wildfires, earthquakes, and pandemics. <br />Lane County's two local time banks are standing by, ready to accept your "payments" to the <br />volunteers who participated in the River Road - Santa Clara Neighborhood Plan planning <br />project. Check out the Lane Services Sharing Network and the Whole Community Time Bank <br />online. <br />This practice can also be used by Eugene's Office of Equity and Community Engagement --- <br />