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Consolidation of administrative staff with the downtown transit center is not as critical a need as the relocation of buses to a downtown off-street facility. The move to consolidate does represent a positive response to the issues noted above, however, and it has been the Board's position that the consolidated transit facility continues to be the best option, as it was when the Board addressed this issue in 1985, 1994, and 1995. ~ • Should these facilities be constructed on the Senator Block site? Of all the issues that have been raised surrounding the Courthouse Square project, there are none that have been as thoroughly studied, or as uniformly and consistently concluded, as the issue of the Senator block location for a transit facility. To state the findings succinctly: there are very few downtown sites which meet the essential criteria for siting a transit center; of the few that do, one site is in public ownership; one site is cleared, environmentally remediated, and would not require further demolition of existing businesses or development; one site has the approval of the City traffic division, the City Council, the County, the downtown association, the Chamber of Commerce, and other key participants. In consideration of the resources that have been applied to studying the question of location, and the consistent results of those studies....knowing firsthand the disruption that ongoing site studies have on businesses that are in potential study areas....knowing the difficulty that pertains to gaining the degree of consensus on a location that currently exists for the Senator block....knowing that the block is currently in District ownership and can easily and successfully accommodate a transit center (with or without Courthouse Square)....with the knowledge of these facts, the District is firm in its resolve to continue the examination of transit development options at the Senator block site. Should it prove unfeasible to develop Courthouse Square or any other transit center on the Senator block, then we will not proceed at that location. But until there is compelling reason to discontinue development options at the block which meets so many essential criteria, the District Board has directed staff to focus its effort, for the Courthouse Square project and any other transit center development, at the Senator block site. • Should the District construct its facilities in partnership with Marion County as now proposed as Courthouse Square? The Board committed to this concept in December 1995, as did Marion County and the City of Salem. There are many practical and political reasons for such a partnership, not the least of which is a substantial cost-savings to both entities and, therefore, the t~payer. If the District proceeded alone on this site, or any other, 100°Io of the cost of land acquisition (condemnation), relocation, demolition, abatement, and contamination mitigation would have been ours. Our federal grants were justified in large part on the basis of the partnership, thereby increasing our original grants from $2 million to almost $8 million. The adjacency of the County in this project provides us the opportunity of consolidating phone systems, hearings room, meeting rooms, security syste.ns, parking, maintenance, mail rooms and delivery areas, printing facilities, and many other potential future internal services. 3