The Bend City Council met in a hybrid format on October 2, 2024, beginning with a work session at 5:30 p.m. and a regular meeting at 7:00 p.m. in Council Chambers at City Hall. The meeting included updates on the municipal court, equity programs, and a public hearing on amendments to the camping code, among other items. Key decisions included a first reading of an ordinance amending the camping code, authorization for a best-value procurement method for the Olney Pedestrian and Bike Improvement Project, adoption of a resolution declaring intent for fossil fuel-free city buildings, and approval of a five-year contract with Axon Enterprise for police technology.
Schedule Requests – A-Frame Signs
Annual Municipal Court Update from Judge Angela Ruocco
Equity Program Update
Good of the Order
Public Hearing and First Reading – Camping Code Amendment (Ordinance amending BMC Chapter 4.20)
Public Hearing – Olney Pedestrian and Bike Improvement Project Procurement
Resolution – Fossil Fuel-Free City Buildings
Contract – Axon Officer Safety Plan
So let's go ahead and let me know when we're rolling. Yeah, we're good. Okay, so we'll start with our Ben City Council work session, call that to order. We start with schedule requests. This is the first meeting of the month. So Council Perkins had a scheduling request. Yeah, it was uh looking for some council direction um on the code for businesses who would like to use sandwich boards to market. Right now it's only the downtown district that can use them. And I think we'd be seeking an administrative policy to expand it to all business districts. Um this is brought up by some businesses that could really benefit from sandwich boards and particularly those that are energy efficient buildings and have dark windows and can't and don't benefit from people being able to do window shopping. Um and so we're just hoping to see if we could move forward on a policy um to get uh to change our policy on sandwich boards. Yeah, and I'll time in I've I heard from a business owner off of Century where the business is sort of back in the area back here, you can't see it immediately from the street, but having that sandwich board on the street is very helpful to get customers into our business. So the last thing that you said again, the last sentence. I just couldn't. I don't remember what I said about about the windows. Is that oh that some of the businesses that that uh we spoke in with it they have their like energy efficient building so the windows are darker so people can't see into them as easily um when they're walking by and so they could benefit from having like a sandwich board thing, you know, hey, this is here. So the request would be for a work session at some point in the future on this. Yeah, just in terms of timeline, I think we could we've talked internally about when we could incorporate a policy change. Um, that are very housing focused right now that we're working through and also just complying with state regulations. Um 1537 around housing production. So this will this could fall sort of surely thereafter, sort of thinking spring of next year. But in the meantime, depending on if council wants to move forward, I guess my suggestion would be that we uh suspend code enforcement. Um that happens. Just for the sandwich. With also the condition that they're not blocking accessible, they're not calling accessibility issues. Could I um the I in support? Thank you for bringing this up. Uh the um then Central District Business Association interested in the same thing. I used to have a business downtown, and I happen to know, I believe that the code for downtown isn't actually literally sandwich board. It's a square number of uh feet. Um I came through downtown today, and there's one business that has not one that two, but three tables worth of merch. So maybe we want to send the word downtown. No, you can't have you know all of this. Uh I'm I'm afraid it's gonna be downtown. But look, downtown they're doing this do you see what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's my only concern is just make sure that people, including the ones who already have this, you know, understand what the rules are and are following them. Sure. If that makes sense. So yeah, great. No, thank you. In support. There is a code change required. Yeah, we don't want to have policy backing. We can do a you know, temporary suspension of enforcement, but that's not really something I want to keep doing for that much for a long period of time. So I think the better thing to do would be to actually express your policy intent and change the code. So just with the sign code, we just it's a process. And there's some other potential changes that uh we have a kind of a running list of things just to make the code more efficient, too, that we could potentially group with. Okay, okay. And I don't want to bad mouth anyone.