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Ariel, can you hear us?

All right, can you give a thumbs up?

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Councilor Mendez, can you hear us?

Public meetings.

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Councilor Mendes, can you hear us now?

Okay, great.

Yes, thank you.

All right.

Are we on uh the webinar?

We're streaming.

Okay, great.

All right, we will begin our Ben City Council of Work Session.

We have one item tonight, which is just an update on the Ben Bikeway.

Perfect.

Uh thank you.

Uh Council Ryan Ostrom, the director of our engineering department.

Uh I want to recognize Kevin Howard first, who's the project manager on this.

He's unable to be here tonight.

Um so I'm hitting for him.

And basically this evening is uh an update uh of the work we've done roughly over the last year to get us to where we are now.

And uh what I think is some exciting advancements in our uh bike system.

Uh I did have a a little bit of time right before this to take a quick walk in between meetings, and it was nice on a day that wasn't even that sunny, walking around Drake Park and down Galveston.

We actually have a pretty good system.

Like we actually have a really good system in the city of Bend already.

Um, and this I think is going to be build upon that.

This is gonna really offer some other alternatives and really focus on those parts of the system that might be lacking and are people a little more uncomfortable on.

Uh but once we get those connections made, uh I think we're gonna have a great system here in Bend.

So uh no decisions being asked of council tonight.

This is just an update.

There will be, and I'll show a schedule here in a moment, some council touch points for some contract approvals.

Uh, but just stepping into the background a little bit.

I'm gonna start at the thirty thousand foot level, uh, drill down into some specifics on what we're doing in some key intersections, and then we're gonna take a virtual walk, uh, east-west and north-south on the corridors that were identified um as outlined here on the big picture.

So uh the goal here is to hit council's target of building one connected north-south and east-west key route.

Um, and to mark that with wayfinding.

Uh so again this evening I'll just be filling you in on some of the planning and design efforts and what we can expect uh in the construction side rolling into later this year and into 2026.

So uh starting again at a high level before we get too deep, just wanted to throw the budget slide on here so everybody understands uh where we're coming from and how this uh bit of a Frankenstein of a project was pulled together.

Uh, there's multiple funding buckets.

The accessibility fund, uh, we've pulled one point three million out of that fund.

And this is really to focus in on areas of the system that we're traversing over where we have non-compliant ADA ramps and some other things that are really going to help us fix some of those items.

The general obligation bond is pitching in 2.3 million.

And then the bulk of the money is coming out of our transportation construction fund.

I'm happy to report, and you'll see it in the asterisk down below on the budget side.

Roughly a million and a half dollars that really made this kind of tip over the scales and allow us to do this the way we've designed it.

So that's an STBG grant, an arts grant, and a safe routes to school grant.

The key with those though is each of those was applied to a specific area.

So that funding has to be used.

It can't just be wherever we want in the system.

It has to be connected to the school that we applied for it for, wherever the case may be.

So that'll get highlighted a little bit coming up.

And then on the right, you'll see the expenditures that we're anticipating.

The design contract to date is about 2.2 million dollars, which overall is a pretty low percentage compared to most design contracts.

We anticipate about 11 and a half in construction.

And I'll break that down per phase that we're going to be going through.

So overall, the way we've designed it, I believe we've we've met council's goal and we found a way to do it within budget, which is always a nice thing to do.

Of those grants, is any of the federal money?

Is the 597 STBGs?

So it is, but it's through ODOT.

So yeah, they're the conduit that we received that through.

Yeah.

But the safe routes to school in the arts are those are standards.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So from a schedule perspective, again, staying at the high level.

Uh work on this started back in 2023.

We held multiple open houses with the public and an online open house, just vetting different alternative routes that we could take, narrowed it down to the map that I showed earlier that we'll dive into.

In late 23, we came to council for the design contract approval that worked us through the alternatives analysis, held another open house and a community check-in or community building subcommittee check-in in early 24, and then I came back to council for an amendment once we had narrowed down and chosen our alternatives.

Another open house in early 25, and then here we are in mid to late 25.

And you can see there's a slew of actions that are going to occur here toward the later part of the year.

Some of that being council contracts, uh, and then some others just when we're going to be kicking off construction, uh, not only utilizing our very capable internal city crews, but what we're going to be bidding out to contractors as well.

So our goal is to get this all done and built and complete by the end of 2026.

So how are we going to get this done?

Again, still at a high level.

Uh, we've worked very closely with the transportation and mobility department taking advantage of their skills, uh, finding some synergy projects uh with street preservation work that they have going on now.

Uh also working with them on a side project, which is the wayfinding project, utilizing uh the sign shop that we have to just find ways to reduce cost to this overall, um, and then looking to get some of these modal filters and other items installed by city crews that can do it much quicker than us going through a contracting method and getting a contractor to move some things.

So there's gonna be a couple different bid packages that council's gonna see.

Uh, the first one is kind of a miscellaneous intersections and lighting improvements.

Uh so that'll allow for some quick build items as well as get some of the long lead time items, uh, lighting poles and other things, uh, get those ordered and ready to get here early next year, and then there'll be another contract where we're gonna focus on more of the corridor uh approaches.

That's the 9th Street stretch, Bear Creek, and the 15th Street, which is north of Reed Market.

Uh so all of those will come in another contract as well.

And then I've hit on it a little bit already, but uh we are delivering portions of the Ben Bikeways with existing projects.

So a good example is the Midtown project.

Uh in a couple weeks, you're gonna see guaranteed maximum price or GMP three for midtown, which is gonna help us build Franklin.

It's actually gonna build fourth to eighth.

Uh, so that that's something we're able to knock out with an existing contract we have in place, and then another example is uh utilizing future projects, uh like we have roundabouts coming at 15th and Reed and 15th and Ferguson, and we're gonna utilize those two contracts to build the key route on the west side of 15th Street instead of bidding that out as a separate project.

And then the last synergy project is the Butler Boyd intersection, that protected intersection that we're going to be combining with the Butler Market project, which we've broken off into two phases.

And you'll be seeing the first phase of that later this evening for contract approval.

Ryan TMD transportation mobility.

The mobility department.

Yes, thank you.

No, I I shouldn't shouldn't use acronyms.

I I know.

In the middle of that, you understand.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And Ryan, what's the um so what's the difference?

There's a it looks like the corner trail is kind of forming one part of the bend bike way, but then 9th is Yeah, yeah.

That that's a good good notice.

And we'll dive into the differences.

But the 9th Street project is a very specific project identified by the general obligation bond.

And it said you have this much money to use on 9th Street.

Because if you go back far enough at one point in time, the thought was 15th to Reed to 9th to Wilson was going to be the key route.

Wilson was actually going to be the key east-west route, which is why it got built to the way it is today.

Um but then thoughts shifted and we moved that up to be Franklin to connect better to midtown.

So yeah, um, and so 9th Street is a completely independent geobond funded project, and I'll I'll show some more details on that here in a few minutes.

So what exactly are we going to be doing, especially in this first phase?

Uh we're going to be implementing some things that uh they're not new to the transportation world, but they're going to be somewhat new to the city of Bend.

One example of these is what we call a diagonal diverter.

And so an example of where we would be putting one of these is at Cumberland and 15th on the west side.

And that operates as a standard four-way stop today.

I believe it is, or it's a two-way stop control.

I can't remember.

Uh, but we'll be placing some obstacles in the middle of that intersection.

And what that does is it it prioritizes the east-west movement of the bicycles and prevents them from being worried about the cross traffic movement and getting hit in the middle of this intersection.

It will force the drivers to have to take a right or a left or remove the left, but take the rights and and have to go a block up to to finish their movement.

So that is something that's going to be new, uh especially to some of the vehicles in the city as they adjust to seeing these in certain locations along the Ben Bikeways route.

Another example uh that we've heard a lot about is uh some cut through traffic issues.

This is at the intersection of Colorado and Sizemore.

We know a lot of vehicles take the Colorado ramps just so they can get to size more and then get into downtown.

Uh we'd prefer those vehicles went down to Bond Street and access downtown on the roads that were designed to handle that volume instead of cutting through the local streets.

So we'll be we'll be doing some partial modal filters there as well that do allow the bikes to continue through.

But um, and you can exit off a size more on the Colorado.

You just won't be able to make the right turn from Colorado on the size more.

So those are just a couple examples, and I'll show you where we're gonna be building some of those.

So now we're just gonna kind of take a walk.

We're gonna start on the west side of town on the very edge of the the Bend Bikeways project, and we're gonna basically follow this route.

The box in the upper right corner just kind of highlights where we are in the city along the route.

Uh so starting in the River West neighborhood district, uh, what we're recommending gets done here is some different versions of modal filters.

Uh the the yellow is the Bend Bikeways route.

Further to the west, this connects to the West Bend Trail, and this gets you all the way out towards Chevlin Park.

Uh, but there's a crossing we're gonna be installing at 15th and Galveston, just a block off the roundabout.

Uh that's getting built right now, actually, because our streets preservations contracts with our transportation and mobility department um just repave that portion of Galveston.

Uh so we're gonna be installing that safe crossing there.

Further south of that, that's where we're gonna be installing a diagonal diverter.

So that's an example right there at Cumberland at 15th, as well as at Cumberland and 12th.

Uh, and we believe the grid system is set up well enough there that it shouldn't be too impactful to the vehicles, but it will prioritize the movement of the the bikes through those routes as you're coming across the um out of Columbia Park and you're proceeding to the west or coming into downtown from the west.

Uh we expect this work is one of the quick build ones, so we're hoping to get this done in the fall of this year.

The arrows on here are showing what cars those are what the cars, yeah, basically, yeah.

If you're if you're driving on Cumberland, you'll have to make a right on to 15th and go up a block or or however you determine best for you to get home.

So if you're driving on 15th going south, then you'll need to turn a block before before you get there, yeah.

Or you'll yeah, you can't you can't turn left.

You won't be able to make the left turn, yeah, because that you'll be you'll be into the barriers there.

So it's basically a right turn movement off of Cumberland the 15th.

Um yeah.

No, but if you're on 15th and driving, it's gonna happen at 15th and yeah.

So yeah, just an example.

So yeah, going back to this, we are going to stripe it for both movements.

Thank you for catching that.

So if you're on 15th, you will still be able to make the left turn on to Cumberland, and if you're on Cumberland, the right turn on the 15th.

You just can't make the through movements or the right turn to go west on Cumberland.

If you're going north on 15th, you'll have to turn left on Cumberland.

You'll turn left on Cumberland, correct?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it will limit uh some through movements as well as the some of the right turn movements to go the opposite direction.

So uh that's what we're proposing to do through the River West neighborhood district.

This gets you down, crosses the Deschutes River at Columbia Park there, um, gets you kind of down into the old Ben neighborhood district.

And so what we're doing in this portion is some additional uh there's another diagonal diverter there at Lava.

Uh there's some partial closures, one at Georgia and Lava, another one at Sizemore and Colorado, as I discussed.

And then we're gonna be enhancing the crossings at Delaware at Bond and Delaware at Wall.

Uh so we're gonna be doing something a bit different for our system.

They're gonna be the RRFBs, but instead of the push button, they're gonna be set up on infrared sensors that will automatically pick up the approaching bike, trigger the signals to have the vehicle stop.

So um depending on how fast the bike is going, in theory, you might be able to just continue on your way uh without having to make a stop.

Worst case scenario, you you stop but very uh quickly uh while you wait for the vehicles to yield at those flashing beacons and then you proceed.

So we're gonna install those infrared detection devices uh for the first time here in the city at these two intersections to prioritize that movement.

And do they currently have uh no stop signs for the cars going north south?

Correct, yeah.

Okay, there's there's there's painted crosswalks, but it's it's hit and miss on whether or not vehicles actually stop.

They're usually going there for all those cross sections.

Yeah, uh, and then and then working your way down Delaware, you get over to Harriman and then north up Harriman.

Uh I will say there's there's some ongoing discussion, um, not to be had now, but uh we'll be coming back to have a deeper discussion about the midtown crossing projects with respect to Franklin and Hawthorne and how this is all ultimately going to connect for now.

Uh Ben Bikeways is gonna get this connected up to Franklin.

Um if that changes in the future, then we'll adjust our plans and and we'll consider how to build a safe crossing here to get across Franklin north up to the future Hawthorne Bridge.

Uh but for now, based on our scope of work, we're gonna get you up to Franklin, um, and then that puts you east-west on the the Franklin corridor as a part of the midtown crossing project.

As well on Herman.

There is, yeah, yeah, there is, absolutely.

Uh so then that gets us to Franklin.

So I'm kind of skipping over the midtown crossing project uh because that's a different one.

So once you get to the other side of Franklin, really between 4th Street and 8th Street.

Uh this is the contract you're gonna see here later this month.

Uh we've designed uh what we consider a skinny road section through here.

Uh technically, by our standards, we should be building an 80-foot right-of-way.

That context did not make sense in this highly residential area.

So we designed it to a 60-foot cross section.

Uh multiple meetings with uh with the homeowners along the corridor.

Uh the goal was to preserve as many trees as we possibly could to not lose that feel.

Uh, we also recognize that there's a lot of kids crossing from Bend High to uh I was gonna say Juniper, but to um over to Juniper, there's there's lots of traffic there, uh crossing at 6th Street.

So we're gonna be building some enhanced crossings at both fourth and sixth.

Um and yeah, hopefully you can see some examples of the cross sections kind of cut at different points uh where we're gonna be building uh independent cycle tracks up above the sidewalk.

So we're getting the bikes out of the roadway, we're narrowing down the existing curb to curb width, and uh we're trying to make this as safe as possible.

So a separate cycle track and a separate sidewalk with a little bit of a mountable curve in between the two of them.

So that's what we're proposing between fourth and eighth.

Uh which gets you over to the the bear roundabout.

Um ask a quick question.

So that mountable curve is idea if there is an emergency vehicle going through that that's mountable for cars, right?

So yeah, that was that was uh in coordination with with uh emergency response folks is uh they're a little concerned with having 24 to 20 foot six, 26 foot widths available.

Um so they do want the ability if they got to put a tire up or if another car has to get out of the way, uh they they could get up there within that buffer area and within that three-foot strip between the two.

And then there's another, I mentioned it briefly, uh uh probably a two-inch tall curb between the bikes and peds, um, and that's really to keep those movements separated.

We all know uh bikes and e-bikes and everything are going a lot faster now, and we wanted um from an accessibility standpoint of a visually impaired person, we don't want them wandering into the bike lane or the cycle track.

We want them to know they're staying within the sidewalk.

Uh so then that moves us a little bit further down where you would connect to the coiner trail as shown before, and then continuing to the east.

Uh there's an existing project happening now, which is building a roundabout at uh Pettigrew slash Purcell and Bear Creek, and then uh there's a portion like key route along that project that wasn't included in that scope.

Um, so the Ben Bikeways project is just going to pick up this gap and we're gonna piggyback uh the design that they're using on that project to build a 10-foot wide shared use path.

Um, there's still going to be an existing bike lane on the road for those who feel comfortable there.

If not, there's a 10-foot wide shared use path that we're putting on the north side of Bear Creek.

So then moving to the north-south route, uh, starting in the south end of the city.

Uh, there's been a lot of previous work done to date by uh the school district at Caldera by developers on on the other side of 15th.

So we've got a pretty robust system already from Knott Road all the way up through the Murphy project that we did a few years back, basically up to where Ferguson is.

So we need to pick it up at Ferguson where there's old and age sidewalk, especially on the west side.

Some of it's as narrow as four feet, it's kind of crumbling and falling apart.

So on the west side of 15th, we're going to be installing another 10-foot wide shared use path.

It might narrow down in certain areas because there's a bit of a drop-off there back into the Nottingham neighborhood.

Uh so to minimize costs, uh, we're gonna have to build some retaining walls, but trying to avoid uh any right-of-way takes as much as we possibly can.

Uh so we'll be building in a shared use path with a nice landscape buffer uh in between.

Again, if you if you want to ride in the road and the existing bike lanes, you can, uh, but there'll be plenty of room on the shared use path for bikes and pets to share that.

Um, and we didn't split it up there just because we didn't have the right-of-way that we would like to give dedicated area to each user of the system.

So 10-foot wide shared use path.

Yeah, that we'll connect to this will basically go from Ferguson all the way to Reed Market.

Uh this will be built with the 15th and Ferguson roundabout.

Um, that's uh the bids for the design of that are closing here very soon.

Uh so we'll be moving on the design of that roundabout over here over the next year or so.

That gets us up to Reed Market.

Um, and just orientation here.

North is to the left, south is to the right.

Uh so you'll see there's some existing trail.

We're now on the east side of 15th.

Uh there's existing trail that's been built by the uh parks district when they expanded the Larksburg Center.

Uh so there's some existing shared use paths there already.

We're gonna continue beyond their improvements.

We're gonna continue all the way up.

Um, and we're gonna terminate here at about Suntree.

And the reason why we're stopping is because if you've been there recently, you'll see there's a master plan developer uh who's doing a lot of work right now clearing, um getting ready to build um some different uh types of housing there at that inner or at that property.

So they're required in their land use to continue that shared use path all the way up to the 15th and Wilson roundabout, um, where then you have the ability to hop onto the corner trail, or you could take a right and hit the larksburger trail and go the other direction.

They're also going to be connecting on the north side of their development over to the Larksburg Trail, which is just on the on the east side of what they're building.

So that's kind of a key connection point as you'll be able to go uh to Larksburg or Coiner.

Uh Council Franzosa, you brought up 9th Street.

Uh, do you want to highlight this is not one of the Ben Bikeways routes, fully acknowledge that it is identified as a key route in our transportation system, and one of the key routes that we are supposed to be building as a part of the general obligation bond.

Uh so uh what we're proposing to do along there is a shared use path on the rail side because there's a lot more room to work there than then all the driveways and the industrial trucks and everything that are coming out of the east side.

So a 10-foot wide shared use path on the rail side of things uh that'll allow bikes and peds to uh avoid any conflicts at all between Wilson and Reed Market.

They'll have uh full right-of-way and don't have to worry about any crossings or driveways at all.

Ultimately, this will tie into Reed Market.

Um, and then the goal is to connect this to the south side of Reed Market.

That's the Reed Market Bridge project.

Um at this point, we'll come back in November for a deep update on that.

Uh but we're we're looking at trying to build uh some type of tunnel uh crossing underneath the bridge abutments that'll allow the bikes to not have to rise up to the road elevation of the bridge.

You just continue through, and now you're on the south side of Reed, where we have an existing shared use path that I built many, many many years ago.

Um so that'll get you on the reed market uh where you can connect to uh the trail system we're building here on Reed, or you could actually connect to the canal trail system at a couple different points and follow that, whichever direction you'd like to go.

Yeah, and I'm just gonna mention that this road has no sidewalks at all.

Yeah, and I do see people walking on it.

So I think getting this path in, even though it's not technically the Benn Bikeway, it does connect to Wilson, which has a great facility.

So I think this is good.

Yeah, and we we'd love to have this in place when we we build Reed Markets.

So yeah, when the bridge is done, we're fully connected from Reed to Wilson.

Excuse me.

All right, uh couple slides left to wrap up in the orchard district.

We're gonna be utilizing an existing greenway that the city had invested in in the past.

In this case, we're just highlighting uh where most of the conflict occurs, which is the key intersections.

Uh so the crossing at Greenwood, the crossing it only, the crossing at Revere.

Um, and so there's an existing RRFB at highway 20 now.

Uh there's some modifications that would be helpful to be made at that.

Um, we'll be working with Odon on that one, but we're primarily focusing on the only crossing and the revere crossing.

And an example of what we're gonna, and this this goes all the way up to to Butler Market, and I'll show that next.

Uh, but an example of what we're gonna be doing at one of these key crossings.

This is at sixth and only.

There's an existing pedestrian crossing there, um, and we have the Sherrows in the middle of the road.

Uh, but as bikes approach only, uh, they're they're running into conflicts with left turn movements and through movements.

So we're gonna be extending the median on only to prevent those left turn movements and to prevent the through movement on 6th street for vehicles, which we fully recognize is gonna have an impact to those that might be living near that intersection that are utilizing 6th Street as their left turn movement.

Um so there will need to be some adjustment to use fifth or another direction.

Um so uh, but we're gonna be striping this as well with green paint uh to allow the bikes to be separate from the pedestrians and to be able to take advantage of that roadway, um, still be needing the yield at that point, uh, but just enhancing that crossing to make it safer with a with a refuge island in the middle where you could pause and you only have to look at one direction at a time.

Uh also be putting in uh some street lights through here as well.

And then we've got a independent of Ben Bikeways, just so council's tracking.

We have another geobond project intended to improve uh fourth and revere, eighth and revere, fourth and only, and eighth and only.

We have four key intersections wherein we're gonna be kicking off the design of that later this fall as well.

Do you random question?

Do you know if fourth and only is going to be a roundabout?

No, we've determined that's going to be a signal.

That is yeah, it's too close to third street any existing signal that the signal patterns would would back up the roundabout and vice versa.

So fourth and only is going to be a signal, eighth and only, probably a signal as no, excuse me, fourth on revere, probably a signal as well, just because of the proximity.

Yeah.

Um, and we haven't determined what eighth is going to look like yet, but uh likely roundabouts.

Fourth and only so big.

I just every time I go through it, I go, well, you could fit a circle in here.

You could, you could.

And we're working, we're working with the developer now who needed some answers from us so we could give him forward uh certainty on his land use.

So we made the call that yep, fourth and only needs to be a signalized intersection, and we'll time it with third sort of to maximize those those east-west movements.

Got it.

Thanks.

Good question, though.

All right, um, and this this gets us up to Butler Market and Boyd Acres.

Uh, this is one where we were being a little bit protective of what we might want to do here.

Uh, this goes a little bit beyond what the Ben Bikeways project is probably calling for because really Bend Bikeways only asks us to connect Longfellow, which is a small residential street to the south onto Butler Market.

Um, and we've got a Butler Market project that's going to be building the rest of that.

Uh we looked at the the design cost, and we decided, well, let's design this thing.

Um, let's at least get something that's forward compatible.

Uh we do know we want to take advantage of another key route, not a Ben Bikeways route, but another key route that's supposed to go north up Boyd to connect to Empire, and then ultimately possibly going to the west on Butler to connect over there as well.

So this is a this is a pretty big intersection improvement.

Uh we're taking advantage of using the existing arm and signal poles, uh, but we're building in uh a similar intersection improvement that we're calling protected.

Uh so this is this is a pretty big one that um if council wanted, we could scale this back.

We could just do this connection from Longfellow to Butler and not do the other things, but as I showed you budget-wise, um, I think this is probably a smart idea, and it allows us to be ready to move to the north uh when the when the timing is compatible.

Uh and then once we're done with all this, we're gonna cap it all off with some wayfinding.

Uh, we're gonna be installing signs.

Um, and we're basically probably gonna start on the west side because that's gonna be a little bit done sooner uh and work our way through.

Uh there was some friction with the recreational immunity issues and whether or not us putting signs up was gonna uh had conflict with with parks, especially if we're utilizing their trails.

I think we've resolved all that now.

Uh so the city definitely wants to install wayfinding like this that will help people point to their destinations uh and really focus on keeping them on the Ben Bikeways route till they till they know where they want to go.

So uh that's what I had in a nutshell.

Um we're continuing our public outreach efforts.

We do have an existing subscription list of over 600 email addresses that we've collected uh over the last year and a half of people that that wanted to be informed of what's going on.

Uh and so at this point we're feeling pretty good about moving forward with actually getting some stuff built.

But I will pause there and open it up for discussion.

Thanks, Ryan.

I wish um former counselor now, Senator Robin could be here for this.

Uh, this has been a long time in the making, getting to this point of just really seeing on the ground how the Benn Bikeways might work.

Yeah.

And I think also just so folks know, we're looking at the north-south-east-west sort of spine as a concept of getting this done and completed and then working on the network from there.

Absolutely.

And so I see that little ninth and wilson is sort of part of what that might eventually be in other places.

But um, I just think this is really exciting.

We're we're gonna be continuing to move forward with a bigger vision as we have all these little projects come to us.

So it was good to see it all together, sort of what the concept is.

Um, yeah, any questions from anybody?

I see Councilor Mendes has a hand up, so I'll start with you, Ari.

Okay, thank you.

Uh yeah, this is very exciting.

I think the most exciting aspect of it is the network, which is the hardest part of it.

The idea being that you know, once you can get on this network, you can go pretty much anywhere that it goes.

Uh my question is uh but is whether there are things that we could do at the when when the the network is crossing side streets.

So, for example, Bear Creek along, you know, you go cross northeast Alpenview or Southeast 15th when you cross Southeast Bronzewood.

Are there things that we can do with signage or a raised crossing or paint to try to get drivers to be aware that hey, there's gonna be people crossing here?

Yeah, that that's a good question.

So today there's an existing sidewalk, Bear Creek, for example, just to highlight that one.

There is an existing marked crossing there to get from the north side of Bear Creek to the coiner.

Ryan, I think he's talking about like Bucks for Trail.

As you go across Alpenview, yeah, yeah, no, tracking that.

Yeah, so so we're we're not we're not at this point in time.

We're not planning to do um any further enhancements as you cross Alpenview or even cross Craven.

Um paint's cheap.

We can always we can always throw that in the mix depending on how the bids come back.

Um yeah.

Yeah, I would think if the paint is cheap enough, part of the wayfinding could be on the ground and and maybe some some coloring or some icons that maybe could be useful and included even in the crossing.

Um just to create that continuity that people know they're on this this sort of route.

That'd be cool.

Other questions, anybody?

I I have one.

I'm curious about um refresh my memory on what has all is already in place between because what you talked about was from Ferguson all the way up to Reed Market on 15th Street.

That's the improvements that we were talking about, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Between two projects, one South of Ferguson's already been done as part of the Murphy Crossing.

That's right.

Yeah, there's a path down.

There's already a shared use path on the left side.

Tell you this is my neighborhood.

There's a little path when you start from Ferguson and it goes just up a little bit of the Nottingham neighborhood, but not all the way.

So basically taking that path and going all the way up to the roundabout.

And so uh but that's on the east side.

Correct.

Yeah.

So what we're gonna users are if they want to stay on the shared use path, they're gonna have to cross from west to east or east to west, depending on which way they're going.

Yeah, if you're wanting to stay north on 15.

Yeah, on 50.

Right.

I mean, depending on which way you're moving on 15th.

That roughly at Ferguson, you have to transition to the other.

Not at Ferguson at Reading uh 15th, remarketing 15th is where you would jog over to the large scale side.

We're building a shared use path the entire west side of 15th up to the way north.

Okay, yeah.

And so where is the expectation for that crossing for people?

You can cross at the roundabout.

Or if you there's also a a marked crossing right here to get to the park.

And there's a marked crossing at Bronswood.

Which kind of gets at this maybe this is an issue we're gonna talk about later.

I mean, there's been some discussion about how do we make crossings at roundabouts.

Yeah, like that's the actually vision to be a full four-lane roundabout to make them more safe for pedestrians and cyclists.

Yeah, no, fully recognize that's if we're pushing people to cross, uh, there will be safety enhancements that need to be built into when we double lane around about so like are we looking at potentially raise raising the crossings at that roundabout and things like that.

Yeah, yeah, and I mean I I yeah, David and I were integral in building Reed Market back in the day.

We actually installed conduit under that roundabout already uh to pull wiring for a future RRFB.

So hopefully we put it in the right place.

I don't know, we'll see.

Yeah, um, but no, we'll fully recognize, especially if if the marked wayfinded route is to cross the roundabout across multiple uh legs, then we need to enhance that safety for sure.

Yeah.

Thanks.

Ryan, I guess the so we're gonna build the spine.

Right.

Um can you please tell me in your vision, uh what's the first nerves that we attach to the spine then going forward from this after after 2026?

Where you would like to go.

Yeah, some of it's underway now.

So an example is we've got the NEF corridor project that will we'll be crossing through this, and hopefully, depending on how far our budget goes, we'll get you all the way out to to the park into the UGB on Neff Road.

So that'll connect um over it at the Pilot Middle School and and work into an existing trail system there.

So some of those are already in development now.

Uh another example is only only is not um the east-west movement on only.

We're building that today.

Uh we've made some improvements on Portland.

We're gonna make some more on the further end near college way.

So a lot of this is already happening right now.

So um I think I think a lot of it's gonna be led by finishing the Geobond projects, which had all these key routes, right?

So um I think when we get close to the end of that list, we'll be generating okay, what's next?

Sure.

Where were we putting the Broadband's um bikeway sign?

Hey, I looked for it too.

Right.

Uh he's got a sign in his um office.

Oh, that's true.

We gave it to that's good.

Yeah.

Well, thank you, Ryan.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

My pleasure.

Maybe it's Menders.

Can I just can I ask one question about the butler market and boydacers intersection?

Um, that's a pretty uh industrial area, and I know the um mountable curb islands at each corner have been an issue.

Yeah.

So um are there other you know, like the armadillos or something like that, something narrow enough that like keeps cars from going in the bike lane, but let's you know, trucks that need to access the industrial area make the movements because Butler Market's obviously uh access to freeway and things like that.

Yeah, directly and and yeah, like you said, Boyd to the north, you got Gelled When there, you've got a bunch of other industrial complexes up there.

So yeah, we're gonna we're gonna model this on a turning template.

Um, but yeah, to your point, those those raised you know, mountable curbs are meant to be driven on if need to be.

Um it's it's tough though, because I even I I was out with some folks from our fire department at the wall and only intersection just a couple weeks ago, and uh that they're trying to work with us as well.

Is can can we build these in a way that a fire truck that's got a wider wheelbase can just span over these things instead of having to hit a mountable curb, uh school buses, uh you know, that school that's like, hey, not a great visual to have a bus tipped up with kids and no seat belts, right?

So this is one of the the challenges we have in building protected intersections.

Uh so we can certainly explore um other options.

This is kind of the industry standard for now, but we'll definitely go back to our design team and say, is there is there a better way to do this?

Um yeah, mountable curbs for most vehicles.

Um we'll be able to make those turning movements, but yeah, for trucks and response fire response and and school buses, yeah, they're meant to be driven on.

These are the same things like we see at the Wilson and Thurman.

Yeah, yeah.

So I mean I I see trucks driving on those.

Yeah.

They need to, for sure.

Yeah, and I mean it we've probably all seen it too.

Like I've even seen vehicles scooch over, like thinking this is a turn lane, and it's like no, like they're they're taking the entire green paint bike lane as if it's a right turn lane.

So there's a lot of education too that still needs to happen uh to help people understand that you know cars need to be here, bikes and pads need to be over here.

Yep.

Um yeah, we we'll ask that question to our design team and see if if there's any other ideas out there on how to maintain these truck turning movements.

We do the you know the ver vertical delineators all over the place to protect bike lanes to alert people, you know, not to um and those armadillos are the are designed to keep cars out, so keep vehicles out.

So yeah, I I think it should be looked at so that you don't have to spend so much time with the school district and the fire department.

Right, right.

But it's your call, I guess.

Yeah, no, I yeah, I mean that's not a bad idea.

They they would probably still get straddled, right?

The the like if if uh uh white vehicle truck is is they're gonna probably still straddle that armadillo.

But we can yeah, we'll look at it.

What's an armadillo?

It's just I love them.

Yeah, it's it's kinda it's like a smaller of a curve um that's rounded on the edges and you know comes up maybe you know three or four inches, and you just kind of put them in sequence, but you leave gaps between them.

Um you kind of angle them a little bit so if a vehicle tire hits it, it it it'll push you back like a curb would.

But you can space them out.

Um allows for better drainage than maybe a curb would and they're on curves.

Yeah, it it would be it would be like on this inside curve.

Yeah, yeah.

Isn't it funny?

Um on this inside curb right here, you just have a row of them stacked up for well.

I would I mean that's what I'm saying, is like move them in so that you the bike lane gets protected, but the turning movement.

Well, I think that's a great point to make with as we're updating our standards and specs too, right?

So I think we it would be great to have us land on a consistency, right?

So that as we're uh going around town over the next couple of years, we've got you know, so I think we're we're there's a lot of things that we've tried and with some success and maybe some concerns, and let's use this opportunity to as we're looking at projects in real time to see how that can inform some of it's about the whole uh geometry or um 100%, yeah, size of the intersection, right?

Yeah, for sure.

One that have multiple lanes, almost like this if you're going west, yeah, on bother market is you know, a truck can kind of move and be able to swing a little differently than if it's rulers really tight.

Yeah, and flexibility depending on if you're if you're putting the delineator armadillo on the inside closer to the bike lane and not on the outside, you're gonna have faster right turn movements by the the other 90% of vehicles that use it.

They're not gonna feel that.

Oh, I really need to slow down to make this turn, which again is the key of a protected intersection is to slow everybody down.

Okay, well, good point.

Thank you again, Ryan.

Yep.

And we're gonna take a break and have um some dinner and we will be back for the regular meeting.

Great progress.

Yeah, thank you.

Okay.

All right.

We are going to go ahead and call to order the Ben City Council business meeting now.

And we'll start with roll call.

Start with you on Zoom, Councillor Mendez.

All right, him.

Steve Platt, he him.

Melanie Keebler, she here.

Mike Riley, he, him.

Gina Franzos that she here.

And Councilor Mendes, it was a little hard to hear you.

We'll try on our end to turn you up if you have any way to be louder.

That'd be great.

Folks, just to let everyone know, we usually have a break to have a meal and then have our business meeting for we had a little snaffy with the food.

We're probably going to go for about 30-ish minutes until the food shows up, and then we'll probably take a break, quick 15-minute break and come back just so everyone's aware as we get into the agenda tonight.

So we're starting with good of the order.

Oh, and for the record, Councilor North and Mayor Pro Tem Perkins are excused tonight.

So under the good of the order, we don't have any proclamations tonight.

We do have a statement that I asked the city manager and staff to prepare just in regards to an OPV article and some community questions that came out last week around our Juneteenth sponsorship.

So staff are gonna get into that now.

Sure.

Yeah, just some background.

The city has a sponsorship and grant program to support community events and programs and services that really align with council goals and city initiatives.

The council has a role in adopting the budget, which includes the funding for the program.

The program is supported by an adopted policy.

The city's equity team and other staff were involved in developing that policy.

The policy and eligibility criteria are described and linked on the city's community sponsorship and grant program webpage.

As a sponsorship committee comprised of city staff from various departments, uh review sponsorship applications as part of the process of awarding funds, and an event program or project must meet certain criteria under the policy to qualify for public dollars are allocated for funding.

The criteria includes requirements that the events be free and open to all community members, demonstrate a clear public purpose, which means the event is open to all members of the public without regard to race, color, national origin, or other status, and do not discriminate based on any protected class or status.

Because public dollars are involved, it's important to apply the public the policy consistently across all applicants and events, regardless of the event or the source of a question or concern.

So kind of more specifically, uh the city has uh this policy was developed uh about a year and a half ago, as I mentioned, with involvement from our equity team.

Uh council approved that policy.

We've been applying it uh to events uh and we've been applying it consistently.

Uh so last year uh we received questions from community members that about the holiday parade and whether the organizer was making the event open to all community members.

Some community members were concerned that the parade organizer would not let them display rainbow pride flags or black life matter flags.

We took this the concern seriously, engaged with the organizer.

Took the formal step of rescinding uh funding for the parade until the organizer agreed to comply with the policy.

Uh and then it did uh proceed the percent uh the parade happened, uh there was agreement uh and uh the inclusion occurred uh so that's uh in alignment with the policy.

And then in uh late May of this year, the city became aware of a concern about the Juneteenth event and whether the event would be open to all to the extent that there is any confusion caused by a recent OPB story.

City did contact uh city staff did contact the organizer and discussed and confirmed with the organizer that the event was open to everyone.

A pre-event meeting was scheduled where the check was delivered.

The entire process from finalizing the sponsorship agreement in late May to city staff looking into the issue of whether the event would be consistent with city policy to processing the check took about a week and a half.

This does not represent a delay from the normal process, which typically takes about seven to ten days to process and issue a check after the sponsorship agreement is finalized.

The city did not withhold or rescind funding from all accounts.

The event was a huge success.

And we intend to continue that conversation.

City will also continue to focus on our responsibility to uphold the integrity of the sponsorship program and ensure all grantees comply with the criteria outlined in the policy.

So just wanted to make sure that information was out there for community members, and we'll continue to follow up and have conversations.

I know we've got a couple of um HREC members here who are gonna speak to us from their viewpoint.

I'm happy to hear that and happy to continue that conversation as well.

Um but the point here being that we are being very careful to apply our policy evenly.

Um and in this national environment, I think it is important that we do that and any policy that um applies to making sure that we're a welcoming city.

Um so I appreciate the extra information, and we'll continue to have these conversations.

Okay.

That will move us into council action and reports.

Start with the subcommittees.

Uh sure.

So we have the community or the stewardship subcommittee uh earlier this week where we had a presentation from staff on the collection system.

I'm sorry, from the water reclamation facility plan update.

Uh so that was pretty lengthy and a lot of good engagement from the subcommittee.

Uh we also heard an update on the temporary safe state area at Juniper Ridge, uh, and some progress being made, folks transitioning, uh albeit under different circumstances than I think we had intended when that was first formed with the significant increase in population.

We're gonna continue having these updates and ultimately I think we expect to have a joint meeting with the county commission to talk about the status of the TSSA this fall.

Right.

And then next week is the community building subcommittee on August 11th, where we will talk about the collection system uh master plan.

Those two things do connect, but collection system master plan is a little more technical, uh, fitting the uh mold of the community building subcommittee as it's related more to uh growth projections and and things like that.

Uh we'll talk about private development engineering, our review update as there's been a uh focus uh around processing timelines, etc.

Uh, and then an outline of the transportation work sessions.

We have quite a bit on our plate over the next couple of months to prioritize everything from the read market and bond roundabout to ODOP projects to uh the geo bond and transportation construction funds, uh given council discussion and desire to kind of really dive in a little bit more.

So we're gonna outline that plan and that will be seen by the full council in early September that that plan, and then we'll start uh with a series of work sessions this fall.

Great.

Okay.

Um under letters, um, the equity team alerted me to an opportunity to support one of our local organizations on an Oregon Health Authority public health equity grant.

So that letter was on the agenda.

Just wanted to make sure council was in support of that, and we'll make sure that that goes out.

Any objections to that?

Okay.

And then appointments, we have um Ben Economic Development Advisory Board appointments listed as well as the housing options made for everyone committee that we completed interviews this week.

Um, and so I sent those out.

Those are on the agenda and would welcome a motion to approve the appointments.

I move approval of the appointments as proposed.

Second, all right, move by council really second by counselor Franzosa.

There's no highlighted instructions on my little thing here.

You go.

All those um in favor say aye.

Aye, aye.

Aye, aye.

All right.

So that will move us into individual council reports, and we can start down on your end, Counselor Francisa.

Great, thank you.

Um July, I feel like was a quiet month for committee meetings, and we only had one council meeting, um, but I still had a lot of one-on-one meetings.

Um, I met with uh parks board member to discuss parks supportive affordable housing.

Um, I met with several affordable housing developers, um, which I think gave me some really good insights onto some of the challenges they're facing today.

Um just today I toured different portions of the temporary safe stay area, and so this is the second time that I've been up there, and this time I went with uh representative from COID to focus on the impact on the adjacent irrigation facilities.

Um I attended National Night Out last night, uh, which was great and really well attended.

So thanks to um Ben Police and Ben Fire and Dissutes County Sheriff's Office for hosting that.

I think a lot of children had a lot of fun.

Um I responded to many constituent emails uh covering topics such as neighborhood street safety, the VO bikes.

I encourage folks to try them, they're very fun and many more topics.

Um and I do want to speak tonight to the recent OPB article about the city delaying funding for the Juneteenth celebration.

Um I I understand that it it was a week and a half and from the complaint rising to when the um when the check was written.

Um, however, I understand the sponsorship was awarded a lot earlier.

So I the statement I'd like to make is that um I'm just concerned that the city um is investing significant funds and time into training, writing goals, uh, making proclamations all to combat discrimination and bias.

Um, but this seems to me to be a great opportunity to kind of demonstrate our awareness, and I feel like we missed the mark on it.

Um we have a human rights and equity commission, which, as we're probably gonna hear, um, could have been consulted, but they were not.

Um, I believe that we need to do better both in process and in decision making to ensure that we live up to our values and that we root out bias from our words and from our actions.

Um, so I hope that other counselors are willing to discuss it tonight, and I hope um HREC is as well.

Uh, and you know, some perhaps follow-up from the incident that from the matter that happened.

Um, and so perhaps we can start simply by asking um that the matter is discussed uh with HRAC.

Um HREC, that is the human rights and equity commission, just for not using acronyms like we often do, and that feedback is provided to council because I just believe that as a city we need to get this right.

So that's the end of my update.

Thank you.

Sheriff, thanks.

Just to give some follow-up information on that.

There's already been um response to HREC members who emailed us about setting up a meeting, right?

Um to talk with the chair and the co-chair about um how to proceed forward with that conversation.

I spoke to one of the commissioners personally, myself today about this incident.

So I think there is still a commitment um to make sure that we are getting it right.

Um, I do want to say the event happened.

We sponsored it, it was a great event for the community.

Um, and there was a thank you from the organizer of the City of Bend and everyone who supported it and everyone who came out.

So I think um we can always look at our process and policies, but um, I think our commitment to Juneteenth and to sponsoring events like this is pretty clear from our goals.

Um, and I hope that we can keep talking with HREC about how to keep doing better on that.

So I'm in favor of that.

Okay.

Counselor Mendis.

I'm gonna go next.

Okay, thank you.

Um two meetings here.

Uh one was on July 30th.

Uh, I had the opportunity to join Visit Bend to tour the uh sustainability program grants, and this is basically a way of meeting our requirement to spend uh tourist-related funding on tourism promotion that sustens substantially benefits visitors, but that doesn't mean that that has to be exclusive of residents.

So this is a program that is really trying to find that dual purpose of substantially benefiting visitors, which is required by state law, and also finding ways of benefiting residents.

Um so it was great to learn about that.

Uh Friday, August 1st, the Oregon uh Metropolitan Planning Organization Consortium met, and we heard an update on the Oregon Transportation Safety Action Plan when we heard that uh there has been since the pandemic a 33% increase in fatal crashes and 82% increase in serious injuries on Oregon roads.

So uh we discussed some of the possible reasons for that.

There's a lot more distracted driving.

Um speed is always uh a factor, and uh um we'll be looking at ways uh to address that.

And that's all.

Great, thank you.

Councilor Riley.

Thanks, Mayor.

Um I wanted to start off just by um expressing gratitude for two things today.

Um, one was I was at Juniper uh Summon Fitness Center this morning working out, and there was a little boy and his mom on a bike coming in, and uh he got off the bike and he just turned to his mom and said, Mom, isn't it such a great day out today?

And there was a number of adults standing around, and all of us just brightened up.

So I don't know who the little boy is, and I don't know his mom, but if you're out there listening, I really appreciate it.

Um the other thing I wanted to express gratitude for was um some events and and um some of the work that's been done on the Klamath River area um over the last hundred years or so, but also most very recently.

Um I just wanted to thank the Klamath, the Hoopa, the Uruk, the Kuruk, and other tribes for all of their work over the last hundred years for protecting and restoring the health of the Klamath River and recently culminating in the res in the dam removal.

Um I just wanted to say I'm really inspired by their persistence, their tenacity, and their resilience, and appreciate them showing us one of the ways forward to restore the health of our lands and waters.

And I also in particular just wanted to um I don't know if people saw the story about the 120 indigenous indigenous youth who just completed the first 310 mile, and it took them 30 days um descent of the now free-flowing Klamath River.

Um, I thought it was really inspiring to see what they did and sort of their reconnection to the land and the fish that are important to their culture, and just wanted to say I appreciate their inspiration as well.

Um I attended uh Central Oregon Village's open house for new safe parking um at 5th and Franklin a couple of weeks ago, and um we had a good turnout.

We had uh at least one neighbor there, and a lot of the partners on that project just appreciate everybody who's making that happen in the community and the neighbors' willingness and openness to have um some new um neighbors in his neighborhood.

Um it looks like that project is moving forward.

I just went by today and saw that the fence um so it's great to see moving forward.

I also attended um the grand opening for Housing Works New College View multifamily rental project on Simpson Avenue today, just across the street from OSC Cascades.

Counselor Pott was there as Councilor Francis.

Um we have um it's a project Housing Works has completed their project now, and it's soon going to be open for people who live in 59 units of affordable workforce housing, including a combination of one, two, and three bedroom units, and um it's part of a larger development with rooted homes that's gonna have um home ownership opportunities as well, which will be 40 two-bedroom, two-bath, and three-bedroom, two two-bath, single family homes.

So it's just exciting to see that move forward.

The city's been a big investor in it, as is the county and park and rec district um and many other partners.

And I wanted to point out that um, you know, housing works, I think is really doing some amazing work in terms of the affordability levels they're providing for the community.

Um, their goal is to bring rent down as low as possible, not just at the whatever maximums require required of the funders.

So, for example, on this project, the funding they got from the state set the rent for a two-bedroom um unit at um no more than $1,545 a month.

Housing Works is going to deliver those same units at $1,052 a month, which is 42% less than that.

So it's it's a really significant um lift on their part to deliver affordable housing for our community.

So just a big thank you to them again and all the partners who helped make that happen.

Great, thanks for attending.

All right, Councilor Platt.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, again, echoing the same ideas with the college viewer.

That was just amazing to see that project come together.

And I think we've got more of that coming along with the projects that we've uh approved along with the TIFF zones coming forward.

So I hope we'll do a lot more of those going forward.

Um of the things I did a couple weeks ago was go to around the bend farms.

Um, around Bend Farms is uh is an organization that um is trying to bring trying to bring um locally grown food uh to our community for just specifically folks that don't have a lot of activity or a lot of access to those kinds of food.

And and there's I met with other concern members and engaged members of the community about trying to cite um community farms around our community as both a place for food and a place for community connection, and I'm really energized by that, and I hope that we can make something like that uh happen going forward.

So I've talked with Ben Le Pine Schools and others about trying to cite some of those around the city, and I'd like to see that happen.

Um I've also met over the last uh several weeks with both Pacific Power and the Central Electric Collective as our primary electric providers and the and their region about um the vision of electrifying bend and what does that mean going forward as far as uh continuity of power supply um and any kind of pinch points that we're gonna end up with.

And let me tell you, electrification is not gonna be easy, uh, but I do believe truly deeply that is the goal that we should seek for our city as an example for others, and you'll hear more about that in a little bit.

Um but the punchline from both of our major electric providers right here is that they can meet the need as long as we uh continue to plan for an electrified community going forward.

And the point I always make is that the Oregon Housing Needs Analysis says that our community needs 33,000 more homes in the next 20 years.

That's roughly a 25% increase in our housing stock that we have right now.

So if we want to make a movement, if we want to make a heavy lift and move towards an electrified and a lower carbon impact on our community, adjusting 25% of that housing stock that comes on board and making it electrified is gonna be a big big step forward.

And I believe that's something that's something I'm gonna push very hard for uh going forward.

I've also had the opportunity to listen to Summit West neighborhood and get back to them about uh ways to look at the speed limits that we have for our city and as well as wildlife or wildfire uh resiliency measures that we are taking uh going forward.

So these are the kinds of things that all of our uh fellow counselors are doing, and we're just uh we got a lot of good folks out there that are really engaged in making the band a bit a better place.

So I'm just happy to be part of this organization.

Thank you for that update.

Um, yeah, it's I was not able to attend the last meeting, so it's been a while since I have been able to give a report.

So I'm not gonna go through every meeting that I've been to recently, but um did attend July's Central Oregon Cities organization meeting.

Um did some work in July leading up to the governor declaring that special session on transportation, just met with our delegation and our lobbyists and other leaders on how to approach that and how to make sure that we're still getting um a share of funding if they are gonna increase funding and that the conversation on important programs like complete streets and um safe for us to school and all those things continues even if they don't end up tackling that in the special session.

So ended up writing an op-ed with the mayor of Redmond and the remote of sisters on that.

Went to the other open house for the Central Oregon Villages Safe Stay Area, which also went great and had neighbors with positivity there.

Did a uh a meeting with the business Oregon looking at infrastructure funding and what programs they might have to help us with infrastructure funding, especially in the Southeast area that we had talked to the legislature about.

Um and we went through every single program that they had, and there really wasn't much.

Um, so that's just something we wanted to do and go through that exercise when we continue to talk about needs for infrastructure for cities like ours that are growing and want to take those costs off the back of folks who are building housing.

Um last week I was in Albuquerque for the mayor's innovation project um conference, which was really great to just meet with other mayors, hear about things they're doing.

There were some panels on homelessness work on responding to federal actions right now, um innovating with climate and heat and heat issues.

Um the mayor of Gresham was there actually talking about how they're working with their tree canopy on that.

So good things that I'm hoping I can bring back and pass on for us to consider as well.

Um just check my calendar one more time.

And I think that is it for me on sort of meetings.

Um I have a little cold, so I did not go to the College View meeting today to avoid exposing people.

Um I did email council about a letter that we got from Ben Parkson Breck regarding requesting to be exempted from the transportation utility fee.

I was trying to find the appropriate time for us to package this.

I think we have a work session coming up that's adjacent to this topic that it would be good to talk about.

Um I understand their request, and you saw their letter, but um I want to have a context for the whole our transportation funding, and I think we probably should put this in September so that we'll know what happens in that special session as far as the transportation funding.

Are they actually gonna pass it or is it not gonna work?

And are we gonna be looking at some some funding issues from the state side?

So unless anyone has any other thoughts, that would be the time I would suggest we discuss that is in September.

Would that be a first meeting?

First first meeting.

First work session.

I'll talk about the schedule in my report at the end of the meeting, but yeah.

Yeah, that would be at a work session, so we could have a discussion about it.

Is that um when is the fee due to be paid?

I think we set up a yearly schedule with them.

Yeah, so we'll be collecting it from them, and then if council decides, then we'll be refunding it to them.

Last year's we've they're paying that we can credit back if there's a decision by council to go back and we'll talk about going forward.

Okay.

Okay.

So they've already paid for the previous year.

Yeah.

Okay, sounds like we can do that.

And then um we um people may have heard about a change at the environmental protection agency at the federal level to basically dismantle a finding that was made several years ago about the impact of greenhouse gases on our environment.

Um, I got a notice from the climate mayor's group that I passed on to um council, and counselor platt took the lead in drafting a statement he's gonna read tonight.

So great.

Um, the city of Bend is dedicated to shaping our collective uh impact on the climate, both in the near and the long term, as we plan for a thriving future for all members of our community.

Our climate change mitigation work is rooted in long-standing scientific consensus about the negative impacts of greenhouse gas pollutants on our community's health, safety, and well-being.

The science shapes are local policy decisions related to greenhouse gas emissions, and it is vital to maintain these protections for the benefit of our community.

We recognize our peace in the global climate system that reaches across borders and are committed to being part of that collective active solution, collection to action solution.

So, science-based policy and findings at the federal level can have a tremendous effect on markets, encouraging the rapid changes necessary to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions while still encouraging thoughtful growth and prosperity.

We are thankful that our state leadership remains committed to climate pollution reduction goals and programs grounded in science.

But the Trump administration's decision to rescind the 2009 EPA endangerment finding and their larger goal to roll back climate impact policies are enormous steps backward.

Going forward, we will remain dedicated to meeting our local greenhouse gas emission reduction goals in accordance with our community climate action plan.

And this effort, we hope to be an example to others for smart growth that both meets the near-term needs of our community and honors our commitments to future generations.

Thank you, Councillor Platt.

And the further action I would like to see if council would support is I would actually like to ask Councilor Platt and Council Riley if you would join me in helping to draft a statement that we can submit into the record.

Since this is a federal rulemaking effort to roll back this rule, there is a record where we can lodge our objection to that, as many other cities and groups will be doing.

So if that's okay with council, I would have those two just help me with that, and we can and staff as well to submit that.

Yeah.

Yes, please.

Okay.

Yeah.

And I think just to emphasize what Councillor Platt said, this is a really big deal to pull this rule back, and it is just part of a big rollback of all the climate actions we were moving forward on that we're going to support our own local work.

So it's really important that we at least say this is not something we agree with.

So okay.

So I think we're gonna do is we're gonna have visitor section with our folks who signed up to speak, and then we're gonna take a break so we can grab our dinner and come back out.

Um so I've got it looks like three folks signed up to speak in person.

Um we'll start with um Jennifer and Agatha.

You guys can go first, and then I've got George signed up as well.

Um this is your time to um give us input on city issues to city council.

We ask that you address us as a body and not individually.

Um please don't use any language that could disrupt the meeting.

Um we also don't we don't clap or boo or anything, we let everyone give their piece.

Um the timer is up here, it's big old timer now.

I don't know if you all have seen this, our nice giant timer that we have now, yeah, which I like much better than our old one.

Um, so that'll be two minutes.

Um, it'll turn yellow when you have about 30 seconds left, and right I'll ask you to wrap up.

Um, and you can go ahead.

Jen.

Okay.

Uh good evening, counselors and city staff.

Thanks for your time for the record.

I'm Jen, an appointed commissioner on the city's Human Rights and Equity Commission, or HREC, and I live in Bend.

I heard Councillor Riley speak earlier at an event today about leading with gratitude, and so you've inspired me to follow your example tonight.

As a resident of Bend, I am grateful that the city has publicly committed to prioritizing HREC and many other equity efforts, especially in our current national political reality and hot on the heels of the city of Portland's decision to walk back its commitments to do the same.

This work matters, and I appreciate your commitment to it.

I'm grateful to Ben's Juneteenth organizers for throwing a powerful community event this year that centered local black makers, artists, and small businesses.

And as an HREC commissioner, I am grateful for the opportunity to serve our communities in this capacity.

I take seriously our purpose, which you can read in full on the HREC webpage.

As I mentioned in email correspondence to the city, I was shocked to learn of the OPB's Ben Juneteenth reporting only while driving my son and listening to the radio to camp last Friday.

I've also shared with you that I think the city missed two critical opportunities to meaningfully engage with HREC about this issue during our regularly scheduled HREC meetings.

I really believe that this engagement might have resulted in different outcomes than the ones that we're now grappling with tonight.

The first missed opportunity was when the concern about the Facebook post was being circulated amongst council leadership and staff in May.

That week in a and a half long process happened to fall during our regularly scheduled HREC meeting.

The second missed opportunity was at our last meeting just one week ago today, when we could have been notified of the pending media story and recommended preemptive restorative actions.

We exist in part to be a venue in which to raise concerns and complaints about discriminations.

And while we do not have a regularly scheduled meeting this month, as an advisory body, we have asked to schedule one, and I hope that you do so with all so that all the commissioners can come together.

I'm grateful for our existence in charge, and thank you for your time.

Thank you, Jen.

I'm a new person, so we gotta resign.

I know.

There you go.

Your own two minutes.

Go ahead.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Agatha Ventura, and I serve as the chair of the Human Rights and Equity Commission, a position that I am proud of and brag about, not because I am a chair, but because I live in a city that takes human rights and equity seriously and cares enough to have a commission and to have a department committed to equity and inclusion.

As part of the commission, I believe we try hard to best advocate and support for all communities that live in the city of Bend, while advising council on the many projects and initiatives they manage that affect all of those communities, often differently and often with greater context involved for those underrepresented communities.

Our purpose is published in the city's municipal code, as uh Jen mentioned in 1.20.120.

And it notes that HREC will ensure historically marginalized and underrepresented people and communities in Bend have equal access to city programs and services, representation and city decision making, and have any to raise concerns and complaints about discrimination.

The recent events published around Juneteenth are directly related to the very reason the commission was formed.

But as an HREC member and leader, I was confused when we had not received any questions or information about the situation.

Although we had not yet been consulted, I have requested an emergency meeting to discuss this matter as our August meeting had been designated as a summer break.

And HREC as a body holds a fount of knowledge across our individual members, which could support council decision making in the future.

This matter is a learning opportunity for where there may be gaps in the process and the opportunity to remove any biases that remain in that process, regardless of the details, which do have race-related contexts.

This is not the first time we find an issue in this process specifically for an underrepresented group, and we would like to mitigate any issues and access and misconceptions that led to the inciting incident, which we think provides a learning opportunity and could also provide people resources and assistance, quote unquote, and seek resolution of complaints through conciliatory and educational processes, as is said in our charter.

I'm still proud of this position and the work that the commission members do every day, but I'm confused as to our role in your decision making process, especially as it relates to underrepresented communities and frankly targeted communities of our city for whom we have a responsibility to stand up.

And finally, I want to thank Councilor Francis for thank uh for your statement and taking accountability for where we can improve the process and loop in our commission to making these decisions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, George.

I'm here uh to oppose the expansion of the Bear Creek Road.

Okay, George, I forgot to say if you can say your full name and whether you will uh George Herman uh 21297 Bear Creek Road.

Okay, go ahead.

And uh I'm opposing the expansion of Bear Creek Road based on the fact that expanding roadself leads to more congestion, not less.

The phenomena of induced demand shows that wider roads encourage more driving, negating any intended congestion relief and sometimes making traffic worse.

Uh the road project, I think will reduce our property value, we'll have a loss of privacy, more pollution, and put more proximity uh of traffic to homes.

In addition, road expansion may threaten local wildlife, re remove green infrastructure like trees in the area and damage the habitat.

The construction of the altered roadway can I think can also disrupt a local neighborhood impacting uh you know people on pedestrians and and on bicycles in the area.

Okay, thank you very much.

Sorry, I'm just trying to figure out which exact part of Bear Creek Road you're talking about.

So all right.

Um that will conclude our visitor section.

Thanks everyone for being here.

Thank you, Jen and Agatha, for being here, and we will definitely be continuing the conversation about that next meeting.

And um, I want to mention that Mayor Pretend Perkins is the liaison to HREC and isn't here and is um not available but has been on email and uh also on the phone to try to stay in contact as well.

So we'll keep that conversation going.

Thank you.

Okay, we're gonna take a short break, everybody, and we'll be back for the rest of our agenda.

Thanks for your patience.

We don't want to be here.

Sorry, we don't want to be hangry here.

I'm here this time.

You're up pretty quick this time.

Okay, so let's get our caller meeting back to order here.

Thank you, everybody, for your patience.

We're on agenda item number four, which is the consent agenda.

I'd like to approve the consent agenda.

Second.

All right, moved by Council Francis, second by counselor flat.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Great.

So then we'll be moving on to item five, actually.

This is a continued quasi-judicial public hearing on development code text amendment to amend the Oregon State University Castle's overlay zone to modify the boundaries of the four campus sub-districts, amended innovation district standards to allow increased building height and manufacturing uses without a retail component.

Modified landscape standards to allow a more natural landscape re-align innovation way and clarifies uh specific street sections.

All right, so this is a continued quasi-judicial public hearing.

I will open the hearing.

You go ahead, Council Mendez.

Uh, as an employee of OSU Cascades, I would I will declare an actual conflict and refuse myself from these proceedings.

Great.

We will see you back in a bit.

All right, I will turn now to city attorney.

Thanks, Mayor.

Um, this is a continued public hearing.

The hearing's been opened, but this afternoon there have been some um further discussion and a request from one of the parties about uh either continuing the hearing or extending the written record till August 20th.

So I'm gonna call up maybe Karen just in reserve and call up Russ Grayson and Colin Stevens to sort of walk through some of that first.

And uh we'll eventually get to an opportunity for public testimony if there is any, but I want to get a little um status and procedural update for the council first.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, so good evening.

Uh Council Russ Race, Chief Operations Officer.

If you remember back to you the last time we were at the hearing, there were um there's testimony regarding the kind of access between the BPRD property and the OSU property.

It was determined at that point to let them to continue the hearing to let them try to work out those issues.

They've been in discussions around that.

Our understanding that those discussions are going well.

In fact, they've come to an agreement on the existing condition of the of the of the BPRD use on that property to get an easement onto those adjoining roads.

There's further discussions going now on the future uses of the properties and the relationship between those two and BBRD.

We are not privy to all those discussions.

We know that they were trying to get it resolved by today.

They are closed.

They've not according to the information we got, they've not completed those discussions to satisfaction of both parties, and they both submitted um letters to extend the the hearing to August 20th.

There is procedural questions around that council needs to ask of.

We were in agreement with with allowing that to continue to August 20th for the record.

The question is when do you want to have the hearing is do you want to have it that day and or push it to the first meeting of September to allow the record to be um to be closed, and then also enough time for you to see that information that comes in.

I'll probably turn this over to Ian and Collin to talk more about the specifics.

Yeah, and I can I can say really briefly um there's state law that governs quasi judicial land use proceedings, and one component of that is that when uh a hearing is continued or when there's uh an extension of the written record for new evidence argument or testimony, typically parties to the proceeding, which in this case include the Ben Park and Recreation District among possibly others.

I'm not sure if there are other parties.

If asked, if requested, they get an opportunity following the closure of the written record, which in this case the proposal is that it close on August 20th to respond to anything that comes in between now and August 20th.

So, what that generally means is there is a time delay after the record closes for response, if any, and then a final written argument from the applicant, which in this case is OSU Cascades.

Um that essentially means that August 20th is not necessarily the date that council could pick this up again because there are some uh sort of open record response periods that are um a right for parties to engage in after the record closes.

Colin Stevens and I and Colin can maybe walk through some of the dates.

And and I do not want to say that OSU Cascades may have some input on this timing.

Um but Colin and I have put together a framework that would bring this back to council for deliberation at the September 3rd meeting.

Sure.

Okay.

Any questions about that, everybody?

No, that's what's not okay for seed back plan.

Okay, and and Colin and I can walk through some some let's let's do that first, what these dates might look like, and then I because the hearing's open, I do want to eventually give OSU Cascades an opportunity to have input and anybody else is here to testify.

But let's lay out some of the dates first.

So, yeah, thank you.

Colin Stevens Community Development Director.

Um, and as Ian said, he and I said not that long ago, but came up with this chronology that would meet all of the procedural elements that Ian just laid out.

So it would be um to essentially close the public hearing or the public testimony portion of the uh oral testimony portion tonight, but leave the written record open until um the 20th, and then close the written testimony that night or the end of the end of business that day, give parties until August the 27th, so one week later, to provide written responses to anything that came in uh on the 20th or before between essentially now and the 20th.

Um then um if the applicant wishes to um to retain final rebuttal to require that to come in by end of the day on September the second.

So that would give their final rebuttal the day before the third when the council could take this back up at your session on the third for deliberation.

Okay, that makes sense.

So I'm seeing some consensus, I think, from counselors.

Um I know the applicant is here, and we should give them an opportunity to testify, and then anybody else who may be present online or in person to speak to it before I think council makes a decision.

I didn't have anyone else that signed up on this item.

Mr.

Holtberg, did you want to say anything on behalf of the applicant?

Briefly.

There's a lot of people coming up here.

I'm scared.

Yeah.

Like briefly to this, should we continue this on the schedule that Colin laid out or something different?

Good evening, Mayor.

Uh Steve Holtzberg, uh counsel for the university.

Uh I will be as brief as we possibly can.

I understand that request.

Uh I just want to put out there that we were very surprised at the request today to extend uh the hearing.

We spent uh a fair amount of time working on an easement that was granted and recorded with the park district.

So today's request really came as a surprise to us, and it's a bit of what I would consider perhaps moving the goalposts on us because we thought we had actually reached agreement.

Um the issue that this delay causes is one not just of delay, but if there are some real practical and real effects that Sherm andor Steve can discuss.

Uh we were going to propose uh the the 13 the 13th as a record date with uh the hearing and deliberate deliberations on the 20th.

Uh we don't anticipate submitting new evidence uh on this issue.

We're hopeful that we can resolve things with the university, but a further delay is causes some real problems for university.

So I'll I'll offer that um if I can jump in.

Yes, please.

Um the in the previous request for a continuance or an extension occurred prior to what the statute calls the initial evidentiary hearing, so that had to be granted by right.

The parks district made another request today.

Um OSU Cascades was amenable to that request, I think, until we started working through what that meant for when council could deliberate.

So I think OSU's agreement to that extension was contingent on an assumption that council could pick this up on August 20th.

Colin and I just talked about why that's challenging, but this is a long way of getting to the point that this request from BPRD for uh uh a continuance or a record extension is not something they are legally entitled to.

It is something that the decision maker has the discretion to grant.

So I think it is within council's purview to say we're decide if you want to.

Um we're going to let the record the written record uh be held open, but only until the date other than the 20th.

Um in other words, you could allow less time then all parties would still have an opportunity potentially to submit their responses to new evidence between the 13th and the 20th.

If council wants to do that, I think that would require the applicant to waive their ability or their right to submit final written argument.

And so if the applicant's willing to do that, and that would take some communication between staff and BPRD if it's requested the extension.

I think that could also work legally and practically too.

There's no um state law requirement about any of the time periods that uh there are, but this framework I think complies with them, assuming the applicant is willing to waive their final written uh argument opportunity because there wouldn't be any testimony or argument at the deliberation, whether that's on August 20th or September 3rd.

So record would close tonight.

Correct.

The public hearing the testimony would would conclude tonight.

The written record under this suggestion will continue until the 13th.

Everybody who's has their foot in the door would have between the 13th and the 20th to respond to anything that comes in between now and the 13th.

Not a delay.

Yeah, um, that doesn't generally work very well.

Yeah, the 19th would be nice.

Is there anybody which we're we're fine with the next yeah?

Okay, I'm not hearing objection to that.

There's no one here from CPRD tonight, correct?

Don't see any staff.

Yeah, I see you, Donna.

Honestly, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Colin Stevens is uh gonna introduce another element into the mix.

Cool.

Yeah.

So there is no representative from the park district here, but um Russ and I did have a conversation with uh one of um with Michelle Healy uh who indicated that they would like to take whatever can be discussed between now and the 19th to their board at an executive session on the 19th.

So we may need to leave this opening until the morning if they want to submit anything as the results.

We can schedule an emergency executive session.

We yeah, we don't have to work on your schedule.

Yeah, just passing that information.

No, I appreciate that.

I appreciate that.

Yeah, I think this is all for council to consider.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

And if I could just add a sentence on the issue for us, we have issued an RFP.

I'm Sherm Bloomer on the Chancellor and Dean for OSU Cascades.

Uh we've issued an RFP for developers for the innovation district.

The first deadline for that is August 28th, at which the potential developers have to submit a preliminary proposal.

We need to be able to tell them what conditions they are going to be developing the property in.

And so waiting until the waiting till after the 20th makes it almost impossible to hit that first benchmark.

Have I properly done that?

I had John.

And one piece of clarity for council, the easement that we have jointly agreed to and and recorded does extend the current use, but it is also it also extends it to any successor public or nonprofit group doing park and recreation type work.

So it it does have some longevity.

What we are currently talking about is an LLI defining the conditions under which OSU would have an opportunity to purchase the pro the property.

So it really is different than the immediate easement that we have executed.

Okay.

Uh I'm I'm in favor of the faster timeline.

Anybody bringing this back at our 20 August 20th meeting?

I mean, I'm seeing unanimity from council.

I'm not gonna ask for a motion.

I think everybody seems to agree that that the public hearing, the testimony would close tonight, which the mayor can do once we see if anybody else is here.

Written record would be open until close of business 5 p.m.

on August 13th.

Uh any party would have an opportunity to respond to anything new that comes in until close of business on August 20th.

And the applicant is waiving their ability to submit any final written argument.

Oh, sorry.

Sorry, the 19th century.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

The response period would close the close of business on the 19th, the day before the August 20th council meeting.

Council would plan to deliberate then, and the applicant would waive their ability to submit any file word in the argument 20 model.

Uh that is that is fine with us.

Okay.

Okay.

That will be the plan.

I think we're unanimous in that being the plan, and those are the timelines.

Um so I'm gonna close the hearing for testimony and leave the written record open until 13th with the timeline that was described by Ian.

And the GRD's not here, but staff can communicate these developments to the post.

Yeah, and Donna's right, and Donna's writing them down for you back there.

Yeah.

Thanks, everyone.

Figure it out.

Yeah, please.

Please.

Yes, we yeah, as we said before.

All right.

Councilman is back, and we are on to item number six.

This is a public hearing and first reading of an ordinance to vacate a 0.53 acre area unimproved right of way along northeast and site street to realign the intersection of northeast Palace Place.

Nicholas.

Oh, you are ready for my presentation.

Maybe we are keep it brief.

Okay, so good evening, everyone.

Um Nicholas and our associate planner, uh, City Ven Planning Department here to give a very brief presentation on this right-of-way vacation.

Um June for a little.

I think many of us are familiar, but just to orient everybody.

The area under consideration for this right-away vacation is at the intersection of Northeast Towers Place on the south and northeast Anisight Street on the north side.

It's actually a portion of Northeast Anna Side Street.

This street was formerly called Caldera Street originally.

Um if you're not familiar with this area, it's entirely unimproved.

So the streets are primarily unimproved.

The area under consideration for vacation is unimproved.

Northeast Tallis Place along this section is under entitlement to be improved, but it's not yet improved.

So probably only people familiar out there walking their dogs, you know, amongst the juniper trees.

As a matter of fact, just today we issued the decision for uh approval of the 74 acre 35 lot industrial subdivision for lot five for this area, just as a side note.

So the applicant for the right of way vacation is uh Matt Stewart, our real estate director.

Um so City Event is essentially the applicant, but it is private property, hence this petition that was accepted.

Um, and we're here to consider whether or not the vacation is in the public interest.

So uh the petition included information about how there were no existing franchise utilities that required any easements, or no public utilities that require any public eases easements to be retained, like I said, the street is unapproved.

Um brief story background uh as to how we got this additional right away that is duplicative in its connection with these tiles places that um properties to the south needed to be developed, needed a little more room to be developed, and so pushed that street a little bit further to the west.

Um when we did dedicate Northeast Andeside Street, it kind of left this little jog.

And so, in order to connect the existing Northeast Anna Street alignment, they kind of did a little bit of a uh an angled connection, which you can see on the map.

And so that left this 90-degree connection, which is no longer needed.

So the criteria to consider when looking at whether or not the proposed vacation is in the public interest, um, just real briefly.

Um, is there any alternate right-of-way that's required?

In this case, we actually have already have the other connection.

In this case, it was dedicated in 2024 with the Juniper Ridge large lot subdivision, so there's no need for any additional right-of-way.

Um, is there any chance it may be used in the future for purposes?

Um, not at this time, and it seems that when we have this adjacent right-of-the-there's no need for this uh duplicative connection, and the current value and cost um is all under consideration for the city council to decide whether or not this is in the public interest.

So that was my entire presentation.

So pretty simple.

Any questions?

All right.

Oh, wait.

I have to open the public hearing.

I'm sorry, are there anybody no one who signed up for comments for this item?

Is there anybody here to comment on this item?

All right, seeing that I'll close the public hearing and we will deliberate our hand motion.

I move for the first reading of an ordinance to vacate a 0.053 acre portion of Northeast Andesite Street to realign the intersection with Northeast Talos Place.

All right, Council Renley move, counselor Franz is a second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

All right, unanimous.

Thank you very much.

Item number seven.

This is a public hearing to adopt an order completing the legalization of Bear Creek Road related to the Bear Creek Road and 27th Street Improvements Project.

All right, I'm gonna open the public hearing on this one.

Okay, okay.

Um anyways, uh I'm Sinclair Burr, senior project engineer.

Uh, tonight we're looking at the legalization of Bear Creek Road.

Uh, while we were looking at the design of Bear Creek Road, we noticed that there were certain portions of the roadway that were never in fact legalized.

So there the space in which the road currently sits wasn't ever legally established.

Um, what we're trying to do is fix that by going through a legalization process.

So there are eight different properties, three kind of in the vicinity of Cessna Drive, which is near the airport there off of Bear Creek.

Um, and then the the remaining five are closer to the urban growth boundary off of Quail Run and Dentilly Place.

Um we initiated this project or this this process back in in May uh of this year.

Um council initiated the process, and then we uh got a survey for this piece of the road, and that was attached to the council packet.

Um we notified all these eight properties of this process, and that was done on June 5th, and we requested that they get back to me by the end of July just so that we could kind of get ready for this meeting.

Um we didn't receive any any sort of communication before that date.

Um I will note, however, I did like 40 minutes ago receive an email uh for with a voicemail, and I haven't been able to get a hold of that resident.

Um what the residents can do under this process is claim um claim compensation for property that exists within these um legalized areas.

Uh we went out there with our surveyor and our surveyor looked and didn't notice any structures within these legalized areas, and we also, as a courtesy, went out there and put stakes in the ground to uh let those folks know exactly what these areas were that were to be legalized.

Um so it should have been pretty clear where uh these locations are that that needed to be legalized.

Um so tonight is the hearing to you know get that feedback from from folks of of whether or not they do have structures within the the legalized areas, um, and then uh sorry can you go to the next slide?

I'm thrown off a little bit without my presentation.

Um, and then um issue an ordinance to actually legalize Bear Creek Road, and then we have one step after that to file a survey and then actually monument, meaning putting actual survey monuments in the ground along the center line of Bear Creek where we're legalizing it.

Um so that's that's kind of what we're doing here in a nutshell.

Um can take any questions.

Do you have a map or anything?

Yeah, if you go earlier in the right here.

So we've got if you go this is the first sheet.

Yeah, yeah.

So we've got three different properties here, one to the west of Cessna, and then two to the east.

This continues on to the next slide.

Um so this is that other other property.

This is near the airport here.

Um, and then here's Quail Run, and we've got three different properties here.

This one's segmented into two different pieces, and then one more sheet.

Um Dantilly Road.

We've got three different properties, or actually, this is two.

This is a kind of a horseshoe property here.

Um, so two properties that he road.

And that's where the road already is right now.

Correct.

So we're not saying we're gonna build a new road.

It's the road's already there.

The road is already there.

This legalization issue go extends from where to where then and from Cessna out to the urban growth boundary.

Yeah, okay.

Got it.

And Sinclair, like to kind of summarize it.

It's it's sort of like this area that you're bringing to the road right away, is like no man's land right now, like it's not assigned to anybody, right?

So it's like it's not prior, we're not there's no taking happening here.

There's yeah, this is we are just sort of correcting survey clerical errors.

It was mostly just lost, and it was never actually dedicated to to either the county at the time being crooked org shoots or to the city once the reproduct boundary actually got to that point.

And we've seen this pretty uh consistently with those farm to market roads, like we saw this a lot on rate market, and I think it's on NEF.

We saw it in Romain Village as well.

Yeah, and one of the concerns that came up earlier was that we were expanding the road.

Um, that was the words that were used.

So in my mind, that means we're adding a lane or we're you know taking the right of way a lot bigger.

We're that's not proposed here, although we are gonna urbanize the road out to the urban growth boundary, so that's urban amenities in terms of sidewalks and bike lanes and that kind of thing.

We're not we're widening yeah, we're we're barely touching the road, in fact.

We're we're getting that shared ease path on the north side of the road and we're making it continuous uh from Cessna Road out all the way out to the urban growth boundary.

So really it's it's just adding bike and pet facility within the legalized right-of-way.

Yeah, okay.

Um I we did not have anyone sign up for comment.

Ian, I don't know how to like can we incorporate George's comment from earlier because I think I failed to say, hey, maybe he might be here for a public hearing.

Can we just like incorporate that into the public record because he was talking about this road?

I wasn't sure if that was about the project or this item.

I'm not sure either, but he was on the project.

It seemed like it is, but I feel like it it's related and I failed to say, hey, you might be here for a public hearing, so I don't know if it's possible to just say we heard that, we're thinking about it, we're incorporating into this public.

I think there's no magic one to incorporate, but if council wants to reflect that they're considering that and considering this item, that's fine.

Okay, I think we did by talking about it.

So okay.

So then I'm gonna go ahead and close the public hearing.

All right.

I moved to adopt an order completing the legalization of Bear Creek Road between Craven Road and the Eastern Urban Growth Boundary.

So I can all right, move by Council Princess, second by Councillor Platt.

All those in favor.

All right.

Thank you.

Sinclair.

Council has asked to approve the 2025 Pro Housing Fund and Affordable Housing Fund recommendations.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council.

I'm Melissa Camania, your affordable housing coordinator, and it is my pleasure to introduce to you tonight Lucy Reed.

Lucy is our housing communications intern.

She is a Ben High graduate who's about to start her second year at Scripps University.

Scripps University.

Scripps College.

She her term has been is a seven-week term, and she has her time split between housing and communications.

Some of the highlights of her work has been doing extensive research for the home committee, collaborating with staff and writing a letter to legislators, working with communications on social media, and publishing documents that report accomplishments to staff and to the public.

And so while her term has been short, the breadth of her work has been wide, and she's here to present to you tonight.

Take it away.

Hi, Mia City Councillors.

My name is Lucy Reed.

I'm your housing communications intern, and I'm excited to present to you the pathways to removing obstacles to housing funds and affordable housing fund recommendations.

All of the recommendations being presented today are guided by these five funding priorities established in the city's HUD-directed consolidated plan.

All three projects being recommended today are relevant to priority number two, affordable rental housing production and preservation.

However, it's important to note that before tonight and since the adoption of this 2023 consolidated plan, the city has invested in both affordable rental housing production and affordable homeownership.

So relevant to goal number two, affordable rental housing, the city has invested over $1.1 million for the production of 98 units since 2023.

And relevant to goal number four, affordable homeownership.

The city has invested over 3.5 million dollars for the production of 81 units.

So there were $4 million available in the pro housing funds and 1.5 million dollars available in affordable housing funds.

Applications were due on June 25th.

Presentations were made on July 9th, and today we're presenting to you the recommendations that were made at that July 9th Affordable Housing Advisory Committee meeting.

And so Melissa has the opportunity to come back to you on August 20th and present those recommendations.

This is an overview of the applications that came in for these funds.

As a reminder, there's $5.5 million available between the Pro Housing Fund and the Affordable Housing Fund.

However, over 31 million dollars was requested across 11 applications.

This is what this is a map that shows the distribution of applications across Bend.

And the applications that are being recommended tonight are located at 15 and 11.

And all of the recommended applications tonight are within the Bent City limits.

The Affordable Housing Advisory Committee recommends three applications to fund.

United Housing Partners with Latino Community Association, Housing Works, and Vital Housing for a total of 282 units.

And so you can see at the in the yellow that tonight's proposals are getting us a little bit closer to meeting those targets by 2030.

The first recommended applicant is United Housing Partners and Latino Community Association with our project Bella Pines.

AHOC has recommended 2.25 million dollars from the Pro Housing Fund to fund the acquisition of a 2.9-acre vacant lot for the development of 102 affordable rental apartments.

The onsite services at Bella Pines will include employment and career support, medical benefits, food resources, legal aid, and transportation.

Bella Pines will serve households earning 60% AMI or less.

They've requested a 0% interest loan with a balloon payment at the end of year 20.

The next recommended applicant is housing works for the project 85 SWC.

AHEC has recommended 1.75 million dollars from the Pro Housing Fund and $1 million from the Affordable Housing Fund for the acquisition of a 1.45 acre vacant lot for the development of 59 affordable rental apartments.

Eight of these 59 apartments will be 88 accessible units.

They will serve households earning between 31 to 50% AMI.

Housing Works has requested standard loan terms for the $1 million affordable housing award.

However, they're requesting the $1.75 million Pro Housing Award as a forgivable loan.

The final recommended applicant is vital housing for the acquisition of seed arrest apartments.

AHAC has recommended $500,000 from the Affordable Housing Fund in order to preserve 121 units of affordable rental apartments.

Will serve households earning 60% AMI and below for an ex for an additional 60 years following the acquisition.

Because of this acquisition, residents will gain access to on-site supportive services.

Vital Housing has requested standard loan terms.

Please let me know if there are any questions.

Great job, Lucy.

Thank you very much.

Can you repeat one?

Lucy, can you review one number you gave?

Yes.

In the very beginning, the city has invested over 1.1 million in affordable rentals.

And how many units was that?

98.

Thank you.

Yes.

Okay.

Questions.

Councilor Mendes.

I see your hand up.

Yeah, thank you, Lucy.

My question is about the chart that you had with the Oregon housing needs assessment, the different uh target levels.

Are we does this chart reflect opportunities for rentals?

Um home ownership or both.

It's for both.

Okay, thank you.

Yes.

Other questions?

What was the number for the um the number of um ownership units?

The dollar number was it 3.5?

Three over 3.5 million, yes.

And how many units?

81.

Okay, council.

Other questions about this?

These look like great projects.

Um in the context, I know you're coming back to us, but um are those that money gonna support one of these projects as well, or is it for something different?

Okay, just so we understand.

Because that's part of the 5.5 total or will 5.7 total.

5.5 is just for tonight.

Okay.

Um, when I come back in two weeks, um, it'll be the Latino Community Association United Housing Partners project that receives the CDBG funds.

Additional 200.

Uh yes.

Thanks.

Thanks.

I think this is really great, and I think um we got a lot of applications, so that shows there's a lot of need for this sort of subsidy for this type of housing.

Um, I'm thrilled we're getting down to 31% housing.

That's great.

And I'm thrilled that we're doing preservation, which I'm not sure I've seen.

I don't know, Melissa, you remember that we've done that much of a preservation, but you can see that how much further the money stretches if we preserve what's already affordable and keep it affordable.

So that's great to see that they put in for that, and we can support that.

Yeah.

I I have one more question about um this is probably gonna be for Melissa.

Um so eventually we're gonna be creating a housing production strategy.

Is that right?

Like as part of the comprehensive plan and all that whole planning update.

Anyway, I guess the question I'm getting at is is it envisioned to have a break uh a breakdown of this chart on our housing goals that does break out rental versus home ownership?

Um our council goals.

Oh, maybe that's a Rachel question.

That's a Rachel question.

Yeah.

Our council goals have both rental and homeownership in it, um, but we've we haven't really grappled with so that is in the current comprehensive plan.

Okay, and we do that analysis every time we create the comprehensive plan every five years.

You mean the consolidated plan?

Consolidated plan, sorry, I said the wrong thing.

And then the um housing production strategy will be through our growth management department.

Um, but we will certainly be working with them on that, and um will be brought before the consolidated plan is redone.

So do we have numbers then on like our progress toward constructing affordable homeownership versus affordable rental units?

Not currently like inaccessible today, but it is it is in the consolidated plan.

We can send that to you.

Yep.

It's on the our website already, the affordable housing page.

Okay, yep.

I would because I was struggling.

The reason why I ask is because I'm really struggling, but the none of the awards do go to homeownership.

Um and AHAC struggled with that too.

They really considered the homeownership applicants as well.

And they really recognize that these ONA targets in order to hit them, we we really need to invest in a lot of rental housing as well to get those doors.

Yeah, that's thank you.

Yep.

Um, we are actually working on moving this into our dashboard that it's a live tracking, so we're working so it also tracks what is actually being permitted, not just what the city is subsidizing through or is incentivizing through borough or our flight of housing.

So we're working to move this graphic into a much bigger sort of online portal where we can see everything that's being through a permit center and what we're doing through incentivizing as well.

So we'll have that breakdown as well.

So I just wanted to add that that's part of our data transparency.

Yeah, and that's gonna have the um rental units and ownership units.

Yeah, we can forget that.

That would be great.

That'll be our intensity.

Yeah, it's great.

And I think as the as the guy really pounded the table to ask for the owner numbers to be into our goals right here, listening to the AHA go through this right here, and that they as Rachel said, you know, really wrestled with that, but came down to how many doors can we get.

And for me, you know, the strategic goal that we're going for is to meet those owner targets, and that is going to be a really heavy lift as we've all talked about.

So I'm all about trying to get all the options that we can on the table to get as many uh ropes as possible.

So I I'm firmly support of the strategy as uh outlined this evening.

I also appreciate the additional services that all these tenants are gonna have access to as part of these developments, which is gonna be great.

So okay.

And my understanding was that at the AHAC meeting, uh you know, I'm assuming there are a lot of applicants there, some of whom were not part of the final three that were awarded.

There was uh one, it was unanimous vote from AHAC, and two that um there was just that energy in the sense in the room was a lot of support for kind of this difficult decision making process, and and sort of you know, this is good for the community, even if my project didn't win out.

And I just want to speak to why we I think we had so many applicants is because the state of Oregon and um the big beautiful bill also massively increased the amount of LIHTC funding that's available, and so I do think we're gonna see a lot more affordable rental applicants in the very near future trying to take advantage of those opportunities.

Great, good to know.

So if I I actually do want to present an alternative um funding approach, um, an alternative to what the AHAC is recommended, and it sort of builds off what Rachel just said.

Um, because LITEC is something that homeownership projects cannot really go for.

Um, so homeownership projects are uh sort of stock, um not stock, but really restricted in the funding source that they can get, and state of Oregon lift funding is one of them.

Um a lot of them require rely on grant funding from foundations um and then do quite a bit of fundraising.

Um I had lobbied for homeownership to be included in our council goals because I think it's really important that we not create just um rental housing, but that we also create opportunities for um people to get ahead in our community, so not just get by but to also get ahead.

Um building the affordable homeownership programs that have were applied for funding, um, those are deed restricted for 99 years that all of the applicants were.

Um, and the cool thing about homeownership is that when someone is able to get into a deed restricted affordable home, they can actually stay in it even once their income starts to rise.

So as their income starts to rise and their mortgage becomes less of a percent of their um monthly burden, that's extra money that they have available to invest in you know, saving money for their kids to go to college, saving money for themselves to go to college if they haven't gone to college already, um, saving for retirement, for example.

So I also uh what is really weighing on my mind is that we approved I can't remember the number of projects, but um 96 million dollars in um tax increment financing, basically SDC waivers and uh tax abatement for 1300 units in Bend, which includes 266 rent restricted units.

So I personally feel that the city has put quite a bit of money into um into rental units, and I I would really like to see homeownership funded.

So I am not um also uh you know, not to I don't know, be critical or anything like that.

This is a great story.

Housing works uh historically has returned quite a bit of funding that the city has awarded to them back to the city, which is actually I think why we have a million and a half in AHF and not just less than that, right?

So thank you, Housing Works.

Um, but uh for your great management of your projects and all the great work that you do.

But I would like to see um what what my what my request would be is that um all four million of the pro housing um goes to uh the habitat project that would allow them to um build the 30 acquire the land for 31 units um and then the one and a half um in well, I guess it wouldn't be one and a half.

This is where my math gets by the because I fully support the Cedar West project, um, and that was 500,000.

So I guess that would be a million to housing works plus the CDBG uh for housing works, and I um no offense to United Housing Partners and Latino Community Association, but I would um opt not to fund the Bell Pines project.

Um and the reason for that is simply because it's a larger project.

Um and the LITEC funding that will be available is gonna be so much more generous.

And so I just don't see the need there like I do with the homeownership project.

Also, um housing works uh pri offers units between 30 and 50 percent um AMI, which is lower than what Bell A Pines.

So that's my proposal.

Um yeah, so I'd love to hear folks' thoughts on that.

I will just say that Lightek cannot buy land, and this is a land acquisition proposal.

Thanks.

The the um united housing partner LCA.

So just to be clear, so I understand what your proposal is, is four million, take four of the five five point five and allocate it to the habitat project.

Yeah, one million to the housing works and half a million to Cedar West, which is about what it's been given now.

And then CDBG is not on here.

Um that's like 200 and something.

Which is also something like that.

That was going, so you're proposing to do a lot with that because you're not proposing to housing works to one point.

And I will also say that Habitat could not acquire the land that they were offered without their full award.

So that also weighed into AHAC's decision.

And they asked for all 5.5.

They asked for the whole thing.

Correct.

And they even know any different than that.

They said four, they said they could make it work with four.

I reached out.

But that's not what they said to the AHAC to and have we given any specific direction to AHAC on rental sh rental versus ownership in terms of the focus from the council.

Is there been any policy formal or otherwise?

It's all in the consultant consolidated plan that we approved.

Yeah.

And so does that prioritize rental over it does.

It does.

Okay.

So that so their um proposal of how to use this funds is consistent with the consolidated plan and the priorities presented in there, and that's something the council adopted when the last one.

In 2023.

In 2023.

Okay.

I think I see Councillor Mendes's hand.

Go ahead, Council Platt.

But the the other way that I've felt out, and I'm and I'm on the opposite side from Council Francosa on this, but it was it's like a three to one dollar uh ratio for for homes that's already been spent versus uh rental units up to this point since 2023.

So this for me is is also sort of leveling that up just a little by by going towards rental units in this case.

So you know, Councilor Mendez.

Yeah, thank you.

That that was the the question that I had.

I just wanted to clarify of the 4.6 million that we've allocated since 2021, 76% has gone towards homeownership projects.

Um so I I recognize that this is there's trade-offs here, and I I don't I'm I'm comfortable supporting these uh these three projects tonight.

Um that was the first time that I'd heard those statistics and uh it seems like it's important for us to fund both types of projects, and it sounds like that's what the city is doing.

Okay or any other proposals of ownership proposals.

I guess the this LMS would have done that.

This LS was also a homeownership proposal.

Yeah, okay.

I'm comfortable supporting the AHAC recommendation.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Any other questions for staff?

Thank you all.

Thank you, Lucy.

Great job.

Yeah, thank you, Lucy.

All right, emotion then.

I move to approve the 2025 Pro Housing Fund and Affordable Housing Fund allocation recommendations awarding five million five hundred thousand dollars to affordable housing development and to authorize staff to take all actions necessary to distribute the approved resources, including signing loan agreements and related documents without further approval from council, and as approved by the city's attorney office.

Second.

Alright, move by Councillor Plack.

Second by Council Riley.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay.

Thank you very much, everybody.

And thank you.

Uh thanks, Catalina and others who are here.

And thank you to everybody who applied.

I mean, I think it's just important to acknowledge that all the work, as we saw, you know, we talked about earlier, all the different partners that make all these different kinds of projects happen.

We really appreciate their investment and their effort to try to bring new projects to our community, and we look forward to being able to do more of that in the future.

And I think when we get into updating next consolidated plan won't be updated for a while, right?

So priorities in here.

Yeah.

So always an image too.

We could we could look at amending that so correct.

Um and have a further discussion about ownership versus rental units.

I do think rental units are very important.

Yeah, no, I'm not saying pro or con.

They can often be more accessible for someone who's coming out of homelessness or other places to actually get into something like that versus trying to get into home ownership.

But it might be good to remote.

Revisit why and the balance and some of that.

Yes, for sure.

Not too distant future.

All right.

On item number nine.

Council is asked to authorize a contract with Kate any excavating ink for construction of the Butler Market Road and Wells Acre Road Roundabout and Butler Market Key Routes East Project.

Good evening, Council members.

My name is Matthew Jarisloski.

I'm a senior project engineer for the engineering department.

And I'm here to present the construction contract for the Butler Market Road and Wells Acres Road Roundabout and Butler Market Q routes East project.

Go into a little bit of a background for you.

This is primarily a GOBON project funded by the Go Bond.

And the portion of the project that's funded by GOBON is the key routes improvements, which includes shared use path on the north side of the road and continuous sidewalk on the south side of the road, as well as bicycle improvements to Butler Market.

Initially, this project was from Boyd Acres to Bryns Boulevard.

But with the addition to the Boyd Acres and Butler Market intersection, the section from Boyd Acres to 8th Street has been removed from this portion of the project and added to the intersection to allow construction companies to be able to bid on both projects rather than one big project.

This project also includes the roundabout, the much needed roundabout at Wells Acres and Butler Market Road, as well as a synergy project with the collection system for the interceptor that goes through the roundabout.

And this will replace two uh sewer pipes and join them into one bigger uh interceptor through that roundabout.

Uh this is one of the most confined sections of the alignment from 8th Street to Benson.

It happens to be between Broken Bow Drive and Sandy Drive.

Um we were able to fit as much infrastructure as we could in this section, considering uh a left-hand turn lane requested by Ben Fire to increase safety and ability to go around traffic accidents or um any situations that occur in one of the most confined spots.

Um you can see from this image that there is the the darker gray shadowed area is the bike lanes uh based off of some alternatives analysis and public surveys.

Uh the concept of having raised bike lanes separated from vehicular traffic was the um ideal or the most wanted version.

Um you can see the cross section on the bottom left-hand side.

That kind of shows you the separation that there's a curb that separates a curb and a buffer that will separate the bike lanes from traffic, increasing um the biker safety.

Um, the sidewalk or the shared use path, depending on what side of the road you're on.

We'll also have what we're calling a bike lane or a bike curb, which will help uh further help separate the pedestrian from bicycle traffic.

Um and that is uh for vision impaired or disabled people to be able to differentiate where the bike lane is and where the sidewalk is, so there's no conflicts.

This is the uh proposed roundabout uh that we are asking for funding or for uh contract approval to construct.

Um you can see through this intersection, the bike lanes are given the option of either going onto the sidewalk and using the crosswalks or entering into the traffic and being able to take the lane.

This was uh uh uh request from uh a lot of bike advocacy groups within Bend to have the ability to not have to stop and wait and do that process when they're just trying to get to where they're going and they prefer and they um are comfortable with taking the lane and and merging into vehicular traffic.

Um you'll see that on the bottom left hand side there is no bike lane in that section.

This is a location for CET transit uh central Cascade East Transit uh bus stop.

Um and to be able to utilize the right-of-way that we had, we joined the bus stop in with the bike lane, so that's why you don't see a bike lane on that bottom left-hand corner.

Um, and then right there on Wells Acres, um, it's a shared um path for bikes and vehicles.

So bikes will be able to go in the vehicular lanes in that area.

This is uh project schedule.

Um we expect construction to start late this month, August or early September.

Uh based.

If this contract gets approved, um we will begin construction, like I said, within this month, next month, or early next month.

And we expect construction to go through the end of October of 2026 with sewer or the interceptor construction being the first item that's constructed on Butler Market, and then followed by the key routes from the west side uh at 8th Street going to Brinson on the east side of the project.

These are expected detours based off of previous projects, such as uh the Wilson project.

Um we found it very uh helpful to have one direction of traffic throughout all of construction so that the residents and any commuters can count on there being at least one way that they can go.

Um, butler market is also an important east-west traffic, so it's beneficial to have at least one direction going throughout all of construction, keeping uh the residents and commuters knowing where they're going and and how they're gonna get there.

Um, westbound traffic will be closed, and the detour will go from Brinson to Boyd Acres down back down to Butler Market.

Uh this is an image of project funding.

Um, the construction contract came in uh pretty well under the the funding that we allocated for the construction.

Um you can see that the uh allocation the 2025-2027 allocations is approximately 10.8 million, and the construction contract came in at 9.5 approximately.

With uh we've we're asking for also potential contract changes that can be approved by city manager and the amount of 500,000 and the previously spent amount that is on alternatives analysis and the design up to this point.

So the difference between what we still have left over for engineer of record services and potential design changes based off of uh unexpected items that come up in the field is around 50, I think $8,000.

Um so the total projected estimate falls nicely under the total estimated cost for the project and in total.

Can I ask a just a quick question?

Sure.

Um so I think I'm adding numbers up at 10.8 is the allocation, and it looks like about 10 is the uh construction contract and change orders.

So that 800,000 difference.

Will that go back to the transportation construction fund?

Um so the uh we're we're also within um this is the 600,000, and that's for um PPL lighting that will go around the roundabout and certain crossings, like the crossing where the pedestrian refuge is at Sandy.

So it's only about 200,000.

Uh that's what is what we're expecting, but if there is budget that's left over, I believe that goes back into depending on what funds the source, right?

We always give it right back to the source of the source is the transportation construction fund and we're under spent, it'll go back to the fund.

Yeah.

Well, there's two.

There's the geobond, which is transportation, and then there's also the transportation construction fund.

But I think the original intention was for this to be a geobond project, right?

Not a well the I think the wells, yeah, the roundabout was not a geo.

That was that was a that was a transportation fund.

So anything key route, yes, that's geo, but the roundabout is transportation construction.

Got it.

Okay, thanks.

Yep.

Thanks.

Uh we've done some significant outreach up to this point and plan on continue doing uh out public outreach throughout the construction of the project.

Uh we've held multiple uh open houses, like I said, including the alternatives analysis to present those to the public, giving the public uh opportunities to put input on which alternative they prefer, knowing the the scale of the costs that are associated with each alternative.

Um we've done multiple website updates uh as well as press releases, emails, and social media updates.

Um we have conducted a coup uh several local open houses to the residents, just warning them of the construction that's coming, giving them expectations of what to what they will experience through construction, um, and then we are planning on holding a pre-construction open house uh with the public as well as the contractor will be there to give a better idea of construction schedules and what to expect during construction as well as putting up messaging board signs approximately two to three weeks before construction starts to warn the public of the detours that are gonna happen.

And I'm here for any questions.

Thank you.

Do you I mean if we move forward tonight, what's the projected date that um drivers would start to feel impacts on the road?

Uh we're thinking uh middle of September.

Um there's a COID crossing that we need to uh work around.

Um and that crossing is the COID has told us that they plan to not use that crossing after I believe it was middle of October.

And so our contractor has stated that they plan to go full bore about a month before that.

Um so presumably early September, middle of September is when the public will start seeing the detours and the the closures.

Can we go back to the detour slide, please?

If you're going eastbound on Butler Market and you want to get on to Wells Acre, can you do that?

Eastbound on Butler Market, yes.

Okay.

Um there is a prescribed, I think it was 95 day um closure for the eastbound so that the contractor can work on that eastern section of the roundabout.

So there will be a 95-day closure.

We're waiting for the contractor to give us their expected schedule.

But it's probably gonna be sometime um next construction season, so between I would assume spring and fall of next year.

Okay, and can Wells Acre folks get in there and turn right, go northbound on Butler Market.

Uh during that 95-day closure, no.

Not outside of that.

Outside of that closure, yes.

And the folks in Roxy and what is it, Rome Gay or whatever, they can get to their houses?

Yep.

All right.

Okay, thank you.

So the 95 days with complete closure of the roundabout at Wells Acres.

No, no, just uh the connection to Wells Air.

Yeah, during the during the time that they're constructing that eastern portion, they'll have the western portion open for traffic to go around, and then they'll just switch sides um when they're working on the other.

I think they did that at Murphy too.

Yeah.

For a little bit.

I think so.

Yeah.

But all the neighborhoods will have an outlet.

Um it might not be their closest outlet, but they'll all have an outlet back onto Butler Market.

Um they'll more than likely have to go eastbound and do the Brinson loop to if they want to go westbound out of their neighborhood.

Um, but they'll have an outlet and there'll be detours that will take them.

Got it.

Thank you.

We talked about this in our agenda review, but um, I'll ask it now.

Um on the only project, there uh staff came back to us four times um to request more um right to condemn if needed, right to use imminent domain if needed.

Um, and so I just wanted to confirm that on this project that's actually all taken care of, and so we're not gonna get uh yes, we are we've we've already done the um resolution for eminent domain.

Um and we're in the process, we've gotten one of the right-aways that is necessary, and we're in the process of getting the other two that are required for this project.

We've already received uh a right of entry agreement from those two properties so that we can continue negotiations, but we believe we're in the last step of the negotiations right now.

Um but we do have the right of entry from the property owners to be able to begin construction on those properties.

Okay, okay.

Can I just add, I think this is a question, although this isn't a condemnation issue.

We're I think approaching completion of discussions with COID on lining up everything we need regarding their facilities, correct?

Hi uh Eric Forster, Assistant City Engineer.

Yes, I've been in communication with COID and we've gone back and forth with the agreements and we're right there, they're not signed, but we do have the license agreement prepped.

Um, and we're gonna be very close.

So we plan to have that before notice to proceed.

Great.

Thank you.

Good.

Um and I I just want to make a comment.

I don't have any more questions about the project.

Um in the past, uh the city the council has had a subcommittee um called the local contract review board.

Very confusing because the council is actually in our municipal code, or I believe it's a municipal code, the local contract review board.

State law, yes.

And by state law.

Um well, by state law, we could deem, we could designate a different committee to be.

But anyway, regardless, council is a local contract review.

We've had we've changed that committee now to the public contracts committee.

And um that committee hasn't met since February.

We met in February.

Um, and I mean, I you know uh and we we were given a you know kind of mid-charter of that committee, and now that's you know that's sort of changed.

Um, but I think the I like the idea of that committee meeting um and talking about contracting issues that the city faces.

Um I don't know, Mike, if you had requested to be on that committee or if Megan Morris had requested to be on that committee, but um uh I I did, and I think it has value.

I think the meeting that we had in February, um, you know, we talked about the Bear Creek uh roundabout closure and how we were kind of concerned about that um happening.

We also talked about um the on-call contracts that got awarded um and how it there was kind of a little missed opportunity for um minority and women-owned businesses to be have opportunities to work with the city.

So I think that subcommittee has real value um and I uh would like to see it um continue to meet um and address um you know some questions that uh counselors have that the community has um and especially look at you know larger projects like this that are gonna have major impacts on our community and are also high dollar value.

So that's my request.

Um it was asked to make it.

Yeah, I said that all of council and it was on the public record, yeah.

So and we could talk about it now, or we could schedule a work session.

We we'd kind of change to talk more at the local as we've rebranded the committee to talk about our delivery processes, uh trends and contracting versus take what we have been doing is taking each con each contract in front of the local contract review board.

So we we can switch back to that.

I think that's just the pleasure of council if that's what is desired.

But um Justin can speak more to kind of the rescoping of that group, but happy to revisit it based on where council wants to.

I I would prefer if we're talking about policies for our procurement and contracting that that comes to the full council to talk about that.

So I'm fine with talking about those things.

I don't see the need to have them in the subcommittee, I guess.

And this is the time to bring up issues with with contracts as well.

So I don't know what other people think because it's counselor platt and no, it's the two of you and Megan Morris.

Yeah.

So when did we talk about changing the scope of that was in February?

I was presented to us in February.

Yeah, yeah.

All right, see Councilor Mendes has a hand.

Yeah, yeah.

So just do you want to just maybe uh I I just gave a real brief over you can go a little deeper in over here.

Well, do we do we need to do we need to do something with this?

So we probably will, yeah, definitely.

Do you want to finish that first?

Okay.

Yeah.

We'll call you back up in a second.

Councillor Mendis, do you have Councilor Mendis?

Do you have a question about the projects?

Yeah, question about the project.

Yeah, go ahead.

Uh my question is about the design speeds.

I think that section of Butler Market is 35.

Is that correct?

Yes.

And is the anything in these designs, the roundabout or um the the any of the design elements of the roadway uh incompatible with lower speeds?

Because what we often find is there might be an area where we say, oh, we actually want to target a lower speed, and then we hear SAF staff tell us that it's gonna take a whole lot of roadway redesigning and more cost to actually bring it down to a lower cost.

So, for example, is this roundabout and other elements of this project compatible with a lower speed, or is it gonna be set for 35 until we make we have to come back and make future changes?

Well, uh the roundabouts designed for 35 mile an hour speeds.

Um there are traffic calming devices, for example, on the north side of the roundabout going into the Roxy lane area, that neighborhood.

So just visual um traffic just to be just in the interest of time.

I don't mean to interrupt you, but if council were to designate this 25 miles an hour, would there need to be a different design?

No.

Thank you.

All right.

I moved to authorized a contract with Kine or Excavate and Inc.

It's substantially a form presented to council for the construction of the Butler Market Road and Wells Acre Road Roundabout and Butler Market Key Routes East project in an amount not to exceed 9,572,528 dollars, and to authorize the city manager to approve contract changes up to an additional 500,000 dollars.

Second.

All right, move by council Riley, second by Councillor Platt.

All those in favor?

Aye.

All right.

I just want to say I'm very excited to see continuing investment in butter market.

I know during the C TAC process, and it often felt like one of the things that was left out, and we get some more projects in here, and it's just great to see the continued progress on improving the quality of the road.

This roundabout in particular has been talked about for quite some time.

Yeah.

And um some of the biking and pedestrian stuff too.

So I'll be happy when we're on the other side of this project.

Yeah, yeah, I'm sure it'll be another one that'll pop up in the right.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

So back to Justin.

Yeah, I just have to pop up.

So councillors Justin Sweet, the procurement public contracts manager, and currently overseeing, if you will, for staff, the public contract subcommittee.

So I just want to recognize yes, the full council is the local contract review board as set by city code in alignment with state law.

We did previously have what we I agree confusingly called the local contract review board subcommittee.

And so in that February meeting of the subcommittee, we renamed it to the public contract subcommittee.

And in that same meeting as Eric was talking about, we decided to move from a project specific discussion because we were noticing there was a tremendous amount of duplication and what we're bringing forward to the subcommittee, what the discussion topics were, and then what we're related to bringing back to the full council.

So we decided was we would pivot to talking about general procurement policy updates and revisions similar to what we did in 2024 with the changes to city code, kind of discuss and talk about in a less formal setting what changes were we proposing before we bring it to the full council, as well as review alternative project delivery like uh CMGC or design build contracts again to have a less formal discussion about what we're anticipating for those before we bring them to the full council, um, as well as discuss the supply diversity program and other similar initiatives.

And so I've been working with other departments and staff um since that February meeting to talk about what items would necessitate a subcommittee meeting and would be beneficial, and we've been tentatively targeting a September date for that.

We sort of set a top uh soft goal to meet quarterly.

We just have not had enough topics to bring you all forward more recently than that.

But as Eric talked about, we can certainly revisit what the intention or goal for that subcommittee is or what its role is.

Yeah, great.

Sounds like you're gonna be meeting in September.

So I think I mean just to elaborate on why um why I brought this up.

So um is my brain, I probably shouldn't talk at this time hour of the night, but um, you know, I I see a lot of value.

I think when the projects were brought to the um local contract reward before coming to council, um, they were a little less fully baked.

There was a little bit of time to make some adjustments, you know.

If there was something like a construction schedule issue that we were concerned about or road closure issue, or you know the diversity um item, for example, that came up in February.

And so that's that's kind of one of the values that I see.

I totally agree.

I don't want staff to have to duplicate effort.

I totally get that.

Um, but the you know, the trend that I've noticed and that folks in the community have brought up to me is that um, and this happens on construction and engineering, and now I just received a complaint on maintenance contracts.

Um, is that there appear to be a handful of bidders, um, not very many, um, when every project is led, when every RFP is put out or um what have you.

And so um, so that's that's something that I'd rather I can work with you on that directly, just the two of us, um, and that's fine.

Um, I assume that folks who wanted to be on the subcommittee um maybe were interested in some of those same issues too.

I mean, I think Councillor Norris does work on contracting with Hayden.

I'm not totally sure, but um anyway, so um and and it is it is concerning when when you just don't get a lot of bids on certain types of projects from a diversity of bidders, but yet I look around to neighboring jurisdictions and they are getting this diversity of bids, more bids, and anyway.

So um, so that's so that's why I asked for it, and that's why I brought it up.

So that sounds more like a topic that you'd like to discuss.

If you're getting so first of all, if you're getting complaints, I hope they're getting forwarded to the right person.

Well, I mean, a lot of people kind of feel like well, the decision's been made, the contract's been let.

And so, really, for me, it's just like, well, I'll try to postmortem and see, and you know, as I have time, you know, and I think if someone has so I guess I would ask, what is is the complaint that we're intentionally keeping people from bidding on contracts?

Well, there are a lot of different reasons why um bidders might decide not to submit a bid to an agency, you know.

Um what is it?

What is so identifying what those barriers are?

I mean, this came up in somewhat of a different context around diversity kinds of stuff, but that that but that does seem to me that that's a programmatic policy question to your point.

Yeah, you know, addressing those kinds of questions and challenges.

Um I first want to hear from staff about what is the current process, how do we go about it?

Like what are our numbers?

Before I assume that the complaint's valid or legit, right?

Well, I mean, and just because we have one person that shows up often, it may be that they are consistently delivering quality work for the community and are often the lowest bidder.

So if that's actually what's happening, that's sort of what the process is supposed to get us.

It might be that construction documents aren't clear, but someone who's been awarded the last six projects knows what the city expects.

And so they can't.

So then that gets back to the policy question about how do we approach contracting in a way that is open, that's clear, that's you know, those kinds of things.

Yeah, that it's accessible to everybody.

So that seems like a really valid valid conversation to have.

Um, but it is the sort of policy focused.

I I see it as more of the policy programmatic focused discussion that the committee said it's gonna focus on rather than the individual contracts.

Yep.

Uh per se.

I see it more as practic the procurement practices.

That's what you're doing.

Yeah, okay, which is different than policy, I think.

The procurement policy is defined by the state.

It's right, we're not really doing doing much that's different than the state, right?

It's in how it's in how we can.

But yeah, I I think what it's sounding like is that you all want to have more of a discussion about what the process is, what our what our internal admin policies are, what our actual solicitation documents were like.

Like I just want to, I'm happy to um we didn't really have any council scheduling requests.

If someone has a council scheduling request that wants to have a work session, I think we need to decide if there's council support for that.

We have so many things on our goals, right?

And reviewing our procurement policy process, not on our goals.

How does this fit in with what all the other things we're trying to do in the time that we have?

And maybe it does.

So but I think we need a little bit, I need more background information, right?

Beyond some people have send you complaints.

I need more data and to have a real like conversation about this, I guess.

So I'm not really sure how to move forward.

Yeah, I think we just need a better, I mean, we need some time to figure out what is the problem we're trying to solve.

What data do you need to determine how to address that problem?

Right.

Right.

And I think that just is going to take some time.

And I think if it typically something like this would require a lot of staff and council input, and you have to decide do you want that as a subcommittee, or do you want the full council to engage?

Um, where does it fit in with your priorities?

Because we haven't necessarily budgeted for that when we look at our kind of like work session schedule.

We're fully booked this fall.

And so, how does this fit within those priorities?

In the meantime, I'm happy to have conversations with council and staff on our just internal processes.

If people are curious about it, we can we can do that.

Um, but in terms of a overhaul of that, that would that's a pretty major project.

So you're not feeling like we're missing out on opportunities by the public contracts committee not meeting.

No, I mean it's part of the point of this is and somewhat like the transportation discussion is to try to get clear on a group on the approach as a whole and direction that we give to staff and not have that come up in five different transportation project discussions randomly, like we're we need to do that in a more unified way, right?

So that um we'll of course get into the weeds occasionally, but we can provide clearer direction and sets of priorities and you know adopt standards.

This is a similar discussion potentially if we're gonna go through procurement practices.

Um that seems to me more important to set clear direction for staff that then gets executed through projects and contracts, and then they come to us for approval.

Um I I think that's where we were going.

So I'm happy to have like if we wanted to have a couple of informal conversations, just kind of try to scope this out a little bit more.

We can just do a walkthrough, right?

Of like office hours basically, and come in and we'll walk you through kind of what our processes you can just have an understanding of what that looks like and then decide how to frame it if there's been problems any other comments before we move on.

Okay, thanks, Justin.

Thank you all for popping up.

Appreciate that.

All right, item number 10.

Okay.

Oh, I'm sorry, we're doing 10, 11, and 12 all together.

So Ashley's gonna read all the council is asked to authorize a city manager to apply for and if awarded Federal Aviation Administration Grant for the taxi lane rehabilitation project at the Bend Municipal Airport.

Council is asked to authorize a contract, Century West Engineering Management of the Taxi Lane Rehabilitation Project.

And council is asked to authorize a construction with JAL construction for construction of the taxi lane rehabilitation project.

Thank you.

Good evening, honorable mayor, counselors and staff.

I'm Tracy Williams, been municipal airport manager, and as read by Ashley, I am making a presentation tonight on three separate items for you to take action.

So to put this project, which is the Bend Municipal Airport Taxi Lane Rehabilitation Project.

To put that in perspective, I'll make an analogy that we can all relate to.

The pavement in the middle is the street.

Similarly, at the airport, you have hangers on the left side, hangers on the right side.

The pavement in the middle is the taxi lane.

So that's what this project is about.

Why are we doing this?

In 2017, there was a pavement maintenance management study conducted, which projected that if no routine maintenance occurs by 2027, significant amounts of the pavement would be fair to failure.

So we're a little bit ahead of that.

And so I'd like to bring your attention to the map on the screen to give a perspective of what I'm talking about.

So the areas that are in purple are the pavement areas that are most deteriorated on the west side of the field.

This work will occur in three separate phases, starting at the left, which is the north end of the field.

The middle is the middle, center midfield, and then on the far right is south.

Starting with item number 10 is the grant.

And if received accept is in the amount of one million seven hundred and forty-one thousand five hundred and twenty-three dollars.

72% of the city's five percent, which is sixty-six thousand four hundred and fifty-eight dollars.

Bottom line is this one point eight million dollar project will cost the city airport enterprise fund about twenty-five thousand dollars.

So the next item is for authorization to enter into a construction management agreement with Century West Engineering, which is the airport engineer of record.

The amount of that contract is $200,367.

The largest or bulk of this project is for the actual construction, which is proposed to be conducted by JAL.

Their contract will be one million six hundred and twelve dollars eight hundred and fifteen and fifty cents.

So as far as community outreach and potential impacts is I believe all of you know I send an airport newsletter out about almost once a month, and it has a distribution list of about 325 individuals that receive it directly from me.

In addition to that, there has been a fair amount of media coverage, both in print and on the news.

Additionally, I make monthly reports to our funding agencies, the FAA as well as the State of Oregon Department of Aviation.

We have held one public meeting for our stakeholders on the project, and as we get closer to actual construction, which will begin in about the spring, which starts the construction season after the asphalt plants have reopened, and there will be additional meetings with our stakeholders because this project will inconvenience most of the tenants on the west side of the airport for periods of time.

So again, in summary, this 1.8 million dollar project will cost the airport enterprise fund just over $25,000, and I am available to answer any questions that you may have.

Thank you, Tracy.

Tracy, is there any any flight school or any manufacturer gonna shut down completely, or they're all always gonna have a way out to the to the runway?

Thank you for asking.

That's a good question.

We will do not anticipate that anyone will be shut down for any significant period of time.

What we're planning to do is through each phase there may be restrictions while the work is being conducted, but we'll provide access, an alternate access to get from the taxi lanes to the taxiway and ultimately to the runway.

And we will also be providing information just as we've done in a project several years, three years ago.

The users will know well in advance that the work will be occurring on the particular day at the particular location, and they'll have the opportunity to temporarily relocate if it's going to be a problem.

Great.

All right.

All of everything she's got right there.

Yeah.

All right.

I move to authorize the city manager to apply for and if awarded accept the Federal Aviation Administration FAA construction grant and a form for approved by the city attorney for the taxi lane rehabilitation project at the municipal airport in an amount of up to 1,741,523.

Second.

All right, move by council rarely, second by counselor Pott.

All those in favor?

Aye.

I move to authorize the city manager to enter into an agreement with Century West Engineering Corporation and substantially the form presented to council for construction management of the taxi lane pavement rehabilitation project and amount not to exceed $200,367.

Second.

All right, by council riley, second by counselor, all those in favor?

Okay.

Okay, you got it.

I move to authorize the city manager to enter into an agreement with JAL Construction Incorporated.

And substantially the form presented council for construction of the tax lane pavement rehabilitation project in amount not to exceed 1,612,815.50 cents.

Second.

All right, move by council platt, second by counselor Riley.

All those in favor.

Aye.

All right, and then we get to transition with a cool video.

Tracy, do you want to?

So do we have the other?

Thank you.

Yes, this is first.

Okay.

This is in regards to the air traffic control tower.

That is currently under construction, and it has been under we're about six months out to completion.

And what's interesting and exciting about this, it's an eight-story structure with a cap for the controllers that will be on the top.

At the completion of this project, it will be the tallest building in Bend.

We built each floor on the ground and craned it up.

This is the final piece being craned to the top.

This video is only 24 seconds, but it took 30 minutes.

And it was very exciting.

And prior to lifting the cap to the top, all of us, the engineers who worked with me, and the design consultants, the contractors, we had a signing ceremony.

I was first assigned.

And so we all put our name on the building before it was lifted up.

So it was very exciting.

This photo here is kind of surreal to me and gives me goosebumps because this is Matt Rogers, a principal with Century West Engineering, and myself.

And just before the crane lift occurred, we were standing there kind of talking about how we got to this point because this was the very first project that I embarked upon when I was hired five years ago, and Matt was with me from the very beginning.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Great.

Thank you.

All right.

And next we have Rob for our collective bargaining agreements.

And we're going to also talk about all three of these at the same time.

All right.

Good evening.

Uh what's that?

Ashley read the official agenda item.

Council is asked to approve the proposed collective bargaining agreement with the City of Bend Employees Association.

The proposed collective bargaining agreement with the Bend Fire Association and the proposed collective bargaining agreement with the Bend Police Association.

Thank you.

There we go.

Good evening, Mayor Keebler, City Council.

Since we're all warmed up on three motions in a row, we're going to do that again.

So as you are, as you know, the city has three labor associations that represent approximately two-thirds of the city's workforce.

Each labor association works under a collective bargaining agreement with the city.

These agreements provide for the terms and conditions of employment that encompass wages, hours, and working conditions.

Labor agreements provide a known period of labor stability so that the city can provide public services.

That's the primer.

These agreements have been discussed with council and executive session on our previous meeting.

And tonight you are presented with three issue summaries and a corresponding motion for council consideration for each.

Each motion will approve the collective bargaining agreement and authorize the city manager to execute said agreement.

Now, while each CBA was negotiated separately, there are some similar terms that I'll go over with council this evening.

First of which is cost of living.

Both the Bend Police Association and the City of Bend Employee Association have incorporated a specific index to establish cost of living adjustments during the term of the agreement.

It's based on the consumer price index, West Coast, urban wage earners and clerical workers, size class BC cities with a minimum of 2% and a maximum of 4%.

The Ben Fire Association negotiated a known fixed amount of 2% in 2025 and 1% in years 2026 and 2027.

In terms of health insurance, existing insurance plans and cost share structures remain in the new agreements, which is comprised of a 90% cost share by the city and a 10% from the employee.

No change in those conditions.

In terms of retirement, there is a new 1.5% deferred compensation match program, which we've spread throughout all three associations.

There are some different eligibility variations, but at its most basic sense, the 1.5% is consistent.

We've incorporated the city's language proficiency premium to sport language access at $2 an hour for employees providing translation services.

And then paid leave Oregon is continued under existing terms and conditions that are already in existence during the current contracts.

So each CBA is effective for July 1st, 2025 through June 30th, 2028.

And that provides again stability for delivery of public services for a three-year period for the city.

The financial implications have been included both in the in the materials you've received and in the 25 through 27 budget and long-term financial models.

So that is uh that is what is um consistent throughout throughout all through throughout each uh agreement, and also that encompasses the major economics.

Um association specific terms are included in your packet materials to talk about the nuances of each one that I won't go into detail, but I'd be happy to answer any questions council may have.

Great, thanks, Rob.

Any questions on the agreements?

Doesn't look like it.

Okay.

Three motions in a row then you want to do split them up.

I move to approve the collective bargaining agreement in substantially the same form as presented between the city of Bend and the City of Bend employee association and to authorize the city manager to execute the agreement.

Second.

All right, move by Councillor Franzosa, second by Council Riley.

All those in favor?

All right.

I move to approve the proposed collective bargaining agreement is substantially the form the same form as presented between the city of Bend and the Bend Fire Association and to authorize the city manager to execute the agreement.

Second that was a tie.

Motion by Councillor Riley, second by Council Platt.

All those in favor.

Aye.

I move to approve the collective bargaining agreement in substantially the same form is presented between the city of Bend and the Benn Police Association.

And authorize the city manager to execute the agreement.

Second.

All right.

Motion by Councillor Platt, second by Councillor Francisa.

All those in favor.

Thank you.

Thank you, Rob.

Thank you, team.

Thank you to the associations.

Very well done.

Very glad to have agreements with all of our groups and uh provide the best we can for our meeting members.

All right, city manager's report.

Yeah.

Um, I know uh first of all, thank you to Stephanie who filled in for me while I was gone uh in July.

So I really appreciate that.

I know we talked since then, we talked about the council schedule changes.

We've sent some emails now out.

I just wanted to mainly for the public, let folks know that we are in this transition now.

So today we had our business part of that, we had our business meeting starting at six o'clock.

Little hiccups, but with I think we're on that track.

Uh we have one more meeting uh on the 20th, which will have both the combined work session and the council meeting, and then in September we'll begin splitting everything out.

So the the bottom line is first and third Wednesdays will be the business meeting, second and fourth Wednesdays will be the work sessions, and the work sessions will occur um from uh four to six p.m.

Uh and then we will uh try to take a quarterly break to have a little relief in those, and then uh the regular business meetings will begin at 6 p.m.

as it did today with exec sessions planned if there are them, and if we do have one planned, then they will be the right right before the business meeting.

Um, and then we will be the whole goal of this is to give you materials earlier.

So you'll see information on the presentations for the work sessions the Monday before those Wednesday work sessions, so those will be posted.

The information for the council meetings will be posted a day earlier.

All the information will be posted prior to you having agenda review meetings with staff, so you can see them before we have those meetings to walk through agenda items just to make sure everyone's got good information so that you're making quality decisions.

So that's really the bigger picture here.

Is that we want good interaction between staff and council and ultimately great decisions for our community?

So I think this schedule is gonna get us there, but it's with anything when we change if we we're gonna learn some things and we might want to pivot.

So I think we want to all be open to that.

So as we make make this happen over the next couple of months, please keep the lines of communication open and we'll we'll continue to uh adjust as needed.

So just so I'm clear, so we should be expecting to see the full packets essentially on the website the week before the Wednesday of the business meeting.

Is that what I understand?

Can you think?

Because they've been coming out.

I want to make sure that's Thursday before.

Right.

So the work session will be a couple days early with the presentations.

Um have a work session posted on Monday.

The presentations posted on Monday, agenda review Tuesday, work session Wednesday.

Additionally, the business meeting agenda will be posted that same Monday.

So it's gonna be a week and two days before, and it'll be again prior to your agenda review.

So you're you're getting in earlier than what I said.

But you'll be getting it earlier.

Articulate the difference.

We typically were posting the agendas on Thursday.

Yeah, less than a week before.

Now it's now where it's gonna be posted Monday.

I see.

So more than a week before the council meeting.

All the agenda reviews are on Tuesdays now.

Yes, yes.

So there's an right.

Just any questions with all other with any change.

I just want to make sure that we're again we're communicating, we're all clear about what we're doing.

So okay.

Uh just then some project updates on the paving side, so our paving is complete.

Uh so now we're in the and our legends are complete, so the legends are like the crosswalks and things, striping is happening.

Um as as we speak, uh, it should be completed.

I would think this week on all the the fresh pavement there.

Chip sealing is starting August 18th and should last through the 25th.

Um and then our CIP projects to Schutz Market and Yeoman roundabout.

That was a private development project that was opened last week ahead of schedule.

The Bear Creek and Pettigroup per cell roundabout is you probably saw in the news.

Uh, we we were thinking we're gonna have to close the intersection twice.

We're able to get the work done.

So these this is nice to share good news with you all on on that, and then the Skyliner Skyline Ranch roundabout is on schedule to be open near the end of August and time before school opens.

So some of that disruption that we've been experiencing, we'll have a bit of a lull here as those projects wrap up.

Okay.

Do you still want to take a 10-minute break, Mike?

I'd like to just a five five minutes.

Okay, five-minute break before we do Burrh, and we'll be right back.

For this meeting of the Bend Urban Renewal Agency for what is August 6th, 2000 2025.

Um we have one agenda item to adopt an affordable housing loan assistance program.

And do we have a presentation?

Yes.

Good afternoon, Chair, members of the agency.

I'm Jonathan Taylor, the urban rules manager.

Uh, tonight we're gonna be talking about a potential borough uh housing loan program.

Good evening, John.

What did I say?

Good afternoon.

Oh, it's good evening.

I was I was channeling that 6 15.

Yeah, okay.

Right, right.

The pre-darkness.

Yeah, right.

Well, sweet dreams.

Um a little bit of background of why we're here tonight.

On August 5th, 2020, Borough adopted the Murphy Crossing Affordable Housing Assistance Policy.

Since then, Borough has made one loan in the amount of 750,000 to wish camper development partners for their development of still water crossing.

Recently, an affordable housing developer has expressed interest in this uh development assistance program from Borough to acquire surplus land from ODOT to construct an affordable housing development in the Murphy Crossing urban renewal area.

Staff is presenting a proposed policy changes to the existing loan program that will allow Borough to establish an actual revolving loan fund in each of the URAs to a further afford to further to further affordable housing production.

So the original policy in 2020, there were four main criteria, excuse me, policy terms.

One, it was for affordable housing only.

It was zero percent interest with a 20-year max term, and then it required a 20-year deed restriction.

The eligible activities at the for the loan program included acquisition, construction, rehabilitation, site grading and clearance of land, as well as infrastructure both on and off-site as required.

Tonight, in your uh staff packet, we are proposing a couple of policy changes underlined as proposed.

So we're proposing that this program should be available in all URE districts if allowed by the adopted TIFF plan.

Right now, Juniper Ridge will require a minor amendment if desired by Borough to allow this program to function.

It was only allowed for affordable housing, but we always want to provide borough with a flexible option of allowing income levels as approved by Borough.

Uh a 1% origination fee for the application of the loan.

We would like to propose either fixed or scalable interest.

Um, unlike the last version of 20 years, this will be a 10-year max loan, as well as it's still gonna maintain the deed restriction for no less than 20 years.

Eligible activities include all the existing policy requirements, but in addition to other development and pre-development as determined by Borough.

The process we envision will be a rolling quarterly application process.

Uh the request for an application can be accessed on our website or by request, and this will or may require budget adjustments in either Murphy, Juniper, or the core area.

And funding is always going to be based on the capacity and ability to serve all short and long-term projects and debt service and applicable URAs.

And that is the presentation.

What I was going to suggest, I have some kind of one suggested amendment to the proposal essentially.

So I was going to suggest we make a motion to approve what's proposed, and then I can present the amendment and we can make the amendment and then or have a discussion about that and potentially make the amendment and adopt the new policy.

And if you have quite give questions for staff at this point, Councilor Mendez.

Yes.

Okay.

So uh counselor, in the in the proposed policy, it does allow for the flexibility for you to allow mixed income.

The priority at the time is to allow uh 80% AMI and below, but we've added three specific sections in section three and also in section six to allow that Borough can modify those affordability requirements per application.

So we could say some of these are 100, some of these are 80, some of these are 60, and we want to use this program that I think is there so what we're voting on today though would be just approval of a 100% income restricted project receiving this assistance with no opportunity to say you know, maybe only maybe 40% should be market rate or something.

My concern is I think it's important to have mixed income neighborhoods, and this is a very large income restricted neighborhood.

So the uh the land that's being proposed in the future, or at this time they have not applied, they have using hypothetical theory.

Um requires uh full income restriction per the surplus property program.

That doesn't limit Borough in the future to negotiate and/or request additional affordable units uh in the future.

But if they this developer does apply and it comes before Borough and Borough deliberates and discusses the application, they are actually restricted by the surplus project.

So our ability to influence that particular development should it come forward in the and via this loan program, they they can only do the parameters of state sets.

Correct.

Yeah.

So but in another area, if a within market rate and partial affordable came forward, we would be able to use this program.

Yes.

Okay.

That's only Murphy, right?

Is that for this?

This is that's for this particular property that's in the Murphy Crossing urban renewal area.

But again, tonight's task is to adopt a policy to allow us to consider applications for loans and then get into the specifics.

Right.

And I'm what I'm gonna propose is that a different way to kind of get at the flexibility part, which I think is partly what you're asking for.

Yeah, why don't you just read that and maybe you can incorporate it into this?

Sure.

Sure, sure.

If we're still getting information, let's do that first.

Yeah, why why does the project need a change to the existing policy, or do we want to change the policy to add an interest rate?

Because that seems to be the other than shortening the loan term and adding an interest rate.

Yeah, I don't know.

So any differences the developer in our conversation has requested the use of a loan to allow entitlements going through the site approval process under the Murphy under the Murphy refinement plan.

They they are in the process of trying to negotiate where to put the park in order to preserve old growth trees.

There's there's a lot of things that, as we've all um learned through the site specific, that those holding costs add to the overall development costs.

And so if we're able to provide a low interest loan, and the reason that staff is proposing interest is to build a revolving loan for Borough to use for affordable housing both in Murphy, the core area and anywhere Borough decides to use it.

So it's the upfront leverage for a loan, but then you still have the option for site specific, you still have the option for rebates.

We're just we're just proposing to provide further options for Borough to consider and their toolkit for affordable housing.

But the reason and another reason why we want to do the interest rate is the holding costs, like if Borough gives an amount of money and charges no interest, they lose on that both current dollar amount and future dollar amount.

And if we have low interest, at least we recoup some of that inflationary impacts to the dollar being spent today.

And again, the point of this is to get establish a policy for all our TIFF areas right across the community, and then we come back and consider a specific proposal for Murphy and consider like what are the resources available to us in Murphy and all that.

Depend and in some in some of the urban rural areas like the central district, we also have a process currently where we get advice from CAB about this as well.

And I'd like to also just make a plug, you know, we just approved the home committee.

One of the three areas of focus for the committee to look at is a revolving loan fund infrastructure and credit enhancement and have a recommendation.

So I think the idea is like how do we build off of this idea?

This concept of we have projects that just need a little help with those soft costs on the front end.

Is there other ways to even be more expansive than what we're doing?

But this is very urban renewal specific, but I think there's opportunities to kind of look at this and continue to build from it.

Yeah.

I'm supportive.

So what's your change?

Okay, can um can you pull up, Ashley?

So um when I when I read through this thing, I I honestly found it a little bit confusing about what this was actually trying to say.

So what I'm essentially proposing is that we we add a fourth bullet that really just states that um you know what as what as was drafted here, it was this is basically saying our preference is to do at these um different income levels for uh rental um affordable units versus um ownership affordable units.

Um and so what what I'm proposing is that we just put in a uh fourth bullet that kind of clarifies that specifically.

So what what's here Burroughs policy focused for affordable housing loans in the TIFF areas is projects that deliver rental and or ownership unit for individuals and families at or below the income levels described above.

However, Borough retains the flexibility to issue loans to support projects at other income levels based on housing needs and market conditions.

Final decisions about required affordability levels for any project assistant under this policy are at Borough's discretion.

So we do have flexibility.

Um I mean, if people want to discuss whether we want to send any kind of targets or not for affordability, but I think the point of this is stating kind of a general preference to get affordable outcomes related to affordable units, but allowing us to be flexible in specific circumstances where we might want to consider um something different than that.

Um and that would also include there's other parts of the policy that get at changing the terms and conditions of the loans as well from what's outlined in section five.

Yeah, I I agree with that.

Elizabeth, have you seen that?

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, so we had some discussion about it today and reviewed it what kind of for legal and and the rest of the staff about this.

I just and then there's a few little fixes that are I just want to point out too.

If there was some reason that we were doing great on housing, we really wanted to focus these loans down to super affordable numbers.

This policy would let us do that because to do this flexibility.

So we can go up or down.

I like that.

I think that's good.

There's a minor amendment to section six, too.

Just want to make sure that if you scroll, if you scroll through this, uh yeah, you can see um there's it was uh referenced the wrong section before section three instead of section five, and just added the words and conditions.

Okay, and then there's two small kind of changes on yeah, you saw those already.

So that's my proposal in terms of amendments.

And I I mean, I would just say I I feel like this this feels a little bit rushed to me.

Um I I understand there's one project, one applicant who's like, well, if you change the program like this, then it would work for us, and that's cool and all, but um there are other I I would rather see a little bit more robust public input process to make sure that you know we're kind of hitting the mark on this.

Like, so I just ran this quickly by some market rate developers and who still need bridge loans to um bridge that start up that start of construction um finance gap.

And um just because you have to bring so much more equity to the table now to get construction loans to finance even market rate housing.

And so this would this would not work for them.

They would not look at this for their for that project.

And then they're in the urban renewal area because um housing.

Uh because it's because of the um 20-year requirement was the one um the one piece, the 20-year deed restriction, 20-year deed restriction.

Right.

So right because our market rate scroll down to section six.

Yeah, this is a yeah.

I mean, in general, all yeah, all of our um our incentive policies so far, the last couple of years have been focused on achieving some level of affordability below 100% below market rate.

So I think that's that was the original draft that was presented here.

I generally support that approach.

I think if we're going to use public dollars and we're gonna tie them up for loans so that you know those that money is tied up for that purpose for a period of time as well.

That's the value of getting the interest back, but that also that we're getting um our ability to deliver and meet the goals, the ONA goals, as particular around affordability.

Um, we're using public resources to get those outcomes in the community.

Again, retaining flexibility to adapt based on conditions and what's presented to us.

I think Ariel has this hand up.

Councilor Mendo.

Yeah, I'm uh thank you.

I'm I'm supportive of this amendment, uh Chair Riley.

I my concern was just uh earlier about if there was a way to I think there are pitfalls associated with 100% uh um income restricted units, and I I don't see that we need to express that as a policy here.

I think that this allows the kind of flexibility that would accommodate that goal, but I just wanted to say that that is I think an important goal of mine that um I think is important to pay attention to.

It doesn't sound like we have the opportunity to pursue that in this particular case, but um for the future I want to keep that in mind.

You want to retain the flexibility for yeah, yeah.

I I worry about too I think there can be too much of a good thing if it's very concentrated.

I think it's important that we have a policy that applies to all the TIFF areas.

I know that we're looking at trying to get some affordable housing in Juniper Ridge, and we'll obviously love to have that in the core area, so I'm supportive of putting the program in place and seeing what kind of applications we get.

And these would be requirements on proposed projects, right?

And it's not a requirement across the TIFF area as a whole.

No, just the project that want this loan.

The project that comes to us with a loan for that piece of property and that number of units, this policy would apply, and we'd make a decision on are we gonna stick with that 80, you know, versus 60, or are we doing something different for that particular thing?

So it's not the entire TIFF area that's required.

I'm not sure if that's what you're suggesting this does.

No, no, I'm just saying this is this was previous council said, well, we'll do this in Murphy.

I think we should do it in all our TIF areas, and I think we should have a unified right, a unified approach.

Yeah, the loan is available in all the TIFF areas.

And in section six does give everyone that flexibility for Borough to consider with modifications to the terms and conditions, which is the deed restriction, the loan term, the interest rate, stuff like that.

So we do want to give you as much leeway to make the investments you wish to make.

How do we prevent like perceptions of favoritism if we don't have just kind of like a standardized program to run affordable housing?

So in speaking with some of our both affordable housing providers and also our developers who provide market rate, banks also are discretionary in terms of what they offer in terms of interest rates and loans, the amounts of dollars.

So we're trying to say to Burra, well, it's based on credit risk risk of the development and all that stuff.

So I meant we're gonna be above the board, you're gonna see the proposals.

It's it's not necessarily based like it was on the site specific, which is does this need dollars to pencil for affordable housing?

This is to provide the upfront capital at a lower interest in order to further maximize both the development of the property and also housing production and affordable housing.

Yeah, I guess I'm just saying if a developer comes in and they award them a two percent loan for 10 years and another another developer comes in and we say no, you get four percent, they're gonna be like, Well, why did you give that person two percent?

You know, so like the original way this was crafted was just a zero percent, which is super generous, you know, and I totally agree.

I think we should like just a minor you know, amount of interest, I think is really appropriate.

I would just kind of encourage us to like a kind of establish that so that these programs, this is the program is just advertised to the community, you know, just with a bit more transparency.

The affordable housing development market is actually pretty competitive, like as I think we saw with all the applications that came in for the AHF and the pro housing grant.

So um, yeah, so I think we should try and try to set.

I think it needs a little I think it needs a little bit more sideboards, is I guess we're all I'm saying.

Yeah, and and from a consistency perspective, and the word you use was favoritism to not.

Yeah, that's I don't understand what that means.

Like Burr has discretion, which we have also our exercise ourselves, and so we have a public meeting and we have a public vote amongst elected officials.

I think I agree with you.

I and I think the way this is written is there needs to be sufficient information to justify modifying from these basic terms, they should be, unless there's some good reason in Burr's discretion, they should be the same.

Should be the same interest rate.

That makes sense to me.

Yeah.

This allows it to be to vary though, based on right, and yeah, in Burr's discretion, yeah.

I I mean we could ask uh the home committee if they think that there's some additional like we could ask them to answer to what's their answer to that question.

Is there something that should be done to further modify this policy to make sure it's applied in a way that feels transparent and fair across the board?

And if or do they think that the kind of flexibility that currently allows is what we need to be the most responsive to the needs of the community and the market at the time.

I think that's what that's that balance we're trying to get at is saying we're generally um expressing a preference for units that have meet some affordability criteria, um, but we're acknowledging that that may not always be the best fit or be the best choice in a particular circumstance to advance our housing goals.

Yeah, we didn't even answer my own question here though.

So I mean if we end up giving, you know, awarding a $500,000 loan, let's say the city will have to issue a bond to finance that, right?

Or how because that's how most TIF now so debt is both in and out for TIF.

Uh it could be a loan from this.

Well, it would be a loan from Borough based on the applic based on the available TIFF in reserve.

Uh at this time it would not be staff's recommendation take a bond out to provide a loan.

Instead, it would be from whatever you have in your TIFF reserves in the existing urban renewal areas in which the application applies based on the ability to surface debt of both current and future projects, i.e.

transportation, other things that you may wish to do, and then also do you have the capacity to do that in Murphy's Crossing at this time, you have the ability to do this and other things.

That's why this particular project, if they do apply, isn't going to negatively impact Murphy.

Now you will have to make decisions in the future if there is a core area loan.

Um what Burra would do if you approved would be we have the money.

You do the loan documents like you've done for WishCamp or you put it in escrow account and then they draw that down, and you just write that off your books until they pay it back with whatever interest rate that has been applied to it.

I guess I guess what I was trying to get at is like what is the cost of that money to Borough.

So is the money sitting in an account accruing interest rate now?

Um is it so then there would be an interest that would be lost if we loan it out, but maybe that doesn't really matter.

Well that's what we're charging.

That's why to have more than zero, right?

On the loan to get a little bit of that back.

And the opportunity cost is we don't have that cash then in if the loans for 10 years in three years, some other opportunity comes up or some infrastructure need where we don't have $500,000 that we might have spent on that.

So that's going to be part of what Burr is gonna have to weigh when it looks at the individual TIFF areas.

What are those reserve resources?

There's a pretty good pool of them in Murphy.

Murphy right now to be able to do this and still have money for some other things, but um CAB or Central District maybe not, and and partly that's because that budget's been set.

There was a small chunk of that we identified and put into establishing a revolving loan fund, right?

Yes.

So that we maybe have the beginnings of that there.

Yeah, but we need this program in place, at least when it comes to affordable housing, if that's something we want to loan money out for.

Right.

And I think that's right.

We're setting the policy, right?

Policy direction, and then we're gonna come back and apply it in certain specific circumstances.

And I look at this as a step forward.

It it may not be where we end up landing, but this is I think necessary to step to move this policy forward.

So I'm in favor of doing so.

So I hear that.

I think I've heard I'm I'm in favor of it too.

Are you there generally?

Maybe there's some tweaking that gets done.

Yeah.

I think there's a great opportunity to maybe take some of the ideas too and infuse them into the home committee because we have revolving loan fund is going to be a primary topic.

So I think there's a lot of ways to continue to kind of take ideas and build off of that, because then there could be some more flexibility with depending on the source of funds being used, that's a little less restrictive than Burra.

That could or in partnership potential with other organizations that are collecting funds for rural.

I mean I think there's all sorts of creativity through through.

So this may be one type of revolver, but it might be another type, correct?

Resource that's a source depending.

Yeah, no, I'm basically, I mean, I'm I'm supportive of this.

I just I just feel like yeah, there's some areas that need to be kind of tightened up a little bit and yeah, and I just don't think we should do that tightening on a project by project basis.

It would be nice to kind of structure the program a little bit, but maybe that's the next task on your agenda if we pass this tonight.

If that's the direction of Borough, we'll be more than happy to take that.

I move to adopt the then urban renewal agency affordable housing assistance loan program establishing guidelines for loans to support development of affordable housing using tax increment revenues in urban renewal areas in Ben and rescind the Murphy Crossing affordable housing assistance policy as amended by council Riley that we saw on the screen tonight.

Isn't the chair asked for that motion?

Yeah, no, not always.

I put them all together.

Yeah, do I have a second?

Second.

Second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Um it was um moved by member Keebler.

Second by member or by member of Francis.

So thanks, Jonathan.

Thank you.

And I think with that, we are adjourned at 9 02 or 3 for the evening.

Pretty good.

All right.