Bend City Council Work Session and Regular Session - August 20, 2025
Bend City Council Work Session and Regular Session - August 20, 2025
The Bend City Council met on August 20, 2025, beginning with a work session at 5:30 p.m. and convening for the regular session at 7:00 p.m. The work session covered two major topics: the Reed Market/Bond roundabout congestion and an update on electrification policy development. The regular session included public hearings on a supplemental sewer system development charge (SDC) and the OSU-Cascades overlay zone amendments, along with consent agenda items and reports. All votes were unanimous, with two councilors recusing themselves for conflicts of interest on specific items.
Consent Calendar
- Items A and B: Approved unanimously. Item A was the OLCC Report; Item B authorized amendments for polymer purchase agreements with Polydyne Inc. and Solenis LLC (cumulative not to exceed $400,000 annually).
- Item C (pulled for discussion): Authorized acceptance of a $1,016,460 grant from Bend Metropolitan Planning Organization for traffic signal design at Franklin and Wall Streets and bikeway design/construction for the Bicycle Greenways Project and Franklin/Wall Signals Project. Councilors discussed the need for signal upgrades and raised-crossing feasibility. Approved unanimously with a motion by Councilor Perkins and second by Councilor Riley.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Work Session Visitors (none scheduled): No public comment was taken during the work session.
- Regular Session Visitors (three speakers):
- Alan Spector (NW Natural): Expressed support for including renewable natural gas (RNG) as an exempt option in any future electrification fee, citing a poll showing 80% of Bend voters support RNG investment. Also requested consideration of the utility's hybrid heat pump pilot results before policy moves forward.
- Brad Archuleta (UA Local 290 Business Agent): Opposed mandatory electrification, arguing it would reduce affordability, reliability, and energy choice. He urged the council to consider diverse energy sources and highlighted RNG and hydrogen pilot projects.
- Todd Torghan (resident of Wood River Village): Stated that the Reed Market roundabout already experiences congestion worse than ODOT's 2040 projections, causing failures at adjacent intersections. Urged council to immediately start a design process for the roundabout, emphasizing evacuation concerns and current cut-through traffic on neighborhood streets.
Discussion Items
- Reed Market / Bond Roundabout Construction (Work Session): Ryan Oester (Engineering Director) and Scott Baird (Kittles & Associates) presented the current single-lane roundabout's congestion and proposed a dual-entry, single-exit design (similar to 15th & Reed Market). The project is currently scheduled for design in 2028; staff suggested accelerating it to a 2026 design and 2027 construction by swapping with the Brosterhouse Chase intersection project (same cost). Council discussed policy implications (TSP Policy 17), pedestrian/bicycle safety, wildfire evacuation, and the need for a southern river crossing study. Councilors expressed general support for moving the project forward in the CIP, with requests to include a cost estimate for a full dual-entry/dual-exit design and to advance the southern crossing study. No vote was taken; staff will bring a updated CIP proposal on October 8.
- Electrification Policy Process Update (Work Session): Cassie Lacey (Senior Management Analyst) shared research on similar fees in Ashland, Burlington, and Breckenridge. Bend permit data shows 95% of new single-family homes use natural gas. Staff recommended focusing first on new residential development, developing a fee and incentive package. Next steps include hiring a consultant, returning to council on October 22 for direction, and launching a joint committee (AHAC, BDEB, ECC) process with public engagement. Councilors supported the approach but requested inclusion of environmental community roundtables and formal public comment opportunities at committee meetings. A resolution formalizing the process will be drafted for October.
- Councilor Reports & Subcommittee Updates: Councilors provided updates on various meetings (fire safety assessments, COIC fare decision for Cascades East Transit, HREC, BDEB, transportation funding, etc.). Councilor Franzosa made a statement criticizing oversight of the Jackstraw tax abatement project, urging greater scrutiny for future subsidies. Mayor Kebler asked that such policy proposals be brought as work session requests rather than during Councilor Reports.
Key Outcomes
- Supplemental Sewer SDC (Public Hearing, Item 5): Resolution adopted unanimously (Councilor Norris recused due to employer conflict). The supplemental SDC will recover approximately $11 million (50%) of the $22 million Southeast Area Plan pump station cost from new development in the area. Fee averages about $3,400 per equivalent dwelling unit. The methodology mirrors the 2024 citywide SDC and includes a compliance charge and exemptions for affordable housing.
- OSU-Cascades Overlay Zone Amendment (Public Hearing, Item 6): Ordinance passed first reading unanimously (Councilor Méndez recused due to part-time OSU employment). The amendment modifies subdistrict boundaries, allows manufacturing up to 25,000 sq ft, increases building height to 85 feet in the Innovation District, and adjusts landscape/street standards. OSU-Cascades and Bend Park & Recreation District resolved earlier concerns through a separate agreement.
- CDBG Annual Action Plan Amendment (Item 7): Approved unanimously. Amends the 2024 plan to allocate $275,000 in CDBG funds to the Latino Community Association/United Housing Partners project (102 affordable rental units at 60% AMI). The loan is zero-interest with a 20-year balloon payment.
- Midtown Multimodal Connections GMP Amendment (Item 8): Approved unanimously. Authorized Amendment No. 3 to the contract with K&E Excavating, Inc. for $3,605,693.10 (total contract $14,088,281.14). Construction on Franklin Avenue (4th to 8th streets) will include bike lanes, widened sidewalks, and pedestrian refuge islands, with eastbound/westbound closures in phases from September 2, 2025 to April 30, 2026.
- NE Andesite Street Vacation (Item 9): Ordinance adopted by roll call vote (7-0). Vacates 0.53 acres of unimproved right-of-way to realign the intersection with NE Talus Place.
- City Manager's Report: Updates included: the Temporary Safe Stay Area (TSSA) now has 135 camps (~215 people); $450,000 spent on cleanup to date; Skyliner Ranch roundabout to open three legs on September 3 (north leg remains closed for safety); Butler Market Road construction begins September 15; Phase 2 transportation fees hitting customer bills this week.
Meeting Transcript
So I think we're gonna go ahead and get started with our work session for the Benn City Council today. So we are starting with a work session on the Reed Market Bond Roundabout Construction discussion, and I will turn it over to you. Ryan. Perfect. Thank you very much. So Ryan Oester, director of our engineering department, and I'll let Scott introduce himself here. I'm Scott Baird with Kittles and Associates, and we've uh been helping the city with analyzing this intersection for a few years. Okay. I'll wait for this to catch. Okay, so we've got about a half an hour set aside uh for this this evening. And so probably gonna get through a good other bit of the background in the you know, maybe five, ten minutes tops, and then really kind of dive into uh you know what direction council, and I I don't need a decision tonight, just want to clarify that up front. We don't need a like yes, do that. But we are gonna be coming back uh on September 24th talking about midtown, kind of as its own independent thing, and then on October 8th, we'll be back for a much larger, more comprehensive work session that's gonna probably be the full two hours all about transportation prioritization and how we might want to move stuff on our capital program. So, again, this evening is just to address some of the comments we've been hearing from the public and give some background and throw out a concept or two on how we could potentially meet the intent of adjusting the schedule. So uh bond and read market. I think everybody's familiar with where it is, it's right up above the old mill there. It's it's one of the more beautifully landscaped roundabouts in the city. The old mill has always kind of taken ownership of that, it always looks great. Uh, this is one of the primary east-west corridors across the city. I think we all understand that. Uh, east-west travel time reliability was one of the key goals out of the transportation uh master plan, and this is one of the only eight river crossings in the whole city at the Bill Healy Bridge there. Uh and as a reminder, this is the southernmost river crossing in the city. There's no bridge south of this. Uh, we do have uh a study planned in the TSP for another southern river crossing. We haven't initiated that. That'll be part of the discussion we can have in October of when we want to initiate that. But this is what we have today. This is looking east, kind of where where you'd be in front of the park right there, looking up towards the roundabout. This is a good example of why there's a lot of cut through traffic in in Wood River Village right there. Is a lot of people don't want to wait through this line, so they they take the ride and they kind of speed through the neighborhoods up there. Uh so we fully recognize there's a backup here and it's uh reaching its life expectancy in terms of when this was built. So, what have we done to date here? Back in 2020, uh, we did an initial study. We even spent a couple days out there uh counting cars, counting the cues or the backup with a metering program, which was uh uh an unorthodox idea for us here in the city. Um they do have have these in other places around the country, but we uh investigated the idea of metering the roundabout, which basically means at peak hours you would give priority to one of the legs that has a longer cue compared to another leg that has a short queue and let that cue kind of empty out, um, and then you can trigger the lights again. So uh results of that were a bit mixed. We didn't get a ton of like, yes, this is gonna work really well, uh, but that is still something that is on the table that we could explore a little further. And then, of course, uh a lot of concern lately, especially with what happened in California about wildfire evacuations given the the limited crossings we have in the river here in the city. So uh what else have we done to date? A little more background information. We did a pretty intensive study of the corridor as a whole with ODOT. They have a lot of improvements they would like to make at the 97 Reed Market interchange. If anybody's uh taken that that northbound off ramp and tried to make a left, you know it's very scary. Uh there's multiple on-ramps to go north off of Reed Market. It's just a a bit a bit of a jumble and kind of confusing. So we studied the bond and reed intersection, we studied both ramps, we study the division intersection, the third street intersection, and the Brosterhouse intersection. And what came out of this study is the project landing where it is today on our CIP, which was much more optimistic in terms of ODOT wanting to do something at the Reed Market interchange. I think we all understand that's pretty unrealistic. ODOT doesn't isn't gonna be able to bring anything to the table. Um so it is a good question for us to ask is do we separate our work from whatever work ODOT might want to do at the interchange in the future?
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