The Bend City Council met on September 3, 2025, at 6:00 p.m. in City Council Chambers. All seven councilors were present. The meeting included three proclamations, public comment (none), approval of a consent agenda with one item discussed, a presentation and discussion on the Human Rights and Equity Commission (HREC) Workplan, and a second reading and adoption of an ordinance amending the OSU-Cascades Overlay Zone. The City Manager also provided updates on transportation projects and upcoming meetings.
Okay. We are gonna get started with our Ben City Council of Business meeting. This is the first meeting of our new schedule that we just put a press release out about today. Um so we're starting our meeting at six p.m. and it's just the business meeting tonight. Um we'll start with uh roll call down on your end, customer. Gina Franzosa, she her. Mike Riley, he him, Melanie Keebler, she her. Megan Perkins, she her, Hegan Norris, she her. Steve Platt, he him. All right, we are all here. So we have a few items that are good in the order tonight. We're gonna start with um an item on the middle of honor highway, and Council Platt's gonna introduce that. Thanks very much, Mayor. Um, it's my honor to introduce uh Lieutenant Colonel Dick Tobias, and he's uh retired from the United States Army, uh, which is I must he will tell me is the oldest service uh and the service from whence my service uh was born. Uh and so I honor you, sir, and you're gonna tell us a little bit about the Memorial Honor Highway, a Medal of Honor Highway that you've done a great deal of work on. Thank you, sir take it over to you. I should call you counselor and colonel both, right? Thank you, sir. We're both supersonic pilots. Yes, sir. So the first slide, please. So what we want to talk about is uh councillor Platt said is the National Medal of Honor Highway, which is uh the first highway named by veterans by Congress and a president. This had never been done before. It happens to be the longest highway in the United States, so uh when you think about it, it all started uh eight years ago in Bend. So Bend is the hot seat of the National Medal of Honor Highway, even though uh given that we had one medal of honor recipient living here from World War II, Bob Maxwell. So Bob was a direct next slide, please. So Ben was uh Bob was a uh director of my Ben Heroes Foundation, and those of you who met him was like knew him as the kindest human being in terms of humility, respect, and patriotism. He never went beyond the seventh grade. He jumped on a hand grenade in World War II and saved his buddies. And when I met him, he said, I I really have nothing to do, but I'd like to help. So we did lots of things, and one of the things was a medal of honor highway. So this whole story is about keeping a promise to somebody. You promise somebody you're gonna do something and you've got to do it. So the Medal of Honor is the is the highest award for valor that the military presents. It's usually presented by a president. Bob's case that was presented by a two-star general in Denver after the war. So Bob was an inspiration. He was a blessing to this community. You you the city council did a couple of things for Bob. We we get a proclamation naming Ben as a Medal of Honor city. I'd have a resolution from the legislature doing the same thing. And you declared 21 years ago, you declared Bob Maxwell Day. And you know, you've been so easy to work with when it comes to things like that, because they're profound and they're noble and they mean something to this community. Um Bob lived in Bend for about 50 years, and this highway passes through Bend, and it intersects with the World War II highway on 97, so up by target is where the two come together, and then they branch over uh part again at on uh Greenwood. So Bend has the distinction of being the only in the United States, the only Medal of Honor city, the only Purple Heart City, Bob and I are Purple Heart. Um the only flag city, the only Blue Star Gold Star family city in the United States, and no other city probably can match that. There are only three flag cities in the United States, red ones, Redmond is one of them, and it's a place in Ohio. So what we did, this is a three-phase program. It started with the Oregon Medal of Honor Highway, and then I got it through all the way across the United States on Highway 20 to Boston, where I was born 90 years ago.