Okay.

So we're gonna go ahead and get started with our work session today.

We're in a little bit different seating arrangement because we're also going to be joined by the budget committee in a little bit.

Um, everyone is present, Councilor Princesa.

Hopefully, we'll be joining us as soon as possible.

And so we are gonna start with um our big old CIP transportation prioritization discussion.

All right, let me share my screen real quick.

And while you're doing that, Ryan, Councilor Norris, do you want to go ahead and just name out your yes?

Let's just put that on the record.

Yes, I need to declare an actual conflict when we get to that portion of the Southeast area transportation because of my employer Hayden Holmes.

Um this would have a financial impact on them.

So, insofar as we're giving direction in that area today, you're not gonna be participating.

I won't be participating, and I should probably take away.

Okay, uh, just to set Ryan up here, too.

So, really, the the council through the budget process approves a five-year capital improvement program for transportation water sewer infrastructure at the airport.

We have a CIP.

Um, when we passed the budget uh this last June, we said we know that there's a lot of moving parts with transportation.

We have federal grants, we have community concerns, we have values around economic development, around housing, and so we want to really be thoughtful, thoughtful about any potential changes to that CIP.

So, really what I see today is as being some some building blocks, just some big changes that could potentially take place this spring with the transportation CIP.

And that CIP is split into both a transportation construction fund, which is primarily funded through SDCs, and then our geo bond, which is approved by the voters.

So we're gonna talk both kind of high level about some values that you have as council to help inform some potential changes to that CIP that would be formalized this spring.

There is some immediate uh contracts that are in play, media projects that we want some direction on.

So you're gonna see kind of two different pieces tonight.

Actual direction on things that will help us keep projects moving, as well as some large uh kind of or some influential uh values to determine how we make some changes to the CIP moving forward uh approve this spring.

With that, perfect.

Thank you, Eric.

So for the record, Ryan Oester, I'm the engineering director here for the city of Ben.

Ben assisting me, Russ Grayson, chief operating officer.

You're all familiar with him.

And then, of course, in the midst of this conversation, uh, we've got legal here that could support answer some questions.

I've got some of our consultants behind me here, my business analyst.

So happy to call any of them up if necessary.

So, context and background.

So you all got a handful of handouts from me.

It was a part of posted as well.

Uh, the biggest things to remember is, and I actually added one underneath your agenda.

So our current five-year CIP for the Geobond and the Transportation Fund, as Eric described, as well as the official letter from the joint cab T Bach committee.

And then the third attachment was kind of a progress report or update because we're almost to the date five years after the adoption of the 2020 transportation system plan.

So that was a pretty in-depth document just describing to each of you where we are in terms of our near-term, midterm, long-term, programmatic capital, all of that bundled together.

So a good reference document, should you need that as well.

So this afternoon, we will start by giving you an update from that midtown discussion.

You know, we were here before you on September 24th.

You asked us to go back to the joint cab T Bot Committee.

So we'll cover their recommendations, ask a few questions to council on that, then we'll go kind of more geographically around town.

We'll talk about the southwest area, the southeast area, have a discussion about some ODOT uh ideas we have.

Yeah, and then really to Eric's uh statement, then we'll dive into some specific questions.

Everything before that is gonna be just kind of a general direction or guidance that you'll see with our mid-biennium budget adoption.

But then we do have a handful of things we would like councils head nod on this evening to progress on active current projects.

So we've included this slide up front.

We have it shown again at the back of the presentation, and it's just continued to grow as we built it.

But these are some, if not all of the questions in front of you this evening, again broken down by mostly geographic area, midtown, southwest, southeast, ODOT, and then any questions you might want us to take back to the bond oversight committee and things we would like to have us prepare for for the mid biennium adjustment.

So that's available to you as well, and we'll bring this back up at the end of the overall presentation.

And so I'll be quick on this one.

Eric already mentioned the five-year CIPs that were just adopted a few months ago, or the ones in front of you now.

We're here in October to ask some questions.

And then most of what we're talking about tonight you'll see in a reflected new five-year CIP, and that would get adopted by U.S.

Council.

It's our in it's every year we just add another year we've completed one.

It's a rolling five-year CIP, and you'll see that in June of 2026.

So to highlight what we're working on and what we're doing today, uh, it's hard to show the visual of our CIP on a PowerPoint slide.

So that's why you have the handout, but just wanted to highlight.

But on our geobond fund, that is the list of projects that are currently either in design or in construction at this point in time, as of right now.

And on the transportation fund side, that's the other list that's currently in some form of design or construction.

So as you can see, uh, we have plenty of work going on at the moment, which is understandable why we often hear from the community about frustrations with all the work we have going on.

And don't forget we can layer on top of this water projects and sewer projects and stormwater projects and other stuff we've got going on.

But it is Russ and I joke about this all the time.

It is remarkable for a city of our size how much work we have and how much we're able to do and build our community as we're going here.

So happy to come back to any of these if you have any specific questions on projects.

I was just gonna say, and how much work's been accomplished over the from the report.

So it's really yeah, it is good news.

Yeah, quick summary of that is on the five-year CIP that was existing in 2020, uh, almost all of those projects are complete.

And of the near-term projects, which is the zero to five year time frame, almost all of those are complete as well.

And then the geo bond is helping fund the midterm projects, which is kind of out to the 10-year time frame.

So we're in a really healthy position overall.

We haven't really dove into the long-term project list yet.

Uh, as development occurs, that's hitting some of the urban growth expansion projects and other infill projects.

But yeah, overall, we're in a very healthy spot from a transportation program side of things.

I'll just add to here, one of the things that we're cons we that staff considers in all this is just construction sequencing detours, closures.

That this is just also illustrate there's just a lot going on.

So in a lot of this, we'll be asking some specific questions, but then also it's providing Ryan and the team their guidance on okay, how do we structure the CIP?

When are we doing projects?

And because when we do like roundabouts, we want to do them geographically across the town, so we're not doing too much just disruption in one area, right?

Well, and I think it's unrealistic to say that we can do all of this and have zero disruption disruption.

It's just not possible.

Yeah, they are impactful.

Okay, let's dive into midtown.

So you've got the formal letter from the subcommittee, but this is our quick bullet point summary.

So we'll walk through each of these individually.

On Greenwood, their recommendation was to maintain the quick build as is, continue to do some performance monitoring like we had talked about, move forward with the arts grant funding, the all roads transportation safety grant that we have to design a safe crossing at second in Greenwood, and then find ways to pursue additional construction money to build that safe crossing, and then maybe eventually formalize the temporary improvements that we have on Greenwood.

So that was the Greenwood recommendation from the subcommittee.

On Hawthorne, they agreed or they recommended that we develop concepts and cost estimates on how this Hawthorne Bridge will connect to the rest of the system.

And I'll show you a slide on that next.

But that's really just taking a deeper look into how we're gonna get off the bridge on the east side, get over to Juniper Park, which means crossing third street, and on the west side where we're gonna land, and then how do you get people north and south up Harriman up to the crossing we've built at Greenwood and Harriman and then south to the crossing that we're going to be building here as a part of Franklin if council gives us that direction, and ultimately that connects you onto the Bend Bikeway system that we're currently going to start building here as well.

So those are pretty both straightforward on the Franklin side, which is where there was a little bit more of a robust discussion.

The recommendation is to continue with the full build concept of Franklin.

And so I know we had presented a few different options to council.

One was to value engineer some things out of this, maybe set aside some money for Hawthorn in the future.

But they recommended to proceed forward.

And I do want to make sure everybody understands the proceeding forward with the full build would be everything from Fourth Street to Harriman, including the undercrossing, which would mean we would be doing the stormwater improvements at the undercrossing to prevent flooding in the future, as well as the geobond improvement.

So that would result in a full closure of the undercrossing.

The good news is we do have a contractor and a progressive design build contract where we do have flexibility to sit down with them and at council's guidance if you would like to see the closure at a certain time of year.

We have that ability to require them to do that when it's most feasible.

They also wanted to maintain the 90 foot of ride-away option, which would give us a protected bike lane and a separated and also protected sidewalk.

And that's still less than a hundred foot of right-of-way that we would normally get on a on a material of this size.

And they did want to see us maintain the protected uphill bike lanes coming out of both sides.

So at that point, a bike would have to join the vehicle lane downhill, but then as soon as you get to the bottom, they can pull off to the right, and cars would no longer have to wait for the uphill climb.

That also opens up site distances for the nearby intersections on either end.

So that was the recommendations from the joint subcommittee.

So I'll pause there because there might be some questions and conversation we'd like to have.

Was that Ryan?

Was that still gonna have on street parking?

Yes.

We still figured out how to do that too.

Yes, that includes on street parking.

Yeah.

I would say let's get through this little section that we can pause on midtown as a whole.

Okay.

Yeah, the only other midtown, I just wanted to show you the connectivity slide.

I had mentioned this earlier, but this is what the Hawthorne Connection study would do, and it would look at the dashed green lines, how to cross third street to Juniper and connect it north-south on the west side, as I mentioned.

And then the last midtown related slide is just schedule considerations.

Russ hit on this earlier already.

And as I mentioned, if we get approval to come back to council with one final GMP, which is a guaranteed maximum price, we would do that in early 2026, and that would give us the authority to full build the rest of the Franklin uh project.

And again, that's from fourth to Harriman, but we're anticipating probably about a year's worth of time to build that.

So again, if you want to see the Franklin undercrossing closure in the fall to winter of 27, we could work that.

If you want to see it winter to spring of 28, or excuse me, fall of winter of six or or winter spring of 27, we can work through those options with our contractor.

And then we're continuing to design the Hawthorne Bridge with ODOT now, anticipating going into construction of that in late 27 through most of 28.

And then the rest is more just design related in terms of the crossing at Greenwood and the Hawthorne Connections project.

So that's midtown.

Okay.

Thoughts or questions, Council around this midtown summary?

This is pretty concrete, so I thought we could sort of just see if this is on the right track or if there's anything else we want to do.

Go ahead.

Ryan, is there any way to do one lane uh open at a time underneath the undercrossing?

It would be tough.

Yeah, we don't have a lot of width underneath there on the rail abutment.

So if we're gonna do the stormwater improvements, we're installing deep dry wells, which means we're opening up big holes in the roadway.

So from an efficiency and safety standpoint, I wouldn't recommend that.

We can certainly ask KE if there's a world in which we can figure out a way to solve that riddle, though.

But I guess I'm not asking to be done, but I I guess I'd be interested in what the pain level would be.

Absolutely.

No, it's a great question to ask.

Yeah.

That's just my big concern.

Yeah, that's understandable.

And for that little under part right there, how much do you think how long is the road closed?

Because I assume you can go single lane on the other parts.

Yeah, yeah, we can maintain full access on both directions from first street to the to the east, as well as basically up to Hill or Harriman on the other side.

But yeah, you'd have to divert traffic.

You probably would for that bottom part.

Yeah, that the closure, I'm I'm estimating five to six months of a closure of Franklin.

And that and that just to follow up on Steve's question, um, that's about the stormwater work, right?

Primarily, yeah.

That's mostly but we and if we're gonna we if we're gonna do the uphill bike lanes, we got to rebuild the retaining walls.

So once we get out of the undercrossing, we're and you've seen slides before that there the existing sidewalk and the railing is all undercut.

I mean, it's it could fall, not it's not gonna fall tomorrow, but it's severely uh compromised at this point.

My question is kind of getting out is there a way to phase the project where you do the other stuff and keep one lane open and then you only do the full closure for the short.

Yeah, we will absolutely explore every possible option with our contractor.

I mean uh uh I don't know who I was here at the time, but when uh I did the third street under crossing stormwater project, there were residents nearby, so we came to council and got approval to do night work only, but that meant we had to pave it back and backfill it every single morning before we opened it to traffic, which almost triple the length of time it takes to do the work.

So but we will throw every option on the table.

We will have to do everything we can to minimize the closure.

And what's nice with the larger contract over a longer period of time is we have the wiggle room to try to schedule that um instead of sort of doing it in little chunks, yeah, which could result in multiple closures.

So what about the businesses that are right impacted on Franklin?

How would how would we do that?

Yeah, you we'd still maintain full access to everything east and west of the actual undercrossing.

Uh but yeah, there we'd have to put an official detour in place, which would be most likely like third streets and and something on the on the west side.

Yeah, would be the official detour, but we would maintain full access to businesses.

Yeah, just to make sure we get circulation.

The team's team does really good at making sure that all businesses maintain access during construction.

That's that's one of their high skill sets.

What is the sorry proposed detour?

It hasn't been developed yet.

Yeah, yeah, it's but it's gonna be, I mean, that's why that's greenwood, really, right?

If we're closing Franklin, Greenwood Wilson.

In theory, we've got some developments going on with Ani Um and Industrial that we're also we're not sure how those are gonna play in the timing, but we're gonna and obviously we wouldn't do this before only is open.

Yeah, that's a key point.

So again, that's why we just need to if if there's interest, there's a lot of questions the team can ask the engineers and the contractor on different ways to approach this.

Yeah, good point though.

We we wouldn't do any closure before only is fully open.

Oh, yeah.

So yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I think just and just anticipating um if if we're seeing all this added traffic on Greenwood, you know, do we want to make sure that we're maybe thinking about timing of lights again and things that kind of stop?

Absolutely.

Yeah, look at all the phasing of the signals nearby and Mike.

So on the um the revenue sources for the project, we we have ourselves covered, right?

Yeah, in terms of not there's not any open questions about how we're paying for this.

No, we've we've got uh roughly a sixteen million dollar budget, including five million from the stormwater fund and a little bit from the water fund because there is an old water line we'd replace while we're there, and then the rest is coming from the the geobond side.

So how much contingency is in that?

So the current cost estimate.

So yeah, well, we haven't sat down and started negotiations with our contractor yet, but they're gonna be well aware of what our budget is.

But we always hire an independent cost estimator to ground truth what they're saying.

So there is contingency built into that, though.

I I couldn't give you a percentage off the top of my head, but we're confident we can build this under the 16 million.

And then we've got other options as well.

Uh a good example is there's a line item in the geobond called ITS, which is intelligible transportation systems.

So we can take money out of that bucket to work for the enhancements at the signal at third in Franklin.

So we can supplement this with other things.

We'll make sure we're maximizing the use of water and stormwater funds and ITS funds, and then really make sure we're only paying for bond improvements out of the bond fund.

Okay.

And then a different topic.

If just for discussion, if we did go forward with some kind of de scoped thing that we, you know, just focused on that portion to the east.

Um, and um or de scoped in some way that left leaves a portion of the project unconstructed as we were to move forward, development, new development in there would have to would be burdened by some of those costs, right?

Because they'd have to meet whatever the uh plan is and the vision for that standard for that corner.

Yeah, so we actually have some land uses that are already been issued that kind of that say that these frontage improvements need to be done, doesn't say who's building them.

So if if you don't build something and development could come through, there's basically two funding sources.

There would be it's a project cost that they would have to fund, or they would there'd be discussions with or the urban renewal district to see is there a developer assistance or something to pay for that.

But the the requirement to build it's in our code.

And so one of the things we want to make sure we get from council is clarity for those those developments on Franklin so they know that right now they're expecting the frontage to occur, it's in their performance, and they're trying to manage their projects too.

If not, we just want to make sure that it's very clear signal to the development community of what's happening and what's not.

So we're either putting some c additional cost on them for infrastructure up front, or we're saying we'll help you pay for it through borough, which is gonna lead less of the dollars available.

We'd have to explore for is that where we want to use the limited borough funds that we have.

Right, right.

Because that that would you're gonna reduce what Borough has to work with, or this will be an allocation of those dollars.

Right.

Or we just build it.

No, no, I understand.

I'm just I'm just trying to get at that other scenario where we de-scoped.

Yes, yeah.

A good example that cascading effect in terms of the resources to get done what we don't do.

Yeah, a good example is is we've got a draft agreement written up with the owners of the old blue dog RV site where they're ready to dedicate the right-of-way right now so we can get in there, yeah, and do the infrastructure improvements, and they ask for some on street parking.

So that's what we have in our design right now.

Yeah.

All right.

Do we have uh data on the stormwater flooding and and how long it takes to fix now?

I mean, it seems like it's it's not that frequent, but do we now is it you know twice a year?

We well, yeah.

If you look at the data from the last couple years, it's gone up exponentially, which is pretty interesting.

But it's even when it does occur and a flood occurs, we probably got to take like 10 or 12 truck vector truck loads.

So we we send the trucks down there, we suck all the water out, we go take it and dump it somewhere else.

So that that's a bit of a burden to our operations staff.

The issue though is while they're doing that, they can't address other flooding issues around town that they normally would.

So it's it's occurred more frequently.

I think in the last couple years I've seen it probably four or five times.

It just it occurs to me, thinking about a potential closure of five to six months, having to explain to someone why we're closing it for that long.

That I don't think that it's an unreasonable consideration to say, you know, maybe maybe we continue that strategy for now push it off for a bit because it's it's a big closure.

Uh and so I feel like I would be open to um the plan that council O'Reilly was was describing, where maybe we scope it and keep it separate.

I know it's contrary to what the core area advisory board and the transportation bond oversight committee recommendation was, but it's uh it's a lot of money and it's a long time to be closed.

So I'm at least open to that idea.

You're suggesting descoping, just removing the stormwater improvement portion of the entire running.

Tear it up later.

Uh so keep I mean I I would say do second to fourth, so keep a part of it, and then on the other side, there's there's uh work uh what is it after Harriman or after Hill Street to Harriman.

Uh, but do everything but the parts that require a full closure.

So would the uphill lanes still require a full closure because of the yeah, because we gotta remove it.

Yeah, so that would be no stormwater, no water, no uphill bike lanes.

But there's water too, it's not just storm.

Yes, yeah, it's not just storm transport.

It's not just flooding.

We're gonna replace the water line.

It's an aged water line.

I hear you for sure, I'll but like yeah, that's the other thing I was thinking about is the water work.

Okay, Steve, and then let's try to come to a consensus here.

Go ahead.

The only other part that we had talked about, I felt like we were leaning collectively towards the the value engineering before because we were trying to husband resources to apply towards towards Hawthorne.

Can you tell me?

Do you have any other strategies for resources if we go the full boat on this?

Yeah, yeah, that's a great question.

Thank you for bringing that up.

I I don't want to frame this up as a binary, you know, the only way we can maybe help fund overruns on the Hawthorne Bridge or the connections is by taking from Franklin.

That's not that's not what I'm trying to represent here.

And in later in this presentation, uh even as we're talking about the ODOT contributions, there's going to be availability to move money from other bond projects to Hawthorne in the future.

And if if council is willing to amend the bond resolution, you could potentially pull from other projects as well.

So and a big piece of that pie we're gonna know in the spring of next year as we're progressing with the read market bridge grant, which you'll hear back from me and my staff in November.

We'll give you an update on that.

But if that grant continues to follow through, which we think it will, that frees up a good amount of money that we currently have dedicated to the bridge.

So there's a lot of other variables in here that you could apply to a future Hawthorne project.

That's helpful for me.

That makes me more inclined towards full boat.

Can you go back to the committee recommendations?

Can I tend to make one other point?

Um another source of funds would be uh borough dollars from the core area.

Yeah, that's also possible.

For that, those connections.

Right, right.

So um who is okay following these recommendations at this time and who is not, I'm okay with that.

I mean, no, I think I'm okay with it.

I just wanted to make sure that we also at least considered I think the best way to address your question, which we talked about earlier is we'll come back in the specific council work session around closure.

Yeah, absolutely.

Minimizing closure and what that and trade-offs we're gonna do.

Let's do dig into that.

We're all really nervous.

I know we have that by.

So there's impactful, and I think one of the things that we just need to be thinking about is just our crossings are limited, so we can really only do one at a time.

That's impactful, and I think one of the things that we just need to be thinking about is just our crossings are limited, so we can really only do one at a time.

And so if there's impacts in other places, we can't be doing more than one.

That's number one.

Yes, number one.

And then I think just making sure people know what's coming and when it's gonna happen, and then trying to time it as best we can.

Um looks like we're gonna move forward with this.

Out of a couple things I want to um.

Yeah, I know we do, but I think um for me, what's partly changed my thinking a little bit over the last couple of weeks is just real readily recognizing we have control over this project.

Yes, the one you know, significant.

We've decided to focus on on Franklin for some real investments.

Um my opinion, Hawthorne is frankly still a wild card because of everything that's going on in Washington, DC.

I, you know, and and the the bigger context with Oregon right now.

And so I really think we need to go forward on something where we can make at least one important strategic investment for east-west connectivity.

It is gonna be painful, I get that, but it's needed.

Um, and this one piece we can control, and then you know, as we move forward with Hawthorne, if we're able to move forward, um, we can we can do that.

These are really important safety features for walking and biking, but also east-rest, east-west connectivity just for the community as a whole.

And I don't want to add more burden to the core area for to if we are serious about catalyzing that part of town.

I think that this project is part of that catalyzation, and that's another big um reason I think we need to move forward with it.

Yeah.

And both Cab and T Bach were unanimous, so that's coming from both sides of that equation, which is great.

Okay.

All right.

Southwest.

Moving to the southwest area of our beautiful city.

So three things to bring up here as a discussion point.

The first one, which we've talked about somewhat in depth already, and I have a couple slides related to this following on later in the presentation, is just confirmation that you would like to see Bond and Reed switched out in the CIP with Chase and Brosterhouse.

Again, you would see that reflected in the mid-biennium budget.

We're not going to start acting on that tomorrow morning.

But that money would then be available for us in the in the fall of 2026.

So just wanted to confirm that was a general direction we're looking to go.

Uh, we can dive into some more detail on the design of Bond and Reed.

That is a decision point that I'll bring up at the end of the presentation.

So that's one topic.

Tonight.

Yes, tonight.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'll we I I've got the previous version of a partial multi-lane roundabout with some cost estimates, and now we've got a version of a full double-lane roundabout with some cost estimates.

Second thing is the century tetherow or bachelor view, however, you want to look at it.

It's another fun intersection that's got three or four names coming into it.

Uh, we got a lot of feedback from the community when we tried to build a safe crossing over there.

And of course, understandably the unanimous feedback was when can we get that roundabout built?

It would be a key gateway, you know, coming into the city from the mountain and from the the forest.

And so it's it's on our CIP today.

You'll see it.

We weren't planning to start designing this to the end of our current five-year CIP.

But if you'd like us to explore moving that up, I don't have a simple do that instead of this other one, but we'll get creative and we'll go model this with finance.

And if you would like to see that moved up, even if it's just a year or two, maybe not three years, even a year or two, we can bring back the option to potentially do that in the mid-biannium.

And we have some ideas depending on on some of the discussions we're having today about some potential funding sources to move that up within the CIP.

Okay, so then Ryan, you're highlighting a couple things, and then we're gonna get to a bigger prioritization for the next few areas.

Okay.

The third thing, which is we mentioned this earlier, we've done almost everything on our near-term project list out of the transportation system plan.

This is one of the exceptions we have not started yet.

That is the Southern River Crossing study.

And I know that's gonna alarm a lot of people, but as you know, Reed Market and the Bill Healy Bridge is our southernmost river crossing.

And one of the reasons we're talking about bond and read is because it's such a vital east-west connection.

So the TSP has instructed us to start the study of a southern river crossing somewhere south of Reed Market.

I'm not even gonna tell you where yet, because I I don't want to implicate anything or or start any rumors, but uh we would probably want to show that on our on our five-year CIP as well, because we got to start doing that work at some point.

So again, don't need a formal decision tonight, but um we're unless you tell me otherwise, we're gonna bring that forward at the mid-biennium to show that as a study that we would initiate.

Right, that'd be a vehicle.

Vehicular bridge, thank you.

Yeah, yeah.

That would be uh of all modes would be able to use it, of course.

But yes, it was not a bike bed bridge, it's uh all use all modes.

And also this it's important to get some information around that as we go into a TSP update in a couple years because that that conversation is gonna come back around again, and if we have some better information, whether it's even feasible or not, that would be extremely helpful.

Right.

Okay.

Okay, moving to the southeast.

I'll intro this and then I'll kick it over to RES.

Just pause for a second.

I want to make sure Megan, you can probably just sit in the audience or go in the back.

Um I'll just go in the conference room.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

All right, in the southeast, again, just to highlight everything we've got going on.

We've got the read market and 15th street roundabout.

Again, this is one I'll follow up at the end with uh a design concept that shows you how we would take it from it's an existing partial today, and it would take it to a full double lane.

So we want to talk about that design impact as well as safety features of that double lane roundabout.

Uh, do want you to know that we have started design at the 15th and Ferguson roundabout, just south of that.

That is a key component to the to the system down there.

We are also going to be kicking off the Ben Bikeways work here, the design's done.

Uh we'll have a construction contract in front of you here soon, but that's to build the shared use path up 15th all the way up to the new wildflower development, and then also to build the shared use path on 9th Street, which will ultimately connect to the Reed Market Bridge, which again we'll talk more about in November.

And then there's some discussions on the private side as well.

Um, that was gonna be later.

That's gonna be later.

I'll just I'll I'll just highlight it real quick.

We there we're working with the property owners in the southeast area.

Um we we were trying to trying to work for funding for two internal roundabouts, what we call the two and internal roundabouts in the southeast area, which are the ones that say TBD right there.

Um we're trying to pursue state funding for that.

We're unsuccessful with that.

We're working with all the owners right now to figure out how to move this project forward.

We think we we have a path forward through potentially like a supplemental SDC, but it's still a project cost to do that.

Uh COBA representing the owners down there, putting a letter on this because they said we're talking about the transportation CIP.

They're requested if there's interest to put one of the two roundabouts that is not funded.

I actually both roundabouts is there interest from council to put that on the CIP.

If there is, we would say, okay, when then what would we be taking off in order to do that?

But this is directly related to development down in the area.

We just wanted to bring that request forward to see if there's any interest in that, and if you want us to entertain that, then I'll work with Ryan and his team to figure out what would need to happen to make that work.

So since this is uh council Norris is recused, I think we should just talk about this right now and see if there is interest or not in adding one or both of these to the CIP.

And again, we don't have to decide exactly how that sequencing happens today, and staff can bring that back to us, but um, for the mid-biannium adjustment when this is officially voted on, but council interested in in moving these on to the CIP instead of just relying on private development.

Well, so moving on to the CIP means that private developers would not pay SDCs or they give credit.

No, these the two numbers the two that we were talking about are not SDC creditable, they're not on the SDC list.

They're they're solely needed because of the impacts of the development.

Then they would be SDC.

No, they don't have to do that.

No, they're asking for we would have to figure out if you're if council has interest in building something down there, we would have to figure out the funding mechanism to do that.

We don't have the answer to that question right now.

And there's sort of two options.

One there, well, there's a couple.

One could be a local improvement district, one could be a supplemental SDC, the other could be our transportation construction fund.

That but that would require us moving something around.

We don't have added resources to deploy.

It would be more about a prioritization exercise.

The current the current path is we with our latest discussions is potentially creating a supplemental SDC to fund both those roundabouts and also a portion that is not SDC credible of not in 27th around, which would solve the off-site transportation problems associated with the development of the Southeast area.

So there is a tool we have there, but it it's it's really a question: should the development bear the cost of those improvements, or does this does do we want to use citywide capital dollars in some way to build additional improvements in the southeast to spur development down there?

Well, if it's a but if it's a local improvement district, then development does basically pay for it, it's just the city sort of price the cost.

Same with a supplemental SDC.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, no, this is they're just asking for an outright.

Is will the council does the council want to fund this with the transportation dollars from somewhere, whether they're geobond or something like that.

They want to be able to get reimbursed.

So are they not asking for this to also be put on the SD eligible list?

Yeah, confused me.

The letter was a little misleading at Elizabeth.

I don't know if you might want to clarify.

Yeah, there's to them smart.

Yeah, if we if if we wanted to provide SDC credits or something else for that, then there's another body of work that we need to do to be able to support that, because right now it's not supported.

To put this in the contact, we we've done this with sewer, right?

So we uh we have gone ahead and built the pump station down there.

We have funded it, it's in our CIP, it's under construction, it's kind of wrapping up.

We are then coming back and saying we want to be reimbursed for that from a supplemental SDC.

I think it's sort of partially we're not deciding that tonight.

I think we that's a later discussion is sort of are you interested in having this project be on a list for us to then have those deeper conversations about who pays for it and how it's and I think part of the same thing with the sewer is that because we have so many different property owners in this area, especially the internal roundabout, it's unclear who's gonna be able to bear all that costs, right?

And so by us building it and getting reimbursed and maybe saying there's a partnership there, we're helping the development to move forward here.

Um the two ways to think about it.

We would if you if you have interest in funding this, we would go into the CIP and we say what projects are coming off the CIP to make that happen.

The other option is we do supplemental SDC or s or local improvement district where it will appear on the CIP, but it's going to be funded by some type of payment mechanism from the developments that are benefiting from that improvement.

Or clarified the difference for me.

The difference is if if we take projects off the CIP, we are using funds, citywide funds.

Oh, I mean supplemental SDC.

Local improvement district would be if we need we we would recommend for those a supplemental SDC, because what we could do is we could they're not those improvements are not needed day one.

They would we would be building funds as permits come in, and then at a certain time when the the kitty bank is the piggy bank is full, we can build a roundabout, we turn that money over to Ryan's group, they design and build that roundabout.

That's how that mechanism works.

The other one is a local improvement district where we actually assess the property now, and we can rely on that to build the improvement right now.

Got it.

I don't think the local improvement district requires a vote of all the property owners.

And all property owners and and it creates an assessment on those existing properties year one, which they may not be they so you're stopping a 20 to 30,000 a year assessment potentially on properties that whether or not they can can the property owners do that without having development moving yet.

So an LID, I will say I will say something.

Um Elizabeth O'Shel with the city attorney's office.

Um an LID.

I don't know if it's a public vote, but I do believe there's a at least a remonstrance process, meaning if a certain uh percentage of property owners say they don't want it, then it wouldn't you couldn't impose it.

Um an LID, there was a change in state law that would clearly allow us to work with the county and come into an agreement about imposing an LID on an area that is outside of existing city limits.

What the LID does, as Russ said, is it it assesses essentially a lien and requires an annual payment beginning immediately on the property subject to the LID, whereas an SDC not subject to a remonstrance process only applies once someone is within city limits and applies for a development that is subject to an SDC.

So the SDC is a little bit more uncertain of when that money would come in, and LID lets you start collecting right away, but has a different type of process for imposition.

So the the question we have before you tonight is do you want to take something off of the project that the capital improvement project list for the entire city using city funds to build these improvements, or do you want us to continue to work with the owners down there to find a mechanism where the development pays for these improvements and we just figure out how to get them constructed and a tool to use that?

Right.

So counselors, what do we think?

Do we want to add this and pay for it with our funds?

Which is a supplemental SDC tool.

Can I just before we sorry?

Go ahead.

Are we just giving up and getting state funds on this, right?

No, we actually're still pursuing.

Okay, absolutely.

Even if we say supplemental SDC, if something comes in from the we would come back and talk to you, we can back out okay.

Yeah, and I think that was one of the points that Morgan was trying to make in the letter is that that could even if we set that up, we can come back and say we've got we received funding now from another source to give up.

And SDCs, the statutes require your methodology take into account outside funding.

So if we got later funding, the advice would likely be come back and you'd get to rescind a fee.

Which when does that happen?

Yeah.

And Mayor Lassing, if I could just add the flexibility of having a supplemental SDC is from a timing standpoint, we can figure out when this is getting triggered.

So there's a world in which you could build that key intersection in the middle.

We might not need a roundabout based on traffic volumes for another 10 years.

So we could build a four-way stop in the interim.

And then once development is actually moving and occurring, then we can say, okay, now it's time to come in and build the roundabout.

So it might not even have to live in the five-year CIP.

It might live in year six, seven, or eight.

Right.

But we have a funding source for it.

And from a development, that's all we're trying to try to make sure we have that funding source.

Okay.

Have we considered the lower cost like the like the uh the the roundabout in front of OSU cascades, the mini roundabout?

We we will consider but this is back.

We know we need an intersection improvement at these two locations of some fashion.

And it's just this is the question of like who who do you want to pay for it?

We will explore all those other options as we get deeper into the project.

Okay, not to overcomplicate this, but like I mean, are the developers gonna ask for more money for like water lines and sewer mains and things like that?

Like, I mean, as a local improvement district it's you know, a way to kind of grow upon money from all the infrastructure.

We are just engaging with all the property owners now.

We believe we have a solution for the water that has become available through some some state, I would think some state funding and a developer that's identified that we're gonna do it.

We're trying to solve the transportation riddle right now, which is the this is the main question on the transportation.

Okay.

So my feeling is that we've already city has already invested from our kitty, I guess, the whole city's kitty into the sewer into the sewer listation.

So I think at this point um developers need to kind of put the bill, and so I would be I would not be in favor of putting it on the CIP list.

I would be in favor of a supplemental SDC or a local industry.

Okay.

Well, don't we put it on the CIP list and then we'll we would create the supplemental SDC, and then when when Ryan and us determine when we want to build it, then it would appear on the CIP.

Okay.

Is everyone in favor of that?

Okay, yeah, and I think just to remind everybody during the CTAC process, the recommendations with the TSP, supplemental SDCs were on the table as one of the ways that we would fund transportation in particular in expansion areas or even other infrastructure.

And I think we should look at this kind of, you know, we can do the whole full meal deal on the supplemental.

We can also do the split concept like we did on sewer, where the city is helping pay for part of it so that we reduce the burden a bit.

We'll we'll be back to put in front of you at some point with the STC discuss the supplemental SDC discussion.

Okay.

I think we can call Megan back and so we'll just go we'll go on to the next one.

Perfect.

Pay for that.

Okay.

I'll bet you get half of the covered.

Okay.

Next topic is very geo bond centric, and this has to do with our contributions identified in the voter-approved bond that we had committed that we would get to ODOT.

So where we sit today is there's multiple connection points of our system to the ODOT system.

And at the time of development, the world was a much different place.

ODOT uh was gonna do everything they could to bring some additional money to the table.

I'll I'll just use Murphy, the Murphy ramps on the very south end of town as an example.

So we worked in conjunction with ODOT a long time ago to get the light off of the parkway.

We built the Murphy overcrossing, but with them we could only afford to build half of the interchange.

So it still needs a southbound off ramp and a northbound on-ramp.

So in the geobond, we said we'll devote 10 million dollars to this.

ODOT, you need to bring the rest of the money.

So last year we went through a feasibility study with them.

Uh total cost estimates landed somewhere between 20 to 25 million.

And we're just not in a world right now where ODOT has 10 to 15 million dollars to throw at the Murphy ramps with the city.

And we're not in a spot where we just want this money to sit for the next 10 years.

You're gonna hear from Samantha a little later the importance of spending the bond money in a timely manner.

So this is a good example.

There's a there's a scenario where we could take the Murphy money, we could take other contributions in here as well, and you can see that adds up to a pretty significant amount of money.

So the question before council tonight isn't a specific question other than would you like us to explore taking that much some or all of that money and applying it to some other bond project?

It has to go to a bond project because it is bond money.

We can't just put it somewhere else in a transportation system.

But there are options and ideas on the table of where we could consolidate this and go effectively get something done.

We could keep it on the ODOT system and work with ODOT to go actually fix a problem on the ODOT system, and or is there is there interest to move that money again?

We do not need to answer that question today.

It's more just highlighting this also builds into urban renewal conversations because if there's interest in building something on the parkway, we're probably gonna need additional funding from somewhere.

So and you know, one of the most comprehensive ways of solving all of the congestion at Empire is having a direct connection between Highway 97 and Highway 20.

So I think one of the ideas is to potentially um indicate to ODOT that we'd be interested in being kind of all in at a potential fix there, would provide a benefit to the mobile system as well.

Yeah, it has a bit of an economic development uh lens to it, because we have a lot of employment land on that north end too that would, if we don't do anything, potentially could add more cost to land entitlement work that needs to happen on the So to build off what Eric's saying, if there's interest in if there's head nods on like let's go explore potential options at Empire, that gives us direction not only in some urban renewal discussions that are upcoming, but also kind of some high-level discussions we can initiate with ODOT as well.

Okay, so thoughts on should we leave these separated out and hope for the best, or do we want to do something else?

Go ahead.

I think something else and and specifically to what Eric had suggested about empire.

I do think that that empire needs a fix.

Um but uh rather than say, yes, let's just connect highway 20 to highway 97.

I really want to encourage staff to explore something other than just another freeway connection there.

There are businesses look at how you know people get around uh without having to drive.

So I would really encourage you.

I would be okay with saying let's take a look at something on Empire.

Um, but I don't want to I really wanted us to consider something other than just a typical highway connection that frankly ODOT would probably build on its own.

But what would it look like to connect to Empire with signal upgrades and true multimodal access that might end up even being cheaper than what a highway connector would look like?

So that's that's what I'm thinking.

Elizabeth has appeared.

I have appeared.

Hello.

Um to that point, Councilor Mendez.

Um, something like an interchange or a large enough expansion of the road at that section may require additional review under the new climate-friendly and equitable communities um rules.

It's called Rule 830 in the new transportation planning rules.

Um it requires enhanced review of certain types of transportation improvements and an interchange is one of those types.

So that review would entail some of what you're talking about and additional planning work, working with ODOT and planning staff.

The Empire Third Street interchange is what we're requiring.

So an interchange requires that study and certain other types of improvements, but an interchange is one of the listed types.

So I just think if there's interest, if there's interest from council of looking at empire with using some of these funds, that's that's all we need right now, and then we can but we can start to go to work with some additional conversations on our and that's where we would identify what is study or planning work is needed.

Yes.

So who agrees with that?

Not deciding what we're doing in Empire, but this maybe is a good idea to move the money there.

Okay, thank you.

I have a question also though, about I mean, there's other ODOT uh highways through the city.

You know, there's Greenwood Highway 20 on the east side, which is not particularly safe for pedestrians or cyclists.

So, you know, I'd be also interested in knowing if there's money available for it, kind of make some safety.

Well, I think that's we let us have some conversations.

I guess the main thing is like we're used to get a menu of options.

Yeah, but we're gonna keep the eight, like right now, we're gonna keep that 18 million on the ODOT system.

It's where do we put it?

We're gonna look at empire and we can have those other conversations.

Is that is that fair for that that we're just trying to keep the conversations moving.

But it would need to stay on an already identified bond project unless you so choose to amend the bond resolution.

Right.

And we'll have those conversations with you next year.

Okay.

All right.

So now diving a little bit deeper into some specific projects.

We're gonna first talk about the Ani project.

So this project is right about the 30% design.

We've held some open house events, we've kind of settled on an alternative and just wanted to bring this back to ensure that we're on the right path.

If so, uh Garrett and the rest of the team would be back next month for a contract amendment to take this to final design, which would eventually roll into construction.

So I know there were some previous questions about the the scope of this work.

So just to frame it up, the original intent of the Ani project from the Geobond stretched all the way over to Bond and Industrial Way, right at the intersection of where the deckstraw building is is opening right now.

So this project was meant to build a roundabout there, improve all of industrial way, and then work your way down division, um, down Ani Scott, and then over to Third Street.

So the good news is is that private development is covering a good portion of what this project was intended to build.

And as you can see in the current scope right now, we need to refine it a little bit more, but we're somewhere in the six to nine million dollar range of expenses.

This is another good example of if we keep this, let's just call it 10, that gives us four million dollars of geobond money.

You can put say at Hawthorne or somewhere else that you might want to go.

So this is a good example of the the private development partnerships getting things built and then giving us flexibility to move some of the bond money around.

So these are the components of how we've got it broken down today.

We would improve the undercrossing of the parkway, uh build some shared use paths, enhance that all the way up to Scott Street, some safe crossings there, and then come down second street, and then we'd build some shared use paths over to Third Street and then north up to Burnside, which is one of our key routes, but we would also improve the intersection at Third and Miller.

So for anybody who's ever tried to turn left to go north out of there, it is a scary situation.

And so uh what we're proposing at this point is is a signal.

Um, and so we would put a traffic signal in at that location at third and miller, and then sorry, I shouldn't jump so quick, and then build shared use paths up third street to ultimately connect all this, uh which would get us over to Ben Senior High School.

So that's the current scope of work.

Two more quick slides.

Again, this is what it would look like on the west side going up third street.

We're replacing the existing sidewalk, uh both on the north and south side of the railroad bridge with a 10-foot wide path, new retaining walls uh on the back side of the path.

So this would have zero impact to the undercrossing in vehicles.

No closure.

No closure.

No closure on this one, yeah.

Um, but allow us to build a nice shared use path that would get you all the way up to Burnside, then a safe crossing at Burnside.

And just as a preview to show you this, if you haven't seen it lately, this is what the current pedestrian path looks like there.

So we would be building out away from the railing to expand this and widen it and working underneath the undercrossing.

So that is one we're looking for a little bit more.

Is this the correct scope still?

Would you like us to come back with an amendment to fully design this?

Are there portions of this that you want to see something different?

Uh but this is kind of where we landed after the alternatives analysis in the open house with the public, as well as some cost estimates for each component.

And when is this coming to council, Ryan?

The amendment would be next month.

Okay.

Yeah.

I think looks great.

It's under budget.

Looks great.

Okay.

Is anybody upset about another light on third, though, for people going north south?

I used to work on Miller Street, and I would have been able to cross to go get a burrito instead of having to walk all the way to the road.

Right there.

The people going north-south on the third.

Coming up out of the intersection, it's not great.

Oh, sorry.

We'll look at interconnection with Wilson and interconnection with Franklin too, the surrounding areas to provide connectivity there.

Okay.

In the midst of the CTAC, we had a motorcyclist die at that intersection.

Yeah.

And we heard a lot from people who live to the east of Third Street and that wedge between Miller.

I mean Wilson and the railroad tracks in Third Street.

And it's really quite a very residential neighborhood, and it's really hard for people to get across there.

And you get a lot of dangerous crossings because people don't want to go all the way down to the city.

But yeah, Councillor Platte, to your point, um, Matt could attest here from Kittleson.

I I challenged him and his staff more times than I can count to come up with something other than a signal.

And at the end of the day, it just kept coming back to the same solution.

So I I hear the concern of another signal on third street, but that is the most logical answer for the safety and accessibility through there.

Okay.

I'm just a little concerned with the budget range.

Sure.

It's pretty big.

I'd feel better if we kind of committed to a number.

But then I and I also um have a concern.

Like I don't want to spend 9.2 million dollars just because it's there.

You know what I mean?

Sure.

We need to be really cost-effective with the dollars that we have in the bond because there are still projects on the bond list that are not funded yet, unless you've already talked about Boyd Acre.

No, we have not.

That's a good point.

Yeah.

Um, and the other thing that I'm just concerned about with this project is that development that is building the rest of Ani.

Ani is the only east-west connection in the bond that is like a new east-west connection.

Um, and by um kind of relying on the developer to do it, the downside of that is that we're on their schedule, and they have according to their land use decision until 2038 to do it.

So, which is a long time way longer than the bond.

I can tell you that we're we're in active conversations with them right now.

They're trying to do a they're probably going to be coming with an amendment to their master plan, but they want to get moving.

But again, it's market, it's market driven.

Right.

So that's just a risk.

So I don't know.

Um we may want to revisit it in a year or yeah, we can.

Yeah, though there's more touch points.

So if we come back with a design amendment to take this all the way to 100%, we would then put it out to bid and then come back to council for approval of the construction cost.

So our overall budget is 14.

We will do everything we can to spend as little as possible so that the council can use the rest of that money to move elsewhere.

But yeah, it's at 30%, so we've got a range right now.

When when we further develop the design, we'll have an exact engineer's estimate before we put it out to bid for construction.

Okay.

Well, like there's support to come back with that design on this scope at the next month.

All right, moving on to 15th and read market.

This is one that Garrett had talked about earlier.

This is a part of the larger read market program that's in the Geobond.

So the components of that, some of what we've discussed is the bridge over the rail at Reed Market as well as the 15th and Ferguson roundabout.

There's another weird odd component over on Third Street, but then this is the last piece of that.

And so what we're proposing to move forward with is to fully double lane the 15th and read market roundabout.

Uh that's the expansion from what it is today, which is a dual entry single exit, uh, which honestly does having driving this almost every day.

There's there's still confusion as people try to switch lanes in the middle of the roundabout, which is a big no-no.

So that's one concern we would address when when our team built this.

I don't know, David Abbas and I played tag with this project a long time ago.

But uh we we already acquired all the right-of-way necessary to do this.

You can see we would be rebuilding some of the lanes, some of the sidewalks, but we'd also be working internal.

So the red is a highlight of of how we've designed this to be forward compatible, where we would there's already sections of this that have dual lanes going around, so we would just make it fully circular.

So we can do that internally, and it doesn't require tearing out the the art or anything like that.

So uh the question before council is are we okay to proceed with uh the rest of the design here to take this to a fully double lane roundabout?

And this had a public open house already, correct?

It did, yeah.

Yeah, and there was definitely a lot of feedback from the Southeast area community, which I think we're gonna have a further meeting with, but there's a lot of concerns about capacity issues with the number of homes that are coming into the southeast behind the library at Stevens Ranch and Stevens Tract and down in the southeast that we already talked about and the other urban growth boundary area that council brought in.

So uh this is again meant to help address some of the capacity issues.

And bikes and beds getting around this thing when it's double-lane.

Yes, so on thank you.

Wonderful transition.

So we're proposing the RRFBs, you hear that term a lot.

That's what it's actually called, the rapid flashing beacons.

And just wanted to highlight uh the top data is is uh pretty commonplace for where you see RRFBs on on multi-lane roundabouts.

So they see a 40 seven percent reduction in crashes with PES and a 98% yield rate.

That's great, that's national data.

What have we seen locally?

So we've been keeping an eye.

Sorry.

Um full lane roundabouts, double lane roundabouts.

Yeah, full not have them.

That then they added this.

Is that what the that data is about?

It yeah, it's well it there's a little bit of variation.

No, that's a good point.

Yeah, it might have been a single lane roundabout that they converted and added RRFBs.

There's there's a bunch of different variables in there.

And to that point, that's why we wanted to say, okay, well, what can we look at locally?

So we've been keeping an eye up at the Butler 27th and Empire, which is a fully double lane roundabout.

We also have one up in Juniper Ridge, but there's a lot less volume up there.

So you can see the data from the double lane we did at Butler 27th and Empire.

We've observed a hundred percent yield rate as vehicles are entering the roundabout.

Uh that's where it's most obvious when somebody's about to cross.

Then they get to the center protected median, and we've observed a 97% yield rate for pedestrians exiting the roundabout with our RFBs at that intersection.

That's pretty impressive numbers in my mind.

You said pedestrians or vehicles exit.

For pedestrians as vehicles and exiles.

Okay, yeah.

So we're our current design would be a full double lane with RFBs, which uh again, going back in the past a little bit, we already designed the conduits under the existing roundabout to pull the wires for this kind of infrastructure, so it wouldn't require tearing up the existing concrete.

And we as the map showed, the bikeways comes up 15th on the left of this map that Ryan showed, and would you be able to go down to 9th Street to get underneath the bridge on that bikeway?

All right, we okay with Ari.

Have we considered what congestion on this intersection looks like after the overpass is built?

After the rail overcrossing is built?

Yeah, I mean, it'll it'll allow more vehicles to get through the intersection because we're no longer stopping at the rail crossing.

So I mean, it seems like that's that's the biggest cause of congestion at this intersection today.

Today, yeah.

Yeah, we've got is the backup.

Yeah, so today the uh if a train is stopped on the tracks, which they do frequently, you'll see this back up all the way through the intersection.

And because of its current configuration, at some of these points, a car will stop in the middle of the roundabout, and nobody can nobody else can get around because in portions of it, there's just a single lane.

And so today in its current design, if we left it the way it is and built the built a bridge, we we would we would experience less of that, uh, but we wouldn't be addressing the future capacity concerns at the intersection.

I think we we also have daily operational issues besides the train at that intersection, just from a vehicle use.

Yeah, it it's it's a typical peak hour intersection with everybody going to the north and the west in the mornings and then back home to the south and the east in the evenings.

But we know that the future capacity issues won't really be reflected in the near term either.

I mean, this is uh it's uh I mean I guess I would just say I would put forward maybe just wait until after the overpass is built and see how things go.

Because if we know that's the largest source of congestion, then and we have a plan to address the overpass, the railroad crossing with the overpass, then why not?

Why not wait?

Isn't there a lot of uncertainty there though, too?

What we'll find out in November.

Yeah, because it's it's we have there's funding to the bond for that overcrossing, right?

So now it's whether or not the grant holds and replaces that funding to me on the bond.

All right, where are people at with this?

Okay to move forward or want to wait, okay to move forward.

Let's see a hand.

Okay.

You want to wait over here?

Okay.

Well, I think we have enough to move forward with it.

And again, this will come back to council in a contract form, right?

So yeah, this one we actually already have under contract for the full design, so the next time you would see it would be at the contract uh construction approval.

We just wanted to check in because we just knew there'd been conversations around this.

No, this is worth the discussion.

All right, on to bond and read.

So this is another one we've talked about previously, and again, this relates more to moving this up in the CIP and kind of what concept we're gonna go with.

So this would be building a multi-lane roundabout, which is what exists at 15th and Reed today.

So this is designed enough.

The hybrid.

Yeah, the hybrid version.

I mean, what are we doing?

It's just the same thing over and over again.

So what what this does is is it you'd see as you as you enter into the roundabout, the left lane turns left, right lane turns right, but the through lane varies depending on where the peak volume is.

And again, this is another one where in the mornings, Brookswood and Reed is backed up quite a ways, almost sometimes back to the back to the parkway, and in the evenings, this backs all the way up to the old mill and all the way back to the Bill Healy Bridge under its current single lane roundabout condition.

So this would help address some of that issue.

Uh, we would do RRFBs even though it's not a full double lane, we might as well do them now just because it's safer.

So that was one concept we talked about before.

We had also been asked uh why wouldn't we just do a full double lane and get rid of the confusion?

I think counselor Riley and maybe others had mentioned, like you know, why would that concept?

Yeah, show us what that would look like.

Yeah.

And so at this cost, uh this concept would be more than what we currently have budgeted.

This is probably the four to five million dollar range, which is about what we've got budgeted now.

This is probably closer to six to seven just because of the uh the needed right-away and the additional retaining walls and everything else that would go into to building this.

So if if the idea is a full double lane, we would need to see that budget adjusted at the mid biennium, and we wouldn't need to again work with finance to see what we can afford to do and where this would land.

But that that's the you know, should it be a multi or a full double?

And then the proposed year you would see this is this the swap with Chase Brosterhouse, which would mean the design money for this would be available uh in fall of 2026.

So we would get going on this less than a year from now.

Okay, so I think there's two questions about this project.

One is the scheduling.

Do we want to move this up in our schedule?

Yes, regardless of the design.

So I I think I'm seeing head nods that yes, we want to do that as staff had proposed.

So then I think the next thing is to just give direction on which way to go here.

Um understanding this, you know, they'll bring us back scenarios on where the money would come from if we want to do the bigger roundabout or stick with the original plan of the hybrid roundabout that was budgeted for previously.

So thoughts on that.

I guess I'd just ask like a capacity standpoint.

If we did the full what are what are we anticipating?

How how much would it alleviate congestion?

The difference between the ruts over running, yeah.

Hi counselors.

Matt Kettleson with Kittelson and Associates.

Um I think there's a lot of open questions about how much capacity is needed this intersection beyond.

We have I don't think we've gone through the full analysis of saying this is totally needed to the extent that we've done 15th and read market.

I mean, just anecdotally, the cues are quite long there.

So it's it's not as easy as just counting intersections.

We have to count cars waiting, which includes multiple intersections and then using a lot of uh techniques to get the length of the queue.

So there's a little bit more work to do, but certainly um we're not getting the cars through today, I think is the simple answer.

Go ahead.

Matt, what we've got you here.

Uh could you share some other strategies that other than adding supply that might also address capacity issues and in the way of moving people and not just cars?

Sure.

I mean, there's a lot, I think the Bend system is already looking at a lot of strategies to get people across.

Um, in this particular area, one of the things that we see is a limiting factor is just you know, when we talked about the Southern River crossing is one example.

I know when Reed Market was built, it was called the Southern Crossing, and it's in the middle of town.

You know, so we have there's just a flow issue across the river.

I think we've all experienced that in several ways over the last couple of months.

Um so certainly there's ways of the land use changes on the west side of Bend, which is already happening with housing happening over there.

I think those are good strategies.

Those things will take time to implement and come to fruition.

Um, other options for modes, like the crossings that we've talked about.

Uh, just Columbia is one example, having that be a better route for people to bike on because there's not wide enough lanes at the private road, so there's lots of challenges, I think, that are there.

Our office is west, and I live south, so I experienced a lot of these challenges riding my bike across the river.

So there's lots of those things I could improve that could be improved, but certainly this is a really isolated, I call it kind of the low point of the system.

There's a lot of roads flowing to this point, and we just really never contemplated to handle the level of traffic that it's experiencing pretty regularly.

Thank you.

Okay.

Other thoughts.

Well, I think you know, my feeling about this is that we're not adding capacity to the road systems itself.

We're adding capacity for cars to be able to and to move through a bottleneck.

And that having been a big part of the TSP stuff and the bond measure, um, I think that that was fundamentally one of the key promises.

Two pieces was one making the east-west routes work well, and two fixing bottlenecks.

And um, I think there's a difference between improving how we get traffic flowing through an intersection like this and capacity on the roads as a whole and moving, say, from you know, three-lane to four or five-lane roads.

That's that's a very different question to me than something like this.

So this is a this is about flow.

I I mean, I understand there's a lot of people concerned about fire on this.

Um, I don't think that either of these changes are going to solve fire concerns in a catastrophic fire event.

That is going to be a cluster that we'll all have to unfortunate cursors that we'll have to do our best with.

This is not going to solve that.

It won't make it a little bit better, sure.

But I think it's basically about the promises made, you know, broadly speaking to the community about how we're approaching our transportation system.

Elizabeth, uh-oh.

Sorry.

Should I just say okay with that?

Um, this intersection, like the Empire Interchange is another one that may require additional planning work to get to what is the thing that we can build because of those CFAC rules.

So this one, part of the conversation that you're having is also a potentially required by those new CFEC rules.

Potentially, so right now we're just trying to identify timing and high-level funding.

That's because there's still a lot of questions and analysis that needs to occur.

Yeah, definitely some planning work.

I mean, uh, Matt identified some of that as well.

There's design work and planning work, so all of that would be part of the conversation about what are the next steps needed to get to what is the improvement.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Another question for Matt.

Um, so if this if we go forward with a two-lane roundabout, a full two-lane roundabout, typically what happens when you widen an intersection is that the bottleneck just sort of expands, and so then you have a traffic.

We get you just displaced the traffic problem to down the road.

So and there seems to be uh sort of a that intersection of the old mill there is like kind of problematic, and you know, so I guess what would your forecast be for where the traffic problem goes next after we make this investment, if we make this investment.

Yeah, I mean I think it's it's certainly not the solution for every issue in Southwest Bend.

I think maybe answering it a slightly different way, if that's okay, is one of the things we're seeing with happening today and and just getting worse in the future if we as we've done some modeling is that this roundabout is actually causing problems back towards the read market interchange.

So we start seeing congestion go that way, and then to the point where we, you know, in the future it's getting uh close to the forecasting perspective of backing up vehicles onto the parkway, which is just me we're just not moving people freely through there.

So certainly I think you you highlighted good point that there are other issues in this area.

Columbian bond is certainly one of them because we have rounded cues extending through there.

But related.

So there are other issues that we track, but I think this one in and of itself is creating problems at adjacent intersections because of how constrained it is today.

One more comment, and then let's see a show of hands.

I'll take a strophole.

Go ahead.

Yeah, thank you.

Um so I'm I'm not ready to give up on the smaller roundabouts yet.

I want to remind everyone that we did just proclaim uh white cane safety day for October 15th, where we ask members of our community to work to ensure that the rights, benefits, and privileges of life in our lovely city are safely available to all community members and visitors who are blind or visually diverse.

I do think that when we're considering something like widening a roundabout, I sense that there's a skepticism in what the alternatives are.

I what I was interested to hear Matt's discussion of that, but I wanted to at least propose that we commit to investing in some of those proven alternatives that are safer, more economical and effective in the long run.

Strategies that will be working to get people where they're going safely and conveniently, and not just five years, but ten years and even more into the future.

So when we I think it's pretty ironic when we're considering read market and 15th and bond and read market, and we're already considering jumping ahead, let's just go for the full two lanes.

We don't have a policy of widening roundabouts to the full two lanes wherever we can afford it or wherever we think there is land.

I'm grateful for that.

So I just wanted to spend a minute to say what are the other alternatives.

I think the strategies are a lot of them were we're already working on.

I think the things like better transit, better land use strategies so that people don't live so far away from the places they're going to.

Employer-based incentives to encourage shifting those peak hour trips, uh, working with a school district to reduce the two-thirds of school district kids who are driven to and from school.

Um, and yes, making walking and biking safer and more convenient.

We have in our goals a start on things like the pedestrian and bike master plans.

I would say maybe we should consider funding them with a couple million dollars to increase their impact.

Our goals have in them the plans, but we don't have any funding for that.

So I feel like we're not quite doing what the better alternative in the long run would be that yes might take more time, but would be more effective in the long run.

Thank you.

I would just like to counteract that with a little bit with you know the the community survey that the city of Benz took, congestion was far and away, blew every other transportation topic away as the number one issue in our in our community, and this is congestion personified.

And if we can help alleviate that, um, to me, that's doing the right thing.

I'm not disagreeing with that.

I'm saying I think there's a different strategy that we can use that will be more effective in the long run to actually achieve that goal.

Not just let's widen every roundabout that we can where we think there's a hint or potential of congestion.

I mean, that there is real congestion there.

I I get that, I acknowledge that, but I think that I think we owe it to the community to not just spend money in a way that in five years is going to be congested again.

I mean, uh, you know, we think that it's so good that we happen to have built read and 15th to a wider standard ahead of time.

I think that we're just planning for drivers that we don't even have yet.

Let's instead plan for the alternative, which yes, might be harder because it's a longer list and takes time, but that's the proven strategy that works in the long run.

Okay, so we need to come to decision point here, I think on the smaller versus bigger.

Do you have a comment, Mike on where you're at?

Well, I'll get to that in a second.

I think I think part of Councillor Mendez's point when we look through the document that we got from Ryan was that we saw that a lot of stuff related to programmatic implementation of um safety walking and biking stuff was all delayed until the tough um the um three phase three of the tough implemented.

And we did get some money from the state, but hearing some conversations about that, basically that money at this point's not really allocated to those programs.

So I I think just trying to reinforce some of what Councilor Mendez is saying is about how we use resources and how those resources are true to the intentions and visions that we've talked about with the plans.

I think there is a bigger discussion to be had that's not today about that.

How are we gonna actually move forward on the things that we envisioned with phase three of the tough sooner rather than later?

Because I think if we don't do that while we're making these kinds of decisions that I still support because I think their bottlenecks at particular places, um that that really is a problem.

So I just want to emphasize that.

And I don't know how we get that on to sort of like coming forward.

Yeah, I think that's part of the pretty important that we've got the mid-biannual budget conversation because we have that additional transportation money that we didn't budget for.

It's a good segue.

We're gonna be talking about what the budget committee in a few minutes here.

Yeah, I understand.

So on this, then I I mean, are you you're asking for two lanes or the one plus lane?

Uh the ex the slight expansion decision to get and two lanes.

Well, we already decided we are in agreement.

Now it's just a we're just trying to put we're gonna budget.

It's like should we budget for the double or the higher?

Yeah, understanding the double is how much more?

A couple million.

A couple million more.

Okay, so let's just take a poll here.

Who is in favor of continu what we have on the screen here?

This the original smaller version.

You have to pick one and the other.

Oh, I mean, well, what's your what's your recommendation?

So I think this is should be based on modeling.

It shouldn't be based on our feelings.

As much as I like you guys.

Yeah, just real quick, and I know you guys trying to move it.

We did look at how long this one would last.

I recall it was still operating near capacity about 20 years, meaning it's not significantly overbuilt.

Um, if that in that scenario, the the double A, I think the question was if we're going in and modifying this, are we removing walls?

Can we move those lanes to the point that we're getting um a lot more out of that effort?

I think the the answer was it's it's a lot more expensive to do that.

So I think that's the trade-off of do we want to how do we want to balance one option versus the other?

Going back real quick, just one thought on this on this partial one.

I think you know, we the question of 15 to read market comes up because we have this and we're talking about changing it now.

There's some differences here that I think just for the council's uh understanding.

One thing that you'll see that we we're doing now on this that we didn't do then is the through lanes go through, so it functions a little bit better.

You don't have to change lanes as you enter.

Uh, we're trying to minimize the exits to to balance that.

Um, and so I think the function of it will be a lot different than what we're trying to fix at 15th and remarket, which is a kind of a couple issues coming together.

There's geometric and capacity one.

So this is was trying to get to really kind of operating at capacity in 20 years.

I think the other one is looking at a lot of the uncertainty around this of kind of maybe building towards a lot of the growth that's happening with the two lanes in both directions.

So this is a better design than what we currently have at 15th and read.

This is a this is a much more thoughtful design.

Yeah, it's not you know, it's just a there's a lot more logic to kind of how people go through, which hopefully will improve the safety operations and make the vehicles flow a lot better.

Expectancy where drivers in vehicles are is good for everybody walking biking driving through the intersection.

I think this will achieve that better.

And so you can't really tie longevity to the two lanes.

Uh we just because we did we did it more, we we looked at what that would take.

I haven't we haven't done a detailed analysis of where we would be.

Um, certainly there's a big need there.

I'm not I'm not gonna say that this is just gonna solve everything.

I think there's a it has Counselor Mendez pointing out there's a lot of issues happening here.

One of them is getting people through this intersection.

This would certainly achieve that.

Um there's still one lane in, one lane out.

Um, so there's a lot of factors here that I think as as Elizabeth pointed out, we would need to balance those one way or the other.

We're just not to the point where we could tell you the value judgment of one versus the other at this point in time.

I think the question is how much money do we allocate to that down the road?

Yeah.

For me, it's a funding issue.

I don't think we should spend more than we already plan to spend on this.

I think this design will address the congestion, the one that's showed on the screen.

So yeah, sounds like a better design, so for the partial okay.

Okay.

I would be for the the full double.

And the reason is because I think about I mean, I understand that we're the capacity is not necessarily uh justified for this.

Um, but I think it will help the movement through here, congestion being our number one concern, and the day will happen when some natural disaster hits our city.

It will happen.

And on that day, I think we will be happier if we have more capacity here.

So that's and it's a 20% increase in the cost.

So all right.

There's four for the smaller one for the bigger any other bigger votes baker.

Yeah.

Here for the bigger one also.

Well, we're allocating funding.

Yeah, so I would say allocating funding for the bigger, and I mean my preference would be that then how if you allocate for the bigger, we we will still go through all the alternatives and bring it to bring it back and say here's here's the preferred option.

So that the the this is an office more of just looking at the entire CIP and how we balance the funds.

Right.

Right.

I would say if you look at the literature on wildfire evacuation, you don't solve this evacuation problem by moving thousands of people in private vehicles.

It's things like alternate routes, uh using buses, um, other alternatives, but you don't move thousands of people with a private vehicle.

I think it's all of the above approach, and I'd hope we never get there aware that we will.

Right, Councilor Mendes is your vote for the smaller alternative.

Okay.

So we've got five to two in a vote in favor of that.

So there's direction for staff there.

Um again, this will be coming back to council, right?

This isn't a final decision.

So just to be clear, you you're not really we're not taking formal votes in this or we're just getting some general correction so we know what to present to you.

You will still not have bite at the apple, so to speak, in terms of keep looking at this in what you tell.

I mean, it would be interesting to hear a little bit more on the performance of the two options from a capacity perspective.

Yeah, we'll do that again.

This this wasn't even programmed.

Francis's question about what does this do in terms of cascading, especially probably into old mill, those intersections in there and anywhere else just to better understand that, and if one of the two makes a big difference there or not.

Yeah, okay.

So I want to get to the last slide, which has all the questions to make sure we covered them.

Almost there.

We covered Southeast already, so we can see the first time.

This one just shows the schedule changes.

Yeah, so again, just to kind of summarize on the transportation side.

We're moving bond and read to the left, we're moving Broster House Chase to the right.

As of right now, it's a dollar for dollar swap, but we can explore if if the need is there for a couple million more.

One thing is the third and miller intersection.

Uh we actually double programmed that.

So that's part of the Ani project now.

So we don't actually even need that on our transportation CIP.

So that frees up.

That frees up three million dollars in the transportation fund.

So to your point of where would this money come from?

You could you could throw it at bond and read if you want.

We could throw it at Tethero and Century and figure out where that we live in the CIP in the future.

So again, we'll come back to you with concepts of what the mid-biennium five-year transportation CIP could look like, and we can go through the pluses and minuses of that.

Okay, so let's make sure we've answered all the questions.

So we decided on midtown, um, decided on moving up the bond and read uh roundabout.

I think we didn't formally give direction on century and and tether roundabout.

Uh do people generally want to see that happening sooner?

Yes, yes.

Yes, yes for safety on that corridor.

Okay, so and reducing speeds, right?

And looking at a crossing option because people are still gonna unsafely cross there if we have to deal with the crossing.

I think that uh this is step one in a court, yeah, yeah.

The other thing that we didn't really get into yet was just adding the Southern River and Crossing study onto the CIP.

It's not on there right now, it's a near-term project in the TSP.

Um I would assume Ryan, maybe towards the end of the CIP period, it's probably a couple hundred thousand dollars.

But it's a study and not a project.

But as long as everyone's okay just naming that and adding it to the schedule, I think it is important to get that conversation going.

Is that on the bond in the end or no?

It's not on the bond.

This is just an extent.

It didn't make it out of the TSP.

So it'll need to live somewhere in here.

Is there anyone opposed to doing that?

Okay.

So that's good.

Southeast area, um, we covered.

Um we covered, Ani, we covered, I think the only other pro uh next question is um in speaking with staff and thinking about T Bach, something we could do, because we we kind of had to take this on this fall to help staff have enough runway to get ready for the mid-biannium budget and to bring us a package.

Um and T box still has a statute that says they only get to look at the geo-bond side of this.

What I would propose if council is okay with it is maybe tasking T Bach in the next meeting to start thinking about what would their scope need to be so that they could look holistically at our transportation um and give us advice.

And maybe we could even crossing my fingers help them get that scope into a place so that next spring they could actually take a look at this before it comes to us and give us feedback right?

Yeah, T BA.

Yeah.

So I think have staff take this information and let them know what happened here.

And when they say how do we give input, maybe we say, okay, we got to work on your on your underlying statute, and maybe they can they can start to think of how would that need to be changed to give them the role that would be in passion.

Maybe we say, okay, we got to work on your on your underlying statute, and maybe they can they can start to think of how would that need to be changed to give them the role that would be impactful.

So revising their scope via the board.

Which isn't our goals to think about.

So I think I would start with them and say, you tell us what you think about what what kind of things do you think this committee could be expanded to weigh in on as a more general transportation committee.

There's some connectivity there, so if you wanted to broaden your scope, this is an example of how these two different funding sources work together.

Okay, so I'm seeing head nods there.

So let's I think that would be great to have.

Okay.

I'm gonna call to order the meeting of the City of Bend budget committee and we'll begin with roll call and Jerry, if it's okay, we'll just start with you and go around the table.

Jerry Slominsky, he him.

Trevor Campbell.

Jack Peters.

Steve Blackheam.

Megan Norris, she her.

Emily Cortez, she her?

Megan Parkins, she her.

Melanie Keybook, she, her.

Catmaster Angelo, she her.

Ike Riley, he him.

Ariel Amendons, she him.

Gina Franzosa, she her?

Ask me at announcement, she here.

Dan Quick.

Okay.

And with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Samantha and Dan to walk through some of the budget updates since our last budget committee meeting was back in May.

So thank you.

So if you all recall back in May during budget committee, when we had all of our deliberations, we made a commitment to come back with some updates.

We were still waiting to see how some things played out with the state legislature, how the year was gonna end with some revenues, and so this is us uh coming back to give you some updates on those things.

Um mostly informative, there's no action required out of this meeting, but we want to make sure that you all are informed as our budget committee.

Uh so we'll start with a couple budget updates, uh revenue updates, and then Samantha will cover some uh federal federal legislative impacts, some state economic forecast, and then uh Eric will help uh chime in on some steps that we're taking moving forward, uh, some things that the city is doing uh that are pretty budget related.

So uh we'll keep moving forward.

Uh so just as an update on where we're at in the fiscal year, uh so we are currently in fiscal year 2026, uh, but we are still working to close out uh fiscal year 2025.

So that's the year that ended on June 30th.

Uh we are preparing for our financial audit, and so our numbers aren't completely final for the last biennium.

Uh but based on our preliminary balances and our actuals that we've received so far, we can say that uh our ending year fund balance is in line with the projections that we had as part of the proposed and adopted budgets.

Uh so we're on track to f to start the new biennium with a few minor exceptions that are related to timing.

Uh so the way the fiscal years work, sometimes we projected to have things happen, you know, in May and June, but due to construction timing or one instance is uh sale of land that we had projected to occur in in May and June.

Didn't happen until the new fiscal year.

And so it kind of throws off our beginning fund balance a little bit because it's showing up as a revenue in this year instead of in our beginning working capital.

So those are the minor exceptions.

One of the big ones just wanted to highlight is in the general fund.

That land sale up at Juniper Ridge is about four million dollars.

That it looks like a a negative or a lower beginning fund balance, but that's just because that that transaction hadn't closed in time.

So just highlighting that.

Um this happens every year, especially with construction and federal reimbursements.

Um we do track those, and we'll come back to council later this year uh with what we call carry forwards, which basically we're asking for budget adjustments to make the budget reflect what actually happened.

So uh just keep that on your radar that will be coming uh in the next several months.

So moving on to just some revenue updates.

Uh some of the revenues that we kind of hot topics is part of budget development.

Uh wanted to give some some follow-up on development and SCC revenues finished last fiscal year in line with our projections, or even slightly higher.

Uh so that was a positive.

Uh there were uh a couple, well, nearly a month of extra reserves um in the building fund based on that new based on additional revenue coming in.

Uh so that was a positive.

Um based on the first couple months.

We've only closed two months of this fiscal year, uh, July and August.

Those have been higher than July and August of last year, uh, which is positive.

Granted, we took uh fee increases in those funds, but even based on those fee increases, we're we're coming in higher than we had projected.

So that's a positive.

We're gonna continue monitoring that.

Um update, uh, if you'll recall, we did a pretty significant uh recalibration of planning fees uh as part of the the fiscal year change.

The community development department is working on a recalibration effort for private development engineering fees.

Similar, they're trying to more closely align things with cost of service.

Um so that is under process right now.

It probably won't be ready for our mid-fiscal year fee updates.

But just know that that is something that we're working towards, trying to better align those fees.

Another revenue that was a hot topic was room tax.

I just wanted to kind of give you a little bit of a snapshot.

We had projected flat revenue growth, basically we projected this year to be the same as last year through the summer months, just looking at just very targetedly looking at the June, July, and August.

We this this year has been quite a bit better than last year, about 4% higher than we had projected.

So that's that's always a good thing.

We'll continue monitoring that as well as the year progresses.

Also note there were some conversations about some changes to uh the transit ring tax that might come out of the legislature, um, and just closing loop on that.

Nothing happened in the legislative session.

Um again, continuing to monitor that uh for any changes.

The last piece that we wanted to follow up on from a revenue standpoint was the state transportation funding.

Uh the governor called a special session and the state legislature passed uh some supplemental transportation funding uh that is projected to bring in some additional revenue for the city uh in this fiscal year.

We're anticipating about a million dollars more than we budgeted.

And next year it's about 2.4 million dollars more than we budgeted, and then going forward, it fluctuates between 2.3 up to 2.7 million.

Uh so about two and a half million per year more than we're projecting.

Um as this is unbudgeted revenue.

Uh there will be future discussions on kind of how we want to use that, how we want to allocate it, how it gets deployed.

Um so we'll we'll be engaging with council further on that topic in the future.

Uh Dan, those aren't general funds, though, right?

Correct.

They they must be used for transportation.

So it's backfilling streets and operations currently.

Uh and the last piece wanted to mention, we talked a little bit about transit funding during budget committee.

Uh this the special revenue package does include some temporary support for transit, uh, but only through January 1st, 2028.

So it is it's a pretty temporary measure, but it is uh some added dollars there that goes straight to uh in our case would likely be CICT.

Um but uh those are kind of some of the things that we wanted to close the loop on as far as the revenue goes, uh and Sam is gonna talk a little bit about legislative impacts.

Yeah, good evening.

Uh so one of the questions we had quite a bit of discussion about was relation to all of the federal mandates that were coming down at the time we were adopting the budget.

So there was a lot of concern and uncertainty around what that would mean for us in regards to a whole host of things.

The first one was around there was a lot of talk at that time about uh tax exempt bonds, which the city utilizes quite frequently, as you see in our geobonds, our full faith and credit bonds, those kind of things.

It's a it's a wonderful tool that public entities use.

It wasn't uh in jeopardy at the time of budget adoption.

There was quite a bit of discussion, it was included on a list as something that would potentially no longer be allowed.

Uh, but that actually was cut off of that list, so those are still available to us and not no longer part of the conversation at this time that we're hearing.

So that's really good news for us as we look to uh issue the rest of our geobonds and and other things that we have going on.

The next one was around the tariff impacts and what would we anticipate to see, especially around some of our really big projects and what would be subject to tariffs.

So, you know, anything from cement to metal to steel to whatever that might be.

I can tell you right now we have had a few um smaller requests come in related to uh invoices where they've asked for additional um costs to be paid directly related to tariffs.

They've been minor, um those that have come in.

We've asked for additional backup to validate that it is you know sincerely tied to that particular thing for auditing purposes, because we know our auditors might uh pull that invoice and be something to look at.

Um, but we're not seeing a significant impact yet.

However, I would say everything that I'm seeing in my financial uh work with the GFOA and different things, this is starting to ramp up when I talk to other contemporaries doing similar work.

That they're starting to see more like we are.

We're starting to hear more conversation, more feedback from it.

So, more to report, I think, as we go through this year.

There were more tariffs that were applied October 1st.

Um, so again, not a huge impact at this time, um, but certainly would be something we'd be bringing to council as we and it's something we are including in our RFPs and invitation to bids and things like that to make sure that we are calling these things out.

The next thing that has come to pass is the big beautiful bill.

So that is you know, obviously federal legislation legislation, but the Oregon state economy is tied directly to many of those initiatives at the federal level.

The first one being the state revenue and how that is tied to the income tax calculation for the federal level.

So that has resulted in, we're going to talk a little bit more, but it basically a revised revenue forecast for the state of Oregon.

So that makes those decisions within the state of Oregon a little harder because they don't have available resources to pay for their initiatives.

The other things that are being reduced that are they are federally funded predominantly, but they are programs that are held and mandated coordinated by the state of Oregon.

Where I think this is impactful on these items is the fact that although they may not be direct to us as a as uh as an entity at this time, they are very much going to be impactful to our community, which then could trickle down to being impacts to the city itself.

So the first one is around the Oregon Health Plan.

They have or formally called welfare way back in the day, but it's Oregon Health Plan, is what we know here in the state of Oregon.

This is significantly funded by the federal government.

There are new requirements for how people are mandated to reapply and re-qualify on regular intervals for this program.

The most recent estimate from the governor's office estimated that close to 100 to 200,000 current members may lose their coverage under the Oregon Health Plan in the state of Oregon.

Where that becomes even more of an issue is when folks show up to the emergency rooms because they have an urgent issue, they need to be seen.

But they hospitals will have no recourse or no opportunity to be paid for those services that they're providing.

And healthcare is one of the biggest employers in in the state of Oregon.

So that has some significant impacts.

SNAP or supplemental nutrition assistance program, you hear a lot about this in regards to or what they should call food stamps with the trail cards for folks to buy food.

It also supports kids and free lunch programs, those kind of things.

This program, they have uh shifted quite a bit of cost to the state of Oregon to facilitate this program.

Used to be that it was about now the state has a 15% of the benefits that are paid out, the state has to pay.

Um, that was formally 100% paid by the feds.

So we have that additional cost.

They've also changed the administrative cost.

Used to be that the state, the feds covered 50%, state covered 50%, they've now shifted that to the state now has to pay 75%.

So again, another impact to the state budget and what the state has to decide what they want to do.

Um, there are federal road projects.

Um, there's about 450 million dollars worth of grants that were supposed to come to the state of Oregon to fund multiple projects.

Predominantly these are uh what they're referencing specifically are on the west side of the mountain, not here, but again, gets to that overall decision making that the state has to make because they will no longer have this funding available to them for their priority projects.

Same thing with the state library and Oregon Department of Forestry.

There's um I have my number, I'm trying to remember exactly what the number was, but there's uh several million dollars in that program as well, uh, federal grants that are not going to be coming to the state library and organ Department of Forestry, where this is important.

Then the Oregon Department of Forestry is also what uh says wild wildfire response.

So if they're not getting these grants in order to from the feds, um that's going to impact obviously their ability.

Same thing with state library.

They they maintain a lot of major databases that people utilize, they provide a lot of support to local jurisdictions and cities, um, and and that will they'll be not have that revenue available to provide the level of service they're currently providing.

So all of those are what I would say, um, although not specific to us, something we are watching and monitoring to see if if we begin to fill those effects directly here at the city.

Um, in regards to city grants or programs that are federally funded.

So we did talk quite a bit about this as well.

So one of them is what we we refer to as CDBG, that is the community development block grants.

This is a program been around for a very long time.

It's um administered by HUD at the federal level.

We have secured funding for fiscal year 26, so we're feeling okay about that.

Uh, fiscal year 27, we do not yet.

Um, where the concern in this comes is we do have a contract that we have that it has language that we have authority to not to certain things that we are not going, we don't have to comply with that is included in that in that contract.

Should those things change, there's some challenges if the city would be able to comply with the terms of some of these contracts.

So we're working with our legal team very closely as we as we work through those challenges that are coming again.

Those are things as you've all seen in the news, can change quickly and we can be unaware.

Pro housing, uh that one is a grant that we already have contracts signed.

We have previously submitted for reimbursements, been reimbursed, not a problem.

However, our most recent reimbursement was approved, but when it came to the final disposition of funds, they uh sent it back for a very minor, what they deemed as an error.

Um it didn't have an email address on it.

However, it that's not a reason that they can deny it, but because of the current federal furlough, we're not able to contact anyone to get that addressed quickly.

We're not anticipating there being an issue in getting the funds, it's just one of those hiccups that that sometimes in the processing, we're starting to see some challenges.

Let me talk about the bigger projects.

So you hear a lot about the Hawthorn uh footbridge, we talked about the air traffic control tower, um, those kind of projects at this point, as far as we know, those are still moving forward.

Um, we still have agreements that are moving forward, we're in the design phases.

We are still being very cautious as we enter you consider entering construction phases to make sure that we're not going to run afoul of initiating a project that's suddenly in construction, we're no longer gonna get funding for.

So, but at this point, no negative news, everything is moving forward at this time.

Okay, state budget.

So here's just basically a whole lot of uh headlines that you've all seen probably in the newspaper.

So I I think you know, the state budget forecast has been revised three times in the last three to four months.

Um currently, because of what we talked earlier about in regards to the revenue being tied to the federal situation, there's about an 888 million dollar general fund revenue projection reduction that is hitting the state.

So that's pretty significant.

Um couple that with the fact that we're starting to see our unemployment rate across the state is slightly increasing.

I think the last number I saw, I think last month was about 5%.

Um so those those things are starting to be kind of on the notice of the Oregon uh economist.

So there's a quote there from Oregon Chief Economist Carl.

Um not even trying to say last name.

Thank you.

Um basically he's he is concerned that what they call what that we are on the verge of or in a growth recession.

So basically where that what he's saying is that a modest economic growth is not enough to hold off the the impacts of rising unemployment and other factors, so these federal factors that are trickling down to us that we don't necessarily control.

Um they're concerned that we roughly have 25% chance of slipping into a full-on recession within the state of Oregon.

So again, these are as we as we make decisions become something we're just mindful of.

Again, these are I'm not raising any kind of uh huge red flags to say we're in jeopardy.

We are not.

We're still you know holding strong, moving moving forward, things are still positive.

It's just I think it's something we need to be mindful of and take into consideration, and we we continue to watch those revenues every time they as we talk about development revenues and we're waiting for our property tax estimates to come in.

Um, those are things that are just on our radar so that we can be vigilant and be ready to pivot quickly if we see warning signs coming.

Okay, I we're gonna turn this over to Eric in just a second in regards to the moving forward.

My last thing for me in regards to what we are currently working on right now in the city from the finance department, is in regards to our 2020, our geo bond, so the transportation bond.

There is a requirement within those bonds in order for them to remain tax exempt that you have to spend 85% of the funds three years from the date of issuance.

So historically that's not been a problem.

We we've been able to do that that pretty efficiently.

Um we continue to do that.

However, uh the 2024 bonds, we do have something that we're watching.

Um we issued 65 million dollars, so 85% is 55 million has to go out the door by uh June of 2027.

Of that 55, we have 47 million remaining to spend.

So 47 million in two years is what we have to get out the door.

We can I'm gonna be optimistic, we're gonna do it.

Um, so we're working really closely as a as a team within all the teams within the city.

We're working with engineering and working with procurement.

Um, we're working with everybody that we can in order to get um in the council to get these projects moving and out the door.

Um, there was a you know intent to try and get um most of our projects completed by 2030, um, and the last repayment on those bonds to be in 2050.

So we're we're keep gonna push just to try and meet that.

I don't know that we'll actually gonna meet 2030 right on the dot that we're hoping to be at least pretty close.

Um, so we're kind of in in that which is a good segue, and I'll just wrap this up and then we'll ask uh to see or see if you have all have questions on any of the information we shared.

So on the moving forward, I'm gonna skip to the CIP prioritization and get back to economic development based on what Samantha just said.

So you some of you were around for the work session earlier where we were talking about the transportation CIP.

A big piece of that is all of the uncertainty around the grant.

So we have a 20 million dollar Hawthorne Crossing grant and then a 30 million dollar uh read market grant.

Those are seemingly fine, and we're proceeding with them.

Um however, when we issued that debt for the GO bond, that was prior to us receiving that 30 million dollar uh award from the so we're needing to figure out how to make sure that that schedule keeps moving, we're spending uh and getting the geo bond uh projects out the door.

And so that part of that prioritization exercise you might have uh heard uh prior to this is just part of that, making sure that we're we're getting council direction at that high level so we can keep things moving.

Um so that's that item.

Economic development, uh this was a big part of our council goal process where we have a standalone goal around economic development.

We're as Katie Brooks, who we've hired uh from the Ben Chamber to lead our economic development efforts says, we're really grabbing the steering wheel and driving our economic development destiny instead of just contracting with EdCO and our regional partners to do that work, we're really um taking more of that work on to be intentional and to really look at our strategic use of urban renewal funds, our partnership contracts like Edco, workforce development, um, small business support, uh, entrepreneurial support, some things that we have been doing, but just doing more of that.

That is kind of our bread and butter here in Bend.

We have a lot of really um small businesses that are on the on uh that have the potential to grow, and so how do we support that as an organization and not just focus on those large traded sector jobs, but also kind of the um you know those those smaller businesses here in Bend that are so important to our livelihood.

I think this is what we're doing this strategically with all this economic uncertainty.

What can we control at the local level?

Um so this invest Bend plan that we've been building.

There's a lot of outreach that has been taking place.

You've probably been seeing focus groups, et cetera.

Um, we intend to have that plan before council by the end of the year to really detail out kind of our strategy, including how we're spending those resources with our contract partners, um, what things we're gonna be doing more in-house, how we're using urban renewal funds, all of that will be coming to council here soon.

And then lastly, the home committee.

Uh so that was uh with housing being such a focus, the number one focus in our community survey.

Transportation housing are always there at the top.

Housing is uh been number one, affordable housing.

So, how do we keep doing more of getting we have some aggressive goals around about 3,900 housing permits that we're wanting to see uh uh permitted or complete over the next two years?

Um, how do we uh look at our incentives and subsidies to uh to do more of that?

So we're we've asked council as asked the home committee that is a diverse group of uh folks uh steeped in sort of in the world of housing development to look at uh uh revolving loan funds, um infrastructure uh bank, as well as a credit enhancement tool as incentive packages to to bring some recommendations to council by the end of this year.

We're also having them evaluate our site-specific TIFF, so that's tax increment use of tax recruitment financing.

We've awarded uh quite a few projects that are producing that have the potential produce upwards of 1,500 or so housing units, two to three hundred.

I might not have these numbers in front of me, are deed restricted affordable at the 90 percent level as a res a way of taking revenue property tax revenue that's generated from that new growth and reinvesting it in that property to make that project pencil and to make those housing units available.

We've approved a package, we are pausing that current currently, and we'll be reviewing uh the future of that project uh program through the home committee.

We're also looking at state programs like a um uh revolving loan fund as well as tax incentive programs, the use of tax incentive programs in general.

So all of that is being in fact they have a pretty robust uh meeting.

Uh they had one last week, we have another one coming up, and then some recommendations coming to council in December, uh, and then they're gonna continue on and have final recommendations this spring.

So that's just some just some information about how we're moving forward.

Um that's that's the conclusion of our information.

We want to pause and see what kind of questions you might have.

Um anything that we might have missed that you're curious about where things stand with the budget.

Yeah, okay.

Jerry.

Um I have somewhat of a process question, and it involves your sites with specific TIFs.

Um, as the budget committee, I don't recall reviewing the expenditures that I'm reading about.

And I realize that we're talking about future expenditures, in other words, reduction in revenues, not expenditures of an existing budget.

So is what is the budget committee's relationship to that process?

What should be the budget committee's relationship to that process?

Because you're making significant decisions of future revenue uh that is not in at all being reviewed by by the budget committee, and maybe that's the way it should be.

I I don't know, but I just was when I see these headlines.

I think, well, that's money that's not going to be there.

Uh, and I understand the concept, and I don't know how it hits our budget.

Sure.

Santa, do you want to address that?

Yeah, so when we the the budget committee's role is to uh you you have you review the budget every two years as proposed proposed for that two-year upcoming window.

So those future decisions are the decisions that will come as part of that budget process.

So there's not a direct role for the budget committee in regards to the council's decisions and in relation to the the transfer to those those tiny TIFFs that that is structured by by state law.

So I think you know, certainly I think the input would probably be valued, um, just like it would any value uh of input would be to the council if there's a concern or you wanted to get more information on that, but there's not a direct um meeting schedule or or or role for that, other than when we get there and we're projecting and we're explaining here's where um the bend urban renewal is for this core area or this tiny TIFF, here's where the revenue is, here's where we're here's what we're we're looking at at that time.

Can I can I follow this?

Is it significant?

I mean, if we're looking three years from now, uh and you make up a budget number, but when it comes three years from now, it's going to be five million dollars less revenue due to the TIFFs or ten million dollars less revenue, so it actually becomes a significant part of the budget, but it just disappears and it's not being reviewed.

So, what happens when we go forward is the so right now when these decisions are made, our um folks in real estate and the folks that manage our urban renewal, they run uh projection models that go out multiple years, and so they're running those models and those systems to look at if we if we did nothing, if we if the the property sat vacant, what would be the revenue stream off of that if it sat vacant versus what would it be if we do whatever the program that's being initiated for that core for that area for that tiny tip?

So it's not it's a it is an investment in the area because there's the intent, there's also the anticipation that there's gonna be additional revenues that are gonna come in as a relation to that.

So I think we can have you know, if you're interested in learning more, like a kind of how how we how we work and how we plan and how we make those decisions around uh whether we recommend a tiny TIFF or we recommend some kind of these these programs and the analysis that goes in behind it to show why that is that is a true investment and not just a um loss of revenue.

I'd be happy to set that up.

Kind of follow-up on that.

So um maybe another way to ask what Jerry's kind of getting at, I think, is um you know, when you're projecting future revenue, you are you assuming some amount of uh growth in you know development, you know, to growth in tax revenue due to development.

Right.

So as these as these initiatives come up, we adjust those models every time one of these comes up.

So when we're when we're looking at something happening within a the, for example, like within the core area, we have a we have a budget for the urban and urban renewal core area, and we look at what what is the revenue that's coming in, and if we do this program, what does that then do to that long-term model if we do this and it's got this tax abatement versus if it didn't have that tax abatement?

And then we make a recommendation based on all of that uh financial information on that.

So we do make sure that we it it works and that it's to the benefit of the city to to recommend that as a recommendation.

So yes, we do.

But I would say it's it's not perceived as it's not budgeted as a as a revenue loss, it's a budgeted as this is uh what the revenue will be when we get to that time.

What are we able to do with that?

Does it fit within the grand or scope of what our initiatives and intent for that area are?

Okay, we're at time, but I don't want to close down if anybody else has another question.

One quick one, probably.

For the purpose of the 85%, yeah.

What does it spend mean by that definition?

Is it mean encumbered?

We have to I have D.

It actually means you actually have to have it expended.

Okay.

You you have to have written a check.

Okay.

And then what would the outcome be of losing the tax uh exemption?

Would it mean our bond rating would be degraded in the future?

There are some potential negative impacts, absolutely.

So there's definitely the potential of that.

Um the bonds that have not been utilized, so the bondholders for the remaining funds could call their bonds.

Um, so it would could demand immediate payment.

Um, we could be fined because we'd be out of compliance.

Uh could impact our bond rating for sure, if any of those two because we have to release that onto the Emma website, which is where we have to disclose any uh changes within our organization or anything of what they call materiality, um, and that would be uh a material type thing.

So yes, it would have the potential for sure potential to impact.

So let's not do that, is what you're saying.

Yeah, it might be as avoided.

Just want to make sure I'm clear on that.

Yeah, right.

That's your recommendation.

That's good.

I mean, I'm okay.

I'm I would like to see uh a little bit clearer.

I mean, I we know this question too ahead of time.

I mean, as I look at the the geobond schedule here, knowing the projects that are we know are either not happening or getting pushed off.

I would like to know how we're gonna get that meet that deadline a little bit a little bit more specificity because this doesn't so we have a like a plan A and a plan B, and so I think that part of our developing the plan is relates back to the direction we needed from council tonight, so that we can put that final touches on the plan and deliver that to you.

Okay, okay.

But we don't have a vote, correct?

Well, the budget the budget committee, you know, is monitoring the budget from a high level perspective.

But yeah, so in terms of um, yeah, there's no formal role for you to adopt that other than if there's changes to the CIP or change there's some callers of that 10% per fundamental that we need to stay within.

So if we're going over that, then we would call the budget committee back together.

And that's the plan for the mid-biannium.

All of that was put in the budget.

Well, so all of the the CIP spend is in the already in the budget, so there's nothing sort of new, it's just order it's which projects go where.

So that we've we've presented a plan, the spend plan that was part of the biennial budget.

Now we're just putting the finer touches on touches on it about what comes first, and we want to move some things around.

So that's good.

I I have a question about um uh homelessness and the TSSA funding for the TSSA.

I have this vague recollection of reading a footnote somewhere that the um additional $500,000 that is estimated to be needed to maintain um the TSSA through the end of 2026 is gonna come out of reserves.

It's the Juniper Ridge land sales.

There's um now ten million of Juniper Ridge land sales that is remaining.

So any cleanup funds or anything related to the TSSA outside of the homeless services grant, which is that 1.3 million, that's funded through ARPA, but all the other cleanup costs are funded through those uh funds that are in the bridge land sales.

Okay, and that's urban, that's urban and juniper.

Um I mean it's the urban renewal area land.

It's an urban renewal area, but the the any proceeds from land that's sold at Juniper Ridge because the city owns that land, the city receives the proceeds and that goes into the general fund.

It's not it doesn't go into the revenue fund just to clarify.

That does seem I mean it does seem like a budget change kind of, right?

That maybe the committee or did council does council vote on changes like that.

I mean the use of reserves.

Yeah, yes, anything that comes out of contingency reserves does require an act of the council.

It's a supplemental budget.

We we had already planned though as part of the budget.

We had planned it, it was already in the budget to draw down a small portion of that for those cleanup costs.

Yes.

That was in the budget.

We were as Matt mentioned, we COIC was able to reimburse us for some for some funds, so we were able to kind of swap some things out.

Um so some of these additional costs um were able to stay within our budget because we got some help from COIC.

Okay, okay.

Um the other uh the other item I just wanted to bring up is that you know, we had our joint meeting with the commission, county commission, you know, last was it just last week and then our time was two weeks running together.

Um and it, you know, we've asked for options um to uh transition to help to transition out of the TSSA because there was not really a plan for that, you know, and that's gonna have dollars associated with it.

Um and so I'm I'm curious, you know, when and what the process will be, at least for the benefit of the budget committee here too, to kind of talk about how you know how that gets paid for.

Yeah, so I think uh is one of the follow-up items from that joint meeting was you know, we we are using ARPA funds, we have the TSSA open until the end of 2026.

Um but I think there's this desire what if we can really shrink that area, we want to continue to provide services, what does that look like?

Or provide alternative places for for folks to go if we were to develop more managed camps, um more safe parking.

We have some additional safe parking that we've built into our budget.

We have a goal of 50 safe parking spots.

We're in the process of moving towards that.

But if there's other solutions that are going to require funding, that will be a count that will be a discussion with council how we're gonna fund that.

Are we gonna look at one-time resources?

Are we gonna try to apply for grants?

Are we gonna look at a revenue source?

I think the home committee, as it's looking at options for revenue, particularly if as they look at a rev uh credit enhancement tool to sort of support the use of the city's uh um credit.

Is there a revenue attached to that?

Is some of that revenue could be used for that, some of the revenue might be for longer term solutions.

Those are all conversations that we'll have with council.

I think we would we would like to develop a plan to present to council prior to the next joint meeting, which we committed to in January.

So we're gonna have some discussion here in the next couple of months as to what's the what is the end of 2026 look like and what kind of resources are needed to support that, and we'll present as best we can some options, but that that's another stress on the budget because we didn't that's not something that we have planned for.

We do have some one-time resources we can talk about, but this is part of that ongoing conversation of we have limits with our general fund.

This is really where we're gonna have to sort of make some tough choices about levels of service and how we're gonna support that moving forward.

Because the state did pass a uh shelter package.

So I think one we've one thing we didn't really go into.

That was one of the good news from the legislative session.

We we did see that it did reduce slightly, everything was like a six percent reduction from what the recommendation from the work group was, but essentially all the shelters that have the city has cropped up with one time resources, ARPA dollars, etc.

Will continue to operate in pretty much the same fashion, but there isn't additional money that the state allocated to say here's more money for more things.

That just isn't there.

So yeah.

Okay.

Well, we have gone over.

Um so if there are any more questions, I will entertain a motion to adjourn.

I move we adjourn.

Second, all right.

Okay, okay, everybody for coming.

Sorry for going long.

That's okay.