So we will call our Ben City Council Business Meeting to order and we will start with a roll call.

Uh start on your end, Councilor Francosa.

Gina Franzosa, she, her.

Ariel Mendez, he him.

Megan Perkins, she her.

Megan Norris, she her.

Steve Platt, he him.

And Councilor Riley is excused tonight.

So we are going to go right into good of the order.

And first up, we have a proclamation for the 250th anniversary of the United States Post Office.

Councillor Platt.

Great, thank you very much.

It's my honor uh to present this proclamation.

Um representing the uh union and the postal workers that do great work for us.

Um I'll start off by reading the proclamation, and then we'll have uh a couple of words from some folks here with us tonight.

So, whereas the 2025 is the year of the 250th anniversary of the creation of the United States Post Office, the predecessor of the modern postal service, one year earlier than the founding of the country itself and later enshrined in the Constitution, and the Postal Services played a significant role in historic development of the country from the establishment of roads and railways and airlines and a vital part of the fabric binding together the people of the country, and the universal service obligation in current law enables the population to receive equal and affordable services no matter who we are or where we live in a democratic right of the people, and the U.S.

Postal Service serves 169 million addresses, six and sometimes seven days a week, and the U.S.

Postal Service does not receive taxpayer money but rather runs on its own revenue created by postage and postal products, and due to its public mission, the postal service is the low-cost anchor of the 1.3 trillion dollar mailing and package industry, which supports 7 million jobs across the country, and the postal service is an important source of good union living wage jobs with fair hiring practices and equal pay for equal work for workers from all levels of society, and is one of the largest employers of veterans, and any effort to privatize privatize the USPS in whole or in part would undermine the very public mission of the Postal Service and the Universal Service mandate and the dedicated work of hundreds of thousands of public servants.

And while communication habits are always changing, the USPS stays a vital source of communications, the exchange of ideas, financial transactions, private and secure correspondence, mail order medications, mail-in voting, and e-commerce packages, and a host of opportunities for new and expanded services.

And the United States Postal Service is owned by the people and is a wonderful trend uh national treasure encapsulating the best of government of, by, and for the people.

And therefore, be it resolved that the Benn City Council supports the public mission of the United States Postal Service contained in the 1970 Postal Right Reorganization Act, which says the United States Postal Service shall be operated as a basic and fundamental service provided to the people by the government of the United States, authorized by the Constitution, created by Act of Congress, and supported by the people.

The Postal Service shall have its basic function, the obligation to bind the nation together, and appreciates the role of the U.S.

Postal Service on its 250th anniversary.

We salute the diligent postal workers from all levels of society who serve the people and business community and support a robust and thriving public service for generations to come.

Thank you.

All right, move by Council Perkins, second to Councilor Norris.

All those in favor?

Aye.

All right.

All right, ready.

Yes, we have Linda O'Donnell here, who's representing the uh the American Postal Workers Union Greater Oregon Area, Local 555, an Auxiliary Oregon Postal Workers Union, as well as Jesse Soto here with the American Postal Union's Great Union Greater Oregon Area Local 555.

Please.

Welcome.

A milestone that reflects not only our national heritage, but also the vital role the USPS plays in our local communities.

In our city, the postal service is more than just mail delivery.

It's a cornerstone of connectivity that supports our residents, businesses, and civic life.

From the dedicated postal workers from maintenance, building clerks, letter carriers, all of them, all of the postal workers who ensure timely sorting and delivery of essential communications and packages to the services that help small businesses thrive.

The USPS is woven into the fabric of our daily lives.

As we celebrate this 250th anniversary, let us acknowledge the commitment of postal employees here in our city who work tirelessly to serve every neighborhood, ensuring that everyone stays connected, informed, and supported.

This proclamation honors not only a historic institution, but also the people behind it, past and present, who embody public service and community dedication.

Together, we reaffirm our support for the Postal Service, and it's ensuring enduring mission to connect our city and the union.

Anything else?

I can't say any any better than Linda just did.

So I will just say, as the president of the local, uh, I'd like to extend my uh gratitude to the council members and the mayor for your guys' voice of support for our membership here in Bend and across Central Oregon and Eastern Oregon as we continue on our mission to serve the communities and the population's uh need for our services.

So thank you all for uh considering this resolution and for your continued support going forward in the future.

Thank you.

Thank you for all your work to bring us our mail and our ballots and our medications and all sorts of important things that we received for the Postal Service.

So we really appreciate all that you do.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And Steve's got some provocations for you.

All right, so one thing.

Thank you very much.

Okay, ready?

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thanks a lot.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right.

Um, so next we have a recognition of one of the city employees.

Yes, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to recognize a really important milestone for the city of Bend uh as of Monday this week.

All of the staff that have been planned to move into public our new public works campus have are there officially.

We had a very big celebratory moment with our employee town hall meeting yesterday.

And I really want to take a moment to recognize Joe Wells.

Uh Joe was our city staff that represented us as the owner's rep for the project, really leading us through both the design and construction of a magnificent facility.

I know some of you are have planned or have recently gone up to tour it.

Really encourage you to do so.

And I really want to recognize Joe more than just delivering a project on time and under budget, but really creating a culture and helping us as an organization really bring together and reflect what I think we've got some really talented folks here at the city of Bend, and we finally have a facility that is really built around our needs and uh and more than just our functional needs, but really creating an inclusive, welcoming space for our employees and really allowing them to do their best work.

And so when you look at the facility, when you go tour the facility, you'll you really see the attention paid to the collaborative spaces, the thought behind just the building materials.

It's a sustainable building, it's a net zero building.

We're really proud of that.

Um the the fact that we can just deliver our services more efficiently, the how we are storing our vehicles to how we are um uh servicing those vehicles as well.

And it's just it's remarkable.

And it was really Joe's leadership and her consistency and not just um her expertise in design, but it was really her uh consistency and and and change management and creating a new vision for how we were going to you know enter into a modern, we haven't built a facility in a while, and so she really uh was instrumental in just keeping steady.

And I think we all, as we're in the facility, we're like, you were right, Joe, you were right.

You really uh um helped challenge us and uh uh really inspired us as to a new way of of working, and I'm just so grateful for your leadership and just wanted to take a moment to recognize you.

Thank you so much.

Um Joe, if there's anything you wanted to say, I just want to say thank you so you can be.

I just want to say thank you to all the staff that have contributed.

It was a team effort on so many uh different people's uh plates, and people have dedicated hours and hours and lots of ideas and thoughts, and the success really is the lift of many people here in this room at the campus and for our team as well, the project team.

So it is the largest uh capital project ever for the city too.

So I just also wanted to recognize that milestone too.

So thank you again for your leadership.

Thank you, Joe.

All right.

Um, so that will bring us over to Council Action and Reports.

There was one letter that came up this week that I sent out um today.

If folks had a chance to just take a look at it, and it came through um an email from the US Council of Mayors and talking to staff about what is it that we're most worried about right now going on in the federal government with housing and homelessness, and there's a change in how HUD is doing some funding.

Um the bottom line being making it much harder to get funding for household services and particularly moving away from permanent supportive housing and permanent supportive shelter, which is something we know we just need more of.

So the the letter is just to make sure we're raising this to our federal delegation um and partnering with some uh community groups that are also asking for advocacy.

So just want to make sure that everyone was okay with that.

Okay, yes.

We'll get that get that letter out.

Um, we don't have any appointments right now.

We're doing interviews for lots of different committees that some of you may have been participating on, and we're anticipating, I think, December, one of the December meetings to kind of wrap up all those appointments at the same time.

Um, and so then we'll go to council reports, Councillor Francosa.

Right on.

Um in the past two weeks I attended the um COACT meeting, which is the Central Oregon um organizing group for transportation, so it's our tri-county group.

Um, and uh it was largely informational, but we will be starting at the beginning of the year um to identify priorities to convey to the um transportation commission um what our priorities are for Central Oregon for their very limited capital funding.

Um it'll largely come from um data that ODOT already has and sort of projects they've already identified, um, but I'll share with you what comes up and we'll try to give some input if we can.

I attended the River West annual meeting, um, which was really well attended.

Um, they've got some new volunteers on board, and that that was great.

That went really well.

Melissa Steele, of course, captivated everyone.

She's our new deputy fire chief for wildfire resilience, captivated everyone for what they can do to protect their homes in 10 minutes, which is amazing.

Um, and uh Toby Marks handled some um the joyful topic of parking management very well.

Um, I also got to tour the Mazama um geothermal energy facility on Newberry Crater, which was epic, like truly true, truly epic.

Um, a lot of challenges to get that project going, but it could be 200 megawatts of clean energy at a base load, not at a variable load, which solar and wind are, which is which it would be really amazing for our for our state.

Um, and finally, uh thanks to uh fellow council approval, I got to attend the community renewable energy association annual meeting on Tuesday.

That was just yesterday.

Time is flying.

Um, and I think there will be more to come of this.

Um, Korea is uh typically it's an organization that historically has been led by counties um and cities have not been very involved, but with some recent news related to Pacific Powers potential um bankruptcy um as well as some service issues that Bend is experiencing as well as other communities in the state.

Um, there's an interest in kind of coordinating public jurisdictions to look at how we can be prepared to deal with um PAC's evolution in in the coming years.

So there will be a their next um meeting.

These meetings are open to the public because it's a quasi-public agency.

Um, so I can I'll let council and our staff who are working on climate know.

Um, and it may be something that folks want to attend to kind of follow.

All right, so thank you.

Council Mendes.

Uh thank you.

Well, uh November 7th, we had our local celebration of Dia de Muertos.

So it was a wonderful mixing of uh Mexican culture.

It's a holiday that was open to everyone, and it was it was a pretty fun event, very crowded downtown.

Um that was a lot of fun.

I also attended two neighborhood district meetings, and I just wanted to take a moment to express my appreciation to the boards that organize a lot of these neighborhood district meetings.

It is a lot of work, but hopefully it pays off.

If you're not involved with your neighborhood district, there's probably a pretty good opportunity for you to get involved.

So I encourage you to reach out to your local neighborhood district.

Every neighborhood in the city has a neighborhood district.

Some are more active than others, so some might need more help than others.

But that were they were both very good meetings.

November 11th was the Veterans Day Parade, and it's it's just it's a lot of fun to see so many people come out to recognize the service that our veterans have provided, and it's just it's a very it's a it was a great event.

Uh I also attended the tour of the Mazama Energy facility.

Um it's it's pretty impressive.

There's a lot of technical hurdles, there's a lot of regulatory hurdles, um, but it's it's very promising.

It's pretty exciting.

So it'd be exciting to see where that goes.

Uh November 16th, Sunday was the World Day of Remembrance for Victims of Traffic Violence.

Uh, we had an event here in Bend.

An average of four people die on our roads here in Bend every year.

Zero is our council's goal.

Zero is possible.

So how do we get to save those four people every year next year?

We have another opportunity.

Um we will be hearing updates on the transportation safety action plan, and we'll be having opportunities to consider funding safety priorities.

We hear from this, we hear on the on this issue from residents a lot.

Um so look look for those opportunities.

Uh and then finally, Monday, I had my third uh informal lunch with committee members.

Uh I had uh committee members from the Transportation Bond Oversight Committee and the City of Bend Accessibility Advisory Committee join me at just an informal lunch.

This is the third one that I've been able to do, and I really encourage everyone to do it if you have time.

It's it's a great way to get to know the committee members who are serving on these committees that that we serve as liaisons to.

It's hard to get to know people in a public meeting setting.

So it's it's really nice to hear, you know, what are you hoping to actually uh achieve through your service and things like that.

So that's it.

Thank you.

Great, thanks.

Council Bergens.

Um bunch of things.

Uh, was able to attend um with Mike, the sustainability fund tour for visit bend, and we got to see um the really cool children's garden in at the High Desert Museum and then Miller's Landing, and which is really an incredible, incredible feat that we're that um you know use so many partners in our community to build something that is accessible not for not just for people that that have disabilities but also for children to be able to learn about how rivers work.

Um and as we were there in the middle of this on this cold day, someone jumped into the water without a wetsuit and just started swimming, which um amazed me.

Um and it was very bent, and they were swimming around.

Um also uh Russ and I tag team the Southwest Bend neighborhood district meeting, um, very well attended.

I think there was probably like 50-ish people there.

Um, lots of questions about fire and growth and and um congestion.

Um that was it was really good to see that that neighborhood district really starting to take off and want to be more involved, and um they have some really great um stuff coming up for their future meetings.

Um also was able to tour uh BMS technologies, and for those of you who don't know, that's one of the one of the sort of anchor points of Juniper Ridge.

They've been around forever.

Um and are really doing some really new innovative things in our in our community now, not just not just what we know them for, which was sort of the mailing stuff.

Now they're um providing they have software services for um for garbage haulers and and they're just trying you know, all different, they're doing all different things there, and it's really great to see this this company that's been here for so long, um, and how invested they are in their employees as well.

Um they the top dogs knew the name of every single person there and everything about them, and I always I always love to see that.

Um I was able to tour the public works campus on Friday.

It blew me away.

Um, it blew me away, and I think Joe is a is a hero.

I don't know how she did it.

Um, and um it's such a great environment, and and um I um you're all gonna really enjoy your time seeing that.

Um I also spoke with a group of second graders at Seven Peaks who wrote letters in about items that they were um concerned about.

They are all very concerned about homeless people, especially this winter and want to make sure that we're doing everything we can to get to make sure that people have enough to eat, especially homeless people that have animals.

So that's another kind of thing.

So that was really fun.

What I wanted to focus most on is um we had our coordinated houses response office board meeting on Monday.

We have a um uh uh amount of money that we have decided because of all of the cuts that we're hearing.

We were getting a lot of service providers coming into um the Crow meetings and saying, you know, can you please give us some money for X, Y, or Z.

Everybody's had I mean, the amount of cuts that we're seeing, particularly with homeless the in, you know, people who work with the homeless right now, it's it's it's really extreme.

And so we decided um to take this pool of money and to do an RFP for small emergent needs that that people have um in the community right now.

Um, and we hope to get this done by January.

Um so just to if you know of anybody, you're um it this is a this is the idea is that a service barrier could something between like five and and you know 45,000 dollars that you might need just to kind of help you get through some of these cuts that we're seeing now.

Um, and um how you could also leverage that to to get something more out of that.

So that's it's it's something small, but it's something that we did decide to do.

Um, but I wanted to share, we talked a lot about the the holiday next week, and just wanted to share for those of you who are interested.

Um, Family Kitchen is doing a Thanksgiving meal from two to five.

Um and Shepherd's House at the NAV Center is the navigation center.

Um, they are doing their meal on Wednesday from 12 to 3.

They need money, they need um food, and um usually they're pretty good with volunteers, but but um they they said they'll welcome anyone to be there, and they expect to feed about 200 people.

Um in Redmond, they're doing that meal from five to seven on Wednesday.

Um and Jericho Tape Table also was there to talk about the they they expect to to feed um many, many people on um over the next uh week as well.

Um, and I know that the neighbor uh city of Ben is doing um a food drive with neighbor impact right now.

Um, neighbor impact also talked about they have an online food drive that you can participate in to.

It's just a really easy link on their website.

What a lot of people are doing right now is going to Costco, getting a pallet of tuna, taking a couple cans for themselves and dropping the rest off at neighbor impact.

They really need protein, so um, you know, beans, tuna, chicken, things like that.

Um, but there's a bunch of different ways that you can that you can help neighbor impact.

They'd have you know they talked to us about they had a 28% drop in commodities, um, and that that really impacts and the the the community, you know, uh uh you know came forward and so that that only went down 12%, but that still is really impacting um the work that they're doing.

And so just wanted to share that, and also um just to put on your calendars if you are in in town, um December 21st is going to be the longest night um ceremony that that that we do every year, and that is to um to honor the the people that have passed away, the homeless people that have passed away on our streets over the last year, and it's a it's a beautiful touching ceremony, and um it's from five to six.

So just wanted to share that.

All right, thank you.

Councillor Norris.

Yes, um, we had the um environment and climate committee met on the 13th, and I think what was most interesting about that was a federal policy discussion update on just what some of the challenges facing the environmental world on a federal um level.

So a lot of rollback and environmental justice and climate resilience programs.

Um we had some legal uh registration um uh constraints, so roll back rollbacks in the clean car standards um in particular, um, some of those impacts to California and Oregon uh standards and clean cars, and then um expansion of the fossil fuel development, increase in timber harvest and mining, state impacts to energy consumption, and then some of the tariffs are hitting the supply chain for uh the energy um energy um energy uh items like heat pumps, and those are costing more.

Some items are costing up to 25% um and more, and then some of the energy subsidies for single family homes are expiring in 2025, and in particular solar.

So there's it's actually really difficult right now to get a solar installer out to your home, and so that's a big challenge.

Um, and then there was a big update from staff on some of our electrification discussions and work sessions that we've been having to uh to the committee.

And then today attended the Ben Chamber Impact Conference, which was really insightful.

I think there's a lot of let's say opportunities.

But it was a pretty um informative informative enlightening discussion just about where we are, pretty realistic, and I think it's gonna be a bumpy road moving forward.

But you know, Oregon has always trended a little bit better than the national economies, I'm hopeful that it's it's gonna be challenging moving moving forward, and um some of the federal um impacts are definitely going to um going to be challenging for us.

That's it.

Thanks, Council Norse, Councillor Platt.

Great, thanks.

Uh I was also able to enjoy the uh Ben Veterans Day parade, and that was just really great seeing fellow veterans out there and talk about which is the best service as we usually do when we get together and who was the better fighter pilot.

So uh we did that.

Also uh on that day, since I had the day off uh from school, I also was able to go down to Mazama that day and geek out with the engineers about the hydrostatic equation and the fact that actually they're talking about 2500 megawatts of power at that site.

Now, what you may not know is Ben's peak usage is somewhere around 400 megawatts.

So we're talking about six Benz worth of power out of that place, and that's the best place in the country, if not the world, to demonstrate this project.

So I'm really excited about that.

Somebody who's really pushing electrification on our council right here, base load power is what we need, and it's gonna be right at our right at our doorstep.

Um, in addition, I was able to attend the virtually attend the home committee meeting where we're talking about bringing financial incentives that the city can muster to help increase our our housing production, even though we are on pace right now to really uh knock it out of the park this year.

We're still gonna try to continue to accelerate that.

So I'm really excited about that as well.

I ended up the week with going uh with Chief Kranz and the drone program that we have here at our local police uh department.

So they got to show me the sensor fusion center inside the police, they got to show me the live stream capability both from the drones, also from the body cameras and from the vehicles from all of our from our all of our vehicles, as well as the first responding capability of some of these drones that can help reduce some of the um uh risk that uh our first responders have in some of these situations, really impressive.

And then I gotta go for a ride in the new hybrid vehicles that we have there, which always also made me very happy uh to see the both the capability and the zippiness of those hybrid vehicles.

They were they were they were pleased with them.

Uh I was able to interview a bunch of uh highly engaged citizens for the AHAC community, um, the affordable housing advisory committee, and it's just great to see folks that want to be a part of our community.

I also attended the Urban Green Space Forum uh last Thursday night, and our forester was there and represented himself well, talked about the tree uh program that we have in the city and sort of the future about that and about and about um junipers.

Uh so it was he represented himself well and and uh and did great things for the community.

So that's what I've been up to.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Um, so I was also at the Veterans Parade, and you can look for us on usually we're on the Covo truck, they usually invite us um along there.

Um, also the home committee, which um I think did a good job of wrapping up their sort of initial work to give us a couple of recommendations, so we'll be hearing those pretty soon from those committee members.

We met at the public works building, it was nice.

There were windows with light coming in.

Yeah, it was great.

Um, Eric and I have been spending a lot of time with our rural fire district partners.

We were at their strategic planning session, we were at their um our regular meeting on the funding discussion that we're having, and then we were at their board meeting this week.

So we've been talking a lot about um their work on how to plan out what they want to be doing going forward and what we're gonna be doing together going forward.

Um, also the Central Oregon Cities organization meeting was this week, and we met and um set up to have our holiday summit with legislators that's gonna happen next month.

Um, we'll start to talk about some of our regional priorities.

Um, one main state of that always being water, which um which we've had some meetings on recently about.

Um Council Riley, who's not here tonight, and myself met with some neighbors from Cotrosa neighborhood yesterday here at the city, and um are gonna keep continuing that conversation.

Um, wanted conceptualizing maybe having a more of a bigger meeting with their neighborhood after our work session in January.

So we have a little bit more to talk about as far as ideas and concepts and and the things we're gonna be talking about in that work session.

Um finished up work with the district mapping advisory committee.

Um, if you have may have heard.

Um, we were scheduled to be meeting this week.

We uh uh rather abruptly ended last week.

Um there's been some stories in the news about it, so I won't go on further, but I do hope folks will be engaged with that process as that's gonna continue to the county commissioners for their decision.

Um initially, we've been told it's gonna be on December 3rd.

So for people who are paying attention and want to weigh in, and that's now in the hands of the county commissioners, um, and you can look for that on their agenda on December 3rd.

Um so I think that's it.

I will stop there.

Okay, we're all very busy doing things in our community, which is great.

All right, so we're gonna move on to the visitors section.

We just have a couple folks in person today.

Um so as usual, you'll have two minutes to comment.

Please come on up to the table, state your name, whether you live in the city of Bend, um the timer is right up here.

Um please know comments that are disruptive to the meeting.

Don't think we're gonna have a problem with that tonight.

And we will start with uh Michael.

If you want to come on up good evening, Mayor Council.

My name is Michael Baker, and I have the honor of being the CEO for the boys and girls clubs of Bend.

And now I've been here three weeks, and it's been great.

Uh I just wanted to give a special shout out to uh um all the people that attended our flannel and frost event this past Saturday night was a phenomenal event.

Great way for me to meet tons and tons of people, and what an incredibly generous community, and we're very thankful for that.

And I would be remiss if I didn't give a special shout out to our our title sponsor of Beaver Coach for uh their tremendous support of the boys and girls clubs.

And um, I I I wanted to also make sure I invite each and every one of you uh to come down to the boys and girls club.

Uh the best way to see what we're doing is to come there in person and see it.

And I promise you it'll be a tour that you'll you'll love.

You'll walk out of there with a smile knowing what what's happening, and just just as an uh a side note to that, and how important after school programming is many folks would be surprised by the fact that when you talk about the number one time when juvenile crime happens in the United States, it's not Friday nights, it's not Saturday nights, it's not even in the evenings of Monday through Friday.

It's 3 to 7 p.m.

Monday through Friday.

That's just a fact.

You can look it up, stats they're there.

Um, and that's why programs like the Boys and Girls Clubs, Campfire, the all the after school programs, parks and rec and everything that's happening.

That's why they're so important.

And we are very thrilled to uh be uh serving the youth of Bend, and we'll do everything we can to make sure that no child uh in need is turned away from from the boys and girls club.

So again, I want to thank each and everyone ever encourage you to come down.

Thanks.

Thanks for being here, Michael.

Thank you and David Green.

Good evening.

Um I'm David Green.

I live in Bend, and I'm representing Bend Bikes tonight.

Uh, we want to thank you for the street projects that are being built and planned right now.

They include techniques that we haven't seen much in Bend, and they're gonna be used to uh stitch together routes that are gonna help people get across town safely and comfortably.

Think about it.

Moving from painted bike lanes to semi-protected bike lanes with flexiposts, raised bike lanes, and multi-use paths, enhanced crosswalks with refuge islands, raised crosswalks, modal filters, and protected intersections.

Together, they're gonna make a really big difference in safety on our streets.

It's not easy to try new things, and recently you and your staff are trying new things at a tremendous rate.

It's gonna pay off and put improved safety for people driving, biking, rolling, and walking.

We really look forward to seeing these new techniques on the streets, and we're also um excited to see them start to be incorporated into our new street standards that we're working on.

We're looking forward to um see how your goal of a new bike and pedestrian master plan um will use these techniques to plan routes so that all of us can get around the town outside of cars.

Taken together, you think about the safety we're gonna improve, the uh ability of more and more people to to get around town without a without a car, uh the um the climate repercussions of that and the affordability requirements of the or uh benefits of that to people who are struggling in town.

So thank you very much for that, and um we'll we'll stay in touch.

Thanks, David.

All right, that was it for the visitor section for tonight.

So we'll move on to the consent agenda.

I would to uh uh poll item F.

Consent agenda, move to anybody to make a motion.

No, just you can say that.

And is there a motion to approve consent agenda without item F?

Yeah, I move to approve the consent agenda without item F second.

Oh sorry, sorry.

Okay, moved by counselors.

Second by counselor.

All those in favor of approve the consent agenda without item F, please say I.

All right, item F.

Uh who is that?

I think we're here.

Okay, great.

Evening, sorry, I was expecting more visitors sections, right?

No, it's a short one tonight.

Um, so yeah, uh, we spoke a little bit earlier today, and so just want to highlight the purpose of this intergovernmental agreement with ODOT is to really line out the financial side of the arts grant and uh I'm gonna get the number wrong, but 520 some odd thousand dollars coming from the feds, and then our 10% contribution.

And so included in the packet is uh kind of an initial design concept.

And I heard from councilor Mendez about some ways we could take some of those considerations back to ODOT because part of this is going to be administered by them through their contractors and their procurement method, and part of it will be administered by us through the NEF Corridor project.

We'll be re we'll be bringing that back to you in a couple months.

So I just want to acknowledge some of the ideas uh that that councilor Mendez recommended to me in an email and uh publicly say we will go back and have those conversations with ODOT and consider some of those things.

Great, yeah.

Thank you.

I mean, I I I think it's a great project, and I I just wanted to see if there was the opportunity for us to include some of the design elements that we've started to see in other parts of town.

I think probably some people have seen some things like these uh these green crosswalks for people in bikes, probably wondering what they are.

It's basically just a crosswalk for somebody who's in a bike.

Uh bicyclists are uh legally allowed to use a crosswalk of one of the white crosswalks.

Um, but this is just a separate facility that would say, hey, there's someone who might be biking here.

So if there's an opportunity to help people cross a busy street like uh Northeast Eighth Street in this case, um I would I would just love to see us, you know, kind of throw all of the available and inexpensive tools that we can add it.

So that's great.

Thank you.

Perfect.

Yep.

Okay, any other questions?

All right, you want to make the motion?

Uh move to approve item F.

All right.

Second.

Second by councillor Platt.

All those in favor?

Aye.

All right.

Thanks, Ryan.

All right, that moves us on to um item number five.

This is a quasi-judicial public hearing and first reading of an ordinance to annex 10.66 acres of land in the northeast Butler Market Village Urban Growth Boundary Expansion Area.

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

All right, and then you have your questions, Ian.

Thank you, Mary.

Yes, this is quite a judicial, so there are a few process elements that we are required to get through.

The first one is a question to counsel about whether any of you have any ex-party contacts or site visits to declare.

Seeing shaking heads, hearing none.

The next question is does anyone have any actual or potential conflicts of interest or other personal interests that would interfere with your ability to serve as an impartial decision maker.

Also seeing and hearing none.

Is there anyone present who wishes to raise a challenge on the basis of bias or personal interest?

Seeing no hands, no one rushing to the table.

Um, the next phase is to explain some of the basic requirements of state law.

State law requires that all testimony, argument, and evidence must be directed to the applicable approval criteria in the Ben Development Code and Comprehensive Plan that the party believes are applicable.

Uh Karen Swinson will outline some of those tonight in the presentation.

The failure of anyone to raise an issue with sufficient specificity for the decision maker or other parties to respond to the issue will preclude an appeal to the land use board of appeals on that issue.

The failure of the applicant to raise a constitutional issue or other issue regarding a condition of approval with sufficient specificity to allow the decision makers or other parties to respond to the issue will preclude a claim for damages in circuit court related to that issue or condition.

And then finally, if prior to the end of the hearing tonight, any party requests additional time to present testimony, argument, or evidence.

The council may allow either a continuance or additional time, and it's discretion for parties to submit that additional argument testimony or evidence to the record.

That's it.

All right, thank you.

So we'll go to our staff presentation.

All right.

So the public hearing tonight is for an annexation of a 10-acre uh piece of property that is currently addressed at 21620 Butler Market Road.

And it is within the area of the urban growth boundary called the Northeast Butler Market Village area.

That is referenced that way in some parts of the comprehensive plan, other parts of the comprehensive plan, it's referenced as the Northeast Edge.

We've always colloquially called it the Northeast Edge, so I will continue to do so in this presentation.

So obviously it's in the northeast edge of the urban growth boundary.

The Petrosa Master Plan will comprise the majority of that urban growth boundary expansion area.

This is immediately outside of that area.

On these two plans, the property, 10 acre property is shown with a red star.

The Petrosa Master Plan is outlined in black in both of these plans.

The west side or the left side image is the land use plan that shows not only Petrosa but the areas outside of it.

All of those are designated standard density residential, that light yellow.

And it shows how those properties can be served with road extensions as well as sewer and water.

This is in the avion water service area.

So the sewer can't drain to the west to Petrosa.

It has to bring to the west, the main portion of Petrosa, it has to flow north to the northern leg there.

So for the annexation itself is shown here, kind of highlighted in white.

Immediately to the south is the Adventist Church, and then further beyond is the fellowship at Ben Church, and then to the west is the phases that will are tentatively tentatively approved and will have infrastructure permits submitted or are currently under view for phases seven and eight.

On the east side of that north-south section of Butler Market Road is outside of the urban growth boundary in Deschutes County.

So as I mentioned, this area is designated a standard designated density residential.

So when it is annexed, it would be immediately rezoned to that zone RS, which is identical to the zoning to the west, but outside of the Petrosta master plan standards.

So the with an annexation, a applicant must submit a development concept that would be immediately processed as administrative decision if this annexation is approved.

So this applicant has submitted a land division application for 58 lots to be developed in two phases, uh linking to two road stubs that are coming from Petrosa, Rock Ledge Avenue and Boulder Creek Drive.

The Rockledge Avenue would be a full connection, whereas Boulder Creek Drive, because it straddles two properties, they were unable to get an easement or acquire property for that full rideway extension.

So it would neck down to a half street and the widen out to a full street until that right-of-way could be completed by the budding property owner.

There would be one connection, local street connection to Butler Mark Road Market Road, as well as a road connection to the to the north.

But there is a missing link again with an abutting property owner to connect to road connection to the north in Petrosa phase eight.

Then that development proposal, as I mentioned, would be reviewed administratively.

All we're talking about tonight is the annexation itself.

So the approval criteria for that is that it's consistent with the comprehensive plan policies in the comprehensive plan in the Northeast Edge section, as well as the RS plan designation, and consistent with the Northeast Edge area plan.

That Northeast Edge area plan was conducted by Polish when the Petrosa Master Plan was developed to look at not only, like I said, those transportation water and sewer connections, that those could be facilitated when the adjacent properties are redeveloped, like this one at this time, but also how it is served by public facilities as noted in criterion uh three and four.

Um that the uh polish um also built out the um off site improvements that were necessary, the three roundabouts that were constructed as well as any uh like the pump station that is being developed in phase patrosa phase seven that this um this uh subdivision would be draining to.

And so no additional um off-site improvements are required with this annexation.

Uh criterion five and six have to do with the irrigation districts and the irrigation district uh COID has Central Oregon irrigation district has submitted a couple of letters about the um uh quit claiming the um water rights on the property, the eight acres of water rights, and they did request that it be um transferred prior to annexation.

I spoke with them today, and they just wanted to emphasize the the necessess necessity of quit claiming those rights before they expired and they were lost to the system.

But uh it could be done prior to subdivision as well.

Uh finally, um, with criterion number seven consistent with the transportation planning rule.

Again, uh Petrosa addressed the transportation planning rule for the entire Northeast Edge area.

Um, and uh part of that is a um uh per PM peak hour uh trip payment um to be made at final plat.

Um and so that would also apply to this um this property as well.

Uh, that would be um a pass through payment to ODOT, and that rights of way will be approved to city standards and the abiding right-of-way of Butler Market Road would be um improved.

So, in the annexation agreement, um as I noted that those off-site capacity improvements are addressed with the Petrosa Master Plan, and that ODOT payment would be made um by this um applicant at the time of final plat, but that in terms of showing compliance that was done um when the Northeast Edge area plan was adopted with this property, and I'll show this in a minute is a 600 lineal foot gravel gravity sewer connection in that that north south section of Butler Market Road to uh Petrosa phase seven um to get to um that pump station uh but that intervening um right of way is not proposed to be annexed with this um current annexation.

Um, and so uh the annexation agreement that was uploaded to the agenda um didn't have those exhibits some uh with um the upload didn't uh occur correctly, and so I'm going to stop sharing here and share that annex station agreement.

Ashley indicated that the annexation agreement could be uploaded immediately following this meeting, so that will be part of the record.

Um so those um exhibits are fairly simple.

Um that obviously the um the legal description and the um the figure um were also part of the ordinance, but the three that were not included, and you'll see um uploaded um immediately following the meeting.

This is the water points again, it's avian, it's very very simple um uh graphic just showing uh connections to Butler Market Road, um, and then for the sewer improvements um that uh they will extend to the western property boundary, but as I mentioned, um cannot connect because of the topography, and so it will um extend from the property up to um Petrosa phase seven and then um to the um pump station and finally the transportation improvements are limited to the frontage of the um property itself.

So it's a 10-acre uh property with 0.66 acres of right-of-way annexed for a total of 10.66 acres.

Any questions?

Oh, in terms of public involvement, sorry, there was a neighborhood public meeting that one person attended um and there were no public comments.

It was notified in the Ben Bulletin and four locations around town, no additional public comments submitted.

Questions?

Yeah, thank you.

Um so two questions.

One is could you just uh provide a little bit more detail on use?

You said that the transportation planning rule is applied at the level of the entire master plan.

Um and so not just for this little segment.

And then the second question is is about our own comprehensive plan policies for uh Northeast Butler Market Village, which um talk a lot about mixed use and uh specifically talked about the allocation of a residential and commercial acreage.

And uh it feels like some of that is being undermined.

So I know you know we we don't want to be the ones to move the goalpost here, but it feels like the goalposts are moving, and so how is this it feels like our our existing approach is not delivering what we actually want for this area?

And so I'm I'm worried that this is like 100% residential.

Um pretty relatively low density housing.

How are we going to get the complete community that we hoped we would get in our comprehensive plan?

Okay.

I'll first touch on your first question.

Uh the transportation planning rule.

Uh so Petrosa uh Polish when they developed the Petrosa Master Plan, they uh looked at infrastructure for the build-out of the entire Northeast Edge area.

And so uh part of that was the transportation planning rule to see the impacts on state facilities, working with ODOT, seeing what um impacts were necessary or what mitigation was necessary and the cost of those based on all the trips that are would be generated from the build-out of the entire area plan, not just Petrosa, um, came up with this certain figure of um a certain dollar figure per PM peak hour trip.

So I'm glad you touched on um the comprehensive plan policies.

Uh so to further um uh expound upon what was in the staff staff report, the um northeast edge area had a certain um, like you said, acreage for the different um different zones, including commercial, um, and then also uh total number of housing units and a certain housing mix in terms of duplex, triplex, multi-unit, and so forth.

And so uh Patrosa Master Plan actually met all of those requirements in the Comprehensive Plan policies, just with the Patrocle Master Plan.

So anything above and beyond what was in the master plan is above and beyond what is required in the comprehensive plan policies.

Um, in terms of the complete communities questions, um, you know, that is language in those policies.

The development code implements those policies, and part of that is the um designation of I think it's 22 acres of um of commercial land.

And um, as you will know, we have a state law now that allows affordable housing to be on commercial property, and so while that does take away a portion of that um commercial property, there is still still a significant amount of commercial left.

There is also another piece of commercially designated property that is not in the patrols of master plan, it's almost surrounded by it, um, but that is um included in there as well.

So, just to make sure I understand what you're saying, it sounds like the the specific allocations might not exist in the way they were described in the comprehensive master plan, but the broader concept of complete communities is still possible because what exists is exceeds the requirements that our comprehensive plan requires for something like a complete community.

Yes, yes, yeah.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions for Karen?

Karen, did we have the applicant here that was gonna present at all?

Oh, he has a okay, yeah.

Yeah, so why don't we give you a turn to present Joey?

Yep.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

I have a short presentation.

Okay.

Um, so Joey Shearer, I'm a planner with AKS Engineering and Forestry here in Bend.

We are a consultant for the applicant venture properties.

Um, as always, Karen has done a very good job, very comprehensive job in um kind of laying out both in her staff report but also her presentation.

Uh the applicable criteria for the annexation that is uh before you here this evening.

In addition to that, you know, the applicant has submitted, I think over 120 pages of documentation in the record, kind of addressing those eight or nine criteria that um Karen shared up on the screen.

Um because she did such a good job.

I have about eight slides.

I'll try to keep it uh relatively short and and try to answer any questions uh that the council has.

So, as I mentioned, venture properties is the applicant.

Uh, they have completed several successful subdivisions, uh subdivision projects across Bend, um, most recently, including Sky Vista on 27th Street, right across from Mount View High School, and Glen Vista Meadows and Grand Meadow, uh, which are both on Glen Vista Road, kind of as you're heading towards Riley Ranch.

As I mentioned, I'm planning with AKS Engineering Forestry.

In addition to planning, we're providing civil engineering survey, a number of other services for this project.

And then Joe Bestman with Transite Consulting is the transportation engineer.

And our team, like I said, is here to answer any questions.

So I'll try to go quickly through some of the kind of imagery that Karen also shared.

But it's here if it helps with the any sort of discussion.

The site is within the Northeast Edge expansion area, but is outside of the 189 acre Petrosa Master Plan that was originally approved by council in 2020, and as you can see, kind of envelops most of that expansion area.

But as part of that process, because it was such a huge part of the expansion area, Petrosa from a transportation infrastructure sewer water perspective had to account for all of the potential development within this entire expansion area.

And so all that mitigation that was done with the master plan honestly set the stage and made is making it easier for any of these future properties that didn't participate in Petrosa to annex into the city.

Even though it is a little bit isolated right now, it will eventually connect to Petrosa phase eight, which was approved by the city earlier this year, phase seven is under construction right now.

So here is a closer look at the property, single tax slot, about 10 acres in size, roughly 400 feet, a little bit more than 400 feet of frontage on Butler Market Road, which is a minor arterial.

This is the preliminary layout overlaid on that aerial primary access will be from Butler Market Road via Rock Fledge Avenue, and then eventually as Petrosa phases seven and eight are constructed.

So again, the development standards will be evaluated with the future tentative subdivision.

But this is just showing that the land is currently designated as RS.

When it is annexed, it will automatically that that plan designation will be automatically implemented as the RS zone and that the preliminary layout that we showed is right well in the middle of the minimax density and the lots meet the other development standards for the RSO.

And then as Karen summarized, and I I won't belabor it here, but the the eight criteria for annexation are addressed thoroughly in the application materials.

The exhibits that I've listed here may not match up perfectly with the exhibits in your packet.

They're the exhibits of the application, but we can certainly go through those if you have any questions.

I think I kept it short enough, but happy to answer any questions.

Alright, any questions for the applicant at this point?

Yeah.

Thank you, Joey.

I think this recognizing that this uh it's its venture capital.

It's the uh venture properties.

Venture properties, thank you.

Um it's just one part of the overall master plan, but I just wanted to see if you had any thoughts on uh how to help meet the comprehensive plan policy.

So this is for the Northeast Butler Market Village Policy 11-75 says the central planning concepts are to create a new complete community as a node that sets the stage for additional urban growth in the future and increase the mix of housing and land uses in the area to increase the completeness of the existing neighborhoods inside the UGB.

Now I feel like uh venture properties is probably focused on increasing the mix of housing and not necessarily the other parts of that.

But given that you know, we hear from residents who are very worried about it.

Doesn't feel like our existing approach is delivering in this area.

Do you have thoughts on how we can help achieve that vision?

Anything that uh venture properties might do or what it who is who's supposed to be doing this.

Yeah, so that's a very good question.

Um, and I'm here representing venture properties this evening.

I guess looking at the slide that I have on the screen here, and as Karen alluded to, you know, when the Petrosa Master Plan was approved, roughly 20 acres of commercial, and that was in the general uh location where the city had designated it as kind of the placeholder plan designation.

Um that seemed to be the logical location for the commercial, kind of at the intersection of these higher order streets, right?

Kind of on to roundabouts.

Um, and and that is the location that is um uh utilized to satisfy kind of that that complete community, right?

So commercial here at the southwest corner, a mix of housing, and as Karen pointed out, the Petrosa Master Plan is exceeding all of the housing mix requirements for the entire expansion area, and so that is why any of these properties here to the east that didn't participate in the Petrosa Master Plan can come in with any housing type as long as they're meeting density and development standards because Petrosa by itself is already meeting the housing mix requirement.

The other portions of the complete community, right?

There's a neighborhood park that's centrally located that is now owned and uh operated by BPRD and then the future school site at the north end on on Yeoman, which um they now own that property.

Uh, I haven't received an update recently on when they're planning to actually build a school there.

Thanks.

Any other questions for Julie?

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

All right, we do not have anyone signing up for public comment.

Do we have any on online, Ashley?

No.

Okay, so there was no public testimony sign up for this item.

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

And um, we can go to deliberation and a motion.

Just a comment.

Sure.

So this is I feel like this was hard for me because it's it's uh it feels like this particular annexation doesn't help us achieve what our comprehensive goal is for this area.

And I we we're hearing, of course, from a lot of people who are worried that we're not meeting that goal.

Um, I don't think that that denying this is uh going to serve that interest, and I don't think that it would be appropriate given the the code as it stands, but I do feel like this is um a reason for us to consider again, which I know we're already going to be doing, but this is this is uh an opportunity to consider what other bold innovative steps the city might take to help us achieve what is already in our comprehensive plan as a vision for this community.

So um that's that's the only comment I'd like to say.

Yeah, I think um I I actually do think it helps this area, and I think the reason being is um having more people that can support commercial activity in this corner of town is really important, and I think when this whole rectangle was planned, the idea was how much commercial, what kind of high density and what kind of other housing in this corner, right?

Um was not specified the way the Petrosa master plan was, but it was there for housing.

And I so I think, especially with the way that we um instead of the neighborhood I grew up full of cul-de-sacks, now we have all these streets connecting.

At least you have a connected community where you can get over to that park or that school or that commercial corner.

Um, and when these these edges come in, they don't get to cut themselves off, right?

And and they have to connect to those um roads.

I actually think that's really important.

So and I think to your point, I hear what you're saying philosophically.

I think we have to be careful that we're talking about this little piece, and they're coming in under the plan that was designated.

And I don't think we should hold it against them if there's something happening nearby that um that we're worried about, but um I think they do meet the plant designation, and I think what you're talking about is when these colors were laid down and when this rectangle was thought about, um, was that the right decision and the right way to do that?

And I think that's something we got to talk about going forward for sure.

Yeah, any other thoughts?

Okay, all right, motion then.

I move for the first reading of the ordinance annexing 10.66 acres into the northeast edge urban growth boundary UGB expansion area, assigning a signed district and requesting jurisdictional transfer of the abutting butler market road right of way.

Second, all right, move by counselor Mendis, second by councillor Perkins.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Any posts?

All right, unanimous.

All right, thank you for being here and for presenting.

Thanks, Karen.

Um, and we'll move on to um Ashley.

Do you want to read six, seven, and eight?

Because we're gonna do them all together.

These are public hearings to authorize use of and dock findings supporting the progressive design bill, contracting methods for the only and revere intersections projects.

The progressive design bill contracting method for the read market bridge project and the construction manager general contractor contracting method for the outback facility improvements project.

All right, so I'm gonna open a public hearing on items six, seven, and eight.

Then we'll have council uh staff presentation, and we're gonna go from one to the next and next.

We've got all of them lined up.

Great.

Okay.

So while this is jumping on board here to catch up, I will dive in.

So Ryan Oster, I'm the director of the engineering department here for the city of End and with me this evening.

Alex Dowson with the engineering department.

Britney Barker, Principal Engineer and Engineering.

And the agenda for this topic is basically quick recap of what the different types of delivery methods are, why we're before you this evening in terms of presenting the findings of why we do to want to do something that's non-traditional, and then a quick run through of each one of these three projects, and then we'll summarize it all at the end of what the next steps should be.

So to start off with, um, everybody's probably somewhat familiar with this on council.

The ORS or the Oregon revised statutes basically say in most cases or in all cases unless exempted, we do a traditional low low bid wins.

So we put a contract out to bid, we open those up publicly, and whoever the contractor was that has the lowest bid wins the project, and everybody moves on their way.

And so there is an exemption to this, which is why we're before you tonight that basically says as the contracting authority, you as council can waive that and basically make an exemption to allow us to do a different delivery method.

And I'll go through those here real quick.

So design bid build is what I just described.

That's such a the traditional method.

We design the project completely independently, we bid it out, and then we build it separately, and that's usually a separate engineering firm and then a separate contracting firm.

That's the traditional method, it works in most cases, except for on projects like what we're going to present tonight.

So some of the other methods you're gonna hear on the construction manner manager general contractor side, and Brittany will explain a little bit of that in more detail.

It just means we're bringing the contractor on board before the design is finished.

Still a separate engineer, but we bring the contractor on board to help with the constructability review.

Best value procurement is one where we we factor in price, but we also factor in the technical expertise of those two that are bidding.

So it's not just low bid, we also score them based on if they have experience doing a specialty type of project.

And then progressive design build, which is another one we'll ask for this evening on two projects.

Basically means we wrap the designer and the contractor into one entity and we interact with just that one firm.

And usually it's a contractor, but it could be a consulting firm.

But instead of having two contracts and having to manage two different firms, we just have one, and they are all on part on the team from day one.

And then lastly, design build, we've done that as well.

We've done all these in the city at some point in time.

Uh design build is primarily with the contractor, and we get a guarantee price uh way early in the process, and they have to stick to that price at like a 30% design, but it gives them a lot of flexibility on how they want to design it and deliver it.

So those are the myriad of alternative delivery methods that that we as a city are kind of one of the national experts in doing whenever we go to one of these design build conferences.

We're often asked how we manage to do all of this.

Uh so pretty proud of our team and thankful the council for allowing us to explore these options.

So I'll hit on the first one, which is the revere-only intersections.

I'm trying to get a nickname started of the four-pack because I'm tired of saying fourth and revere, eighth and revere, fourth and only, eighth and only.

But that's what it is.

You can see it's these four intersections that we want to bundle all together in a progressive design build contract.

Uh, as a reminder, this is a geobond funded project, so we have 14 million dollars allocated from the bond to do improvements at all four of these intersections.

We have done an early intersection analysis.

We've settled on roundabouts at eighth and revere and eighth and only, and then signals at fourth and revere and fourth and only, primarily signals because you already have ex signals on third street, and if you put signals too close to a roundabout, the roundabout doesn't operate with the efficiency that it's supposed to.

So that's kind of where we've settled in terms of what we're gonna do.

And again, this is bond funded, and so one of the main reasons we want to go PDB is because we want to get a design firm on and a contractor, because we really want to sit down early and say, how can you best deliver this for us?

Is it doing the signal at revere and fourth and the roundabout at revere and eighth at the same time, and we close that stretch down, or do we close only down, or do we close fourth down, or do we close eighth down, or some myriad of possibilities that we have in there?

So uh we want to bring that contractor and design firm on board as well as factoring in.

We have Butler Market under construction, we've got Ben Bikeways up Sixth Street and a few other things going on at the same time.

So the findings for this one are all highlighted here.

It is in your materials as well.

But like I said, coordination we think is very important and in understanding closures and detours.

Having one firm on board early allows us to really expedite the schedule here.

So a contractor doesn't have to wait till the design is done.

We can have them go start moving dirt early on in design and focus on maybe one of the intersections and get some money spent and get some improvements made.

So number of contracts is reduced, and I'm not going to go through every single one of these, but you'll hear the same findings from Brittany and Alex tonight as well, just with a little bit of a slight variation.

But for all those reasons listed there, project bundling, and we think this will provide a good value to the public in terms of not just the constructability side, but uh having having that one firm on board with us usually saves a little bit of money in the long run as well.

Ryan, there's like an acronym at the very end there.

Oh, did I think that's a good one?

Oh, yeah, an independent cost estimator.

So yeah, we hire a completely independent third party to vet the contractor's GMP that you're all familiar with, guaranteed maximum price, uh, just to make sure, and that that that uh independent cost estimator typically comes from the construction background, so they can call out stuff and make sure the assumptions that are being made are accurate.

And OR is owner's rep.

So that's just uh somebody to help us along through this process.

So those are the findings from the four-pack of projects.

Uh what we want to do with this being PDB is uh with council's approval tonight, we'll we'll take this one right into procurement, we'll get this bid out.

We anticipate being back to council in May of next year, at which time we kick off design of one or two or three or all four of them, and then that allows us to really get into construction, hopefully in late 2026 and get a couple of these intersections knocked out and built by the middle of 26 or excuse me, middle of 27.

Uh, and again, those those construction things will vary depending on the team and how they want to approach this.

So that allows for that flexibility.

So that's everything related to the only review intersection.

So I'll pause there.

Yeah, let's pause.

Um I didn't we didn't have any signups for public comment, but just something we don't have any online public comment, any public comment on the room.

Nope.

Okay, so no public comment on that one.

Any questions for staff?

Steve, go ahead.

Well, I just one of the things I was as I was reading through all these various design concepts.

This PDB does not limit the number of vendors that can apply on this, right?

So we still have the full raft of people available to bid on this and be a part of this project, right?

Yeah, correct.

Okay.

All right, and I can't speak specifically on this one.

Somebody else on my staff is running this, but both Brittany and Alex can address how many people have reached out to them that are interested in their projects that they're gonna present.

Thanks, I appreciate that.

Okay.

I have a question.

Um, so this uh selection process is not based on simply the number, right?

It's not based on simply the cost.

So what will the criteria be, and how will you ensure that in the selection process um that that favoritism doesn't occur?

Yeah, I I don't think our staff has ever shown favoritism in any of our bidding processes, so we would follow the same processes we have in a dozen other instances where we've done alternative delivery.

And what are they?

So we so we yeah, we put out the RFP and we have scoring criteria among that, and these teams that get together to bid on that have to at a minimum meet what's shown in the RFP.

You know, you have to show us that you have the experience doing this kind of work, you've got the staff availability to do this kind of work, and that you've you've ex you know, you've done other things like this, not only here, but other areas in town, and so we judge them based on their proposals.

Okay.

RFP process.

Okay.

All right, let's do the next project.

So talking about the Reed Market Bridge project in uh progressive design build, um requesting to um utilize that form of alternate delivery.

Um not a whole lot of history uh this time I was here last week, but just in a nutshell, and this is a grade separated crossing.

Um it is identified on the 2020 transportation system plan as well as in the 2020 border approved um general obligation bond.

Uh Reed Market Road is a major east-west arterial and that has a rail crossing causing us a lot of traffic issues.

And so the I I want to run through the specific more specific elements of the project because um I want to highlight the complexity of the project, and I think it will justify um the next slides and the findings to support utilizing um PDB.

So we are building a bridge over the railroad, so the railroad overcrossing along with connecting 9th Street into uh Reed Market Road.

It will be elevated to significantly elevated to meet the new grade of Reed Market Road, so that incorporates structural engineering and retaining walls on 9th Street in addition to the retaining walls associated with the bridge.

There's since this is a transportation project, associated roadway and pedestrian improvements, notably a pedestrian undercrossing underneath the bridge, north-south under the bridge, so that pedestrians and bicyclists can safely and without stress get to 9th Street, get to that shared use path on the west side.

That's part of the key route project.

There will likely be right-of-way acquisition associated with the project that won't formally start until the next phase of final design and construction just per federal statute.

Traffic congestion isn't the only congestion here in this corridor.

Utility congestion is there, there is a lot here, and there's not a lot of space.

So there's overhead power lines, parallel and perpendicular.

There are vaults, there are communications, there are two water purveyors, there is city sewer.

So there's a lot, and there's not a lot of room to move them, and their ultimate home is going to be underneath or somewhere on a structure that does not exist currently.

So it will be a dance, a coordination between moving them while also not disrupting service to the customers during construction.

So that will be a big effort.

That this project has been awarded funded for ODOT for some of the signal modifications as well as potential coordination with Central Oregon Irrigation District canal, which is directly adjacent to the south of Reed Market Road.

And then just to note federal funding here in terms of just adding another layer of complexity, just more coordination, more reporting, more different statutes, and also wanted to note that we have federal we have FRA compliance to utilize for S design build on this project.

So yeah.

So we just talked about the federal funding source.

And so utilizing a PDB, we can expedite the schedule and we can leverage that to move quickly and obligate those funds as quickly as we can under present legal conditions where we are currently in a position to come to an agreement and sign that grant agreement with the FRA.

Risk reduction is a big one.

Risk wears many hats.

So we're able to assign those elements, assign the risk to the party that's best equipped to mitigate that.

Cost savings comes in many forms, some tangible, some intangible.

Again, goes back to that single contract entity and early engagement and collaboration between the designer and the engineer and the owner.

So the contractor can really provide a lot of value and early input to come up with cost-effective construction solutions.

You know, before we break ground, which can you know equal cost savings as again compared to traditional design bid build where if you wait too late till the end, um it's very costly to make changes.

Permitting efficiency, this is going to be a long road with BNSF.

Their permits are lengthy, the process is lengthy in design, and then once you are in construction, um, there's it doesn't stop.

They have um flagger requirements, um inspection requirements.

So having a the team at the table from the start and having those conversations can really help be successful in not causing delay due to you know due to any permitting issues.

So setting those expectations and meeting the goals for both parties is very beneficial.

Um early procurement, the you know, if if approved, um, this PDB method allows early packaging of smaller GMPs or early work packages.

So we see that a lot in acquiring long lead material.

Um for instance, electrical signal, um perhaps bridge structures, those types of things that have long lead times that can just add a lot of just waiting to a schedule, and we can kind of jump on that sooner early in the design, get those ordered.

Um, so not only we save in schedule, but we can also utilize that to secure early pricing, and with this economic market, we've seen a lot of inflation, and so with a project that's kind of this long, um, you know, that that can be valuable to avoid some you know inflation across several years.

Um, and then I just threw staff resources in there because just managing a single contract for the PM, for procurement staff, for accounts payable finance staff.

I mean, it's it it adds up, so it is simplified in staff resources.

Yeah, and Alex, I think we can we can see the last two of them.

Is there anything particularly you want to highlight?

Yeah, yeah, but very thorough here.

I mean, public benefits is huge, but um we know that this is going to be a really big impact to the community, um, and so um just being able to have that touch point and and really work and tailor the needs of the adjacent adjacent community is beneficial.

And then, yeah, I just there just to touch, I think, on Councillor Franzosa's um comment.

There's been a lot of interest from the engineering community both locally and regionally.

Um we expect similar number of proposals comparable to that that we've had for low-bid jobs.

Um, there's an information meeting that's uh been posted on the Daily Journal of Commerce and our procurement platform UNA that is planned for tomorrow that reaches the community of engineers and contractors.

Um so we're looking to provide equitable opportunity for the teams to learn about the project, and we we don't anticipate this delivery method to diminish competition.

Sorry, great.

I'll just I forgot I had a schedule slide, so this is I can just run through this, just showing we're anticipating starting solicitation in the new year.

Um that'll probably take us through May till we come back to the contract approval, and in between there, sometime we'll have to come back and execute that grant and hope to start construction in the middle of 2027.

All right.

No online public comment, any public comment in the room.

All right, seeing none.

Any other questions before we move on to the final item here from Brittany?

Sounds like no, so go ahead.

All right.

Good evening.

My name is Brittany Barker.

I was last here in May talking about all of the moving pieces that we have at the Outback site and some plans that have been developed.

What I wanted to talk more about this evening is our Outback Facility Improvements project that we're looking for alternative delivery of construction manager general contractor approach for three specific projects.

The Forest Service Road Realignment, which is the current access point into our water filtration facility, would just be realigned just like 200 feet away from where it is now.

That's a part of the Town Site Act requirement with the Forest Service.

Additionally, a pre-treatment system is something that our facility has needed for a very long time.

The 1979 Bridge Creek fire, nearly 50 years later is still showing impacts to our water quality today.

All that sediment that is on those slopes because the understory has not regrown back yet, all ends up in Bridge Creek and gets taken into the intake facility and into our water system.

So pre-treatment system will allow us to bring that water in and have that sediment filter out before it's then brought into the membrane filtration facility.

And then the third one is the in-conduit hydropower system.

We especially this summer have been seeing more Pacific power shutdowns happening, rolling outages.

That is all linked.

Our power system is linked to our SCADA system, which is our control system that operates all of the valves remotely, and that is causing a lot of issues with our operators where they need to manually go out and troubleshoot and operate our system.

So having backup power that we can utilize on site using the existing water that's already coming through the pipeline is a huge value, and it can operate our full system and then some and be able to put some power back into the grid.

Now it's not quite to the magnitude you had mentioned earlier, but we're anticipating maybe a 1.2 megawatt system, but we've had a lot of interest with Pacific Power as well as Energy Trust of Oregon meeting some of their goals regionally with this system.

And I just wanted to stress we're not planning on taking any more water than our 18.2 cubic feet per second that we currently take out of Bridge Creek, and that's the maximum that we're allowed to take from the Forest Service special use permit and with our city code.

So I mentioned the Townsite Act earlier.

The cursor, yes.

This is our existing 15-acre outback facility right now that houses our water infrastructure.

This blue dashed line around the perimeter is approximately a 48-acre boundary that we are looking to acquire through the Townsite Act with the Forest Service.

I mentioned the Forest Service Road realignment right now.

The public comes in where our 30-inch water main is, and then they turn this way to go use this road.

Due to a lot of parking along this area and blocking access for our staff, we had proposed realigning that entrance for public access.

So that's what's happening over here.

And then this one will remain private access to our staff to make sure that we have an accessible site.

P2 is where the in-conduit hydro is proposed to go.

And then F2 is our future reservoirs and F1 and F3 here are future well sites.

And we are developing this plan through the Outback Facility Plan, which you will see in a work session sometime early next year, just giving you a little bit more understanding of our developments there.

So with that background, and I don't want to go over these too much because much is the same, but I think the differentiation between the Outback site is we're looking to do a CMGC method.

The reasoning behind that is because with a progressive design build, you just kind of give the project team, the designer and contractor, what you want them to do, and they kind of take it and run with it.

CMGC allows a little bit more control from the owner's perspective.

We have an extremely complex water system that is operated differently on a daily basis depending on what's down for maintenance, what improvements are being made.

So the water operation team are really the only ones that know how to operate that.

So we don't want to hand off our control to somebody that may not know how one thing might affect something else.

So that's the main reason we decided to do the CMGC.

And there's a lot about unknowns out there with where the piping currently is.

It's an old facility, and we'll have to do tie-ins at certain points to be able to connect the piping to this these new infrastructures.

So we'll be able to have the contractor do some early exploration to help inform the design.

Because as a reminder, 60% of our water is surface water, 40% is groundwater, and in the peak usage, we can't operate under one system or the other.

So we've had seven consultants interested in the owner's rep, 13 in the design, and six contractors, and those have been local and regional people.

And I just wanted to add a few things for pre-treatment.

Like I mentioned, we had shutdowns already.

That is a need that we have needed for a while.

Our plant just can't process those high turbidity levels.

So that'll provide us with that opportunity in the event of a wildfire or the event of these large storm events and snow melt that we can handle that uh turbidity right away and keep the plant operational.

And we have looked, I showed you the pictures earlier of the down timber.

That's what our watershed looks like now.

There's a lot of fuel in there right now.

We have annual walks with the Forest Service to talk about what we can do to mitigate the fire risk.

Unfortunately, we have a very inaccessible watershed.

There's no roads through there, it's very steep terrain.

The Forest Service does do thinning around the perimeter of our watershed because that is accessible.

But we have had a number of conversations about ways for to try to mitigate some of the risk inside, but there's not a lot of opportunities there, and then certainly nothing that would be cost effective to be able to do.

That's all we have.

All right.

Once again, no one had signed up for this item.

Not seeing anyone in the room, no one online.

Um so no public comment on that item.

Any final questions for Brittany before we move into making some motions here?

Just one for Brittany.

Yeah.

Brittany, do I remember from my tour ride that if we get the in-conduit hydro, we can basically power this entire facility?

Is that right?

And and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's also the largest power user of the facilities in the city.

I think I remember that from my facilities, yes.

From the city facilities, right?

And so again, a way to really sort of neutralize that power low with a baseline uh power load is something I'm really interested in and really excited about that.

So absolutely.

Yeah, right now our generator can only provide enough power for us to use 75% of the plants operation and two of the seven wells up there.

So this would allow us to operate everything simultaneously if we did have to, and we'd be able to produce more than double what we consume at the maximum amount.

So we'd be able to put um power back into the grid as well.

Thank you.

Great.

That's awesome.

That's really cool.

I have a couple questions.

If yeah, go ahead.

Okay.

Um can you remind me this?

This was a project that was supposed to be funded partly with the BRIC grant.

Correct.

Is that right?

And we weren't awarded that, but we have a chance to go for it again.

Is that right?

Well, we didn't we didn't apply this year, correct?

Because of some changes that were made to the grant program, if I'm remembering right.

We were unsuccessful in fiscal year 24, and we reapplied, we're intending on reapplying for fiscal year 25, and the week before the applications we do, they terminated the program.

That was the change.

They got research chamber.

Yeah, yeah.

We were ready to send it.

Um, and I was so I was wondering if you could speak to the impact this will have on the capital budget for uh water services.

Yes, so we already have this project funded in our approved um five-year CIP because we didn't have any funding secured at that point, so we have planned for this to be paid under our rates.

However, we are still exploring other opportunities that may come up to do a low interest loan through IFIA possibly or any other federal grant opportunities, but as it is today, it has been um incorporated into our five-year CIP budget.

Okay, okay, so it's cut so a rate increase next year would not be to pay for this.

It's already it's already been we have long-term rate models that factor in our CIP, but they're in their 20-year models, so this is this has been built in for a while.

Okay, thanks.

Um, thanks for the clarification too.

Um, and I and my recollection of prior prior presentations, I thought this filtration was kind of needed in the event of a wildfire, but it's actually needed now.

How many times a year do you have to shut down the water plant to you know do because of lack of filtration?

That's a great question.

Um it obviously varies every year.

Um I think the last year we had to shut it down like five times, and that could range from a couple of days to a week or more.

There's sometimes things that have happened that require maintenance, um, but we have had quite a few snow melts um and heavy rain events that have caused turbidity issues.

Okay, cool.

Um I feel a lot better about going forward with the private, because after the watershed tour, just to be honest, like I was concerned that the intake facility would get blocked with debris and a filtration that felt the water facility at Outback would be dry and we wouldn't even have any water going to it because there would be so much debris and um so um I feel better about going forward with the filtration.

I um I'd still like to continue investigating.

So this is a little bit different topic now, but investigating fuel mitigation in the watershed.

Um I think there's some innovative programs out there now to help get projects like that done.

So hopefully we can have a conversation about that in the future.

Absolutely.

Um, not just depending on the forest service to do it, but actually working with some third parties who do that kind of work.

Um in public-private partnership with um with municipalities.

So those are my questions.

Okay, thanks.

Any other questions?

All right, thank you.

I think we're ready for the motions.

Should we close the close the public hearing officially?

Okay.

I may have to authorize the use of the progressive design, build procurement, and contracting method for the only in review intersections project, hereby known as the four pack.

Uh and to adopt the findings submitted to council.

Second.

All right.

Uh motion number one moved by council Perkins, second by Council Norris.

All those in favor?

Aye.

I move to authorize the use of the progressive design build procurement and contracting method for the Reed Market Bridge project and to adopt the findings submitted to council.

Second.

All right, moved by Councilor Mendes, second by counselor Platt.

All those in favor?

Aye.

I move to authorize the use of the construction manager general contractor procurement and contracting method for the outback facility improvements project and to adopt the findings submitted to council.

Second.

All right, move by councilor Norris, second by counselor Francosa.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Nice teamwork.

Everyone from you for the presentation.

Thank you.

All right, moving us to item number nine.

Council has asked to adopt a resolution authorizing to use a sequential review of urban growth boundary and then the components by the Department of Land Conservation and Development.

Okay.

Good evening, city counselors.

For the record, my name is Damian Srinik.

I'm a senior planner with the city's uh growth management division.

And uh the matter before you this evening is a request to approve a resolution that would authorize city staff to coordinate with the uh planning staff at Deschutes County and submit a proposal for sequential UGB components review uh to the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development.

Uh your materials for this agenda item include the resolution itself, uh a draft notice to the department of the city and county electing to use this process and a draft work plan that we would send to the uh department.

What I want to do before talking about the resolution is give a little bit of background on the the why behind it and how we would use this review process.

And so I'm gonna summarize some of what you heard at your um September 29th joint meeting uh with the board of county commissioners.

Our current growth plan goes to the year uh 2028.

So uh one of the council's uh actions for your housing goal is to do a new 20-year growth plan for housing and jobs.

Uh it would include a lot of the same uh concepts that you see uh presented on this slide.

Um our goals include encouraging housing production, uh, economic development, uh making sure that we have a multimodal transportation system, uh, but also ensuring that our land uses are served by uh water and uh sewer infrastructure for the growth plan itself.

What we're requesting is the ability to uh submit a proposal to the department for what's called sequential review.

Uh the purpose for this is that um this process allows the city to uh either submit products individually or as packages for the department to approve as they go.

Uh it's a different process that was not available in 2016 when we did a last significant comprehensive plan update, including UGP amendment.

And so what we're trying to do is provide a little bit more legal certainty so that we can get certain packages of products approved and get those done before proceeding with other elements of the project.

So this is a graphic that summarizes I think what we shared with you at your September 29th meeting.

Uh the first package you see in blue, uh package one includes some of the key pieces that we would submit as one package to the department, uh, work through which we'd identify our inventory available land for both housing and employment, uh, complete the first phase for housing uh capacity analysis and housing needs, and then complete a document called our economic opportunities analysis through which we would identify our need for employment land.

The goal being once the department approves that package, we would then complete work on that second package through which we would uh complete work to show how you would gonna be satisfying our needs for housing land for employment land.

Uh this would include completing the housing capacity analysis, uh completing a second product that would look at what are called efficiency measures or looking at where we might have opportunities to increase capacity in the boundary for uh more housing and more jobs, and then uh an amendment to the urban growth boundary.

One of the things I should have mentioned a moment ago is that the uh department um must approve everything that we're talking about here this evening, either in whole or in parts.

Uh this includes eating kind of an amendment to the urban growth boundary in excess of 50 acres.

And so now I will uh talk briefly about the resolution before you uh it includes some of the key findings we need to make to uh show the department that we qualify for the use of this product, this process, excuse me.

Uh we are considering that we'll need a UGB amendment of at least 50 acres.

Uh we have prepared a notice to the department, kind of modeled on what the city of McMinnville did with Yanghill County, and um that's included with your materials along with a work plan uh that outlines the work we would complete in these two packages, along with our proposed planning period of 2029 to 2049.

In terms of our timeline with your approval of the resolution, uh we would proceed to coordinate with county staff who are preparing an order for the board's approval at their December 3rd meeting.

Uh once we obtained the final resolution, order, uh signatures on the notice, we would then submit those along with the work plan uh to the Department of Land Conservation and Development for their review and approval.

Uh we've had some recent communications with the department about their uh review timelines.

The rules provide them 120 days within which to review these materials and approval work plan, and they've indicated that it might be closer to 30 days uh once completed.

That might be to answer any questions.

All right, any questions on this?

We talked about it before with the county here or with the county together.

Okay, great.

Thanks, Damien.

And here's the recommended motion.

I move to adopt a resolution authorizing the use of a sequential review process for certain urban growth boundary amendment components and authorizing city staff in coordination with Deschutes County to submit a notice and proposed work plan to the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development.

Second.

All right, move by Councillor Perkins, second by Councilor Mendez.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right, unanimous.

Thank you, Damian.

Thank you very much.

All right, on to item number 10.

Council is asked to adopt a resolution authorizing eminent domain for properties along Franklin Avenue, part of the midtown multimodal connections and street streetscaping project.

Oh, Ryan didn't think Ms.

Beck, we were gonna go that fast.

He's gonna have to run in.

He's gonna have to run back in here.

Sorry about that.

That's okay.

Can we do anything else?

I mean, you could go back.

Yeah, why don't we do that?

Let's do our second reading here real quick.

This is the second reading of an ordinance amending the vend development code to update various standards and procedures.

Council Norris.

Yes, I need to declare a potential conflicts on this item like I did um in the first reading.

Uh my employer is Hayden Holmes, and this could have a financial impact on my employer, but I'm still allowed to vote on this item.

Hold on.

Okay, and roll call vote on this one.

Do we need to?

I guess we do a motion.

Yeah.

I moved to the second reading and adoption by roll call vote of the ordinance amending the bend development code BDC Title One Introduction, Title II Land Use Districts, Title III Design Standards, Title Four, Applications and Review Procedures, and Title Five Exceptions to Code Standards to make various changes to standards and processes and amending BDC Chapter 1.2 definitions and BDC sections 4.1.600 dischutes river design review procedures, 2.7.70 upland areas of special interest overlay zone and 4.5.200 community master plan as presented on November 5th, 2025.

Title Four, Applications and Review Procedures and Title Five Exceptions to Code Standards to Make Various Changes to Standards and Processes and Amending BDC Chapter 1.2 Definitions and BDC Sections 4.1.600 Deschutes River Design Review Procedures 2.7.70 Upland Areas of Special Interest Overlay Zone and 4.5.200 Community Master Plan as Presented On November 5th, 2025.

Second.

All right.

Moved by Councilor Mendes.

Second by Councilor Franzosa.

Roll call vote.

Councilor Francisca.

Yes.

Counselor Mendez.

Yes.

Mayor Proton Perkins.

Councilor Norris.

Yes.

Councilor Platt.

Yes.

Mayor Kepler.

Yes.

All right.

Let's go back to item number 10.

Council is asked to adopt a resolution that authorizes eminent domain for properties along Franklin Avenue.

Part of the Midtown Multi-Modal Connections and Streetscaping Streetscaping Project.

Okay.

Thank you again for your time, Council.

So once again, Ryan Oster Director of Engineering Department.

This is a pretty standard eminent domain resolution.

This is for the Franklin Avenue project.

And so most of you are tracking this, but a little bit of background.

We're currently building the stretch between fourth and eighth.

We've got the south side generally complete.

We're working on the north side right now.

We do anticipate the construction of that finishing up before the end of the year.

So as that's finishing up, we're going to be moving to the west.

And this is really the portion that really goes from Hill and Harriman all the way up to Fourth Street.

And some of the things we're going to be building as a part of that project is the off-street bicycle system, uphill bike lanes at the undercrossing.

We've had many conversations about that.

Pedestrian refuge islands at second and Harriman, as well as some other uh utility improvements along the way, storm water to prevent flooding and other things.

And so as I flip to this next one, one thing to keep in mind is this is uh arterial, so we would typically per our standard need to go to a hundred feet of right-away.

Doesn't make sense in the built environment, so we're trying to keep this contained to a 90-foot right-away.

So what that results in is basically a five-foot dedication from most of these properties rather than a 10 foot dedication.

Because when you get to 10, you're starting to get into physical structures, and that's just not cost efficient.

So this is just to show you which properties we're talking about.

The ones that are kind of in the orange cut color, we're gonna need temporary construction easement.

So we're working through all those now.

Uh the purple parcels, purple parcels, we're looking for the five feet of right-away acquisition, uh, and then the pink ones are the city owned properties.

And I will just add in some of the purple parcels, we're actively working through some development agreements with developers that would be required to give us that five feet of dedication when they come to develop.

So we're just saying, hey, give it to us now, we'll help build your frontage.

That's one less land use requirement you have on the table when you come to do your development.

So these are all the properties contained within this eminent domain resolution.

And really, this is just if we can't come to an agreement, uh, we need to start the process now.

If we wait till uh we get to a point of not being able to settle on an actual price, uh, and then we come back to try to do this, it'll add a year to the project.

So we do this early on as a worst-case scenario.

Uh and this is just a quick reminder of what our right-of-way process looks like.

And we're anticipating with this new stretch of Franklin uh that we would come back in January or February for a check-in on Franklin itself.

I told you I'd come back and we talk about the closure possibilities and impacts to mitigate that, and then we anticipate a guaranteed maximum price, which would be the fourth one as a part of the midtown crossing project sometime in March of next year, and then construction starting not long after that.

Great.

All right, questions on this one.

Ryan, just when I read the uh construction, the early work package, I got kind of excited.

Does that mean potentially shorten the uh closure timeline on this one too?

It could, yeah.

That's what we're exploring.

Is there things or maybe in that early work package?

Kind of how Alex, we order some long lead time items or just things that might take six months to get here.

So, yeah, there's possibility of an early work.

For a shorter closure, yeah, excellent.

Thanks.

Yeah, and just to reiterate, because so many people hear about more road closures and wonder why are we doing this?

One of the big reasons here is as we saw before, the the water main that's there has some erosion around it.

Yeah, you know, I feel like we could even at some point share some of the slides like we did with the the water intake, where like, hey, this is what we're trying to avoid.

Um but that that's that's one of the key elements.

Yeah, underground work is always there.

So, yeah, waterline replacement and storm water to prevent future flooding would be the big piece of this closure.

All right, thank you.

I move to adopt a resolution exercising the power of eminent domain if agreement cannot be reached with property owners for the acquisition of portions of up to 14 parcels necessary to construct the Franklin Avenue project as part of the midtown multimodal connections and streetscaping project and authorizing the city manager to take tech state take steps necessary to implement the resolution.

Second.

All right, move by Council Mendes, second by Council Platt.

All those in favor?

Aye.

All right, yes, thank you.

All right, that takes us to city manager's report.

Sure.

Uh Counselor Norris uh mentioned the uh then chambers impact conference today was there as well.

I think uh uh Council Mayor Burton Perkins and Mayor Cuba were there as well, and I think Councilor Riley, and the one of the takeaways was the growth is really slowing down.

We're seeing that slow down for the state at 0.3% over the last couple of years.

It's the I mean there was a drop in or decline in population and right after the pandemic, and then it's picked up a little bit statewide.

We are trending um we're still one of the fastest growing areas of the state, uh, but our growth is also slowing down.

So we just got the new PSU population numbers.

Uh they were report reported in the media yesterday.

Uh so we added uh 1,527 people or 1.45% growth year over year, 24 to 25.

Um so this actually is a little bit less than what was forecasted uh back in 2022.

Uh the forecast was for Ben to be 109,000 in population, and so with this uh 1.45% we're at 107,000, so just a little bit less.

Uh Deschutes County grew 1.32%.

I was looking at all the cities in the in the region.

I think Le Pine was the highest at 3%.

All the other cities were in the outboard bend was at about 1% or so.

We've we've had 3% growth in the past.

It's we've had, yeah.

Our our yeah, the decades, uh the 90s and the uh early 2000s were 8%.

He was saying it's 8%, 8%.

Even in the last five years or so, we've had 3% years, right?

Close to 2 and a half.

What's been average for us is really been the last couple of decades, it's been about a 35-40 percent growth rate per decade.

Uh two to three percent.

We've been seeing that come down.

Um, so that's you know, that that's consistent with what's happening across the state, and that was kind of a big focus of um of this conference and really focusing, refocusing on economic development.

Um project update, so the Hawthorne Bridge uh open house.

Uh as we know, ODOT is uh managing that project, they're conducting it, but we're partners with them.

Uh there's both an online open house and then there's an in-person open house on December 2nd at Dogwood from 4 30 to 6 30 p.m.

Uh so the primary focus of the event is how the bridge will connect back to the surrounding areas.

And we're gonna come back to you, I believe it's in January to talk about those connections, right?

How we're getting folks uh from the bridge on either side.

Uh so we invite the public to go check it out.

Uh and then lastly, the council schedule.

Uh Ashley has got copies.

I think this was also emailed to you.

Um we you'll you'll see in the council memo that will go out on Friday.

We've really populated the next six months worth of topics.

Uh so please check that out.

If you have any feedback on the council schedule and just the substance of what is uh planned for over the next couple months, please just reach out to me and I'd be happy to.

We might have we might have missed something, or if there's something that you just have a question about, let us know.

But the uh the conversation we had a few weeks ago about breaks, about a summer break.

We typically do uh in the last 15 years, we've always taken that first meeting off in July.

Uh so I think the proposal based on feedback and also just making sure that we do we need to have a council meeting uh for our charter, at least one meeting per month.

So our proposal would be to have that meeting be on July 29th, the last Wednesday.

Right now, I think we would just plan for that to be a full meeting, kind of going back to like a work session and a uh business meeting, so we'd have both of those that night and kind of that one meeting, but then have that uh time off in those first four weeks of July.

So I wanted to put that out there and see if there's any questions, concerns with that approach.

Yeah, and we when we move to separating the work session from the business meeting, there was a commitment to look at you know putting in some breaks approximately about once a quarter.

What we've got here for next year is um avoiding spring break.

Um you've got Memorial Day week, and then you've got Fourth of July leading into a break.

Um, and then you get into Thanksgiving and and Christmas is the other times we really take off a work session, but otherwise we're pretty we're pretty full on the mud.

So the question for council is does this July break uh make sense for the summer um as far as um giving us a little break, giving staff a little break as well in the middle of the year um to recharge a bit on our pretty hectic and and fast push to get work done.

Um so open to thoughts if if this is okay or if um folks want to try something else.

We did have Ashley send out the survey, there weren't a lot of responses to it, so I didn't know if people had strong feelings.

Um, but I think I I'm okay with how this is, or if people want to suggest something else.

I just like to get something nailed down so people can start to plan.

What what do people think about the idea of splitting the break between July and August so that there's you know some break in August and then some break in July?

I'm for that, and I know that I think council or councillor Riley did reply, and I I do tend to take like to take my breaks in August just because of the smoky smoke.

And yeah, is it time to try to get away?

I think that could work.

The question is just that first week in July with the fourth of July.

We have, as Eric said, traditionally not met then.

So if we're okay having the two two meetings in July and then taking the last two weeks of July off, and then maybe the first one or two of August off.

Is that kind of what you're proposing?

I mean, I was thinking, I mean, at least for me, I'm thinking about uh school schedules and stuff.

The last two of August would be more attractive for me, but um yeah, I mean I'm I'm open kind of like an early July break and then an end of August break.

Exactly.

Bimodal distribution is one sorry, exactly.

I like that.

I worry, yeah.

I worry about taking four weeks off, having it would actually be six weeks, I think, between business meetings.

That's a really long time.

There's a bit of fifth week in there, yeah.

Yeah, we I mean we had a lot of uh planning applications tonight.

Um there's a lot of business that needs to be conducted, and it we can't always oftentimes stuff gets pushed out, and so we can't always get it in.

So I think giving us a little bit of flexibility there so that we're not making people wait.

I think was a good, you know.

Would we okay?

What about if we took the first two weeks of July off and the last two weeks of August off?

Would that give us some good breaks?

Okay, let's let's sorry staff, but let's normally not like we thought we had a lot of things.

We'll be fine.

So I think it's just what works for you all.

That just gives a little more time for some travel and some time off in the summer, and then it will break.

Something for the future that's impacted me, and I'm sure um has impacted others, is um we always tend to have a meeting either the first day of school or um the day before the first day of school, and that's really rough and there's a lot of guilt associated with being here on that day.

So that it looks like that that that that is September 9th, that's just a work session, so that should be fine.

Like we'll be home, but just something to keep in mind for the future that that's that's always a rough one for me.

Yeah, I think I think that's well taken.

And I don't know if we can think about just watching our agenda for that meeting or something to make sure that it's a little lighter or something like that.

Yeah.

Okay, so first two weeks of July off, last two weeks of August off, thumbs up.

Okay.

That's great.

And I did talk to Meg too, and he was looking for some August time, so I think that will work for him as well.

Okay.

Cool.

I think that's it for the meeting then.

We are adjourned.

Thanks everybody.

Thank you.