Our meeting started.

Thank you, Ashley.

Um, let's do roll call down at your end, Counselor Black.

Megan Norris, she her.

Megan Perkins, she her.

Melanie Keyboard, she her.

Mike Riley, he and Ariel Mendes.

Gina Franzosa, she her.

Great, we are all here.

Um, so we're gonna start with a presentation from Latino Community Association, and um Catalina Sanchez Frank is gonna come on up.

Good evening, Mayor Tibler, City Council members, Mr.

King.

Thanks for the opportunity to present tonight.

My presentation is an update about the current state of the Latino community in central Oregon.

If I lose my breath, excuse me, because I'm recovering from a cold.

Since January of 2025, we've learned of over 1,000 deportations statewide and 16 deportations locally.

We know this number has increased since November from dozens to thousands in some communities up to 7,000 percent.

We know that seven jurisdictions in Oregon have declared a state of emergency.

We know that communities west of the Cascades like Portland or Woodburn have been hit the hardest.

Two cases that have hit home include a freshman student at OSU who had to quit school to move back home in Woodburn, and helped his parents who had been terrorized for weeks to go to work in the fields or even go out to get groceries.

Another one was a woman whose husband was detained in Eugene while attending an immigration check-in appointment.

This means he was detained while complying with the law.

This is racial profiling and in violation of sanctuary law.

And unfortunately, as of tonight, a fatal shooting in Minneapolis.

And we're grateful for your continued sponsorship and support for the this vital cultural celebrations.

When families are displaced from outside of the state or from communities west of the Cascades, this influx of newcomers puts additional pressure on our resources.

Either in providing services at no cost to families, like $3,000, $300,000 in legal fees, or $1 million in tax returns through our tax filing program.

We also focused on developing developing immigrant rights training aimed to educate and protect Latina families in the event of a family member removal and neighbors and allies alike to learn to be legal observers or an accompaniment volunteer to immigration curt appointments as well as develop local and statewide partnerships because we cannot do this work alone.

LCA also would like to thank the city council for your support to these two affordable housing projects.

First for LCA that will bring close to 300 units to working families.

In fact, we're breaking ground on the first of these developments verde pines next week, as you may already know.

We know that housing affordability is critical for our community's stability, and we also want to emphasize the direct connection between these projects and the Latina workforce.

In key traits as such as construction, landscaping and roofing, Latina workers represent the majority of the labor force, making them the backbone of our local development.

What happens when they can't show up to work?

At LCA, our priority is clear, protecting our families.

We're entering this new year, facing deep uncertainty and a growing list of hardships impacting Latina communities throughout Oregon.

We cannot sustain this critical work alone.

We're here today to ask for the city's active support in protecting our community's future.

We propose to continue the collaboration with the City of Bent Community Engagement Team, including dedicated staff at our Bent office, and to help coordinate recurring community conversations.

This engagement will ensure that city leadership is consistently informed of the immediate needs and realities of the Latin community.

We urge City of Bend to align with other jurisdictions by preparing a formal state of emergency declaration.

Increasing financial support for LCA is a critical step in this preparation, as it will allow us to remain responsive and provide essential resources to impacted individuals as we navigate these foreseeable crisis.

And finally, LCA author.

Additionally, LCA is prepared to lead immigrants' defense rights, workshops for city personnel and partners, strengthening strengthening our collective ability to maintain a safe and inclusive community.

And finally, I saw an update of the flock in Bent as the next agenda item.

So I'd like to add a verbal request that the city takes into serious consideration the equity impacts and risks of the abuse of data by ICE and DHS.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Gracias.

Thank you so much, Catalina.

And who and who is with you here?

My name is Luis Jimenez.

I'm the president of the board of directors for LCA.

And I know we have some other board members and staff here as well.

So thank you for being with us tonight and suggesting that you present it to us on this really important information.

I think it's good for us to hear and for our community to hear.

And I think we need to take consider into consideration what Cataline has asked of us tonight.

We're not going to make any decisions right now, but I think these are really good asks from a community partner organization that we've been working with for quite some time.

I did want to give just a little, take this opportunity to give a little update on some of the the policy that the city is working on as far as internally.

And this will include a little bit of information about Sanctuary Act for folks who aren't super familiar with it, but the State of Oregon Sanctuary Promise Act prohibits the use of city resources, including facilities and staff for civil immigration enforcement.

And the city attorney and city manager's office are working on a policy and training for staff to specify how this applies at the facilities we own, including our buildings, our parking lots, that civil immigration activities, including staging, processing, or using our places as a base for activities are not allowed on city property and judicial warrants, not administrative warrants, which are different, are required for any access into any non-public area for immigration enforcement access actions.

The community should also be aware that prohibiting access to spaces that are open to the public is beyond our ability to do.

So I just wanted to make sure that was clear for folks as well.

I know I didn't prepare you for a bunch of questions or anything, but I do want to give counselors any opportunity for any other comments or questions for Cataline before we move on.

Really appreciate the presentation.

So thank you.

Thank you for what you do for the community.

Exactly.

That's what I wanted to say.

Thank you for being here tonight and for everything you do for the community.

Yeah, yeah.

I just wanted to say thank you.

As a Latina, I just there's a lot going on.

There's a lot of hatred, there's a lot of discrimination, there's a lot of violence going on.

Um, and there's a lot of young people seeing it, and I know that um there's just it's really tough to see, and I just appreciate um your voice and just being such a resource for the community, and um, and I just appreciate the city stepping up and trying to do all that we can.

Um, and just know that we'll continue to be a great partner.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

All right, I'm gonna look for Samantha to see if we're ready for our okay, not yet.

Okay, so our our auditor, I think we think maybe thought the meeting started at seven, as our meetings used to do.

Um so we're gonna move through some of the other agenda items, and we'll come back to that when she is here, which means that brings us to item uh C under good of the order, which is the flock update.

Um, and this is on our agenda due to um the issue being raised by our constituents.

So I want to thank folks who um brought this to the attention first.

I first saw it on the Reddit forum, but we've had folks then since then showing up to meetings, writing in to us, sharing your opinions.

We just now heard from LCA as well.

Um, and since this has first come up, I've been working with staff and sort of doing some learning and research and talking to some colleagues in other cities that have dealt with this issue before getting to the point where we could kind of look at the contract tonight.

So um I will throw it over to City Manager King to kick us off with some information.

Just a little bit of uh background information.

Uh in May of 2025, a contract with Flock Safety for a subscription to four fixed flock safety automatic license plate reader cameras or ALPR as they're often referred to, was approved.

Uh there are four cameras in total, uh, two on the north end of highway 97 and two on the south end of 97.

Both are directional and both are on the edge of the city limits.

Uh the contract was paid for primarily using grant funds with the intent that Ben Police Department would evaluate this technology in a one-year pilot program.

The department relies on a variety of technology tools to assist in public safety response and investigations, including ALPR, body worn cameras, and live 911 as examples.

And police officers have reported that the fixed ALPR system has helped them in their daily work of keeping our community safe, including by allowing officers to more timely and more to be more timely and more efficient.

Uh this technology also improves safety for both our first responders and our community.

There are, however, been significant public concerns around flock safety business practices.

We share some of those concerns.

Because of that, the city of Bend will not renew the flock safety contract for fixed ALPR system subscription services.

Additionally, the police chief is currently participating in a legislative work group to improve the safety and security of ALPR systems, including such topical areas as retention of data, data times, uh law enforcement purpose access, uh, criminal justice information system or CGIS data security requirements for vendors, ownership of data by the agency, sharing allowances of data by agencies, public record exemptions, audit and public and policy requirements, and making sure that those are publicly available.

Uh, and probably more.

That's just some of the things that are being talked about with the anticipation of some laws being put into place during this special legislative session coming up next month.

I've asked uh Captain Brian Beekman with our police department to provide some examples of how this tool is being used over the past six months since we've had this in place.

Thank you for having me.

Mayor and council.

My name is Brian Beekman.

I'm a captain with the police department.

As a city manager said, I've been asked to just provide the council with a brief summary of some of the successes that we did see with this tool since it was implemented at two locations on Highway 97 in May of last year.

Excuse me.

So how these tools works, it's a camera, it can read a license plate.

If there's an alert on that license plate, it can be sent to officers in the area, and they could take action depending on what the alert is.

And that could be from um uh let's say a stolen vehicle out of state, or that could maybe be a local uh situation where an officer was uh maybe looking for a crime suspect in a particular vehicle.

Either way, that type of alert could come to the officer's attention.

So in the time period that we discussed, there were three stolen vehicles that uh alerts were given.

Officers were able to get into the area in time and stop the vehicles and recover all three of those stolen vehicles.

One of those vehicles was actually on a commercial car carrier, and it uncovered uh an actual ongoing multi-state theft operation where they were defrauding people trying to sell their vehicles private party.

And um, and so that opened up quite a broad investigation.

So it was more than just a simple stolen vehicle, but at least uh my estimation 35, 40,000 in recovered stolen property through those stolen vehicle investigations.

Our detectives were uh looking for a sex crime suspect uh with a minor victim uh in the case.

Uh they they weren't together, but that was the victim.

Uh they put a local, as I mentioned, a local alert into the system, and uh day after doing that, they were alerted that his vehicle and him driving it past that location on South Highway 97, they were able to stop him and take him into custody.

So it resolved a case.

He is not he was not a bended resident, is not a Bend resident and lived out of the area, so it was uh very fortuitous for them to be able to solve the case in that way.

There's also been a series of other cases.

There was a missing endangered elderly man that had been reported by his family out of Washington, whose vehicle uh uh passed one of the cameras on the north side of town, and our officers were able to get in contact with him and get him reunited.

Uh finally and lastly, but it's probably the most significant case.

There was a serious injury stabbing at a gas station uh the middle of last year.

It was nearly fatal.

The suspect in that case fled the area and fled for about a week.

Our detectives were not sure where he was or um uh how to take him into custody, and one of the cameras did alert to his vehicle passing uh that camera, and they were able to get him stopped and get him taken into custody.

So uh in summary, I certainly respect uh much of the uh input from the community and concerns and and in my opinion, some very valid concerns about uh some of the vendors involved in this technology and some of the function of this technology, uh, but it also is um incomplete without explaining some of the public safety benefits, and so I appreciate your time this evening.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Um, counsel, we've sort of heard um I appreciate the claps.

We we kind of we want to keep moving, so we'll keep um the applause to a minimum, please.

But um, we've heard that we're not, you know, the the decision has been made not to renew the contract.

Are there any other questions or any other actions folks want to take at this time?

And I think we've also heard that there's legislative action that I think we'll be tuned into as well.

I'm like a commitment to come back through the session.

Uh, we're gonna have our legislative delegation here, our lobbyists here at the 21st as we outline our agenda, but as we see laws get passed, we'll come and debrief and share with council the result of that legislation.

I think the timing works well.

So if we're ever to deploy uh the technology with a different vendor, we'll have some additional sideboards in place through this legislation.

Right.

Yeah, um, after reading through the contract, I think the biggest concern that I have is about um for the the footage data, which is the actual data that's captured when they look at a vehicle.

Um it's you we don't have really have any opportunity to uh even respond to or we're not giving any notice if there's going to be a release of that data to another governmental entity, and while I appreciate that a private entity may be obligated under the law to do something, it would be nice if at least we had a window or we could get um be able to respond and try to block something, but as the contract is written right now, I don't see that we have any way to stop that.

And I think what I came into this meeting concerned about with that is what's going on at the federal level and compliance with sanctuary law, and that we might get into a place where they try the feds try to get some of this flock data, and then we just heard concerns about that as well tonight from LCA.

So that that's the part that worries me the most about this.

I mean, I think there's a general set of other things that we should be looking at as a city and a community when we use these kinds of systems and data and make sure that the privacy protections are as strong as possible.

We have the legislative stuff happening, but even reviewing the contracts that we have, because there's another system we're using different vendor or going to be using soon.

Um so I I you know I don't know what other people think, but I'm I'm pretty concerned about that given everything that's going on at the national level, and I think it's more likely that we're gonna see things ramp up, as we also heard tonight from LCA.

So I I'd like to see us pause, honestly, use of this.

I mean, I think there are some really important um law enforcement benefits of that, and we heard that tonight from um Captain Beekman, but I I also think that there are some real downsides, and um you know, given that we have a short window, I'd be more interested in doing something like that.

Okay.

We don't have the ability to terminate the contract based on what I read and a little brief discussion with city attorney, but I think we could also, as other communities have done, is keep our we're gonna have to keep paying for a few more months, but just pause the use of it for now.

Yeah.

So we find another vendor.

Okay.

I'd be I'd be curious.

Sorry to call you back up here, Captain Feekman.

But I'd be can you can you kind of fill us in?

So with the concerns that have been raised um tonight.

Can you tell us how that could work under the current contract?

Um I would yeah, let me see what I understand.

Uh Council Riley, your your understanding is that we would need to leave cameras on and go all the way through the end of the contract.

Is that no?

No, we just pause the use of them.

We're gonna continue to have to pay because we can't terminate the contract.

So you know, but but I'm concerned about what I was talking about.

What you are the concern that you brought up about the if they receive or request a federal federal government came and said well, they could come to flock, I think is my concern.

So give us the data.

Yeah, so um I don't have a specific example, but generally speaking, it would take some kind of court order for uh a private company to release information like that, search warrant or subpoena from the federal courts.

Um I and in my read on the contract is that they wouldn't just hand over data.

Um you know, I understand I understand there's some concerns about the trust of that company.

Um but um that that certainly in but in investigations hasn't been my experience that a a private company with data is just gonna turn that over without a subpoena or search warrant.

Yeah, and and that is the the procedure for disclosure disclosing data is outlined in the contract.

And it's I mean it does require written notice to the customer, which in this case is the city.

Um there is one provision that essentially says FLOC may access use, preserve, and disclose if legally required to do so.

There's another provision that says FLOC may do those things, including disclose if it has in its judgment a good faith belief that the access use or disclosure is reasonably necessary to comply with their obligations.

So I think that's a little Brian's right, but it is a little squishy.

It also is in contrast to section of the document, there's just a couple paragraphs before related to proprietary information that is different that has a lot more notice requirements for the customer.

And in this circumstance around the footage data, that language is not in there.

And it's what makes me very uncomfortable.

Um so well, I'm just we can just see if there's support from council to to take that action at this point or not.

Yes.

As far as just basically turning them off.

I mean, I I think I'm sympathetic, and I I also share additional concerns about Flock as a vendor in particular, given some of the stories about uh security uh and um unintended perhaps access to the data that I think you know, reading Flock's website, they say they're that is not happening, but other people have demonstrated is happening.

Um I would be supportive of of stopping using them uh as soon as possible.

Okay, any other thoughts over here?

I think just to remind, I mean, for me, we're almost to the end of the contract.

I think if it was the beginning, I would want to have maybe a little more discussion, but I think especially given the community input, what other cities in Oregon are doing, which they are turning them off, they are terminating their flock contracts, and the work that's gonna be happening at the legislature.

I think this is probably a prudent move to to end the use of those at this point.

Okay, looks like we have agreement on that.

Okay, okay.

So just to summarize, um, go ahead.

Well, one other point I think is that just getting ready.

I by saying this, I don't think these are tools we want to just dismiss, right?

There's obviously real benefits from a law enforcement perspective, and we want to continue that.

And we've also made a choice to look at speeding, which is a huge issue in the community.

Um cameras somewhat like this system can can actually really help with speeding enforcement and change behavior, and we're trying to move forward with that.

So you know, how do we set up a set of policies that kind of when we go into a new vendor relationship, and ideally sooner rather than later, so we can get started on something else, um, but with the due diligence to make sure we have the right terms from privacy and data sharing.

Okay, that makes sense.

All right, to summarize, um, for the city manager, the contract will not be renewed, and the direction to staff is to turn off the technology and not be using it for the remainder of the contract.

Okay, okay.

All right, thanks for being here.

Thanks.

Okay, we are gonna go back up to item B because our auditor is here.

Yeah, okay.

So um, this is the presentation of our fiscal 2024-2025 audit results.

Right.

Um maybe just have to do that.

That's probably easiest.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, she's bringing those up.

I can just do a quick introduction.

Uh Amanda Moore, uh principal with Baker Tilly, formerly Moss Adams.

Um I work solely with the city and county governments, and I'm excited to be here today to present the audit results for fiscal year 2025.

So just a small agenda.

I know we uh do a quick presentation here, but we just kind of put together um information that we think would be important to city council to go over as part of our audit process.

Before this meeting, uh we do uh a deeper dive with uh with the audit committee and go into more details of the audit process, but also want to present to council just high level um how the audit went this year.

So this is just a quick snapshot of your team.

Um I mentioned I'm Amanda Warm.

Uh my role on your engagement as uh the principal is I'm your engagement reviewer, so I'm responsible for making sure that we follow all professional standards and meeting deadlines with the city in order to get your audit done on time.

Um, another quick point on this slide.

I I won't go through everybody on here, but um just uh we've had a pretty consistent team, so these are should be familiar faces to you.

Uh Kevin Moorey, director, um he runs the engagement with me, he helps me a lot with review.

Harvey Wang is our manager, he's kind of our point person, he's who your team probably spends the most amount of time dealing with.

And then just a quick point on Keith Simovic, he's uh uh principal out of our Portland office, and he's not otherwise engaged on the on the audit, isn't working on the deep day-to-day details of your audit, um, but performs uh independent review of your financial statements as well as our internal audit reports to kind of have a cold perspective of uh of an outsider review.

So just kind of highlighting what uh an audit of a city entails.

So there's a number of things that we look at as part of our audit process.

So one of those is uh looking at your actual account balances.

So when you open up your financial statements and you see all of those numbers, uh we test those in a number of different ways.

We look at internal controls and then we look at supporting um uh supporting documents for those transactions.

Um I'll talk about the third one kind of lastly, as that's a little bit separate from the actual numbers that you see in your financial statements.

So, as part of uh making sure that your account balances are correct, we um we we do test to materiality.

So we're not looking at every transaction or you never get rid of us.

We'd be here all year long looking at all your transactions.

So we do use materiality and select samples of transactions and trace those to independent documents, uh reconciliations, we test items, we will send out um independent confirmations to third parties such as um financial institutions or bankers or um legal and um as part of that process.

We also perform analytical procedures.

So you have a number of accounts that are um sort of uh somewhat predictive, um consistent annually year over year, and so we'll um look at those using analytical procedures or comparing your balances to what you've budgeted for and why items might not be in line or why they're consistent with those.

So performing some analytical procedures as well as looking at your account balances.

Um lastly, we perform a number of inquiries.

So we we talk to a number of of members of management, not just within your finance department, um, and uh to cooperate, especially if we have um when we're looking at analytical procedures and if something might be um outside of expectations, we want to get um evidence about why that might be the case because it doesn't mean the the balance is wrong.

So those are some of the the audit procedures that we perform over the balances.

We also look at internal controls.

At the end of the day, we're not expressing an opinion over the effectiveness of your internal controls, but we do look at your internal controls.

Uh we sit with management, we have them walk us through their internal controls, we pull um a number of transactions, we test your internal controls.

We do utilize that information to essentially plan our audit.

So that is why we're looking at internal controls.

So areas that have really good internal controls, we're able to test those and perform, and that dictates how we might perform our procedures over your ending balances.

As part of that process, though, if we do identify some sort of internal control deficiency, we do have to evaluate that and determine whether or not that might be a finding that we need to communicate to you.

The last item is we test uh compliance with state and and federal laws.

So you're uh an Oregon municipality.

Oregon has set out a number of requirements that you have to follow under the Oregon revised statutes and Oregon administrative rules, and they have provided us with some guidelines on areas that they expect external auditors to test.

Some of those items include your budget law or procurements, um, how you might invest city funds, and we perform that testing.

In addition, you have uh federal awards, so you receive federal funding and have those expenditures annually.

Because you uh spent well over 750,000 in federal awards, we do perform what is called a single audit, and so we do select uh some of those programs to test and follow what is called the compliance supplement in order to determine uh what we need to test for those programs.

You can go to the next slide.

So this is this question is okay.

So those are some of the procedures we perform.

Um how do we know whether the the financial statements are accurate?

I wanted to mention again here we do look at materiality.

We're looking at your financials at statements to determine whether or not they are materially correct in accordance with the the framework that you follow, which is the generally accepted accounting principles, and you follow those GASB principles.

So as part of our our process, uh we perform a number of procedures to determine how we're gonna test these balances.

Uh we start with a planning phase where we're doing risk assessment, and that's when I mentioned where we interview a number of people of management within finance and outside of finance to determine where there may be risks of errors or fraud.

And we design our audit procedures around some of those planning procedures.

Uh we do test the internal controls as part of our process.

Um, and we kind of touched on a couple of these already, so I'm gonna skip to the financial statements.

So your financial statements, I think we said this year were 280 pages.

Uh and so we do review those financial statements because while we also audit all of your your account balances that are material and looking at those, uh, we do look at your financial statements as a whole, that entire audit package to determine whether or not you are following the generally accepted accounting principles and that they're materially correct.

And something to highlight here is that the city does also obtain the GFOA certificate of excellence, which requires some additional information in your annual comprehensive financial report.

Um so if you look at those statements and you look at the end, you have a statistical information that's that 10 years of additional of 10 years worth of information for the city.

That is additional information that is required in order to obtain that certificate, but is not required under the generally accepted accounting principles that you follow.

So we also review to make sure that you're complying with the generally accepted accounting principles and these additional requirements in order to obtain that award.

So based on all the testing that we did over your account balances, your ACFER as a whole, we were able to issue it as considered to be a clean or unmodified opinion.

So that means we were able to get comfortable based on all the work that we performed, that the financial statements are presented fairly and according materially correct in accordance with GAP.

You see, there we also audit uh the urban renewal agency.

So I know I've talked a lot mostly about the city financial statements.

We do also audit the urban rule urban renewal agency as a blended component unit of the city.

They do issue separate uh financial statements, and we issued a clean or unmodified opinion over those financial statements as well.

So the last question is whether or not the city complied with uh state and federal laws and regulations.

Um, it's based on our testing.

So I mentioned some of the areas that we test for Oregon, and um what we we issued uh opinion, we we don't issue an opinion, we issue essentially whether there are findings or not in that report, um whether you complied with the the Oregon revised statutes and administrative rules that we have to test.

We obviously don't test every single one again.

We would we would never leave.

Um and we had no compliance findings to report, which is a which is a clean report, which is uh also worth mentioning that is is very challenging because even one dollar of over expenditure is reported as a finding in Oregon.

And so receiving a report that has no compliance findings means that you were able to adhere to those rules, including maintaining watching your budget to make sure that you're not overexpending appropriation.

So, overall, some really good results there.

Uh the federal report is not complete yet.

Uh so at to date, we have we have tested one uh major program that has not been completed yet, and not for the the not for the fault of the city, not for the fault of Baker Tilly, but um due to uh the compliance supplement that we utilize in order to audit that program was delayed.

Normally it comes out and usually in May, it usually comes out in May.

It became very delayed, and then it became even more delayed with the with the government shutdown, it was not considered to be an essential um uh area to continue to complete.

It did get issued at the end of November, and so we have completed most of that testing and we'll wrap up this month.

Uh due date of the testing that we've completed, we have not identified anything that is uh compliance finding at this point, but uh I can't say that we issued a clean opinion yet because we're not we're not quite there yet.

So, but that should be completed by the end of this month.

Go to the next slide.

And then did the audit identify any fraud waste or abuse?

Um, some of this language does come directly out of those federal um guidelines, and um that audit is not complete, but at this point we have not identified anything uh to be communicated to you based on our audit.

Go to the next slide.

And with that, just want to say thank you.

Super high level of how the the audit went and your results overall very good results, clean uh reports.

Uh one more report to go, uh, but would be open to any questions if you have any on the audit process.

Okay, any questions or any from the audit committee or audit committee members that want to say anything?

See uh Amanda, thanks very much.

Uh myself and Councilman Norris and Council Mendez enjoyed your your brief earlier today.

Um, I think one of the things I really appreciate was the war gaming that you're doing to is uh that's my word, not yours, in terms of of what are potential sources of fraud or or abuse, and that you constantly are reevaluating some of those and even asking members of the staff to say, you know, you work in the building.

Can you think of a place?

And and we've looked in the past based on that, and then I'd like to pass on compliments to Eric and to Samantha for what appears to be quite quite a job well done.

So I would extend my acknowledgement to Kimala Lutz.

Kimala leadership in your team and your just willingness to be so responsive and so uh your the bar is really high in terms of QAQC.

So thank you very much.

Thank you.

Yeah, and I just want to say thanks to staff.

I mean, I think this is the second year of being on the audit committee, and it was just the kudos were just as good last year.

So great job, and we really appreciate it.

Okay, any other questions?

All right, thanks so much for being with us and presenting all of your hard work.

We appreciate it.

All right, council.

I'm gonna suggest that we move council action and reports to the end of the meeting so we can get to the visitor section just because we have a lot of folks here tonight.

So let's go ahead and do that without objection.

Um, Ashley, let's we just have a couple online commenters, so I was gonna see if we could start with them and see who's still with us online.

Um I do see Chris N is still online, so I think we will start with Chris N.

And um for folks um who are commenting tonight, you will have two minutes to speak with us.

We will um for the online folks that'll be online, we'll get the big timer out for the folks who are in the room, and you'll see it up here.

We have a quite a few folks to speak tonight, so I'm gonna try to hold you right to that two minutes.

If there's anything else you want to tell us, you can always email us, and some of you have already emailed us, which is great.

Um, our rules dictate you need to address us as a body, not as individuals.

Um we expect um decorum, and so in so much as that no matter if the person speaking to something you agree with or disagree with, no clapping or booing or anything like that, um, so that everyone can have their chance to to be heard here tonight.

Um, and we have several topics folks are speaking on tonight.

Um any disruptive language or behavior um may get your time cut off or you may be asked to leave, but I don't think we'll have any problems with that tonight.

So, with that, let's start with Chris N online.

And Chris N, if you're able, you can unmute and you can go ahead.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Council, for the opportunity to speak about the proposal to implement the Flock ALPR cameras in our city.

My name is Chris.

I'm a Benn resident.

I'm a security and data privacy professional who has presented on privacy topics globally.

I also wanted to thank Captain Beekman for sharing his successes with the ALPR and for the committee's commitment to being clear on the problem that we're trying to solve.

And understand the cost in personal privacy that this solution demands.

FLOC in particular has a history documented by the electronic foundation Frontier Foundation of being abused by both regional and federal law enforcement.

And Ben's stated policies on using ALPR do not provide any mitigation of this risk.

We've discussed the need to modify policies tonight.

However, even if Ben were to modify the agreement to give us a right to object to the sharing of data, as has been suggested, Flock, as is any US based company, is beholden to the USA Freedom Act of 2015.

They can be obligated to share information, such as our images, locations, and movement with the U.S.

government in secret under a national security letter.

Without the ability to disclose that to you, me, or the Ben police.

In the current US legal environment, it's simply not possible to use a remotely hosted product like Flock for ALPR services.

Instead, I urge you to invest in locally managed technologies where this council can provide effective and transparent oversight.

Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you, Chris, for your comment.

I've got several other commenters, but I don't see them online.

I'm just gonna call the names in case I'm missing it.

But Eva Front, David Welton, and Peter Dabrowski.

I'm not seeing them online, Ashley.

Are you?

Okay, so we will move.

That is it for our online speaker, so we'll move to in-person folks.

So same situation, but you're just gonna be coming on up to the table to speak with us.

Um please, I did I think I forgot to say, please do state um your name and then whether you live in the city of Bend, you don't need to give us your address, just whether you live in the city of Bend.

So we'll get the timer set up here and then we'll get going.

Okay, great.

So first up is gonna be Kate Bernard.

Thank you, I'm Kate Bernard.

Um, actually, similar to the first caller, I have background in financial risk and compliance.

Um, so I saw everyone's eyes glaze over when the auditors started talking.

It was good, right?

Yes, I appreciate it.

It was nice to be not on that end.

Um I just want to say I appreciate um pausing the flock contract.

Um, and I also appreciate you know, the I think it's done with a good intent.

I don't argue that.

Um, I think the intent is, you know, we want public safety, it does provide good things, but I think that's stepping back to take a take a step back to reevaluate, um, knowing that once our data is out there, once the systems are in place, we really don't have control, as Chris was just saying.

You know, who has access?

So I think considering that maybe the city needs to establish, you know, what does our community, what are we comfortable with, um, the framework before we say now let's look for a solution that meets those.

So some vendors like Black will just be out of there.

But I like the idea of that private network if we really need that.

So I think transparency oversight controls, risk mitigans, um, just understanding what we think the data is doing today.

We don't have control over what the future use will be, and we don't know what that looks like.

So I understand it's for good use.

I don't argue that whatsoever.

Um, but I just think we have to keep that in mind.

So thank you.

Thank you.

All right, next is Madison Bordeaux.

I have supporting documents.

Who should hand those up to the recorder?

Thank you.

Um, and even though you guys pause this, I'm still gonna continue with it.

Go ahead.

You can if you'd like to, yes.

Uh look, can you can you counsel?

I'm saying oh, sorry, today I'm dressed as Ben's infamous criminal, the googly eyes bandit.

I'm here because I've heard the news, we've upgraded to real surveillance.

So let's talk about Flock.

Six people signed this last addendum, including your attorneys, city manager, and chief of police.

So when I point out the problems, I understand this isn't complexity or technicalities.

This is what you knowingly agreed to.

Section 4.3 gives Flock a perpetual worldwide license to our data once they anonymize it.

They can use it to train AI or other Flock products, and securely Flock decides what counts as anonymized using undefined commercially available standards, not city approval, no independent audit, no way to revoke this even after the contract ends.

Your addendum tried to fix this loophole, but once data is anonymized, it's no longer legally city data under your own contract definition.

So all the deletion requirements in section nine no longer apply.

Vehicle movement patterns, traffic correlations, aggregated statistics, Flock keeps it all forever.

Section 912 on data breaches requires Flocks to notify you regarding any data breaches and describes measures taken or proposed to have been taken to fix it.

The keyword is being proposed.

They don't actually have to do anything, they just have to say they might.

Section 5.3 lets Flock share footage with third parties, even beyond law enforcement, based on their good faith belief that it's necessary.

Not your approval, just their good faith belief.

And they don't even have to give you notice until afterwards.

Here's what I want you to understand.

This system doesn't prevent bias, industrializes it.

And this contract creates massive constitution to constitutional liability for the city and the First Amendment's chilling effects doctrine, the Fourth Amendment's mosaic theory on warrantless searches, and the Fourth Amendment's 14th Amendment's equal protection clause prohibiting discriminatory surveillance.

The 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause prohibiting discriminatory surveillance.

Meanwhile, Flock's liability is capped at $18,000 per year, and yours is uncapped.

So when residents sue over these violations, you're asking Ben taxpayers to cover the legal costs while Flock walks away.

Communities across the country are rejecting these systems.

Just in Washington, Oregon, there are nine places of the terminated contracts or chosen not to renew so far.

They looked at the evidence and said no, so why are you saying yes?

You didn't, thank you.

And Madison, that's that's the end of your we have your written comment.

Thank you very much.

And the good guys are inspired.

Thank you.

Rowan Jones is next.

Hi everybody.

For the record, I'm Rowan Jones, Theta Major Pronouns.

I'm the immigration and advocacy program manager with the Latino Community Association.

I'm going to give you some beautiful written comments to back up your discussion decision on Flock, but thank you for deciding to end the contract and pause for now.

That's all.

Thank you, Rowan.

Appreciate it.

All right, Ian Mason.

Hi.

My name is Ian Mason.

Um if you're in Bend.

Uh I came here to talk about Flock.

Uh you've paused it moving forward.

That's awesome.

Thank you.

I just wanted to talk briefly on uh defense in depth is a security paradigm where you're supposed to have a lot of layers of security to try to stop uh bad actors from getting into your system.

Um has been shown to use an insecure operating system on its Falcon cameras.

Android 8, which lost its security updates in 2021.

It's success susceptible to physical attack with hackers capable of getting root control of the device within minutes in some cases.

Um it sometimes connects to Wi-Fi networks that are hostile to it, um, which can scrape data moving through that network, which is unencrypted for Flock.

Um, and its web interface on the cloud can be um has been one time breached, allowing access to hundreds of camera feeds.

So the attack surface of Flock safety starts at the camera level with an insecure operating system, sometimes sending unencrypted data through unverified Wi-Fi networks to Flock's proprietary and unaudited cloud.

While ALPRs like Flock can be a useful tool for public safety, that tool must itself be safe, or we open it up to bad actors.

Um I would like to just follow up with what Chris said.

I think that a you know, like we used to use closed camera circuit, closed circuit TV for securities, because no one could get into that.

We should look into private solutions.

Great.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Jonathan Westmorland.

I want to thank all of you for uh taking the public's response and doing what you've done with it on a personal level.

I've never had anything to do with City Hall before or any government entity, but this flock situation.

I didn't care much about it at first.

Somebody on Reddit said there should be a petition, or where is there a petition?

And I went, hey, this is how easy it is to make a petition.

And then my name got mentioned in the news, and I went, Oh, I better I better follow up.

And so I started digging into flock camera systems, and I've spent 30, 40 hours over the last three weeks.

And it's bad.

But you guys recognize that.

And you guys have also listened to the public.

I don't think the public knew what was going on because who really pays attention anymore?

And I made an effort to any time I learned something new, I posted it online.

When I learned how you address City Hall or do a public records request, I posted that online.

I posted all of your email addresses online.

Uh just hoping the our voices would be heard.

And you guys have heard our voices, and I really appreciate your response.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for all of your engagement, Jonathan.

Appreciate it.

All right, uh, Sarah Odin Dahl is next.

Oh, she's not.

Oh later in the agenda, probably.

Uh no, we're doing it all right.

We're doing all the comment right now.

If you need a minute, that's okay.

Is anyone else ready out there, Sarah?

Is Dave out there?

Dave Berger.

Dave, are you ready?

They come in.

Thank you, Mayor.

Council, for the record, my name's David Berger.

I'm here to speak on the electrification process.

And also item number six, where you're gonna form a tri-committee.

Um I believe that at this time that there is not enough data, there is not a goal in place, there's not a budget in place, that there's not enough information from the utility companies to make these decisions and to make a fee structure and a non-monetary benefit to another um process without all of that information.

I know this committees are going to be trying to come up with that, but I believe this city council needs to give that direction, not just a fee structure.

Um I just don't feel that there is enough information that you have gathered to make that decision and to give a tri-committee uh an open blanket of here's an amount of money, please do something with it.

Um so I am just very concerned with that, and I just want to share my opinions and um again uh please do all of your research and um do what you can so that this is a good good decision, um, which I don't feel it is right now.

Thank you.

Thanks, Dave.

Uh let's have Brian Kennedy come up next.

Is Brian still here?

Oh, yeah, I thought you were Brian.

You're in the front.

So evening, Mayor, Councillors, City Leaders.

Um my name is Brian Kennedy, and I'm here on behalf of the old farm district neighborhood board.

Our board, in conjunction with our assigned city councilor Riley, Senator Broadman and City staff has previously helped out uh pointing out the unintended consequences of Oregon's Senate Bill 8 and House Bill 3395 on local master plan developments.

These concerns have since been amplified in multiple local news reports.

And understanding that you may be discussing this issue next week, we wanted to add this submission to the public record.

Uh recently, the old farm district board created a survey pertaining to the local impact of Senate Bill 8 and presented it to the Greater Bend area.

The survey ran from December 17th and concluded on January 4th.

It ran on our website and was promoted across multiple social media platforms through direct email and shared uh with all the other active neighborhood districts.

The survey asks, quote, do you support amending the Oregon statute to give our local representatives the ability to restrict affordable housing on property zoned in master plans as commercial if the master plan meets all other state requirements, especially in regard to a complete community that already has designated space for affordable housing?

Unquote.

The results were as follows.

The total results uh were or total responses were 369.

Of those 369, 326 or 88 percent voted yes.

Forty-three representing 12 percent voted no.

So, given these survey results that we just presented, we encourage the city council to lobby at the state level for more local urban planning control, particularly as it pertains to Senate Bill 8.

Thank you, Brian.

Your time is up.

Oh, yeah, you're okay.

Anyway, we're going to welcome you.

And we will be discussing that next week at our willing to help at whatever level.

Thank you so much for passing that information on.

Um, all right, let's have Sarah Odendahl.

Good evening, Mayor Keebler, Counselors.

Apologize, I was nowhere in the multitasking out there.

Um, for the record, my name's Sarah Odendahl and I'm the CEO of the Ben Chamber.

Um I sent you all a letter earlier today, but just wanted to offer some context for those comments as well.

So I'm here on behalf of our local employers who care about Ben's climate goals and about affordability, workforce stability, and long-term economic resilience.

We truly appreciate the opportunity to weigh in on the creation of the temporary committee on electrification policy later tonight.

As council finalizes its scope, we respectfully ask that you include clear direction to evaluate a time-limited electrification pilot program and to provide recommendations related to any new fee on natural gas appliances.

This is similar to the BDAB recommendation in their letter as well.

The reason for this request is simple.

Even middle income households struggle to remain in the community.

We have made significant progress as a community, and that is worthy of note and celebration, thanks to you all.

However, in this environment, policies that increase per unit housing costs are not marginal.

They compound an existing affordability crisis significantly.

Prior city council work sessions have suggested that shifting from a baseline gas system to an all-electric system could add roughly $9,700 per unit.

And those costs ultimately show up in higher rents and home prices, which directly affect workforce retention and the ability of our local employers to operate sustainably.

BDAP's analysis is clear.

When essential workers can't afford to live near where they work, communities experience higher turnover, labor shortages, and reduced economic diversity.

Outcomes that conflict with Benn's livability and resilience goals.

A time limited pilot offers a responsible path forward.

It allows a city to gather local data on cost, great capacity, emissions reduction, and affordability impacts before making permanent policy decisions that affect housing and residents for decades.

Thank you, Sarah.

But your letter as well.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

Garrett Mosher, please.

Good evening, Mayor Keeper, members of council.

My name is Garrett Mosier here today on behalf of the Central Oregon Builders Association to respectfully advocate for including the exploration of a pilot program in the TCEP's scope of work.

COVID maintains our position that an electrification pilot is a necessary step to fully understand the current proposal's impact on housing affordability, construction and equipment costs, grid capacity and reliability, and utility costs for Benn residents.

We are not alone in believing this.

The development community, the business community, local labor unions, and council's business and economic development advisory board are all asking for the same thing.

Members of BDAB were appointed by this council to make recommendations on economic matters.

I ask that you respectfully ask that you take their recommendations seriously.

They volunteer their time and knowledge to the city in hopes of making it a more better place for our business, our local businesses and their employees.

The most recent work session data estimates that cost increases are over $9,500 per unit of housing just for uh equipment costs alone.

These estimates have changed over a matter of months, demonstrate the need for real localized data and to not rely on projections.

Impacts on housing affordability amid our region's housing crisis should not be ignored.

They should be studied thoroughly and fully understood prior to policy decisions being made.

As I've stated previously, COVID has members that are willing to participate in electrification pilot.

We are happy to partner with council and its advisor advisory bodies to create the program, implement it, and use it to make measured decisions.

Thank you for your time here tonight.

Happy to answer any questions.

Thanks, Garrett.

Um Gary Norris.

And you wrote Duane's name here too.

Is he still here or are you gonna share two minutes or do we each want your own two minutes?

Okay, well, let's have Gary first and then we'll do the way.

Okay.

Mayor and Councillors, thanks for the opportunity to speak tonight.

Um the main ask is just to pause the fees for the electrification.

The pop the policy imposes real economic harm today in exchange for climate benefits that are speculative, indirect, and largely outside the city's control.

The city has not adopted a net CO2 per home metric cost per ton of beta analysis or verification framework to demonstrate that the electrification fee achieves measurable climate benefit.

This is not an opposition to climate action.

It is opposition to adopting policy that assumes outcomes rather than proving them.

The city is treating electrification as equivalent to decarbonization.

They're not the same.

Carbon emissions are atmospheric if total emissions are not reduced.

It does not matter where they occur.

To date, the city is not demonstrated.

How many net tons of CO2 this policy will reduce per home under Ben's actual electric grid?

Without that information, claims of decarbonization are theoretical.

Was not what is not theoretical are the costs.

Any fee for new home will be passed directly to residents in a city with a declared housing affordability crisis.

All electric homes often cost more to operate.

A pilot project should be created, so this is confirmed prior to implementing fees.

Excuse me.

This policy requires residents to pay higher housing and energy costs now in exchange for climate benefits that depend on future grid conditions the city does not control.

If this policy delivers meaningful emissions reductions, that will be worth acknowledging.

But if it does not, and there is clear evidence today that it will, then the damage to housing affordability will be permanent.

Climate policy that increases housing costs without clearly reducing emissions is not responsible climate action.

I looked at the beacon report today.

The average host of uh price of a home median price last year was 739,500.

Gary, that's the end of your two minutes.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, thank you.

Duane.

Mayor.

Yeah.

Council people.

Um to this the point about the pilot uh and the temporary commission uh committee does will be us um later in this evening.

Um Stephen Hawkins says that the greatest enemy to knowledge is not ignorance, it is the uh illusion of knowledge.

And so in that space, what we're talking about uh for um this fee is an unproven tactic to reduce carbon commission emissions.

We have not there's no data yet to support that.

Yet there are uh and to see that as a tactic to to do that, the strategy to reduce carbon is one thing, but to eliminate all the other tactics will be the problem with uh having the committee go forward with this with only the option to look at the fee.

One of the things that uh two things were quickly.

One is there's proven benefits from switching to uh from uh traditional HVAC systems to heat pumps.

It's proven across Europe.

Uh cities across the US have been moving towards that, even in our city of Ben, uh multi-unit facilities, commercial unit commercial facilities have switched over uh from traditional HVAC systems to ease pumps.

Additionally, uh looking at uh Techmas water heaters is another way, proven technology to reduce carbon admiss uh uh admissions.

And so including that as a as tactics to a strategy of reducing carbon emissions seems to be important.

If you allow that that committee to come back to you with a complete evaluation of all of those techniques towards that strategy, I think that's a more informed way to make this decision as you guys go forward.

Thank you very much.

Thanks again for being here.

All right, next is Christine Wilkins.

Good evening.

My name is Christine Wilkins, and I'm a registered voter.

I live in the Petrosa neighborhood in the city of Bend.

My husband and I signed paperwork to build a home in Petrosa in the summer of 2023.

As part of the initial packet of paperwork from Polish Homes, we received this glossy insert that I would like to read to remind everyone of a core issue at the center of our discontent.

Coming soon, the markets at Petrosa.

Luxurious yet effortless.

Petrosa has all your needs covered.

The markets of Petrosa will include incredible amenities such as a new grocery store, shopping and retail, restaurant, a central plaza, and so much more.

For more information about the markets of Petrosa, please fit us visit us online at www.petrosaband.com.

If you are interested in our available retail spaces, please contact list is lists individuals to contact and has the Oregon CCB number.

Polish homes sold us our future home with this promise.

And now this property has changed hands, and what was promised is now in serious jeopardy.

The term bait and switch was definitely my first and my immediate reaction to this.

Even more disturbing is the fact that the Benn City Council does not appear to be on the side of homeowners.

And Petrosa transforms into a true walking community.

Thank you, Christine.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, of course.

Folks of the signs, you can have signs, but let's I don't want to see them held up where they're gonna block someone's vision.

We can't do that, but if you want to hold them a little lower, we can see them.

So just so that they're not blocking other people's vision, that's all we ask.

Okay, Sean Rayleigh is next.

Okay.

Good evening, Mayor, Council members.

Thank you for letting me speak.

Um, in September of 2025, we found out about the affordable housing, uh, not through notifications from the city, not through notifications from the developer, not certainly not from Polish, it was from a neighborhood member who was snooping around the planning website and happened to find the plans.

So, you know, that's troubling in itself, and I know that some of the stuff you're gonna work on in the work session will address that.

Um we called a neighborhood meeting at the meeting.

One of the first things I said is we need to reach out to the city because they already have a master plan here, they surely are working on this.

And I was told at the meeting, no, the city is funding this, and I was kind of flabbergasted, honestly, because there was a lot of work put into that master plan, and a lot of people, as you've heard, relied on that master plan.

And then I found out that there was 11 other projects that applied for that funding, and you guys chose a project.

Uh, you chose the Petrosa site, which had a master plan attached to it.

It's a highly contentious piece of property, as you guys know, and I won't get into that.

Um, and what that tells us is that tells us right now that you guys don't really care about your master plans and your master plans have no teeth, and it tells us you don't care about uh the residents of Petrosa and what we're going through with this.

Um there's there's still time.

I drove by tonight.

There's no bulldozers, there's no foundations being poured.

There's still time right now.

You're in a win-loss scenario.

Somebody's gonna win, somebody's gonna lose.

There's a win-win scenario right in front of you guys, which is reallocate that funding, even if it's the same players, to a different piece of property, and then figure out how to protect the master plan that you guys enthusiastically uh approved in 2020.

That's what I'm asking you guys to do.

Thank you.

Hope I have that right.

Cool.

Oh, sorry about that.

My name is Lee Delagarza, and I am a uh I live here in the city of Bend.

Um, not only are you not on the side of the homeowners, because I do live in Petrosa, and we were promised what everyone here is going to talk about, but also I also feel that you are not on the side of our law enforcement community.

I'm a retired Multnomah County Sheriff's Deputy for 27 years, and wearing the badge and wearing the veg and having folks like this not support us to do our job, put us in harm's way so many times.

Uh, I attended hundreds of funerals of officers, men and women that were killed in the line of duty because they either whatever happened, and and especially in Washington and Oregon.

I was in Portland, there was no support for us.

These flock cameras I heard about the captain, God bless him, because him and his team protect our community daily.

No one here knows what it's like to be out boots on the ground on not knowing if you're gonna go home for the the end of the evening.

I ask you to support.

I don't understand, I don't understand why you're you're um you're you're pausing this flock camera, but you're still paying for it.

It's about community safety, it's about serve and protect, and that's what our law enforcement does.

Um as far as I support our law enforcement, I support our immigration officers, they're putting their lives on the line, putting bad guys and bad people in jail because they've simply broken the law.

That's what we're here to do.

Is this this is a country that of law and order?

So I ask you, you know, you're smiling or whatever it is that you're doing.

Um take it serious because Ben's gonna be like a Seattle in like a Portland if you guys don't support your local law enforcement.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Lee.

Karen Sims Bundy is next.

Okay, I'm Karen Sims Bundy, and thank you for allowing us to come and talk tonight.

Uh, my husband and I live in Petrosa, and we're retired, and we have always wanted to live in Bend, and so we did a lot of searching all over Bend.

We fell in love with Petrosa mostly because of this walkable marketplace that we were told you were gonna have.

Um we've been told that there is going to be an affordable housing area that is going to take up a large portion of that developed marketable market area.

I'm not against affordable housing by any means, but my concern is there are now as clerico, I guess, is one that's going to be put in.

Now there's the Pine Bella Pines.

There is also another one that I can't think of right now, but there are going to be uh Canal Commons.

There are now going to be four affordable housing developments within a one to two mile radius of Petrosa.

And it seems like to me that these people who need this housing, they're not all going to be working in Northeast Bend.

I mean, all we are pretty much is just housing.

So I'm thinking it should be spread out.

You know, these developments should be spread out throughout Bend, and we don't need one that is going to increase the traffic, the density.

Um we're probably going to sell our home if this goes through.

And it's very disappointing because we really fell in love with this area.

But to have this development go in that's going to bring all these people into an area that are they're going to be traveling down Eagle Road.

That's the cross street that we're going to go across to get to the market.

Elderly people and young families are not going to be safe going across this road.

There's gonna be a lot of traffic, a lot of traffic, a lot of people, and it's just a big disappointment.

Very big.

So my big Karen, that's the end of the day.

Okay, thank you for listening.

I appreciate it.

Doug Thompson.

Good evening.

My name is Doug Thompson, and I've been a resident of Bend for 24 years.

In 2022, my wife and I moved from Aubrey But to Petrosa, drawn by promises from Polish homes, promises we now realize are not going to get fulfilled.

Tonight I want to share with you what's happening in the city of Sherwood, just north of Salem.

Next Tuesday, Sherwood will hold an emergency election.

Voters will decide whether public hearings should be a permanent part of the city's land use process, ensuring that no major development moves forward with at least one neighborhood meeting and one public hearing.

Sherwood's mayor says it's all about being transparent.

Quote, our residents deserve more than closed door decisions without their input.

They deserve a seat of the table, end quote.

Residents at Petrosa wished we had been given a seat of the table when the city council voted to fund Bella Pines inside a commercial zone without reviewing the master plan or informing those of us who live here.

Sherwood is taking action to protect their master plans.

Bend is helping to eliminate ours.

Sherwood is saying state laws won't dictate how our city grows.

Bend is saying sorry, our hands are tied.

Sherwood recognized an emergency and acted.

The erosion of the Petrosa master plan is an emergency for Northeast Bend.

656 apartment units have been approved, funded, or built within a quarter mile of each other, yet there are no immediate grocery stores, pharmacies, or retail options.

You spent 57 million dollars to address east-west traffic congestion only to fund a project that makes it worse.

Moreover, you chose to fund Bella Pines on commercial land with 10 other projects supplied.

So I ask, will you adopt policies that protect approved master plans from being dismantled?

Will you redirect affordable housing funding to sites not contradicting the land use plans you approved?

And will you do this to save Petrosa's commercial land now?

Cutting residents out of the democratic process is just wrong.

Make it right.

Sherwood is proving that cities can act boldly even when state law makes it difficult.

Join them in restoring the rights of our citizens.

Thank you.

Carolyn Schott.

Good evening, Mayor Keemler and City Councilors.

My name is Carolyn Chatt, and I am a resident of Bend and in the Petrosa community.

I am here tonight with fellow Petrosa residents because we are deeply concerned about what is happening to the 16 plus acres of commercial land promised in the Petrosa Master Plan and the city's comprehensive plan, which includes the Butler Market Village, also known as the Markets at Petrosa.

In March 2020, the city and polish annexed Petrosa with a clear marketed vision.

Commercial services, jobs, and neighborhood amenities, including a grocery store, retail shops, and restaurants for the entire Northeast Corridor.

Homes were sold on that promise.

In December 23, Polish sold 16 plus acres of the commercial land to a local developer.

Residents were told on the record that the original vision would not change.

That assurance proved false.

This is not an exception.

It is a pattern.

At River's Edge, Polish attempted to convert a golf course with an Amassar Plan community into housing.

After marketing and selling homes with a golf course view.

At Easton, 50% of the commercial land was sold and became housing without prior community notification.

Now at Petrosa, the same bait and switch tactic is being repeated.

The Petrosa community was blindsided by the Bella Pines project.

The new owner and United Housing Partners entertained no community outreach.

No transparency, no discussion with residents, city planners, or the planning commission.

Thank you, Carolyn.

Thank you.

You know this story.

All right, Trevor Larson is our last commenter, or our second to last commenter tonight.

Good evening.

My name is Trevor Larson.

My wife and I are lifelong Oregonians, born and raised here.

My wife was recruited to Bend to provide essential health care services to the community.

I work for a death different healthcare employer, one that chose to relocate a critical base of operations to Central Oregon.

When we considered which Bend neighborhood would be best suited for our family and the needs of our two young children, we chose Northeast Bend.

We purchased a home in the Petrosa community based on the promise of Bend's community master plan development code and the walkability amenities and services that it codifies.

We made a conscious decision to live in Northeast Bend, two miles from the hospital.

Our children go to Ponderosa Elementary.

There are no less than six physicians and other essential health care employees that have purchased homes just on our street alone in Petrosa.

Proximity to the hospital is key for those of us who routinely need to be present to provide the essential health care services that you and the community depend upon.

The affluent portion of Bend is not limited to Northwest Crossing and Discovery West.

That is an outdated point of view.

Homes in Petrosa and Northeast Bend are selling for upwards of one million dollars or more.

We could have chosen to move to the west side of Bend, but we chose Northeast Bend.

The promises made by the Bend Development Code and by the home builder are what drew us here.

As I'm sure you are aware, the city of Sherwood and their mayor, Tim Rosner, are faced with the very same development challenges and concerns that Bend is facing.

But the differences they are take tackling them head on.

Mayor Rosner has spearheaded an emergency election next week that will allow residents to vote to ensure the city of Sherwood has more local control over land use decisions.

During your upcoming work session on January 14th, I urge you to not just have a discussion but to step up and take action to protect Benz Community Master Plan Development Code and the promises it makes to Bend residents for current and future community developments.

Thank you.

Thanks.

And last will be Michael Baker.

Good evening, Mayor and Counselors.

My name's Michael Baker.

I have the honor of being the CEO for the Boys and Girls Clubs.

Just wanted to uh let you know, uh, share some good news, uh, exciting good news that uh we've been able to figure out how to expand our hours of operation uh at the boys and girls clubs, and that's going to now include for the first time ever uh in the history of the organization Saturday hours.

So we will be open on Saturdays for the youth that need us the most.

Uh that's going to start in February.

And uh we will be uh making sure that uh to invite each and every one of you at the first Saturday in February is February 7th.

If you'd like to come down, we'll be open 10 to 4.

Love to give you a tour, and I'm I'm absolutely certain that we're going to uh be uh pretty busy with the children on that day because for many of you, as you can appreciate, many of our parents, Saturday's just another day for them and they need to work.

And uh since there isn't any school, a lot of those kids are going to be home, unfortunately, uh unsupervised.

So we want to make sure that we're open uh to make sure that those children have a safe place to go, and certainly more important than probably anything else, at least from my perspective as someone that grew up this way, uh, being able to feed them uh a meal uh on that day for so many of our families are dealing with food insecurity.

So I just wanted to uh let you know that we're thrilled about this and encourage each and every one of you to come down.

And I can't thank you enough for your for your support uh during the two months that I've been here.

It's been wonderful, and uh, I'm looking forward to such a good strong future with the Boys and Girls Cops here in Bend.

Thank you.

Thank you, Michael.

Yeah, thank you.

Um, okay, that will conclude our public comment period for tonight.

For all our Patrosa neighbors, I appreciate you being here and continuing to share your concerns.

I really invite you to um come with us next week on our work session around neighborhood commercial.

Um, I think that's where we can talk a little bit.

We'll talk a little bit about SBA, but also the ideas we're thinking about going forward to try to incentivize and get things to happen sooner than maybe the market would, as far as making sure that we actually are building commercial in the zones that we zone commercial and then, not just in your neighborhood, but across the city.

So again, thank you for being here, and we'll talk more about this next week.

Let's take five here real quick while the third now.

And the next item is our consent agenda.

I'd actually like to call it and B from the consent agenda.

All right, sir.

Second.

All right, move by Councillor Francis, second by Councillor Mendez.

All those in favor?

All right, item B.

So you can kind of start summarize what we're the action of our location.

Yeah, so this would be to approve the design of the twenty twenty seven neighborhood street safety program.

Um got five locations.

I can share my screen.

So pretty spread out across the city.

So first is the um project of Discovery Park.

Um the the name historically the neighborhood street safety program, as you know, because you've been working on it for years and years, is to improve um existing safety issues in neighborhoods.

Um and Discovery Park is it's a very new neighborhood.

I look at that intersection, it's got a bulb bold out curves, um, traffic there is very low, and it's pretty slow moving.

So I was curious if you could talk about both the background and then also if council had an option to pull that project from the list.

Um is that even a possibility?

I know in the past when we've um had some projects come up and try to pull them, we can move forward with the contract.

So is that like is that totally put this contract in jeopardy or you know, sure.

Uh I believe things can be pulled.

Well, let's start with what the background on that discovery part.

But yeah, so phase two of the NSSP uh was a collection of projects that were both staff selected and uh neighborhood selected at the previous or at council request.

Um we collected two projects from each neighborhood district and then seeded an additional 26 internally and then filtered them through a matrix uh evaluating all sorts of things such as distance to parks, distance to schools, um level of traffic safety on the streets, um economic factors such as zero to one car households, um, and a bunch of other uh things that I cannot recall off the top of my head, it's been a couple years.

Um this project was prioritized based on that list.

I think it landed somewhere towards the middle.

Um I can't, you know, it's been a couple years, I think right around nine or ten on that list of 16 projects.

Um so that is why this particular one was picked.

It's scored high on our evaluation matrix.

But you can't say anything specific exactly because like I take my dog up to that dog park.

There's probably a lot of people in the room that go to that dock bark or kids play soccer on those fields or what have you.

And I mean and I think personally the optics of like putting a project like this.

I mean, it'll end up being there's gonna be stormwater, it'll be at least 150,000.

You know, of all the neighborhoods in town that have some pretty historic, you know, safety projects.

So would you have big concerns if council discussed tonight about what would your concerns be at council discuss removing the project tonight?

Um I think that you know, historically the NSSP has done projects all across town in especially in the first phase where we did two projects per neighborhood district.

We were doing projects in and around Northwest Crossing.

Um I have no heartburn about keeping or removing this project.

I think it's a good project.

I think we should build it, but ultimately you're the deciders.

And what exactly is proposed and where?

Uh this would be a raised crossing along the Discovery Trail at the intersection of High Lakes and Discovery Park Drive.

Yep.

I know very well.

All right, other comments?

I mean, I I would just oper.

I mean, we got we were there was a period of time where we got a lot of safety complaints about speeding and the ability to cross and knowing some people who live in this part of town, but it was all on an out Washington Drive.

It was not on Discovery Park Drive.

I've never I've heard many a complaint about speeding on Discovery Park.

I have heard many complaints.

There's a stomp sign at this there's this day it has been consistently ignored.

Um I've watched it many times be ignored.

Yeah, I I actually think that this is a a great project because I've there are so many kids going to and from school in that area, trying to cross um to get to sports.

Um a lot of them play sports at Bend Parks in that in that park, and I have witnessed um, yes, it is a newer neighborhood, but that doesn't mean that there's not that's not a safety concern, and I think that's this is actually being um a really key safety project for that area.

Yeah, for me, the the purpose and the motivation behind the NSSP and why I think it's been really successful has been taking that community input and making sure that we're building projects all over town.

So I don't really um I guess I don't agree with the idea that it's like it looks bad or something, this is something we're we're doing, and we are providing projects around town for our um through this particular program.

Now are we addressing uh safety issues in in different parts of town other ways as well?

Yes, absolutely.

Um but I think for this particular program that's been the design that each neighborhood gets to help us identify their safety places and then we could take a look and see where we can make a difference.

And I think also with our interest around raised crossings recently, I think it's really great to hear that this would that's what this would be.

Um just another example of that.

So yeah, Steve.

Um, so maybe to add some context to this in terms of the Blakely Road project right here, does that happen to connect up to Silver Lakes Boulevard?

Is it doing any of the work along Silver Lakes?

Uh no, it will stop at uh so uh in a couple weeks I'll be back with uh construction package for NSSV 2026.

Okay.

Um we're doing a project or we intend to do a project at the intersection there of Chamberlain and Silver Lake.

So where that project leaves off is where this project would back up.

I was kind of hoping that that was addressing it because that was such a big issue before, and so I know it's ties with this this program.

Okay, so we'll see that soon then.

Okay.

No.

I I agree.

I think with all the traffic that goes in this area right here, this project should go.

So the would you um be able to follow up with me then on say Galveston, um, which is uh uh between 15th and 17th, which is we've heard many many complaints from neighbors, and that was something that the River West Neighborhood Association had asked for and got pretty not impressive responses on.

So yeah, we had uh an NSSP project uh prioritized as a part of this phase for the Galveston uh in between 15th and 17th, and that has been taken under the larger Galveston project.

Okay, so that's still happening, and we are responding to the neighbors and Christian's been doing a great job trying to talk with folks.

We've also emailed me with um concerns about that stretch of Galveston, so that's great to hear that will be part of the Galveston project.

So that actually segues to my next question, um, which is the community engagement.

I'm concerned about how community engagement is described in the issue summary that you're not gonna be soliciting community engagement until 30% design, which historically has meant that uh sort of half-baked design gets put in front of the neighbors, and then the neighbors get really upset, and then they start emailing council, not on every project, but certain projects.

So I would encourage you there there was a sort of a proposal to um have solicit neighborhood input um on these road projects before a design is baked, so that you can actually get input.

So I guess why is that not happening?

That happens on some projects but not others, it's not proposed to happen here.

So why is that and can that happen here?

Um yeah, so we're targeting a 30% deliverable.

That's uh typically what we've done historically on this project, just because it is where we have lines on paper.

Um we're showing people designs that were we're still setting the footprint of the projects a lot of the time.

Um there is a lot of flexibility at 30% anytime before that, and oftentimes we find that we're just not quite there, we don't have enough information to share.

Um and anything past that, as you said, is trickier to adapt to the needs of the neighbors.

So that's why we're targeting 30% with that.

I would encourage you to rethink that because I'm sure we're gonna get feedback from Ben Bikes on this.

They worked really, really hard to get at least the geobond projects to start soliciting input before they put lines on paper.

Because the whole point is when you guys start going down a path, then it's like, oh, sorry, we can't take that public input into consideration.

And yeah, it just leads to a lot of emails, but I guess we'll see what you decide to do, and we'll either get emails or we won't.

Okay.

Can I ask a question just about that?

So but in this project has essentially been scoped with the involvement from I mean, I'm asking if this is correct.

Um with the input from the neighborhood district, and and it was a raised crossing concept that came out of that discussion, or is the the place was identified and staff proposed the ray crossing as the answer that's now gonna get moved to 30% design.

Yeah.

Uh so it was a location and then concepts were developed internally, yes, that's correct.

I I mean, if we haven't yet experimented with what counselor Francosa is proposing in terms of how we approach some design stuff, and maybe this is an opportunity to try it that way and see what we learn.

I um I guess if if if the answer had been, well, actually, no, that what the community asked for was a raised crossing, then I'm not sure what you're proposing would make sense.

But if it was just this is a problem place so I I don't know how hard that you know how much more complicated or expensive.

And to speak to the raised crossing here for a little bit, there are as Councillor Franzosa already identified, there are already curb bulldogs here, which would be another tactic that we would typically take to address speed mitigation along corridors like this.

We opted for a raised crossing because there are already some treatments there.

Um which is why that was the preferred choice there.

Yeah, I'm just gonna express trust in our staff on the process here.

Um and part of this project is not having a neighborhood design uh enhanced crossing, but having our staff do that after we've heard that there is a problem here and there's trouble processing or there is speed.

So I'm comfortable with 30% design on these.

What are what are not major projects?

They're fairly small projects, right?

Um, and comfortable with with building all of them.

I think we should.

Yeah.

I agree.

All right, we'll need a motion since this was off consent.

So uh move to approve uh item B on the consent agenda.

Second.

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

All those in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right, thanks, Christian.

Thank you.

Move slide to item number five.

Council's asked to approve a recommendation for the city to move forward in establishing an economic improvement district in the Venn Central District.

We don't quite have enough chairs for all of you.

So Cyrus is gonna or you can pull one up, or Cyrus is gonna step aside.

We just want to make sure that make sure the microphone speaking.

So we'll come back.

After I give intro.

Do we need to pass this around?

Yeah, it'll get it'll catch you up.

All right, good evening, counsel.

My name is Cyrus Mooney, and I'm the business development manager.

And as part of my role, I get to serve as the staff leads on to the Bend Central District Business Association or BCDBA.

We know we love our acronyms here at the city, and you're gonna hear that one a lot throughout this presentation.

Um the item before you tonight should be thought of more as a work session topic that's looking for direction from you tonight.

Establishing an economic improvement district takes months of administrative work and multiple council touch points before it can go into effect.

So we're here tonight simply to get your feedback before initiating that process.

EIDs are regulated by ORS 223114 and enables the city council to enact an ordinance to establish an economic improvement district around a specific boundary within the city where the commercial property within that boundary is assessed at an approved rate.

Council also provides direction on the scope of work in which the funds are collected through the EID are to be deployed.

As you're likely aware, the downtown Bend Economic Improvement District was established nearly 20 years ago and was most recently renewed for a three-year term in 2024.

One way to kind of simply think about EIDs is some sort of a self-imposed tax that provides additive services to a neighborhood that is outside of what the gener the city would generally provide.

I've been working with the fine folks at the BCDBA for years on getting to this point, and can assure you that they have done their due diligence in evaluating the benefit that an EID can do for their district, and I want to commend their efforts.

As such, the Bend Economic Development Advisory Board voted unanimously to recommend that this process move forward.

And this is also an action item included in the Bend Urban Renewal Investment Strategy that was approved in December.

At the end of the presentation, I'll come back to answer any questions and talk through the next steps.

But with that, I would like to pass it over to Kurt, Robert, and Leah from the BCDBA.

Thank you very much.

You can stay up here for sure.

Um thank you very much for um allowing us to come present to you.

Um we've done some due diligence by speaking to BDAB and then having close conversations with um the Quarry Advisory Committee and some counselors as well.

Um for those who don't know me, my name is Kurt Alexander.

I'm the president and the founder of the Benn Central District Business Association.

To my left.

I'm Robert Lambreth, I'm the director of the Cascade School of Music, and I'm also the vice president for the BCDBA.

I'm Leah Retz.

I'm the director of Open Space Event Studios, and I'm the secretary of the BCDBA.

Um and how I'd like to kind of start is uh for us all to go back in time.

So if we can go back in time to five years or even seven years ago and think back of what the BCD was like then that was kind of pandemic, just pre-pandemic time period.

Um I think it's safe to say that the general public and our community in general um didn't know what the BCD was, and if they did, they probably didn't really go in it very often to do commerce or otherwise.

Um ironically, though, we all pass through Franklin Greenwood and only when it does open back up.

Um we pass it all the time.

Um, but people hadn't been going through there.

So I want to then now fast forward to today.

I don't want to show of hands, and we have a little bit less of a crowd now, but um how many people in here have gone down to the BCD to enjoy open arts center that Leah helps manage?

Or um opens up.

Okay, US.

Okay there.

Um, funky funnel, which is our newest uh business down there.

Um where that's green, yeah uh the green cabaret, um open art center, which is the newest nonprofit, which is uh another great parts unknown, which is another great working um nonprofit, dogwood at the pine shed, uh, and canteen bar inside.

So I guess like right away, all the hands went up.

And so um, I just want to uh focus on that that that mentum momentum is what we are trying to preserve, protect, and then fuel with this economic improvement districting.

And so that's what we're gonna be talking about mostly today.

And I'm gonna try to be brief because I know we're kind of running late with a lot of the public comment.

Um, this is literally directly from the state statute, this quote.

But outside of this legal lead that you're seeing here, basically when an economic improvement districting is when the property owners join forces with the city to create a funding source to for the betterment of a district to help with beautification with marketing, with events, but also with just general economic development, and that's what we're trying to do here.

Kind of four of the categories that traditionally use with this money is beautification with public spaces and improvements, awareness, like marketing and events, which these first two buckets is what we're going to focus on in the first two or three years.

Livability and then growth, which is that economic development I was talking about earlier.

Why establish the BCD and the EID?

This is the most important slide I think we're going to go over tonight.

So there's there's kind of a confluence of of reasons why right now is a good time to make this happen.

There's three main ones.

The first one is the momentum that I was referring to in the beginning.

Momentum in business is by far the most important aspect in getting things done.

And so with that, uh the momentum is most one of the most important things to get things done.

And we want to make sure we protect and preserve that.

They think about it as a place that you can come to that's a bit gritty, but it has a bunch of artistic and um and eclectic businesses that can participate in.

Sorry, it's kind of late.

Um and we want to make sure that uh we're keeping that momentum going as we go through this process.

Um, the second one is is that we want to make sure that we have a landing for when the urban renewal or better said, the tax marine financing chooses to do capital improvements in this district.

And so when they make those capital improvements in the district, oftentimes some of them stuff like street lights, like trash cans, like uh benches, um, need long-term maintenance plans.

And that's something that oftentimes the city or the urban renewal does not want to or cannot uh continue maintaining them.

And so, just like the downtown business association, we are proposing that we would be that entity.

Um, we want to make sure that we are set up and already in place to allow ourselves to take care of those those long-term capital improvements and maintain them in the long term.

Don't and urban renewal wants to allocate money towards capital improvements like that, and we're not uh set up EID to take care of them.

They might not push off those economic improvements and those investments, which is kind of a carp for the horse.

So they wouldn't want to invest because there's not an entity to take care of things.

Um, and it becomes a cycle where we get pushed out two, three, four years.

We all would we want to make sure we we avoid that at all costs.

Um the third reason is uh that we are a passionate group of volunteers who started five years ago that are ready to take on this responsibility, ready to administer an EID.

And you know, we've all been doing it really pro bono.

Um there's people who are nonprofit executive directors, there's developers, there's property owners, there's GMs for different businesses, there's PR managers, um, and we're at a collective group that that is ready to do it and a passionate to do it.

And we're a bit afraid that if not afraid, but we we would like to strike whether iron is hot now because we don't do it now.

Um there might not be a group like us that would be passionate and ready and organized in a nonprofit board to be able to take on this this task.

Um, so to get in the nuts and bolts of things, um we we went with the or what we're proposing is to keep the standard district of the Bend Central District.

Um the assessment would be apply to only commercial properties within the boundary.

Um that's really important because in this district there's a lot of opportunity to do mixed use development where there's commercial on the ground floor and residential above.

So we talked to major landholders who are keen on doing that kind of development.

One of their concerns is my being taxed on the entire north side, north development we're doing.

We want to make sure that we are just doing and everyone's aware of this tax and this funding source only comes from commercial use.

Um, also on top of that, the the commercial use, but it's only taxed on the commercial square footage of buildings rather than just the commercial designation of land.

Um to give some context, the downtown business association is at 31 cents, I want to say.

We're proposing a 10 cents, which is about one third of that.

We went through a methodology of 20 cents, 15 cents, 10 cents, and you can see five cents here.

We thought that 10 cents was a nominal amount that we can kind of prove ourselves.

We can then use one third, or each one of the proposed buckets that we're going to be speaking to tonight.

We can use that 1270,000.

The 179 you see here, about 5% of that is taken from the city to do the administrative of that.

And so we thought it was both a nominal amount, but also gives us enough for us to implement some of the the beautification and the marketing and the mark and the events that we want to do for the district.

Just context for comparison.

And downtown, there's roughly one million included in their commercial square footage.

And that's it, that's like now.

Correct.

So this just gives you this is some of our internal methodology and something we went over with our board.

Um, but it gives you an idea of swaths of properties that how much it would how much it would be funding source from them for the the small tax.

Uh we try to pick properties that were representative of other properties in the district, and so this just gives you that that methodology and that baseline.

We really just showing that we've we've done our due diligence.

We've done a lot of work to this, kind of like um Cyrus was saying.

Yeah, and just to clarify, this breaks it down by month, whereas the previous slide was looking at annual remote.

Um we're also proposing to do just like downtown business association does, uh, starting at 10 cents and then each year raising it by one cents to go up with inflation, but also administrative costs and costs in general.

Um how does the economic improvement district dollars uh impact the central district?

We're we're most mostly focusing on three buckets marketing events, beautification, and staffing.

That's where I'm gonna pass it off to my colleagues.

Yes, so thanks for having us.

Um we see that marketing and beautification would be the most impactful use of this relatively small amount of money to begin with.

Um as you can see from this slide, this slide details a tangible deliverables of a marketing plan.

But the underlying goal is to really build a shared sense of identity for the neighborhood, to translate a feeling that there is activity and livelihood happening.

Um we see branding and marketing uh as far more than content creation.

The goal is to provide avenues for information sharing, voices to be heard, and ideas to be had.

Uh, this is in order for a unique character of the place, uh, a place to take shape on its own with community input, with uh other business input, nonprofit input.

Um we want to honor and celebrate the current resilience and texture of the district while also welcoming in growth and development and balancing that act between too much growth too fast and uh and really honoring what is already happening in the neighborhood, which is quite a lot.

Um the central district, uh so the tangibles, visit creating visible cohesion, growing an online presence, which we have been doing with our nominal fees for through the BCDBA, and continuing to do events.

Uh this is all in hopes to communicate, connect, and build engagement of the of the citizens within the neighborhood.

Next slide.

But we work really closely, and something that Robert brought to the table.

Sorry to jump in here.

Um, but uh we we work really closely with Lave It Out events, and again, Robert brought this to the table with bringing a I think what you consider what what they often do a downtown style event where you close off the streets in the central district, and they're calling it the BCD arts block party.

That's something that we have been and I have been pushing for for a decade, half decade now.

Um I think people thought we might have been crazy at the time, but this is one of the most important things that if we were able to have some EID money to go towards that marketing and promotion and support of that event, I think more events like that could take place.

And the work they're doing and paving the way really helps with other actors who want to come into the district and see it as a blank slate that they can do their events too, because it's really hard to start start processes like this from day one with the city where roads haven't been closed off in the past.

I think it's also important to mention that for this event this year, which obviously won't have any EID money in it.

Um, we are grassroots fundraising with the uh from our local businesses, and it will be very BCD style.

Um everything down to who are in the booths and what's the pricing of the booths so the local artists can actually afford it.

And that's very very key to our our event this year.

And it's in July.

10th and 11th.

Yes.

So as I said, beautiful, well, beautification can mean a lot of different things.

Um but as it pertains to the BCD, it really is ripe for creating opportunities for artists and placemaking activities.

So the central district contains the main arteries event, as Kurt mentioned.

It is the beating heart of the city.

It should pulse with energy, arts, education, entertainment, entrepreneurial vigor, along with vibrant trades industry.

It has immense potential to support the diversity of experience and culture we all crave from a thriving core.

With that said, the BCD has all the components to become a prolific arts district, and we argue that it is already becoming so on its own.

This funding will allow us to set the foundations to strategically design for such a district to build and continue to grow by creating opportunities for artists and citizens to engage in placemaking.

So the kinds of projects that transform the neighborhood from a pass-through, Kurt, to a destination.

So such things that as art installations, mural projects have been a very common thing in other arts districts.

Uh pedestrian crossing installations that could combine very well with civic education around how the city is working so hard to develop the area.

Microgardens, pocket plazas, uh seasonal art collabs with businesses to stimulate economic activity.

The distribution of these types of funds would most likely be aided by an arts council that we would form.

We've already been doing some qualitative data and talking with people about what those kinds of projects could look like, what a council could look like to help help us uh know how to use those funds in the best possible way.

And uh stop writing after that.

Um for this event this year, we are already working with local artists to come up with the way to uh acknowledge uh and choose two artists that will do two murals during the event so that it will capture the culture that exists already in the light industrial to the arts to everything that's coming in the future, you know, two murals for the RBCD.

Um obviously, if we're going to meet our goals, which we we're definitely going to do, we're gonna need someone to help us do that since as Kurt said, we're all volunteers.

We we all have bigger jobs, but we love this and we love our district.

Um, with the funds we're proposing that we use uh some of it for part-time, ultimately down the line, a full-time executive director that will look after these five major um tasks, and um very much similar to what Rachel does already for downtown.

So small steps, big wins.

So this is this slide is really talking about the confluence between their renewal or taxamic and financing and EID.

So EID and the small steps can invest money into the marketing, beautification, all the things that we've been talking about, which leads to more security in the district, more investment in the district, more beautification in the district, more development in the district, which then hopefully adds to the tax revenue of the district, which then adds money to the tax work and financing or TIFF, which means they can then reinvest to the district.

And so this is the working hand in glove with the goals of the urban renewal with the city as well, and knowing that this is kind of a closed loop in economics of making sure that we're supporting the goals of the tax market financing.

Um, and and and I know that stuff that that when has come to your door, the stuff that you all have been talking about with this EID too.

Um, and then to kind of highlight a point of the project potential pushed three years from now.

Right now, we are not proposing to have money for maintenance for capital improvements.

But we want to set up, like I said, that runway that we can be established EID that so when we come back, we might ask for that as the urban renewal chooses to make those capital improvements.

For us, we really really want to avoid the chicken and egg where they want to make those investments.

There is an MZ, and then now that these passionate board members have to go back out and say, hey, let's make an EID.

When we could have been doing that and had that groundwork and that that landing place already set for that financial for us to be able to financially take care of those those um capital improvements.

And so with that again, like Cyrus was saying, this is a proposition to you all.

Um we have gone to Cav and we we've just got the unanimous vote from uh the BBAT.

But um any thoughts, concerns um or anything that Cyrus wants to add here as well.

Yeah, um I've said mentioned at the forefront the feedback that we're really looking for is around the scope of work of how the funds will be utilized, um, the proposed boundary and the proposed rate um that were included in the presentation, those are kind of the three major components we're looking for feedback on, and given that we get council direction to move forward, then there is a lot of noticing that we need to do with the property owners that are included within that boundary.

There needs to be a public hearing and what's called a remonstrance hearing where folks can submit their feedback, whether in favor or in opposition of this moving forward, and we go from there, but this is really the first step to initiate that process, and then our finance, legal, and economic development teams will get going on the rest of the process.

What's nice for that for us is that we've been working for a year and a half, two years to this end, and now if this was accepted and the proposal, then it would be kind of more in the city's hands.

Um, and we ought to be able to watch it kind of take fold and we'd be part of that process as well.

Great.

I just like to say I was the B C D VA liaison this year, and they've been working on it for as long as I've been with the group, and I I think your leadership is amazing, and you're bringing life to the uh to the core area, which is so needed, and I think you're absolutely right, Kurt, your point about uh working hand in the lab with the urban renewal district there and the TIFF um financing investment.

It's it's kind of reminds me of um in Portland in the Pearl District, there was a business association basically in the Pearl District, and I think that was kind of like the human element of what the city was trying to do in revitalizing that neighborhood, and that's what you guys are proposing to do in the core area.

And so I think it's um strategic and it's needed, and I thank you for your leadership.

Thank you.

I say heck yeah, it's an awesome innovative, well thought um plan.

And thank you.

I think it's it's great to see it.

Yeah.

Robert, you know, your your mural that you're talking about right here, one of the things we did a while back was there's a bunch of high school kids that want to do a graffiti wall here and they're looking for a place, and they promise to be respectful and keep it up, but you know, I can push in touch.

We love it.

You know, um, I lived in Honolulu for many years, and Powell did the same thing when they were doing their uh regeneration for an additional part of Honolulu with high school students, so it's a great model.

Love to hear about how you got and Seth is an awesome guitar teacher.

He's a great guitar.

Thank you.

Just saying, I'm super excited about this, and I um I echo what Gina said around you know leadership and what's important.

I think what maybe sent him the most to me tonight was the idea of getting this in early so that you're really ready to go and take advantage when there is more uh revenue coming in as things do redevelop.

And maybe I didn't quite hear that part of the message before, so I think it it just makes it even better case for it.

Um the you know, I as I've shared with Kurt, I I'd rather see you guys go for a little bit more money at that point.

You all know the community and have talked to folks, so that's your your call on what the right amount is.

But I'd almost like to see you go 13, 14, 15 for the first three years, having run a small nonprofit before 179,000, especially after we take off our skim art part off the top, doesn't leave you with a lot, especially with staffing costs.

So you know, um hopefully you're gonna be very successful, but I think you are very ambitious, and I think that's great.

There's so much potential, and there's so much new stuff already happening, it feels to me in the last 18 months or so to draw people down there.

So I just want to see you be able to exceed your expectations and therefore set yourself up for momentum.

And I do a little concern that maybe there's not quite enough money to do that, but you all have to make that call.

We have discussed those others actually.

Yeah, thank you for that because we we have the same concerns, and yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I think you know, stop at that level wherever you are after three years or something.

But uh you know, we it's uh this is what pardon me.

Um I think there's a wide variety of businesses in the district, and we want to be mindful of making sure that we're communicating, getting input, and not feeling like we're the ones gentrifying businesses out when you're supposed to be advocating.

And so I think starting and and proving the salt of what the funds are used for, I think is where we're at.

But this is also a valid point.

Yeah, it's something that we've we've discussed, and to your point, this is we've we've talked to a lot of owners of property um and business owners as well, because this will be passed on ultimately to business owners through CAMS and other eyes.

Um, and so we have talked about the 10 cents, and that is what we we talked about internally with our board.

But we've also talked internally that because we've heard that from counselors as we've we've gone through this process.

Um ultimately it is your choice.

And so we have talked about the potential of being open to 12 cents starting at 12 cents and 1314, and that's something that maybe we could justify as we go out and talk to people.

Um but again, knowing that we have talked to not everyone, but we talked to a lot of people and talked about that 10 cents, um, and that being such a nominal cost and proving our assault.

Um it's a it's a tough balance.

So we're we're open to the direction, and and I've heard that not just from you, but at other counselors, and then other people who run nonprofits, which admittedly I've worked in nonprofits, especially when I was younger.

Uh Robert has led and leads nonprofits constantly.

Um so we take the direction from people who know and have the wisdom.

Yeah.

Well, I would just quickly say I think this feels like a really big milestone.

And I think there's a lot of exciting things going on in different parts of town, but some of the most exciting things are happening in the Bend Central District.

So I think your characterization of momentum is spot on.

I think there's so much potential, and I hope that you feel like the city is supporting you because I my sense is that we really we have high expectations and high hopes for this area, and we know that you do too.

So let's let's do this.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

I was gonna say, I don't know, Kurt, when did we meet?

Like, was it five years ago?

Yeah, to get to this point after you know the meetings that we sat through, and and this is a great uh, I think you're right, Councilor Mendis, it's a great milestone for the next step for this area and for your organization.

And I know you've been there a long time too, Leah, and you've been there.

I mean, you this is a nice next paradigm for the VCD.

And um, and I I take the point about the 10 cents versus the 12.

I would agree look at that, but I think even starting at 10 cents, getting this going, establishing, and especially I think you've written a scope that's small enough because I think the the events and the marketing is where you're gonna get the most pain for your buck to start and just have that cohesive memorable events.

That's what's really been helping the DBBA is having really leaning into that beautiful and events as the main things that they work on.

Um so really appreciate the well thought out plan.

Yeah, and I just say thank you, and perhaps maybe you look at like more of an increment like in the second year or something, if you see that it's maybe you start at 10 but you jump a little more, whatever it is to help you.

That's interesting.

Well, we're in the I mean, maybe this isn't the conversation here, but we're in the process.

If you all prove something like this, is it can it still be can the dough still be made as we go through?

Because we're not started quite yet.

So yeah, now would be the time to make those determinations.

So I'll just clarify that once we decide on that three-year term, once then you're locked in.

Yeah, then I think we're then it's locked in for that three years.

Tonight tonight we're approving and moving forward with this and asking staff to come back with and initiate the formal process, right?

Right.

We're not necessarily you're not putting the 10 cents on the rate now.

When is that?

Basically, like we say this is what we're putting on the calendar yet, but we wanted to get this direction first, but then we'll come back.

And so I think probably what you're hearing from us is just take a look, take one more look, take one more look at the rate.

We'll follow your lead.

And then we'll hear what you have to say when that comes back to us.

Great.

We hadn't thought about the the 10% 10 cents and then doing two cents after that.

Okay, too.

So cool.

I would like to thank Cyrus for his own.

Absolutely.

It's been pushing for a while, and then some of the background to it, and I said I wasn't gonna take up time, but we've we had and we've we've really tried to not do this for a long time.

We wanted this to organically happen, and this being this inflection point where it has organically happened and wanting to buttress it.

Um, the city and CIRES pushing for it in this way.

We think it's just that right time.

So we really really appreciate the support and knowing that we have really tried to hold back on doing it for a long time until the time is right.

So thank you.

Great.

I hope we can match uh from the borough city side of things, we can match your momentum with our own momentum in terms of investment.

Your investment strategy physical interest that we've done so far.

Yeah, but keep pushing us to do that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for being here.

Thanks.

All right, that moves us on to item number six.

There's a motion for five.

Oh, I'm sorry, we do need a motion for five.

Sorry, to approve the recommendation.

I move to approve the Bend Economic Development Advisory Board's recommendation for the city to move forward and establishing an economic improvement district in the Bend Central District with the boundary term assessment rate and scope of work as presented.

Second.

All right, moved by Council Mendes, second by Councillor Franzoza.

All those in favor.

All right, unanimous.

All right, that's item number six, actually.

Council is asked to adopt a resolution establishing a temporary committee for potential policies related to counselor Norris.

Yes, I need to declare a potential conflict unless my employer is Hayden Holmes.

Um, this could have a financial impact on them, but it is unknown at this time since we are still um in the process of developing this policy, and this would just be putting the committee in place.

So I just this allows me to vote and deliberate on this item.

Great, thank you.

All right, Cassie.

Okay, good evening, counselors.

I'm Cassie Lacey, senior management analyst in the city manager's office.

We have for you a resolution establishing the temporary committee on electrification policy or the TSEP.

The TSEP is the joint committee that we've been discussing the last several work sessions focused on our electrification policy.

The scope of their work is to provide recommendations to the city council regarding non-financial incentives to encourage electrification, financial incentives to encourage electrification using the revenue from a potential fee on natural gas appliances, and on exemptions from the potential fee.

The committee is tasked with participating in broader uh stakeholder round tables to get additional input and feedback from subject matter experts to inform the recommendations to council about the incentives and exemptions, including the builder, developer, and labor sectors and environmental stewardship organizations.

The committee is made up of three representatives each from the Environment and Climate Committee, the Bend Economic Development Advisory Board, and the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee.

It includes three non-voting or ex officio representatives, one from each of our energy utilities, Pacific Power, Cascade Natural Gas and Central Electric Co-op Burative.

The role of the exoficio positions is to provide data and information regarding technologies, grid and other energy system implications, implementation considerations, and really any other pertinent data and topics as needed from them.

So the next step for this committee, if you adopt this resolution tonight, is that each of the three committees would nominate potential members to serve on the committee, and then the council would need to appoint those members in February.

The TCEPS meetings are planned to start shortly after the appointments are completed in February, and then the goal is for them to bring a recommendation to the council regarding what non-financial incentives the city should offer to encourage electrification by May 31st, 2026.

So that would be the first topic that they're working on based on the direction that we received in December.

And then they would bring a recommendation regarding proposed financial incentives and fee exemptions to the city council by November 30th, 2026.

So you have in your packet the charter document that outlines their scope and responsibilities, and then we also included an additional document that outlines sort of a proposed month-by-month work plan with uh what the committee's focus would be each month, and then when they're the key dates of the recommendations that they develop and then when those decisions would come before council.

So I don't have a presentation for it, but I think we if needed, we were going to pull the charter up if you guys wanted to be looking at that too while you discuss.

Yeah, and so council, I think to move through this and also to uh make sure folks thought, and I think everybody did the letter from BDAB with a couple of um recommendations that were mentioned here tonight as well.

Um I think we need to know um what people think about the scope, the membership, and any changes you would make to this charter or the process at this point before we embark forward um with the committee creation.

So happy to open the floor to that.

I have like two committee uh updates.

I I was gonna give talk a little bit about the BDAB meeting.

Um, yeah, because we did do our council council action report.

Why don't you go ahead and do that?

Yeah, let's do that, and then I actually have something from HREC as well.

Um so um when we did talk about the electrification uh topic at um at BDAB, there was there was a lot of concern.

You heard some of it tonight.

Um part of it was was being asked to do certain components of this overall strategy, um, but but feeling that all components need to be looked at holistically and um and all options needed to be looked at holistically.

Um there was also a lot of concern about um uh a fee when there is like with a lack of clarity on really what we are trying to measure.

Again, you heard that tonight.

What is success, um, what is the data backing up this action?

Um, and that's why they sent um a letter.

Um there was a lot of um public comment and discussion about the the concept of a pilot, and they wanted to see um to be able to get that information and measurement um that we need before the fee would be implemented, um, and wanted that to be something that this committee structure could um discuss and kind of delve into a little bit more, and that also that they they felt that you know implementation was um a really key part of this and um wanted to make sure that that's something that that this committee structure could do as well.

Um BDAB was was was also really didn't really understand like what the time commitment was of something uh like this um and and struggled a little bit with the what behind it, and so um we sort of ended on a um an uncertain note about about their their participation and and and um and how they want to move forward.

Um as I do a report at the beginning also of of every um human rights and equity commission meeting and um the human rights and equity commission also um has some um real concerns about uh this process and um equity concerns about this process and requested that they be involved in some way um going forward uh in the in the future with either this this committee or um check-ins and then the the the time given the time and um ability to provide feedback to the council um on um electrification as an equity issue.

So just wanted to share those two things.

Okay.

Not specifically, just they they want to be in some way, shape or form a part of of this process.

And they think they'd be willing or not.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know if because this this um is is going to have um some real specific um uh sort of things we're looking for from for this committee.

I would I would actually suggest that as a whole um that in some way we bring this to um HREC um over the course of the next year to have some have some check-ins and some time for them to mull over as a as a full body, but that would be my suggestion.

Okay.

I mean I can see I can see adding an HREC member if they're willing to do that because they do think at every every piece of the discussion, whether it's exemptions from the fee, um the non-financial incentives and how that might relate, you know, to um the affordability, but also financial incentives and how that might support people in the community who might need more help than others in terms of electrification.

It seems like there's it's relevant throughout the whole process.

Yep.

Um they didn't specifically ask for that.

I mean it, yeah, whatever uh that's I think it was sort of we just want to be involved and we want to be consulted.

Okay.

Um VDABs uh request to be involved in the implementation.

Like what are your thoughts on that?

I like I'm on the surface not opposed to incorporating that into the resolution and the role of the yeah.

I think I I think I would just need a little bit more clarity on like when we say the implementation, that's kind of a broad concept, like what that means.

Because when I think about implementation, I'm thinking more about like the actual administrative steps, you know, that we run through our departments, which is like less maybe less relevant for committee.

So you know, does that make sense?

Like I think I'm very open to that, but I could use more clarity on like what the feedback on implementation means.

If it's something like what is the date it goes into effect, that sort of phase in approach, that that type of thing, I think for sure, but that's narrower than implementation broadly.

So I think that would help would help me and I think help the group too.

What I heard at BDAB was what you just said, which was more about the implementation, like when is it going to launch?

Is there a phased in approach or not?

Um that that's sort of what I thought I heard.

It's impact on the community that yeah.

And that was similar to what the input they gave us on the transportation fee around.

Yes, time of implementation.

Okay, so mainly the timing time.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, they don't need something here.

Okay.

All right, other thoughts, counselors.

Yeah, I mean, I would be I have to do that.

I'm supportive of that.

Yeah.

Oh no, I just have implementation take timeline as part of the scope.

Okay.

Um reading over the input on regarding a pilot.

I mean, uh there was not a discussion or as far as I could tell anyone about like what time duration do they have in mind for a pilot.

And then is it a five-year program or uh counselor Perkins?

Did you have any more details on that?

Yeah, I mean, they they're uh you know, we've heard tonight um from um and and and multiple times from um COBA and from other organizations like the chamber.

Um there are people in our community and organizations in our community that are that are willing to help um sort of help work um out what a pilot could look like.

I think what BDAB is just asking is that they just want an opportunity to really like what's the feasibility of a pilot, what could it look like in this in this greater committee committee structure?

Um I think that's that's I mean I guess the only the only thought that I had is you know we we do a lot of things that we revisit and we have check-ins, you know, you could call the uh the the work that came out of the the TruAC tree.

Yes, I tree code.

Is that a pilot?

Because you know, we're gonna be committed to updating and revising it.

It's uh it's ongoing, but we if it wasn't working out, we could change it for sure.

So I guess you know, is it just semantics to say having you know call it a pilot or we're committed to I think the ideas about collecting data on how it's implemented, like that's all sensible.

Um you know, if we want to call it a pilot, I'm okay with that.

To me, what I'm understanding from some of the communications that I've had about a pilot program is like some sort of very small project to start instead of a citywide pick a neighborhood.

And that's sort of what I've heard is and again, I haven't had a ton of details, and I don't think I think they're just raising it as an idea, right?

That you could use a small project to look at costs or whatever it is, and then use that data.

So this is what I because we're hearing repeatedly is like the need to collect data and really understand the impacts of all of this, and um, and so I think that's the idea is just kick an area um and and see over time.

So I mean, my reaction to the pilot project, I mean, it's similar to some of what Councilor Mendez said, and that it seems like, especially in the chamber's letter, I think it's most clearly articulated the last four bullets.

Bullets two, three, four, and five, they're not numbered, but though those are things that we would do, like we we could commit to them when we establish something and say this is gonna be there, maybe a few others that we would include.

These are the things that we're gonna monitor and gather data on, and then we're gonna revisit this at some point in the future.

Um, as we've done with the tree code.

So I that's the way I see this is that it's um you know, we're essentially we're testing something.

I I really don't know how you would choose, like what criteria would you use to choose a part of the community versus another part of the community.

It just seems to raise a whole different set of questions.

And um so to me, these these seem very consistent with the approach we've just used in other places that that these are points that we agree to up front.

And I'm not sure if that's exactly what we did with the tree code.

I think maybe we sort of agreed to some stuff afterwards.

But um, yeah, it came from the committee, I feel like of the the request for the check-in.

Yeah, but there was a specific set of questions we were supposed to kind of look at, and that kind of came out of a different process.

So I think we could include a list like this up front that we're gonna commit to look at this data over a period of time and revisit it and see what we learn from it.

Okay, Steve and then Megan, Steve.

Um I guess I am always interested in more data that that comes along with with uh a pilot or further studies or economic analyses or grid reliability or gas prices, all of these kinds of things should inform as we go throughout this process.

Um what I'm concerned about about a pilot is that it would be considered some kind of a serial event to us executing further on the plan.

I'm fine with a certain with a pilot project going on in the city, but I don't want us to have to wait for the conclusion of an entire project before we can move forward uh on this.

So I'm I'm very committed to to taking data as we go throughout the process, similar to our update that we've done on the tree code, similar to our update that we've done on the transportation utilization fees, the conditions have changed on the ground.

That is all something that I can get behind.

I'm not interested in waiting for for a pilot to go complete and then move forward.

Yeah, I don't think this is committing us to a pilot.

It's evaluating this usability.

It's just about looking into it.

And I would argue that this is very, very different than the tree code.

Um there's so much more that we don't know, um, and that that the community does not understand.

And and so I I would argue that that it's very different.

Yeah, I gotta speak up on that.

I mean go ahead.

I've built all electric columns.

There's a lot of builders that build all electric columns.

Like it's not a mystery.

It's not like there's gonna be, you know, nuclear fission, you know, figured out as part of this.

So I I think a lot of this is bluster, quite frankly.

And um, I'm also yeah, I also don't think we need to call it a pilot.

Um, I think collecting the data will be really insightful.

Um yeah, but where so okay, so if if that's true, where is this information?

Because I can tell you that BDAB has not seen it, um, and feels like there's there's no data that they have been provided um and are asked to be you know can a part of this this committee.

Um so I'm just curious that we say we have all this information, but I have not seen it.

I know BDAP feels that they haven't seen it.

I still don't understand the goal of what we're actually trying to do.

Um, and so I I just have to push back at that.

I think the goal is consistent with the climate action plan is to reduce fossil fuel use, and that would be the big metric that we would use that's somehow related to that.

I mean, how much uh has behavior changed and we're starting to see less fossil fuel use.

That's that's the metric.

I don't know believe that there's anything else that's come out of the research that's been done.

We have data that we have presented on the cost, the upfront costs, the ongoing costs.

Um those are regional, that's regional data.

So I'll say one sort of limitation of that data is it's not necessarily local data, but we've sort of talked about the pros and cons of using a broad regional data set versus a couple of local pieces local data points because it can vary so much project by project.

Um and then we've done the greenhouse gas emissions calculation.

We've done that on a per house basis, but it's it's fundamentally the same information that then we you know multiply up to say if you you know, if we have 400 homes that we think take up the fee.

So that's the data that we've shared.

Um I think that's been shared with BDAB.

Well, we've got the opposite in the all the bus.

They've got to do that.

I represented it in the council meeting.

I did not go to BDAB and present that specific information.

That the goal was to try to, you know, have the joint committee as partially an efficiency measure to a lot of that background data.

The idea was that we would present that as part of the framing for the joint committee, so that we all kind of have that.

Um so you know, I've heard the data a lot piece a lot too, and I think I'm struggling a little bit with like what exactly is the missing data because some of what I see in the letter.

I've you know, we've come we've come up with data for that to the extent that like is in my mind how we would define that.

So it other other than the the myth the local data piece of it, which we could go and find, and I think that's some of the idea behind a pilot is that we would get some of that local data.

I think we could potentially find more data from previous existing projects, like it we don't have to wait for a pilot necessarily to find some of that local data too, um, because there are all electric developments in the community.

So the local data piece is the part that I feel like we could go deeper on.

Some of the other pieces, it's not really clear to me what they what they're looking for or and what you all might be looking for, you know, we can get it, but I think we just need more specificity.

Can I can I help maybe with that, Cassie?

I think one of the things that you've talked about is that with that model, the per house model, that that you can have an assumed uptake rate of of this of this fee or not fee.

Right.

And we have a goal for greenhouse gas reductions for our community.

It's a number.

Um, and so if you have a proposed uptake fee, this is what I heard earlier this evening, right here, that you can say cuts out our greenhouse gas emissions by this amount.

Best guess, if this house is no longer uh a gas, all gas house, but instead a fully electrified house, it is this much less right here.

And that's to the questions that we've had this evening, the problems that we've had, could concerns that we've had this evening, that is a real number, and that goes directly towards our plan that we have a climate action plan.

Am I am I saying anything wrong or am I saying it kind of how you're expecting no?

That's right.

Yeah, we have that, and and one of the we the estimates on how much uptake there would be will depend in part what that fee level is set at, because that's where we know if it's a higher fee, you'd expect higher uptake, a lower fee, maybe a lower uptake.

And so part of the plan for the next discussion in February on the fee level is to kind of have a summary table where it's like at this fee level, we would expect this uptake, so this many homes to convert versus this many homes to electrify at that at that level, that many homes would be this G this amount of GHG emissions, this amount of revenue, potentially we can also figure out like how much could that revenue theoretically incentivize.

You know, we'd have to make some assumptions about what we're incentivizing for that.

Um, but we we basically have it's basically the ingredients that we've all that we've showed you in the the data from a couple of presentations ago, but it would kind of be mapped out in that way.

Um I think to add to that is to be open and honest about the fact that if we reduce our greenhouse gas usage here locally through an elect an electrification plan through a grid that is not fully clean right now, that we need to acknowledge that as the grid is slowly cleaning up right here, that statewide greenhouse gas reduction will grow.

But we're talking about the things that we can control here, which is our local climate action plan for our city and our local production of greenhouse gases.

And so I think that's for me the data, scratching the data itch in terms of the response that we're looking for and the benefit that we get from this policy.

Other thoughts?

I mean, I think one thing when we're talking about timeline of implementation, you know, we can do things like say we think the fee should be this, but it won't be implemented for a while, and in theorem that does offer some time to look at more local data or sort of pilot project as that may be defined.

Um so I think one question that's coming to my mind seeing this list grow a little bit potentially today, and then the additional, I think very well taken um ask for HREX involvement as well.

Is at what point are we creating this very large committee with a large amount of time on decisions that are gonna be sticky and difficult that ultimately we're gonna have to make and that we're gonna continue to receive direct public comment on at what point should we be doing most of this work if we've already taken one of the key decisions onto our plate, right?

Um and it it should it be us holding these round tables as a council instead of having a committee do it and then report it back to us, right?

And so I just I throw that there for consideration if this is the correct way of community engagement, or if we want to maybe just directly engage with our community on this as we go through it, or what's the right balance, right?

Um, and that doesn't mean cutting out our committees at all.

We could obviously still involve them in round tables or other factor or updates or whatever it is we want to do, but just something to think about as we're looking at the scope of what we're asking them to do on a pretty we think is a pretty you know, we know it's a pretty contentious issue in the community.

So that's an interesting idea.

I hadn't thought about that one.

I mean, uh would it make sense along those lines to table creation of the committee until we've gone through the fee discussion?

Is it says that was trying to make the point in December?

That's like foundational to this whole piece, like having getting to a place where the council is talking about this is where we think we ought to go with the fee.

I I think another piece that's missing from the timeline of how we get the whole policy package put together is a round table that involves the council with the community on just that fee question.

We don't currently have that in the timeline that you wrote that's like the December 17th or so, the one that you added to the agenda.

Yeah.

Um I mean, I don't know.

I'm just I think your proposal is an interesting idea, and maybe we wait till then.

I think the other thing I feel like is going on, and it's understandable, there's a lot of fee outground concern about this because it's still very undefined.

And the fee is like the foundational piece of it, right?

And you know, if we are if let's just say we stuck the timeline that you had, we would adopt something in May, but that doesn't mean it's gonna go in place in July 1st.

I mean, we're gonna have some kind of discussion, and that's some input we would need to get, I guess, on implementation.

But we can still get that, knowing that you know we're we're doing phase the first step here is this step.

And then the other steps flow from there.

I think what we had talked about doing was doing the non-financial incentive stuff sooner because we've heard a lot from BDAB and Mayhack that that's something they want to see us develop at least in parallel with this.

So that was the idea to let them work on that piece because it's independent of the fee.

So I'm sorry, I'm talking a little out loud.

No, I appreciate that.

Yeah, go ahead, R.

I feel like the fee also depends on some of the plan, though, too.

I mean, if the fee hypothetically is set low, but you get a lot of people paying it, and that generates a certain amount of and creates a fund that you can use to provide financial incentives for other people to, you know, et cetera, et cetera, as opposed to a much higher fee that you know very, you know, uh you get fewer people paying, or so I feel like the I guess I would want um, you know, maybe we end up sending them two levels or something like that, and say, you know, what would you do with this?

Because I don't know what the models will say in terms of, you know, what effect will the will how will this affect people's behavior in terms of the choices they make development-wise.

So I I get what you're saying about it's foundational, but I feel like it's also gets influenced by how it's how the fund is used or um how it impacts.

Maybe there's two different levels.

That was the original was that we were supposed to provide three options to this committee, and it was that was decided at the last meeting that we weren't gonna do that anymore.

Um so that was the original plan.

I I guess I don't understand that because I thought it was it.

There's more of a timeline discussion, I think, is what it was.

We were talking about how we were they're gonna provide we and move going back a couple meetings ago um when we talked about this, and we talked about how we wanted to provide a few different fee options um for this committee to to delve into, and then at the last meeting, um councilor Platt, you you you suggested that we just deal with the fee as as a as a council.

Okay, yeah, we're still talking about it.

Okay.

How we were they're gonna provide we and move going back a couple meetings ago um when we talked about this and we talked about how we wanted to provide a few different fee options um for this committee to to delve into and then at the last meeting um councilor platt you you you suggested that we just deal with the the fee as as a as a council okay yeah we're still talking about it okay yeah and I think that's you know probably I'm assuming that we either present them with a well if we are to do a round table as a council between our next couple of meetings and the decision point in May that what we put on the table is you know maybe here's a preferred option from the council but here's one or two others and see what kind of feedback we get we'd still gonna get engage in something like that with the community um but that the ultimate ultimately that decision about what the fee is we reserve of the council because it's the most difficult part it's very polarized I think we I personally feel like we've heard kind of what the positions are in the community and I don't think we're gonna hear a whole lot differently about that and then it becomes foundational once we know what the fee is then we can have look at what this is the dollars we have to spend.

Yeah it might sort of liken this to the transportation fee where council really took ownership of not just the fee design but the use of the funds too and the the phasing approach and how the funds would be deployed and then we were very targeted and specific with our outreach.

And I feel like there's some parallels here of talking about the fee the revenue it's being used and kind of splitting it up right now because some of it's you put with the committee and some that you have and it's I think causing some confusion and potentially some inefficiencies so having maybe a little more time for the council we already have the work session scheduled for February 11th but there most likely will be a few other touch points it might be wise to sort of really understand this and the data and the before you form a committee what I don't want to do is form a committee and have that scope not be really clear or be out of sync with that.

So I think you could do it but it's I think because this has evolved a little bit some of the thinking and and how we've approached this it's feeling a little bit potentially for the council taking a piece and the committee to take a piece you might want to have the council continue on a little bit still do the engagement but just time it a little bit more after you've had a chance to grapple with the the design yeah yeah I mean I was just gonna offer I think the the big difference between the transportation utility fee though and this is that like the transportation utility fee it was like really designed to be a revenue generator like that was the intention and and this is different like this is not a carbon emission reduction goal like that is founded in the community climate action plan you know I mean there's a lot of background behind it so I don't know I yeah I mean I don't know yeah they're very different.

I think I think Eric's just talking about the engagement that we did that council said we'll do the round tables with our folks on the different topics of this like we'll do it our we did not form a separate committee for that right we we just took that on ourselves and right we made some foundational decisions but then we talked to with the roundtable folks about some of the other stuff um that we needed help with figuring out I mean but if it if you think that there could be some decisions that council could make you know and that sounds like maybe you're suggesting kind of delaying the committee just a little bit just a little bit yeah you know I think maybe they get through the February 11th work session um really have this a clear picture and I think there is some confusion about data and some of the why and a little bit more information that we could then put in the the the scope of the committee to provide us a better launch point because I feel like launching it now if there's still a lot of confusion probably wouldn't be ideal.

It's just a lot of confusion yeah I think that's that's true.

All right how do we feel about that council we don't need to make this decision tonight we can go through our February 11th and let's put on that work session that this is sort of the ending topic okay we've done our work session what do we want to do with this next or yeah continue to talk about it.

I think the idea is to continue to refine and scope it maybe let let this um make a little more so to speak so so but I I think I heard support for if we are going with a committee of some kind of including input on the the implementation timeline like when we launched it if it's phase that kind of stuff yeah there was definitely support for that scope and then also maybe we could get some impact from HREC.

I mean we'll be HR and the seeds.

I I think I saw support for HREC involvement on this topic generally if anybody noticed I started typing in practice yeah we're just we're just I'm gonna this will be like a working document and so we'll continue with I have the HRAC comment about the timeline implementation the data local pilot so we're I'll just continue to ask a question though I mean do we have a majority support for this pilot idea of exploration well I think either we're tabling the discussion or we're not so I I think let's let's table it and I think that I think that's a question I don't think we need to reach a majority on that to table and keep it as a note that it was brought up and all I put is exploration of a pilot project or other methods to collect local data it's kind of a and I think we should come back to that for sure.

Sure.

Okay.

Will the utilities be here on February 11th?

Um, the plan was to have Pacific Power be one of the presenters because it'll be like fee level, um greenhouse, you know, houses converted, greenhouse gas emission reduction associated with that, and then based on the number of houses we anticipate converting, like how much additional electricity load is that, and then have Pacific Power here able to talk about what that means from like a grid capacity and the ability to hand that extra load.

So we were planning on having them, but that's the extent that we were planning on having I think it can start to um you know they'll be able to answer questions some of those bigger picture questions about grid reliability or their their plan for um you know their compliance with Hasbull 2021 and that sort of thing, too.

They're not going to complain.

Yeah.

Okay.

I mean, anyway, so yeah.

That's great having them there.

Yeah, yeah.

All right.

Staff needed another direction.

We're not gonna do a motion or anything or anything.

I'm seeing unanimity more or less release.

To continue this discussion to February 11th, basically.

Okay.

Great.

Thank you, Cassie.

Okay, thanks.

Thanks for your work.

Um, oh, well, yeah, well, there's a question of council liaison, but we'll leave that to this.

Yeah, we'll leave that to February 11th.

Um, okay, that brings us to item number seven.

Council's asked to adopt a resolution adopting its fundplace by stormwater master plan.

And I'm just declaring a potential conflict on this because my uh employer is Hayden Holmes.

Um, this could have a financial impact on them, but it is unknown at this time.

And I'm still allowed to deliberate and vote on this item.

All right, I just need four minutes of your time.

I know it is late.

I'm sorry.

Um, good evening, city counselors and mayor keebler.

My name is Brittany Barker, and I'm a principal engineer in the engineering department.

I will be providing a brief overview of the stormwater master plan as it is presented to you this evening for adoption.

Before I continue, I would like to acknowledge the involvement of Austin Semheggy, who previously presented to you on this topic.

Austin welcomed a baby girl at the end of December and is currently on rental leave.

So that's why you're stuck with me to get this project across the finish line, even though Austin did the majority of the heavy lifting with substantial support from Lori Feha in water services.

I think it's important to note all of the interrelated components of facility planning shown on this slide as a reminder for how we got to this point.

Austin and Damian Siernik presented the public facility plan and an overview of the stormwater master plan at the planning commission meeting on December 8th of 2025.

The planning commission brought the recommendation to City Council for adoption of the public facility plan and a public hearing, and the first reading of the public facility plan took place at the City Council business meeting on December 17th.

The second reading and adoption of the public facility plan and related changes to the Ben comprehensive plan is also on tonight's agenda.

At the December 17th meeting, council was also provided with a more in-depth overview of the stormwater master plan.

So I will only be providing a brief recap as a reminder leading up to the adoption.

Utility rate planning, funding and scheduling, the capital improvement plan, and implementing city projects all take place upon the completion and adoption of the public facility plan and stormwater master plan.

The purpose of the 2025 stormwater master plan was to provide an update to the 2014 stormwater master plan.

Throughout the nearly two-year long master planning process, one of the main goals was to identify projects that will address conveyance and drainage issues throughout the city's rights of way, specifically targeting improving the water quality and reducing flooding.

In addition, the stormwater master plan also addressed three key policy areas of concern shown here.

For climate change, we looked at anticipated storm events for the basis of design.

As part of this evaluation, we're currently looking at installing more rain gauges throughout the city to gather better weather data among our varying microclimates.

For level of service, we developed a framework to define targets to help guide investment decisions, optimize operations, communicate service expectations, and manage performance trade-offs.

And lastly, for drainage and density, we addressed increasing densification and resulting stormwater management challenges.

I do want to note that efforts on this policy topic will continue through the water services department to consider alternative approaches to stormwater management with a changing development demographic.

A council work session is currently scheduled for May of 26th to provide council with the latest updates.

In addition to addressing those three key policy areas, specific stormwater issues were identified throughout the city's rights of way and prioritized through a weighted matrix.

Short and long-term projects and programs were developed to address these issues where short-term is considered one to five years and long-term is considered six to twenty years out.

These stormwater issues were broken up into four main categories.

The capital improvement projects are standalone projects, typically of a larger scale that address drainage and water quality issues like outfall retrofits.

We developed project sheets shown on the right with planning level design for each identified capital improvement project, which includes problem summaries, project descriptions, and planning level cost estimates.

The major maintenance program identifies smaller drainage issues through targeted maintenance projects.

The drill hole water quality retrofit program is intended to protect the quality of groundwater resources, targeting retrofitting drill holes within a two-year time of travel to municipal wells and in close proximity to other drinking water wells.

And lastly, the failing underground injection control drainage improvement program is intended to reduce nuisance flooding on streets and sidewalks by replacing dry wells that no longer function or underperforming.

The total 20-year investment investment estimate is approximately 80 million dollars.

The stormwater master plan informs the rate strategy based on the needs of the system.

However, projects are dependent upon funding and could be shifted based on priorities and resources available.

And with that, are there any questions?

All right, council.

Any questions?

This one.

Oh, go ahead.

So one on the, I mean, we talked a little bit about this in agenda review, but um, in terms of getting the completed financial plan with and what that might mean for rates.

Sounds like we're gonna have that sometime this spring, right?

After some more work's done.

Yeah, so I think you know, stormwater uh we'll hear we um are making some decisions to slim down our next work session with uh uh on the 14th with a collection system master plan.

Uh so that's the sewer collection system, and then we also have the sewer uh facility plan as well.

There are some significant capital improvements that will have impacts to rates along with what you've heard in our stormwater.

I'd like to have one conversation that talk about the financial impacts to rates.

So we're kind of reframing that conversation and then be adjusting the timeline and time for us to make any mid-biennial adjustments that reflect that for the uh in June when we do all those uh fee adjustments.

Okay.

And then I I wasn't here in December, I missed I mean because it was six.

So can you in like a minute or two just talk a little bit more about the climate change stuff and how how climate change has been factored into like thinking about the investments or you know, the idea that we're likely to have more intense storms and more frequent storms in the future with more volume of water?

Um, how's that been incorporated into the plan?

I know it was talked about, I just missed it, and I wasn't able to watch the recording.

Absolutely.

I'm gonna use a phone of friend on this one.

Lori Feha is online.

She was much more involved in the details of this.

So, Lori, is that something you might be able to answer?

Yes, I'm here.

Can everybody hear me?

Yes.

Yep.

So my apologies.

I live in sisters, and so I snuck out early tonight to make it home.

Um, but council, this is Lori Feya from the Water Services Department.

And in regards to the climate change topic, we recognize definitely we anticipate change over time that would mean not necessarily an overall increase in rainfall, but changes in the patterns of it.

Maybe more rain and a little less snow in the winter, and then some more intense storms in the summertime.

And one of the first things we recognize is that we're using design storms for sizing stormwater facilities that are based on 1970s data.

And so the first thing we really need to do is get more up-to-date data on stormwater on rain events that are occurring.

So we've um partnered on implementing some more what are called agreement um data stations, weather collection stations.

Um, we're actually uh seeing five of those implemented this week, in fact.

So one of the outcomes of this plan was to promote that, find a partnership, be able to collect data because we don't have very much information, very much weather stations across the city.

And I just everybody knows when there's going to be a storm in Bend, it's really different from one part of Bend to the other, so we need more site-specific data.

So that was really the key upfront thing to do was to be able to collect more data, and then we can update our design storms and be better designing our facilities to meet future needs.

And you think about is that like a three to five year project to gather that data and then be able to get to so it's it's a probably a forever project to collect data because you want to click keep collecting data forever, but definitely we'll need to collect it for a few years before we can update the storms.

We probably won't get much help from the federal government on this topic for a while.

So we'll be a little bit yeah, that's you know, remains to be seen.

Right, right.

I mean, maybe in a few years.

All right, any other questions for Brittany or Lori.

Thanks, Lori.

Thank you, Lori.

You bet.

I move to do adopt a resolution adopting the 2025 City of Bend Stormwater Master Plan and the sending the 2014 City of Bend Stormwater Master Plan.

Second.

All right, move by Council Mendes, second by Councillor Franzosa.

All those in favor?

All right.

All right, unanimous.

Thanks, Brittany.

Thanks, Laurie.

All right, um to item eight.

Council is asked to adopt a resolution authorizing public domain for properties at the intersection of Northeast Butler Market Road and Northeast Boyd Acres Road as part of the Benn Bikeways project.

Yeah, uh good evening, Council.

I'm Kevin Howard.

I'm a project engineer in the engineering department.

Uh talking about the Benn Bikeway projects, Butler Market and Boyd Acres intersection imminent domain resolution.

Um just a reminder the resolution would allow the imminent domain path to proceed if we're not able to come to agreement with the landowners.

And council does need to approve this resolution so we could potentially move down this path so we could stay on uh schedule for the project that we'll give you an overview of later.

Um yeah, with me is Eric Forrester is gonna give a quick overview of the Butler corridor.

Good evening, council.

Um Eric Forster, Assistant City Engineer in the engineering department.

Uh just a little bit of the background, and this is a you know uh important step, but a small step in project delivery is getting this eminent domain so that we can um confirm our schedule certainty.

So if we um do come at odds with a property owner that we do have a mechanism to go ahead and move forward.

Uh the let's see here.

See if I can uh um just on the screen there, the the Butler Market project, which is currently under construction, and that's from the 8th Street roundabout down to Burnson, moving along um as we expected.

This uh intersection was added at a little bit later date and made part of phase two.

Um so that is the the intersection is funded.

Um the key routes, the the uh sorry, the phase two of Butler Market to the West is not fully funded.

Um we will be looking for um uh an adjustment coming up.

But it is we would not be able to build the intersection and butler market, and we're looking at the orange section on the left side of the screen, so the west side of it there, um, to group that into a single project to try and do them concurrently with two different contractors was not going to work.

Um we've already got eminent domain for the rest of the project, but the intersection itself came in a little bit later date.

Um, and Kevin will show a quick slide of what that looks like.

Yeah, thanks, Eric.

Um yeah, here's here's a look at the intersection.

Um it's a fully protected intersection.

Um the reason we need the additional right-of-way is to make this fully protected intersection and also preserve all of the existing vehicle movements that are out there now.

Um, and just a quick refresher that the Bend Bikeway, this is under the Bend Bikeway project umbrella bikeway routes run south to east.

But all four uh directions here are future key routes.

So this design helps us meet the near-term goal of the bikeway project and the butler market key out project, and also allows uh flexibility in future key route projects.

Um Boyd acres to the north for north, for example.

Um quick overview of our right-of-way process.

If we do need to go the eminent domain route, it's a six to eight month process.

So it's kind of starting that tonight.

Um we're scheduled to bid this project out over the summer and have a contractor on board in fall.

And then the resolution tonight really just helps us concrete that potential schedule to have a mechanism to move forward.

All right.

Questions?

Yeah, thank you both.

Questions from council?

Is it 180 days to get an appraisal?

It's yeah, I that's what it says.

The I I don't know all the details on the eminent domain and right-of-way process.

Yeah.

Outside of the timelines, I think if Mike could have some more on that, but there are many different steps along the way.

Uh, an appraisal at 180 days isn't quite seem right, but um, there is a sequence of events, and we've been at this spot before where um if you have to start over, you're starting over, and it's measured in months, um, not days.

And so getting the eminent domain up front um and appraisals, at least what we've experienced.

Um, we have to schedule them plenty far out.

Um the actual ability or the act of doing the appraisals doesn't necessarily take that long, but um, they are also something that can be challenged, and so they do they do need to be done correctly.

All right, any other questions?

All right, motion.

I moved to adopt a resolution exercising the power of imminent domain if agreement cannot be reached with property owners for the acquisition of portions of up to four parcels necessary to construct the then bikeway project and authorize the city manager to take steps necessary to implement the resolution.

Second.

All right, moved by council Ray, second by counselor Mendes.

All those in favor?

All right aye.

Any post?

All right, you need us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And then we have uh second reading.

This is the second reading of an ordinance amending the text of chapter eight public facilities and services as a fend comprehensive plan and adopting the 2025 stormwater public facility plan.

Can we over the second reading in adoption by roll call vote of an ordinance to adopt the 2025 stormwater public facility plan as appendix H to the comprehensive plan, repeal the 2014 stormwater public facility plan, and amend the text of chapter eight of the comprehensive plan, public facilities and services to update the storm drainage facilities and systems sections and policies.

Second, all right, move by Council Francis, second one.

Counselor Platts, roll call votes.

Counselor Franzosa.

Aye, counselor mendels, aye, counselor.

I disdain.

Umris, yes, counselor flatt, yes, and Mayor Kepler.

Yes.

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

Sure, do you want to do the council actually?

Let's just do this roll into it.

Um real quick.

So just to remind council, we have our work session, as I mentioned, we're just slimming it down to two items the transportation, the temporary safe state area, which is in preparation for the joint meeting with the county, and they um neighborhood, the prioritization of neighborhood commercial areas, and there's the legislative advocacy, the land use policy and financial setups.

I mentioned the TSSA um in the joint meeting on the 20th because we have just developing the agenda.

And I want to make sure council's okay with the agenda for that joint meeting.

So the TSSA is of course the big focus.

Um the other items include the solid waste franchise agreements.

So we've seen some action from the county from Redmond from our partners here in Deschutes County about uh make it terminating our existing agreements and moving toward to new agreements.

So we're gonna get some updates there because I think that it's gonna potentially be a prelude for this council to take action uh that might change or terminate our existing agreements in favor of a new agreement.

So I just wanted to give you a heads up.

That that's being led by the county, but it provides somewhat of a foundation for some work that we're gonna take later.

And it's just easier to say that now with you all.

Yeah, and then the second item or the third, we're doing kind of a catch-all of legislative update so you can all share your legislative agendas for the short session, uh, the core three three project, and then what I wanted to share with you all is I'm going to plan uh to propose that we use our opio opioid settlement dollars.

So this this these are settlements that we participated in, we're receiving funds over time.

These are multi-million dollar lawsuits uh that we joined in.

And so I would like the in the the use of those funds are restricted uh for one time things, they're for a very specific use.

I'd like in good faith, because we're really trying to get more county participation in other areas uh to propose that we use um our local annual revenue to consistently provide funding for the stabilization center.

The stabilization center is a big benefit for us.

Um there's always this sort of you know scramble for for funds.

Those funds are fairly restricted.

It also gives us the opportunity if if something does change with the settlement funds and we have to pull back.

There's a little more flexibility in use versus hiring FTE, etc.

We've talked about this with the talked about this with the police chief.

I think this is a really good use of funds, and I I didn't want to surprise anybody and wanted to make sure you have our supportive of that approach.

So that you know, and again, it's part of this idea of offering some things in hopes that we can get more continued more uh participation on some of the things at not just the TSSA but our um services and housing options for those that are experiencing homelessness.

Mostly we use it for NARC to purchase NARCAN.

We are kick starting the hiring of an individual this biennium.

So it will continue to do that.

We have enough funds to do that.

It's moving forward.

And we have been using some of the funds for the stable.

So we've been already kind of doing this, so we would just continue it, really make that commitment.

There's always a challenge for um keeping the stabilization center operational really as much as we can because we want to use it not just during sort of the nine to five business hours, but in the evenings and other times, and usually our funding helps to cover overtime costs for others to just elongate those oppositional hours.

So we're not taking something away from PD.

No, we're not just really with PD support.

We're not increasing what we're providing from the opioid settlement to stabilization center, really.

We're just making a commitment.

We're making a commitment, just basically a plan.

We haven't necessarily you know the the funds have been somewhat sporadic.

We've just kind of did a reconciliation of what we've spent today, where we have, what the intended revenue stream is, and so I think we feel comfortable making a more ongoing commitment.

Obviously, it's going to come if the resources aren't there from the settlement, we're gonna have to you know think about providing the the funding uh to the stabilization set.

But I really I really want to make that good faith effort in that meeting, want to make sure you're comfortable with that approach.

Sounds good.

So that's it.

Okay.

All right, great.

So then we'll go back to our council action and reports.

Um, no letters today, a couple of appointments.

So we have a landmarks commission reappointment that we just missed in our previous appointments, so we need to codify.

And then City of Redmond asked us to formally do a motion to to put Katie Brooks um as our representative on the airport committee.

So I move to reappoint Tom Schmidt to the landmarks commission, and I move to approve Katie Brooks as the City of Bend representative on the Redmond Municipal Airport Airport Committee.

All right.

Moved by Council Perkins, I'll give the second to Council Norris.

All those in favor, aye.

All right, great.

Um, a couple items under council reports.

First is uh council schedule requests, council Riley.

Um yeah, so I'm making a request that we have a discussion about Senate Bill 243, the Community Safety Firearms Act that allows the local governments to restrict concealed handguns in certain public buildings.

So I think it would be a work session with the proposed resolution/slash ordinance.

I think I think it's straightforward enough that it would be or even just a regulate.

Okay, let's just get let's get it done to a business meeting.

Okay.

Great.

All right, so this was passed last session and it went into effect in September.

It allows us to um, you know, say you can't bring handguns onto our campus.

It has to be places I think where the governing body meets, right?

Is that sort of meetings, yeah?

So we have met at municipal court.

Um, we're gonna be meeting at public works and we meet here.

So enthusiastic yes.

Yep, okay.

We've got support for that.

Um counsel liaison assignments, it's in a reminder if anyone needs any changes or anything.

Um, the only I think that you two had a neighborhood swap that we'll just make sure we make that official.

Tuna's taking on the taking on OBEN to Gina.

Okay, so we'll make that one official, and then Council Norris and Platt, you all talked about a swap.

Right.

Okay.

So um Councilor Platt would like to take ECC and then Megan Norris would take um AHAC.

Um, the problem is with the ECC schedule.

So I'm not I told Steve I'm not making any promises.

I would like to officially check with all the ECC members and just make sure that if there is a meeting time change, and then we need to check with staff, and then we need to check with the calendar.

And there's an excellent opportunity like tomorrow to discuss it with them.

Right.

So I think we just need to make sure.

I don't want to ask our volunteers to all change their schedules just because we have a change in the liaison.

So if that doesn't work out, we'll swap you back, but we'll make a good faith effort to see if they're willing to um to do that.

Thank you.

That was my approach to that.

If that's okay with you, Eric.

Um, okay.

So then we go into council reports.

I'm just gonna tell you all it was the holidays.

I don't have anything to report, but if there is anything that anyone's burning to say, and we'll start with you, Gina, because I think you do have to do that.

I do have to say, yeah, to get us uh it's from COACT, the Central Oregon uh area committee on transportation.

It's the ODOT committee for region four.

So we're on this uh I'm the liaison.

Um in the region is Crick Jefferson Deschutes Counties and all the cities.

Um so ODOT is updating their 10-year capital improvement plan and process, and they're asking the regional acts to um basically prioritize reason regional projects so work together and kind of prioritize regional projects, which is I think kind of interesting and kind of cool.

So work together and kind of prioritize regional projects, which is I think kind of interesting and kind of cool.

We'll see how it goes.

So anyway, it we met internally, uh Counselor Mendez, myself, and staff with staff's help, they kind of generate a list of projects.

And so what we have done internally is prioritize this list of projects.

And it's basically coming from all of the our CIP plans, geobond, all that historic stuff.

So our I would say our to characterize our top two priorities are the empire situation.

Yeah, which is a lot of small projects kind of combined into one, including potentially connecting directly.

And then the other is that basically highway 20 through town that's Greenwood as well as Third Street safety improvements there, which Susanna Gilbert printed out would be a real help to achieving our climate-friendly areas kind of obligations.

So anyway, the message I also need to convey to you is the same that ODOC gave to me, which is don't keep your hopes up.

And uh something, although, and make your requests small.

So that's what we're that's what we have focused on.

Um and just something else to kind of keep in mind, Counselor Mendes and I discussed today.

Uh basically highway 97 between Bend and Madras is in the top three, if not the most deadly stretch of road in Oregon.

Um and so uh this is something that is very very important to Bend.

Um is not on our list, but it will be on Jefferson County's list.

It will be on Deschutes County's list.

So that's probably what is gonna be the highest priority that comes out.

So Ben Ben to Madras is that is that what you said, or you say redmond matters.

Um actually Ben Ben to Madras is we still have a lot of problems between Ben and Red too.

So that's that makes sense.

Yeah, anything's weather.

So coact meets in February.

We have to give our recommendations January 15th, Co Act, the committee meets in February, and then the ODOT region force staff will be basically sending up their recommendations with our input to OTC in April or May.

So okay.

Any questions about that?

I think that aligns with what we've previously discussed.

I think even if it doesn't get funded, we need to keep empire on everyone's radar.

So great job, thank you for that.

All right.

I'm just gonna ask, does anyone have an update other two quicker?

Okay, if people do, then we'll move.

Are you done, Gina?

Are you having an else?

Okay, Councilor Mendez.

Okay, uh, just quickly the MPO passed new bylaws, which means that its voting structure has changed that now has four full voting members on the policy board, two full representatives from the city of Bend, uh, which are currently represented by uh Council O'Reilly and me.

The county has one representative, ODOT has one representative, and Cascade's transit will have a representative in the ex officio capacity.

Um the last thing that I wanted to share is is just uh um I uh the the connections of community have been on my mind a lot lately.

I I had a flat tire this morning and I was an hour away from home by foot, and a good Samaritan stopped to help me.

I had a lot of time to reflect on I I'm sure I made this person late.

They had children in the car, but I so appreciated their help.

Uh but the same week I also heard from a friend, a community member, a resident of Bend who was uh violently deported.

Um it's uh it's very upsetting to have ice tearing families apart.

Um the news out of Minneapolis today is even more heartbreaking.

Um so I just feel like we're in this together and we're gonna need our community connections, which we have in Bend in abundance more than ever to get through this.

And that's all.

Thank you.

Thanks for sharing that.

Um I just wanted to, I was part of a group of staff um who participated in the tribal learning series that was organized by Ally Ship and Action and uh presented mostly by a woman named Jalen Seppa, who's a member of the competitive tribe for warm springs.

It's a four-part series.

I thought I I learned a lot, lots to reflect on and some resources to review.

And we're gonna do some kind of a like a debrief download that Melissa Camagna is organizing right now.

So we may have more to share about that at some point.

We also lunch on Friday if you want to make it.

Yeah, we're uh is it that's this Friday, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Um with the new CEO for the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs.

Um, and then I just wanted to make sure people may have seen this.

There was an article in the paper, it was I think it was an article that Clayton Frankie did that talked about the DR, the Deschutes River Woods pilot project with transit that implied it was gonna go away because of what's happening with the transportation package.

And that's actually inaccurate.

Um the message basically is that it's basically still on track.

There are some details to work out in terms of planning and timing might have to be adjusted slightly but um it's not because of the um package the assumption for that project was with existing resources what else could be accomplished.

So just in case you got questions about it or if I was like huh how come I'm just hearing about this in the media and it just basically because it wasn't true.

Okay misunderstanding there.

Okay.

Thank you.

Anyone on the side have an update Steve that's Megan Steve go ahead.

Go ahead.

Go you go okay no I just I'm um Ariel I really appreciate you saying that as someone who's married to a Minnesotan has a lot of family in Minnesota and watching a video of a of uh this person's neighbor saying I just watched you shoot this woman in my neighbor in the face um today um I really appreciate the uh strong declarative words from the Minneapolis mayor who I will not repeat them here but I share them for our community as well yeah okay Steve and I'm gonna ask you to indulge an old fighter pilot I apologize but look I I woke up this week in weekend to the news that our nation had chosen to invade a sovereign nation and remove its leader.

Now regardless of whether this was an evil leader these short sighted actions were a clear violation of the rules based order established by our world when it was recovering from two back-to-back wars about a century ago the Trump administration took these action uh actions as a continuation to policies that lean towards the same kind of thing you're talking about might makes right here rather than we are stronger together there's no plan for what comes next here and having served in our nation's armed forces for a quarter century in both the kinetic phase of operations as the youth goes as well as in the what comes next phase right here I can tell you firsthand about what it feels like when you attend a weekly ceremony downrange to honor the losses coalition forces and your friend and your friends so the my thoughts turn to the impact of this attack and other actions by the Trump administration to our city of Bend I'll tell you some examples I've had students ask me this week Colonel Platt am I going to get drafted in my classroom legitimate concerns by our community that our nation's armed forces will be deployed to round up members of target communities and groups and even changes to our block grant funding reflected in our consent agenda tonight right here.

So I asked myself what can I do well having been in the seat for just over a year now let me state that I rededicate myself to following the laws of our land I commit to looking for both the near term and the long term impacts of policies when that we enact listening more than I speak except for right now whether it be about electrification or street design or housing choices for complete complete communities or support of our unhoused communities or the rest of the myriad of important options that we deal with tonight and many nights I remain deeply honored to be for the chance to serve with all of you good people up here and I look forward to shaping what we can for the people within this community and for a brighter future in central Oregon.

That's all I got thanks yeah yeah I don't really have any other updates but I do want to thank everyone for your thoughtful contributions tonight and always and I'm just really glad to serve with a bunch of folks who are paying attention to what our community needs paying attention to how we're being affected by other folks and trying to do the best we can in some pretty turbulent times um for our community but we're trying to continue to lead and listen and we will keep doing that so that's it all