The Bend City Council met on January 21, 2026, for a regular session that included an executive session (closed to the public) followed by an open session starting at 6:00 PM. The meeting featured presentations from state legislators, a proclamation for Human Trafficking Prevention Month, discussions on immigration enforcement, legislative priorities for the 2026 short session, a work session on the downtown parklet program, and a quarterly council goals update. Notable actions included unanimous support for joining an amicus lawsuit against federal immigration enforcement actions, approval of the city's 2026 state legislative priorities (as amended), and direction on refinements to the urban renewal agency's financial guarantee (clawback) provisions for affordable housing projects.
All right. The Benn City Council will now meet in executive session to pursuant to RS 192602 D to conduct deliberations with person designated to carry on labor negotiations and H to consult with legal counsel concerning the legal rights and duties of a public body regarding current litigation or litigation likely to be filed. Representative of the news media and designated staff shall be allowed to extend the attend the executive session, except for the part relating to labor negotiations subsection D below. Representatives of the news media specifically directed not to report on any of the deliberations during an executive session except to state the general nature of the session as previously announced. No decision may be made in executive session. At the end of executive session, we will return to open session at 6 p.m. Thanks. Mike Riley, he, him. Melanie Keebler, she her. Megan Parkins, she her. Steve Platt, he him. Great. We are all here except for Councillor Norse, who is excused. All right, we are gonna start right out with our uh Benn State delegation update. We have Representative Krupp and Senator Broadman here. Welcome back to the chambers. Senator Broadman, if you want to come on up. Um Representative Levy wanted to be here, unfortunately had a scheduling conflict, couldn't make it, so Senator Brom is going to talk a little bit about some of her priorities. And we will give you the floor both to talk about um what you'll be working on in the short session. Thank you, Mayor. It's great to be back. Uh greetings, counselor staff. My name is Anthony Broadman. I am the state senator for Central Oregon, Ben Redman Sisters, Black Beat Eagle Crest, most of Deschutes County. I have the honor of serving with my two state representatives, Representative Krep and Representative Levy, uh, who both of whom form Senate District 27. It's an honor to be back in the chamber with all of you. And um I'm exactly one year into my term in the Senate, and I'll tell you I draw on the partnerships that we have working together over the last five years when I was on council every day. Um really appreciate all of your partnership as we fight for Central Oregon for affordability for public safety. Um I'll share a brief update on my work in Salem and update you my new committee roles. Uh I'm now serving as chair of Senate Finance and Revenue Committee as well as budget co-chair for public safety, and um I serve on the audit and the judiciary committees in the Senate. Those roles help me put our city and our region at the center of decisions that affect our entire state. And um uh my priority remains making sure that Central Oregon is safe, affordable, and a great place to grow up and grow old. Um I'll start by talking briefly about Central Caucus because uh I am very grateful for all of your work to help us form the Central Caucus with Representative Krupp, Representative Levy, Senator Mike McClain, Representative Vicky Brees Iverson, Representative Werner Reshke, and Senator Todd Nash. And your input into the caucus priorities have been really important in delivering the resources on pediatric mental health care and housing and the policy bills that we work on with you. So thank you for leaning in on the central caucus and thank you to the mayor for showing up in her capacity as chair of uh Coco. My personal bills uh are um the public lands protection, uh public lands promise is what we're calling it. Um and this bill prevents state and local governments from helping the federal government sell off our federal land to private entities. It does not change um the city acquiring land from the federal government. I want to be really clear about that, but our public lands are under threat now more than ever, and it's um important since they are a critical part of our wildfire resilience, our natural resources, our economic development and tourism and recreation, that we protect them and we stand up. That's why I'm running the public lands promise bill. I'm also running um a corner crossing codification bill with Senator Mike McClain. Public access is a critical part to protecting our public lands, and some of our public lands are locked up right now. Um this bill will codify based on a U.S. Supreme Court case uh decision in the last year, codify our ability to access public lands from one corner of federal land to another corner of federal land. Um the port of Central Oregon is a study bill that um I've really enjoyed working with city staff to ensure that it reflects um the needs of the city and the needs of the region when it comes to economic development and being resilient as we confront climate chaos and wildfire um pre-positioning. So the concept for the port of Central Oregon is based on a concept out of Utah. It's an inland port of governmental structure that really unites various resources from around our three county region to ensure that we're ready when it comes to wildfire resilience and disaster preparedness and also provide that um economic development arm that we need as a region. We continue to be the fastest growing, healthiest economic development region. We're growing jobs at a rate that we should all be really proud of as central Oregonians. But our um our governments, our local governments, our state government, and our federal government need to be partners in investing in economic development and creating jobs in our region.