Today, uh January 28th.

Uh the mayor is in Washington, DC at a mayor's conference right now.

So she will not be here today.

We can start with roll call, Gina.

Did you want to start?

Gina Francesa, she here.

Ariel Mendez, he Mike Riley, he him.

Megan Perkins, she heard.

Megan Norris, she here.

Steve Lack.

All right.

And first up today, we have a presentation from Ben Duncan, who is online on the equity program structure.

I'm just gonna uh provide a few opening remarks.

And yes, uh, want to introduce Ben Duncan with Kearns West.

Uh the city contracted with Kearns West last October to examine the operations and structure of the city of Ben's equity related functions, services, and programs.

So council will hear from Ben today, uh the methodology uh that he used, findings and recommendations.

Uh upon Ben reviewing his recommendations, I'll then share uh the plan of action to implement those recommendations.

Uh but we'll close with some questions that Ben has for council to help shape his final report and any questions that you may have for Ben or myself.

Um I just wanted to note that I'm really excited to carve out a new path as in the as the city considers the future of its equity work.

Uh there's an opportunity to build a greater sense of inclusion and belonging uh through thoughtful and rigorous implementation strategies that focus on structures, policies, practices, and programs to ensure that all employees at the city have the opportunity to reach their full potential.

Uh equity work is deep and broad and grounded in understanding lived experiences of our community members.

We'll continue our commitment to creating policies and systems where our community has the opportunity to thrive.

We know that trust is not built through words alone but through sustained action.

We also know that there is more work to do to ensure that our organization is welcoming, equitable, and supportive for everyone.

So with that, I just want to uh welcome Ben into the space and I'll I'll again chime in uh after he walks through his recommendations.

Okay, well, thank you, Eric.

And it's uh I I apologize that I'm not there.

Um I missed Ben already.

I was there uh not that long ago.

I I believe uh somebody else is gonna share slides, is that correct?

Yes.

You can pull those up, thank you.

Um, mayor Proton Perkins counselors for the record.

Uh my name is Ben Duncan, as Eric said, uh consultant with Kearns and West, and really honored to be here uh this afternoon to share my findings and offer some recommendations for how the City of Bend can continue to advance and strengthen its equity work.

Uh just as a point of introduction, I'll note that I I come to this work having served myself as a Chief Diversity and Equity Officer for Multmac County in Portland, where I live, and had the honor of supporting the governing alliance on race and equity as a founding steering committee member.

And it really afforded me the privilege of working with and supporting jurisdictions all over the country on how to build up, um, improve upon and leverage structural and organizational governance models to advance equity work for jurisdictions.

And I'll just say at the outset, Ben, like any city that's growing and seeing demographic changes and you know, having to respond to all of what that means in community has a really unique opportunity to continue to invest in and support equity work.

And um I'll say you know, I've been really impressed by the passion of staff, of leadership, of community members to to be part of that investment.

Um I'll also say at the outset is kind of the old adage is that you know this work is a marathon, not a sprint.

Um, and it's going to be important as you all think about your future structures and implementation to balance the kind of immediacy and the urgency of working towards real necessary equitable outcomes for community while also you know moving at the pace of relationship, the pace of process and structural planning that allows the work to be most successful.

We go to the next slide.

I I'm hoping to really utilize the time I have with you all today to align with a few outcomes.

Um I'll reflect on the scope and methodology, and Eric did a good job of kind of describing kind of what I was brought in to do that really guided this work, reflect on some of the key findings and themes from the analysis that I've done, um, including the identification of core functions that the city has in place and do all of that in service to connecting it to some recommended structural and implementation concepts that uh I really do hope guide your next steps.

Um finally I'll outline kind of where uh you know at least my work goes from here.

Um and as Eric said, really close our time together with some space for you to have discussion, uh particularly focused on the role of council and your role in advancing equitable outcomes.

If you go to the next slide.

At the conclusion of my presentation, but I didn't want to preview these questions that I hope you all will explore together as elected representatives, right?

You have an opportunity, and I'd say an obligation, right, for ensuring that equitable outcomes for your constituents are realized.

And my hope is that while a lot of this work and a lot of my recommendations is really centered on kind of operational and structural decisions that are in the purview and led by the city manager, that it's imperative that you all are also exploring the role you have as a legislative body and the responsibility that you carry to ensure that the decisions you make are informed, that they seek to mitigate disparate outcomes or what we sometimes call unintended consequences.

And just as importantly, invest in policies that expand benefit to all of your constituents.

I say that also recognizing and challenging and pushing you all to do so with a focus on ensuring that those who are most vulnerable, those who have the least resource, those who carry the least power, are centered in your considerations and centered in your analysis.

And to support council as appointed members by you all as a body to be a resource for issues that come before you.

So we'll talk more about those questions and really hope that it's a good platform for you all to speak to later.

You have next slide.

Eric kind of hit this piece on uh scope and purpose, but uh you know, the value that I hope I bring is is really as an independent and objective kind of third party, uh, being able to review the work that you all are doing to try to have a deep understanding of kind of what the existing systems and structures and staffing and strategies, uh, but how that really aligns with where you want to and where you can go.

And there's kind of two phases, and I'll kind of unpack these a little bit as we go along.

One being kind of just anal analysis and trying to understand the kind of state of uh you know, the kind of current state, uh, and then moving into what this conversation really represents as part of developing recommendations for accessibility and equity work that really allows you uh to move forward and things that you can adopt in the future to be successful.

Go to the next slide.

So I'm not gonna need names.

Um fact it was important that some people you'll know when I say city manager's office, but um it was important that you know folks I met with had uh some sense of uh uh confidentiality and so we could have candid conversations, and we did.

Um so as I go into some of what uh the themes and findings are, I just want to both acknowledge um and give some some illustration to the conversations we had, um, but also really thank everyone who's represented on this slide, including folks that are doing the work every day as equity and accessibility leads, uh senior leadership and city manager's office and the executive team, department leaders.

I appreciate you know the time I had with many of you as electives, as council members, um, did spent some time with the community relations manager, the DEIA advisory committee, diversity equity, inclusion and accessibility advisory committee, um, the human rights and equity commission, ATREC, um met with some wonderful folks in community, both organizationally and individuals that uh just care deeply and are working, you know, every day tirelessly to improve community outcomes, um, and then did some analysis of uh what I call comparable cities, alongside that also had the opportunity to really dive a bit deeper into some of the background documents, plans, uh structures that you have in place, including you know, you all uh as council, your goals that you've set, the employee experience action plan, the aim tool, HREX work plan, you know, perusing websites, and congratulations on I think you just released a uh revamped website, um, looking at program descriptions, really trying to understand the work that's that's occurring, and then of course, looking at kind of the model and structure for COBAC and aligning with national best practices, as I said, really referencing organizations like the Government Alliance for Racial Equity, International City County Management Association, Urban Institute, and others who have done national scans of best practices across jurisdictions of all sizes across geographies throughout the United States.

The next slide.

You know, kind of structural efficiencies.

But just looking at what the city is currently investing in, there really isn't anything that I felt was declaring this in terms of equity efforts across the city.

And of course, all of this work has opportunities for quality improvement.

All of this work has opportunities for consistency of practice and deeper adoption, but the core functions for equity across the city are strong.

And similarly, there are some solid structures like HRAC and like COBAC that exist alongside some of the internal structures, whether that's around external complaints, investigations through civil rights, the tribal consultation and relationship building that's happening across many of the departments, and some really direct connection to models of community support through some of the broader level engagement, but also specifically some of the city's support and sponsorship of community events.

And again, plenty of room for improvement for every one of these efforts, but a solid platform in which to leap from.

If we go to the next slide.

Leadership structure was a theme and a recurring topic.

Kind of the role of a director or leadership position that's responsible for leading equity and accessibility work.

And a lot of folks really favored a leadership role that's located kind of internally within the city, but also has this meaningful connection with community, which is a kind of challenging dynamic.

But there's certainly an interest in defining the authority and the scope of these type of leadership positions to ensure again alignment to be able to set standards and vision and direction and reduce kind of duplication in many different areas.

The concept of distributive leadership and how coordination kind of happens at the city was described as kind of part of the culture and I would say part of a kind of core leadership philosophy, and that was reflected in a number of participants emphasizing the value of distributed leadership, noting you know, there's functions like ADA compliance or website accessibility or procurement or policy analysis, a number of things that just kind of naturally are relevant across departments.

At the same time, several employees really suggested that those types of responsibilities could be most effective when they are coordinated through the city manager's office, right?

Some sort of centralized authority and responsibility with really strong dotted line relationships or dedicated liaisons to ensure that collaboration actually happens across teams.

So this current model, as I see it of distributed leadership, might be contributing to some of the lack of consistency in practice, particularly as there seems to be kind of a culture of opting in, even for some of these core functions, whether it's performance management or competencies or equity analysis or kind of other operational responsibilities that are conducted across departments.

Accessibility, I'll say was widely recognized as a strength, and certainly supported by compliance requirements, clearly defined expectations.

A lot of those are legally provided.

And certainly participants saw opportunities to build on that foundation to develop tools and templates that can provide kind of practical guidance for for and support for staff while also maintaining some flexibility for departmental and kind of discipline specific needs.

And you know, in some ways, accessibility is really unique.

As I said, it reflects a really strong legal requirement.

This mandates kind of specific types of activities, structures and practices, but also note just that you know, I don't know if Cassandra you're watching, but you know, folks really spoke highly of the leadership in this area of work.

And um, you know, I don't want to lose, and while I primarily focused on structure, um, how critical it can be to have the right people in the right roles uh with clear direction for their work.

Uh, for core functions, there was a number of folks, you know, many of the interviewers really refer to a collection of actions that reflect those core functions that that uh that I named earlier, and the cities either obligated or invested in advancing.

Um, but participants didn't really seem to have a strong grasp of where that work was at, how departmental or organizational progress was being tracked, or whether departments had specific action plans to be able to implement some of these functions consistently across the organization.

And then the final two that is probably more of an external focus, although the DEIA advisory committee is an internal focused body, um, they really discussed the roles, and particularly HRAC folks that I spoke with, um, discuss the roles of these advisory bodies really as valuable mechanisms for community input and um for the DEIA advisory for for internal collaboration, um, but strongly named these groups lacking clarity around authority, around consultation processes, and importantly, decision-making influence and strengthening the role and the vision for these groups, how they're supported for success, and building more trust to empower these bodies to be really value ads and not what several folks described as just checking the box uh will be really important is a great opportunity to kind of invest in those spaces.

And then finally, community trust and relationships, and we could spend you know the next two days talking about community trust and relationships.

It's complex, it's ongoing.

But a number of folks reflected on the importance of trust and transparency in relationships with community partners.

And while you know, some noted really positive engagement and really positive relationships and partnerships with the city, there was others that really describe experience that felt um transactional or performative was one of the terms that I heard uh quite a bit, rather than maybe reciprocal or mutually beneficial, more of that relationship that's longstanding.

And so building and maintaining long-term relationship-based partnership is really one of those keys that are essential for not just you know, trust and relationship, but lasting progress and making sure that the work you do is informed by community um expertise.

If you go ahead, next slides.

Um, just for a second, we're gonna um we had a wrong version of the slide deck, so Stephanie's uh gonna share the correct one.

So give us just one second.

Okay.

The slides I were showing seemed right, right?

Exactly.

Yes, I think we have just one small change in one of the slides that we want to make sure I kind of captured.

Thank you.

I was gonna say, for the record, that was not a Ben Duncan um or well.

No, it was just the it was a word that Ben wanted to change in the slide that we reposted, but it just didn't make the other version yet.

Thank you for catching that.

Yeah.

Well, just as you're pulling up the slides, I'll just note I'm gonna kind of transition into kind of the findings and background to high-level recommendations, and then you know, uh, Eric, as you you um previewed at the beginning, uh, ask you to reflect on some of the ways in your role as city manager for how those recommendations can become actionable.

Um I'll do so when the the slides come up.

Right.

Perfect.

I see the words that I want to see, so thank you.

Um we're kind of combining with Eric and I will tag team this a little bit.

And what I'll really be doing, and again, this is what you see in these kind of four high-level recommendation areas uh are really built from what I just described, but also really deeply connected to national best practices.

These are not just coming from the city of Bend or from folks that are internal experts.

This is not just Ben putting some stuff on paper.

Um these are things that have been tried and tested across jurisdictions all over the country in different geographies, different sizes, and different leadership models.

Um, but there are some key things that feel really important to name.

So one is embedding equity into decision making and equity analysis and expertise really needs to be able to influence decisions and practice at every level of the organization.

And that includes policy, programs, and practice.

Um, and so you all thinking about how you ensure future structures elevate that expertise is a really critical part of a best practices model.

This balance of centralized oversight and decentralized implementation, what we might call this hub and spoke model, really is recognizing that to address some of the themes that I outlined, having that strong centralized structure that can help set what we might call the North Star for equity work and serve as a resource for the organization by ensuring collaboration, coordination, best practices, by having that centralized North Star setting direction for the organization and then providing those wraparound supports through developing capacity organization-wide to sustain that change.

And so that capacity building is really important.

So that's the development of frameworks.

You have tools like the AIM tool, which uh I think you know, Eric will talk about that's a real opportunity for you all, models for best practices, but also training, technical assistance, and what I might call thought partnership.

It shows up in lots of different ways just to be able to you know throw ideas off each other to help think about how to improve the work, uh, really will help the city ensure that you know equitable practice and this advancing of equitable outcomes becomes just part of how the city does its work across all the departments and all of the programs.

And then finally and it wasn't a key part of my analysis to look at your engagement models, but I will say that embedding community engagement and embedding like is kind of the action word here is critical, right?

Being able to leverage and strengthen not just the existing structures but also building out best practices for engagement.

So whenever the city and whomever in the city across all of its work is doing engagement, that it's meaningful.

And when I say meaningful, I mean that communities have an ability to impact decisions that affect their lives, and doing able to be able to do that in a relationship-based and mutually beneficial way uh will be an important part of it.

So, Eric, I'd love to pass it to you to help translate kind of how do you take these high-level recommendations and really allow you to speak to how that could be action uh made actionable.

Yeah, thank you, Ben.

So I'm just gonna kind of walk through from top to bottom and how we're reflecting uh these high-level recommendations.

It should be noted that we're still working with our internal team on the a lot of specifics and with HR on job descriptions and classification, all that.

So I'm but I'm gonna give you a little more specificity.

So under that first category, um, we are proposing to move our accessibility and equity uh program into the city manager's office, um, really as a as a team.

Um we're wanting that to be focused on our our policy team, so it has the most uh direct impact with council and the council goal setting process and the council projects.

Um so it provides the the best positionality, I think, to accomplish that is reflected in Ben's recommendation.

Uh the move will ensure direct participation, decision making with the city manager and the and our executive team.

Uh, it'll ensure that the equity leaders are part of decision making processes and bodies, uh, such as our policy groups.

We have a housing, public safety, transportation, etc.

Uh we have a city manager's office strategy group, an innovation steering committee, an employee experience committee, all of that is wrapped up into that structure.

Um so that's kind of first off uh on the centralized oversight with decentralized implementation, the recommendations.

So I mentioned the centralized hub uh as our content experts, but we really want we envision a hub and spoke model, and so these spokes would be uh positions that are defined, these are existing positions defined in our departments, and really formalizing the role of those positions with administrative policy to create a more of a two-way, you know, so that there's it calibration that's happening.

So we have the content expertise, but then how we calibrate to those departments is uh defined in that role of those liaisons equity liaisons roles.

Um then with the third recommendation developing capacity organization-wide to sustain change.

Uh so our big focus here is the use of the AIM tool, and just a little more uh for those that are watching that might not understand what that stands for.

It's assumptions, impacts, and measures.

Uh, these are three areas of questioning that help the city staff examine how decisions um are uh that affect in both internal and external customers.

Uh so it's a streamlined tool that's intended to be easy to use, repeatable, and adaptable across all departments.

So the real big focus here in terms of increasing that capacity is using the AIM tool as that vehicle.

Council has identified four areas the uh water rates, um our wildfire work, uh mitigation work, the home committee, uh housing opportunities made for everyone, um, as well as our growth plan is our four content areas.

Uh we really envision this to go deeper than that.

That's just where council has the most visibility as we kind of pilot and test and continue to perfect the tool.

Um, but that's the big opportunity there.

And I think with that structure of that hub and spoke model, uh, we'll be much more effective in our implementation.

Um, and then we also have uh this one city initiative going on that's uh mentioned in our council goals.

It's uh an update to the city's mission, vision, and values.

Uh, we've engaged, I think, about 500 of our 800 employees in that process over the last couple of months.

Um, so it is going to provide a framework uh for this work as well.

So I just wanted to make that mention there because that is we talk about capacity building when we have that solid framework that allows us to um drive some of some of these recommendations through that uh through that plan.

And then lastly, embedding uh community engagement as a core function.

Um so the human rights and equity commission and the accessibility advisory committee are really bridges to the community and bring insights, expertise, and lived experience to decision making.

So, what I've been proposing to do is to expand Ben's contract uh a bit to really help us with particularly with HREC.

Um, so I think we had a really uh insightful meeting a few weeks ago and want to continue that work and really define the purpose.

Uh council has approved the HREC work plan, but I think there's some some more work to do on purpose of that as a body, just you know, zooming up a little bit.

Um so I'm proposing to add a little scope to uh Ben's existing contract to help with that over the next couple of months.

Um and then I I think one of the things that we really see an opportunity is to add a position in our community engagement team.

Um so this is also backfilling the community relations manager position, but so it's really adding more capacity for engagement and focusing our engagement around equity as uh is mentioned in this uh recommendation to really embed that because that is a critical touch point as we're uh looking at our growth plan or we're building transportation projects is to really uh uh increase the resources and how we're engaging and centralize that a bit more.

I think we've had a more ad hoc approach that I think we're we're seeing an opportunity with the recommendations here to also strengthen that effort as well.

So I think that covers kind of the headlines of how we're implementing again.

We're still finalizing, and I'll come back with some next steps after Ben finishes his presentation.

Oh, we'll go to the next slide.

Sorry, uh, and then we'll do the question.

So uh the um just in terms of what we're planning on doing next is uh we have uh another workshop with our internal team to kind of solidify that uh that structure and those recommendations I outlined are and then we'll be working with HR on job description and class comps uh for um or classification specifications for for all those positions.

Our hope is to get them out by the end of February, early March, and we will be involving our external partners, HREC, COBAC, etc., our community members in the uh selection process, and so that would probably take some place sometime in March.

Um so more work to do.

So just wanted to kind of give you a sense of of timelines and again how we're taking these recommendations and putting it into action.

And then Ben's final report, and Ben can speak to this, is gonna be uh finalized over the next week or so.

We we expect sometime next week that uh to be available to council and the public.

100%.

Yep.

So we will, as I promised earlier, thank you for moving the slide, uh, the kind of bookend here, and mayor pro time.

I'll I'll maybe look to you.

I mean, this is really meant to be a conversation for you all around these two questions.

Um, again, centering in my job is to kind of work to advise on kind of the structural uh components kind of from an operation standpoint, and I think there's a real unique opportunity for you all to think about your role as elected.

And so the two questions I'd love to tee up just how does or how could the council ensure that it's analyzing policy and legislative decisions to advance equitable outcomes?

And then the second, really honing in on HRAC, what is or should the role in relationship to the human rights and equity should be commission, sorry, uh be for advising on council goals and policy.

So maybe a pro time I'd love to pass it to you.

I'm happy to answer questions too.

Um, but wanted to make sure you all had some time in this uh format.

Yeah, what I was hoping we could do is if you had any start with maybe questions for Ben or just general feedback thoughts first, and then we can get into these two questions.

Does anyone have anything that they'd like to ask or say?

Yeah, I think I think it's related to these though.

But in general first.

Go ahead.

Okay.

Um I'm maybe this is more question for you, Eric, but um just a better understanding of where then this new team, hub group, the um where that's gonna, and especially that team's new leader, because there's going to be a position that's going to be hired for that, right?

Um, sit within the power and authority structure of the city.

And um, and I'm curious about that whether that leaders, how that leadership team will either be part of or report to or engage in the leader, the leadership team itself, the executive team.

Yeah, I as I mentioned that uh office will be in the city manager's office at the highest level of the organization, we'll be a member of the executive team, leadership team, our CMO policy team.

We have a mentioned a couple of them in the in my recommend in my um reactions to Ben's recommendations.

So yeah.

Okay.

Um and that's different than how the last the last time it was not on the exec team, but on the leadership team.

Okay.

So it will be on both.

Okay.

Um I mean a question for you, Ben, is um if you have thoughts about this, is what do you see as the core competencies for that new leader of the the DEI team or that hub group?

That's thank you, counselor.

I mean, that's a big question.

Um, what just reflecting somewhat off the cuff?

There's a couple pieces that I would name.

Well, this is a political position, right?

And I that's big P and little P political, right?

So the ability, and what I mean by that is the ability to navigate government is really critical.

Like we an old colleague that used to just describe herself as a bureau activist.

Um, and I think there's times where being a bureau activist is really effective, and there's times where understanding how to leverage influence and to build strong relationships and establish trust to be able to impact and influence work is really important.

Combined with what Eric just described and what you just asked a question about, that combined with the positional authority to be able to also lead through that piece.

Um I think your the ability to have strong analysis, right?

To be able to be curious and to be able to dive into issues that I might, you know, for example, not have a disciplinary background in, but I'm an expert at asking the right questions, understanding the type of data that can inform, and being able to be a thought partner to help people move the work forward.

I think the bigger question that I can answer, and I think you all will have to answer as you develop the job description and the both required and preferred qualifications, is really dependent on the role that you hope that this work will play, or this leadership will play.

And um, yeah, I it's probably an offline conversation because I could talk about it for another hour.

Um, but for me, it's the ability to understand how to leverage the the kind of workings of government in order to be able to create change and to have influence and impact um through relationships and not always through kind of hierarchy.

I'll start there.

I mean, there's probably a hundred more questions that that might raise for you, but I have one other, like the but I can come back to it and not others.

All right, I'll mention.

Um well, first I just wanted to quickly say thank you, Ben.

You know, looking at your background and your expertise and your experience, I think this is a fantastic opportunity for us, including related to that last question.

Uh you held the chief diversity and equity officer position for over seven years at Multnomah County.

So for us, this is a really great opportunity to hear from you about these kinds of ideas.

Um my question for you is about the um uh the embedding equity analysis into decision making.

And if you could just elaborate a little bit about what that looks like, and for example, um the the Bend Metropolitan Planning Organization has an equity demographic mapping tool that has lots of different demographic characteristics, percent of the population living below poverty level, uh, different language attributes, uh, racial attributes.

Most of it is based on census data.

But are you thinking, you know, sort of like checklist manifesto style?

We need to be thinking about okay, for just certain decisions or all of our decisions, what does this look like from the equity perspective?

And then we can have if this is an opportunity for us to have a conversation about that and you know, relate it to the data that we have, or or how do you think about that in practical terms?

Yeah, it's a great question.

And you know, I think Eric spoke a little bit to the aim tool.

Um, I'll just go back, you know, 2012, 2010, 11, 12, as some of this work nationally was was emerging.

Um the City of Seattle created the the it's it's uh oh my god, RSJI, race and social justice initiative.

And they were the first ones to develop uh an equity analysis tool.

And I think you're going in the right direction.

And at their core, it's understanding kind of what are you trying to achieve, who would be impacted positively, negatively, and how do you mitigate for the negative and lift up the positive?

Now a mapping tool is one way to understand who might be impacted geographically, demographically, by any number of layers that you might use.

Again, I could talk for hours about this.

What I would say is you all have the opportunity because you have an aim tool to try to set an expectation for their its use to have some rigor and accountability and to build capacity for how to do it well.

Right.

So my time at Moldham Academy, we had an equity and empowerment lens.

We trained staff on it, we built capacity to be able to use it.

It was a virtually uh uh uniform requirement.

If you went to the county board, they would ask you, did you use the equity lens?

And you had to demonstrate your analysis, right?

You had to demonstrate that you've considered impacts positive and negative and work to overcome those.

So, you know, I think you all have it right in front of you, and how you kind of you know, I don't know if it's a manifesto, I don't know if that's not the language I would use, but it's really about setting expectation that this is how you do your work because it's in service to the outcomes for your constituents, your communities, um, to try to do good governance.

It's just part of good governance.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Um, so a question about I guess to you, Eric, about um the plan.

Is there a feedback there in my microphone?

Um about the what you discussed as your implementation plan.

Um, what was the level of involvement of all your departmental leadership and in defining that?

Because and I'll just be straight up.

I am very concerned about hiring, filling this position again.

This is gonna be the fourth person, I think that'll have had the equity director position.

There was someone before Anna.

No.

There was no one before Anna.

She was the first.

Okay.

Well, still the third time they were going to fill this position.

Um, and if if your departmental leadership is not understanding that like they need to be partners in this work, then I would hate to put someone else through that.

Yeah.

So how is that?

Yeah, so you know, back in 2019, we did a uh a book club where we uh our executive team did, where we read uh white frigility, my grandmother's hands.

We did a really deep dive over about two years before we launched into our plan.

We envisioned we talked about this with our exec team.

We're gonna do it again, right?

Just for that deeper understanding and more um, not just go to a training, but uh do it in partnership and really go uh more intimate in terms of um understanding um you know how we can provide support and um you know just create more relationship and connection to the to the issues.

So I think we had a really good experience a couple years ago, it's time to do it again.

It's not something that you do as an event, it's something that you continue to do.

So we've talked about that coming up in the next couple of months.

Okay, that kind of leads to my next question, actually, which is um the um we council has set a lot of value statements kind of around how important equity is.

Um, do you feel, and maybe this question for both of you really?

I mean, do you feel the why we're uh interested in incorporating equity in the way the city conducts its business internally and externally?

Do you feel that why is well enough defined, or does it need better definition?

Probably take that.

I I can start.

I mean, it's one, I just say, counselor, to your previous question.

I you know, uh combined with what you described, I think this will take some change management, but as I described, right, an organization that hasn't really relied on kind of centralized direction, dare I say kind of mandates, um, you know, that will take change and buy-in and and support, right?

Um, and I think to where you were going, Eric, I just want to lift up, you know, and counselor uh you would ask a question around kind of qualifications.

I mean, some of it is the qualifications someone has, and some of it's the wraparound support um that you provide for any individual that's coming into a really hard job with gigantic expectations internally and expect uh and externally that are almost always impossible to meet.

Um, and that's really difficult, let alone right of uh you know, reflecting on the experience of, for example, people of color kind of coming into a uh a city that's um predominantly white.

I think there's the the to answer your question, I think there's I I think the values have been articulated.

And as what one of my mentors used to say, it's about how do we rise up to those values?

How do we rise up to those values and our practices and our behaviors and our communications and our relationships?

So there's a real opportunity to name you know the vision and values and mission and align that with practice.

And then finally, I just say, you know, I had another colleague who used to say, you know, our obligation as government is just the the best value for the taxpayer and the best outcome for all of our community members.

And I recognize those are kind of the same thing.

But as it was a comment about it's it's a key part of your obligation as electives and as public servants to seek universal benefit and well-being for everyone in your community.

And so, you know, I don't know if that gets to the answer of your question, but I think there's a real um, you know, there's a real opportunity to try to put it into place.

And I think, you know, where Eric's describing the structure, what I've reflected in some of my recommendations, I I believe that sets you on a strong path.

And I would also just maybe make a an ask of counsel.

I think we are a fast growing city.

We our community expects a lot.

Doing this work means actually slowing down and uh taking the time to do it, because I think that's where it be can become a check the box because we're doing 30 other things.

So I would ask you all in partnership to have a little more grace of what's on our work plan and maybe start slimming some things down because I think we we have uh if we're gonna do this well, I to me we need the time and space to do it.

Because it's really about relationships and trust is not built through it is built through actions, but those actions also need to have a foundation of just a human connection.

Which yeah, I was gonna adjust that a little bit.

I think a lot of this um takes a lot of time and it's um a lot of trust, like you say, needs to be built, and it doesn't happen overnight.

And so I was you know, thinking about that and a lot of the goals that we're trying to set.

It's I think a lot of those time um commitments are gonna need to be extended.

So I think we're really gonna need to take a look at some of those um more closely.

Because if we don't take the time, that's when it becomes performative and transactional.

Right.

Um I think, yeah, cancel Council Francisa, one of things I was thinking of when you were talking about it's not just it's not just the support.

Uh Eric, that I would think that she was also getting it if incorrectly more is like the buy-in, right?

From from the senior staff and the exec team, like how do we make sure that that they are bought into this and not just sort of in in words and and that's an answer I don't have, and that's an answer I'm sure you don't have, but how do we create that?

I mentioned it maybe just to spotlight it in the recommendations is not just sort of the hub and spoke model, so then we have that that person in the department, but then really formalizing that through administrative policy, so that role is very clear.

And then as we build out our central sort of hub of policies, we are much more clear about what's have to, right?

And not an opt-in, right?

And so that's that's also work that's embedded in the action plan with those recommendations.

Yeah, Steve.

Uh Eric, it's a it's a tough position that that you're in leading this organization.

I think you do it very well.

Uh I've been through a lot of organizations, led some uh where you gotta do changes.

Um first of all, I understand a net ad of one FTE.

Is that right?

Yeah.

Okay, and then the spokes are people that are currently in organizations around the city.

So are we gonna ask those people to do an extra job essentially?

We have some of this structure already.

So we have our diversity equity and inclusion task force where we have folks that are uh embedded within departments, what will be working with their department leadership and carving out a piece.

So a lot of these folks have uh maybe an HR role tied to them or a communications role.

I think there's some flexibility with what we you know carve out, but it's you know, uh 10% of somebody's role is what the what the vision is, but then creating that support system so that those folks that are embedded in those departments also make up that uh leadership within our diversity equity and inclusion task force to really formalize that and create that information flow.

So if something is happening in the department or not happening in the department, then it can be raised up through that internal structure.

I guess to that, and uh one thing I I would offer and something for for you to chew on the leadership, but the person who is in the central city manager's office, one way to allow the person at the end of the spoke to have a little bit more authority and perhaps support when they're doing this additional duty along with the other things they're doing, is perhaps to have the person in the central office to have some kind of an oversight role to that person in their annual review or something like that.

I'd I'd leave that to you, but that that gives that a little bit more horsepower and lets us know how serious we really are being about this because those people are going to be balancing all the other things that they have to do for the city.

So those are all great um suggestions.

And we have sort of this model does exist with other disciplines.

So, like for example, we have a centralized communication with spokes in the department.

We have that with HR uh to some degree with within finance as well.

So we have models to build from which would has those feedback loops as well.

So yeah, thank you.

In the interest of getting to these questions, um, does anyone have any we'll start with the first one?

Anything to to ask or add or thoughts for Ben?

I could go first, yeah.

I mean, um yeah, I mean, I um the I don't know that the question is actually asking the what I would like to see.

Um, but what I would like to see is um is council uh to um be much more involved in in the um you know, sort of the monitoring and the development of how um equity, this this model, this new the plan, the new structure and everything is is kind of rolled out.

Um and and uh you know I might like I'm I really think that Ben's provided a lot of insights um and having a third party kind of be a reality check might be a real benefit to the city.

Um so I would encourage and I would support um having his role um, or if he doesn't want to work with us anymore, someone's role, um, be involved with all of those four high-level um recommendations.

Um that's that is uh yeah.

You mean as a as an ongoing thought partner and consult consultant and advisor, is that what you're gonna be very open?

We have great relationship with Ben very open to that.

Um in fact, his contract we built it in such a way to allow for flexibility for like uh the recruitment process, for example, to really kind of continue to have um some guidance as we get our job descriptions and things like that.

I think we see that benefit.

Yeah, and and I already mentioned the HREC role, so I think yeah.

Yeah, and is that because um you're we're proposing to have Ben support um on helping to refine the purpose and um kind of goals for HRAC because I understand it, right?

Kind of what's been talked about already.

So what Council Francosa is proposing is maybe a little bit more than that.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, yeah, I mean, I frankly I'd kind of like some updates from Ben, you know.

Here's the progress that we've made, here's where we could have been a little bit stronger, here's where we had to slide for whatever reasons.

Um, you know, here's some success stories, here's some hiccups.

Um I I think that would be I'd I as a city counselor would like a third party to be delivering those reports to council.

I think this matter is important enough that um that's what I would like.

Yeah.

Um I I'm not opposed to that idea.

I think I'm open to it.

I don't I don't know that I feel as as strongly about it as I do about um sort of being more self-reflective on on our work.

And one thought I guess I do tend towards the checklist manifesto a little bit, which is why I was curious to ask your your thoughts about it.

But when we have our city council issue summaries, we have the background, budget and financial impacts, and then we also have community outreach process and potential impacts.

And I wonder if this might be an opportunity for us to also add or include in maybe that last paragraph something about equity impact.

You know, what kind of dimensions has staff identified that are relevant here.

You know, I can think of a couple things for different issues, but I would love to hear more people's ideas about this, and so I feel like maybe that's an opportunity for us to try to incorporate this concept into our work.

I have long been a proponent of just that, actually.

Um I mean, I think the the question is um who is doing that analysis and are they um trained in any way to do that kind of analysis, right?

I mean, we could all say what we think the equity implications, but it's probably might be seven different things.

Um, and so I I I agree with that.

And one of the things I I like about this plan for the future of the city is that there's you know, is I was just thinking about that today with the next topic where you know transportation standards, right?

Wouldn't it be great if we had some kind of equity analysis of of this before we had our conversation?

And so the more standardized that we can have this, the more the more it just becomes a part of our decision making, I think is is a real benefit.

And the other part of it is having that person be in, you know, a member of the exact team being the city manager's office and have more access to to us and on our policy making and our decision making too.

I think both of those things will help us make better decisions.

So I think my only concern about it is that if we're still learning how to do this, especially using the AIM tool, like that we don't quickly get into well, let's just make it all happen in every single issue summary, and then it just quickly becomes a checklist and performative.

So is there could we come up with some kind of an action plan that says on ramp?

Yeah, like by by this date, we hope to be there, and we're gonna use these two or three exercises to inform what that might look like because I I don't want it to just be perfunctory and superficial and therefore meaningless.

I I it's gonna we gotta strike that balance.

So if I could just I just want to push back a little bit on the benefit of checklists because yes, they can be performative, but that's that's that's the point is that's why we do it for before surgeries, before flight takeoffs, like they're kind of what you make of them.

And so we don't have their birthday but they could be, that's the risk for sure.

Yeah, but but just some you know process there for that, uh especially with this new person who's coming on board.

So if they're gonna be in charge of making that happen.

I have a proposal.

I do I do want to make sure I have one other question that I wanted to ask earlier that I get a chance to ask at somebody here.

So you don't want me to do that now, or you want me to do that?

Sure, give me just let me just have a so in the interest of time, just the human rights and equity commission.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about that and um had some conversations with the chair, the new chair and vice chair of um of the commission, and um had the thought of um, you know, we've heard a lot from the human rights and equity commission that they want access to us and not just me, right, every month at their meetings.

Um, and they really want to get into this idea about this rule and relationship.

So I would like to propose um with the blessing of the human rights and equity commission that we have a meeting with council and the human rights and equity commission.

Um, probably uh see if we can do it at a at a regular meeting time for them, being you know, so that we're not putting them out in terms of of finding another time um maybe at their March meeting and just having you know a loose agenda and and um talking through this this this conversation face to face and uh about about you know how how do we want to interact in the future and um how how do we help them and support their work in providing us with the important feedback that we need to do a better job as counselors?

So just wanted to float that idea and see if there was some interest in that as well counselors and yeah, yeah, and I wonder about some kind of ongoing rotating that so it's a bur one, the burdens not all on you, but also that the rest of us are continuing to build those relationships over time and and um you know, in various because they they're talking about trying to do more in terms of engagement and reaching and getting out into the community as a commission, and that maybe we're periodically kind of in addition to you having two other counselors join that so people are continuing to kind of hear and see directly what's going on and building that relationship with the P TREC members as well as the community members that are participating in this activities.

So maybe we could look at how we structure that a little more for that.

Absolutely.

So the other question I wanted to ask is just I I um as you know, I think really this is mostly for you, Eric.

You and I have talked about this a bit, and I think right now it's pretty important for the city to take some time to um review and reflect on the the established processes and practices we have for any kind of future identity-based investigations.

I think it's important that we ensure they're aligned with the current thinking on the most equitable practices for those those investigations.

And um, you know, I think that's largely going to be you making that happen with the engagement of um of the team.

And so I'm just wondering if you could speak a little bit to how you could make a review like that happen internally and who would be involved and what kinds of stuff they would be looking at.

Yeah, I was just talking about their HR director, Randy Leos who's in the audience.

And so if we if we we probably are short on time, but we've talked about kind of a comprehensive review of our processes.

We we have things um in our employee handbook um in terms of what we it's mandatory for us to investigate, so there's certain maybe right.

Um, but really continuing to and actually using our DEIA task force.

We talk when you as you talked about sort of a if uh identity is kind of a core issue that needs to be looked into that we have consultation.

We have done that with both our accessibility and our equity teams in the past when we've had employee issues, so it is not something new.

That's something we'll do, and I think continuing to look at how we do it and involving our folks, uh, as many folks with different lived experiences, particularly through the DEIA task force is a great uh model to kind of uh do another uh kind of look at what we have and where we can make some improvements for sure.

So is that something that you see happening in the next 12 minutes?

Yeah, okay, yeah.

Great.

All right.

Is there anything else before we move on?

I we're behind schedule, but this is obviously not something that any one of us want to cut short.

So is there anything else?

I think the only thing I'll add, and I think HREC is only is already looking at this, but just making sure that we're involving, we have so many great community groups, LCA, the fathers group.

I mean, we just need to make sure that we are hearing from them.

Um it sounds like HREC is willing to be a convener of that in some way, and I just would really encourage that.

I think it's really important that we hear their voice in some way, shape, or form.

And um, yeah, so and the LCA and human rights and equity commission will be working together on a resolution um to support our neighbors at the next meeting in February.

So that was an example of important collaboration.

And I think the answer to that first question for me, a big part of it is about the this the aim using that aim tool now for us.

We we need to get practical experience of engaging with that and seeing the kind of information that we get.

And I think that's gonna be really valuable for us in terms of learning and what's working, what's not, you know, how do we need to tweak it?

And just getting into that, I think is it's important, it's and it's exciting that it's that it's coming.

And I just want to uh thank Ben for all of your work and also thank the staff, uh, what particularly Cassandra, Lindsay, Lisa, and the many folks that are been doing the work has been noted earlier.

The work has been going on and continues in it, and they're doing great work.

And I I just don't want us to sort of for any one minute know that we are not taking our foot off the gas.

This is part of our value stream as an organization, and we have great folks doing this work.

So thank you.

Thanks.

Thanks, Ben.

Yeah, thanks, Ben.

All right, thank you all.

And just real quickly, Consul Francosa, don't tell all of my other clients, but you're my favorite clients, so I'd be happy to already be here.

Appreciate the time.

Thanks.

All right, we're shifting gears to another meaty conversation.

Nice one.

Oh, I didn't even know I was doing that.

Did you ride your bike?

We're not taking our foot off the gas.

We're that was a whole bunch of fun you can do.

No, I shouldn't have said that.

Sorry.

You should take uh we're gonna uh look at our transportation standards, and Russ, you're starting us off or Eric.

I'm gonna start you off.

Okay, and Eric is gonna fill in the gaps as we go.

And and I will say, as you're getting started, also tying the two um topics together.

Ryan and I were just talking in our transportation system plan, one of the program goals is equity specifically around transportation, right?

So this may be an opportunity with this project to start uh start the work.

So I know I know we're running a little behind schedule.

I just want to know that this conversation is we're not trying to make final decisions with this conversation at all.

It's really we're trying to continue to move this conversation forward.

Um, and what we're trying to do right now is just kind of refine and make sure that we're um we we know where the kind of high-level value statements and policy statements are from council as we start to develop a plan to have a community conversation around transportation standards, which I'm gonna get into.

Um, so what we'd like to do is just Janet's um first of all, respiration chief operations officer.

This is Janet Ruby, she's our assistant city engineer with our transportation mobility group, and she's really the expert in all this.

So I'm just gonna try to facilitate the conversation, and Janet can help with all the details.

We also have Ryan Oester here, who's our um city engineer and director of our engineering group.

Uh, what I want to do is have Janet provide a quick overview of kind of again just reminding everybody why we're here, conversations we've had to date and what we're trying to achieve with the standards updates.

I'm gonna give you a really brief outline of how we're approaching the the standards.

We have several update packages coming through over the next kind of year, year and a half.

Then we do want to get into a discussion with you to to try to translate some of your kind of high-level policy goals into more kind of how do we how we're gonna translate that into standards and kind of land what we really want to do and the direction we want to go, and then I'm gonna provide some conversations around community involvement and council touch points as we go through the big standards updates process, and then we can kind of make sure you understand kind of the schedule and the next steps around that.

So, with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Janet here real quick and then we'll keep moving.

So to lead in the place we are today and our standards is our last transportation system plan update shifted a little bit how we do things to try and accommodate our existing traffic and the growth, right?

And so it said we need to focus a little more on walking and biking and safety.

So we developed a new cross section that had wide shared use paths instead of the narrower sidewalks and on street buffered bike lane.

We added requirements for the bikeway and the walkway, what we called our low stress network and safer crossings.

And we added a whole bunch of tools for traffic calming speed in a complete streets guide as a these are things we would like to see happen, but they weren't requirements.

So kind of the nutshell to speed things up a little bit in the conversation that we're talking about today is moving some of those things that were in the we would consider doing these things to more of requirements.

And so some of the discussion is how do we want to shape that?

How far do we want to go?

What sort of bounds do we want on those, right?

And so the slide here is some of the sort of foundational concepts that we're looking at and incorporating into the tools we're picking to make requirements to address things that are council targets that councils heard from the public on, and that we've heard from the community in transportation and mobility when we get calls about existing infrastructure, and in our and all the project work with the open houses, right?

So it's uh for those listening online.

I'll read the list quick is lowing lowering speeds on our streets, uh having travel options of walking, biking, transit, micromobility as well as driving, separating the different uses, addressing cut through traffic, putting the right traffic on the right streets.

Also, people are still gonna drive.

So whether you're driving, walking, or biking, how do you minimize congestion on your routes and keep you moving?

And then we've talked to you about this is the discussion with the standards today is engineering, it's just one of the pieces to shift to make all these things happen.

It's also changing the culture with enforcement and education, and our community has now added a fourth one, which is wildfire response and emergency response.

And so you've got other work sessions with that specific topic, but they do relate to how we're designing streets and what we're doing here.

So we actually, so while they're in the options, right, of the standards, we've been doing these because we got the feedback at our project capital project meetings.

We're building separated paths.

You can see pictures of a little bit.

We're doing different types of cross sections.

We've experimented with different separated roundabout and separated intersections.

We're adding traffic diverters to try and get traffic off the bikeway streets.

We are having a we added wayfinding signs, right?

Because as much as we try to have a consistent intuitive path, some of our systems are jumbled.

Mike and I'm wondering what is the top top left.

Where is that with the skywalk in the dog?

Yeah, that's our brand.

It's brand new, yeah.

That's the where you're just so that's where you're just coming from the street, and now we have hey bikes, you're on this path that is for you, right?

And this quote is awesome.

Both includes projects that have been done and also projects that are either in construction right now or soon to go into construction, like the Ben Bikeways, and that's where the diverters and other things start to really show up.

So we're still like we're still a little bit in the experiment stage, right?

Of butler market hasn't been built yet, another shared use path.

So we're still honing this, right?

So the challenge is to get more of this in the required standards when we don't have your typical level of detail, but there's ways we can work through that.

Um, part of the discussion today is policy questions around how and again the limits that we do that.

So, next slide.

So, the other thing, in addition to moving the elements into the required standards, is looking just fundamentally when we're building these street sections, how we're doing it.

The old way was is it an arterial collector, which type of local, get the right-away, build the street, right?

But so many of our streets, if we didn't tell you, you wouldn't know whether it's an arterial or a collector because they look the same, they all have homes fronting them, um, other than the volume of traffic on them, right?

So, through the process of our projects and where we have to make choices in right-away, we can't always build the ultimate cross section.

We do have a lot of places where they have the right-of-way, or we have building setbacks so that it's easier and less expensive to get, but some places we're making tough choices.

Do we spend the money on buying right away, or can we build a different section that can accomplish our goal?

The old model didn't really give us choices.

So now we're looking more at the context.

What's the what's the land use alongside the street?

Street type, not so much in the name, but more in the volume it serves, and then what it does like in that section of the corridor and on a whole place in the network.

Um, what mode role is it by an interchange?

So while all streets are gonna serve all modes, is it more vehicle focused, or is it a bikeway in a neighborhood that might be more walking and biking focused?

And then what are the number of lanes we need to do the medians and crossings and other things?

Not on this list, also is streetscape, right, and street trees.

So we're trying to build streets that people want to be on and walk and bike on to.

So that's shifting how we design the streets.

So all of that will happen through a couple different updates.

Yep.

So now I'm gonna go real quick through kind of the update schedule because there's multiple ones that we're gonna be doing, as I mentioned before.

The first one is in process right now.

It is basically a what we call an annual technical update.

Um and there's there's no big policy changes in that.

It's really making sure that the standards read right and we're incorporating certain things that we've seen on the system or interpretations of the standards.

That those kind of those kind of updates typically get adopted by uh the city engineer.

Um we're planning to do that over the next month.

We can we'll provide um status updates to you in the city manager reports when when that's done, but um again, no high-level policy questions, but just part of our kind of uh annual administration.

We have another one that's gonna be coming through in relationship to changes that are required by a new state law around engineering review that we've talked to council before about.

It's called Senate Bill 974.

Um, we've already gone through kind of re-remapping the process and defining the new process, systems are getting configured for it, it's getting ready for launch.

In order to make that system work right with the changes required by state law, we do need to make some changes in the standards and also most likely development code.

So the administrative changes in the standards can just be adopted by Ryan because again, not big high policy level questions, but any changes to the development code will be brought forward to council, and our goal is to get that done before that July 1st deadline.

A lot of it has to do just really around definitions and clarity on process.

Um, but we want to make sure that you're aware of that as that starts to move forward.

I Russ, I have some new information today on this as we're integrating other departments and working on this.

The tree code is happening in April, and there may be some standards changes that go with that.

So if there is, we will rope that into this update number two with the Senate bill.

Sun bill changes.

But really, what we're going to be talking about is update number three.

And this is what we presented before we're about ready to launch in the process.

Um, and this is one where we're going to be working with city council and the public in going through the process.

We think it's going to last probably about a year, depending it really depends on the feedback we get, the conversations we have with council, and how we want to really determine what the standards are.

Um I'm going to lay out a process at the end of this that kind of shows how we want to engage with all the different kind of types of stakeholders we have on the roads.

Um, but we will we're going to gather information from you today.

We'll we'll start to work, we're gonna bring on consultants to be able to do this.

We're gonna put a timeline out where we go gather information with the public, get their concepts.

One of the things that we want to recognize, um I I know Council Francis has said this, we're not coming with the answers, right?

We want to engage with the public on options, but what we're gonna be asking you is we do if there is strong council preference to go one way or the other, that's what we're trying to get out of this meeting because that helps us set how we're going to engage with the public of well, we've already gotten kind of clear direction, council likes this over that.

Or nope, they want to get input from the public and then we're gonna come back to council, make start making some decisions on where we're gonna go, start to actually do the design the the drawings and all the language around the standards.

We will then do another engagement process with the public.

Again, the extent of that will be determined on what we're actually doing.

But the idea is to get that out for public comments and open houses, and then we would come back and actually go through the formal adoption of that.

And that really starts to go into these items that are on the screen here, which I'm gonna go into more detail here in the next section.

But I just want to make sure that's like this is this is the the kind of the big update before we go through what we call the growth plan and updating the transportation system plan.

One of the things that we're gonna be doing as we go through this is um this is just an example of we've heard NACTO that conversation has come up of just that can we just adopt the NACTO standards?

What we're trying to do is on the left is actually right out of the NACTO standards.

It's a it's it's an illustration of what to do with a kind of a raised crossing.

This is providing guidance and recommendations you can see how it is.

What we need to do is we actually need to translate those documents over into actual design standards that say this is exactly what we want to do because these are directions to engine to engineers and consultants on how to build these things.

NACTO right now is a reference document that we have in our complete streets manual that Janet and the team uses as they try to figure out design elements.

What we want to do is start to translate those guidance documents into the standards and make it much more crystal clear what we're trying to do.

The other concepts that I want to make council aware of as we go through the policy questions is we are going to be looking at where these conversations go and what's going to be involved in the standards package, and then what's also going to be inputs into the when we update the transportation system plan because there's a lot of policy and regulation that we have that we have to live by in the state of Oregon around transportation.

And there are some things that we are in, we're kind of in clear, clear area where we can make sure that it's going to comply with our TSP, but also we have some we have discretion.

There's other things that might come up.

We go, we understand that's great input.

We will put that on the list to to kind of put into the kickoff of the transportation system plan that's going to be in a couple years out as part of the growth plan.

So as we dive into this, what we're looking for is I'm gonna go through some examples of how we're trying to translate your high-level policy directions conversations we have of how do we how do we create safer systems, how do we reduce speeds and give you some kind of ideas of what the questions that we're gonna have to answer as staff and bring back to you of how do we make your high-level policies actually turn into realities on the ground?

So a couple things we're trying to do with the standards is think of a couple think of it as again trying to provide instructions to design engineers and contractors on how to build things.

The one context is if we're gonna go build a new road as part of a development, these are the rules of engagement of how you design the roads, and they need to be very specific because what we want to get away from.

If you've seen how master plans have come in, they're all coming in with their own kind of typical sections and and cross sections that they want to use.

We want to get away with that, get move away from that and move towards no, these are our standards for these type of roads in these situations, and then also the standards start to provide guidance on our capital projects when we're coming back into the city.

And if we know that we're doing a full corridor reconstruction, they guide us in what we're trying to do with the system.

But if we know we only have limited dollars, we're gonna we're gonna take the kind of the policy direction we're getting in the standards and guidance to try to figure out what we do on those existing corridors.

So they start to signal what we want to do with improvements as we come through.

So I just want to so we're gonna give you some relative examples of how that works.

So and we gave you a memo that came in that kind of give you a high level understanding and context.

So Russ, just to summarize for everybody, high level.

High level.

If we have a strong, if there are the a big theme or a strong feeling about something, that is what is taken to the to the stakeholders of the the users of the system.

Um, if not uh maybe a more general um process goes forward with the but it no matter what, still going to all the users of the system and the stakeholder process engagement process.

And I'll just use an example of the second thing, the second item here is if we're gonna, you know, if we want to explore the use of speed tables and there's unanimous consent from council to say yes, we want to see these, we're gonna enter into the conversations with the public if that's the direction we're heading.

But or if there is conversations from and guidance from council on, like we're not quite sure we like the idea and the concept, then we will we will carry that forward to kind of have a more of an open conversation about what do you think about this, right?

And we want to gather feedback.

So that's that's what we're trying to do as we develop our approach to how we want to do the standards.

So we're gonna start with speeds.

Um just yeah, among general question.

I mean is one of the outcomes also gonna be, you know, if if in some respects the new developments where it's kind of greenfield, then we have the opportunity to do the perfect um cross section that we want to do.

And then in inside the city, we have a lot of places where well we ideally it would it would be we'd meet this perfect standard, but most of the time we're not able to do that either because of budget or right, a whole variety of constraints, right?

So is part of this process gonna result in some kind of a in those scenarios.

This is the actual decision-making tool we're gonna use.

Here's the question number one's gonna be this to and we're yes, so the community's clear on how we're approaching that.

That's where that's we're gonna try to get that type of system.

And again, it's like, yeah, if we can't do if we can't do the full full intersection that we're trying to do or the full section, what do we value most in that?

Is it like getting the bike systems off of the roads or if we can't do that?

Do we put them on the roads and try to protect them?

If we can't do that, we try to get complete systems and make the crossings safer.

So the so this iterational design element as we go through and you kind of Russ is gonna have some prompting things.

I'm gonna be looking for some framework, some big picture like you know, direction that I almost sort of see as a companion or overlay to the standard and specs that really are more about we really want to see speech here, we really want to use our existing right away.

We really want to, you know, those things kind of as like this North Star, and then how we iterate, because it every situation is gonna be different, right?

And so having some kind of guiding principles, framework or something like that.

So I think those majority imperfect scenarios that are the lot the existing system.

Exactly.

How the guy when you talk about like the guiding high level, all that, like what you know we've already written goals, right?

We've written some council goals that kind of set some high level, and then it actually gets to some specific, you know, zero fatalities and a 10% decrease in crash.

So you know I don't want to I don't want to start I don't want to waste people's time you know and and re-rediscuss things that we've already really agreed upon and we've already really set.

So um and some of the we're not these are just again these are kind of the examples of the questions that we need to answer right and I think as council is aware as we go out and we have discussions with projects with the publics there's a lot of different ways to control speeds.

There's a lot of different ways to build the bike system and we receive variety of comments if we ask 10 to different people we're going to probably get five to seven different ideas of what they want us to do.

And and as you've seen with the emails that have come in the you know there are these things come in so we're looking for things like we just want to make sure and check in because we want to make sure we're representing council's values in this correctly as we go out of no take like we want to get the bike system separated off get them out of the vehicle travel lanes and get them behind the curb.

If that is if that is the objective then we can carry that forward but we again we're it's also a bit of a check in with council to make sure that we're moving in the right direction as we have these conversations right so but we we want to also illustrate like I just want to make sure though that we're like so council's already said we want to make travel safer and more reliable for everyone we want to uh take into account economic prosperity and improve transportation projects with sustainable funding and planning.

So I'm hearing there hearing safety I'm hearing also funding and financing so I I've I sometimes have felt in the past like council sort of led down this path like oh you want ultimate safety but oh we can't really afford it so like I want you to lead us so that we can make some decisions that are in alignment with our goals get you the information you need and you know meet what we've already established.

Examples that when we get to intersection form like if you want to have fully protected intersections they are more expensive to build right and and roundabouts they take more right away so again value statements of what we're trying to do there.

So are you ready to ready?

All right so let's talk about speeds for a little bit we know that there is a desire to lower speeds on all of our roads that has been clearly indicated right um so what that really means is that then we use that information and that goes into how we design the technical aspects of the roads vertical curves horizontal curves um and kind of we get into the technical design of it that's a critical function in how we do it.

It means one thing for new roads because it's very clear to say if we have a 25 mile an hour road here's your design standards we know all that data it gives us guidance to what to do on our existing roads but that's a much more difficult thing to do to actually get an existing road if it's at 35 or 40 miles an hour to get it down to 25 mile an hour with appropriate engineering elements and things in there and make sure that everybody understands the trade-off of those conversations as we go out to the public right so in theory like if we want to lower speeds and we want to lower speeds significantly on arterials and collectors specifically arterials it's going to take some physical infrastructure in the road to do that.

We need to we need to create some friction we need to put in that's why the next question is around speed tables and when we start introducing speed tables then we have conversations with fire and freight and buses in the school district right so it starts to allow us kind of a context of how we how do we want to approach lowering speeds and the the last item of this is around we also need to make sure that we're talking about enforcement as well and so we want to get if we really want to lower speeds we can't I don't know if we can engineer our way out of it both from just engineering things as well as capital investment that we need to be done on the road so we we want to pair that up with future conversations around enforcement and how we do that on the on the streets.

So I just want to so with that kind of put this all into one one one hopper around speeds of are we is there objectives um we seem I know counselor menders has sent some information out recently just around kind of what happens when you do lower speeds they do become safer crashes become less intense but then we're trying to balance that with we're trying to move people across town and we're also trying to make sure we can actually physically do it on the on our existing road system and and we want to put that investment in the system yes yes to slowing speeds I mean I I think it's one of the biggest things we need to pay attention to and it really drives a lot of safety concerns and I think some of the statistics Council Mendez shared is just about how survivability rates go down even when you're talking the step from 25 to 30 or 30 to 35 when a pedestrian and I would assume it's roughly similar for a cyclist as well but we hear about it constantly whether it's my neighborhood or being other parts of town cut through all that stuff I think it's one of the primary drivers and impact drivers of um people's concern about how congestion is growing and with a growing community and I think it's just really important for safety.

And and how um like I've noticed at a street that would shell remain nameless near where I live, um the speed limit went down five miles per hour.

That was all that happened, right?

It went down five miles per hour, it has done zero in my, you know, it's totally anecdotal to to actually slow anybody down anymore.

Like, oh, now I'm gonna go 35 instead of 40.

Um, so yes, so there are these other things that would help that, right?

Um, particularly in some of our larger, wider um where you know uh the everyone likes to likes to really go for it.

Um while I I'm I'm interested in speed tables and race crossings, and I I do have a little bit of a concern about about uh what that means for people who are commuting for buses for emergency vehicles, um, etc.

And so I think that's the kind of for in my mind a prime example of what we want to do with this engagement process um is is really is really asked the users of our system that that if how this could impact them as well.

So just some initial thoughts.

I think to your to your point, uh Council Perkins, maybe for Jim Perkins, the enforcement is what I hear a lot about.

And so if I'm getting a ticket, I would like to explore additional funding for for enforcement because I think that is what I hear from the community all the time.

Yeah.

So I I I lost track of whether we're talking about all the bullet points up here or just the first three.

For the second time, I'm I'm combining them all into one.

All so we get some high levels on how to reduce reducing speeds.

I think um, yes, interested in enforcement, but I also want to set our drivers up for success.

So I don't want people feeling like they're oh my gosh, I didn't know that I was so far over the speed limit because the road felt so comfortable to drive faster on, and now they have a ticket that you know maybe they have a hard time affording.

So that third bullet point though, at the on the top one, construct elements over time on new roads to help reduce speeds.

I I was expecting that to say construct elements over time on existing roads.

It should say existing roads.

Okay, that was my thank you for that.

Um so yeah, I think uh for my perspective, I would like to see us set the target of lower speeds.

Um you know, for example, uh 20 miles an hour on a residential street and 25 on a collector on arterial, except where there's no crossings or there's no driveways, and where where that's present and no people are gonna be crossing, then I think it's fine to go faster.

Um but the goal isn't to say let's just lower the speed limits and then wish everyone good luck.

Yeah, and I'm not suggesting that we you know go out and redesign all of our roads either.

I just want to see us at least set this target, and and if there's an appetite for that, then we can talk about how to prioritize problematic areas and how to really make it feel comfortable to drive safely.

So what I'm hearing is on new roads, definitely try to get the speeds design speeds set and lower, make sure when we build new stuff, it meets meets kind of the intention of what Councillor Mendoz said.

And then we'll develop kind of approaches to our existing system with the intent of trying to reduce speeds, and then looking at different things.

Should they be physical tools and the impacts of putting race crossings into our physical environment and also balance that with enforcement and maybe other options that we may have around that and go explore that with the stakeholders and the in public?

That makes sense.

Yeah, but that's not quite what I would suggest.

I I would say that we're on existing streets, we need to lower the speeds.

They'd be 20 on local streets, they 25 on um collectors, and we could set 30, I think, you know, to on arterials.

I understand that the design is gonna be difficult, but I think what that tells us is that w uh or the engineering part is gonna be difficult for us to accomplish.

Um I think it means we have to do a combination of education as well as enforcement.

And I think we have to look at different kinds of tools to really remind people, you know, an issue that's coming up in a neighborhood that I live on that in my neighborhood I live in and a street that is an example of a place where there is a lot of uh residences and driveways and people needing to cross and all that, and then it transitions into something that is much more open and you want to drive faster, and we recently dropped the speed on that, where we can have some variability in there.

Um but there could be a lot more reminders for people in that part of town because people are decelerating when they're coming from outside the community into town and they're accelerating on their way out as well.

And so I I think we need to adjust the speed limits, basically, around the community.

Um, and we're gonna have to figure out figure out how to change the community culture around how fast we drive.

And it's gonna take some engineering where we can, mostly in new areas and targeted and existing, and then education and enforcement tools.

Thank you for saying education.

I mean, that's the three E's.

I know we've got this fourth E.

I'm pretty medium on that fourth E, frankly.

Um, because I I'd I I worry that then the fire department's gonna be driving our street design, and frankly, that means that our roads have to be much wider, and when we have wider roads, that means we means we have higher speeds, and that means we have less safe streets, and that means we have higher accidents and greater injuries or fatalities or what have you.

So there has to kind of be a their user of the street, just like everybody else is.

So I I feel it's a little distracting, but it whatever you guys want to do is fine.

Um, yeah, so like when I saw this slide and the enforcement, um, I I had the same reaction, I think that maybe councilor Riley did that that should be education, expand funding for education.

Um and as far as enforcement, I'm I'm I don't know.

Like I'm hopeful maybe there will be some revenue from the you know the red light and the speedlight cameras that we can start kind of putting those more around town or maybe have some that are more mobile so we can start moving them and you know um but I think education is just really really important.

There's very little we do very little, if any.

I think the police department actually does more education on street safety than um than you know your departments um or or any other department in this the city, and I I thank them for that.

And um, and yeah, and I think there's I think there's a lot of room to improve there.

Yeah.

I I think we're we're we're kind of in concert in what you're saying.

I I appreciate I appreciate what you're saying.

Um, yeah, because we also agree, like we can we can do the best engineering in the world, but we can't make someone stop at a stop sign, right?

If it's well marked.

Um so how what what do we do around those type of topics?

Can I ask a question?

Not and not to go into the weeds, but things like the um, you know, the the flashing beacon, you know, people have been told, oh, we only put those on roads with like a median in the middle.

Like, is that do you need our direction to say stop?

Like let those happen in more places.

Yeah, let me go.

Let me go into that.

I'm gonna use that here because I'm gonna I'm gonna move past kind of like the refuge island conversation just for the sake of time, but get your kind of ideas here.

So I've had conversations with Janet.

I think there's opportunities to look at how we use RFRBs, you know, and we're we're gonna try key, we're gonna try raised um crossings on Galveston as part of that project.

I'm just looking at council.

Do you want us to have conversations about well, if we try to expand that, where would that be, how would that be, and involves a lot of different stakeholders in those conversations.

We would start with at key route intersections, that's where we would focus where we have key routes and low stress networks crossing major streets.

We want to make sure those are safe.

And then if we want to explore speed tools, I think then we were like, well, then what else do we need to do around that to control speeds just in the open segments of road, which is different than how we get people across the road safely.

Um so we would look at different standard options and and what tools would need to be in place to make these crossings safer, um, focusing on key route crossings first, because for me, I think one of the most important things we can do is make sure let's get people on the lowest stress network and make sure they can cross our major streets safely, and then we start to we can start to expand out from there.

But again, that'll be further discussions if on how we deploy capital around the city, but let's make sure our standards are correct first.

And are you looking at crash data too when you're and are you looking at crash data that is like post-road, like the outcomes that are happening at our hospitals and being told that outcomes that are happening at hospitals like fatalities or major injuries, if they're not captured by the police officer who's responding at the scene, then we don't have accurate data on it.

And I'll turn to Janet real quick.

We're actually in the process of updating kind of our crash collection data.

Okay, yeah.

And and I think a little bit of that too, and we're kind of looking at injury, which usually is captured, the degree may not, and and to some extent, well, that's important.

Just the fact that there's an injury is what triggers kind of what we're looking at.

So that takes takes the importance of that down a little bit as far as data goes.

Okay, just for the sake of time, I'm gonna um well, let's go through cut through traffic.

So, just um another question we have for council is um the way our current standards are written is that we are looking to do traffic timing and cut and kind of look at areas where we have significant cut-through traffic where we have key routes, but we also get situations where we just have a large amount of vehicular traffic going through, like Wood River Village.

I know that that's a good example that council's heard about.

We just want to make sure see if council wants us to explore expanding that analysis and where we use these tools regarding cut-through traffic to beyond just making sure bikes and pets are safe, but if we have significant vehicle traffic, um we actually need to expand the scope of our standards to to give rules of engagement around that.

I do tastically support this.

So we've been getting lots of emails, I think about that recently.

So yeah, yeah, this I mean that's basically what the neighborhood street safety uh program used to address.

Um yeah, engaging with the neighborhoods on that, I think is great.

And it may result in an expansion of that program overall, but let's make sure we get the right tools in the toolbox on how we can do it.

All right.

Um I'm gonna skip this for right now.

Um if we have time we can go back, but I want to because I really want to have a conversation on street sections.

I think this is more important.

Um so on the street sections, we just want to make sure that we kind of get some headdowns from council.

We've had interest um in previous conversations about developing a 50-foot section.

We would we're gonna move forward with that idea.

We'd also kind of have the kind of the rules around where we would want to deploy that 50-foot local standard, why we won't want to.

We also need to make sure that it complies like with not only the uh water and fewer utilities, but where franchise utilities go.

Um, but there's interest in there.

We believe there's a use for it as well, so we want to we want to move that forward.

And then the second one around local streets is we get a lot of um, we've been in a lot of conversations around car-free or woo-nef type streets.

The perfect example is the one that just got constructed in front of Jackstraw.

Our standards are kind of silent on that right now.

Uh, we think we we know we have to develop a car-free standard as part of the climate-friendly necklable rulemaking process.

But with the runef, I think we want to provide some guidelines around that um to give more direction to the development community of where and how those could be used throughout the city.

I'm very interested in that.

Okay.

Um, and then when we get to the arterial and collectors, um, just a couple things we'd like to get from council is just verifying that if there is a preference, we would we want to move the bike systems off of the roadways into separate facilities behind the curb.

Um our current design standard is 11-foot lanes.

There has been, I know there's been discussions of looking of lowering that.

Um, I'm just looking, do you want or do we are we how hard do we want to push that, or do we want to go engage with all the different stakeholders to say, yes, what are your thoughts about going to a smaller lane section?

Um, and we can do examples of where those are around town because we do have examples.

I mean, there's there's research about what said what the the safest lane width is.

So I would say let's just do what's informed by that.

Um, but is this also an opportunity for you know one of the things we hear from people is they really like the the trail system, and then one of the problems is the trail system sort of broken up and discontinuous.

And when we have a new development, we don't have standards that require off street trails, so we don't really have an opportunity to say, hey, new neighborhood, connect to this.

You know, we have open space standards, but we don't have like a connect to this trail standard.

So I mean, I might I would say I think most people want like an off-street facility, and if that's not available or not an option for whatever reason, then let's look at some of these other ones.

Can we have a way to address them?

I think we can look at that.

That's we can definitely bring that up in the conversation and and kind of I think there might be some immediate changes we could do to kind of get down in the standards, but then I also think it'll it'll kind of blend and do development code updates, and then also as we start to look at large level policies of what what we want in master plans and things like that, we can start to elevate those discussions to the reason why I feel like it's it's connected is because if we have a really great off-street trail option, then maybe we don't need all of the other elements all crammed into one part of the right-of-way.

Yeah, um, but that's it's sort of you know contingent on what's present and what's available.

Okay.

Any other any other input around collector and RTR standards we'd like to carry?

I just have a question.

I've thought I mean I've heard and that it could be not factual, but when you narrow the the lane widths that it actually does lead to safer outcomes just because it causes people to go slower.

Is that there is a big study that came, or I guess two different studies that came out and looked at that, and they did make some mention of like if you have buses, you know, you might need a wider lane for that.

But generally it was across a whole variety of sized cities, and I looked to double check a bunch of different climate zones too.

So yeah, I think it actually makes also for a nicer looking street scene.

I think it's and it just allows for better um development site plan layout.

I know for uh builders and developers.

In terms of the whole streetscape, counselor Norris, you're talking about like trees and other and a little wider sidewalks, like all that stuff that gives us more flexibility.

Because when we say we're gonna we want to narrow the sections and we move the bikes off, then it also changes how we approach crossings, right?

Because we don't have this large expanse to cross, so we do or do we not need the the a refuge island in there if we can keep those tight.

Um those are that helps us provide guidance on well, then how would we cross these new streets as well?

So that's a good direction.

I was just gonna say, like the um, you know, when we talk about standards, and we talked about this a little bit that with in retrofit situations like with Franklin, you know, I really feel with Franklin we're just trying to jam the street standard, the typical standard into what should be in we hope will be in the near future an urban area, you know, even though it's an arterial, it needs to function as an urban area.

Um and so I just want to make sure that the standards that you guys are working on have sufficient flexibility that you know we don't have to, because that is a very expensive street right there.

That basically sucked up our entire transportation fund right there.

So I hope everybody really really likes Butler Market Road.

Um so I yeah, I just I really feel the standards need to be flexible so that we can be making safe streets all over town.

Yeah, and I also just want to kind of illustrate as we go through this and we're getting this guidance and having conversations.

It it helps um Janet and Ryan as we do the next round of capital projects of how we want to approach that, right?

So this this helps us not only have the standards conversation, but also when we look at okay, we're doing another cord or we're we're moving in this direction.

Let's let's try to see if we can incorporate some of those principles as we move forward.

And I think that's what I was speaking to earlier in terms of a maybe another level of a framework when we a decision making tool, right?

Or a filter saying we're gonna use existing right-of-way within our we're going to you know have these things that are not really standards, but they're principles that are a little uh more close to the ground from the council goals that help provide guidance.

So we would love that direction from council.

Um so that way we when we bringing projects to you, they they kind of fit a framework, is what we're looking for.

Yeah, I mean, I think working within the existing right-of-way um is a great goal to strive for.

Um I kind of wanted to get that out because I think that's important.

Isn't that generally what we're trying to do, except in those circumstances where it's impossible and we we like to do that?

Well, I think if we had more clear really, I think if we had that really solid direction from you all, and that that if that is what is the driving, it's it's always like what's the priority, right?

If that is the number one priority, then it'll shape some of that design, particularly in the existing network.

Improving safety seems to me, you know.

I understand it has to be balanced with these other pieces, but that seems to be very important to me, if not the number one.

But again, in those circumstances where you can't be perfect, and it's the the balancing of that stuff.

So all right, one more topic.

I know.

Yeah, I was gonna do a little time check.

It's 537.

We still have we probably can give it 20 minutes out of the we need just we can do it in 20 minutes.

Okay, so we could actually one more quick thing.

Right.

Um, so we've we've deployed new intersection forms across the city where we have at Lantham Wilson, we have the the new um kind of protected roundabout standard that we did.

And then we're also deploying the the new signalized intersection standards at um we did it at Wilson and Third, right down the street at Wall in Portland, and then also we're doing it at Butler Market and Void Acres.

These we typically have been deploying these where we have key routes within our system.

We also we want to just check in with council of is is this council have a strong preference on moving forward with creating these as our standards, or do we want to go to know our standard is a kind of a typical single-lane roundabout, and we want to do we is there anything we want to consider in the design elements of those.

If we don't know, we can go out and test those with the community and bring that feedback.

But we need to really start picking a intersection style we want to do to so that we can have clear communication on how our standards are gonna get adopted.

I don't know if there's any feedback from that anybody wants this to give us the answer is I don't know, but I'd love to hear from from others.

I guess uh if we can have uh a different route, a a separate route for our multimodal trans uh uh transportation that does not have to go through these type of these intersections, yeah.

That would be my first choice.

Yeah, what we're talking about is where that's not possible and where we must interact in these cases.

My preference is for protected for the safety aspect, but again, like Mayor Proto and Bergen's I'm really interested in what the public has to say on it.

But that's my preference.

I I would offer, you know, it again it kind of comes back to speed.

You know, if this is an intersection that people are going really fast through, then or they have no other choice but to go through this intersection, you know, then maybe that level of protection at Ninth and Wilson is necessary as a cyclist.

I find it a tedious, like I go through the lane.

Um, though I wish there was an alternative to sharing the lane with a car, you know, or getting in front of a car because cars go way faster through roundabouts than cyclists usually can.

An example of that is if we start to move the bike facilities off the street, then it might be easier just to run them through the standard crossing intersections and having to create a an entire system for them to go around the roundabout.

Um I think you guys should use your engineering creativity and look at the context and so those are the things that we would, you know, I I can imagine either in open houses or in a survey, we would say, hey, we're trying to do this, and we kind of give examples of like what would you feel more comfortable being being in?

And I just want to offer on the signalized intersection.

I was actually parked at Wallin only and saw someone almost hit uh a guy riding a scooter in the bike lane.

So like we put a lot of money into that intersection, and you know, and I was worried that it wouldn't really do that much to move the needle on safety there, and I fear that that's what's going to happen.

Yeah.

And so I like there's other designs, like what I've seen in other communities is you stop the cars back further, and you have the green box so that bikes can go in front, you know, and then people that is a real education wake-up call.

Like, why is that green box there?

Like you're not supposed to stop in it, you know, and that I don't know, I it's way less expensive than all the curb and everything.

Well, yeah, and I appreciate these are more expensive to build, right?

So again, but if I it takes longer, it takes longer.

And so what what we'll do is uh I think we'll go into exploratory mode on intersection forms for both roundabouts and signals, and we'll kind of solicit feedback and come back.

And I I mean, if there is a way to gather some data about how they're performing, so it's not just everybody in their brother's opinion.

I mean, we're just one of the places we have the some of the you know we have opinions on most things, but this one I think can be very strong transportation stuff and intersections, and so if we have our own data about how are these intersections performing for us and Bend and has something changed, say it at Third and Wilson, um, so we can help evaluate them.

Yes.

Um, and then compare to well, this is some things that are tried in some other places, and maybe this other alternative is a little better than what we've tried.

I have watched every single car hit that turning on um from uh Waltel.

Large single car hits that.

Large vehicles are having a hard time making them corners, and we're adjusting as we go to make sure that they get better.

But yeah, I mean, I would say just do whatever is safest, and uh, I don't even know that we need that much data on like how is it working in Bend.

It's just are these are these safe in general?

And if we're replicating that, then fine.

Yeah, they're safe and helpful.

I think the the point about um the speed of people going driving around roundabouts is is definitely relevant.

I mean, I that's that's part of the problem here.

Is I feel like our older roundabouts feel safer, they're easier to cross, people drive slower in them, and now we have all these new examples of roundabouts and people are driving like Mario Andretti through them.

Well, for low I I if we're since we're already having the discussion with lower end speed on the roads, I think we will have conversations around kind of what is the design speed of a roundabout in that new context.

Right.

Um, just real quick, is there anything else?

If there's anything else that we missed that you are really passionate about, feel free to reach out to myself and Janet, and we can kind of include in the conversation.

I've been taking notes, and so what I'm gonna do just because we're a little short on time and I want to make sure we capture everything.

I'm just gonna send a council email with your notes.

If we didn't get it quite right, please don't reply all.

Please just respond to me so we don't have a serial meeting, and then we'll make sure that we can provide more exact direction if needed.

So, just really quick, I just want to go through how we're gonna go through the process.

So, we're gonna get all this information.

We're we're gonna bring we're about ready to go get some consultants on board through our on-call engineering contract because we do need help with facilitation and actually horsepower to create drawings and standards because our our team is busy building capital projects all over the city.

What we're looking at doing is probably doing around three workshops, it's kind of our first idea.

We want to go talk to the engineers and planners that are actually designing these things and are um working with them day in and day out.

We also want to have a workshop specifically with the large vehicle users that includes um our emergency response, fire, transit school district, and freight.

Um, and then to we may have multiple workshops with um the advocacy groups and the general public to make sure that we're getting all the feedback, potential surveys, things like that, but we'll start to develop that.

You see, you can kind of see the need to go talk to all these groups with the conversation that we had.

We'll come back as we after get all that data, we'll come back, probably have another work session with council, make sure we're we're heading in the right direction.

And if we do need to do more engagement, or no, just move directly into creating the new standards, and then we'll put them out for public comment and review, and then come back for final adoption through council.

Um, we'll be getting consultants as I talked about.

We'll um we'll be using transportation dollars related to that to do that work.

Um, but we're gonna go actually develop that scope of work and get those those um consultants on board.

And our schedule is um hopefully late spring summer, we're starting to have these community workshops, come back, have a conversation with you late summer, and then we're developing the document um through the summer and the fall, um, depending on how much outreach we need in the conversations, put it out for comment um over the winter next year, and then come back in the spring and adopt.

But again, this also provides the flexibility in the meantime.

If we are getting consensus on things, we will start to um integrate that into our current designs.

One last comment uh just to ask uh that we specifically incorporate some of the latest research on design for pedestrians who are visually impaired.

So if we can make uh an intersection safe for someone who is blind or visually impaired, I feel like it's gonna work for everybody.

And we've heard from people that uh do have visual impairments or are blind that that they're struggling.

And so if we can specifically pay attention to some of that research, I feel like that would be really helpful.

Yeah, I think we'll we'll be engaging with co-acculate things to uh to kind of I I agree with you, yeah, because we've actually gone through exercises of crossing major streets with blindfold on, not easy.

And we want to make sure that we are thinking about the meter designs.

Okay, sorry, I know that was really quick, but really appreciate the input and that gives us a path forward.

Yep.

Thank you.

All right, we will have a consolidated but still thorough hot arm.

Well, I'll dive in while Garrett's bringing it up just to kind of introduce this.

Uh, first want to recognize some of our partners in the room here.

Abby Driscoll is the main ODOT PM on this project.

Um, so she's Garrett's counterpart on this as we work through the FAA or the FA, yeah.

Um was talking about the air traffic control tower this morning.

FHWA.

Um, and then a couple of our consultants, Craig and Kayla are here as well, right behind Abby.

So I want to thank them for their time this evening.

Uh, but that is a good reminder, and this came up in a recent news article that I did.

We just want to remind ODOT is the primary PM on this project.

They have been for a while, and the main reason is because we are not a federally certified city uh to take those kind of funds, and so it flows through ODOT, and we're lucky to have Abby here as our partner uh to help navigate those waters.

Um, second quick reminders on the funding side of things.

We we continue to hear this from the public quite a bit is that this project is almost predominantly, if not all funded through state and federal grants.

It's not money we're gonna have to repay.

We do have a million dollar contribution from the general obligation bond, and there is a potential that we have to dip into the bond for a few million more, depending on where this lands overall.

But 32 million dollars are coming from the feds and from the state of Oregon, which is a huge win.

Uh, we constantly hear people why are we doing that?

We should take that money somewhere else.

We can't do that.

We applied for the grant at this location for this kind of improvement, and that's what we won.

And so um, I'm just gonna keep repeating that until I stop hearing people saying we should do something else with it.

Uh, but then the last thing that I'll mention before I hand it over to Garrett is because of that federal funding requirement and needing to work with ODOT.

It's it's we're in kind of a quick decisive uh uh schedule here.

So we're gonna have more frequent check-ins with council.

That's why we're doing this tonight.

Uh, we've got three main topics to cover in terms of the promenade street from the public out back, the alignment of the bridge itself, as well as kind of the people street concept uh underneath and alongside the bridge.

And so uh we're having this meeting with you now just to make sure, like, yep, continue on, everything looks good.

We have another meeting in May to talk about the geobond budget in general, and then we have uh uh design more of a detailed meeting in July where we'll bring our design team back in and talk about some more of the details like lighting and railing and some of those other things.

But just want to also reiterate like we we need to keep this moving along because we do have to meet the federal requirement and get this out and bid through ODOT procurement and through DOJ channels by a certain time.

So it's rapid fire here, and we're just uh wanting to make sure at these check-ins that we're gonna continue to be in an alignment with council's intent.

So with that, I'll hand it over to Garrett.

Yeah, thank you.

Thanks, Council.

Um we have three main things we wanted to update uh the city council on tonight.

Um primarily looking at the street level improvements that we're proposing to move forward.

Uh, there's been a lot of conversation around the bridge alignment, especially over on the east side or east of BNSF railway, um, starting to move forward on some different uh considerations around what the the people street concept could be if we do that, and then what the other impacts would be within that network area.

Um so first, just a quick overview of the project.

Ryan was talking about the federal funding tied to that.

We have scope limitations.

Um so this project here goes from just the west side of third street to uh the east side of Harriman, and that uh blue area that you see on both ends is the street level improvements that we're talking about, and we'll show more information on moving forward.

And then we have kind of a transitional zone where the landing is or the lighter orange, and then the approach is where we would start going up towards the bridge.

That's where we'd have retaining walls for a short, a short period before we go into kind of an open area underneath the bridge.

And that's that's important as we start talking about like what the treatment could be underneath the bridge where we're talking about non-vehicular areas.

Um, one thing we're not showing on here right now, but just want to make council aware that we're moving forward on is the Hawthorne extension.

So, how we connect to the Bend Bikeway on Harriman uh to the west side, so from that blue area to the west and south, uh, and then over to the east side over to Juniper Park, so across third street all the way over to Juniper.

That um we received direction from council in October, I believe, to start moving forward with, and we've initiated that project.

We're in early stages of developing concepts, hoping to be sharing something with the community here in April and wrapping that up in June to align with the budget discussions for the bond with city council here.

Garrett, just before you go on, can you confirm for me that the blue area is not federally or externally funded?

That is all part of the federal funded part right now.

The blue is, yeah.

So this everything that whole white dashed line is what is part of the federally funded project, and we aren't allowed to work outside of that area.

The extension goes beyond that.

Great.

Thank you.

Yep, yeah, thanks for the clarification.

Uh so we had an open house in early December.

Um we had already selected a trust at that, or the trust uh bridge structure type at that point.

So we were trying to focus on getting feedback around users and then the street level improvements.

So those were predominantly our focused questions, along with a few other just user consideration and general input.

Um, we had around 200 people turn out beside between online and in person.

Um the bigger question here that I want to highlight for today was just around what people were preferring for the street level improvement.

So we had shown a two-way street, uh a Cherow or Sherrod Street uh concept, the promenade, which is what you see here, which would have the most public support, and then just bike lanes, like you see typically on a lot of our streets.

Uh the majority of the support was around the promenade.

That had been also our our preference from a project team perspective is as the concept to move forward, and that would be specifically on the west side between Hill and Harriman.

So, as you look at the left side of this, um, that's the west side hill to Harriman, and then over on the east side on the right side is second to third street, ending at third.

Um, that promenade concept would reduce this from a two-lane or two-way traffic to one-way traffic westbound with on-street parking, and then we'd have a dedicated space or shared space for pedestrians and bicyclists on the south side of the road that would connect to the bridge.

Uh, other considerations here are just gonna be landscaping.

This would be a heavier landscaped project or corridor than what it is today, so a nicer aesthetic as well.

Uh, also in the open house, we had shown this.

This has gotten a lot of attention, I think, from city council as well as community, and people have emailed you about it.

Um we had shown the bridge alignment as it went across first and landed on the south side of the road between first and second street.

Uh, the feedback that we were receiving was was why aren't we centering that and making this more of a people street concept, non-vehicular?

Um, as we had been looking at this early on, we'd kind of been carrying assumptions forward from the feasibility study that we did a couple of years ago, just around considerations for driveways, fire access, and then looking at the the network system here, east-west network between Franklin and Greenwood, which we'll show a little bit more of here.

So, talking to the the network consideration, um, if you see the uh orange dashed line, that's Hawthorne Avenue.

That's the one east-west connection between Franklin and Green Greenwood right now, that's built out to City Standard to the south.

We have Greeley, which is um basically a two-way gravel road, and then Irving to the north, which is which is developed for about half of the segment, and then it's a single lane gravel road for the western segment.

Um, so highlighting here that if we are to close Hawthorne, if we are to center it and close it to vehicular access, there's really limited other access uh on those other two corridors right now from a street improved section.

We do plan to move this conversation forward more.

Um, you know, Russ has talked to a few councils, I think, and maybe Ryan through this process about trying to bring this conversation to CAB to further it, uh, as well as internally here with City Council to understand if there's priorities to improve any of those as we're looking to construct the Hawthorn um over crossing.

And just to add that real quick, that's while he's got this up.

It's really to look at kind of a super block concept.

So look at the whole thing from Franklin and Greenwood from first to third, and determine a way in which we can keep those movement patterns going.

May you know, maybe first becomes a one-way street, right?

Where there's all these different ways you could do that.

So I do anticipate that coming out of this outside of the Hawthorn Bridge footprint, we will have some additional city work that we're gonna need to work with CAB and with the city to determine what it is we want to fund.

Do we attack Irving?

Do we save Greeley for a future development and kind of what the options may be for that?

You'd also um councils received a letter from the developers on the northeast corner of Hawthorne first.

Um and they had had written about their interest in seeing Irving developed or built through.

Uh they are one of the properties right now in Hawthorne between first and second that has a driveway access that comes off of Hawthorne in this area where we're considering the centering the bridge alignment, building the people street.

Um so right now, with their interest of wanting Irving, their interests of wanting to maintain their driveway till they redevelop, we are showing a concept that would maintain their driveway access, but not maintain the connection all the way through the block.

The same goes for uh the business on the southwest corner of second and hawthorn.

Uh currently um bottle drop is located there, and and there's ongoing conversations here internally with with them as well uh about their business there.

When you say not maintain their connection all the way through the block, what do you mean?

Uh I'll show a picture here on one of these future slides.

Basically, I mean we would go to their driveway and we wouldn't keep the road going all the way through.

So they would have a driveway access, but there wouldn't be a roadway connection.

Um, and that's this one here.

Yeah, random question.

Is there actually an alley between first and second?

Yeah, it and it's been Hawthorne.

It's super unique.

Um, so right here you can see the 20-foot mark goes to the edge of this property, so the second property in, and then it's 10 feet wide.

Oh, and it's it continues.

Yeah, I think it was 10 feet wide, I think, to right here or here, so it's not a full width um alley going all the way through.

Okay.

And then what about south of the bottle drop there?

South, this are there is an alley, a 20-foot alley all the way through.

Um, this property here actually, that's their only driveway access, they don't come off of Hawthorne.

Okay, and so that that's another part of the discussion, and certainly especially in terms of of fire access.

If you're gonna have to fight a five or six-story uh building fire there, you know, do we can they get down the alleys?

Do they need additional hydrants?

Do they, you know, all these different ways that so we're in conversations with them, but another sub-project that's kind of peeling off of the Hawthorne Bridge on both sides of the parkway.

And so this shows uh a concept of if we were to center the bridge.

Um, so you know, first streets on the left side, second streets on the right side, and then we have these gray shaded areas um would basically show where we would be providing uh these driveway accesses that are ideally temporary scenarios until these properties redevelop.

Um, and that was what you received in the letter from from this developer here is in the near term they'd like to have this driveway, but once they redevelop, they would like to have it off first street.

I think we'll continue conversations with them as we kind of go through this design trap effort of what this people street looks like and see if there's additional wiggle room there or not.

Um, I think Irving obviously is important too.

I thought they'd asked for access off of Urban to the north specifically.

So are you saying that this is an iteration since that letter and that they've kind of agreed to this?

So there's in their letter, they were saying they want to keep access off of Hawthorne to this driveway that I'm showing on the screen now with a red circle around it in the near term, yeah, until until they redevelop.

So it's uh maybe a technicality of their partnership.

There's a different property owner for this purple shaded area than there is from the property just north of that, and then Irving is north of that.

And so until they get to the point where they decide to merge those properties and develop them as one, they are seen as separate parcels for them and and they're concerned about the underneath.

The one that Garrett, yeah, the next slide.

That's yeah, we think this is the temporary solution that they could live with based on our current configuration because they have that large building that basically blocks all potential access from first street.

And it gives us flexibility to decide which street we're putting some money into in the short term, even if we can't do Greeley and Irving.

Right.

Yeah, yeah.

Is it necessary to provide that second driveway for the bottle job?

I mean they have two already.

That would eliminate their driveway off of second, right?

Or no, did they?

They have they have an alley, so we just built a second street project, right?

Yeah, and they had a driveway access off of second, and they came to agreement with us that they would abandon that so we could build that street section, right?

If we helped them reconfigure their their parking, so they reconfigured it all to angled parking and one-way traffic going through there.

So it'd be pretty poor character for us if we went through and now said now you can't have this driveway.

Agreed.

Yeah, so maintaining for the time being, but hopefully it's gone in the near future.

Okay.

I think everybody gets the understanding of this one.

And then lastly, here is just, you know, I think I think I wasn't here in November when you presented.

I think it was in November there was some discussion about like, you know, what can we do for improvements underneath the bridge in some of these areas where we're having to purchase land or we're not having vehicles as far as like a people street consideration, consideration of future development, is there is there park ideas?

Um we've started just talking a little bit high level with some of the adjacent property owners, uh reached out to Ben Parks and Rec to see if they have any interest in in any sort of park um development and and long-term you know, maintenance here.

Those are early conversations.

The the high level position right now is we don't know what our budget is for these areas, and this would be probably one of the first things to get cut if we were over budget as far as the level of improvement.

And so we're gonna be at a concept here in April.

We're gonna have some um kind of our first iteration of of uh cost estimates and related to what the structure and approaches and everything is, so we'll have a better understanding of what we would have for available funds for these areas and start initiating some of those um design charette meetings in late April to try to further those along and then come back to council in July and have a little bit more detailed conversation around here's what we think we would like, and here's what the budget would let us do, and see if council has any desires for us to go one way or another.

So that would be a decision point for us that we'd be looking to forette is a new word for me.

I mean, I I'm super excited about everything I've seen here, and I really appreciate the responsiveness to the feedback and input that's come and some of it in that you know public stuff, and then more concerns about well, that little jog to the south and all that.

And um, I think what's really great about it is that it really sets us up well for this.

Um, the beginnings of something that might actually become this Drake to Juniper concept over time.

And um, so I I think I just think it's fantastic.

Um I do think that the Greeley and Irving investments are gonna be really important and having that conversation with Cav.

And I guess my hope is that we'll be able to have some ideas about how we might proceed and what the costs might be within the in the next the next few months, I think, right?

Or is that gonna be part of that budget discussion?

Yeah, I mean, hopefully probably have to use some of those dollars.

Yeah, that's my guess.

It's not an easy job just to plop a bridge down in the middle of a city.

This is really this is really well thought through.

Yeah, great.

Yeah, it's cool.

It's uh, you know, we're not the the you know thinkers behind all this.

It's fun to go to the meetings and see all the different people with the different interests who have who have done this before and are focused on these you know minute details.

I would say that we'll bring back a lot of those in the July check-in and talk more about like lighting and railing and treatments on walls, but um we have a team that's working on it that's just really excited about all the different aspects of it and are really thoughtful in their approach.

So got the right people.

Schedule-wise, um, the as I mentioned, that concept gets delivered here in April.

That'll have the cost information with it, and we'll start the design shreds in late April.

We're also having the Hawthorne extension open house, so beyond the limits of this project connecting to the Ben Bikeway around April time frame.

We're tentatively planning for the May-June time frame for the geobond budget discussion.

Um, so that's hopefully everything geobond budget-wise and how council would like us to move forward or to engage with those conversations over the next following few months.

Uh finishing up the extension in June or the concept and getting the understanding if there's anything you want us to move forward with.

And then we'll have an update to council in July, and we're still kind of targeting that design completion in August and beginning construction late uh or August 27, construction late 27, early 28.

And as Ryan mentioned, these dates are tied to our our um some of our funding that we're receiving, so we have to kind of hold those design construction dates to make sure that we continue to secure those funds.

And I'll just highlight here, because I think this is the last slide that May-June meeting.

Uh we're on on schedule now with the federal rail administration on the read market bridge to receive that funding obligation in April.

So if we have that obligated from them, it'll make that May-June discussion hopefully a good one where we can decide, you know, we we do have some extra money now.

Can you know how can we apply that to the rest of the Geobond project list and maybe that frees up the discussion about what to do on the people street side of things and some of these other options?

So if everything positive feedback from them to date, and we're last they told us is they're expecting to obligate that money to us in April.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Got it done just five minutes.

Thank you.