So we can use our time.

All right, so we're gonna call to order the work session for today for the Spen City Council.

Um let's do roll call starting with you, Councilor Mendes.

Ariel Mendoz here.

Mike Brightley, yeah.

Melanie Keebler, she her.

Megan Perkins, she her.

Steve Platty.

And Megan Norse is excused today, and we are hoping to have Councillor Francisa online virtual.

She hasn't shown up yet, but hopefully we'll be online soon.

Um so we will go ahead and launch into our presentation from Cassie.

Which is now full screen.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Cool.

Um, okay.

Uh good afternoon, counselors.

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

I'm here for further discussion on our electrification policy options work.

I'm joined by Daniel Walker, who's our consultant from the Brightland group.

Um, also Elisa Dunlap from Pacific Power.

Um also has a portion of the presentation today, so she's in the audience right now, but she'll come up once it's her time.

Um, as far as meeting objectives today, the first objective is to share information about the emissions revenue and grid impacts of potential different potential fee levels and allow the council to discuss whether you are ready to move forward with establishing a particular fee level based on the information shared today.

The second objective is to discuss options for public engagement for both establishing the fee and also for establishing incentive programs to encourage electrification.

And then the third objective is to receive direction from the council about how you'd like to proceed with the policy development for both the fee and the incentives, um, which is informed by those first two objectives.

Um first I have a little bit of background to root this discussion in the broader context of the work we've been doing on electrification and how we got to where we are today.

Um so this is a graphic that we developed about a year ago.

I haven't shown it the last few work sessions, but I just wanted to remind us that the that the electrification fee and incentive program that we're discussing today is a part of a broader electrification work plan that we um developed last year.

So we have been simultaneously working on a three-part work plan to encourage electrification.

The first part of the work plan is engaging in education and outreach activities to encourage electrification and to provide a resources to community members to help them electrify their homes.

So we have been working really actively to expand our outreach and education efforts over the last year.

Much of the past year has been focused on the fundamentals of building out a web, web and social media content and having tables at events, and then our team is currently in the thick of planning an energy efficiency and electrification workshop series, which we'll be launching this spring.

We'll be partnering partnering with other organizations in the community who have expertise and provide services in the efficiency and electrification space, such as the Energy Trust of Oregon, the Oregon Department of Energy, local organizations like Energy Spend, the Environmental Center, and 350 to shoots to deliver educational workshops on a variety of energy efficiency and electrification topics.

So there really is a lot going on in the outreach and education space that we haven't talked a lot about at the council level and doesn't have a lot of public awareness, but I wanted to remind us that that's part of that bigger picture.

Um a little bit different than the education outreach, um, but our climate action partner grant program is also a tool that we're using to support electrification.

So for example, our highest dollar grant um is going to the Bend Redmond Habitat for Humanity, who are going to use it to install high efficiency heat pump systems with advanced air filtration to income qualified homeowners to provide efficient heat cooling and maintain good air quality for those homes, especially during wildfire events.

We're also funding Central Oregon Community College to create a workforce development program focused on clean energy technologies and the environmental center to develop a revolving loan fund that can be used to provide zero interest loans for qualified homes for energy efficiency and electrification upgrades.

Then the second part of the work plan is to develop incentives and disincentives that encourage people to build homes all electric.

So that's a piece of the work plan that we're working on today and what we've been focused on at the council level the last few months.

This involves developing a disincentive, which is the fee and also creating incentives for electrification.

And then the last piece of the work plan is that staff continue to monitor options for restricting gas through regulatory measures.

When we talked with the council about this work plan last April, we received direction from the council that you would like staff to continue monitoring the legal landscape for any developments on this topic.

So we continue to do that.

We don't really have any updates.

We're not gonna talk about that today, but again, I just wanted to make sure that we sort of remember this work plan that we committed to last April.

April, that's kind of the whole scope of our electrification work.

Also, as background, I'll just remind us what the few, the last few key steps have been that got us to today's work session.

Um following council direction to pursue a fee and incentive program in April of last year.

We held work sessions with the council in August, October, and December, mostly focused on the fee, talking through some research we've done on costs, the cost and impact of electrifying homes, fee design, and public engagement to develop the fee and incentives.

At the December meeting, we shared with the council the fee calculation and the approach to the fee design and outlined several policy questions that you all need to answer in order to move towards actually establishing a fee policy.

Council directed us to come back to this meeting today to further discuss potential options of the fee level, which was one of those policy questions that we outlined during that meeting.

And then at a council business meeting in early January, we had brought a resolution for you all to consider that would establish an ad hoc committee made up of representatives of some of our existing committees to develop recommendations on the incentive programs and some aspects of the fee design.

During that meeting, you all decided that you wanted to continue the uh to continue discussing the public engagement approach during the meeting this evening.

So it's really been that December meeting and the January work session.

Uh, those those two meetings led to the meeting objectives that we're discussing today that I just shared.

Um, so now we're gonna review some analysis and information that explores the impacts of implementing a fee on natural gas appliances at different fee levels.

Uh we proposed, we introduced the proposed fee design and fee calculation at the work session on December 10th.

I'm gonna walk through that fee calculation once more since it's the foundation of the whole policy and it dictates the maximum potential, what the maximum potential fee could be set at.

In addition, we have actually made a modification to this fee calculation since we talked about it last in December that I want to talk through.

So the fee is calculated on a per appliance basis.

It is calculated by multiplying the social cost of carbon by the total amount of carbon produced by the appliance, multiplied by a tier scaling factor based on the size of the home.

The social cost of carbon is the monetary value of climate change damages that occur from each metric ton of carbon dioxide that is emitted.

That number is informed by a model developed by the EPA.

The total amount of carbon produced by the appliance is the part of the calculation that we've modified since we showed it to you last.

To get to this number, we multiply the total average amount of carbon produced by the appliance in a year by the number of years that the equipment remains in service.

The change that we made is that we are subtracting out the average carbon produced by the alternative electric equipment.

Since in our case in Bend, most of the electric appliances also produce carbon in the short term.

So what we get is the net carbon produced by the gas appliance compared to if an electric appliance was used instead.

And then the last part of the calculation is to multiply, you know, we have the social cost of carbon, this new concept of the net lifetime carbon produced, and then the last part is multiplying that by a tier scaling factor based on the size of a home, so that a smaller home pays a smaller amount to account for their smaller carbon footprint, and a larger home pays a larger amount.

We established three different tiers for the home size.

So this calculation is similar to the one used by the city of Ashland, but the two key differences are the inclusion of the tier scaling factor and now the part where we use the net carbon produced rather than the total carbon produced by the gas appliance.

Ashland did not need to determine the net carbon impact in their policy because Ashland's electricity is primarily carbon free.

So this underscores an important distinction between our context and Ashlands, which is that our electricity today is not carbon free.

So we think that the best way to design this calculation is to account for that, which is what this net carbon does.

And then the other thing that thinking about this calculation in terms of the net carbon impact highlights is that the relative greenhouse gas impact of using gas compared to electricity, and therefore the fee amount are dependent on how clean our electricity supply is and how clean it will be in the future.

So to develop this calculation, we have to rely on assumptions about what the future electricity supply mix is.

And that means our policy is really linked to what reasonable assumptions we can make about the future electricity grid mix, and we get that information best from our utilities, especially in this case Pacific Power, since they're the ones with the higher the high emissions factor.

So the numbers that we are going to show you today are based on the um the assumption that Pacific Power would achieve an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and 100% by 2040, as is required by state law.

If the situation evolved and we had more reasonable assumptions to make about what the future electricity grid mix would be, we would want to consider updating the calculation to reflect that.

So this fee design is it's more dynamic than how we presented it in December.

It does introduce more complexity than before, but we believe it makes it more accurate in some fundamental ways.

For folks in the hall, there's a bunch of seats on this side.

Feel free to come in.

I know it's a bit tight in here, but you can cross the between the lanes or behind our speakers here if you need to.

Um we want everyone to be able to have a seat.

Okay.

Okay.

Um, so I'm gonna turn it over to Danielle next to present the analysis uh results of looking at the greenhouse gas and revenue impacts of different fee levels, and then after Danielle uh Pacific Power will come up and share information about the grid impacts of these different fee levels.

And as a reminder, this fee calculation gives us the maximum amount that could be charged based on this fee design approach.

However, as discussed in December, the council could decide for policy reasons to set the fee lower than the maximum.

So to inform that council decision, we've done an analysis to show the what the different impacts are that you could expect at the um maximum fee level and at two lower potential fee levels, which we set at 50% of the maximum and then 20% of the maximum.

And you can take it over.

Okay, thanks, Cassie.

Um, council members.

It's nice to be back in person with you all.

Uh, so before we go into the specific fee amounts, um I'm just gonna walk through a couple key assumptions that are underlying to these numbers.

Um, some of them Cassie has just covered, so I'll touch on those briefly.

Uh the first one on the left are the assumption of the number of homes that are being built each year.

Uh, for this analysis, we're using 741 annually, which is based on the five-year historical average of single-family homes, which also includes townhouses, duplexes, and ADUs.

Uh, this comes directly from the Bend Housing Dashboard.

Um, this number is important.

It drives a couple big things.

First, it drives the number of homes that are going to pay the fee since that is a function of the number of homes built.

The number of homes that pay the fee drives the revenue that will come out of this fee.

So that's one of the big um impacts.

The other one is the any estimate we have of greenhouse gas reduction is also coming from the number of homes that choose to electrify as a function of the number of homes built.

Uh the second uh big assumptions are around this concept that Cassie introduced about the net impacts of gas to electric conversion.

And when you take the net number, you now have to make an assumption about what that house would have installed if they were going to install electric equipment.

So they're actually installing gas, but what would they have done in the absence is what you need?

You need both of those now.

So for the uh heating and cooling equipment, we're assuming that the electric installation would have been a heat pump.

And then for all of the other equipment, we're assuming that that would be standard electric equipment.

Um Cassie mentioned that uh all these numbers are a weighted average of Pacific Core and Central Electric Territory customers within the territory, which is the 8515 split, and that Pacific Power is on track to meet its clean energy goals, and then the fee amounts, Cassie also covered you're gonna see the maximum amount, and then uh two reduced levels, one at 50% and one at 20%.

And the amounts we'll show are for the middle tier, which is the size of the average home.

So you would expect it to be a little smaller and a little higher, respectively, based on the square footage.

Yeah, thank you.

Okay, so given all that, these are the updated uh potential fee levels.

So the right hand side, that's that maximum number, that's the total carbon net emissions times social cost of carbon times the lifetime of the equipment.

The reduced amount is at 50% of that, and the low fee amount is at 20% of that.

You can see that split out by equipment and the totals there at the bottom.

Okay, so once we have some estimate of the fee levels, we can start to look at what are the impacts of those fee levels, what comes out of it.

So I'm gonna walk you through there's kind of several different things happening in this table.

So I'm gonna walk you through each of these rows.

The first two are what you just saw in the last couple slides.

So there's those adjustment factors with that maximum amount on the right, and then the fee amount.

So that row matches the total bottom from the from the last slide, and then what we the three impacts that we look uh to out of these numbers are the total amount of potential revenue generated from the homes that pay the fee, the potential carbon reductions from those that electrify, and then the uh potential housing price impact based on the their the fee levels.

So these next two rows, the number of homes that pay the fee and the estimated revenue.

Um it's not quite the simple equation because of this tearing factor, so don't multiply 1,954 times 556, you won't quite get one thousand one million.

But the idea here is that there's gonna be a certain number of homes that are going to choose to pay the fee at that amount.

We've estimated that based on electrification studies across the country and a kind of a willingness to adopt research.

So a certain number of homes will choose to pay the fee, you multiply that times the fee amount, and you would get an estimated revenue based on that based on that fee level.

So for here, we're seeing a range between 2.5 million at the high end and about a million dollars of revenue, potential revenue at the 20% level.

Um, another potential impact is the carbon that we could see from the homes that choose to electrify.

This is the sum of the total number of homes multiplied by the potential carbon reduction per home, and then at the bottom we see the uh potential impact on the average housing price that comes from the spend um 2025 housing report for the average price of the home.

Um that assumes that people convert for every appliance choice, correct?

Yeah, it's an all or it's yes, it's an all or nothing.

So they would fully electrify or they would fully stay with gas.

So reality might be a little different than these numbers.

And I have to highlight that, yeah.

Yeah, I meant to highlight that in this previous slide.

Like if if it was a low fee amount, it's not that every single house would pay 1900.

It's it would, you know, it's it's a la carte for each appliance.

So if it was just a gas stove, then it would just be 141 dollars for the gas stove.

So it's just important to keep that in mind, and that does really you know impact the actual numbers of how this would break down is hard to tell, you know.

So this is again a sort of illustrate illustrative to see the different potential impacts, but it will depend on if everyone's doing every all appliances, some appliances, and then development levels will change this as well.

Because this was sort of based on um historical development levels.

If we had much more development, then you know the revenue would just be higher because it'd be that many more, and uh conversely too if there was low development, it would be also lower.

And this reflects the range of choices that would still be available to people in terms of um what they want to do.

I want to electrify this portion of my home, but not that portion.

So that kind of choice would still be available.

Okay, so just carrying this through since um, you know, part of what we're looking at is for based out of the revenue generated, what could you do with that funding and looking at potential incentive programs based with that funding?

So here we just have um some quick math based on the previous slide of what could uh the total potential revenue generated, but like you said, you know, lots of permutations of these numbers.

So roughly what we're looking at here is you have the total revenue, you have to take off some amount to administer these programs.

Um heat pump programs, HVAC programs, heat pump water here programs, they're pretty high touch um intensive programs that generally require a significant amount of administrative cost.

We've got an assumption here at 35%.

What we see out in the program world is something between 25 and 40 percent for these types of residential programs.

So we're assuming that some portion of that is going to need to be taken out just to administer these programs, which leaves you with the numbers in bold there.

And then we looked at, okay, so we have this certain amount of money.

What are the how many potential houses could be upgraded based on these funds and the equipment that you choose to do?

So we looked at uh if you were to run a heat pump program at various incentive levels.

We've got here if you were to pay the full cost of a uh heat pump and then 50% of that cost, how many homes you could upgrade, uh put in heat pumps, and then we also did the same thing for heat pump water heaters.

So we've got you know quite the range depending on a what you're setting the fee level at, so how much revenue is coming in, and then also what you're setting the incentive level at to pay houses is also going to be a big factor of how many homes you can touch.

Quick question.

Yeah, is that the those numbers uh are they just for the equipment itself, not doing any of the assorted other work that you might have to do, like duff work or anything.

Is it just the cost of the of the heat pump, or is it like the full cost of the equipment cost?

Uh that is the equipment cost.

If you went and bought heat pump, not any of the other stuff that would be.

Yes.

And I'm pulling these numbers back from the uh we presented updated cost at the December meeting.

So those that 17 and 8,000, those are pulled straight from those that December presentation.

But it would depend.

So these in we have a lot of work to do to determine what the incentive programs actually look like.

So we could make a choice to create an incentive program that costs more than just the appliances.

So this was again just meant to sort of be illustrated what types of things.

So yeah, so that's just something to keep in mind.

And just to further clarify this slide right here, it's all dollars spent on either one of those two options, not split between.

Correct.

Yeah, this would be doing a heat pump program or doing a heat pump water heater program, and doing both would be yeah, something in the middle of those as well.

Um, and then below that are the potential uh carbon impacts from uh the upgrades themselves.

So now you've got two the addition of two potential streams of carbon reduction.

You have the carbon reduction from the homes that electrify, and then on top of that, with the revenue that you've generated, you have additional carbon reductions from the homes that you're able to upgrade to the sufficient electric equipment.

Um, and I think the next slide shows that.

And so when you add those two things together, this is showing the example at the 50% incentive.

Um, but when you add those two together, you are essentially doubling the amount of potential uh carbon reduction by adding the incentive program on top of the homes that electrify from the fee.

Um, so that's it for the analysis that Danielle did.

Now we're gonna switch gears and invite Pacific Power up here to talk about um the grid impacts.

Hi, thank you for having me.

I'm Alisa Dunlap.

I'm here on behalf of Pacific Power, and I just want to make it uh clear and that I'm here as a subject matter expert.

I welcome questions and uh conversation about this important topic that you all are considering.

Um so with that, Mayor and Council members, I will begin.

Um, so Pacific Power serves quite a number of customers across three states.

Um we are predominantly a rural utility in the state of Oregon.

Um, and one of the things that I think is really interesting about our service territory is we have about 29 customers per square mile.

Um, what I like to compare that to is if you think about uh Pacific Gas and Electric down in California, they have about 230 customers per square mile.

So we are a very rural utility.

Um we serve a very small portion of uh Northeast Portland.

Um, this is your city of Bend infrastructure as it currently stands.

So there's a map of all the substations.

Um, and then I also included substations that are um are currently planned to be um upgraded.

So five of the existing seven substations have current uh plans to be upgraded, and we have one new substation that's planned to be built in the in the next uh five to ten years.

Um there are also additional um transmission and uh distribution upgrades that are also planned.

Um this is a project uh 500 kilovolt uh transmission line project that I've talked about with council before.

Um this is a really important project for the region.

Um currently uh Pacific Ore relies on a Bonneville Power Administration for high voltage transmission, so that line is fairly tapped out.

Um so to continue economic development and business prosperity in the community and in the region.

This line is necessary to serve customers from a broad regional perspective.

Um the reason that I talk about infrastructure and what we have currently planned in the works is to talk about bend area growth trends.

So currently um the growth rate is 7.75 megawatts per year, um and that's temperature adjusted.

Um that is pretty significant growth.

This is one of our fastest growing regions across our entire service territory, um, which is um to say really good things about people wanting to move here and start businesses here, but I say all that because that does take infrastructure.

Um this is our current yes.

Is that can we translate that into like a percentage growth?

Um five that's a good question.

Percentage of the total system or I'm sort of in my mind, I'm sort of thinking about population growth and is this, you know, what does this look like on a household or per capita basis?

I'm just curious if that just trying to we don't know what megawatts mean.

Yeah, um, well, let's let's talk about megawatts.

So um I guess let's back up the train and talk about infrastructure.

So a substation itself has transformers, right?

That's what serves the power to the community.

A substation transformer usually is about 30 megawatts.

Um a substation feeder, there's usually three per transformer.

So they're about 10 megawatts per substation transformer.

So the growth rate of 7.75 basically means it's 75% of one feeder of a substation.

Does that clarify?

And that's like a new line with power coming into the substation that's then gonna get distributed.

Is that correct?

Is that feeder line?

Feeder, yeah.

And do you know what the total megawatt usage is in Bend?

I that is a really good question.

No, I do not.

Um, this is the closest I can get to giving you a Bend specific number.

So we're gonna get into household um usage when we get to sort of breaking it down by household type.

Um we're gonna get there in a in a few more slides.

But essentially uh saying that it is almost one entire feeder per year is pretty significant growth rate.

Um that is one of the biggest um percentages of growth that we have throughout our system.

So to say that in our community, which is pretty impressive.

You have some small ones, but you don't have a big one.

Yes.

Did that answer the average for the last five years or so or um yeah?

I mean, this data goes back to like 2018, but really you see that graph take off.

Yeah, um, 2020 to 2021 and beyond.

At least there's another way to say that is seven and a half a year, 34 substation.

So math in public sounds like four years buys you another substation at that rate.

Yeah.

Is that is that a way to say that?

Yeah, in our in our five to ten year plan, we have one substation that's new planned to be built.

Um, but you saw five of the seven existing substations are in that five to ten year plan of upgrades.

So that either means another 30 megawatts, another feeder, two substation transformers, it varies by substation and by location.

Okay, thank you.

Do you know where you're gonna build that new substation yet?

We are in land negotiations right now for property.

You can't say more.

I mean north and south and east.

East.

East, okay.

That makes sense given what we know about growth.

Yeah.

Could I just ask one last question on the previous chart?

Sure.

I don't understand why the bars have the white space under them under the projected data.

I would have expected it to be flat.

That's a good question.

I would have to ask our engineers that put this together.

I am not an engineer, um, so I will preface this whole conversation with when we get into details.

Um, I'm happy to write those questions down.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah.

Um, okay, so this is our current emissions um chart.

So HB 2021 passed in in 2021, has emissions reductions goals for the industry and owned utilities.

As well as we opened a uh request for proposals for renewable energy.

So we are in process of that right now, trying to solicit that input for generation resources.

We will have a much better understanding of the cost of those resources.

Umce that's um renewable energy energy.

Someone's phone is listening.

Reminder, everyone to silence your phones, please.

Uh once that request for proposals is closed, we'll have a much better understanding of the market and the cost.

So within HB 2021, there are cost off ramps for compliance, and what that means is not that the utility would not comply with the law, it just would push out the dates to protect affordability for customers.

And and when is it that you expect to have a better idea about all that?

Yeah, so the request for proposals is open currently.

I believe it's open all year.

So we would at the end of this year, we would have a better handle on that analysis.

After you've analyzed all the proposals and understanding proposals for what?

I'm sorry, I don't understand.

Uh for generation resources for renewable energy, basically to meet this requirement.

Okay.

So is that so I guess that when I look at this, I see this massive line that goes up between 2029 and 2030.

What is magically happening between 2029 and 2030 is so 2030 is when this uh current law asks us to be 80 percent clean.

So this is not that's us saying reality.

That's not reality, that's just saying what's the target.

Yeah, that's the target target.

Yeah, okay, but it also showing with your portfolio.

Uh so I guess that's the same.

So right, so we do so we have to show the compliance portfolio.

And right now, what the compliance portfolio is showing is that yes, we could need that, but that was before federal tax incentives went away, and before we have an understanding of what the market cost is for that, and we would have potentially been under that six percent cost off ramp that's included in the current legislation.

I our most recent filings of which um it was January 12th, so about a month ago, um we have some serious um questions around what that cost affordability will look like after we're going through this analysis.

So Lisa, can I ask two questions, please?

Well, I guess now a third because I've asked that.

Um first of all, uh when you get to 2030 or prior to 2030, you're you're gonna have to you're gonna have to make a call.

And if you get on that cost off ramp right here, is it true that two things happen at that point?

One, the cost off ramp per per preserves growth uh to the to the retail or to the to the residential customers, i.e.

does not cause a ginormous spike because of that cost off ramp.

Is that true?

Correct.

Okay.

That's why it's in the legislation.

And it's done at the sacrifice of green resources, potentially renewable resources at that point.

You're pushing the compliance state out.

Correct.

Is that true?

Correct.

Okay.

Now my third question then for you, Cassie, is you assume compliance in our fees right now.

And so what you're suggesting is that as we move through this process, we may have to change the cost model going forward if that compliance does not happen.

Yeah, that's correct.

And further to clarify, if that compliance did not happen, i.e.

the greening up of the grid further.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that would make the delta between a gas and an electric home remain lower because the compliance curve would not happen, i.e.

there would be a smaller cost for gas versus electric.

Is that true?

Yeah, correct.

Like with today's resource mix, if it were to stay exactly how it is today, there is there's not a significant delta between the emissions associated with gas or an all-efficient home over the lifetime of that.

Um, so then the corresponding fee would be would be very low because one you know that net amount we subtract out would be um it would be large, I guess.

So that is how the calculation is intended to work.

Right.

So we have a fee now based on the best available information right now that and to include what we're getting from Pacific Power.

That could change based on realities on the ground as we get closer to 2030 and your request for proposal.

Oh, that's true.

Okay, just want to make sure I understood that.

Thank you.

Yeah, and I also wanted to point out the orange lines here are historic um emissions reduction.

So 2022 was 13 percent, 2023 was 15.8, and 2024 was 18.6, keeping in mind the 2030 goal is 80 percent reduction.

So that's just to give you some context.

So then Megan.

Um I'm just to follow up on counselor Platt's um questions there.

So one of the things we might need to do if we move forward with the fee is to build in some kind of check-ins related to um, you know, when we adopt something, say this is gonna be in the implementation schedule.

Um given where you are, it's likely that's around when implementation would probably occur anyway.

So we could do a check-in there and then adjust things as needed, and then perhaps do another one a year or two later when we get closer to the actual 2030 date.

But we could build that into the actual adopting resolution or ordinance for the yeah, definitely.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

Like, if there's more clarity by the end of this year, then we could you could adopt a policy now and build in, like, you know, in February of 2020, you know, if it were to go into effect after that in February of 2027, the uh fee calculation will be reassessed based on that, and we would have to we would have to make other assumptions about the timeline.

So I think that's where we would just need to work with Pacific Power, like if if by the end of the year they can say with the RFP, they you know will exceed those cost caps by 2030.

We'd have to make different assumptions, like if not 2030, is it 2035?

So we'd have to work with the Civic Power if there was a date that we could put to that that feels more realistic, and we can always sort of just go more conservative on that, like put that date farther out to sort of like make sure we're not over you know over accounting for that.

But yes, it will be again it's it's dynamic, so it's a little bit complex, but I it should all it should work that way.

Yeah, Megan, do you have a question?

Um nokay.

So just one other point.

So Cassie, I just want to point out that that is a nice thing about this fee is that it can reflect can reflect the best data that we have on the ground and it's flexible.

And as long as we're doing this council rising suggests, we could we could flex and adjust based on best data available.

That's the intent, and that's why introducing this uh accounting for the sort of net emissions um is so important because it does allow it to be flexible with the situation on the ground, or just as the conditions change.

Thank you.

Okay, um, okay, so um I also had to make some assumptions.

This is a super complex um exercise.

So uh the assumptions that I made were uh, you know, Cassie and I have had lots of good discussions.

Um so I also use the 741 units to match city staff assumptions.

I also used a uh the housing needs assessment um number of units per year because that is the stated goal of the city of Benz.

Um I also kind of throw in their unit size matters.

So I waited um when we get into the demands per um housing unit type to reflect what the city staff was using, but I also um you know I had to make some assumptions there, so we can talk about what that looks like on the next couple of slides, and then utilities be build to peak demand.

Um we have to build the system for whatever the peak is of whatever facility is coming in.

So those are the assumptions I started with.

So at Lisa, can I just have you underline that last point there?

You build the peak demand.

Why did you do that?

Because if uh we built to an average and you all of a sudden turn everything on in your house, and you've gone over what that average is, then we have an issue with our equipment.

So it's designed, protect and provide resiliency in the grid, is what you're telling me.

Yes.

Thank you.

Um did I skip one?

I think here we go.

Okay.

Um, so I think there's a slide.

Okay.

Oh, there we go.

Oh.

Out of order.

Okay.

Sorry.

That's okay.

Okay.

So I'm just going to walk through this chart.

Um, starting on the left.

So the square footage of housing units.

Um, I made again an assumption.

I said 2% were gonna be pretty large houses.

Um I said 45% were gonna be around that mid mid-size house.

Um 33% were a little smaller, and then 20% um were in the 500 to a thousand square foot range.

Um with that, I then took the diversified peak demand um between winter and summer peak.

Um peak will be higher in the winter on an all-electric system than it will be in the summertime.

Um, and I worked with our engineers to put these numbers together.

Um, they're based on standards that we have for all electric homes in the region.

And so where I where I landed is if you use the um 741 total units, and this is making the assumption that every single housing unit will go electric.

Um, is it would be um a demand of uh a total demand of about six point seven three megawatts on an annual basis.

Um so again, the growth rate of Vend currently is 7.75 megawatts.

This is coming out to be 6.7 based on 741 units per year.

Again, that's an all-electric 100%.

We're gonna get into the percentages on the next slide.

Um if you use the housing needs assessment um number of units per year of 1650, um, it's 14.9 megawatts per year.

That's what they all 1650 were electric.

Correct.

Yeah.

Um gotta go backwards.

Okay.

Um, so this is taking uh the adoption rates into consideration, and these were provided by city staff.

So at a 65% adoption rate, um, it's 482 units, and that's an annual uh demand of 4.37 megawatts.

35% is 2.35, 25% um is 1.68.

Using the housing needs assessment numbers, again, taking the total 1650, breaking that down by 65%, it's 9.74, 35% is 5.24, and 25 is 3.78 megawatts per year.

And those are correlated to the different fee levels, but they're like opposite.

So the 25% adoption would be the low fee level since we're assuming less people electrify and just pay the fee instead.

And then 65% is the high fee level.

So I was just doing math because I had written down the assumption under the lowest about five and seven homes would not electrify, it would pay the fee.

So we're looking at two out of seven would be electric, and that's that's reflected in this number here.

That seems about right.

Right.

1.68 megawatts.

Okay.

We saw a couple of weeks ago that some 73% of homes were already being built electric, and I saw it recently.

It was updated to specify.

I think it's like 17% of single family homes are being built electric.

So this is 25% that includes that 17%, or is this 25% on top of our baseline that is already electric?

So I this is based on the 741 units that are being built in the future.

So I did not make any assumptions about current electrified rates.

Yeah, we didn't like subtract out what we would, you know, ex like the amount that we would expect already.

It's sort of the overall.

Yeah.

I guess my other question is each of these homes, even if they were had gas, and then we'd also have electricity.

We all have electricity to our homes, right?

So is this really just showing the the extra generated load beyond the baseline or no?

Uh no, um, let me find.

Right?

I mean, that's where that's what I'm saying.

We all have in them.

So our our past average and get as close to the.

I'm just wondering what the numbers reflect.

Right.

So the diversified peak demand KW number is based on all electric home data that we currently use as a standard.

So I did not make any, I mean, this is an all-electric number.

So for a 3,000 square foot house, the diversified peak demand is 13 kilowatts.

So that that's assuming there's no gas in that house.

That's an all-electric, all in but it does include electric load that is will be there even if you're a dual fuel house light load to that's what I'm saying.

And I don't really need to know exactly what that number is.

It assumes you know that that's included in this number.

It's not just the delta, it's correct.

Just full house.

Yeah, okay.

It's total house load.

Yeah, that makes sense.

And there are no assumptions about fancy extras like heated driveways or um EV chargers.

This is this is what we use when someone says you're gonna build a 2,000 square foot house that's all electric.

This is the number that we would base.

Although some of that data wouldn't, it would include houses that do have some of that load too, since it's yeah, yeah.

So this thing is an old gas house.

Yeah.

So that that 6.73 number um if it was not electric, it was just whatever we're doing today, the increase of that 741 homes is gonna be some fraction of that.

It's gonna be four megawatts or 3.2 megawatts, but they weren't all electric, they were just standard on the power.

Because those 741 are gonna impact the grid.

Correct.

Even if they're dual fuel, correct.

I guess what we're trying to figure out is what's the delta.

What is how much more is this versus yeah the baseline?

That's a good question.

I'm not sure that our information that we have can really illuminate on that.

Okay.

And it's gonna be true on the next slide as well.

The actual increase in additional demand due to just to this electrification effort is a smaller number than what we're seeing here because some of that's gonna happen anyway.

Those homes are gonna get built only the up and with electricity.

And I I kind of had a statistic on the last slide that might kind of help with that.

Um sort of.

Um, so this these are just kind of things to consider.

So um, as we started the presentation with infrastructure and all of those substations that are spread across the city event, um, location matters.

You know, some of those substations have more capacity than others.

So where the additional load goes does matter.

Um, infrastructure will be needed um to support efforts as the city grows, regardless of what you do with this policy.

Um, and then I just threw in their distribution uh substation land needs, so we need about three to five acres for a substation.

So just keeping that in mind.

Um and then load growth.

This is kind of gonna maybe get to that question.

So we this obviously does not none of this contemplates um business or industrial load growth.

Um, I want to highlight just the amount of load that is in the queue right now.

Um, and there is a a number on here for residential load.

So residential load currently for the queue that um we have is about 14 megawatts of of residential load.

Um, non-residential load is significantly more as to be expected.

They're higher users, um, and that maybe kind of helps put in perspective what to have.

What is it?

How do you get in the queue?

Yeah, um, so the queue is basically new projects that have come to us, they're in variety of stages of development, right?

Some of them are under engineering review, some of these are in construction.

I would say that that queue probably spans about five to eight years, and that is really what is what our system planners base um upgrades that are necessary on that queue.

And some of those projects could go away, some of them could change their load, some new projects could come online tomorrow and come and get into the queue tomorrow.

Um, so it is a variable number, but I I thought maybe that might be something that's helpful just to understand what's in the queue currently.

And in the queue means when you say five to eight years, that that's how long it takes to deliver the new capacity to serve them, or that's how long they're in there.

They're they're projecting that far out into the future.

Projecting that far out.

So there's customers in there that have told us about load in five years, like they're the load they're predicting in five years.

Um, there's also customers in there that will very likely come online in the next 18 months or faster.

At least this is your planning factor.

Yeah.

What this is this is what you got to plan for to deliver at that peak load.

Correct.

And this is just city event.

Yeah, that's just city event.

Um, and then lastly, uh utility infrastructure, housing affordability, and then compliance with HB 2021, all things to just consider.

Yeah.

This is wonky stuff.

It is.

I put the entire presentation was put through a reader and it comes back as postgraduate level to understand it.

So I'm gonna ask if you could explain in least wonky language.

I know it's hard.

Tell like talk about planning, right?

So we're talking about all the things that are that need to happen in order to serve um the growth now and the future growth.

Um when you say it's in the plans, what does that mean?

And who is paying for the infrastructure?

Just can you can you give me just some understanding of costs and what in the plans means?

Yeah, um, I will try and stop me if I start to get too wonky.

So when a customer comes to us, regardless of size, we ask them for their load, right?

Yeah, how much load are you gonna be adding to the grid?

That goes into a series of planning processes about what it it takes to serve that customer.

Yep.

Um customers are provided a customer allowance based on the load that's provided, and that goes toward the cost of the infrastructure to support that project.

Every customer that comes to us pays a portion of the cost of the infrastructure to support that project.

We also have what's called rate base.

Rate base is all the other customers, customer the the cost of utility infrastructure is spread among the entirety of the rate base.

So things like that large large infrastructure project I mentioned, project blueprint, that will get spread across customers in three states.

So not just where the infrastructure is located.

But every customer that asks to be connected to the grid does pay a portion of that connection cost, if you will.

And that's true for data centers and what what's required to serve data centers as well.

The same principle you just said, small small median business, small development of homes data center.

Not anymore.

Um so based on 3546, I think, which was passed last session.

Data centers will be actually any customer over 20 megawatts of load will be in a separate category called large load, and those customers will be required to pay for generation, transmission, and distribution to serve all three legs of the stool to serve that facility that's a large that's considered Oregon large load.

How it works for data centers and how the rulemaking goes on that is still yet to be seen.

Um but large load has a different um treatment in in Oregon law.

That's going forward, it's currently today, it's shared the way you already described, right?

Uh we implemented that process as soon as that legislation passed.

So if you're a customer over 20 megawatts, you're going through an entirely different planning process with cost um assumptions and calculations that are vastly different than a regular commercial or residential customer.

Okay.

Any other questions?

Uh Council Francisa.

Thanks.

Um sorry, is who's getting the presentation for this right now?

I'm a stream, I'm sorry.

Alisa Dunlap?

Alisa, thanks.

Um I didn't want to say the person can be some power, please answer my question.

Um my question is um, you know, I think I think the presentation is really kind of geared towards like uh having us believe that like all the new um demand um first of all is gonna be on this trajectory of what the previous demand growth has, which is probably not the case because as we move forward with electrification, we're um also moving forward with energy efficiency, um increasing insulation and in homes and things like that.

So historical trends don't represent current trends.

Um like looking at the one slide um with the like average demand for house.

I mean, that seems like a kind of an outdated standard of energy demand, even if it's an all-electric house, um, based on my my personal experience and all electric homes that I've built.

Um so I feel I feel like and you know, the other thing I think the presentation is geared towards is like basically saying like all this demand is gonna have to be met with like all this new generation, all this new trans you know transmission and expensive.

And like that that's just that would be the most expensive way possible for you know anyone to move forward.

Um more affordable way to move forward, is how Oregon's always done it, which is to really prioritize energy efficiency and and now how we're starting to do it from what we're seeing in the legislative session is to start looking at demand response.

So um so I'm wondering if you can kind of speak to civic powers um finance and those um so we participate in the energy trust of Oregon.

Um we there are significant energy efficiency savings through those programs.

We will continue to support those programs.

Um we have an active demand response program right now.

Um and that is ever growing and and changing based on customer feedback.

But those are programs that we already have going right now, along with Oregon Net metering and other um programs to offset energy usage.

Okay, thank you.

All right, any other questions for Lisa?

Keep going.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Sorry, you have to be up on the dietest question in a work session.

Sir, no, you can't interrupt the meeting.

This isn't a time for public comment.

I'm sorry.

If you want to send us an email, we'll try to get you an answer, but we're working through this as a council today.

Or come next week to our public meeting.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay, so I'm gonna switch gears now into talking about public engagement and the policy development and the next steps.

Okay.

Um I just have just a couple more minutes, and then we'll go into the discussion.

Um, so first I want to remind us of the policy questions that remain that we need a council to make decisions on in order to work towards establishing um the fee and and the incentive policies.

We talked about these in December.

There's three buckets.

The first one is fee design.

The questions that need to be answered about the fee design is what should the fee level be set at?

That's what we're starting to discuss today.

What exemption should there be, and what should the effective date be?

The second bucket is financial incentives, and the policy questions are what should we use the revenue from the fee, how should that be used to incentivize, what should it incentivize, um, and also how should the program be structured to maximize effectiveness.

And then the third bucket is about non-financial incentives and the policy questions are what levers should we use, what levers do we have at the city to incentivize electrification, also what specifically should we be incentivizing, and then also for that one, how should the program be structured to maximize effectiveness.

So we need to do stakeholder engagement to inform all of these policy decisions.

Uh we have different ways that we can do stakeholder engagement.

One way is to use an ad hoc committee.

This is a model we've been talking about a lot already with a temporary committee on electrification policy.

With this model, council would be expecting a recommendation from an ad hoc committee.

So staff will work with the in out another committee, make sure they gain knowledge, consider different perspectives, and deliberate amongst themselves to dealt to develop a recommendation to the council on specific questions.

Um in the model we've been discussing for this policy, we were asking that ad hoc committee to also do broader engagement with the public and specific stakeholders, and then asking them to integrate what they have learned from those engaged engagements into the recommendations to you.

Another way to do public engagement is for the council to do direct engagement with the broader public or specific stakeholder groups.

So that can take the form of round tables or listening sessions, and in this model, the council takes on the responsibility for listening to that broader swath of stakeholders, listening directly to the public.

Um, you already do that, but in sort of more of a uh a targeted intentional way, and then taking into consideration all that different feedback and then deliberating amongst yourselves to make decisions based on that engagement.

So in the meeting in January, you all expressed interest in thinking about what policy questions you might want to do direct council engagement on versus what policy questions you might want recommendations from an ad hoc committee on, because we can use a mix of both types, and so we have a lot of different things we need to get public engagement on.

So based on the discussions that we had in December and in January, we are recommending that for the fee policy questions, the council takes on those questions themselves and uses the direct council engagement approach to get feedback from stakeholders and make decisions on establishing the policy.

So that would include determining the fee level exemptions and the effective date.

Uh we could use listening sessions or round tables to get feedback on those questions over the next few months, and then and then we would make those decisions and uh we could work towards putting a policy together for adoption.

And then we recommend that once the council has worked through the fee design questions, we move forward with appointing the um temporary committee on electrification policy and have them focus on developing recommendations for both the financial incentives and the non-financial incentives.

So the scope for the um we called that ad hoc committee that T SEP, the scope for them wouldn't change dramatically from what we talked about last month, except that since the council will have already done the direct engagement on exemptions and the effective date, they wouldn't have to do that, they would be focused um primarily on the incentives.

So that brings us to the council discussion, and we need direction on the overall on the overall process, a few questions on the fee development part, and also on the incentive development part, and the subsequent the subsequent questions on the fee development and the incentive development will depend in part on the answer to the first question.

So I was thinking that the first question is do you support this recommended approach for policy development and stakeholder engagement?

And if not, how do you want to see it differently?

And I was thinking if we can get clarity on how that overall process looks.

Maybe we should start there, and then we can talk about the specific follow-up questions, or how I don't know how you want to facilitate.

But I'd like to just interject here.

I think what I'm looking to do is to take your discussion, summarize it, and then put that in the form of a motion that you would consider at your next meeting.

So we're really clear on where council is at in this policy development.

So especially as we look towards an engagement phase, and if we are in alignment with the recommendation to have direct council engagement on the fee design, I feel like we need to be clear about where the council is at, so it can help direct some of the focused questions on for that engagement, the format, etc.

Um, so I'll be looking to and kind of taking your notes and in real time trying to summarize so that we can bring this back for for that vote next week.

Sure.

I mean, I think what I was thinking, Cassie was to start with just hearing from counselors on where you're at with the fee given the information we received today and kind of go from there uh into next steps on process.

That sounds great.

Um, but I agree with the policy questions that you've put up.

So I don't know um if it'd be helpful to go to the levels of fee slide, if you can.

Um since there were some different levels being kind of offered there and what those look like, and I would like council to discuss what we think about these different fees, um, the way the fee is set up, which is on the previous slides, and what folks want to do going forward, and then we can get into more of the process part.

Sean, I'll jump at the chance.

I'm happy to start.

All right, why don't you start us off, Councillor Platt?

Uh I think where I sit on this um, and as a as I'm up here, is first of all, I really appreciate the update to the fee such that it includes the actual carbon that's incurred in producing the activity that exists right now.

So I appreciate that.

My view is informed by a couple of contingencies that I coalitions that I serve every Wednesday.

I wear this shirt right here.

This is the Bend Education Association union shirt.

I'm the only union member up here on this board, so I serve the union members, my brothers and sisters in this crowd.

I also serve the next row of people in this room every single day when I'm in the classroom, and I think about their future as well.

I think about shaping both the near-term, your jobs, and I think about their future.

And so this is a hard one for me.

And so when I look at that $9700 right there on a house, I say that's really big right here.

It used to be 13.5.

It's not anymore.

It's more realistic, and I like that this fee is adjustable going forward.

So when I look at this, I want to help with jobs.

I want to keep this affordable, and I want to look for the future for the people in the second and third row as well.

So I sit at the 50% level, is what I'm looking for for this fee.

Okay.

Councilor Mendes, can I come to you next?

Sure.

Go ahead.

Um I uh I'm also a union member, but I didn't have my t-shirt with me.

Um but I think so I had I wanted to see this is part of the difficulty of upholding our uh public meeting requirements are that we don't talk about this outside of this forum as a body.

So I I'm really curious to hear what others think about this.

Um I wanted to, in particular, I'm I'm thinking about three aspects of it.

So the three aspects are I want to know whether there's support for more of a nudge than a substantial fee, and I'll explain the rationale for that.

And then I've seen the uh the letters that some of you posted, uh sure not posted, but uh had published, and uh this idea of a pilot and what that might look like.

And of course, so I'll start with a pilot idea.

I think you know, you can have geographic pilots, location base, you can have time-based pilots.

I would be supportive of setting a time-to-limited pilot that said, let's let's collect some data.

If people are worried about affordability, let's see what the effects are on that.

And if we set that at say three years and commit to re-evaluating, uh that's shorter than any single council member's term, but would generate a significant amount of data to evaluate.

So I like the idea of a pilot.

Um in terms of the nudge, you know, I would I was reading the um community climate action plan update, and noted that in terms of impacts, the the building residential buildings um represent 28% of our local emissions, and energy related emissions overall in Bend are on a pretty good trajectory.

So we're reducing our impact in that area, uh decreasing by about one and a half percent.

That's a modest amount, but it's a good trajectory to be on.

I think there's good reason to think that trajectory will continue, even absent any kind of fee.

Um, in particular, things about talking about line extension subsidies, increasing the proportional cost of transmission infrastructure for gas, um, customer choices around heat pumps and induction stoves.

All of that is how we are already achieving 17%, 17.3% of single family homes are all electric.

Uh, and the rate is significantly higher for multifamily.

Now, if you care about carbon emissions, transportation related emissions already account for 44% of our emissions, and they've increased by 28% in the five-year period that this this update looks at.

So we have one and a half percent negative, that's a pretty good trajectory, compared to an even bigger share that is increasing by 28%.

So I feel like I'm much more worried about our lack of progress in that area, and that leads me to be more favorable for a nudge.

And um I think that's related to the local rationale.

Also, I want to know if there's support from others for figuring out what is the actual local impact of this fee.

Um so you know, if we're talking about the impact of emitting carbon, I want to think as closely as possible to our our local costs.

Um I think a nudge for me means I mean, I would support honestly, I think given all the trajectory that we're on, I would support a 10% fee.

And I wonder if we could get significant support for something like that.

Okay, thank you.

Council Riley.

Sure.

Um I was a I have been a union member in the past.

Um it's been a while.

Um I think I'm sort of taking more of a future focus with where I think we need to be and really thinking about the impacts of climate change and what it's gonna mean um for the future of our community, for the future of our region in terms of droughts and fires and smoke and health and all these sorts of things, um, and how that is also going to drive costs.

The less less action we take today, um, the longer it takes us to take action to reduce emissions and especially to reduce our use of fossil fuel, the more likely that we're gonna have worst-case scenarios in the future, and therefore greater impacts than all the things I already mentioned to our economy, to our lifestyle here, to our health.

Um, so um I think that's something that I've learned more and more as a counselor is that being future focused is really what the biggest and perhaps the most challenging part of our job is to really think about the future and being concerned about what's happening today as well.

Um I really appreciate the flexibility and the adjustability of this fee, as counselor Platt mentioned.

I think then the new model that has it as we're learning, we're evolving, and and I think that's a good good thing, and I think we have a much uh more rational approach to it.

I also think it's more legally defensible, and I think that that concern does drive me that concern as well as affordability concerns uh you know uh drive me to think more about a fee that is um certainly not the maximum, and and I'd offer um you know, I'm I'm interested in something more than a nudge, a very simple low, gentle nudge because I don't think it's gonna produce a lot of change.

I'd be interested in something more like 33% of the fee.

It's not quite any of the options that we have up there sort of cutting the middle between the 20 and 50 um but I think that that um gets us to a place where we're getting some uh a meaningful nudge to move us in the right direction um but it's um kind of considers the affordability concerns that are coming up in the community I think um the other big thing I would say about affordability is that I I honestly think that this is being framed as a as a false binary choice between an either or you either get some action on climate change or you protect affordability and that it's impossible to get both of those outcomes and I really just don't think that that's a viable I don't think it's the right framing.

I think it's inaccurate I think it's false and frankly I think it's being used to scare people in kind of a bit of a boogeyman I've seen this in a variety of other settings throughout my life often around environmental issues before I moved to Benn in Seattle um and most of the research and stuff that that I saw about those issues in the past show that generally those binary choices are not actually how things work in the real world and as you implement stuff.

And so I just want to call that out I I think that we can I think as one commenter said in an email to us we can walk and chew gum.

We can protect affordability in our community that's mostly about supply but it's also about demand in our community we have a lot of people who want to be in this wonderful place that we live and it's those two pieces together that are driving affordability.

We've done a lot we will continue this council is very committed to doing that going forward.

I think we can do that and we can take some action um on uh meaningful action on reducing our use of fossil fuels so um but I would support that kind of 33% okay ordering off menu all right that's all right that's what we're here for.

Go ahead um councilor measure I'm I'm enthusiastic by uh your response um and especially um bringing up the transportation um and when that when you say that what comes to my mind is the 53% of people that drive in to Bend every day to go to work um because they cannot afford to live here.

So um that is something that is on the top of my mind that I would and if and if we want to do something about the environment getting people to live in the city where uh they work and be able to get to work walk or or bike or or whatever to work um is to me the number one thing that we can do um on this council.

Um I am really struggling it's kind of come as zero surprise to any of you but I'm really struggling with this um and I'm struggling with a program that is it kind of seems to me like we're robbing Peter to PayPal and um especially with this 35% admin fee um that is money that is directly being taken um you know from the the cost of housing basically and put into and and and then distributed into this this program um this large program that we have to to set up and um make sure we keep going um I am also very concerned about um the practicality still I am the the fact of the matter is as of 2024 well over half of Pacific Wars uh Pacific Powers um was from gas and coal um and and we are not there yet I truly believe that you want to be there and but we aren't there yet and there are so many unknowns right now it seems to me that it would be um just a really really bad idea for us to take this leap without knowing what is coming next um when it is going to add to the cost of of housing and it is going to create a new a large program with with not a lot of I'm not seeing the flexibility like like you are all said.

So I am for something else um that maybe it is a nudge I I can I'm concerned with 10% because then if you still add a 35 you know percent admin fee to that then it just seems like a program to have a program and so I would be interested in in talking about maybe what are some other things that we can do in in that area.

And I totally agree with you this should be a locally something that is local.

And so we should have local data and um we why we should have a a pilot program that has you know renewable gas in one area and and all electric in another area and have a you know one that's that's that's a a regular mix that we have today and get some local information so that we can make the best decision and I don't feel like we're making um the best decision as it stands right now.

Um I agree with so many little bits that everybody said.

Um I'll just start with everything because yeah, I mean I agree.

I think that 35% energy is kind of a hard thing to justify to the community.

Um there's a lot of programs out there, we're not gonna stand up and do program neighbor impact as you know, energy efficiency work, energy suspecting does energy efficiency work.

Like, I I think we can do better than that, and and you know, and I would encourage staff to come back to us with um a 20% or less on the um I um I I agree too about the transportation, you know, and I think thank Councilor Mendes for pointing out that stark difference, um, and I just want to remind everyone we have a lot of multi-family buildings going on in Bend and they have no EV charging or very well even charging in them, um which is a frustration of mine.

Um I um I I think on kind of a bright side too, just something for folks to be aware of, you know, the building code gets updated um at the state level every few years, and it's in the process of an update, um, and there will be more energy efficiency measures coming to residential construction and commercial construction, of course.

Um those um codes will all be published in the fall, and I believe go into effect uh January 1st of next year.

Um I'm um I I mean I think I think it's just important to kind of keep that in mind, and you know, the world the world is really uh in in this area is really advancing, and so it kind of makes me um I think to counselor Riley's point feel like this is not a deep state scenario, and I um I mean I I guess I'm biased.

I worked in this industry for a very very long time, but it's this is not a doomsday scenario by any means.

So I guess this is all to say um I um I really hope that as a city council um and as a city staff that we are uh paying attention to the fact that we have a community climate action plan, and this is one of many um programs uh and ways that the city is looking at reducing climate emissions.

Um I am um gonna align counselor Platt though, if I have to vote, um I will order from the menu and go with the 50% below some money.

Okay, thanks.

Thanks, Council Franzosa.

Um okay.

So I think first I want to say that our staff has done an incredible job trying to bring us really good information about this really complex topic.

And I think what we are trying to do here with our climate action plan and this policy is we are trying to lead, and that is really difficult on complex issues like this, and especially the issue of climate change, which is a collective action problem.

It is everybody in the world, we are all part of this issue, right?

And it is affecting all of us in different ways.

And we are seeing it.

If you were here in January, what the weather was in Bend, what our snowpack is, what our summers have been like, one of the hottest years on record is coming up, I think.

This is a thing that affects us.

So I don't, I I understand um we want to find a little slice of local, and I just want to acknowledge that for a problem like this, it is very hard because what every single person does matters, but there's so many of us contributing, you know, uh to this issue that it's hard to parse out exactly what me not recycling one water bottle does to the global temperature, right?

It's just a really complex issue.

So I think we're trying to grapple with something that's quite difficult, uh, which is why per Cassie's timeline we've spent a lot of time on this trying to figure out what it is we can do meaningfully at the local level to do our part to try to reach our community climate action plan to slot in with all the different changing things that are happening at the state and federal level, which do not make this easier, right?

Um that law is probably gonna change, my guess that 2030, we're probably gonna have to adjust at the state level at some point.

The federal administration's gonna change, things are gonna come and go.

Um so what is it that we can implement and start to do to nudge or signal or start to say um we're gonna shape the growth of Bend in the way that we want for more sustainability, um keeping in mind all the other factors that people are bringing up.

And I really believe when I'm approaching this more and more as I'm seeing this, I'm thinking about continuous improvement in how we try things out.

It's okay for government to try new things and to build something, to measure it, to learn from it, and then keep iterating and say that didn't quite work, we have to adjust.

The numbers aren't coming in quite right with specific power, we have to adjust, right?

But there is a point where you have to try something, and so I think that's sort of why I'm thinking about it.

There is a consequence of doing nothing.

There is a consequence of doing nothing.

There are consequences of doing something.

This is what we're talking about a lot, but there's also a consequence of doing nothing.

Um so I'm trying to grapple with what's the right level of policy to try out.

And I'm totally supportive of a time-based pilot or a sunset or some check-in dates that are mandated, which we have done before with policies on council, we say you have to come back and check with us before we take the next step.

I think that's a great way to look at this to try it out.

And I and I do want to, you know, address some of the things that folks have told us and some of the signs even here saying energy choice.

Like, I just want to say, like, when I have gotten into homes and bend, I I didn't have much of an energy choice, right?

If I wanted more electric appliances, that that choice had been made for me, right?

And so I think what we're trying to do is create an environment where there's just a little more parity, right?

On these choices that are still gonna exist.

And as we saw under the 20% fee, which is probably what I would support, um, five out of seven homes are probably still gonna be gas homes, right?

Um, so we're not we're not forcing something, we are nudging, we are sending a signal, which is sort of where we have landed as a council and why we're here with a fee, is trying to send a signal to to start this transition because it is a transition we need to make, and I think everybody here agrees that there is a transition that needs to be made in order to address climate change.

It's just sort of the how we get there.

That's tough.

Um, I do want to also just state just for folks who are listening.

I know most of the people in this room know this.

We are talking about new construction.

We're not talking about people's existing homes.

We're not talking about people having to change their homes that they live in at all.

So I just want to make sure that that's really clear.

And this doesn't apply to commercial, and it doesn't apply to multifamily, right?

Um, which multifamily has already moved this way on its own, right?

It's the single family smaller homes that have not yet.

Um, so I think that's where I land is I I am very cognizant of the affordability.

I agree with Steve, 9,000 is way too high.

I'm looking at something like 20% or eight, even a little lower.

I was looking through our fee schedule, you know, all the other fees that homes have, there are some that are higher than that, that are some that are lower, right?

Um, and I think part of the work of the of uh the accompanying incentive program is taking a look at some of these other ways that we can um reward people who are making choices to have more efficient homes and um and homes that are better um for sustainability of growth in Bend.

Um, but I think that's where I land is around 20% or less.

And uh, you know, from my notes, we've got a couple people on the higher side of that and a couple people on the lower side of that.

So that seems like a decent compromise.

But I do need to hear from council if we are ready to move forward with this fee, we need to make a decision for our community so they know what decision we've made, um, and we need to move forward with the next parts of this policy discussion, including what the timeline is for implementation, what any exemptions might be.

But I need to I think we want to send the staff a clear message of what it is we want to do, and we're not quite there yet.

So um, can I see okay?

So we have two people on the 50%, so we do not have a majority, I don't think, to go to 50% on this.

Um councilor Riley had suggested 33%.

Is who who would support 33%?

Got a couple.

Counselor Francisa's she's popping on here, it looks like we'll wait for her.

So we don't have support for 50.

Do you support 33%, Counselor Francesa?

Yeah, okay.

Okay, so there's three for that.

So um we'll keep moving downward.

Um 20% is something that I could live with as a spot to start with.

Can I see hands for 20%?

And could I just point something out about 10%?

Go ahead.

That this is not the way this is framed is 20% uh is uh 1,954 dollars, assuming that a developer does not that installs uh all the maximum.

And much lower numbers for other appliances.

So in effect, it is less than 20%, because I assume that some people will probably choose the more a la carte model.

Right, correct.

Okay, that's a good point.

Um, and then counselor, I'll allow Council Perkins, Councilman, as you had to kind of advocate for something less.

It sounds like we kind of have a majority that would support that level of fee, but if you want to continue any discussion on whether that should be lower, I'm gonna open that up.

No, okay.

Okay.

All right.

So I think per that, if we've sort of landed on where we think the fee is going to be, I think we need to talk about um the approach from here, right?

Um, so because there's still questions about what is the implementation timeline of that fee, what what might any exemptions to that fee be look like?

Um so I think we need to talk about that next.

And Cassie, you had was the other slide that sort of said council does this.

We had suggested um that we use listening sessions or round tables to inform those fee pieces.

So if you've sort of landed on 20% for a fee level, and we can still use the whatever that engagement looks like to get feedback on the fee level too.

Um so the question is is you know, do you want to move forward with hosting listening sessions or round tables?

What should that look like to you on the questions of the exemptions and the effective date?

I I support the staff recommendation on this.

I think that it reflects our earlier discussion around um the council really owning the fee design and uh fee level, and so that part being council driven, and then the incentive developing uh development being for the temporary committee.

Okay, I think it just makes sense and straightforward and all right.

Let's see, Councillor Francosa's hand and then we'll come back.

Go ahead, counselor.

Thanks.

I was just gonna suggest, like in the um three of these listening sessions, like to really have some solid information for folks about you know the advantages of all electric homes.

I mean, I've actually heard from folks in the community that I know I know Jesse, your slide there's a website or whatever, there's been some PR or whatever around it, but like I think a lot of folks in the community don't realize that like when you go to an old electric home, there's a lot of equipment that's normally takes up square footage in your house that does not need to be in the brand space in your house.

So the advantages like that and and approaches that um I think I'd encourage you to do that within the listening session, so it's not just like you know that it's I don't know, I feel like a productive and positive conversation is my encouragement.

And then I would say as far as timeline goes, like I I don't know the details of the dates that this it can't be discovered when this you know updated um built in code will be coming out, and that might be a nice timeline to just align the feet with when that code take goes into effect because that you know the building community, the design community is all sort of inside around that timeline for the state building code updates in some cases.

Okay, got that council members?

On on the timeline, uh I want to know if there's support for uh asking staff to look into more local numbers.

And the reason for that is we've we have seen the the numbers have been refined, um, and I and I appreciate that, but I think in terms of putting this fee on the the strongest footing that we can uh it seems like it would be it would be useful to have it based in terms of uh local impact.

And if we did that, hypothetically, and that told us one what you know if the if that number ended up being significantly different, I would want to know that.

So is there interest in uh uh directing staff to look into the those local numbers?

Cassie, can you what part of the thing is?

Tell us what that looks like for the other thing.

Are you referring to um determining like a sort of like a local cost of carbon as opposed to a social cost of carbon?

And that is that what you're referring to?

Yes and that would be trying to understand what local cost the city may act incur to um address climate change, with this which the social cost of carbon as a concept sort of does, but at more of sort of this like global macro scale, so a different way you could look at it is a a little bit more um a little bit more straightforward of like what will the city of Ben costs be?

Um, and that is you know aligned well with how we how we impose fees a lot of the time.

So we could we could look at that.

There's not really a lot of precedent for doing that.

So it would be um a research project for sure.

And I don't even know that I could put a specific timeline on it, it would be months at least to kind of like dig into it and figure out if we can get the right subject matter expertise to put that together, and if we wanted to do that, we would uh we would probably need to not move forward with like the public the round tables and sort of discussing those other things.

So we could do that exploration.

I would think we would at least lead a couple of months to start that exploration.

Maybe in a couple of months we have enough that we can come back to you and say here it is, or we might come back to you and say, here's where we've gotten, here's some additional research we still need to do.

Um and then it would it would change that equation.

So then we would have to sort of like uh we would you know we would talk about the fee level and the exemptions and the effective date after that.

So we would kind of push that whole timeline back.

Wouldn't a pilot provide that information?

Or what kind of pilot, I guess, would how would we gather not bad information?

Well, I mean, a local, a local pilot um would give us local numbers.

Um I I guess I'd it's uh it's the question of is the social cost of carbon and how do we divide out Ben's portion of that?

I'm not sure measuring which homes elect.

I'm I guess I don't know how that would give us that information.

I mean it wouldn't be exactly the same information, but it's a way to get local numbers.

But you we would the idea is that you're sort of future casting like over a 50-year period, what are the costs the city of Ben would have to incur.

So the type of pilot we've heard about and from some of the letters and some of the feedback about building electric and seeing what the what the rates are, what the reliability is, would that's just different type of information.

I'm not not saying that it's you know might not be valuable in certain instances, but it's a different thing.

So I do think that I mean I would support that because I mean I think correct me if I'm wrong, but this is already an unprecedented area, and so we don't really have any precedent that we can follow.

Yeah, so it's it's another unprecedented area, and I I feel like it's important to put the fee on the surest footing that we can, and this would be one way to do that.

So I would be supportive of giving that time to to do with that at least preliminary research.

Can I offer something that might scratch that itch, Counter Mendes?

If I would uh at least I hate to bring you back into this, but um request for proposal for more uh renewable energy.

What is the timeline for that to uh be answered?

Yeah, I think the hope is that we'll have a better sense of the market by the end of this year-ish.

By the end of year, okay.

Right, because that would inform our basic costing, right?

On this number.

Uh okay, I'm not was hoping for a shorter timeline than that.

I still think I think it would be different in information.

The type of information you'd look for for like what additional local costs would be incurred.

It's as the city of Ben, so it's not necessarily what the resident what what people will pay because of Pacific Powers cost for energy supply.

It would be things like we have uh wildfires we need to respond to we invest this much money in wildfire response, that sort of thing.

So uh we've done a little bit of work to sort of think about that concept and how you would scope it, but um it's a little bit complicated how you define that.

Yeah, and I guess Cassian was pivoting away from sort of that local number calculation and more towards updating the current costing that we have right now here that Danielle's come up with based on the renewable percentage that's gonna be in the grid going forward.

So I was I was I was trying to put it on you know a little firmer data or a little updated data, I guess, is it work?

So I I generally support using the social cost of carbon.

I think the mayor said this is collective action problem that's happening everywhere, every bit of carbon emissions that I emit when I drove my car here tonight, um, are are impacting everybody across the globe, and that's the same for my friends in Kenya that are producing emissions and you know everywhere.

And and um I I know that it's controversial topic, and I know that our federal administration is doing everything they can to undermine it right now.

Um but to me, conceptually, because it's this big collective action problem, I think these are the kinds of costs we need to talk about.

The full picture, that's the point.

Um, and that's you know, honestly, what we need to internalize.

I mean, we we often put these costs somewhere else, so you don't want to ignore it.

We want to remove them from prices to keep things cheaper.

They show up somewhere else and we pay for it in different ways, whether that is the smoke that we have in the community because we haven't acted yet and the cost to go to the hospital and all these sorts of things.

So I support using the social cost of carbon.

I think it's the right approach.

Um I think it will stand the test of time barring the problems that we're dealing with right now nationally.

Um so I I don't approve I don't support moving that direction.

And I guess to be clear, I support social cost of carbon.

I was just talking about updating the fee charge.

Yeah, I agree on the timeline.

I think we should build into any implementation process a check-in.

Um, I would say, you know, three to five months, three to six months after your RFP deadline, because it's gonna take you some time to analyze all that and actually produce meaningful information for us to make decisions on, um, and then another check-in when we get to 2030 and adjustment period.

I think that should be built into the ordinance from the beginning.

Right.

All right, Councilor Francosa, do you have any opinion on social cost of carbon versus uh local research?

No.

The memories of representatives.

Okay.

Yeah, I'm I'm also okay relying on social cost of carbon.

It went through a pretty extensive process to be created.

I I don't I just don't seem to I I don't think we have the capacity at the city level to recreate that kind of analysis um in a way that's gonna be timely and accurate.

Um so I'm okay using the the social cost of carbon and doing with our adjustments and and other things that we've done to sort of capture that this is talking about local um slice of that pie as it were, and not just what is a gas, you know, thing cost in abstract, right?

So I think we've done some work to sort of make that specific.

I think also I will say by by keeping this fee lower, we are be you know, having more of that argument of that it's roughly proportional, right?

If we had maybe done the maximum fee, I think we're in much shakier ground on if this is proportional to impact in our community.

Um, but I think I'm okay with the social cost of carbon at this point.

So, Eric, we've been taking notes.

Yes, what I have is on the fee design uh 20% level using the social cost of carbon uh carbon uh on engagement that council would take on the direct engagement on the fee design as recommended by staff.

We've got some concepts around implementation timeline around check-ins uh prior to the policy and then at 2030 with you know, and then also building code aligning to you know implementation plans to any changes to the building code.

I think that's still a little fuzzy for me.

I'm not sure if that's needed to be.

Well, I think we need to talk about that later.

I don't think we're gonna talk about that, finish that tonight.

But what I would like to do is kind of put this in the in the form of an issue summary with a formal decision at the next meeting.

So if as long as I've captured that, that summary, um, we'll work on how we would uh put that in the in a in a motion.

Can I ask a question?

So are so my fellow counselors, are you saying that you want to have a listening session with people to talk about the fee level?

Because that's that's what is shows up there to inform final decisions on fee level, or I guess I'm trying to figure out what we're trying to get out of these listening sessions.

I think one of the things that we heard is people were very concerned that there wasn't going to be a level of uh opportunity for more feedback that we're just making decisions and going on and and um and that we took some of that away by the shift from the committee.

Yeah, right.

So um I think we're trying to say, well, here's the direction we're going.

What final feedback do people have?

We're moving forward of the fee of some kind.

We're currently talking about 20 cent, 20%.

You know, whether or not we're gonna change that, I don't know, but we consider that feedback.

I think we have heard that we need some input from Cascade Natural Gas and try to get that scheduled, right?

So that's something that we're gonna want to do at some point here.

Well, yeah, the the request around presenting on renewable natural gas, I think we can have that incorporated into this process because that may play into sort of ideas around exemptions.

But yes, I think I think now that we've sort of we have a majority of folks that want to go with a number, let's also have community input on that number, right?

And I think I think for for the community, there's a majority of folks on council that want to try this policy.

So I don't think this round table is don't try this policy.

I think that's what I'm asking.

I think I think we do need to be clear.

I think I we'll try to be clear, and this is similar to the the transportation fee discussions that we have of like we're doing a thing, so we want your input on the thing, not your input of don't do the thing, right?

I I think we have a majority now that are saying we want to move forward with this.

I think we want people to react to this number and sort of what we've said here today is the rationale for that, um, and as well as talk to us about exemptions, um, especially the building community and the implementation timeline.

Okay, so I think that makes sense.

It's consistent with whether it's tree code, the transportation utility fee, SDCs.

Like this is the way we've approached many of these discussions with the community.

But I think it is important for people to be able to react to what the decision has been tonight because before tonight there really hasn't been a clear number.

So now there is a number for people to react to, and I think that's important.

Right.

Okay.

And we can maybe, Eric, like in the time before the next meeting.

I can spend some time thinking, being a little bit more specific about like listening sessions, round tables, these three different topics.

Like I want to think a little bit about what the best way to structure that is so I can sort of try to include that in the next one, and that can be part of the issue summary.

Yeah, in the issue summary because for the community, you know, what we have planned in our work, we've got a pretty busy work session schedule over the next couple of months.

We have slated April.

April 22nd we have held, yeah.

Would be that opportunity for uh listening session, and again, we would base it on here is kind of where council is at, so that there's something to respond to with some very specific targeted questions around exemptions and implementation, and we'll we'll work to kind of help frame that up for you for next week's decision.

But it gives folks a chance to understand where you are at and how best to engage.

Yeah, and I think we'll want to there's a lot of information here, as Councilor Perkins mentioned, it's pretty hard to understand.

So we and to Council Franzosa's point, I would love us to have something prepared and sort of a web page or something weeks prior to that so that folks can engage and maybe learn a little bit before they come to that listening session.

I think I mean I'm I think we're also saying we're not moving forward with the pilot first and then implementing the fee at this point, right?

Just to be clear about that.

I think the only thing decision that we've made is just this is the level of the fee at this point.

We're saying yeah, I don't think that's really been the decided totally.

And that could that may be part of the implementation discussion.

Yeah.

Okay, the other the other questions were about no more questions.

No.

No, no, it's not.

Oh, it was about the um at a at some point we would come back and appoint that the T set for the incentives, but I think it makes sense.

That's so much will happen between now and then that maybe we just revisit that at the next work session when we're sort of closer to seeing what happened with the stakeholder engagement and then how that informs how we approach the incentives.

Does that sound good?

Yeah, I yeah.

I don't I don't it it would be hard for them to get started before we're sort of finished with the right and because part of the questions I was asking was the discussion we had in in January was explore pilot, that type of thing.

So that's where I think that uh a lot of that's gonna come up.

We'll be able to scope that group better after we get through this process.

So I don't think that we need to discuss it further.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, got it.

All right.

Okay, thank you.

Thanks, everyone.

Thanks, everyone, for being here.

All right.

We have one more topic on the uh work session today, which is the transportation safety action plan.

So we're gonna transition over to that.

Not gonna say shifting gears.

Shifting gears, no, you said that, not me.

I've I've made enough jokes.

I'm out of jokes.

Thank you.

Yeah, gasoline.

Yeah, sorry.

Is Tyler in person or there he is?

I didn't see you.

Tyler, weren't you under the weather?

Better?

Well, great.

Okay, good.

See, we said all this stuff about transportation.

This is the exciting part.

That's all right.

Well, if we start doing a war on cars, we got people to show up.

Is that a draft?

We'll talk about that later.

What goodness?

Yeah.

Are we ready?

All right, we will read this as quickly.

Uh mayor and council members.

I am Tyler Deke, manager.

Could you work?

Either shut the door or just ask them to move down the hall.

Yeah, thanks.

Oh, yeah.

Tyler Dekke, manager of the Bend Metropolitan Planning Organization, and with me is our Matt Kittleson and Miranda Beras from Kittleson Associates.

And we're here just to give a quick update on the Bend Transportation Safety Action Plan.

Next slide.

So a couple slides, just tell you about who we are in the O just as a refresher.

And then uh the Kittleson team will jump in and tell you what a TSOP is and why we're doing it.

Work completed today.

We'll talk a little bit about some potential opportunities for education outreach related to transportation safety, and then we'll talk about next steps, and then you all have 30 seconds for a QA at the end of the sweet.

Next slide, please.

Next slide.

So just I don't know if everyone here knows who we are, Ben Metropolitan Planning Organization.

We are transportation planning entities.

Um we include representatives from local, state, and federal transportation agencies.

We are federally designated.

Um and we coordinate transportation for the entire urbanized area, which I'll show in just a moment.

And we we receive federal funding for our operations.

Next slide, please.

The map.

This map shows our boundary, which is only slightly larger than the city of Bound.

And so most MPOs across the country cover multiple cities.

We're unique.

I mean we're a very small group that's a single city MPO.

Um we're a standalone entity, our boundary does extend beyond the UGB.

The city and the MPO have an agreement.

The city provides staffing and administrative support to the MPO.

We do receive state funding that we then distribute out to our partners for projects throughout the community.

We have our own board, which includes two city council members, counselors Mendez and Rylight, Deschutes County Commissioner Chang, an ODOP representative as well as Cascades East Transit.

Next slide, please.

So that's the shoots river woods in Temelow, basically, plus Bend.

Yeah, so shoot over Woods, Tomalau, Tetheroe.

So yes.

All right, I'll turn it over to Matt to jump in.

Great.

Thanks, chance to talk about the transportation safety action plan.

So just as an overview, what is this plan?

The City Band already has one.

We'll talk about that.

And really, this is implementing the safe systems approach.

It's a component of the safe systems approach that the Federal Highway Administration has.

And that approach is really a multidisciplinary framework for how to have people not die on our roadway system.

So that's how we design our system well, post crash care, slower speeds, all these things.

So a TSAP is a component of that that the city can have that focuses on evaluating crash trends, issues based on the current data that we have.

We'll talk about the data that we're looking at and really coming up with strategies and decision making policies around how to do everything we can to reduce fatal and serious injury crashes on the roadway system.

And so you'll hear that a lot when we talk about the TSAP is reducing fatal and serious injury crashes, and we'll talk about why we talk about those together also.

Next slide, please.

So this is of course in line with goals that you all have as a council, which is really just making the system safer for everyone.

We talk about safety, we always say reliable.

One thing I like to point out is that one of the biggest crop causes of crash of um of unusual congestion on our system is crashes.

So just making the system safe makes our system flow better too.

We don't have interruptions as you go, but of course, the human life component of it is the most important part of part of that.

Um so this is just a can the TSAP is a key component of reaching that goal that we all have as a city.

Next slide, please.

So looking at data, um, 2022 to 2024, this is just a splatter graph of crashes all around the city.

Um if you look at this in rough numbers, the number of reported crashes is about a thousand per day per year, about 2.7 per day.

Um we know that number is higher because a lot of the low the lower um severity crashes don't get reported, vendor vendors, things like that.

Um, and so we'll look at this data.

We'll look at a full five years of data.

Um the current reduced data that we have is 2019 to 2023, so that's the time frame that we're evaluating.

And then when I say reduced, it means that it's been through a process that we know the data sets reliable.

Um, and so we will look uh at this in much more detail.

But zooming in on some of the things that you're talking about, next slide, please.

Just the fatal crashes, so not looking at the injury, the severe injury crashes, but just looking at the fatal crashes, you can see these are all over the city, but we know there's some things that are that are common with these.

One they are mostly on the larger order roads, so arterial collector roads.

We're seeing roughly three to five per year.

Um, and I'll show you uh the next slide here that's been roughly um similar over time.

We've seen that that stay pretty steady.

Um, but they're all over the city.

You know, we're not seeing really any any one clustering of them.

So it looks like there's quite a bit on the Franklin core corridor, Franklin to Bear Creek.

Yes, and that's really that higher order roads.

Um thing we'll talk about too is that the data we have legs a little bit, right?

So when we make improvements, so last I'll give you one example.

So last time the TSAP identified the 2019 T 2019 TC 2019 TSAP.

I know that's a seven year.

Uh it identified Bear Creek and um and Pettigroup as a high priority location.

A lot of things have changed there, most notably we have roundabout now.

So we would still expect to see crashes in those locations because we haven't yet had crash data that uh reflects that changes.

So it takes some time.

Um it's why we want to use a data-driven approach to make decisions on crashes, not just chase crashes around the system.

And that's one of the key components of a TSAP is having a data-driven approach of strategies that we know are effective.

When we see trends, you know, high order roads as a trend, um, vulnerable user type crashes as a trend.

What are the strategy strategies that we can implement that attack those types of crashes globally, not just chase where they were on the system.

But it's important to know where they are because we can see trends at individual locations as well.

Next slide, please.

So speaking of trends, one thing we're seeing in the city within the MPO boundary, this is a graph showing fatalities and serious injuries.

I'll take this second to talk about why we look at these together.

So obviously, fatal injury crashes are crashes that result in in someone dying.

Serious injury crashes are people that are that have significant injuries as a result of a crash.

The differentiation of those two things can be relatively minor in terms of whether somebody dies or seriously injured.

So both of those are significant, and we there might be things that are we hopefully we prevented both cases.

So we look at those together because we don't want to distinguish between those two in a significant way.

Oh, someone didn't happen to die, so the crash wasn't severe.

No, it was severe enough to cause significant injury.

We we care about it.

So the trends that we're seeing here, first I'll note this is mirroring a state-level trend at the same uh really the graph looks almost identical.

Fatal and fatal crashes are about the same, but we're seeing a large uptick in serious injury crashes.

The honest answer is we don't on it, we don't know why yet at the state level there hasn't been a trend that's identified.

There's how crashes get reported, um, there's changes in speed that happened during COVID.

We don't know the answer yet.

There's speculation on it, but we want to dive into it uh at the state level, but also at the local level.

So we'll do that through this work.

Next slide, please.

Um so just an update on where we are.

So Ben was actually one of the I'll call them a first generation TSAPs back in 2019.

The county and the in the city adopted a TSAP about the same time.

The county is in the process of just finalizing an update to that document, and the city is doing the same.

So now we're on to what we're calling, I think really kind of a second generation for the state.

We'll update for those completed projects that I talked about and just see what's changed over the last um five or six years.

We're looking at this the study area, we're looking at all roads within the MPO boundary, so extending out to the to the the outside of the city, um, looking at private roads, looking at public roads, looking at ODOT system.

We are going to differentiate trends from a highway versus a local system purview.

We think that's important because crash trends on a highway might be very different than crash trends on a local system.

We want to understand why, so we'll do that work through this process.

Um so there's lots of reasons to update and identify new emphasis areas and new trends that will be out of coming out of this.

Um, and also there's new funding sources.

So the the IIJA, the uh the current federal transportation legislation funded part of this study through the Safe Streets for All grant program.

This is the planning grant side of it.

There is the implementation grant side of it, assuming that there's an extension of that funding, which is hopeful at this point.

I think that's uh an outcome that could happen with just an extension of the transportation bill.

There could be more funding for that.

And there's been some successes locally of entities getting implementation funding, not to mention state level funding, etc.

TSAPs are just really important mechanisms to get things done because safety is is a very uh well-understood need in our transportation system right now across across the country.

Next slide, please.

And this is uh I'll turn it back to Tyler to talk about um some other ongoing things.

Oh, sorry, I have one more slide after this.

So just our our approach is on this is um right now we're working on evaluating data, so we've just started doing the analysis of the data set, so don't have any trends to show you yet, but we're starting that process in the spring.

We'll go through analyzing that data, looking at priority areas we're seeing, so those trends and emphasis areas, summer fall of identifying the projects and strategies to address those those areas we identified, and then uh moving into uh a year from now, really adopting an updated TSAP and then working towards implementation on that.

So uh I'll talk a little bit about work today, but before I go into that, any questions on kind of the overall what we're doing and why?

Questions?

How's it relate to the TSP and is this become incorporated into the TSP?

Like, do we formally adopt it as a council?

Is it just the MPO that adopts it?

What's the relationship between the two?

Well, the city's gonna be will be launching into an update to its TSP through the as part of the CFOC.

Right, but that's like two three years out.

Yeah, so that's a um depending on the outcomes of this, it could be an amendment to the existing TSP.

And if not at that point, then I assume that most of what's comes out of this process will be folded into that bigger TSP update two to three years from now.

So it could inform the update of the TSP.

Yes, essentially the safety component of the transportation system plan.

Got it.

But we don't do we adopt this document or is it just the MPO?

MPO will adopt it.

Yeah.

Okay.

Next slide.

We're completed to date, so it's just of things that happened so far.

We have a website, so you can go check that out.

We have we've had our first advisory committee meeting, which includes a broad cross-section of folks from law enforcement to other agency partners, et cetera.

So it's really a multidisciplinary look at what are the trends that we're seeing and what are the things that are that people are noticing their own purviews.

Um that was just a couple weeks ago.

Um we've had a couple documents that have been produced, an engagement plan, which um there's uh an engagement component to this work of going out and connecting with people where they are about hearing what how transportation um safety affects them.

And Tyler and his team will be working on a lot of uh a lot of elements of that.

Um and then other um kind of more framework type documents.

One just to review the existing plans of policies, um, to make sure we're creating a firm basis, and then the analysis framework, which is how we're gonna do this work so that we're all in the uh a strong footing with that um approach.

So those documents are available for review.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Tyler to talk about some other kind of related work going on in the region.

Next slide, please.

So we've heard and I've been in discussions with city staff and a couple of city council members about an interest in safety messaging and trying to get that, trying to determine how to go about doing that.

Next slide, please.

So something that'll come out of this process, we will be able to identify how behavioral issues uh relate to crashes.

So as the team here goes through that data, things are gonna pop up most likely will be intoxicated driving, distracted driving, speeding, aggressive driving, you know, those those types of things.

We'll be able to use that data to help.

No, you want to be on the behavioral couple slides back, perhaps.

Am I right?

Is that right?

Oh, is that what you want?

That's where you're so we want to so we'll be able to utilize this data to help determine what our best focus areas for that uh behavioral outreach and engagement over the next, you know, in the future.

Um we'll be coordinating with our local partners.

There's already an effort underwater by the Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council uh looking at they've looked at data from the existing BEN TSAP and the county TSAP.

They're doing focused outreach right now on a regional level, really looking at intoxicated driving uh and safe driving behaviors, and so we'll be trying to see if we can help inform that process going forward.

And then if there are issues that emerge through our TSAP that are really specific to Bend, there's there'll be opportunities to utilize this document to help uh inform how we go about uh tackling those BEN specific issues.

So next slide, please.

Yeah, so where we are now we'll we'll dive into the crash analysis.

We're targeting an meeting with our advisory committee to review that crash data in the spring, which will coincide with the first round of engagement.

And that really I should just mention that the engagement is a key component of the safe streets for all program.

That's not just what we want to do, it's a good idea, but it's also important enough that it's part of the program.

If you want to be eligible for grants on that on the backside of it, they want to know that you've engaged with the public in a meaningful way.

Um we have an X work session to talk about those things around that time period in June.

I should also note we have an update with the policy board uh this Friday as well from um just kind of keeping all the entities informed as we go through this.

So lots of upcoming work to be done and updates from you uh on the horizon.

I think that's what we have, so if you try to open up to questions.

All right, any questions from council?

One question.

Go ahead, yeah, one question.

One quick one.

Uh in terms of policy relevant uh conclusions that we can draw from this.

Um will we be able to get things like what percentage of fatal or serious injury crashes are happening on different types of roads, like roads where people are driving 35 or more or something like that.

We had this conversation a couple weeks ago about target speed limits, and my worry is when we talk about crashes, it often describes oh, was the driver speeding?

Well, speeding just means they're going over the posted speed limit.

But I want to know if it turns out we don't have very many fatal crashes and serious injuries on slow streets.

That's that's really useful.

So will we be able to look at stuff like that?

So I we'd have to look at the GIS data that the city has, but I believe they've got posted speed data or they're working on that information that we can compare to.

Fortunately, the city has a really robust data set that we can work with to look at kind of trends like that.

We don't usually get that um benefit in these projects, so um, we'll have to report back officially, but I think they're working on that information, or we already have it.

So thank you.

Okay, Council Francosa.

Um yeah, I'm one of the city counselors who is asking about um kind of communications and the you know, the work and safety messaging and education and things like that.

And I think like kind of the origin of it is like the city is moving forward with modifying our roads to make them more bicycle and pedestrian friendly, but we're not really putting communications out there.

Um sort of promoting the benefits of it and talk kind of talking to people about how to actually drive through those intersections.

Um and get a lot of uh emails from the public about the topic, and so that's kind of um where the origin of like communications and outreach and sort of behavior change came from.

Um wasn't really related to like data on intoxicated driving and things like that, which I think that's what COIC is focused on.

I can't remember, Tyler, the two topics that they're focused on in their um outreach campaigns.

So um anyway, I guess I'd just like to put out there, I think uh talking about safety messaging and communications is um is kind of an important one, and you know, I'm not sure how the city decides.

I'm trying to find it.

I've asked questions a few times to try and find out how the city does make its decisions about um communication campaigns that it does undertake.

Um, and so curious how folks who are interested in the community can get involved in those.

Okay, thanks.

I think is there anything you want to respond to on that?

I just want to say I I have my own public outreach campaign on this topic.

My kids aren't old enough to drive yet, but we do enough of these studies that any young person in my purview, I tell them we always find the same three things, which is impairment, seatbelts, and speeding are always the emphasis areas, and it's things that can be prevented, right?

I mean, there's lots of things out there.

So um there the messaging can be simple, it just has to be repeated.

And I think what we we really strive for is a culture of safety where this is not just something a plan suggests, but something that's at every level decision making that we are trying to keep people alive on the roads.

So yeah.

I I guess my input would be um there there was a really good article on Bloomberg about speed and how there's actually some research showing most people in the community likes things that keep people from speeding, um and that the biggest effective, most effective things are the infrastructure, right?

Um and the PSAs are generally not super effective.

So to what extent you know infrastructure and hey, we need this, we need to build things and then tell them people about it versus like we just need to tell people to stop speeding.

I think we need to make sure that there's a good mix of both, which it sounds like this will cover.

So but um it's it's hard to break through on the on the PSAs for some reason.

So unless you guys are gonna make a bunch of TikToks.

So yeah, I think we're talking actually talking about more digestible information because we've done videos about protected intersections.

We've done that before.

We did one on like um, I believe it was on third the third and wilson one and a few others, but they don't get a lot of viewers because they're fairly long lengthy.

Some of you might have participated in them.

Um but we've got to dig find ways to, especially if we're gonna target youth.

Yeah, um yeah.

So we have work to do for sure.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, thanks so much for the presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

If anybody wants to join us, we're doing an hour and a half on this on Friday.

Yes, meeting on Friday on this one time here.

You're presenting it.

I think I got out of that.

Okay, thanks, Ashley.

We're good to go.

So