All right.

The Benn City Council will now meet in executive session pursuant to RS one nine two six six zero two to conduct E to conduct deliberations with persons designated to negotiate real property transactions.

Representatives, representatives of the news media, and designated staff shall be allowed to attend the executive session.

Representatives of the news media are specifically directed not to report on any of the deliberations during the executive session, except to state the general subject of the session as previously announced.

No decision may be made in executive session.

At the end of executive session, we will return to open session.

Okay, thanks.

Good evening, everybody.

Start down on your end, Councilor Mendez.

Mike Riley, he him.

Melanie Keebor, she, her.

Megan Perkins, she, her.

Megan Norris, she, her.

Steve Plack, he him.

Great.

Thank you, everybody.

Oh, sorry, I'm here to say.

It's all good.

Um, okay, great.

So we're gonna start first with the proclamation.

Uh, Council Riley.

Um I'm gonna read a proclamation called the Day of Solidarity with Ukraine.

Um, it's an honor for me to um read this tonight on behalf of the community and express our support for Ukraine.

I am about one quarter Ukrainian right myself, so it's particularly um for me to be able to do this.

So day of solidarity with Ukraine.

Uh, February twenty-fourth, two thousand twenty-six marks the fourth anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

A date that serves as a solemn reminder of the brutality of modern war and the resilience, courage, and enduring strength of the Ukrainian people.

Ukrainian refugees have found refuge in Bend in Central Oregon, becoming valued members of our community and contributing to its cultural diversity, economy, and social fabric, while carrying lived experiences of displacement, loss, and perseverance.

Bend is situated on lands that have long been home to indigenous peoples, and these lands continue to carry the story of their presence, resilience, and stewardship, offering a place where communities seeking safety and belonging can gather and rebuild.

And the Ukrainian community of Central Oregon, together with the city of Bend and the broader community, seeks to honor this day by fostering cultural inclusion, connection, and understanding through community gatherings and reflective observances.

And alongside public gatherings honoring Ukrainian resilience, arts-based initiatives also provide an essential and complementary safe space for remembrance and collective witnessing, including the installation of red dress plus white dress, threads from silenced nations.

This art installation is presented this coming weekend by Kolovita in collaboration with the Red River Metis artist Jamie Black Morset.

The red dresses tell the story of the epidemic of racialized violence against indigenous women and girls in the US and Canada and honor indigenous leadership and legacy.

The white dresses tell the story of Ukrainian voices silenced by the current war, a forced displacement and migration.

Together, the dresses evoke presence through the marking of absence of lives and cultures interrupted and rendered invisible by violence or necessity rather than choice.

By marking this anniversary with compassion, cultural reflection, and community partnership, Bend continues to stand as a beacon of inclusivity, dignity, and global solidarity.

Now, therefore, the City Council of Bend, Oregon does hereby proclaim February 4th, 2026 as days of solid air day of solidarity with Ukraine in the city of Bend and encourages all residents to express care for our Ukrainian neighbors, families who, alongside other newcomers, have found refuge in Bend in Central Oregon, and to honor their resilience, contributions, and enduring role in enriching our community and shaping a shared future grounded in dignity, belonging, and humanity.

Thank you, Council Riley.

All right, move by Councillor Norris and second by Councillor Perkins.

All those in favor?

Aye.

All right.

And I wanted to just add one other thing.

The red dress, white dress, threads of silence nations.

Um, that art installation that's referred to in the proclamation is actually going to be um installed early on the morning of Saturday, February 21st, this coming Saturday, in Farewell Bend Park.

Um, from and there's going to be sort of a formal public viewing of it from 12 noon to 2 p.m.

Um, and there'll be a moment of silence at 12 noon.

I hope you'll join me and other members of the community there to kind of um you know reflect on what that is, the story that that exhibit tells, as we talked about in the proclamation.

And then we have three people tonight that are gonna um come up and accept the proclamation.

Um the first is Anna Artemenko and then Peter Sahidacny and Carrie Dolanuk Brown, um, all members of our community that have connections to Ukraine.

Yeah.

Good evening.

Um thank you, Councillor Riley.

Um my name is P.

Sahadachny.

I'm a third generation Ukrainian American.

My grandparents uh came over after World War II.

They first survived Stalin's holodomer, the forced famine, and uh when the Soviets started going around burning churches, they decided that they were gonna walk out of Russia on foot, and uh ended up in Germany, eventually going through Ellis Island after World War II.

Um fast track to about 15-20 years ago, my father and I started recording Ukrainian folk music albums and uh found a very large niche audience, um especially since the war broke out.

Um but uh that said, uh, it's very important from my perspective to uh as a part of family history, but also as a humanitarian issue to keep supporting Ukraine in its struggle for freedom and democracy.

And tonight I'm really honored to speak on behalf of Kolovita and the part of the Ukrainian community here in Central Oregon.

Um to reiterate a little bit of what you said four years ago, the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began.

For many of us, this is deeply personal.

It represents loss, separation, and lives forever changed, but it also represents resilience.

Ukrainian families here in Bend are rebuilding, raising children, working hard, and contributing to this community.

It reminds us that solidarity matters, and I thank you for standing with Ukraine and your Ukrainian neighbors.

Thank you.

My family has been in Central Oregon since 1975, and I think at that time we were the Ukrainian community in totality here in Central Oregon.

Also escaping persecution and famine and forced famine that sort of predates the Holodomore Holocaust or genocide.

And it's just really an honor to be here and to be able to wear Ukrainian regalia and to have this community and the refugee community here recognized and supported as our home country is being mercilessly assaulted at this time.

So thank you so much for recognizing the Ukrainian community in Ukrainian struggle for sovereignty.

It means a great deal to us here and back in Ukraine.

Thank you very much for having us and to give your support and your thoughts to Ukrainian people and to Ukraine.

I would love to speak Ukrainian language for wonderful people for wonderful Ukrainians that they would understand as well.

Thank you all for your support.

That means a lot to us.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Can you come up with anything?

Yes.

Okay, here's a button.

Ready?

Okay.

One, two, three.

All right.

Thank you.

Thanks so much.

Yes, thanks.

All right, next on Go to the Order is a presentation about a 100 years of water from Lori.

All right, good evening, uh Mayor and Council.

Uh, I'm Lori Faya, environmental services, environmental resources manager for the water services department.

And um, just quickly tonight, I just uh am here to ask you to help participate in and help share about announcing celebrating a century of exceptional water service in the city of Bend.

So we're kicking off a year-long campaign that we'd love for you to participate in.

You might find um uh everybody's got a mug now about um i heart bend water because we do have amazing high-quality water in Bend, and we're really fortunate and we want to celebrate that.

So, really quickly, um, and I'm actually really thrilled to have a great audience here who I think is very interested in natural resources and protecting the value of our resources.

Great.

So this is a really cool picture to just kind of think a little bit about history.

This photo is from 1910.

This is Wall Street in downtown Bend.

You'll see on the left-hand side City Hall at the time.

Um, so this is what Bend looked like at the time.

Um at this point in time, Bend was just starting to become what was gonna be the big town in the area.

So there was kind of this contest between Bend and Tumlow about who is going to become the major city, and the railroad ended up coming to Bend.

Uh so um at this point in time, this is basically what the river looked like as well.

So the Deschutes River was a working river.

This is a photo that shows you can see across to the the mill district.

Um you can see that there was a lot of lumber, the uh logs were moved down the river, there was a lot of activity upstream, they were building reservoirs, and it affected water quality.

And this and the river is where the people of Bend were receiving their drinking water at the time.

So in 1923, um there was a letter sent from the Oregon State Board of Health to uh the who at that time were the suppliers of the water, which was Bend Water Light and Power Company, a private company, and basically said that the water was not fit for human consumption, and that it either needed filtration or they needed to find a new water source.

And after a failed attempt at filtration, uh Bend Water Light and Power Company decided to get out of the water business, uh sold kind of in a dilapidated water system to the city of Bend, and Bend went searching for a source of high quality water.

And they found it up in Bridge Creek to the west of here, uh, in the Tummelow Creek system.

So in 1926, 100 years ago, that's when the City of Bend citizens started receiving water from the city from the Ridge Creek system.

We wanted to not lose the opportunity to celebrate and to just help engage everybody in the value of our water, and so we're we're kicking that off.

This is a screenshot from um what's now live on our website.

Um, and at the end, I'll have a QR code if folks want to engage with that.

Um the things we're gonna focus on over the course of the year, and I'm hoping everybody will find a way to participate and help celebrate it with us, uh, is to learn about our water system, where that water comes from, how it's treated, the people that are providing that, to explore the places that make our water exceptional, and then find out ways for everybody to participate in protecting our water.

What we're going to do is have activities posted over the course of the year.

So, right now, if you go on the website, you'll see a bunch of activities for spring that's focused on history, watersheds, foundations of Benz water services.

In the summer, we'll focus more on water conservation and the value of water.

And in fall, we're going to talk about there's a whole one-water circle of water services.

So, not only keeping the water pristine that comes to us, but uh protecting and treating that water after it's used.

So we'll focus on stormwater, wastewater, and everyday stewardship.

Um, this is the logo we've come up with iHeart Bend Water.

It's on it's on the mugs.

Um, hopefully you enjoy those.

If people want to participate, there's um a QR code here.

There's opportunities on the website, um, not only telling you options of things to do, but also that you can submit videos or photos of yourself doing those activities or send us short videos that say I love bend water because or I love bent water, so I do this to protect it.

So um I hope the council and everybody else will choose to participate over the course of this year.

Please watch on the website.

More will be coming.

Thank you.

It's hard to overstate how lucky we are with our water and bend, just that we have multiple sources, and it's such good, clean, clear water, and our team takes such a great great care of it.

So thank you so much, Lori, for all that you do.

Thanks for all that information.

Okay.

So this will move us to item C on our good of the order, which is a motion from our work session on electrification fee design last week.

What we're going to go ahead and do for folks who are here for that topic is we're going to take your public comment now before the visitor section and before we formally adopt the motion.

Um, Eric, if there's anything else you want to introduce on this, and then I'll get into the public comment.

Sure.

The this does uh summarize the uh discussion from the work session last week, which moves forward with a 20% uh fee based on the social cost of carbon.

It also has council directly engaging with uh community members in a round table format.

Uh, we're planning for that to occur this April, and then uh based on any input from that round table, you know, further work on the fee in a work session with a likely uh planned action in May or June on the fee.

Um in the issue summary is also some additional detail about the round table and participants that we anticipate uh inviting to that round table.

So if there's any discussion, maybe after the visitor comments around uh that either the the engagement process that we've planned or the participant list.

I think we welcome that uh input from council prior to the motion.

Okay, great.

So council, we'll have the comments go first and then we'll um talk about the motion and deliberate on that.

So Ashley, we have three folks signed up online, so we will start with them first.

Let's get that ready.

Um, for folks, a lot of you have been here before, but you're gonna have two minutes to speak, and there'll be a visible timer for you.

We're gonna have folks in person come up to the um desk here, state your name, um, and whether you live in the city of Bend, and then just give us your comments.

Um, we ask for folks to um not use any language or behavior that's going to disrupt the meeting today.

Um, also no reactions to other people's comments.

We want everyone to be able to make their comment whether you agree with it or not, and we want this to be a place where everyone feels comfortable to say what they want to say within our rules.

Um, so we will go ahead and start with our online folks.

Um, so Ashley, why don't you go ahead and just go through the the three that um have signed up on this topic?

We'll start with Brian Adams.

You can unmute and speak.

Brian, I see you online.

If you're able to hear us, you can go ahead if you have a comment on electrification.

Yeah, can you hear me okay now?

Yep, we can.

Go ahead.

Uh American council members.

Uh, my name is Brian Adams.

I'm a Ben resident and serve as president of Coenergy Propane, headquartered out of Redmond.

I'm also a board member of the Pacific Profane Gas Association, a member of the Oregon Department of Energy's energy advisory work group, and an advisory board member supporting the recently released Oregon Energy Strategy.

I'm speaking today regarding the city's electrification policy and the proposed fee on natural gas appliances.

Well, while I personally have concerns about potential impacts on housing and affordability and near-term grid reliability during the region's rapid electrification, I recognize that the proposed fee structure discussed on February 11th is a compromised starting point.

However, the current structure raises policy alignment and negative climate impact concerns.

Data presented by the city at the October 22nd, 2025 council work session indicated that certain electric appliances described as non-efficient, produce approximately 42% higher annual carbon emissions than gas appliances.

This creates several risks.

First, if the city's goal is to reduce emissions, a fee applied only to natural gas may unintentionally incentivize installation of higher emitting electric equipment.

Are not of high efficiency models.

Second, a fuel-specific fee risk being viewed as discriminatory rather than emissions-based.

Policies tied to measurable environmental performance or generally more durable and defensible.

To strengthen alignment in the city's emission goals, I respectfully recommend applying a comparable fee to non-efficient electric appliances.

A performance-based approach ensures parity, reduces legal risk, and more effectively encourages lower carbon construction.

With that, I thank you for your time and service to the community.

Thank you so much, Brian.

And we have your written comment as well.

So thank you for that.

Next is Brad Archelletta.

Hi there, Council.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Awesome, great.

My name is Brad Artilletta.

Uh Mayor Keeber.

Council.

I'm a business agent organizer and training coordinator with UVA Local 290.

During public testimony on February 4th, Cascade Natural Gas requested an opportunity to present at the February 11th work session.

Cascade also asked council to hold off on advocating the gas fee, advancing the gas fee until after they had a chance to present.

These requests were supported in writing by UA Local 290, the Benn Chamber of Conference, Cascade East Association of Rotterds, Central Oregon Builders Association.

Despite strong support for the presentation from Cascade, Council went ahead and made important decisions about the natural gas tax without first hearing from the city's only natural gas utility.

I'm disappointed, but I'm not surprised.

Council continues to prioritize speed at the expense of the community's input and stakeholder engagement.

This is a rough process that's traded inclusive and thorough dialogue for rigid ideology that isn't grounded in reality.

Council is making policy on the power grid that you don't control.

Then doesn't make their own power.

As for the social cost of carbon model, let's get something clearer.

You are not taxing carbon.

What you're taxing is reliability and affordability form of energy that people use to heat their homes during freezing winter temperatures.

If this was actually about addressing the social cost of carbon, you'd be targeting carbon economy wide.

You'd target Pacific Power's dirty electricity from its carbon-rich grid, low efficiency electric appliances that produce more carbon than efficiency gas appliances do, and gasoline and diesel, as council Mendez said, transportation accounts far more emissions in Vend than any other single source.

This tax is not about carbon.

Any tax that targets natural gas rewards carbon-rich electricity is just about picking winners.

And basing decisions on Pacific Powers meeting the 2030 emission deadline isn't good policymaking.

It's blind optimism.

Thank you for letting me speak tonight.

Thank you, Brad.

And last we have Brian Agree.

And Brian, if you're there, you can go ahead and start.

And we're not hearing you, Brian, if you are speaking.

Okay, we will go ahead and move on, and maybe we'll check back on Brian after we take the rest of the comments.

Okay.

So first to kick us off in person is going to be Dave Berger, and then after that will be Roger Gray.

Thank you, Mayor and Council.

Uh, my name is David Berger.

I am a longtime resident of Bend and a business agent and organizer with the UA Local 290 plumbers and steam fitters.

During public testimony on February 4th, Cascade Natural Gas requested an opportunity to present at the February 11th work session.

Cascade also asked council to hold off on advancing the gas appliance tax until after they had a chance to present.

Unfortunately, council went ahead and made important decisions about the gas appliance tax without first hearing from the city's only natural gas utility.

Last week's work session did include a presentation from Pacific Power, but what we didn't hear is more important than what we did.

First, carbon.

Pacific Power has not pressed about their January 12th public filing, in which they urge the state to recalibrate the pace of clean energy deployment.

Their filing stated to ensure the goal of a hundred percent carbon-free future for Oregon is realized.

Pacific Court recommends calibrating the pace of procurement to the customers to what customers can reasonably afford while establishing clear uh predictable guardrails so the transition is durable for customers and viable for the company.

This all but says they are not going to meet the 2030 deadline.

The council missed the opportunity to get clarity.

Second, cost um at no point did we hear about the 10 to 140 percent annual rate increase that the January 12th filing says are a possibility for Pacific Power customers.

A hundred and forty percent annual increase are extraordinary, and I'm disappointed that Pacific Powers representative wasn't asked to explain.

Third, the joint system planning, um, hearing from Pacific Court but not from Cascade Natural Gas means council did not hear how gas and electricity are intertwined and work together to deliver Benz energy.

Council should slow down and get all the critical data before rushing to pass this natural gas appliance tax.

Thank you for hearing me.

And lastly, clean water is brought to you by the plumber.

Thank you.

Thank you, plumbers.

Yes, we'll talk to Brad.

All right, Roger Gray, and then after that, Sophia B.

Good evening, Mayor and Counselors.

I was here a few weeks ago, and I'll pick up on a couple of things were just mentioned by the gentleman before me.

The the key assumptions in the study that the city has done earth relying on is the assumption that Pacific Power will achieve its goals in 2030 and 2040 of 80% and 100% reductions.

I said that those are very unlikely in the foreseeable future.

And the referenced January 12th letter to the Oregon Public Utilities Commission from Pacific Power really reinforces that.

The greenhouse gas reduction targets that there was a couple of things I wanted to mention from the letter.

Oregon's plan clean energy deployment is financially untenable.

The rate increases would be disproportionately burdened and burdened.

Energy be a larger setup that would hit lower income people that were energy essential needs like utilities are disproportional.

The maximum fee is considering a lower one.

The one thing I did I wasn't at the February 11th session, but I did listen to it on uh afterwards, and it was intriguing the staff.

I applaud the staff for recognizing the differences between Pacific Power and Ashley, Ashland and the Central Electric Cooperative.

I actually think the complex and dynamic formula could be more accurate.

The one thing I would really encourage is that rather than making forecasts about the future, which I don't think are going to come true and actually are not coming true.

Uh, for example, right now we are burning gas to provide electricity.

That's a fact.

And I think that it would be important to track actual results rather than forecast.

This is a possibility that the fee could be reversed at electric appliances would have a fee imposed on them relative to gas because today and for the foreseeable future, gas appliances are more efficient from a cost, carbon and reliability standpoint.

Thank you for your service to the city, and I also appreciate the water comments.

Of course.

You have great water.

Thanks, Roger.

All right.

We're not gonna have time to clap between everybody, I promise, but we we know we love the water.

Sophia is next, and then Noel Nelson.

And we do have a couple free chairs, so the person on deck wants to come and wait up here, that would be great to help us move through this.

All right, hi.

Hello, all right.

Uh, Mayor Keebler, Council and Staff, thank you for the opportunity to comment.

My name is Sophia.

I'm a resident of Bend, and I recently earned my Bachelor of Science from Cal Poly Humboldt in environmental science and management with a concentration in energy and climate.

I am here to urge you to set the climate impact fee at the maximum level in alignment with the social cost of carbon set by the EPA.

We are barreling toward the sixth great extinction.

We are burning our life support system.

We are pumping harmful gas into our homes and surging present and future costs to our community every day.

We don't act to stop it.

And some of you have suggested that the appropriate action is a nudge.

When you look outside in Bend in February, and you ask, where's the snow?

When you take shelter in the summer because the sky is orange and the air is filled with smoke, you can be certain that it is the result of leader leaders failing to take bold action.

Leaders making weak, ineffective policy choices.

It is your responsibility to do better, and 20% is not enough.

Well, Greta Greta said it best.

Because it is.

Thank you.

Thank you, Sophia.

Noel Nelson is next, and then Michaela May.

Good evening, City Councilman, and thank you for this opportunity to speak.

Um, and you've already introduced me.

I'm a researcher in the energy sciences and a chairperson of the board of 350 to shoots here in Bend.

Today I'm here to discuss the impacts of taking that first crucial step, but why 20% is insufficient for setting the climate impact fee?

Let me frame this another way.

Why should our community members bear 80% of the social cost of carbon?

I struggle to see how a one or two percent increase in the price of new construction will outweigh the costs of climate change that many of our residents will and are already bearing.

How much do you suppose the price of water will increase over the next decade as our snowpack decreases and our summers get hotter?

How much will insurance premiums rise after the next big wildfire strikes in your town?

How much will our produce prices increase as extreme weather decreases the crop yields from our local farms?

How many local businesses are going to close as tourism decreases due to deforestation and increased smoke in the summer?

There might even be a point where the tourists stop coming altogether.

Are we weighing the long-term costs of a slow transition from fossil gas against the short-term economic disruptions?

Further, well, I have sympathy for my working class brethren who may lose their jobs in the fossil gas industry if it occurs.

I will lay the blame firmly at the feet of their CEOs.

A 2024 Stanford study and a report from the International Energy Agency both suggest that many skill sets from the oil industry could be transferred to carbon-free geothermal energy.

If fossil gas companies in the Pacific Northwest really cared about our community, one would think they would have used these skills to build even one geothermal plant near one of our many volcanoes by now instead of spending decades spreading misinformation to obscure the correlation between greenhouse gas emission and global warming.

In closing, I will echo Mayor Keebler's words by saying not only is there cost inaction, but there is also a cost to taking action too slowly.

I urge City Council to implement the climate fee at the full cost of social carbon and place it where the burden belongs on polluters.

Thank you, Noel.

Michaela May and then Brennan Bean.

Mayor Keebler, City Council and staff, thank you for the opportunity to testify.

My name is Michaela May.

I'm a junior at Caldera High School, and I've lived in Bend my entire life.

You've heard me say this multiple times at this point, as I have devoted much of my time and energy throughout high school to advocate for climate action, specifically the climate impact fee you are currently considering.

Now more than ever, it is critical that we do everything we can to fight the climate crisis.

In light of moves from the federal government to strip its own ability to fight climate change and the effects that our own community is currently experiencing, it is clear that state and local governments have the most power to fight the climate crisis.

By passing a strong climate impact fee, you will show that you are committed to tangible climate action.

We are running out of time to solve the climate crisis.

Our community's livelihood is already being impacted.

The decisions you make now not only benefit us in the future, but will take action to solve a crisis that we are currently experiencing.

Is up to you right now.

I have consistently shown up to City Council to advocate for climate action, often missing jiu-jitsu to do so because I still have faith in local governments to fight for my future at a time where the federal government refuses to do so.

I am not here because I have free time.

I'm here because the decisions you make to address this crisis are crucial to the health and well-being of our community.

Show me that you're willing to fight for my future.

Please implement the full social cost of carbon in your fee.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Michaela.

Brennan.

And then Sean Nolan after that.

Council and staff, thank you for the opportunity to comment.

My name's Brennan.

I am a chemical engineer and an organizer with Energize Bend living in Bend in solidarity with other folks wearing blue here tonight.

I would like to see you pass a climate impact fee at the full social cost of carbon.

You may also notice I'm wearing a blue camo American flag, never forget shirt, which is unusual for a liberal.

He was a seal from my neighborhood who's killed in combat.

And the whole point of the challenge is just you demonstrate leadership by showing up and doing something hard and doing it right.

And I realize now that it is a privilege, that's what I got to spend my childhood doing because I work with organizers now who have been asking you to do the right thing the entire time that they have been in high school.

Like some of them have graduated high school, already graduated high school and graduated college, coming to City Hall for over eight years, and he has not seen any meaningful action.

Um that that is inaction, and that sends a message to young people that you don't hear our concerns and that you're not taking us seriously.

Um the EPA thinks that coal is clean, that greenhouse gases don't cause harm to human health, and that a good energy policy is invading South American countries to extract more oil.

So if this is not the moment for local governments to step up, then I don't know what is.

So we we know this is the most cost-effective time to electrify.

Actually, it was yesterday.

Please communicate that.

Um we we cannot afford to virtue signal at this point.

That's my time.

Thank you.

Brennan.

And after Sean will be Ken Wilkins.

Good evening, City Council.

If you can't tell by the big jacket, I'm with the people in blue, and I'm here to urge you to pass the full climate fee as Brennan just articulated.

Um, why should you listen to me?

My livelihood is tied to natural gas.

I work in renewable natural gas.

I design these systems, um, I operate them, I do everything with them.

Um last time I spoke to the council, I talked a little bit about how renewable natural gas isn't as great as it seems.

I want to just kind of hammer that point home.

What renewable natural gas is is it's capturing methane from other waste streams.

It's not really offsetting the carbon that's output by burning natural gas in your home.

If you were to put only renewable natural gas into a pipeline, the health concerns in the home continue, and you're still giving off the same amount of carbon from a home burning in a furnace or a home burning in stove, let's say.

Um I'd like to drive that point home.

I'd also like to point out there are a lot of concerns about the grid, about load, about transition.

Um I dropped out of law school after a year, but I'm pretty sure that most of those concerns are for FERC, uh, ISO that runs the grid, or for the federal government.

So I'm not really sure why this is being brought up at the local level.

I think you guys have the power to enact change.

I think you guys have a pretty good program set in front of you.

I would urge you to pass it.

I'd also like to point out that um as the child of an immigrant, I just like to say fuck ice.

I yield my time.

Thank you, Sean.

We are keeping a comments limited to electrification.

That's all I'll say about that.

Ken Wilkins and then Nate Springer.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Keyboard and Council members.

My name is Ken Wilkins.

I'm a Bend resident.

I'm also a Cascade Natural Gas customer, although an unwilling one is my builder didn't allow us to select electric appliances when we built our home.

But that's a different story.

There are so many reasons to support electrification, as you're hearing tonight.

Uh, let me focus on just one reason the danger posed by having natural gas in our homes.

In my recent monthly bill, there was an enclosure outlining what to do if I smell gas or hurt a gas leak.

It offers a list of things not to do.

Do not switch anything on or off, such as lights, electric switches, garage door openers, or vehicles.

Do not use e-cigarettes, smoke, lighters, matches, or open flames.

Do not use a telephone of any type, including cell phones.

Do not return for personal items.

Um the flyer notes that carbon monoxide poisoning is a possibility, but it does not state the clearest danger, which is explosion and fire.

Uh the flyer lists some things to do.

Says leave the house or building immediately from a safe location, call Cascade Natural Gas and 911.

If it is safe to do so, shut off the gas meter.

Um, even the gas company acknowledges the dangers of gas in our homes, and it warns its customers about how to behave during emergencies.

To me, this risk alone is enough to argue against gas appliances.

And to this, the climate damage caused by combustion of natural gas and other fossil fuels.

The sensible decision is to discourage use of natural gas by all means at our disposal, including a robust climate impact fee for new bills.

Thank you for hearing these concerns.

Thank you, Ken.

Nate Springer, and then Derek Reimers.

Thank you, Mayor, City Council, for giving me the opportunity to speak to you today in support of the climate impact fee.

My name's Nate Springer.

I was born and raised in Portland.

I now live in Northeast Bend with my family.

I have an MBA and a Master of Science and Natural Resources.

I've taught economics to graduate students, and today I advise the world's largest companies on their climate action and clean technology adoption.

This is smart policy because it allows buyers and sellers to have a choice.

As a builder, you don't have to install the appliances, the electric appliances.

You can pay a fee that a bill a buyer that needs that help can then benefit from.

Now, more than likely, each builder will select a portfolio to differentiate from other builders and will offer the options that they think are best for their buyers.

So what this becomes is as a buyer, you just select the amenities that make most sense to you.

I like this appliance.

I like this total cost of home ownership.

It's smart policy because it's also far more efficient than what we have today.

It's efficient for the homeowner because it allows them to batch this cost into a fixed 15 or 30 year mortgage rather than paying for those expenses incrementally or any uh exposure they have to price volatility for their energy.

Now look, we all live in central Oregon and we love this place for the quality of life.

The uh and we are growing extremely rapidly, and this is not going to stop that.

But we have to take action to protect ourselves because the uh climate change and climate has the effect of uh may disrupt that quality of life.

The federal government has said that just last week climate change doesn't cause harm.

But ask families who lost their homes in Blue River in Detroit whether climate change doesn't cause harm.

Ask families in uh who have asthma and with children and older uh residents with asthma, and every time the AQI tops 200, they have to be hospitalized for a week every summer, whether climate change doesn't cause harm.

So I hope you will support this policy.

Thank you.

All right, Derek Reimers, and then Josh Mooney.

Mayor Kefler, City Council and Staff, thank you for the opportunity to comment.

My name is Derek Greemers.

I'm 23 years old and a resident of Bend.

I work as an electrical building design engineer, primarily working in projects directly in Bendor and neighboring city central Oregon cities.

I am here volunteering on behalf of Energize Bend to urge you to pass a climate impact fee following the social cost of carbon.

With my education and work experience in electrical engineering, I tend to think about the big picture when electrification is discussed, specifically electrical grid.

While electrification offers clear environmental and economic benefits, it also inherently increases electrical demand, which is a large and timely conversation in and of itself.

Ben continues to experience rapid population and development growth year over year, placing increasing pressure on existing electrical systems.

The state of Oregon has acknowledged this trend statewide and has begun planning and commissioning electrical infrastructure improvements to better meet their future demand.

In support of these efforts, House Bills 3336 and 3681 streamline the public utility commission submittal process for electric utilities, enabling the deployment of grid enhancing technologies.

These measures help utilities modernize the grid more efficiently, increase capacity without necessary delays, and better prepare growing communities like Bend for a more electrified future.

From a practical electrical infrastructure perspective perspective, mixed fuel and electric homes today are commonly served by 200 amp electrical panels.

In my professional experience, roughly four out of the five projects that come across my desk, such as restaurants and small commercial buildings, fall within this range of electrical demand or will need to be upgraded to a 400 amp service.

However, the remaining portions of the project require exponentially larger electrical service, sometimes approaching 3,000 amps.

These large-scale electrical loads are not only extreme extremely expensive to serve, but they also disproportionately drive utility infrastructure upgrades and peak demands, making many significant contributors to rising energy costs across the broader ratepayer base.

These projects that come through the city of Bend's plan review team need to be more heavily weighed on ethics rather than big business profits if there's truly a worry on in increased loading on our grid as well as electric utility customers' premiums rising.

Thank you, Derek.

That's your time.

Thank you so much.

All right, Josh Mooney and then Mike Reed.

Good evening, Mayor and Counselors.

My name is Josh Mooney, and I live in Bend.

I'm here to voice support for a strong climate pollution fee on new homes.

This policy is thoughtful, forward-looking, and fair.

It applies only to future construction, not existing homeowners, and it creates a smart market signal by encouraging high-efficiency electric appliances instead of locking in new gas infrastructure.

We're making sure the front the homes we build today aren't saddling families with higher energy costs and the community with higher pollution for decades to come.

Just as importantly, this fee will hopefully generate funding that could be used to help current residents potentially upgrade their homes, improving efficiency, lowering bills, and making homes healthier and more comfortable.

That is a win for Bend families.

Bend is long identified with and prided itself on protecting the natural beauty that surrounds us.

Taking meaningful local climate action aligns with our values and our responsibility to future generations.

We need to act now.

Specifically, we need to stop burning stuff if we hope to slow the melting of our mountain glaciers, protect ourselves from our more intense future wildfires and poor air quality.

I urge you to vote yes on this proposal and help move Ben folk toward a cleaner, more resilient energy future.

Thank you.

Thank you, Josh.

Mike Reed and then Emilion DeBose.

Thank you, Mayor Keeber and City Council members.

My name is Mike Reed.

And I'm currently a grandfather, and luckily soon to be a great-grandfather.

So I move to Oregon, green Oregon.

Because Oregon Oregonians respect science, care for the environment, and care for citizens.

We know climate change is taking place.

And I want my grandchildren and my great grandchildren to grow up in a world with clean air, clean water, and a stable environment.

Unless we do something to reduce the forces driving climate change.

The legacy to our children will be a hotter and more unstable world.

It will be marked by severe heat waves, water and food scarcity, increased diseases, species disappearance, significant sea level rise, intensified extreme weather events, and increased taxes from our governments as they try to adapt to protect citizens.

Our state of Oregon recognizes and set uh pass climate legislation setting good climate goals.

And I say pass a meaningful climate impact fee.

Because the Cascade Natural Gas' practice of giving discounts to builders if they build homes with natural gas, there are very few electric homes available to millennials and Gen Z home buyers.

These young people need the choice that they should be given the choice.

I urge you to vote yes for a climate impact fee to put balance back into our new home, new home construction market, so the young home buyers have a choice.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mike.

All right, Amelia De Beauz, and then after that, Jade O'Here Vlatchos.

Sorry.

Okay, hello, Mayor Keeber, Counselors.

Um, before I begin to ask is to implement a full social cost of carbon in the fee, which frankly is a no-brainer for this policy to be effective.

Um I am Amelia DeBose.

I am a Bend resident.

I have lived in Bend since I was five years old, and as a child and a teenager who was interested in local policy and local government, I have looked up to many of you and respected many of you for many years.

Um I don't feel that respect coming back to the constituents.

I have sat in front of you and asked for a strong climate impact fee, I don't know how many times.

Unfortunately, you decide to go in a weaker direction.

A lot of us are interested in working on a transportation campaign.

I'm glad to hear last week you're interested in doing that.

However, we, including you, have invested a lot in this fee policy, so let's focus on that.

The truth is I've made some sacrifices in my social life and in my school life while growing up here, so that I can encourage you to take action specifically around the environment and electrification.

A 14-year-old should not feel pressure to handhold their local officials and encourage them to do their jobs.

In the seven years that this has been on your radar, no bold action has been taken.

14-year-old mean is heartbroken, and 18-year-old me, your constituent, is a very, very angry.

I find it really disheartening and disappointing that this city council can't seem to take bold climate action.

Despite your remarks on how severe climate change is and how it's already affecting our community, it is clear that hasn't fully sunk in for you.

If it had, I think last week would have gone very differently.

Highlighted last week as was the fact that climate change is collective and broadly, it is kind of, but 95% of single family homes being built with gas hookups is not collective.

That is systemic, and you're in action is holding up that system.

We have been fighting to move your C C CAT forward, and I'm disappointed that we don't seem to align on what the future of Bend looks like.

If I need to, I promise to spend the rest of my life pushing elected like you to wake up, research the social cost of carbon, and do something about climate change.

Thank you.

And then Debbie uh Pandenberg.

Mayor Keebler and City Council.

I'm disappointed and angry in the council's decision on the cost of the climate impact fee.

Bend is a very influential city, and if the moves that you make will affect the surrounding cities, it's up to you, the people in power, but more importantly, the people with influence to do something about it sooner rather than later.

I'm here asking you to implement a full social cost of carbon into the climate impact fee.

The presentation that the admin presented to you on February 11th predicted that annually there will be 741 single family homes built in Bend.

And that with the 20% fee, 556 of those houses will be paying it.

That's 556 houses having gas infrastructure annually.

The low cost of this fee will provide very little change.

A child born in Bend in 2007 will experience 321 extra days of extreme heat.

I was born in 2007.

And with a little sister who can't control her body temperature, I'm very concerned about what her future is going to look like with the rise in global temperatures.

And what the effects of climate change are something that we can no longer ignore.

This would be a big waste of time, money, and resources when we're forced to stop using gas.

What will house agriculture schooling look like in the future when we're trying to pour money and more resources into reversing the consequences of not taking bold action on climate change today?

I'm tired of being here begging you to change, begging for change.

Again, I incorporate, sorry, I urge you to incorporate the social cost of carbon into the carbon or climate pollution fee, and I cons and consider significantly raising the fee.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jane.

Debbie, and then uh Mary Pantenberg after that.

Good evening.

Thank you so much for having us here.

We really appreciate it.

Um, where my husband and I moved here in 1998, and we raised our family here, and we sold on the west side, and we recently bought a new home in the Petrosa neighborhood up there with no choices at all.

So I would have rather had a fully electrified house with solar panel because we have an EV, and I understand the issues around air quality and natural gas.

It wasn't even a choice.

So the house was more expensive with appliances that I really don't want, and that's what we're looking for you to do today.

I mean, I'm not a scientist and I'm not a researcher, and God bless all of you for doing what you're doing.

And I really appreciate I'm so proud of this next generation.

But I am a businesswoman of 45 years, and I'm a mother.

And I'm super um concerned about what we are leaving as a legacy for the generations of kids that are going to grow up in this environment for many generations to come, long after you are gone.

And really the only thing I wanted to share with you today, because these fine folks behind me have given, and you are you know all the facts.

We live in very strange times, and it is difficult to trust the sources of information that we have, and it is very difficult to trust our elected leaders to do the right thing for the people they serve instead of themselves.

So I am counting on you and your legacy as an elected official for future generations to protect them long after you are gone.

And sometimes doing the right thing is hard, but that's what you signed up for.

So I am hoping that you have the courage to do that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mary.

I mean, sorry, Debbie, Mary's next, Mary Pantenberg.

And after that, Tristy Osbund.

Hello.

Um, has anyone ever gotten 20% on an exam?

Yeah, I mean that that's a fail, right?

So, um I'm missing pottery class for this.

And I pay out of pocket for pottery class.

I'm 30 years old.

My mother doesn't pay for it for me.

And y'all have all the data and all the science, and I'm not gonna waste your time regurgitating what all of the smarter people before me have said.

Um, but the people in this room, the people in blue, they are community members.

They are volunteers, they're people who live here, people who breathe the local air, people who don't benefit financially from what happens with this fee.

The people that are pushing against this fee have a lot to gain financially.

So, with that being said, please pass a strong climate pollution fee that's above 20%.

And for the love of everything good, just let me go to pottery class.

I've missed three.

Thank you.

Sorry, Mary, about that.

It's okay.

Tristy and then Alice uh Weston.

Um, Mayor and City Council.

My name is Tristy, and I'm a conservation scientist and climate advocate who is also born and raised here.

We cannot afford and continue, or we cannot afford to continue with the cities in action.

We are already seeing the damages of climate change in Bend.

Just one example that we continue to hear about is the record low snowpack since reliable measurements started in the 80s.

This is causing real concern about decreased water supplies, which will inevitably impact local farmers and in the impending fire season.

With the cost of these damages on the rise and risking livelihoods, we cannot continue to bend to the wishes and greed of the fossil fuel industry, especially with something that is actually attainable.

The implementation of the climate impact fee and its full social cost of carbon.

If we want to talk about energy choice, this policy's policy is giving anyone buying a home the choice in their fuel usage, not taking that away, or penalizing existing infrastructure in already built homes.

This is allowing those purchasing new homes to not bear the cost of fossil fuel usage and pick more efficient and safer products.

Electrifying at the point of construction is far more cost-effective and efficient than retrofitting homes after construction.

There's opportunity here to be proactive, allow residents the opportunity to choose and protect the residents of end rather than be reactive and allow residents to continue to pay for the costs and impacts of the fossil fuel industry.

Along with this, electrification absolutely does not mean the elimination of jobs.

I have the privilege of working alongside people who are working in clean energy, and the consensus is that not only is there a massive gap in the amount of people going into these trades, but that the clean energy sector is undeniably growing.

And this is true according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

As demand for electric home systems increases, demand for HVAC technicians and installers is projected to grow by 9% by 2023.

This is an average of 42,000 openings a year, which is much faster, much faster than the national average of US jobs.

Even more the demand for solar installers is expected to grow by 48% and wind technicians by 60% all by 2033.

All of these trade jobs do not require a four-year degree, opening up a pathway for many people to stay in central Oregon and finding living find a living wage career.

Implementation of a climate impact fee is at its so full social cost of carbon uh protects residents and gives residents a choice.

Is a clear job and economy booster, not a killer.

Thank you.

Thank you, Tristy.

Alice Weston.

Hi, good evening, Council.

My name is Alice Weston.

I'm a resident of Bend, a local organizer with the Sierra Club uh Oregon chapter and a member of the Progressive Workers' Union.

Um as many of you know already, um, the Sierra Club Oregon strongly supports implementing a strong climate impact fee.

We are members of the Energy Bend Steering Committee and work in coalition with numerous local organizations and state partners who collectively represent thousands of local Benn constituents.

Uh today we sent a letter, I think it was signed by four 19 organizations, uh, which includes most um, if not all, close to all of the climate nonprofits here in our local area.

Um that letter reiterated our commitment to a strong fee and our disappointment in the watering down of the fee.

Um, as you know, this policy has been in the works with community members, experts, and advocates for over seven years and is based on the climate action plan, the city's climate action plan and national best practices and just sound climate science.

Um, while this is um what we hope for our future, the policy is built on a solid foundation and not the hopes and dreams of just climate enthusiasts.

Um you all also received a letter, I think this week, um, from an environmental economist, um Ernie, I'm forgetting his last name.

Um, but he highlighted some of the climate costs, and it really struck me this week when I was reading that.

Um, there was one that kind of made me feel a little bit sick.

Um, particularly with the recent repeal of the endangerment finding.

Um, he said that exposure to wildfire smoke has killed 411 Oregonians per year on average in recent years, and many of those deaths have occurred in Deschutes County and in Bend.

Um, everyday exposure to wildfire smoke shortens a person's life expectancy by one week.

The endangerment finding has served as the foundation for the EPA's rules limiting greenhouse gas emissions for the last 16 years.

Its elimination is terrifying as a terrifying blow to public health protections and the fight against climate change.

Our community has clear under a clear understanding of the urgency of climate change, and it's time our local policies reflect that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Alice.

And that will conclude um the public comment on this item.

So I think um council would like to see if there's someone who can make a motion and second, and if there's a second port, and then we can discuss if there is support.

I'd like to make the motion.

Um, I'm sorry, go ahead, council.

Yep.

And I have to declare an actual conflict on this policy since this policy would impose a fee on New Sound single family home development.

And because my employer is Hayden Homes, this policy would have a financial impact on my employer and requires me to declare an actual conflict and not participate in the deliberation or vote on this item.

So I'll be stepping out of the room.

Thanks.

Thanks for listening to folks.

All right, Steve.

All right, the motion is I move to direct staff to preserve to pursue the development of a fee on natural gas suppliances set it to 20% level of the maximum potential fee based on the social cost of carbon as presented by staff, and for staff to coordinate council-led public engagement to inform the exemptions and implementation timeline of the fee.

Second.

All right, so we do have a motion on the floor with a second.

So any further discussion by council before we vote on this motion tonight.

Anyone wants to make any comments?

Counselor Mendes.

Yeah.

Um I think uh so I appreciated all the comments.

And you know, obviously we're hearing from a diverse group of people about this, and I think that's appropriate because this is a challenging issue that is multifaceted and is not one dimensional.

I do think, you know, if we could do our work as a city without fees, that would be great.

But we can't.

But that doesn't mean we have to like the fees, but I think it's important to talk about why we do it.

Um I do still have concerns about uh affordability.

Um I do have concerns about reliability of the grid and overall emissions.

I think we've talked about that with the net carbon emissions approach.

I think that's really important.

Uh I also have concerns about the durability and longevity of this fee.

I want it to be successful.

I want it to be uh a program that we're proud of and that that is effective.

And for those reasons, that is why I'm I'm happy I had earlier suggested a 10% fee because I think that would be effective.

And I'm also happy to support the 20% fee because I think that's I think it will end up probably being less than 20% because the model is is assuming that all appliances will be paid for, and I think maybe some people won't pay for that, so we'll end up probably being less.

Um if we look at the forward trajectory, I still think that gas is going away.

Line extension subsidies are disappearing.

We we still can offer non-financial incentives.

You know, we haven't talked about that very much.

The idea of hey, if you're building an electric home, we hear a lot about permit delays.

It would be pretty amazing to say an electric home gets bumped to the front of the line as a matter of policy.

Um I think all of that is still on the table.

Um, but I think we all want something that's effective, and for that reason, not because this is like some love of fees or 100% or 50% or 20%.

I I want something that's effective and and durable, and I think that will be successful.

And so for that reason, I'm I'm supporting 20%.

Okay.

Any other comments from anyone?

Steve, right?

Go ahead.

Yeah.

Um I really appreciate the folks who have engaged repeatedly over the over the meetings that we've had here.

Um we've had some folks who we've had a lot of folks tonight, and I really appreciate you showing up.

We've also had folks who've been here every week and talking about this about these fees.

We are in, as one of the speakers said tonight, strange times.

I would also say very alarming times.

One of the things that I think that we do as elected officials is work to have a vision for the future that we're doing.

We're trying to we're trying to see where we are right now and the vision that we're trying to aim for, and our job, I believe, on this dias is to try to shrink that gap between where we want to go and where we are right now, and I think this policy gets us part of the way there.

Now, I would like for us to be be more aggressive with this fee, but I but I recognize where the support of the council is on this.

What I want to be clear about this fee is that it is not designed to penalize people, and I want to be clear that I'm not putting blame on the people who work in the industries that heat and power our homes.

Those folks bring money home to support their families every night and pay all the bills to make it happen.

They do not get blame for doing that, and I appreciate what they do regardless of the industry that they're in.

I appreciate what they do, and I will tell you, I should I swapped over my home last last year, this last summer, to an electrified home with the exception of our stove.

And we had plumbers that came in and worked on the HVAC systems and on the heat pumps for our system.

And so I do look forward to those people being gamefully employed as we begin our transition.

So this is not as much as I'd like.

However, this is part of a process.

We are walking forward.

We are doing it at a time when the federal government is actively working against us, and sometimes the government leads, sometimes the federal government leads, sometimes the state government leads, and sometimes people on this dias have to lead.

And sometimes the government leads, sometimes the federal government leads, sometimes the state government leads, and sometimes people on this diet have to lead.

And that's what I'm asking us to do tonight is for us to lead to the local level and to be an example, to be an example for other city cities so they can want to be like Ben when we continue to build homes at an outstanding rate, better than anybody else in this in this state, and we make them affordable and we make them clean for the long term.

So I'm definitely uh in favor of this fee.

All right.

You want to go ahead.

Councilor Bergens.

Yeah.

Um, yeah, I'd love to jump off what you said a little bit too, Steve.

Um, first of all, I I admire everybody for for being here for caring, um, for showing up week after week.

Um, and I agree with so many of you about the threats that we're facing.

Um, and how scared we all are about what the federal government has been doing, uh, particularly with the announcement um just a few days ago.

Um, I definitely I don't want this to be about caring and not caring.

Um, I care.

I want my kids to drink clean water and breathe fresh air.

Um, I testified for um the climate the client the C CAP before I was even on council in support of it.

Um I care, I and I believe that those who spoke out against this fee, I believe they they care as well.

Um we just don't, I don't believe I will not be supporting it.

This I do not believe that my questions have been answered.

I do not believe it is the right mechanism to get to what we all in this room want.

And so I will be voting against it tonight.

Okay, council right.

Um, yeah, I pre I just want to echo, I appreciate everybody being here, everybody's dedication, missing your pottery classes, um, and just people showing up repeatedly and um knowing that people have been at it for a while from when they were in high school to post-high school.

Um, I think as I said at the last meeting, um one of the things that sort of drives me the most on this is really thinking about the future and what's this gonna be like for um what I hope to be my own grandchildren and some of the other people that were here tonight spoke to that specifically their grandkids and their great grandkids, that I think that's a big part of what need we need to be thinking about um with the action that we take, and that we do need to take action at the local level because basically nothing is happening anymore at the federal level, and they're doing their best to roll back everything that any progress that's been made.

Um, so I think that focus on the future is really important.

I do think it's fair though to be concerned about some of the affordability impacts that we might have in the community today, and some of the other kinds of concerns about that that you hear in the community.

So that's not a primary driver for me.

I just want to emphasize that it is something that as counselors sitting on as a diet, so we have to wrestle with this whole spectrum of issues, and it can be very challenging sometimes.

I do think that we have a much more solid formula.

Some of the input that we got in the last day or so concerns me a little bit that there might be some misunderstandings about how the formula works.

Um, but I I think that we have one that um reflects on the feedback we've got from the community on this idea of net carbon um impact, and it will vary based on uh what happens with the outcome on the renewable portfolio of of our electric utility.

I also think it's important that it's legally defensible, and I think what we don't want to do is adopt something that we know is just gonna get hammered and thrown out in the very beginning, and so then we spend the next couple of years defending something, and we can't take any action, and nothing, no progress has happened in the community at all.

That kind of concern um I think is important, and I think in the current context, it's particularly important.

So I think we have a more defensible formula, and I know that some people are disappointed in that, but I think that is part of the reason that um that I'm supporting it.

I wanted a higher fee, and you heard me advocate for that last week.

Not as high as many people in the room might have liked.

Um, but the reality is passing something like this is about politics and getting the votes, and we couldn't get votes for the higher fee.

So what you have what we have in front of us tonight is what we have votes for on the council to move forward, and as many of you have said, we've been working on this at a long time.

I would rather see us take some action that I think can still be meaningful, that can help us reduce the use of gas new gas in our community, can also help us transition some other people off of gas, then basically end up doing nothing or be in part because we either can't pass something up here, or two, we get locked up in legal battles for the next number of years and waste all that time and and and actual dollars on the defense.

So it is a compromise.

That's not always what we want, what I would want, but it's I think what we're gonna be able to move forward on as a council right now.

All right, thank you.

Um, Councilor Franzosa, just wanted to give you the opportunity.

No, thank you.

Thanks.

Um yeah, I want to echo everyone, I think unanimously appreciating all the input we've gotten and all the folks showing up um over the years, starting with before we were even the council up here with the CCAP and getting that in place.

And I want to tell you that if you help get the C cap in place, it is your effort that led to this moment today, right?

And if you spoke at our meetings, it is your effort that led to this moment today, which I know is disappointing that it's not exactly the strong fee that um many of you want, but it is a watershed moment for this council and for this state, and I don't know of a lot of cities in the country that are building and growing like we are that are also looking at this type of a fee or type of a policy to help harness that growth and make it more sustainable.

So um I I just want just to say your efforts are not in vain.

It may feel a little disappointing tonight, but there has been um change that has happened because of what you have done and advocated to your local government and um to our folks um in the labor side.

I also want to say your efforts were not in vain either.

Um there were changes the way I thought about this fee and the way I approached this conversation because of the conversations we've had, um concerns about affordability and and legality, and um I think um I want to make sure that we have more voices on this issue and other issues from labor going forward because we need folks in all of our industries to be able to work here and live here and be paired paid fairly and get the benefits they need for their families to live here.

This is all part of the same ecosystem for a healthy city that's gonna be sustainable into the future.

Um so the other thing I want to say is that um as we move to this motion tonight, there's going to be more steps.

There is more to this policy than just the impact fee.

Um we're gonna keep working that aspect of it with the council led engagement.

We're also um gonna be talking about at a round table coming up with community leaders, including labor, including Cascade Natural Gas to present to us and Central Electric and Pacific Power, so that we're taking all of those perspectives as we continue to move forward with this aspect, and we still have work to do on as Councilor Mendez mentioned, non-financial incentives and other things we can do that are not just this fee side that can help push uh more folks to build electric and can help compensate um for some of the affordability concerns that have been brought up.

So um I think that's where I am at tonight, and again, just appreciate everyone who's given us input.

We've received, I don't know, what did you say 1500 emails?

And that was before this week, right?

Um, as well as everyone who's been showing up here and and giving us comment that way as well.

So we appreciate all of you as we have worked through this, and we are gonna continue.

It's gonna continue with more steps in the future.

Um so with that, I'll go ahead and move to a vote.

So the motion um from Councillor Platt uh was read and seconded by Councilor Riley.

Um let's raise hands and see all in favor, please.

Okay, and then opposed.

All right.

So the motion will pass and we will move forward.

And Eric, can you remind everyone sort of the next dates for those?

Yeah, so we are planning.

We actually had an opening in our April 8th work session.

So what we'd like to repurpose that April 8th work session as that round table format, invite some of the folks that you mentioned and hear a presentation from Cascade Natural Gas.

I think that was important uh something that was expressed by uh council as well as other stakeholders, including the chairs of the committees that we'd like to involve.

That includes the Human Rights and Equity Commission, Affordable Housing Advisory Uh Committee, uh the Bend Economic Development Advisory Board, and the Environment Climate Committee and HREC too.

Yeah, I mentioned that so that would be on April 8th, and then we'll take any uh feedback from that round table and discuss it at the April 22nd work session.

Uh and then depending on how that goes, I think we would be then positioned to schedule a public hearing and vote on the fee, most likely at the end of May or early part of June.

And we'll see, given the kind of participation we've had, we might want to have a standalone meeting for that.

Just for that issue, yeah.

Um yeah, and so just to reiterate the motion tonight is is to pursue the development of the fee.

So we're not at the final decision making on that.

That's why we want to have this round table, another work session, um, some other aspects of this, such as implementation timeline, what exemptions might look like before we make a final vote on this.

But that is the next steps in the process, and we know you'll all be engaged, um, and we appreciate you for that.

Okay, that will close us out on this item, um, and then we're gonna move into council action and reports.

Thank you everyone for being here.

We'll pause for a second.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

Emptied out.

All right.

So I think we can get started with council action and reports.

There are a few letters just to tick off at the beginning.

I did send out to council a letter supporting neighbor impact child care workforce development programs and an official comment in the rulemaking on a Medicaid rule that is threatening gender affirming care.

Just making sure nobody had any questions about those.

Those are in line with some previous goals and resolutions that we have passed.

Looks like no, so I didn't think there would be, but just wanted to make sure you all saw that before we we that one worked out where we could bring it to you before it needed to be in.

Kate sent a list of legislative letters and testimony.

Take a look at those and just let us know if you have questions, but those are aligned with either staff or me or I know Ari and Mike also did some testimony.

We're just trying to support those legislative priorities that we identified.

Okay, so then moving on to council reports.

Council Francisa, do you want to give any report?

I do not.

I'll pass today.

Okay.

Council Mendez.

Um yeah, thank you.

The uh Oregon Metropolitan Planning Organization Consortium, OMPOC, met on February 6th.

And I just wanted to highlight one of the comments that was made by Eric Havig, who is the Oregon Department of Transportation statewide policy and planning manager in describing the challenge around paying for capital projects at the state level and also paying for operations and maintenance.

He reiterated that this is really up to the legislature to fix.

And I I think that the legislature is aware of that, but if you have views about how to fix our uh state uh transportation funding issues, we really need to be in contact with our our legislative representation in Salem.

Uh other transportation meetings that I attended.

Um the Central Oregon Area Commission on Transportation met on February 12th.

Um I'm the second uh the alternate for that uh for representing the city on that body, and I was actually very uh heartened to see how much support there is for improving the safety of US 20 and US 97 in particular.

This is a cross-jurisdictional body that spans three counties, has representatives from all different levels of local government, and there is the risk of being very sort of provincial about what do we think is the most important priorities that for example the city of Bend would say we want to see done or completed from a state level.

And of course, when you look at how we all get around, people are dying on our roads, not just in the city of Bend, but also outside of the city of Bend, and um they're dying in pretty large numbers.

So US 97 and US 20 are two of the most dangerous highways in the state.

And what I think we're we're seeing now is is there is a coalition forming to recognize this and to ask in a unified voice.

These are our priorities to try to address these safety issues so that we can tell our constituents we're doing everything we can to stop these deadly crashes and serious injury crashes on those those uh state freeways.

Um the Ben Metropolitan Planning Organization policy board met on Friday the 13th.

Um we heard a longer version of the transportation safety action plan that city council heard, and the one thing that I would add that I think is interesting is that safety action plan will be looking for just that public roadways, but Ben has a large number of private streets as well.

Those will be included in that.

And so I'm I'm still seeking clarity on whether those are going to be included because I do think that they're important for us to look at and pay attention to.

Um that is all that I have to report.

Okay.

Thank you, Council Riley.

Um two things.

One, I attended the home meeting last week, really just as an observer and wanted to make sure that I get a chance to actually hear the whole conversation.

The home committee, for those who don't know, is working um to advise the council on ways that we can um just basically you know accelerate our efforts at um creating more housing in the community and really the full spectrum of housing.

And last week they started having discussions about um revenue sources in particular.

So they've been looking at various incentives about last week new revenue potential revenue sources, and I just wanted to express my gratitude for their continued time and attention and um uh and input on this issue because it's an important one for the community.

I also um as the mayor mentioned, I testified on behalf of the city for Senate Bill 1544 before the transportation committee, which is about really just making Cascades East Transit more efficient.

It's kind of an administrative fix to the way money flows from the state down to transit service providers, and this would allow COIC to receive that money directly.

Um it was positive.

We we passed it, it got passed out of the committee with the do pass recommendation, and so that's kind of the first step.

And Senator Broadman has been an important um ally for us on moving that bill forward.

So thank him for that.

Yeah, great.

Uh first I wanted to say I drove down only for the first time today.

And it was good.

It was so amazing.

First of all, I was like, oh, I can drive down this road that I haven't been able to drive down, and it looks really, really good.

So that is just something to be really proud of, and um yeah, it was it was awesome to see.

Um couple things, a few things um met with a couple weeks ago with a group called PDBG, which I always I always get the FNM wrong.

But they're a group that represents uh minority contractors um in um the state of Oregon, and it was great.

It was a uh there was some some staff from procurement and from economic development, and basically uh they let me listen in and it was it was just basically how can we um how can we break down barriers um in procurement um for local and smaller and minority contractors um in our community and I was so impressed by the enthusiasm from um the staff to to work continue working on this and as you may know or should know Katie that this is a key part of our economic development strategy, so I'm really glad to see this work um moving forward.

Um also uh at the Human Rights and Equity Commission uh meeting we um had a lot of conversations.

Um we did talk about electrification.

Uh the chair had been at a meeting with uh to kind of get up to speed on electrification and and we um shared that they are very enthusiastic at continuing um to be a part of that process.

Um and then we talked about um the resolution and um that we that the Latino Community Association um and you know uh had sort of asked that we uh work on and council decided to to work on, and um the result was uh we uh we designated a few people from the human rights and equity commission meeting to have um a private meeting with a small group of of people in a safe um environment to to really go through a draft of this resolution and I'll talk about that in a second.

And then we heard from um the equity consultant uh Ben Duncan, sort of his final his final report um and and with a little bit of feedback there.

And Eric, if people wanted to access that report, how could they do that?

It's it was um posted in my my city measure memo, which are those are available on the public.

So all you have to do is just search equity report on the um the website or council memo, and it should come up there.

I think we're gonna work on putting it more prominently in our equity page.

That would be great.

Yes, that would be great.

Um, and then yesterday we did have the the meeting on the resolution, and it was a really incredible group of people representing um not only the the Latina population um in Central Oregon, but also the AAPI uh community, um African immigrants, uh Ukrainian immigrants, and um had it, you know, Ian and I were talking about this before.

It was our it was a really wonderful meeting of just of just what are the needs um in the community, what are the things that that that the city can provide, and um I think we have a really great draft for you that's that's um being worked on and and you'll see it soon.

And so that was a that was pretty much the highlight, I think, of maybe my month um that meeting.

It was it was it was just really really wonderful.

Um then today we had I I'll let you talk about it more, but we had our our business round table and heard a lot about the OSU Innovation District and also um what are some key gaps that we need to fill.

Um I think the it was for entrepreneurs, I think it was described as fragmented.

Um and so that was a really great conversation on on how we could um how we can make it unfragmented.

I don't know if that's is the opposite of fragmented unfragmented, I don't know, connected together together together.

Um and then I was I just recently joined the homeless leadership coalition uh board as their as one of their elected officials uh slots, and I was able to attend their retreat and um learned a lot.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Council Norris.

Uh yes, I attended the Edco lunch on February 5th, and it's just always a great reminder how amazing EdCo is in our community and just um all that they do for our local businesses and just all the stories um that you hear about you know folks getting help and in and and you know growing their businesses as a result from financial assistance or you know any sort of assistance from Edco and also just really appreciate all that they're um the tours that they've been doing for us as counselors have been great and just to get to know and learn more about local businesses here in town.

Um and then I had the pleasure of going to um the Afrocentric program over at COCC put on the um showing of the Tony Morrison documentary, The Pieces I Am.

And it was really funny.

The last like right before I left, my 11-year-old said, Hey, I want to I want to go with you to go see a movie.

And as I'm driving there, I'm like, Oh, this is gonna be pretty pretty interesting.

And she, you know, I thought I was gonna be late for her.

She wanted to stay, and you could just tell the experience, like that she, you know, was learning about history, um, and just listening to Tony was just really empowering for her.

So I really appreciate them putting that on.

I'm she was crying, it was heavy for sure.

We had some really heavy conversations afterwards, but um, it was it was really a pleasure to do.

That's it.

That's awesome.

All right, council Platt.

Yeah, the uh the home committee uh myself and and the and the mayor attended that as we regularly do.

It is tough.

They're looking for for revenue, right?

And and nobody wants to, nobody wants to come over revenue.

That's one of the things we asked them to do.

So that's a tall order, right?

And we're looking, we're looking for those sources, and that's gonna be tough in this business environment, and that was made clear to us by some of the business uh leaders that were there.

Not only that, this week is sort of business focused as well.

Uh, just last Friday, the the mayor and councillor Riley and I did sort of a deep dive into some of the some of the system development charges is one of our local campuses, business campuses around here, and it was really illuminating to see you know, over time as our policy changes and and has been updated for for all very good reasons.

That has a rolling impact as buildings are trying to build out their campuses, and it's and it's tough.

It's tough from their perspective.

So it's you know, being mindful about how that rolling impact has uh on our on our business environment.

And then um, you know, lastly, attending both the planning commission and the uh landmarks uh committee.

They are those groups of folks who are working hard and are very interested in our growth plan going forward, really want to be plugged into that.

And both of those committees mentioned the advisory body summit that's coming up.

Um, and so for Eric and for staff, they're really looking for uh really something meeting, a meeting in that in that advisory body summit where they can crosstalk amongst the different committees right there, also learn uh uh of how they are getting advocacy to us on the council council amongst the different committees and looking for sort of a clearer pathway for their their voices to come and be reflected on the council.

So that's all I have.

Thanks.

Thanks, counselor.

Um a couple items from me.

Uh I've been testifying virtually a lot in Salem.

Um again, that list went out to council.

A couple that I'll highlight um testifying, uh standing with our recreation industry on the recreational liability issue that is um moving through, starting in the Senate, and also um a bill that Senator Broadman is bringing um allowing folks to have a uh private uh right of action if their civil rights are violated by federal immigration agents.

Um and there's been some other bills on that topic uh moving through Salem as well, um, keeping a close eye on our transient lodging tax flexibility bill, which um had a hearing our work session tonight, and I think maybe another vote tomorrow to move that out of committee, hopefully.

Um so lots going on in in Salem uh these past couple of weeks.

Was also able to go to um the governor's prosperity council visited Central Oregon.

Uh they had meetings yesterday in Redmond with uh a round table of businesses and visited base X the night before they had a happy hour, so at the Chutes Pub.

So I went down there also with the mayor of Redmond just to welcome them all to bed and talk to the talk to the members of that council.

Um and um I think a theme was that Central Oregon is a bright spot.

We are um creating jobs, we are um doing well in economic development, um, maybe compared to some other parts of the state, and we need to not just be proud of that success but keep it going and be investing in it to make sure that that continues.

A lot of that I think has to do with just our growth.

So we need to um I think continue to think about how we're intentionally growing and developing, which is why it's so great that we have an economic development strategy that we've approved, which I told everybody about, um, and also our need for infrastructure funding as a part of that um growth and development.

So I'm excited to see what they come up with as they travel around the state talking to businesses.

Um and then also went to the um swearing-in ceremony for um our promoted and new um folks at the police department yesterday, so that's always really nice to see.

Yeah, we um we get we we call them laterals, but it's folks who are already police officers that want to come work for our department.

I will brag on that.

We now have Lieutenant Aaron Wells at our department, who previously was the captain of the Redmond Police Department, um, and I think has come home.

I think hopefully to stay.

He's got a wealth of experience and leadership.

Um, and then also some some brand new folks that just came through training, which is great.

So um always really good to get to that to that meeting.

Um okay, I think that's it for council or actions and reports, and then we have visitor section, and we just have one who was not related to electrification, Michael Kamana.

Brave soul.

We'll give you your two minutes.

Yeah, thank you very much.

Good evening, Mayor Council.

My name is Michael Baker, and I have the honor of being the CEO for the Boys and Girls Clubs here in Benn.

And just wanted to give you an update.

Uh, first of all, I I do want to make a comment that it's what a special community this is.

Um I've lived in a lot of communities with boys and girls clubs, my work across the country.

And uh seeing the folks here tonight, that's just awesome to see that kind of public involvement.

Fantastic.

Uh we see the same thing at the boys and girls club, so uh it's really it's exciting.

Um I I do want to let you know that uh e certainly each and every one of you are invited to our annual meeting, which is coming up on the 24th from 5 to 6 p.m.

at the uh downtown club on Wall Street.

And uh I will I will uh also put out a uh request to the community as a whole.

We are in the market for volunteers.

Uh we are definitely uh COVID's well beyond behind us now, thank goodness, and uh we're able to have volunteers in the building again, and uh we just need to get them cleared, of course, uh, to be able to work around the children, but uh that's something we're definitely looking for.

So, whatever your your talent is, we'd love to have you down at the boys and girls club uh working with our kiddos, uh, especially those that have a musical talent that would love to teach music to our kids.

We'd love to have that.

Um and uh finally uh I'll tell you uh we've we have had our Saturday program happen now for the past two weeks and um I've been here both weeks and and um I intentionally been there both weeks and I will continue to be there.

Uh but what I will tell you is uh what what's been really exciting is seeing the parents pull up at five minutes to 10 when the building's opening at 10 and they're dropping their kiddos off and they're rushing off to work.

As we said, it's it's just another day for a lot of these families.

Uh so that's why it's so important that we're open.

And the part that really hits home with me is because I was one of those kiddos, is the child are the children that are there that how important that lunch is to them because there's no school.

So um just want to thank each and every one of you and hopefully get you to come on down and see that in action.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Michael, what is the age on the volunteers?

Do you have a that age requirement?

Yeah, well, of course, you can you can be a you can be a student and do your community service hours, but we still have to get them cleared as well.

But uh 18, we we we try to get adult volunteers.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Thanks so much.

All right, that moves us along to the consent agenda.

I move to approve the consent agenda.

Second.

All right, move by Council Norris, second by council Riley.

All those in favor?

All right, um, we're gonna move to items five and six.

So I'm gonna have Ashley read those.

I'm gonna tell everyone after these two items we are gonna take a break.

Okay.

So we're gonna get these done and then we'll think about this is a clause of public hearing and first reading of an ordinance to amend the then comprehensive plan to modify the boundaries of land use designations in a portion of the Southeast Urban Growth Boundary UGB expansion area, and a quasi-judicial public hearing and first reading of an ordinance to Annex 66.46 acres of land in the Southeast Urban Growth Boundary UGB expansion expansion area.

All right, I'm gonna open the public hearing.

Councilor Norris.

Yep.

Um, I have to declare an actual conflict for items five and six.

I am an employee of Hayden Homes, and these items would have a financial impact on my employer, so I'll be stepping out for the deliberation and vote.

Thank you.

And then we'll turn it over to Ian for the quadrijudicial questions.

Yeah, good news is uh although there are two items that are distinct but uh related.

Uh we're gonna do a combined hearing, so we only have to do this once tonight.

Okay.

Um first order of business is asking if anyone has any ex-party contacts or site visits regarding the applications they wish to declare.

Seeing head shake, hearing none.

Next question is whether anyone has any actual or potential conflicts of interest or other personal interests that would interfere with the ability to serve as an impartial decision maker on either of these applications.

Seeing none now is an opportunity for anyone present who was just a challenge any of these declarations or is a challenge based on bias or personal interest.

Looking around the room, seeing none, assuming they're not online.

Uh the next step is to let everyone know that all testimony argument and evidence tonight has to be directed to the applicable criteria in the Ben Development Code and comprehensive plan that the person offering the testimony believes are applicable to the matter.

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

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

And finally, if prior to the end of the hearing tonight, any party requests additional time to present testimony argument or evidence, the decision maker can allow either a continuance or additional time in its discretion for parties to submit that additional testimony argument or evidence to record.

That's all.

All right, great.

Turn it over to you, Karen.

All right, as Ian mentioned, we have uh two um motions that will be necessary tonight, but one public hearing.

Um, so it's for the Copperwood Crossing Annexation and comprehensive plan map amendment.

This is in the south east area.

Um, and uh the southeast area, as you well know, has an area plan, and this is an annexation within that area.

This is the southeast area with all the comprehensive plan designations shown, and the annexation area is outlined in red uh to the west, in white is Easton.

Easton was adopted actually um before the um Southeast Area Plan.

So it while it's currently in the Southeast Area Plan, um, it's only subject to Easton standards.

Um the uh rain tree drive curvature there is also within the city, um, but the properties that has a little notch out of the bottom west portion, um the RL, RS, and the ME portions are um have not been annexed to the city.

Um everything to the east is outside of the city limits, and to the north it abuts um Magnolia Meadows.

Um, and then uh one property to the north is a previous annexation called Lagore subdivision.

And so that kind of gives you an overview of where we are to zoom in a little bit uh further in terms of the um the uh vicinity and uh what it looks like in terms of um that general southeast area with um juniper trees and stage brush.

Uh it does a bot knot road to the south, and for a very small portion of um of not of Rain Two Drive, it does not include the five lots on color court or one additional property to the north, and that's the notch taken out there at this on this to the southwest.

So, first uh because this is uh uh within the southeast area.

Um, typically with major master plans, you can move colors around without a comprehensive plan map amendment, but because the area plan set those original comprehensive plan boundaries, uh map amendment was necessary to move those boundaries.

Uh so the boundary that we're looking at is um that light purple versus dark purple in the northern portion, that's mixed employment and light industrial.

You can see it's very distinct square, and the proposal is to um do this uh kind of geometric shape to align with the proposed uh roads um and uh rock outcroppings that go through the middle.

So um it's to align with uh cabin lane that um has that curvature um north-south to avoid some rock outcroppings as well as the curvature of um called drive, a collector street in the transportation system plan.

So this is very small net change in the comprehensive plan.

There are a set policies for the Southeast area of how much how many acres are required within each plan designation, and that is that second column there.

And this change is there in the third column, that the mixed employment is reduced by about 0.6 acres, and the standard density residential and the light industrial designations go up accordingly, split between those two.

So overall, the net change for the southeast area comprehensive plan designations is less than one percent for all three of those plan designations.

For comprehensive plan map amendment, there's these uh five criteria, and uh all of these are addressed in the staff report very standard with the statewide planning goals and the uh comprehensive plan policies.

The adequate public facilities, services and transportation networks are more addressed in the annexation, um, but uh it is also applied here.

And then the most significant one uh of why this one would be necessary is when these comprehensive plan map boundaries were drawn.

It was strictly on a quarter quarter section basis and um didn't account for those rock outcroppings or how future roads would be aligned, so this is necessary.

And uh the transportation planning rule again will be addressed in the annexation, but also applies here, and I'll speak to that in a few moments.

So the annexation did I yeah, the annexation um will rezone the property from urbanizable area to match the underlying comprehensive plan designations as they're proposed or amended or amended tonight if approved, um, and therefore um that we would need a separate motion on this comprehensive plan map amendment before a motion on the annexation.

So for the annexation itself, uh the property itself is about a 65 acres.

If you include the abutting rights of way of Knott Road and that small section of Rain Tree Drive, it's 66.46 acres.

Um there is a very small 10-foot um section between the five lots on Color Court and the property to the north that is part of this overall property.

Um so that 10-foot land will be at annexed as well as a portion of raintree drive, but not the portion of buddy in the color court subdivision.

So for properties within the area plan, if they're over 20 acres, um a master plan application is not required to be submitted, but you must meet the master plan criteria.

As I mentioned, this is a 65-acre property.

And there's 25 acres of residential designated lands and 39 acres of um mixed employment and light industrial land in to the north.

And so the approach to this because they're very distinct types of uses.

Uh the southern boundary, so north is to the right on this slide, the southern boundary that is on this slide left of the black thick black line will be with a in within a community um master plan designation, and the everything north of there is in an employment master plan designation.

So these are minor master plans.

This just doesn't add anything to the development code, like you've seen for other major master plans.

And uh so um for the community master plans, um, 165 lots are planned within the RS designation.

Uh 30% of those are sized for townhomes or 12%, which is more than the required 10%.

Another 245 units are uh proposed within the ME portion of that community master plan, and then in the employment master plan boundary, 403 units are proposed in the mixed employment designation in mixed use development.

So collectively, between the RS and the ME designation uh overall, approximately 813 units are proposed.

I want to point out here all the assumptions about units and uh any uses in mixed employment and industrial lands are for infrastructure planning purposes only.

They will be subject to the code at the time of what permitted uses are allowed and what they choose to permit that have submitted that time.

This again north is to the right on the slide, and this is that corridor.

It is a designation on the Bend Parks and Rec record comprehensive plan as the High Desert Trail that continues all the way from 15th Street basically through Easton through this property and then down to the southeast to that corner property owned by Ben Parks and Rec, colloquially called the High Desert Park site.

And so this is a path that meanders through some rock outcroms, and so those tracks that it travels through will be specific open space tracks within an open space easement.

And then it's very light on here, but there are some smaller tracks within the residential areas that will also be open space tracks as well.

And so collectively, those open space tracks will meet the required open space for the community master plan portion that I showed you that's south of that black line.

So the BPRD will be managing that high desert park trail.

The HOA would be managing the other open space tracks.

There is alternatives that could be used to provide sewer to the northern and southern portions of this property.

This is within the Avion Water District, and they've worked closely with the applicant has worked closely with Avion to determine what water improvements are necessary to serve this development, future development.

And then also, of course, compliance with the section in the development code for transportation analysis that this was developed with a host of mitigation measures, which will be applied at the time of future subdivision, or there's a concurrent subdivision submitted or future site plan applications.

For the employment master plan, they needed to submit a transportation and parking demand management plan.

You've seen some of these for some institutional uses like OSU.

But because this there are no new known no known uses at this time, it's fairly general in nature nature, but does get to the requirements for that type of plan.

And then standard that this master plan is consistent with the conference of plan map as amended with the first motion that it's consistent with the planning goals as well as the Comprehensive Plan policies for the Southeast area.

And then there's also standards for the community master plan that has access to commercial goods and services within a half mile radius.

Obviously, there is mixed employment and light industrial to the north, as well as that off-site area to the west and the to the east that have not been annexed yet, but they're all designation designated mixed employment.

Mixed employment does allow for your general retail sales and service.

The one caveat prohibition in the Southeast area is that it does not allow auto-dependent or auto-oriented uses.

And the light industrial area is looking at about 60,000 square feet of light industrial.

That wasn't aside.

So in terms of housing density and mix for areas that don't have specific policies that are minor master plans, such as this that within an area plan, they meet must meet a higher minimum density.

So instead of your standard four dwelling units per acre for standard density residential, it's actually 5.1.

And so this one exceeds that, and you must have at least 10% of the lots that are not single family detached, and so 10 12% are sized for townhomes.

And then again, as I mentioned, they have provided those private uh public and private open space tracks, more than 10% of the area.

And so for the annexation criteria, standard number one and two with the conference of plan policies and consistent with the Southeast Area Plan.

And uh and we went over all that with the um public facilities and services.

Um we um as part of the annexation, they also reach out to Ben uh Ben Le Pine School District, and of course, Ben Parks and Rec.

Um, so letters are in the file with coordination with both of those districts, um, and then uh how those public facilities on and off site improvements are adequately mitigated through an annexation agreement.

So that is exhibit C on for the annexation, and uh there are um exhibits shown there that um that uh are the requirements that are required.

Uh let's see, and uh there's no irrigation water rights or facilities on the property.

Uh the transportation planning rule was addressed through the Southeast Dairy Plan.

So there is, I think it's $323 per PM power trip that that is generated with each final plat or with each um site plan review that we reaches occupancy when that is due, and then um the rights of way not road um and a rain tree drive uh would be uh improved um to city standards as well as all the new new um roads.

Uh of note um typically we ask for jurisdictional authority of those um those abutting rights away that we annex knot road because we have intermittent annexations.

Um Dishutes County has requested that we uh do not um transfer jurisdictional authority for that portion knot road at this time, so they don't have to pick up and put down their snow plows and figure out where they can and cannot have authority, and so there will be a management agreement with the city uh between the city and county of how to manage that area of knot road, but at the time when we have a more continuous segment of knot road, um we will ask for jurisdictional authority of that.

They really would pick up and put down their own.

That's their joke.

Okay, okay.

Um, so uh for that annexation agreement, there are a couple uh off-site improvements.

Um there does trigger uh the roundabout at 27th and Ferguson for um anything outside of that standard density residential area, um, but that's also required of the Stevens Ranch master plan.

Uh they have actually Stevens Ranch has already submitted their infrastructure plans for that roundabout, and that master patent can't continue on another phase until that's done.

So that one is basically taken care of um unless everything comes to a skidding halt.

And then um the other off-site improvement is roundabout at Knott Road and Broster House, and that is required at 600 PMP coward trips, regardless of whether it's residential or not.

Um, and uh so um that is specific to this development, it's not any 600 peak hour trips, is when this development generates that.

Other um developments that may impact that intersection will have their own triggers.

Um, and whoever hits their trigger first is required to construct.

Um, as I mentioned, that per vehicle trip fee for transportation rule planning rule compliance, and that's for ODOT.

Um, and that's kind of a pass-through fee that we collect and pass on to ODOT.

And in an annexation agreement, because we don't have a piece of code to keep track of that open space that they will be plating, um, it that is in the annexation agreement, and those three options for sewer provision are also in there as well.

The applicant held a neighborhood public meeting uh last year, um, and all the property owners and residents within 500 feet were notified.

The Southeast Bend and Old Farm um neighborhood districts were notified, even though one of those is beyond the 500-foot uh notice boundary.

Uh, and public notice was posted on Knot Road, which is the only public street that abuts the 65-acre property, amazingly enough.

And then for annexation, there's two more required um uh notices that you must put them in four public locations as well as publish in the Ben Bulletin, and that is it.

All right, thank you, Karen.

Any questions for Karen before we have the applicant up here?

Go ahead, Councilor Mendez.

Um Karen, could I just ask about that jurisdictional transfer agreement for not road?

So my concern is we've heard from people who say they don't feel safe on that road because of the high speeds, and is that agreement going to be flexible enough that I don't know what the plan for making not road safer is along the entire corridor and want to turn it in 27.

But I would hate to see us get to a point where we have a plan, but we don't have sufficient agreement with the county to move forward or something like that.

So is there is there a provision in the agreement that makes it flexible enough to say you know we're gonna be able to address speeds or other infrastructure-related uh issues with the county there or what would do we have to wait until the entire corridor has development?

Yeah, so um Rescreen's chief operations officer gonna give Karen assist here.

So we're gonna be coming back to you in the very near future talking about a proposed supplemental transportation SDC for the Southeast area, which we just had a conversation with a lot of the developers and property owners there last week.

We are talking about, or actually, this week actually talking about making a supplemental SDC to help fund that road, and it will become a city project.

The city will build at some point in the future.

And at that point, the city will be looking at speed controls when we actually upgrade that facility um to it needs to get upgraded to a full urban standard at that time.

Wouldn't that be from 15th all the way to Ferguson?

All the way to Ferguson, yeah, but both the section 27th and not um and we'll bring more information back to council here in an upcoming meeting around that topic.

Okay, thank you.

Yep.

Council Franz is okay, Councillor Franzoso, you have a question?

I do, yeah.

Um I am curious.

Um, you know, we've had some issues with other I know not annexations, but master planned areas um converting uh commercial or mixed-use land to affordable housing.

And so um is that a risk in this area that's proposed to be annexed?

So um as I mentioned, the applicant can address this as well.

There is um approximately well, okay, 813 minus 245, whatever that number is.

Uh it there are that many units assumed in the mixed employment area.

Um, and that can be market rate or affordable housing.

Uh but that was just for the infrastructure planning purposes.

So whatever is allowed in the ME zone is allowed.

Now, light industrial um affordable housing, as you well know, 3.6.250.

Um, you can only do that if it's a public body.

So generally that would not apply within the IL zone.

So the IL zone will not have an SB8 issue because it's not publicly owned.

The law that allows it in IL is not gonna apply, and then ME already allows housing.

Correct.

So that's anticipated, right?

Okay.

And um some potentially some of the commercial land there could still convert.

So no commercial.

Yeah, there's no like general commercial convenience commercial in this.

Yes, it can go in emmy, but it's residential can go in ME.

Um anyway, the the what SBA or 3.6.250 B would allow is that uh you can do standalone residential without a mixed use component.

And just to be clear for the community, there's about 109,000 acres in total between I think the two sub-plans, the community one and the employment one that's currently envisioned potentially for retail space, right?

Where is the kind of place that you could put a grocery store and other kinds of neighborhood serving services, right?

Right.

Yeah, the Southeast Erie Plan does have a lot of mixed employment land.

Right.

There is the small portion within Easton and then small portion within Ferguson Village that abuts Ferguson Road.

Right.

Uh, but most of it is mixed employment land.

Which I think make, I mean, uh, I think this issue that you know that Councilor Francis is referring to is a really important community issue, and I do think the context for the Southeast area is a little bit different because there's a much more uh a lot much larger land base on which you could do some of that kind of neighborhood serving commercial that's actually envisioned that we and that's just talking about this particular master plan area that we're talking about.

Correct.

So um, just to reassure people that um you know that kind of development could happen down there, assuming that market conditions support the kind of activity that people are looking for.

But but just to be clear, I mean what I heard Karen say though is that yes, you could do standalone as opposed to mixed use.

So the ME zone is intended for mixed use, but someone could come in and build standalone um affordable housing in the ME zone.

Correct.

Yeah, that so we have no update on the SB8 fix yet.

Is that right?

No, the um the amendments being worked on still, but we're trying to hear we're trying our.

No, the um the amendments being worked on still, but we're trying to hear we're trying our it was booted out of what one from landwatch.

I heard it that first avenue failed.

So I don't know.

I mean it just makes me really nervous to go for it.

If like I I I've spoken with Ian about this, it just sounds like the city has absolutely no recourse um with developers when they come forward with a plan like this and we give them approval, and then they just change the plan, you know, to kind of suit their needs.

And I I just it really um makes me uncomfortable moving forward with uh processes like this annexation or future master plans, um, knowing that that risk is uh ever present.

So okay, we can talk about that more when we get to deliberation.

Any other questions?

Just a small one, Karen.

The the easement for the for the high desert trail.

Is that new or is that always been there?

That's always been in the Ben Drexen Rec plan.

Okay, thank you.

All right.

So one last thing about the the little what's it what is it rain tree?

The little bite out of the side, yeah.

It will be a patchwork because that will be that missing section, and if the color court up subdivision which is wishes to annexation annex to the future point, that section will be annexed.

But it's it's in the city's jurisdiction, so it's not a jurisdictional issue.

No, that so the portion of butting this subject property will be annexed.

Okay, the property just west of that five lot sub large lot subdivision, um, that section will remain unannexed and not under the city's jurisdiction.

Gotcha.

Okay.

Can I just ask one more question?

Sure.

Um, just trying to troubleshoot on this issue of you know, land that we're zoning and planning for mixed employment or business commercial uses getting converted.

Um is it possible in the annexation agreement to record um, you know, like kind of basically a covenant?

Um somehow enforcing uh, you know, so that the developer agrees in the annexation agreement to the terms of the development and not leaving it to the um you know uh the further uh kind of administration of the comprehensive plan, because that seems to be where uh as my understanding from Ian that you know the city basically gives up any right to um to actually enforce our comprehensive plan.

So could it be something that's recorded in the annexation agreement?

So there's and would that give the city some does that make sense?

There's two things I want to talk about process.

Uh with uh um an annexation within an area plan like this, we do require a concurrent uh uh land use application in this case a phase land division application, and also with it with an annexation, we require them to submit assumed uses so that we can hold that capacity for that master plan, whether it's minor or major at master plan for 15 years.

And so that is what the assumed uses are that we're talking about for infrastructure planning purposes, water sewer, and transportation.

In terms of what those uses will be or how they'll change, as long as those flows are the same, the water demands the same, the trips are the same, or under that threshold, then um they're just subject to the uses within the uh code itself, and in this case, like mixed employment 2.3 of the Vend development.

So, like there's there's nothing related to because I see in the in the findings and things like that, talk about complete neighborhoods.

Um that's how's that actually enforced or affected?

The complete neighborhoods is for the Southeast Area plan in general.

Um, and so that was part of the whole Southeast area planning back in 2021 to see how those different um uses could be distributed throughout this whole area plan to serve the overall greater community.

Okay, any other questions for Karen?

My question isn't really answered though.

I'm I'm yeah, trying to understand about enforcement mechanisms.

So I guess you're saying there really aren't any for complete neighborhoods.

That's what I'm hearing.

I think this is a plan to lay down zoning and infrastructure planning, and I think when we get to deliberation, maybe we can talk a little bit more about this.

I just want to respect the public hearing rules.

This is informational questions, so um, and we'll have the applicant come up too and have an opportunity maybe to answer some of these questions as well.

So let's go ahead and have the applicant come up and present, please.

So I've got a short presentation.

Hopefully, I can be elevated here to panelists.

It looks like Jimmy's not a panelist yet.

I'm trying.

Okay.

Is there is it a pop-up that says sorry?

As I jumped up here, I added a bunch of blank slides to my presentation.

So which is always an exciting uh thing to do as you step up here.

Um I'm not seeing a pop-up.

Are you channeling?

Yeah.

Okay, let's try one more time.

There we go.

Okay.

Okay.

Mayor, council, thank you for the time and attention here this evening, and the opportunity to present um a little bit about that Copperwood Crossing project that we have been working on.

Uh my name is Joey Sheer.

I'm a planner with AKS Engineering and Forestry here in Bend.

We are a consultant for the applicant memento size construction.

And we have um several hundred pages of uh record that we submitted.

Uh and Karen did her typically very thorough uh staff report and presentation.

So just out of respect for everyone's time, we're keeping our presentation short.

I've got nine or ten slides, and then we'll anticipate that there will be questions that our our team is here to try and answer.

So we do have uh an experienced team that's that's working on this project, uh, and it is uh the output of a team effort, and a lot of coordination uh not just amongst the team but with city staff and community development, private development engineering, planning, uh the county, Ben Parks and Rec, Avian Water, coordination with the school district is also required, uh, and there are there are others.

Um, our team is here.

I think most of the folks listed on this slide are are here to answer questions.

If there's something that I cannot answer, we have subject matter experts to to address those council questions.

And and I'd also just note uh we again we've spent a lot of time working with city staff to try to present an annexation application that meets all the applicable criteria, is approvable, and so we do very much appreciate staff's recommendation for approval for the annexation piece, and we did go through a public hearing uh with the city's hearings officer and got a recommendation for approval from the hearings officer on the comp plan map amendment.

So as Karen mentioned, uh subject property is about 65 acres, it is within the Southeast Area Plan.

Uh abutting not road.

I won't go into much more detail here, but just to note that we have the slides here.

If there are questions, we can kind of refer back to some of these materials.

Uh, and as kind of has been alluded to, this is a little bit different from these UGB expansion areas.

City initiated the area plan for the Southeast area, and so there's an adopted air plan that really sets the table for all the different comp designations and then kind of the mix of of uses that were anticipated, and we can talk about this a little bit more.

But our our assumptions have generally we've tried to align those with the assumptions within the Southeast area.

Uh this is the site again.

Karen covered this, so I won't linger there.

So this is kind of Copperwood Crossing.

Uh as Karen pointed out, we're we've got a mix of uh plan designations, and we'll talk about the reconfiguration there.

But we have 25 acres of RS that are planned for for future single unit homes.

We have 10 acres of IL and roughly 29 acres of ME that are planned for future employments, uh commercial services, and also residential, which is consistent with kind of the underlying assumptions within the Southeast Area Plan.

Caldera Drive is a major street, a higher order street that runs diagonally through the northern portion of this of the site.

You can see that in kind of the darker blue color.

Um, and then the the skinnier pink lines represent multi-use trails.

So we will be to Councilor Platt's question basically implementing this longer term plan that BPRD has had to have this high desert trail kind of cutting through this area.

So we will be establishing those easements as part of this project.

And then along Caldera Drive and also along Knott Road, there are multi-use paths to kind of build out this multimodal transportation system.

Again, in line with the plans adopted by the city as part of the Southeast Area Plan.

And ultimately, again, just to reiterate this, the comprehensive plan designations that we have planned here implement the vision of the Southeast Area Plan by providing new homes, employment opportunities, and recreational amenities.

So this is just a summary of this project and some of our underlying assumptions.

We have the acreages of the plan designations broken out.

We have a summary of planned housing types and amount of housing.

And that relates directly to kind of the infrastructure planning that has occurred for this property to make sure that adequate transportation, sewer and water infrastructure, that there's adequate capacity and any sort of impacts to those systems are appropriately mitigated.

And Karen talked about some of that relative to transportation and the off-site roundabouts.

And then with open space, obviously, there's plans for open space where meeting or exceeding the minimum open space requirements, and then continuing to basically bring the high desert trail BPR's BPRD's planned pathway through this area to life as this project does develop.

So I think Karen did a good job explaining kind of the purpose or the intent of the plan amendment.

When the Southeast Area Plan was adopted, you know, there were kind of placeholder designations based on the city's need for land, but you know, without kind of development plans for each of these individual properties, they were kind of put there in these very um you know right angled geometric shapes.

Uh now that some of the surrounding areas have started to develop and subdivide, uh we kind of have a better sense of these road alignments, and so what we are proposing here is uh we tried to really minimize any sort of net changes to these acreages.

We weren't able to do that kind of perfectly because the geometry of the site and the streets didn't didn't quite work out, but we have a plan here that is very close to no net change, again, less than one percent, a fraction of one percent of kind of the overall areas uh in the Southeast Area plan.

It's a plan that that also allows these zones to be used more efficiently because they they follow streets more logically, and that allows that land to be better utilized for for the underlying intent.

Uh a side benefit here is that there is some residential development that's already been approved to the north page right here, and we we did kind of reconfigure some of the ME, pulled that in as much as we could between the residential and the light industrial to kind of help buffer or transition those uses.

Um we don't necessarily know there aren't specific plans for future light industrial, but just recognizing the uses that are permitted there.

We've tried to create uh a kind of a more logical transition.

So and Karen Karen touched on the the annexation criteria, and I'll just quickly run through that again with the Ben comprehensive plan.

So we are addressing chapter 11 and the different plan designations.

The project is exempt from master planning because it is part of the Southeast Area Plan.

Uh the Southeast Area Plan also did a fair amount of work on public facilities and services.

There's a city constructed list station uh within this area that is designed to accommodate uh sewer flows from this and other properties.

We have a TAM and a UAM that demonstrate that there's adequate sewer and transportation capacity in those systems, and that this project is mitigating those systems to the point where the where they are having impacts.

Um that's addressed in in number four.

There are no water rights on the property.

We have done coordination with Arnold irrigation, and they have uh letter in the record confirming that there are no water rights or facilities across the property.

Karen touched on the transportation planning rule, which was uh addressed with with SEEP but will be implemented through this this project and uh fees due um which are summarized in the annexation agreement, and then the the streets will be improved to the urban standards to the questions about not road.

What's a UAM utility availability memo?

So it's the city's response to our um sewer and water can we provide?

Yeah, yeah.

So with that, uh hopefully I did keep it short, and I anticipate there's some questions, and our team is here to try and answer those.

Okay.

Any questions, counselors for the applicant?

Can you show the homes list again, please?

Yeah.

Okay, and then units of 648 plans of unit multi-unit housing in ME.

Can you talk about that a little bit?

Yeah, so again, Karen's exactly right.

That this these are estimates um again, based on I think these are based primarily on floor area ratio.

So looking at the the areas of these kind of blocks anticipating um, you know, what what would be kind of the buildable area of that?

Um so we think that this is realistic.

We think that this lines up with within the southeast area, there were some refinement areas that um crossed through this property that assumed that there would be a certain amount of of housing within the ME zone.

Um, and so these numbers are also I think consistent with with that plan.

There are not specific plans yet for uh the types of this housing, it would be compliant with the zone.

Um, and as known by Karen and and others, the ME zone does allow vertical and horizontal mixed use, so that's one of the ways that residential would be incorporated.

So it doesn't have to be in the same building.

You could have housing next to commercial, it's just about the size of those relative to each other.

And it's it's relative to the floor area uh of each of those of each of those, yeah.

That's what I'm looking at.

All right, other questions for Joey.

Gina.

Um I think I heard Karen mentioned something about a phasing a phasing plan that had to be submitted along with us.

Is that correct?

Yes, we do have a phasing plan that is part of the tentative subdivision that is concurrent with this project.

Is that what it is that one of the exhibits?

I don't know that it's part of yeah, it doesn't seem like it was a part of the exhibits, but I mean, generally, let me go back here.

So generally the phasing is going to be dictated by infrastructure.

Um we know that we have to have a because this is currently there is not except for maybe to the north, there's an approval for a subdivision, but there's no infrastructure connections there.

We're anticipating that this project will be built from the south uh just to provide a street connection.

There's also water available and not road.

Water will also have to connect to uh a PRV that's on the western boundary of the site, kind of a budding east end.

So there's there's kind of water from the west, but will also be coming from the south, and then sewer will be kind of coming through the middle.

So, based on where the location of that infrastructure kind of where it's located, we we know that infrastructure will have to be built from not road moving moving north.

Okay, so like what is your opinion about what are the city's um uh you know power is after we approve an annexation like this, if the developer momentacize or future developers decide they'd rather do affordable housing rather than what they've put in this plan.

What is your understanding of what the city's uh ability would be to enforce this plan?

I guess I would have to defer to the city on that.

Um I think what we have as a plan, um, again, and this isn't a master plan.

We're not asking for any sort of deviations.

We do have a small comprehensive plan map amendment as part of this, but essentially what we're doing through this annexation is adopting the the plan designations put within this property by the city uh into zoning uh that would be implemented by the city once it annexes.

So we're we're not asking for anything special or different.

Uh we're we're trying to comply with the Southeast Area Plan as it was envisioned and and stay true to this original concept, which which to be fair and to be clear.

I mean, I think it did include housing across the the ME portion in addition to commercial and employment and the light industrial.

Okay.

Can you go back to the numbers um slide again?

Yeah.

So is that 145 number um what's going to show up on the the land in the other picture we were just looking at on the RS land?

That's the number of units on that.

Correct.

That's like the visual you're getting of the number of.

If we'll go back to that number slide then, yeah.

So approximately 500 housing units are assumed on that ME land.

Um, because it can't be so much on the light industrial.

And it's about the same amount of land, so it's gonna be high density housing in there, which is consistent with mixed employment.

I think you know, anyway, maybe this is for deliberations, but just so I'm clear about that.

So roughly about 500 units of the total.

So 600 648 is in addition to the 145.

Out of about 800.

Yes, out of 813, roughly 648 of those units would be located within the 648.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, because you cannot build a single unit detached in ME, so all those are in the RS.

Correct.

Okay.

All right, any question other questions for the applicant?

Okay.

Thank you very much for your presentation and the great slides.

Um, all right.

Um, so we will go ahead and close the public.

Oh, wait, public testimony.

Um, I did not have any signups sheets for public testimony.

Actually, was there any sign-up online for this item?

Is there anyone in the room that wants to give a two-minute public testimony about this either five or six on our agenda?

All right, seeing none, um, we will not have any public testimony, and I'll close the public hearing and we can go to deliberation and a motion.

All right, I could start if no one else wants to talk.

Um, so on the issue of the state law that allows affordable housing in zones like ME.

Um, so one, um, I'm not sure we got your information, Councilor Francis.

We are actively working on this.

I have advocated directly with the governor.

Our staff are working with the governor's staff, trying to find an amendment that would talk about commer protecting commercial um lands in um in the city um in the future, and what that is gonna look like, what's gonna be palatable to even try to pass is still unknown.

We are trying.

Um, for this tonight, we are talking about an annexation agreement that is complying with the comprehensive plan that we set down in the Southeast Area Plan as a city.

So that's really what we're deciding tonight.

To me, the advocacy with the state around the state law is a different issue.

Um, and I don't think it's fair to hold this applicant responsible for something that's in state law that we may not uh like or disagree with.

I think we have to stick to what the criteria are for this applicant.

So I just wanted to open up by saying that and giving that information, then open up this discussion.

Yeah, and I I mean I guess like where I'm coming from is you know, if if we and I'm I mean I'm asking staff, like is there what can we do?

What is the power that the city has?

You know, what yes, we're we're um this is seeking approval simply for annexation, and I you know hate to have to vote against it, but like it's it we're we're we would be annexing something under an agreement that um the developer doesn't have to live up to.

So um that to my mind is not that's just not okay.

It's not okay.

And if if I'm hearing from staff that we have no other requires until there's some change at state law level, then um I guess that's what we have to wait for in my mind.

Um does the state law apply on the ME land?

Yes, yeah, SBA, which is 197a 445, I think, applies among other things to lands uh zone for commercial uses.

Right.

So it's so this is broadly commercial, not just commercial general, like our specific zoning.

Correct.

Okay, so portions or all of this could conceivably convert completely to housing.

That those are now allowed uses in the zone.

Right.

I mean, those I mean, just to be very clear, housing is absolutely contemplated in ME.

The idea is to have it partnered with commercial, and I don't see why affordable housing could not support commercial in the ME zone.

And again, it is not our I don't understand the the developer could change the plan.

The developer will comply with our codes and with state law.

If we don't want that to happen, we need to advocate to change our codes or stay and change state law, which is what we were doing.

I think I think what we're trying to get here is it's it's in individual plans like this and these processes where we potentially get these outcomes that we we don't that aren't where we want to go potentially, right?

So I think trying to understand how does this particular plan could it result in some unintended consequences?

How do we end up getting neighborhood serving commercial on some of these mixed employment lands?

Because honestly, that is the sort of promise I think we've been making to this part of town, at least I have made, and I think the council kind of broadly has said there's a lot of land down here we where we could get neighborhoods serving commercial.

So I'm trying to understand to what extent, and I think this is maybe consistent with what Councillor Francosa is asking.

Um I mean, could we just have housing units only across all of that mixed employment land?

Could that be an outcome under the current state law and under our rules?

If that I'm so I'm trying to understand.

I under you know, we're probably gonna have to pass this thing, right?

Because it's consistent.

I get that part.

But is that an outcome that could occur?

Uh under housing units only.

Under SBA, potentially, yes.

But okay, let's say it happens on uh 25% of that land at SB8 supply.

What about the rest of the 75% of that land?

So that 25% converted to housing under SBA.

The rest of the 75% of that acre developed for housing.

Again, the I think the use of the word conversion is a little bit more.

Okay, the touch just more house.

But just ends up with no neighborhood serving commercial on it and only housing units.

Yeah, which I think to the mayor's point is why we are advocating and again, and the mayor was right.

It's not really a part of this application, but I think worth noting.

Several staff were working on this as recently as this afternoon to try to get.

I I understand, I think I understand that we're working on the state law, and that potentially some of the acres in the mixed employment zone could become housing under a current version of SBA.

Yes.

And if that stayed in place, so let's make an assumption that 25% of that acreage that's labeled as ME becomes housing under SBA.

In the remaining 75% of that acreage is zoned ME.

Could all of that under our rules, not SBA rules, be just housing?

Or would some of it have to become commercial because that's the definition of mixed use?

It cannot help me understand this because I don't.

It cannot I'm looking at the table right now.

It has to be associated with a certain floor area of commercial.

You know what else could be could be built?

Lodging, short-term rentals, hotels, motels, marijuana centers, wholesale sales, broadcasting studios, hospital, storage, daycare, storage.

These are all allowed in the ME zone.

And it is not our task tonight to decide, and I know you're not doing this, I'm just saying it for the record for the public who are listening.

It's not our task tonight to dictate to this developer exactly what will be built.

But I think we have to grapple with that.

This is a zone that a lot of things could happen in that we may not agree with, right?

Not just affordable housing, which I'm feeling a little tension about us trying to put some sort of restriction to not allow affordable housing in a certain area.

It it it makes me very nervous because we need affordable housing in the one is saying that.

Mike, I'm I'm making a statement for the public about how I'm feeling.

I'm not saying it that's what you think.

But I think this is something that you have to grapple with when you have zones with this many uses in them.

Um this this particular process tonight is not the time to uh create a different code on top of our own code or sort of some sort of restrictive covenant.

This is purely about laying down the zones and the infrastructure.

And I I very much appreciate the questions about what could happen under SBA.

I think that's very relevant as far as what we're thinking about long term and how we're advocating, but it is not a legal requirement of what we're doing tonight, which I don't understand.

If we can't use these examples to have substantive conversations about how these things roll out on the ground, then as a council, how do we learn as a community learn how do we adapt?

But always sort of putting that conversation off to the future.

I'm not putting it off to understand it more clearly tonight.

Yeah, no, I get that.

I'm just saying people need to also understand in a zone like this, there's a lot of things that could happen and can come in.

People say, I don't like that kind of development.

And but it's not the developer breaking a promise, they're following our code, right?

Um, actually, I so I have a legal question here.

So exhibit D is the findings, and the findings go um and and discuss like complete neighborhoods and um employment uses because it's you know got good transportation access and all of these things.

So like those are findings that we're basing our decision on, but then um it's that it that feels like those aren't valid then if um you know if it's if it's so easy for those not to be affected.

So I I and I really appreciate Council Riley that you um you know your curiosity around this because uh it it is like this it seems like our only chance to um have an effect on these developments because when they come forward at later stages, there's it seems like there's nothing that we can do.

So um I and I'm sorry to talk.

I want to hear from others too.

Any other comments or deliberation?

Are we ready for a motion?

I move for the first reading of the ordinance to amend the Ben Comprehensive Plan map to modify the boundaries of land use designations in a portion of the Southeast UGB expansion area as proposed.

All right, motion by Council Brick and second by Council Platt.

Any further discussion.

Okay.

And then we need a second.

All right, move by Councillor Perkins, second by Councillor Platt.

All those in favor.

Any post.

No.

Okay, one no.

Okay.

All right.

That will do it for items five and six.

Thank you for being here and presenting.

Appreciate you.

And we're going to take um just a five minute bio break, and we will be back.

Okay.

We are back after our little break here.

We're gonna go on to item number seven.

Uh that's me.

Um raspy voice tonight.

You have to let Ashley read it first.

Oh geez.

Thanks.

Actually, come back for break.

This is the first reading of an ordinance reading Ben's municipal code chapter three point one two zero, firearms prohibited in city buildings.

Thanks again.

Um presentation tonight tonight, no slides.

This is fairly um straightforward, I'll just deliver a little bit of background.

Uh Oregon Law has generally prohibited firearms in public buildings with a fairly long list of exceptions.

Uh those exceptions have included individuals who are licensed to concealed carry handguns.

Uh the legislature um enacted Senate Bill two forty-three in twenty twenty five, which gave local government the ability to take local action to effectively eliminate that exemption in certain public buildings, those used by the governing body for official meetings.

Um there are a few requirements that the law imposes, including um if a local action is taken by the governing body to post that on a website to sign uh public buildings and to identify uh the buildings that are subject to the restriction.

Um what we're proposing tonight is an ordinance that establishes a legal basis to do that, and then sort of kicks down some of the details to an administrative policy because one of the things you need to do under the law is identify the building subject to the policy.

Right now, uh we use three buildings for official meetings of the governing body, that's the city council and that's this building city hall, municipal court, and our new public works facility.

That could change in the future.

Um that list could expand, that list could shrink.

Um so rather than have to amend the code through an ordinance every time that might change, that can be addressed through updating an administrative policy, which is simpler and more efficient.

So the ordinance proposed tonight establishes the basis to do that, and uh it's otherwise pretty straightforward.

Okay, any questions?

That's really another good reason to use a policy training.

Uh so the second question is uh have you seen any signs that clarify the uh I don't even know how to characterize it.

The uh exemption to the exemption about concealed carry because my concern would be someone who isn't familiar with this new update is is gonna think, oh, this doesn't apply to me because I have a concealed carry permit.

And and it does apply to them.

Yeah, that's that's the point.

So is there what does that sign look like?

I can I can answer that because I've seen that at the at a school.

Yeah, the school district actually has one, and it says the affirmative defense of concealed carry does not apply.

And it looked it says it right on the sign.

So it's pretty clear.

So it's pretty clear.

And that language is directly from the statute, and it's it's reproduced in this proposed ordinance, and I anticipate that that would be uh emphasized in the policy and probably reproduced on a sign using that exact language.

Great.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Okay, ready for a motion.

I move for the first reading of an ordinance adopting Ben Municipal Code Chapter 3.120 firearms prohibited in city buildings.

Second.

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

All those in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Okay, unanimous.

Thank you very much, Ian.

That moves us along to item number eight.

Council is asked to adopt a joint resolution with the Deschutes County Board of Commissioners extending the closures date of the temporary safe state area TSSA at Juniper Ridge to June 30th, 2027.

Good evening, Council.

Elizabeth O'Shelw with the city attorney's office.

So this is a resolution, um, as Ashley said, um, uh putting into action what you discussed with the county at the joint meeting in January, um, extending the full closure of the TSSA by six months, um, closing fortunes uh north and east of the canal that is on city property to the northern part of the TSSA uh by June of this year, um, and then limiting um who can be present on the remaining section of the TSSA for the next year to just those folks who are present from that initial closure and those who are present at the time of that closure.

Um, and then the resolution also reflects a commitment by both the city and the county to commit additional dollars to uh continuing to fund case management services at the TSSA.

Those funds will be committed by the city by an IGA with the county.

Um at a few represented to council at a future date.

The county is expected to consider this resolution and an agreement for funding um we believe sometime in March.

All right, thank you, Elizabeth.

Any questions from council this comes out of our joint meeting with the county?

I move to adopt the joint resolution with both Eric, sorry, was there a question on the screen?

Were you did you see my hand go up, Elizabeth?

Any questions?

Yeah, did you have a question, Gina?

Uh yeah, I um I you know read through the resolutions and the issue summary and everything, and I um I you know, is there any way to incorporate some language about the actions the city is going to take um to explore housing options for the folks in the TSSA?

Um and the reason why I ask it is uh because I want us to live with this commitment, and I I think we won't be able to live with this commitment unless we are um actively pursuing you know these alternative sort of transitional housing options, such as safe parking, long-term vehicle parking, and things like that.

So I I feel like we kind of are trusting that those things are happening, but um I uh yeah, I would rather see it.

So I would say this IGA is about the things that the city and the county are kind of agreeing to do together with regards to the property, do kind of that joint management of the TSSA area commitment of funding to fund that grant um assistance program.

And so it wouldn't be this resolution that talks about things the city on its own is doing.

Um, but as discussed at that joint meeting, those are the things that the city is doing and are budgeted for and staff is working on.

Yeah, that I I disagree actually.

I don't I don't think there is enough funding for for the transitional housing that is really needed to in order to be able to close the TSSA without causing a huge uproar among folks in the community, um, even in 2027.

That's kind of my concern.

So I I guess maybe um I'm just asking for a little bit more of a commitment from um my fellow city councilors and from the city manager that that that is a plan that is being um that is being worked on.

Um I mean, as we we talked about at the joint meeting, I mean, I think the the big barrier is costs, right?

The funding, you know, there is no we are really I think challenged that the state shelter funding framework is can barely sustain the shelters that the the beds that we have.

So creating more um, you know, at least on the emergency sort of the end of the spectrum, it's it's it's difficult.

I think one you know, like permanent supportive housing and some other solution sets are pretty big price tags, and I don't know if it'd be really hard to make a uh commitment um of funding at this point without an identified source.

But I I would need more direction from council if we are wanting to put something more concrete in this um uh resolution and as Elizabeth said that we would need to talk with the county about what that looks like because this is really about us working with the county and what we've kind of agreed to with both bodies.

Right.

Okay, that makes that makes sense to me.

I guess then, yeah, I mean, I feel like we've this is probably the third time that we've talked about it in a business meeting, I think.

Um and uh, you know, I recall when we were setting our council goals, I specifically asked for a safe parking numbers to be increased, and that was um actually staff fought against that.

Um and I'm so I'm sort of I'm concerned that we're gonna enter into a resolution uh a continuation of a resolution, and we're and we're not really planning to actually um wind down the TSSA in a manner that will be safe for our community.

So I I don't I'm fine going forward, like I'll vote for this resolution today, but I I Eric, I I just want to know like how your team is gonna um and when they're gonna kind of propose a plan, you know, to city council.

I I I thought the last time we talked about this, we were gonna receive, you know, kind of um some budget options, some land options for um long-term vehicle campground or whatever.

Um, but but we just we just aren't seeing anything kind of concrete that we can kind of make decisions on.

So um I don't know.

Maybe other counselors disagree, maybe no one else is concerned about this, but um that that's that's my concern.

Very much so.

Um I I don't think it's it's not a due to a lack of concern.

It's a it's it's what we can do with the resources that we have.

And I would argue that our safe parking numbers have gone up like I don't even doubled or tripled.

We added uh 25.

We added 25, yeah.

I mean, I so I we we are we are doing what we we said we can we can wanted to do with the resources that we have, and I don't think anyone here is um discounting any new um ideas or or plans.

I think it's just this is what we have now, um, so that we can get another six months so that we can come up with with new ideas um with community partners because we can't do it on our own.

So yeah, I mean we're called at the joint meeting we discussed the Gales property, we discussed some other ideas, but um this resolution for us tonight is really focused on the TSSA and the agreements we made around that.

I'd be happy to convene with the county again to talk about if we're talking about long-term visitor, we need land.

We probably need county land.

If we're talking about other new um resources, we're gonna need land.

And we've had discussions with COID about some potential parcels, right?

We also need a provider.

Who is that provider and how are they gonna be funded?

So I don't think it's as simple as as city staff coming up with a plan.

I think it is gonna take collaboration, and I think we all made a commitment to keep working on that while we continue to meet our own pr uh goals.

But for this particular idea, as Elizabeth said, it's what are what are the city and county agreeing to do at the TSSA.

I think we all agreed at that meeting that closing it at the end of this year would not be appropriate, um, and that we agreed to that six-month extension.

So that's really what this represents to me, alongside the other commitments that we need to work on to try to continue to find resources for people to move into outside of out of outside of this sort of camping outside.

Yeah, um go ahead.

Well, and I just want to add, I think we all nobody had blinders on when we were in this joint meeting saying it's just gonna end, we have no options.

Everyone was very focused, future focused on this is a problem, and we're not just admiring the problem, but we're actively working on solutions where there's talking about the Gales properties and others.

So we're committed, we're all committed here to coming up with a uh a sustainable long-term solution.

We're struggling to find the way right now, but we're working on it.

Yeah, and I'm hopeful too about the next item is going to be about updates to the committees, and I think I love that permanent supportive housing is one of those items along with more affordable housing.

No, I do think the IGA and finding I speaks to the need for more options for people.

It doesn't make explicit commitments about working jointly on it, but it I think you know, maybe that is beyond the scope of this particular agreement because it's about that one piece of property and how we're gonna use it.

Um I would also point out that I you know um as counselor Platt said uh the conversations about new resources are gonna be very difficult that started with the home committee, and in my opinion, if we're gonna generate new resources, it should be for the full spectrum of housing needs in our community, including um those that you know related to if it's managed campsites, safe parking, you know, all that sort of stuff.

I mean, permanent supportive housing is really important and it's super expensive.

And um, but some portion of those resources need to get used for that purpose as well.

So we are starting to talk about a revenue stream potentially.

So we are starting to talk about a revenue stream potentially um a lot more conversation that has to happen, and it's gonna be hard.

Um, and it's gonna take a while.

But um, and I believe the Gales have actually finally submitted their land use application.

Um so that's starting to roll that way.

There's a whole different question about how do we pay for it and who operates it and where's that money come from?

And just one more point to uh the the next work session on uh February 25th, we're gonna have a financial strategy discussion and prioritization of some of those one-time resources uh that we've uh been lucky to garner with land sales of the Juniper Ridge.

So you could have some discussion about some of this can sort of flow into that next week.

Okay.

Um I move to adopt the joint resolution with the Schutz County Board of Commissioners to extend the closure date of the temporary safe state area to June 30th, 2027.

So all right, moved by council Kirkman, second by Council Platt.

Any further discussion?

All right, all those in favor?

Any opposed?

All right, unanimous.

All right, thank you.

Understand you have to step off.

Council Franzosa, thanks for being with us tonight, and we will finish up with our last couple of items.

Thank you.

Bye.

Council is asked to adopt a resolution authorizing eminent domain for properties along Franklin Avenue, which is part of the Midtown Multimodal Connections and Street Skeeping Project.

All right, good evening, Council Ryan Oster Engineering Director, just a few slides for you on this one before we can move on.

Uh I think you're all familiar enough with Franklin now to know what's going on.

Big highlight is we were we're planning on coming back on March 11th with the team to discuss potential closure options and other ways that we want to propose to get this work done uh while trying to minimize impact to the public.

So we're actively working on that as well as our next guaranteed maximum price with our progressive design bill team.

So looking forward to that meeting with you in March.

Tonight, uh, we have three properties uh for review for eminent domain again as a disclaimer that's only if absolutely needed.

The safe way property, the southern edge there, which is right along the edge of their parking lot, the IINJ carpet store on the north side next to the actual lender crossing, and then a small segment of the old Le Schwab property.

It's it's multiple parcels in there, but the furthest one on the left on the bottom of the slide there.

Um, we're gonna need some construction easements through that as well.

So um, this is primarily because the design has continued to evolve, the design of the walls has continued to evolve, and we'll get into that in March.

Uh but we believe this should hopefully be the last Franklin eminent domain we need to bring for you for consideration.

So uh Ben Penny, any questions?

Uh we can head to the motion if you'd like.

All right, any questions for Ryan on this one?

All right, ready for a motion.

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

Second.

All right, move by councilor Minds, second by Councillor Riley.

All those in favor?

Aye.

All right, thanks, Ryan.

All right, item number 10.

Council has asked to consider changes to the Bend Municipal Code for the following advisory bodies: transportation bond oversight committee, Bend Economic Development Advisory Board, and Affordable Housing Advisory Committee.

All right, so this is more like a work session.

We don't really have a motion coming out of this, but just an update on this update to some of our advisory committees.

Oops.

So good evening, Mayor and Council.

I'm Kate Schneider, Executive Policy Officer and City Manager's Office, and as the mayor said, we're shifting gears.

This is a work session that we sort of adapted to a business meeting.

So you had an issue summary.

Um, but really we're here tonight to um have you discuss and consider some code updates to the three advisory bodies you see here on the screen, the transportation bond oversight committee, the Bend Economic Development Advisory Board, and the Affordable Uh Housing Advisory Committee.

Um, and luckily I have all the subject matter experts who work closely with and support these boards who are going to walk us through the proposed changes.

But before we do that, I just wanted to touch on why advisory bodies matter and how it connects to your council goals.

So advisory bodies are obviously a really important part of our governance governance system.

Um in an ideal scenario, they are uh a deep way of doing community engagement and they inform can inform your council decision council decision making.

Um we the what we're considering tonight really has direct connection with two of your current council goals.

So our accessible and effective government goal to continue to improve communication and collaboration between you and your advisory bodies.

And then also, as you know, you set a goal of evaluating the scope of the Transportation Bond Oversight Committee.

So they've been having discussions the last few months, and you saw recommendation in your packet too from them.

So we have we're gonna actually go in reverse alphabetical order and uh with the youngest advisory body first.

We're gonna start with T Bach.

So, Ryan, if you could come up and walk us through.

Um, and for each advisory body, we have a slide for some council direction before we move to the next one, then we can summarize at the end.

All right, thank you, Kate.

Uh, first want to recognize Will Green for being here.

He's our current chair of the bond oversight committee.

So thank you for your patience this evening and sticking with us.

Uh just uh quick overview.

Uh bond was you know passed in in 2020 as a general obligation bond quickly after that.

Council formed per resolution, the general uh general bond oversight committee or transportation bond oversight committee or T Bach as we call it.

Uh, and you can see the bullet points up there.

Uh the the intent is is really at the end of this during it and at the end of this, we want to be able to have uh an independent body be able to say, yep, the city did what they told us they were gonna do, um, and they kind of help be some of that influence and be some of that outreach efforts along the way.

So uh the current body is made up of somewhere between seven to eleven members.

We fluctuated over the over the years.

We have been doing this for about five years now, and uh meet typically on a quarterly basis.

And uh I think the next slide, if we could uh a little bit uh okay, a little bit more background, but uh initially the committee was really focused on developing the the project priority list.

So we have this list that the voters approved, which one should we do first, in what order should we do these?

So that was a big lift by the committee to to make that recommendation to council, and that's what you're seeing getting built previously and today, and what's going to happen is is directly because of that bond oversight committee's influence and and the different focuses in the different areas where they wanted us to prioritize.

So, all that being said, um, they've given us a lot of good direction and advice and input.

Uh in the last year or so, we really started to kind of have this interesting discussion is the bonds on a fairly good path right now.

There's not enough, there's not a bunch more decisions about which project we should do next.

We have a an adopted CIP, we're gonna keep updating that for a couple more years till we're done.

But the idea started getting swirling around is could this bond committee have a little input on the transportation construction fund, which is obviously a separate bucket of money, uh, but we can all understand those interplay with one another.

And in fact, most projects we do have some type of bond money and transportation money combined, and we just deliver those as a joint project.

So in November at council's direction, we started kicking around the idea of what could this oversight committee evolve into, what would be useful to council and to the public.

And so over the months uh December and January, we we met with the committee, we kind of went to them independently because we didn't want a quorum.

What do you think you'd like to be in the future?

And we compiled all that data, and we came out with a recommendation.

Then in January, we met collectively as a body and ran through that stuff, uh, or should be the committee recommendation, I should say, and what you had attached with you in the documents tonight is really uh the the T box recommendation to council of what they believe they could become to help support the city and the council in the future moving forward.

So that being said, there's four main bullets right there.

Um and we've got a slide for each one of these, but uh strategic planning and policy, tax standards and design, the education, safety, and outreach, as well as uh continuation of the financial side and bond oversight.

Uh, one thing uh that we talked about is if these requirements on this committee increase and we turn it into more of a transportation advisory committee, that's just one naming convention attack.

Um they're probably gonna likely to meet more often than the quarterly cadence that they have today, something more on them along the monthly routine, but that's all still to be determined.

So, first two policies here uh just to kind of go through these bullets and and I feel like I got the easy part of this job, and I I Elizabeth's gonna have the fun part of this is to take this and turn it into code language.

Um, and that's really where we'll dive into this a little bit deeper.

But I'll try to hit these at a general level and please feel free to stop me and ask any questions along the way on these next couple slides.

But uh, the committee is offering to help advise council and participate in the transportation system plan.

Again, their current focus is really only the geobond, and the TSP is much broader than just the geobond.

So uh they would like to be able to have a voice and input on that policy and plan.

Uh, they would like to be able to review the transportation five year CIP.

We kind of do that a little bit already, but we don't really they can't make direct recommendations, but we we take their input, but I don't see any harm in letting them look at both the bond and the transportation CIP collectively and how we deliver those.

Um provide recommendations and inputs uh to the TSP updates.

I think you're all tracking there's a TSP update that's gonna be hitting here relatively soon.

They're they're more than happy to be a part of that.

Uh to what capacity is probably a little bit still to be determined, but offering to be an advisory body to council and to the TSP group, uh, whatever that becomes in terms of providing recommendations and input.

And then uh potentially also offering some planning and prioritization down at the project level.

And this is where to be completely transparent.

This is where it gets a little bit gray.

Um, because uh I don't know if we want to say every project needs to potentially go to the to this new transportation advisory committee because that will elongate the process of trying to get these projects delivered, which is already a lengthy process.

But if there's things that we as staff maybe bring to council, then you as council could say that's that's interesting.

Why don't you go run that by the transportation advisory committee and see if they they think buying right away in order to install this the separated protected options is a better option versus less right away and a shared use path.

And so something like that we could potentially at council's direction take to this advisory committee.

Uh second bullet is providing some input on standards and design.

Again, we're we're really diving into that now as staff with council, uh Russ and Janet have briefed you on that, but they're they're willing to be participants in that process as well, and helping to vet some of those ideas.

Uh input for project scoping on functional functional and aesthetic goals.

This is another one where I think we're gonna probably have to define a little bit better of what exactly that means.

Uh, but again, they're they're willing to provide input if council would like them to, in terms of when we're initially scoping a project, uh, you know, how far the project may go or the what the limits of this may be, or or what the different type of safety features we may provide.

So uh again, uh it's between between an advisory committee and council and staff and public input, you know, there's already a lot of ideas that swirl when we do this stuff.

So we need to really define what exactly council would be asking them to consider when it comes to some of this stuff.

Moving on to the next slide here, uh, safety education and outreach.

This is great.

Uh they they they're already tasked to to be doing a lot of this at the bond level, so they can expand that role to a broader level.

Uh it's been a little bit of time since we've done it now, but we've had committee members uh be on camera.

We've had them the ones instead of city staff saying, hey, next year we're gonna be building this roundabout at Butler and Wells Acres, and and really putting a committee face out there rather than a city staff face, and and making that connection with the voters approve this, and here's a committee that's helping implement it.

So they'd love to be a part of that.

Um supporting public engagement, education and outreach components, uh making recommendations on traffic safety project.

A really good example that that we've ran into more recently is the neighborhood street safety program.

If that winds up living on beyond 2028, which is where the budget runs out now, um, they could help be a part of the body that decides and prioritizes, you know, in what neighborhood districts we may be doing what and how many projects and how much funding we have for that, so they could participate on some of those programmatic things, and then finally on the financial and uh bond oversight level, they would continue what they're doing now from a bond perspective, but but they'd also kind of be pulling in that transportation and financial component as well.

So again, I don't see any users issues with that at all because uh we already do that as staff, so there's no no reason why we couldn't even be more transparent and do that with the committee as we discuss both of these CIPs.

So uh what this boils down to now is obviously if there's any questions you have on on kind of how this might look in the future, uh, and and the bottom quite bottom line is if you agree with these recommendations generally, um then that would you know we can always go back to T Bach.

Will and I we can go back to the committee to look for some refinements.

Uh we have a meeting scheduled in March to do that.

Um, if we don't need to do that, and you're ready to give give uh Elizabeth's guide, like great, take this recommendation, go start drafting the code language.

Um, we can do that as well.

So it's really, you know, are there any anything in here that we want to define a little bit better?

Any questions you have in and next steps of what you'd like us to do in terms of interacting with TBOC.

All right, thanks, Ryan.

Um so council botts here, having looked at what TBOC is sort of come up with.

Yeah, Ariel.

Um yeah, two two notes.

Uh so I think so.

Thank you to the thank you, Will, for being here tonight.

Uh, our TBOC chair.

The members really struggled with this, and that this is it's pretty messy because if you say yes to one thing, it might be dependent on what that actually looks like, and it might be a no, and so they kind of there's a sort of circular aspect to it.

Uh, but two two two notes.

One is on this third bullet point, uh, safety education and outreach.

I wonder if uh other counselors would be interested in.

I think there was an appetite among TBOC members to also talk about operations and maintenance.

So say instead of safety education and outreach, maybe say safety operations and outreach.

And I think the rationale for that would be to talk about things like shoveling guidance, you know.

If we're expecting these members to be uh to interface with the public and provide outreach and education, I think there is an opportunity to remind people about what our shoveling policy is.

We hear about that a lot.

It is an accessibility concern, it's a safety concern.

Um priority maintenance routes, you know, how do how are streets getting plowed?

Is that a policy that we might want to revisit?

I think they might want to have some input on that.

So that's on the maintenance side, operation side, rather.

And then there's this question of uh how to decide which projects on the capital side.

So on the previous slide, I think it says at the project level, and this is again the same question for operations.

I think the dilemma for me anyway, my thinking is council can provide direction on certain projects and say it's this is council initiated, we would love to get your input on this.

And for the on their part, I encourage them to email us as individuals.

They don't have to act as a body.

We know who's on our committees, and they can certainly say I'm speaking on behalf of myself, I'm a member of this committee, but I have this concern, and I think that's one way to raise it.

But otherwise, I don't I don't know how Elizabeth is going to decide where to draw that line, but that's kind of how I'm thinking about it.

So, any any thoughts on that?

Sure.

Yeah, I I have to say I'm a little eh about what you just said, um, because I I don't feel comfortable with um a city committee potentially trying to tell our city staff who are experts um what streets to plow when it just it makes me a little uncomfortable of delving into operations.

So I'm a I'm a no on that education, yes.

Yeah, so I appreciate very much this list and the specificity of it.

Um I'm I'm gonna be blunt, it's too much.

That it's just I mean, even if everyone was doing it perfectly, it that is a that is a two month two meetings a month.

So what I would focus on, and I think um would be great.

Um is is some of the so some of the natural tensions that have happened with this committee is we have um the the GO Bond CIP and we have the separate five year CIP and like that's not really their territory, but they of course interact, right?

We did a whole exercise with both of them prioritizing what goes when they you know if you close this road, it affects this one.

They have to be able to talk about both of those.

So that's a no-brainer to me.

Um I think um on um standards, um like policy standards, TSP updates.

Absolutely, I think that is where this committee could really really help us.

I think um there was a couple notes in there that sort of at the if if requested by the staff or the council, sure, take a look at the project levels.

And I think we did that with when we kind of said Greenwood back to T Bok along with CAB and said, Hey, delve into this for us, really look at it, give us a recommendation.

I would I want to make sure we have that option, and we clearly need to spell that out.

Um, I am I am wary though of every project having the agreement, and I think they probably are too.

Again, that would not be a time a time commitment that most folks could make, right?

Um I I agree about operations.

I think on the sort of safety education and outreach, though, I think there's a way to get at what you're talking about that's not having this committee recommend how to manage staff, but it's more having this committee informed by staff so that they can then go out and tell the community here's how you find out this is why that street right or let me help you get an answer to that question because I know the person that that does that work, right?

Which is some of our role as well.

So I think that's where I would draw that line is sort of information flow, not necessarily that they're advising staff should do things differently, right?

Or that they're because that that's more like advising the city manager versus advising council on policy.

So I guess that's where how I'm thinking about that.

Well, one practical example of that.

So when we have our ploughing for motor vehicle travel lanes, we have you know, we have our five classifications of streets.

Um, but we don't have that for sidewalks or bike routes, and so I do think there's a policy question about how do we deploy our resources.

And I don't know that that's a decision that we would make, but I think that's a decision, or this this advisory body would probably want to have some input on something like that.

Yeah, I guess I don't I don't know.

I don't know about that.

I feel like it needs to connect somehow with maybe a program in the TSP, like could that be the connection?

Because if it's not something the council would ever do, then I I don't know why our advisory body would do it, right?

Like it's just I'm hard having a hard time making the connection to advise us.

I mean, I think of it as sort of a division of labor question.

It's you know, our time, we only have so much time and so many meetings, and this is one way where they can dive into something a little bit more and then provide a recommendation.

Two hours a month is not a lot of time.

I wonder um well, and the other the other thing too here is is um the tough report out that we do every year.

I I would not mind this committee receiving that report, right?

And maybe that could spark some discussion around how we're doing on operations, but I've I don't think I would go further than that.

I don't know, Eric.

Do you have any thoughts around kind of what Ariel's getting at here?

It would be a little unusual to get into sort of like advising on operations.

That's not typically our committee, these are council appointed committees that just stay at that policy level and kind of receive your direction.

So I would um encourage council to adhere to that.

But I think from a funding, you know, accountability of where the funds are, and maybe that's how that could come together.

That's how that could potentially get have some influence.

I mean the only thing that um I I have concerns about replicating the problem we've had at the council, like sort of you know, to use this term micromanaging the details of projects, yeah, having these back and forth and change and we're trying to get step up a level and and get more consistency and get agreement on standard respects and all this stuff, and it seems to me that we want T Bach to help us do that.

Yeah, and I was a little concerned with some language where it said that individual members of T Bach could essentially interject and get a project to come before them.

It's the implication from what I read, and I just don't think that that's appropriate.

It may be that based on public feedback from council and or staff, we we say we want you to weigh in on this one, but I think it has to be kind of at that level only.

That's what I was thinking about.

Um, because I think it's it's gonna be uh yeah, it'd be too much to do every yeah, it's yeah, we have um a lot of full-time staff that do this every single day, 10 hours a day, and so and I've I generally agree it needs to stay at the policy level that the kinds of things that will come before us as a council.

Yeah, I one area that I do appreciate maybe figuring out how to T Buck have a little bit more role in is that that public engagement and sort of um being a place for people to bring um concerns or issues or ideas, right?

That that people can come to those meetings, and I think they just haven't been meeting frequently enough, people don't know about them, but people will come to ECC with their you know environmental concerns, they'll come to HREC.

So I think I want T box to be that same receptive place, and then at some point if they're like, hey, we're hearing a lot about XYZ, we need to tell Ryan to we need to get that up to council to consider about we're hearing a lot about NSSP and people don't want that program to stop.

Great, help collect that information for us, and then and then we can act on that.

So I really would love to see an expanded role in that capacity.

Yeah, it's not meant to be, you know, Bend works, right?

It's not meant to be.

No, it's not by potholes, yeah, but it might be my corridor or my program, right?

That I really want to see continue.

So yeah.

Okay, does that feel like enough notes?

I mean, I think what we're saying is maybe back to T Bach will to refine this.

Does that sound good?

Can I say two things?

You gotta come up to the mic, but yes.

This was exactly the kind of conversation we were having in our meeting.

So you guys are all kind of like, you know, trying to figure out what that line is.

I think you know, for us, we prioritize you know, every year for our you know, our year yearly T Bach priorities, and I think the same sort of thing would happen.

Whereas I think initially there's a lot of policy stuff that we have knowledge of now.

We've been doing this for you know six years, and we have a lot of institutional knowledge that we haven't been able to apply to these other areas, funding and project areas, and it's very tough to you know not be able to have any say or or bring that attention to you guys.

So that's you know, totally want to have that opportunity to be able to do that.

And yeah, I think being able to take this back to to TBOC and you know, I think find find the line.

And I think the one you know mechanism to do this now that if we really are uh in sync with broadening this this group is through the council goal setting process, every two years we do a lot of intentional.

That's where you know you'll get some specific feedback from the committees about what your goals should be, and then it kind of council looks at it, says yes, and then it goes back down, right?

So I think we can give them into the public comment piece is also huge.

Uh the reason why we do not try and ask people to come is because it has to be very specifically to go bond projects, right?

And we've had a few public comments come and had an impact on our prioritization.

It was very productive and it was a great you know, um, opportunity, but because of that, we you know we just can't field those inquiries.

So it's really hard for us to you know be in the public and say I'm part of this, but you can't comment document.

We don't really work on that project exactly.

So being able to like expand the opportunity to bring that to our attention is would also be I think really powerful for the community.

Great.

Cool.

Okay.

And I and I and I think there's time, yeah, and we'll we'll get into the other committees, but I I don't think we're we're in a huge rush on this, so we're happy to take this back to another.

And let's figure it out so it works.

Before we start drafting some code language out.

Sure.

Cool.

Okay.

All right, thanks.

Okay, next committee.

BDAB.

Uh so yes, this is what we're doing is best practice because as you as you know, needs and priorities shift.

And BDAB, as Cyrus is going to talk about, is a good example.

Um, if we go back in the time machine of how it was set up, and then all the recent evolution, we're really here to talk about making the two um better aligns and support each other now.

So yeah, thanks, Kate.

Good evening, Council Cyrus Mooney in economic development.

And just some framing.

Uh, this point of the conversation is at a much different place than TBOC.

This is really the first time that council is discussing any changes to the code or talking about a refresh work plan for BDAB and some of the justification for that reasoning is here.

Um, the code hasn't been updated in over a decade.

As you all know, things have changed, especially in the last two years structurally with how economic development is organized within the city itself.

Um, and really historically it was around advocacy around the business advocate program and BDAB directing that position specifically and how it integrates with the rest of the economic development ecosystem that we have in Bend and in the region, and was managed kind of spun out of economic development for Central Oregon, brought into the city and has been there ever since.

So we felt like this was a good opportunity to align with the changes that you guys have seen and approved and adopted within the economic development strategy, and now how does this advisory body get in sync with what the goals and aspirations of that strategic plan are some of the recent changes that are noted?

We hired our first economic development officer last year, Katie Brooks.

Um, we have the um updated structure that we've done organizationally within our teams, and that strategy that you just recently adopted uh earlier this month.

And the programmatic approach for economic development is mentioned really to get aligned with BDAB.

We have these categories that are within the plan that we think BDAB could have a piece of that puzzle of each of those uh respectively, and you'll see that reflected in the draft work plan that hopefully they'll be discussing at their meeting on March 2nd.

Um, one of the things that you'll note is that urban renewal has been woven into economic development uh within our organization, and so having BDAB provide some sort of level of feedback as it pertains to urban renewal initiatives for job creation, I think is a piece that we would like to get your direction on tonight as we move forward in any code amendments or updated work plans.

So very broad-based question and direction that we can take back to BDAB and you know, work with our legal team on is does council want to provide any guidance or direction prior to discussing this with BDAB, and then next steps based on what that direction might be.

Okay.

Um, can you go back one slide?

Yep.

Thoughts, council.

I mean, mine is just to take those bullet points and at speedab to take a look at what where an advisory board would fit into those.

Yeah, and that work has started um with this awesome economic development team.

And I think it, you know, BDAB is is like a lot of other um committees and commission understand, like what is our purpose, what is our point in tying that I think directly into the economic development strategy is and this is your piece of this, this is your piece of this, and this is your piece of this.

I think we'll really help them develop a really strong work plan.

And we've put together some specific actions within each of these categories that we feel are appropriate for an advisory body to either provide feedback on or to actually have more of a direct role within, and then also in addition to that, what is the council value within each of those actions?

And I think connecting those dots could really provide some clarity for the members of the board.

Yep.

Language I didn't really see explicitly.

I see kind of the programmatic approach to me talks speaks to like the and the implementation of the plan that we've just recently adopted, but in terms of the evergreen language for this committee, it seems like it's annual or regularly about developing assisting with development of the plan or updating the plan and then with implementation and then monitoring progress.

Right.

That seems like that's the big frame for the committee as a whole.

Um that works when there's a cycle like on a cadence year one basis.

And just saying that explicitly that that's broadly with their charges, right?

Because those specific some of that may evolve over time.

I think you will need to do some wrangling like our discussion we just had around the the not, I think BDAB wanting to like direct economic development staff.

What's the line, right?

And I think focusing on the plan and the policies as much as possible.

Um, it is interesting how these committees develop over the years.

I mean, like so BDAB just has this random assignment to also review our visit ban contract.

Yeah, right, that just kind of got put in there for them, right?

So I mean, I think we just need to be careful that we're not um stepping over that line with them as well, and it's a little bit more squishy because it's not as easy as like the snow plowing plan, like when they're stepping into maybe um you know, directing staff versus advising council on policy because they work so closely with you and with this plan.

So just something to think about as you figure this out.

Yeah, I think we've been intentionally um amending that language to be more reflective of the organizational structure that we have now.

Yeah, okay.

Did you want something else related to urban renewal?

Then I think we've talked about just so far.

Comfort of, you know, and I think this kind of goes back to the lighter approach, right?

We initially had in our goals to kind of look at an independent, and then we sort of backed off on that.

And I think there's an opportunity with BDAB to just kind of get a little bit more in depth with some of our urban and get provide uh allow them to provide some direction on some of the urban renewal activities.

I mean, you are the borough agency, but I want to make sure that you're comfortable with that.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I think um the idea of having an independent body or substantially redoing uh borough and adding different people and all that, maybe that my my sense of things was that we wanted uh BDAB to get actively engaged in the implementation of the economic development plan is kind of phase one and then phase two.

Yeah, you know, maybe by the end of the biennium or so is making some kind of a recommendation about the future of a structure and who's on it and that kind of thing.

Yeah, I think this is very much at its infancy of BDAB hasn't really been pervied to urban renewal at all, and so this is initiating a conversation that could lead to whatever council would like to direct further.

And there's a lot of strong interest if they would like to.

I think you guys have indicated it's one of the primary economic development tools and resources at your disposal, and so having this body weigh in on that, I think makes sense.

Yeah.

Okay, for council, do you want to have uh a proposal come back from BDAB before we're bringing code changes just like T similar to T Bach?

I think that's fine.

Or do we want to just yeah?

I think that's fine.

I think it's good.

I we might we might need to iterate depending on what the committee brings.

So I would say let's let's do that again.

Yeah, that sounds great.

Thank you very much, Sarah.

And then last but not least is affordable housing and housekeeping isn't quite the right way to frame this, but this really is more just truing up our code and the work they're actually doing, and I'll let Rachel talk about that.

Yeah, Rachel Baker.

I serve as your housing division manager for the city.

Um I directing this.

Yeah, I just you can okay, perfect.

Um housing staff provide support for the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee or AHEC, and for many years, AHAC has responded to council's requests for guidance on policies affecting housing affordability and has provided funding recommendations for two primary resources the community development block grant and the affordable housing fund.

In 2020, council expanded AHAC's role.

The committee's work now extends beyond affordability alone to include policy considerations across the full housing spectrum, as well as recommendations for new funding sources that address a broader range of housing needs.

The code modernizes the code modernizations before you this evening reflect five years of work assigned to AHAC and a deeper understanding of how different housing policies influence affordability.

For example, AHAC receives regular updates on the city's strategies to address houselessness and the benefits of those efforts provided to community members experiencing houselessness.

Staying informed of these initiatives helps the committee offer well-grounded recommendations to council.

In 2021, council also directed resources to households earning up to 20% above the area median income.

With further direction from council, AHAC reviewed and vetted applications for those funds.

As council considers recently adopted state legislation designated to incentivize housing production for middle income households.

Any questions for me?

I mean, this is like the most obvious one to me.

This one maybe we don't need that instead.

This seems pretty clear.

We're already we're already kind of doing the word AHAC.

And AHAC actually asked for this years ago.

Yes, yeah.

However, we didn't want to bring just one committee in front of you.

So we're just trying to modernize kind of the work they're already doing and make it clear.

And we might want to change the name to reflect that.

So it's like the housing committee or something.

We can't just have a bunch of acts though.

I don't want to attack and a hack and stuff.

Like you gotta put it in the B on it or something.

Yeah, or we could get creative.

Okay, yeah.

Thank you.

Housing options.

Like VDAP is a good name.

VDAP is a good name.

It's very unique.

Yeah.

Uh so overall it sounds like we've got good direction.

T Bach will reconvene and do some consolidation of their proposal and come back.

BDAB will start discussing and come back with a proposal.

AHAC, we're in a pretty good place to just bring the code code updates when we're ready to come back.

So our staff recommendations we package this all together and bring it back for you.

Bring it back to things we're ready.

Adoption.

Sure, we're done with all of them.

Does that work?

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, on to city manager's report.

You know, I don't have a lot, and I'll just put it in the council memo.

Yeah, please.

Let's do that.

Sounds good.

Okay.

Just a reminder, everybody only showed the city manager.