All right.

Um welcome everyone to the Ben City Council work session for February 25th.

Uh we'll start with um a quick roll call.

Um why don't we start Council Black Sorry, you just find it checked.

Uh Steve Platthee.

Megan Norrishi her.

Melanie Keebor, she here.

Mike Riley, he Alamendez, she here.

Gina Francesa, is she here?

Megan Parkins, she her.

Thank you.

So we've got five of us here and two online.

Um so we will start with our financial strategy discussion.

I I will kick this off.

I want to welcome Senator Nelson and Dan Quick from our finance department uh to uh alongside me and presenting this information.

This is really a follow-up from our budget deliberations that we had last May with the budget committee, where we uh really spent a lot of time focused on the financial health of the city and reserve levels and the general funds.

That is that is sort of the uh key indicator of the financial health of the city and uh a lot of attention paid to it.

Reserve levels.

So remember we have uh 16 a pa financial policy um that has us at 16 percent of general fund reserves, which is about two months of operating dollars.

Um so we looked at that in parallel to some one-time revenue um through June through land sale proceeds from Juniper Ridge.

Um so we're gonna talk about that, and if you go to the next slide, the purpose today is to really kind of marry these two things together.

So we had some sort of uh question marks uh w in the budget related to just needs around uh housing and homelessness uh um service areas.

So you're gonna hear how we're incorporating that, as well as the transportation funding at the state level.

So given those uncertainties, we said let's have a a conversation with you all um as we have more information.

So that's really this moment today as to what what resources do we need to make sure that we make that commitment to our uh to the council goals, the this biennial 2527 council goals, as well as really fully understand the context of the financial challenges across the organization with at the mid and long-term level.

Uh so what we want to do is offer a recommendation as a starting point for use of some one-time resources, and that's really those Juniper Ridge land sale proceeds.

Um all while staying within our reserve policy.

So I want to be really clear.

We're not talking today about reducing reserves or anything like that.

We're still forecasted in fact to end our biennium with about 21% reserves above that 16% target.

We're not talking about that.

We're just talking about uh the land sale proceeds, how we might want to use some of those proceeds to address some immediate needs through the council goals, um, while also understanding those longer term challenges.

Um so that's that's really our goal today.

We're gonna talk about the kind of the the punchline up front so you will know what we're asking for from council, and then we'll provide some detail with uh Samantha and Dan's help uh to get there.

So if you go to the next slide.

So what we're saying right now we have 10 million dollars available in Juniper Ridge land cell proceeds.

We can go into more detail if needed about how we got to 10 million available.

So this is from land that we sold uh mainly to Brooks Taylor, the developer out there of a hundred acres that was sold at Juniper Ridge.

Uh so we're not recommending as staff to spend all of that.

We're recommending to spend 4.1 million.

Um with a focus on council goals.

So you're going to hear about transportation, some of the uncertainty that that costs, and wanting to keep the momentum going of improving safety according to council goals.

You're going to hear about housing and homeless homelessness, recommendations to implement some of the recommendations from the home committee, as well as just filling in some gaps as bridge funding for our shelter system.

That is mainly funded through a statewide shelter framework.

And then really kind of an eye towards long-term sustainable funding plans for public safety and taking some resources and exploring some options for a shared governance model.

So we're going to go into more detail about how we got to that recommendation, but I wanted to have that up front.

And then we'll come back to that later on as well as those future considerations that Samantha will cover.

And so council, I would love to have the staff go through the presentation entirely.

So if you can note questions that you have, and then we can always go back to any section, but let's look and get through everything because it's all kind of connected.

So okay.

I will try to be as distinct as possible because I could probably spend hours on each one of these slides if I were to drive them to the details.

So I will try to contain myself.

As you recall through the budget process, this fund is subsidized by the general fund to the tune of about $9 million for the biennium.

It's supported by state gas tax as well as franchise fees.

So it has a limited revenue stream that comes into this fund.

I would say that although we have a balanced budget for this fund, oh let me back up.

Also, the transportation fee also comes into this fund.

Although we have a balanced budget, I wouldn't say that we met all of our community needs that we would like to meet in the timeline that we would like to meet them.

We're doing the best we can to get there, but we do recognize that we have more demand than we have resources available to do everything we would like to do around transportation.

One of the things that we're what we're trying to do to limit cost in this particular program is kind of the same method you're gonna hear me say probably multiple times, you'll get tired of hearing it, is we try to contain cost to the best of our ability because that's the biggest thing that we have control over.

Um so one of the things we're doing is we do a lot of preventative work because deferred maintenance always costs more, as we all know.

So that is a big push, um, has been a big push of the streets and operations team, um, but that's something we continue to do.

Uh and we continue to watch, you know, what's going on at the state level.

So what kind of initiatives are being uh discussed at that state legislative level that might impact us?

Um we are asking in this consideration for $600,000 for one-time safety projects.

This is to maintain the momentum that we've been able to start with the implementation of the transportation fee.

The current modeling for this fund does not include phase three, because that was paused for the transport citywide transportation fee, nor does it include any uh future additional funding come from coming from this state.

Without that, as we look to the future, we do have some challenges that are going to face this fund in the next biennium.

So we're hopeful that the state is able to come in and assist us.

But in the interim, so that we don't lose these lose momentum.

We're asking for $600,000 for safety projects.

The next one we're gonna talk about is around public safety and fire.

As you know, the fire fund is a standalone fund.

It is supported by a general fund subsidy, which is a calculation on our property taxes, as well as the fire levy and ambulance uh services that come into this uh program.

They have some other smaller revenues, but those are the big the big drivers that come into it.

When we look forward on the fire fund in 29-2030, we begin to fall below that target 16% uh reserve level.

Again, now this forecasting is assuming assuming a levy rate that stays consistent with where we are today.

It is not forecasting an increase at this time.

So that's somewhat what is equating for this falling below that reserve level.

In the general fund, we is where police are completely funded out of general fund.

So it's basically our property tax dollars.

And as you all know, and we've talked about at the budget committee extensively, there's very little revenue within the general fund that we have control over.

Um, and so police uh is subject to that.

As we look at the forward models of the general fund is currently structured, we begin to fall below our reserve levels in 28-29 and to the tune of 2.6 million dollars at that time in that projection.

There's a lot of things that can happen between now and then that are not factored in.

So we're waiting to see what happens with photo enforcement and some of the staffing that support that we have other, you know, is our growth going to be higher than what we have projected for property taxes.

So we do have some things that could make that a better looking picture in the future, but current modeling conservative which have us falling below those reserve levels.

So what we're trying to do is focus on the revenue streams that we do have control over.

And is there an ability for us to you know kind of maximize what we're receiving?

On the fire side, we're looking at prevention fees.

So there's a lot of work or so user fees service fees that the fire department is providing.

And are we charging for things that that we should be charging for?

Are we charging the right fee?

Um so we're conducting an ambulance study.

Uh last one was done, I believe, in 2016.

So this will be a renewal of that ambulance fee.

We'll be looking at the rate that is charged, we'll be looking at the structure, we'll be analyzing the impacts of an aging demographic that utilizes those services and what that means for our community, and then how all of that translates to a potential future levy.

On the police side, there's not a lot of revenue that comes into the police that we have control over.

We have a few minor charges that we do control that are in our fee schedule.

So again, like we do every year, we're continuing to evaluate those and and is there a way that are we collecting them as we should?

Um again, the other thing we control is cost.

So, as you heard a lot through the budget process, we're continuing to look at that deployment of resources and are we deploying the right stuff to the right places?

Are we using the right structure?

Is there a way to do it better more efficiently?

Um again, that work is is ongoing, uh, and we're continuing to leverage that technology.

Again, all things we talked about at the budget, but these are things that we are hopeful as we go through this biennium that perhaps we'll we'll start to see some positive impacts on the on the funding.

Looking forward, uh, we're continuing we're analyzing those dedicated uh revenue streams.

So is there potential for a dedicated revenue stream to support public safety, particularly on the general fund police side?

Um there opportunities for some shared governance on uh the fire side that could happen result in some long-term funding stability.

Uh so those are all conversations that that we are having currently.

We've been meeting for at least six months now with the Bend Urban Renewal Fire District and kind of having these conversations fire districts.

So sorry.

Um having that conversation and seeing what what options we have and being very collaborative in that approach.

So that's why we're coming to you to ask to re for a full session.

So hopefully we'll we'll have a clearer direction and some guidance, and also be when we're putting the next budget together for 27-29 as we talk about shelters into the next biennium.

Okay, so those are the main uh topics that we had in relation to our ask.

But in the context of doing that, one of the conversations we've been having and we've referenced multiple times was trying to give council kind of also that that big umbrella picture of challenges that are happening across the organization that staff is is working on because they're all kind of interconnected in regards to impacts.

So in the midterm, so these are things that we are working through as staff.

We're not bringing an ask at this time because we don't know exactly what our ask is going to need to be, and we're hoping to limit the ask that we can do some things to to make our ask less.

Um but the first one we're gonna start off with is airport.

So the airport has, as you recall, when we adopted the budget, we knew we had a gap in the airport funding of about $300,000.

Um, and we knew that, and we were hopeful, and our plan was through staff that we would work through our user fees and our services at the airport and be able to close that gap through through some of those activities.

Um additionally, since then the air traffic controller uh tower is coming online.

Um we knew that the FAA is going to pay for the people in the building, the air traffic controllers, and we knew that we would be the city would then be responsible for the operating side of the of the business of doing that work.

So we knew we were gonna have to do janitorial and utilities and you know those kind of things.

So we did plan for that in the proposed in the adopted budget.

What we didn't know was some other things around technology that are fairly significant in cost.

There's about an additional $100,000 per year related to technology that we did not we were unaware of.

But it's something we need to do.

So it's it's widening the gap of of the funding within the airport.

We also have some other things that we're we're working on that will put some demands and put added pressure on the airport fund, and that includes repairs and maintenance of the facilities that are owned by the city and not subject to FAA funding for repairs.

So things like our hangars.

We have some issues around some stormwater issues outside of the airport that we need to address.

So we have some other things that are needing to be maintained.

Operationally, we have two people at the airport that run the entire airport.

Um and and that's not optimal to run it as efficiently as we would like to run the airport.

So we recognize we do have some staffing needs, but again, with a limited funding ability, it's it's challenging us to meet all of the needs at the airport.

And we also recognize that there's a council goal as well as an FAA recommendation for all airports to be self-supporting.

So they do want us to dive into these fees and make sure we're we are charging for the things we should be charging for and we're charging the right amount.

Um so that's the work that staff is doing currently to try and close this gap.

We know at this point, we are not confident that we will be able to close that gap in the current biennium.

We think this is probably going to extend over into the next biennium.

So there may be an ask that we're coming to council to ask in support of the airport.

Business advocacy.

Business advocacy is where our economic development program lives.

As you remember, when we adopted the budget, we had we we knew we were going to be expanding this program, but we didn't know what that was going to look like.

We weren't fortunate enough to have Katie yet on board, and now we do, so we're very excited about that.

Um, and we have adopted an economic development strategic plan.

And but to do that plan, uh we need funding.

We also need staff to do that.

Um, this particular fund has two revenue sources, and that's it.

It is supported by business registrations within our community as well as a general fund subsidy, and those are the only funds that currently support the business advocacy economic development fund.

So again, we are looking at the business registration program and is looking if there's opportunities to modernize that program.

Is there uh different uh is there a different rate structure, a tiered structures or something else we could do.

We're looking it is primarily been a volunteer program.

Um people kind of self-report and and seek a business registration.

Uh so we're looking at how we can provide more engagement with our business community and and how do we what are those practices like?

How are we being more proactive in in our billing and collection?

Um so again, as this pro as the economic development program begins to really get legs and move forward, we do recognize we are going to probably have an ask around those programs in order to support that economic development work.

We don't know what that ask is going to be yet, because that's still kind of in that infancy stage of development, but we just know it's coming, and I want to put it on your radar so that you're aware as you're making kind of these decisions as we go forward.

The next one is City Hall and our space needs.

So, as you know, we're still pursuing a new city hall.

We have significant space needs multiple times.

We've had council chambers full and people flowing, so we know we don't have enough space here.

Uh we have the public works campus, which has staff has moved into, and so we have staff kind of moving around within our existing uh facilities.

One of our facilities is under a lease that will term in 2029.

Um so we have needs, um, and and as we move people around within within our buildings, some of our buildings are aging and there's renovations that need to occur.

Um, our police would tell you that they are at capac almost at capacity in their existing structure and have needs around evidence and and other things.

Um fire has similar challenges in regards to equipment and storage and supplies.

So again, these are facility needs that we have.

What we are doing, uh we are re-updating the space needs for staff from the current to 2035 and identifying within our existing structures what are our options and cost to do that.

So that's where we would pursue some type of a program where we would have something that generated an income to help offset any future debt service.

Um so what that looks like is a partnership or a P3 or some other activity we don't yet know.

Um so again, I just want to put this on your radar.

That this is a some this is something that's coming to you.

We just don't know what the that is, and multiple times this 10 million dollars uh was referenced in regards to the new city hall.

Um but obviously we have competing needs, and we're asking to use a little differently.

Last thing, uh longer term challenges around our uh these are challenges that again this goes to the reason I bring this to you is because it goes everything we've talked about previously, or I've talked about a component around fees and user fees and and and things for our community.

And so that all one of the things the topics that comes up is affordability, community affordability.

And every time we talk about water services, so water, water reclamation or sewer or stormwater fees, we always talk about the affordability for our custom our customers in our community.

Um in this program, we have a lot of regulatory capacity and conditions of our system that are elevating our cost in these programs.

We also have master planning and infrastructure needs that are fairly significant that uh again as we apply them, they they begin to raise our need and our which results in an increased rate structure.

That's not unusual.

We always have more that we would like to do for our community than what our rate structure that we would prefer to see as an annual increase would support.

So we typically try to uh stretch projects out over time, we stack them, we prioritize them, we do what we can in order to get that annual increase to an amount that we feel comfortable with.

The last several years that's been somewhere around three to four percent.

Um I would tell you that in our current modeling uh it that that rate is higher, and we're not we're gonna be challenged to bring that down to that three to four percent and still maintain our momentum in some of the projects that that we're working on.

That will be coming to council um in the late summer, early fall.

Those are those discussions as we prepare to begin those discussions for the next biennial budget.

So I just want to put that on your on your radar and awareness as we move into having these discussions on all of these multiple issues.

Uh the final one I would I want to uh talk about is in regards to general fund.

The reason general fund is important is again, as I said earlier, we have very little control over the revenue streams, but it supports uh very crucial programs, but it also is the only fund that has the most discretion, council has the most discretion over the use of its of its monies.

Um so our intent, as a lot of you'll see here on subsidized programs there on that second line.

A lot of the programs we've talked about tonight, the fire, the business advocacy, streets and obs, police, these are all programs that are supported by general funds.

So as those programs are able to generate additional revenue and be more self-sufficient or self-supporting, that does then potentially free up capacity within the general fund to further the activities, and this is where community um programs and things like that live.

So it frees up capacity to do more of those things, and council has more discretion over the use of those funds to meet council goals.

Um, so we just you know, everything that we do kind of comes back to the general fund.

Um if something is short at the end of the year, we're not allowed budget by um Oregon law, it no fund can be in the negative at the end of the year.

Uh we can't overspend our revenues, so the general fund becomes the support.

So just again, you hear this all through budget, it's all it's not new.

Um, it's just more of kind of a reminder of where we're at.

And that's all I have.

So now we're kind of back to the recommendation I shared earlier.

And again, this is a starting point.

I wanted to get a pulse from council about your comfort with uh these as recommendations again.

I really use the the council goals as the guiding force behind these recommendations, but if there's other considerations that you would like to see factored into use of these funds, um just kind of entertain the discussion for council.

All right, so any questions from council on any of the areas, Steve, start with you.

Uh Smith, going back to the just the first recommendation, the 600,000.

Um, because the tough phase three we we did not do, what would the tough phase three have brought in for to support this?

Sure, it was planned to bring in uh five million per year.

Okay.

So then when ODOT initially came out with the original projection, right?

And we thought maybe it would cover the little bit less than the five, but it would have been thought and so the ask here is a fraction of that five million with the six hundred thousand.

Am I characterizing that correctly?

Correct.

Since we're on that, just so people uh the council knows if we have a slide just on the if you keep going.

That would be uh safety projects.

Uh so that really was the intention of phase three um is to really keep going and getting more more projects out the door, and so this would be uh we don't have specific locations here, but we have kind of a order of magnitude in the various categories to eliminate cut through traffic, those uh flashing beacon, the RF RFD crossings, the delineator work to um and and delineator or um traffic diverters, lights, uh street lighting, all those sort of costs are outlined, and you can kind of see the mix there of how we got to uh proposal for how we would use the 600,000.

And just following on that, is there any world that we can envision right now based on the short session that's going on that we would have additional funding coming through transportation, or would we just think we're we're kind of stuck?

I would not count on it for this year.

I think that's gonna be a next year conversation.

It doesn't mean that there can't be some additional um revenue sharing that comes down to us.

I think it was about 2.3 million that we were expecting that that is now not going to materialize.

So um it's it's pretty unknown still how that's gonna go.

Um so yeah.

That's all I had on this one.

Okay, counselor Francosa, I see your hands up.

Thanks.

Um, I'm gonna go back to the um the brief mention at the beginning of um reserves and contingency.

So um because we we have this uh you know when when we were having our budget deliberations, um it was discovered that the health insurance increase was not going to be as high as forecast.

Um, and so that expense um ends up going into the contingency fund.

Um but then we also have a reserves fund that is so we have contingency and the amount of 75 million, and I understand that that's broken up by different some are enterprise funds and some are discretion or discretionary, and then we have these reserves that's in the amount of nearly 300 million.

And so I'm I'm just wanting a little bit more clarification on that.

Like I understand you're wanting us to focus on the juniper age land sales.

What other sources of revenue did you consider?

What other options um you know is are you willing to let council talk about tonight, or is this is this it?

I guess maybe is my question.

Can cut to the chase on that.

Sure.

Um, so yeah, you're correct.

When we went through the budget process, the count the committee's recommendation was um because we had budgeted for we have been told we would have a 20% increase in insurance every year.

Uh that actually came we were able to negotiate that down.

So we ended up budgeting 12% and 15%.

It was the direction of the committee that the savings from that that reduction in that insurance line be moved into the contingency line of each fund.

The reason for that is the can the use of that contingency fund then requires a council action to utilize, and it was it that contingency line is part of the calculation for that 16%.

So it helped to shore up uh us to meet that 21%.

Because if you recall when you saw the graph, the committee saw the graph for future uh reserves to calculations, we started to see a fairly steep cl decline.

And so by putting that money into the reserve is just another way to help uh in the contingency line help to short up to be available for reserve count as part of the reserve calculation.

Um we did not bring it forward as a recommendation for use based on that conversation with the budget committee at that time.

Um so we were really focusing on this one-time resource so that we weren't impacting the the ongoing um calculations of of the reserve and contingency in in every fund.

And this fund it this money the council has the most discretion over because it's not tax-based money.

Um so you have the most availability and using contingency, you get limited within each fund of what's really available, and then if you did choose to use it, that particular fund might fall below it 16% because not every fund is at a 20% reserve level, like the general fund.

So um that's what we're doing.

Yeah, because like trans transportations or streets and operations is really low, right?

Like they're at like 1.3 million or something like that.

So yes.

If they had to take a 600,000 dollar hit, that would pretty be pretty bad.

But the general fund um is that reserve is in pretty good shape, right?

Yes, if it's one right, it's at 21%, but that contingency is part of that reserve calculation.

So part of what's calculating that 21% is the the full dollar amount sitting in that contingency.

Yeah, yeah.

I guess what I'm getting at is I think I mean, like, so the I think a $50,000 ask, honestly, like I'm a little I'm I don't think Eric even needs council's approval to spend that amount of money, isn't that right?

Like, isn't that like a hundred thousand or something like that?

Um maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm wrong with that.

But anyway, I I kind of feel like that ask here is a little like why are we talking about that?

Like I I think you should I think that with the city should do that, but like I'm also looking at like 9.8.

I think there's like nine nearly 10 million dollars in contingency in fire and EMS.

Um so I I would I would love to take a little bit more nuanced approach.

Um I think you know, I think all of these um expenditures are are valid expenditures, and I'm glad we've aren't kind of already agreed to extend the TSSA and and I I think we already kind of agreed to fund shelters, right?

So I it's a little like now we're being asked after we asked to it.

We now we're now we're asked to decide where the money comes from.

So I'd love to have a little bit more nuanced conversation.

I I think that the revolving loan fund, um, that that was something that um in my mind um and in past conversations with Eric and others was um that was an sort of an innovative use of maybe some of this land sale revenue.

Um but uh I I really believe that housing and homelessness is something that is core to city's duties, and so I was you know hoping to have a discussion about um other ways to to fund that.

Thank you.

Okay, Mike questions.

Um just so I understand even if the voters were to uphold the transportation package, regardless of whether it's voted on in May or November.

That's not that's not proposed to bring in any new revenue, right?

That was the original package.

No, that got um that's that's from the special session.

And that was gonna be 2.3 million from the special session.

And while it's on the ballot, it's not happening.

So no, I understand.

So if it does pass though, if that does pass, that could materialize.

It could, yes.

Depending on what happens and what voters choose to do and the timing of when we'll know about that.

Yes, yeah, true.

Okay, so there might still be some more money.

Um you already gave the examples of the street safety projects.

Um does the fire levy come up for a vote again?

Is it in 28 or 29?

28.

28, and then it would go into effect in 20 of July of 29.

Correct.

Okay.

So there is an opportunity with that to correct some of those imbalances in terms of if we keep the rate the same, or we could have a small increase, or we could adjust it a little bit higher to account for some other needs potentially.

But correct.

And then what are we subsidizing the cemetery for currently?

Operations.

Yeah, but what dollar amount?

Oh, um, I'm sorry, we'll find that uh wait a minute.

998,000.

It's fairly significant.

And is that for the biennium?

Yes, can I add on on the fire question?

Sure.

The levy assumption that you have in 28 is that it passes at the same level, or that the levy doesn't pass going forward for your ask.

Uh we when we did our when our current modeling, so we model out six years.

Current modeling assumes the levy stays consistent.

Well, it does pass and does pass and stays at that same level over the next several years.

So it's pretty bleak if the fire levy would not pass.

Correct.

Okay.

It's devastating.

Right.

I just want to be clear on that assumption.

Okay, thank you.

All right, Mike, other questions.

Um, I have a comment, but so we want to do questions first.

Carl, did you have a question?

Yeah, um, I know we're kind of jumping around here a little bit, but just going back to the transportation one-time safety projects.

Um, I did see uh I work at OSU Cascades and I saw they opened up a ginormous new parking lot.

Uh I don't think it's open to vehicles yet, but you can walk and ride through it, and they have some raised crossings, and they actually have some uh raised intersections, so there's some nice example of sort of safety-oriented infrastructure that I know we've talked about as a council, but it's nice to actually see it in person.

So I think there's like three raised crossings.

It's really nice, really safe.

And thinking about our goals.

So we learned on the Bend MPO last week that if you apply ODOTs methodology for safety targets to Bend, uh, we're not meeting any of even the state level targets for safety.

Uh we have almost three times the number of serious injuries.

That's 64.

That was from 2024.

Um, and we have more fatal crashes than the state target has set, and and certainly more than we want to see.

So I'm wondering if there might be an appetite to increase that uh safety transportation one-time fee to 1.2 million.

Um recognizing that this is not an unlimited amount of funding.

And I mean, for me, I have the the hardest time with funding shelters because this does feel like I recognize this is one of the highest needs in our community from multiple perspectives.

I don't want to go back to not being able to tell constituents whether they're residents or businesses that we don't have a place for someone to go when they need it the most.

And so I support that, but recognizing that we really need to find a more sustainable funding solution for this.

Um I I felt like we haven't talked about things like funding for potentially um a multicultural center, you know, it's in our goals, one of our values is safety and belonging.

Um we're likely to be short on funding for the new city hall.

Um so I it's I I support it, but it's it's not an easy support.

Um and I think um those are the two main comments that that I have.

So uh does anyone have any is there a support for increasing transportation safety one-time funding?

What was the amount?

I just missed the uh 1.2 million total total so increasing by 1.2 or 1.2 total.

Total total, okay.

I I have a pass that I was gonna make too, so maybe we can get them all out on the table and kind of decide after that.

Um Mike, did you have anything else?

And then I'll see with our other counselors.

Well, I don't have any other questions.

I have sort of a comment that's an ask, but not for today.

Okay, well, let's leave maybe leave that to the see where we get and then make sure we don't forget to come back to that too.

That's fine.

Yeah, counselor Franzosa.

I I mean I just want to reiterate like I I actually would Counselor Mendez.

I would support increasing um the transportation fund, but I mean, kind of back to what I was saying earlier, like I'd I'd like to have a little bit bigger of a budget discussion because like you said, I mean, there are other things, and I I really would like to see you know us moving on a path forward with the city hall, but you know, but we don't have that lined up, and you know, if the airport needs subsidy, then we have to talk about that.

So I I am a little nervous, kind of moving forward with the Juniper Ridge land sales with all these things, you know, without having kind of that bigger discussion.

So that's all I want to say.

Can I ask you a clarifying question about that?

Sure, yeah.

Your comment, Councilor Francis.

So are you asking that we look at other reserve funds essentially?

Are there these contingency funds?

Is that the context question?

The bigger question you're wanting to.

I mean, I I'm saying I I think I I would like to kind of have more on the table.

You know, I'd like to have costs and expenses on the table as well.

Then just sources.

The cost cutting in other departments or other parts.

That's what I'm saying.

Yeah.

Okay, Councilor Norris or Councillor Perkins, anything you want to add at this point, and then I'm gonna go.

Just want to give you an opportunity.

I think all my questions were okay, were answered.

Okay.

No questions.

Okay.

Um, yeah, I mean, I'm comfortable with um trying to move quickly with this money that we have available at our discretion for some things that need some attention right now, and that are priorities for us.

Um, so I'm okay having this discussion today.

The one thing I was gonna propose um was I I know that um Katie has designated about $50,000 for small business grants as part of the economic development strategy.

It was gonna ask if we might be willing to take 50,000 here and double that to make that 100,000 to get that started to have a real good pilot seed program that we can learn from and try to expand in the future.

Um, so that was gonna be my ask um for the 50,000, just to give that a little more little more room to work with.

If we're I just seen an article that um Vancouver was doing um small business grants and amount of 10,000 each to each business, and I was thinking, well, if we could have at least 10 of those, that would be great instead of maybe five.

So can I make a comment related to that?

Um Samantha, I know you mentioned that you know, as part of the um economic development plan, you're gonna be looking at I think you used the word modernizing our our business fees, and uh I just wanted to see if there was support for you know recognizing how how much economic uncertainty there is, and it's too it tends to be the smallest businesses that have the hardest time with this.

Um if there would be support for looking for opportunities to give our small businesses a little bit of a break.

Um I know that those funds are the ones that support the staff that supports those businesses, but if there were opportunities, I think like the one that the mayor is is uh suggesting, which which I would be happy to support, uh I would be interested in learning about them.

Okay.

Can I ask one other question?

Yeah, so uh I mean um is there a reason that we didn't look at some other reserve funds or some of this contingency?

I mean, if we're projected to be eight 16 percent is our target, right?

We're projected to be roughly a third plus on that right now, right?

Um I don't know what that dollar number is that that five percent delta, what that adds up to, but is there a reason that we didn't look there for some of these costs in particular?

I you know, I think maybe this the stuff related to the fire and even the the um piece around um the the um amount for the the grants that the mayor is talking about, you know that that's not on this list yet here.

Yeah, um in all candidness, it was really about the long-term models.

So the long-term models for general fund are not positive.

They have us as we as we talk about when we talked about police in 2080, 27, 28.

We start falling below that 16% level.

So and that's that's even that's rolling forward what we have in the current biennium at 21%.

That means we're forecasted in the next biennium to look to utilize our reserves to get through just in our rolling forward our current operations within the general fund.

So, in order to protect that future of the general fund, we did not feel comfortable to recommend the use of that gap of that five percent and really wanted to focus on the use of these one-time dollars for these one-time type of activities.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah, and um, we also know that there's a chance that at the airport we're likely to exceed the $300,000 this coming year, right?

So that's that's an example of the kind of thing that that extra amount might have to be used for by the time we get there.

Right.

Exactly.

And I mean, I recall the budget committee, our committee members having some real concerns about that reserves in that and that modeling.

So I think it's smart to try to keep that.

I we we did some work to try to help assuage those fears and make that um model turn out a little bit better, and I I think it's smart to try to keep that on track for now.

So that makes sense to me.

Okay, Steve.

The home committee's really excited about credit enhancement, and our developers are really excited about credit enhancement, and we push that off right now because we're waiting on legal advice.

I what what can we do to rev that up to come back quick?

Yeah, we anticipate to have uh risk.

Matt, do you want to?

Yeah, we'll let Matt speak today.

Yeah, yeah.

Matt Stewart, real state facilities and housing director.

Yeah, so we're because this is the first time as Samantha mentioned at Oregon.

We have some so we actually have or if our bond council they're under contract right now, they're doing the research right now.

Okay, so I anticipate the next 60-90 days, we'll have that knowledge.

The program itself we can develop alongside that, and we're doing that with the infrastructure role and loan funds.

So there's a lot of similarities to them.

There's just a big difference in how do we address the reserve and how do we address the credit when it comes to that.

And the risk associated with the risk associated, yeah.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, I'll say I'm I'm very much interested in getting things infrastructure revolving loan fund going, and I don't want you know the credit enhancement work to interfere with that anyway.

I think we need to get that rolling as soon as possible.

Um, since we have this dollars that we can use for it.

Um, and the questions about what we can actually do with credit enhancement, I think are still pretty large as far as how much money we would need to have it be meaningful since it is tying up funds for long periods of time, and they can't be any kind of property tax funds, and we have to make sure we're navigating around the Oregon constitution.

So for me, I'm I would love if the focus was on this fund right now until we get that next decision point from council on the credit enhancement.

And just to clarify though, this is an infrastructure revolving loan fund, but the home committee had talked about a more general revolving loan fund too, right?

They did, but this was the one that's this was the one they recommended.

And I think the other thing about this one is that it um targets smaller projects, right?

That are more infill-oriented, that's gonna be done, tend to be done by smaller developers in the community.

Um I think it also has potential to support using um incentive subsidy money like this for projects that are um what was my point there?

Homeownership.

Yeah, there is, thank you, that are focused on home ownership rather than many of the incentives have gone to rental properties primarily.

So I think there's a lot of value to this particular um approach right now, and we can get it going relatively quickly.

Yeah, I agree.

Thank you.

All right, are there any other um requests to change what's on this slide here?

We've had a couple.

Councilor Franzoza.

Um thanks.

I just so first I just want to clarify or ask a question.

The um the $50,000 for the analysis of shared government, why are we taking that from the Juniper Ridge Land Sales and why is that not just coming from Firing MS reserves or some other fund or some other account that Fire EMS has?

Part of that was in partnership with the rural district.

I think the rural district, we have this commitment, this $1.18 um you know, uh agreement with the rural district, and we we really try to avoid using those dedicated funds uh for items.

So I think it was in an effort to show a gesture of uh wanting to work cooperatively because this idea of a district is something just bigger than the city of Bend is to fund it outside of those reserve funds.

Uh that was important, it was an important value to their rural partners uh for that to come from a different source.

Okay, that doesn't make any sense to me.

But that's uh the other um yeah, and the other ads on the table, like I like I said earlier.

I mean, I was kind of surprised to see the fund the shelters and the TSA extension.

Like I I thought they were gonna be some of those other solutions that we talked about in the joint meeting with the county, um, the housing housing solutions to help um folks have a place where they can go and as we wind down the TSSA, and and I don't see that here.

So that's another ask that um you know that that's gonna have to be on the table at some point, I would imagine.

So I just I don't want to lose sight of that.

Um then um so there's that, and then finally the um the infrastructure revolving loan fund, um yeah, I get I kind of want to second what Steve said the you know the credit enhancement um is it is a yeah it it would make more of a difference to the projects than the infrastructure revolving loan fund, and I I kind of wonder because as I understand this was proposed um by staff is different than how it was proposed by the advocates, the advocates were proposing that the fund be set up and that it the city basically underwrite the infrastructure and then is paid back with the um kind of like the tax increment.

Um, but but this I believe is is truly just a loan that the developer would have to pay back, and so then that has some complications with uh, you know, if if a developer is trying to sell the property and then that loan, does that loan get transferred to the home buyer and the home buyer pays it off over a period of time?

So um, so anyway, I don't know.

I mean, it looks nice, a million dollars for an infrastructure evolving loan fund, but I'm I am wondering if it's if that's you know, if we're putting all this time and energy, and it's something that is not actually what the committee had asked for.

Well, that program will come back to council for final approval and shaping.

So I think any of those concerns we can address.

I think we're just talking about how much initial capital should we put into a program like that.

Right.

So I can Yeah, just to be clear on the shelter and um TSSA extension, there was never any identified funding source.

That this was the identified funding source that was referenced in the joint meeting to be to paying for that.

So it does um just solidify that, and we wanted to make sure that that was in context.

So yeah, it was something that council had kind of talked about, but we want to make sure that that is accounted for when you're thinking about the use of these funds.

I think um part of the point Council Francis was making is the rest of these funds is they're gonna be potentially a use in the future for um going towards other solutions.

And I and I totally take that point, and I think we should think about that when we're thinking about how much we're allocating today versus what we might want to hold back for future investments in solutions.

And that's a good segue to the comment I wanted to make, and that's that two parts.

I think one, you know, I I'm looking to the home committee's recommendations that are gonna come to us, and then our ultimate decision about potentially new revenue supports it um sources to support housing needs in general, and I think that that housing means means the entire spectrum of housing needs from uh you know managed camps to eventually permanent supportive housing to middle middle housing and all that.

So um a portion of it needs to be, in my opinion, reserved for supporting homeless activities, whether that's capital infrastructure and operating costs.

And I think that's what we're kind of waiting for is potentially a new revenue recommendation.

We're probably not gonna get very far with the state, it doesn't appear over the next couple of legislative sessions, and maybe we'll get something, but just maintaining the level funding we have now is already a challenge.

So we're going to need some local money that we have control and can choose how to spend it.

And I think we ought to be talking about at least about $500,000.

That not that we would just throw it at something, but that it would be this is some seed money coming from the city to find other partners who could match it and then potentially go to the state and maybe even somehow the feds if we have a contra uh concrete program.

Um but that gets at um trying to have a a place that some of the people that are at the TSSA can move to when it closes.

Now we don't have a lot of time to get there, obviously.

So it's good to know that the Gales thing is actually before the county for the land use review process at this point.

But I think that's the kind of an example of the kind of thing that we need to be thinking about for uh future asks and future dips into this fund, um, which is why we need to not spend more than about half of it right now.

Yeah, and I would just I totally agree.

I think the permanent supportive housing item is is important to me.

I know that when we're looking at new supportive permanent supportive housing, it could be quite substantial.

And so I would be interested to I think that there are some potential rehab projects um coming up, but I think that there's still remains to be seen.

So I think it's good to just um keep this to um you know, the home committee revolving loan to a million at the 1.7, I think is good.

Um with the home committee fund of one million.

I just you know, I know it's for smaller projects, but to the extent that those smaller projects could possibly benefit like larger infrastructure projects new connections or what have you.

Um I just would would request that that be prioritized.

Um but yeah, I just I would ask that we keep that in line with the PSH for the future funds, and I just and I do support this amount because I know that there are a lot of shelters that are on the brink, and we need to help them stay alive.

Yeah, okay.

So a couple of things on the table as far as changes from this recommendation, so the ask to double the amount of um transportation projects in my ask for 50,000 for small businesses.

What does that take us to total someone with a calculator?

4.75.

Yeah.

Um is council comfortable with those two, it takes us up to 4.75.

We're still under half the amount, or does anyone want to make a pitch to stick with what we've got here?

Can I just understand what the extra 600 grand would do for us?

I understand that better.

I think it's uh it's just a recognition of the urgency.

I mean, given that we here for years routinely, these kinds of needs, and we've never really had a program that has funding to respond to it.

That the neighborhood uh street safety program was was one effort at that, but people who ask have to wait years and recognize that all of that funding is basically already allocated.

And um, so rec-I mean, that was uh how many how many million seven million I think.

So it's this is it's still not a lot of money given the need.

Uh it's but it's just a I think more is better for this.

What is the status of the NSSP and the fund and the funding for that?

Do we so we have NSSP funding through 2028?

Yeah.

But it's pretty much programmed already, right?

I mean, we know what projects we're building with that, so we're not getting any new projects done that we don't already know about, right?

This this is and the demand has been like off the charts, and we've got it down to what 16 projects or some total, right?

Over the two chunks of money.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that um yeah, this is really more programmed to be in the transportation mobility department to be those quick build that we're doing self-performing, not sort of capital projects.

Um this is this is in I think in Council Riley's um just to build on it, it's really those neighborhood, yeah, those requests that come in outside of that NSSP that I would say are related to that theme.

So just more of what we're seeing on the screen is what the intention would be.

Yeah, just more of that.

And potentially raised crossings.

Yes, yeah.

I think that when we talk about speed obviously, I think that's that that fits in with uh race crossings.

I mean, I would support that.

I I I think to Consul Francosa's point, I didn't maybe say let's take the two smaller chunks, the 50 Rand for the fire and the 50,000 for um for the business stuff, not off the table fund those, but let's have those come out of the general fund reserve just to kind of tamp down a little bit what we're we're doing with this particular fund.

I I think that those are that's a small enough amount that we should probably be comfortable with that.

I do want to make the point on the rural fire district that the fact that we allocate the same amount into that fire fund.

Um, and that this is sort of an outside study, it's not directly related to fire services.

That is a really important value to them that all that money goes to fire services.

And I know it seems really small, but even 50,000 being taken out of that and not going towards our our fire and EMS services is meaningful to the not taking it out of fire's reserve, but the general fund reserve.

Yeah, we could do that as well.

That's right.

That's kind of what I'm getting at.

Okay, yeah.

I just I just you know, I want to be careful about touching the reserve for the reasons that we talked about before.

But I don't care what fund it comes out of, it just seems like it's 50,000.

Like, is there not 50,000 somewhere in the budget?

I mean, that's all I don't care what fund it comes out of.

Okay.

So, Samantha, what do you think?

If we have the those two smaller things, can we find those?

Maybe not in the Juniper Ridge money, and then we can take those out of the contingency.

We'll bring a uh resolution to councils the supplemental budget to pull those out of contingency.

Okay.

So just so we're clear.

And I'm just making sure just this has been thrown out there, and just if there's anyone who has a different opinion, I just want to make sure I'm asking for that, but I think we're probably mostly in agreement here.

So we're minus 50,000 from 4.1.

And then you're adding 600,000 back, so it's 550 above the 41, so we're at 465.

Okay.

Of use of these funds, we'll come back in a supplemental budget to move the money around to the appropriate funds.

That's how we would uh implement this.

And we'll we use contingency for the the study as referenced here as well as for the 100,000 total to the small business program.

Can I just ask one question?

I'm sorry, I know we're so close here, but um the you know, councilor Mendes's request to increase the um transportation safety projects to 1.2 million.

I mean, as much as I want to do that, there's certain there's a certain amount of staff capacity, and so if there's not staff capacity to actually do that 1.2 million, then maybe maybe that doesn't make sense.

So I I just want some some assurance that we're gonna have to move could be spent in a good afternoon, everybody.

David Avistrict or transportation mobility.

Um good good point, uh Councilor Franzosa, uh, with the tough support of bringing on some additional staff for that team that would deliver these quick build type projects, uh, feel comfortable, uh, take some time to select those.

We purposely didn't put locations on the slide.

There's some public outreach and things of that nature to happen.

But you're right in the request to increase that would be more of that type of uh projects, quick build.

Uh we would also lean on our uh concrete um asphalt crews to self-perform where we can.

Uh so I think we could uh deliver Francosa.

Um it'd take a little bit of time to get those programmed and going, but doable.

Okay.

All right.

So I think we have a consensus here on next steps.

Okay.

Anything else you need from us?

No, that's it.

Thank you so much for the presentation.

Thank you.

All right.

And next up is wildfire resilience code options.

I know.

Good evening, Mayor, counselors.

I'm Sarah Hudson, senior management analyst at the city manager's office, joined by Melissa Steele, Deputy Fire Marshal for Wildfire Preparedness.

And we are here to talk about wildfire resiliency and code updates for consideration.

So, in terms of what we'll be covering today, we'll start with really the guidance that we're looking for from council today.

Um, take some time to provide some background, what the city's currently doing to address wildfire risk, reasons to consider code updates, um, and then get into more specifics around these kind of code policy options.

So, both with home hardening and then defensible space, kind of talk through some next steps and um leave some time for discussion.

So, all of this, the reason why we're talking about it, it relates to council goals for the current biennium, where there's this goal to really build wildfire resiliency through awareness education actions, increase um assessments that are happening on properties throughout the community, and in terms of specific actions, it was um outlined that we evaluate and update codes to reflect those best practices, um, and then kind of this heavy outreach and education um piece of that um council goal as well.

So, in terms of what we're really uh looking for today, seeking guidance on is on the home hardening side.

Uh, would council like to move forward with um local adoption of Oregon residential specialty code um called R327 is kind of what it's referred to as, and then kind of how fast do we want to move on that?

Yes.

And then defensible space.

So should we consider local adoption of the state model code?

And then kind of do we expand beyond that?

What level of engagement and education kind of goes along with it?

And we will present kind of a staff recommendation around this.

There's kind of a lot there, more that we'd want to kind of come back to council with, but kind of want to outline and discuss that as well.

So to start with some background, these are all the things the city is doing to address wildfire risk today.

So I'm not going to read through every single box.

I think the headline is really there's a lot of activities underway where we're really thinking about prevention, we're thinking about evacuation, just all angles around wildfire resiliency.

Something I do want to point out is some legislative advocacy currently taking place with a short session.

There's two bills in particular that we're tracking closely, have provided testimony for.

So Senate Bill 1551, this really has to do with making sure that homeowners associations can't prevent homeowners from doing kind of home hardening activities on their property.

So the CCNRs can't prevent those things from taking place.

Senate Bill 1540 is really looking at wildfire insurance coverage, so making sure that if folks do complete mitigation actions on their property, that they would get incentivized for that, or there would be some benefit to their premiums around that, and also kind of put more in plain language, having more transparency around how wildfire risk models are applied, what does that mean for me and my coverage?

So those are two things that we've been really following closely.

I'll hand it over to Melissa to talk about a couple of these as well.

I think it's important to also highlight the number of requests for wildfire risk assessments in this past year.

Before January 8th of 2025, our department usually gets around 115 requests annually for these home assessments.

Why is that January date significant?

And so that's because that's the day after the LA fire storm, and that's the date that the community became really concerned about their fire risk invent.

So in 2025, we received over 1,000 home risk assessment requests from our 115.

So that was huge.

We assessed almost every Ben Parks and Rec property where it meets that boundary of private property as well.

So that was one thing that we were really proud of that hadn't happened in quite some time.

So another thing we really want to be able to discuss today is this extensive body of work that's taking place with Bloomberg philanthropies.

It's the innovation path around wildfire resilience.

So there's a whole group of city staff, cross-departmental that has been working with Bloomberg to really dig into this education and awareness piece a bit more.

And there's kind of this whole path they've been on.

It's kind of this iterative process of how we kind of approach vision, problem refinement, kind of ideating around getting to solutions, not starting with solutions, doing kind of deep research first.

So this group has gathered diverse input through many interviews and workshops with the community from community-based organizations to folks with caregiving needs, also following up with those who have received wildfire assessments but have not actually completed actions on their property, really to dig into why, what are the barriers, what are the challenges, and just understanding this more deeply.

So there's a lot of themes that have come up through that research.

So it's just because you build it, doesn't mean folks will come.

So information alone doesn't drive that action.

Um that we have to factor in trust and lived experience into how we think about education and activation, that we can't have this kind of one size fits all approach to wildfire education, and then thinking more through trusted, accessible, and relevant channels.

So it's less about an awareness issue and more about how do we kind of meet folks where they're at and how do we kind of activate through this iterative process?

There's been kind of a problem refinement, kind of starting with assumptions, but then testing it through these conversations with community, and so other things that have kind of come from that is that there is a need for unified and accessible education to inspire action.

There is a disparate understanding of wildfire risk, so not everyone perceives wildfire as a high risk in our community, and it can depend on where they live in town.

Um another conclusion is that the city is needing to show up a little bit more consistently so we can be kind of a more singular, trusted voice.

So all of this work is really important as we think about that education and and outreach component of this work.

The next steps for the Bloomberg project are kind of this what they call prototyping.

So it's kind of piloting, seeing what works for different ideas before we kind of scale at the community level.

So that's happening over the next couple months, and then from June and beyond, there'll be kind of this portfolio of initiatives that help kind of understand and prioritize what's the most feasible, what will be the most actionable.

So there's a lot more to come from this body of work.

Anything else that you would add?

No, I think you know it.

Okay.

So switching gears to code updates, why we're considering it.

Um we know that regulatory tools increase action compliance.

So it can't just be about education awareness.

It kind of provides a little bit more teeth to a lot of what we're talking about.

Um, we know that it can be effective.

So with the flat fire and sisters and the work that they've done, they were able to prevent the loss of a lot of structures because they had a lot of these kind of policies under consideration and in place.

We have currently have flammable vegetation code and our Muni code, but it's not aligned with what we know to be the current best practices.

So it just needs to be re-looked at about, you know, how do we kind of expand upon it?

We know there's a lot of commute community concern, and it's heightened by recent um fire events, and even now when I wouldn't think that wildfire would be top of mind.

Um, I think just because of the mild winter we're having, it's even CLN even now.

Um, and then the neighborhood round table last June also kind of highlighted that community concern as well.

Um there is an opportunity to address conflicting standards through our code.

So when you're looking through that wildfire lens, making sure that our code is in alignment in different places, and then we are seeing emerging best practices.

So, what we are here to talk about today is the Oregon State Building Codes division R 327, so that home hardening code, and then through Oregon State Fire Marshal, there's the draft Oregon defensible space model code.

So we're gonna dig into that a little bit more deeply.

But it does represent bad best practices in this space.

And then the last point I'll make here is just alignment with neighboring jurisdictions.

So Deschutes County and the City of Sisters just adopted R 327 to go into effect on April 1st.

Um, and Redmond is having these conversations as well.

So it would just kind of have more consistent three consistency in the region to also be looking at it here.

Before you go, Sarah, I just gotta point out that was some good flying that happened to drop that fire flame retardant right next to those homes.

Really?

It's right next to those homes.

That's really good.

All right.

So, yeah, I'll talk about why all this wildfire mitigation work.

Um, wildfire impacts everyone, right?

We know that.

Um, as the wildland urban interface fires continue to increase with both frequency and intensity, uh, they present a growing threat to lives and property and our natural resources across our city and our county.

Um, understanding the factors contributing to this escalating issue is critical for developing these effective strategies to promote community uh to protect our communities and promote fire adapted practices.

So by creating these fire-adapted communities, um, we definitely can at least address the risk before the incident happens.

Um this requires a clear understanding of where the greatest risks lie, and so the traditional focus of the WUE, the wildland urban interface, um, the traditional focus has always been in the areas where the development or the built environment kind of intermingles with the forest, right?

Um, but significant uh a significant challenge in our wildfire problem is that uh the risk is no longer limited to those areas and those traditionally defined areas, I should say.

Communities not typically classified as a high risk area, um, they're increasingly vulnerable to devastating losses.

Um, and addressing this challenge requires more than just emergency response.

It demands a coordinated effort involving many different groups working together, and so a shared understanding of the wildfire risk uh hazards and vulnerabilities allow for a more thoughtful decision-making process.

And it's important to you know point out that the one dollar investment there in mitigation and the average of um $11 in avoided losses is pretty pretty huge.

So I wanted to point out some pictures here that really show impact.

Um, and these these photos, we have that risk here and bend, and so some quick uh context behind these.

The top uh left, that's my neighborhood in Paradise, California.

One of those houses was mine.

As you can see, none of those houses are standing.

Sorry, I get a little emotional because it's important to me.

Okay.

Um, but what's standing?

What is standing there?

Trees.

The trees, right?

So what we know is that um structure to structure ignition is super important.

And so that's a photo that really shows that impact.

Okay.

And so then the top uh right, that's where we get slope, right?

So that slope coming up, that is about 10 years of um really good defensible space, and you can see all the brushes gone, but the impact and that direct flame impingement to the house itself is is still standing, so that's great.

The bottom left is kind of what an average wildland urban interface looks like.

So if you can think about when we talk about the zones here in one second, you'll think about all those embers hitting that home, right?

So the home hardening code, that's where that really comes in.

Um, and then the bottom right is uh a fire we had in Bend a couple years ago, and that is an ignition from uh one house to the other spread by a wooden fence.

So those are really important photos that I think if really strong impact.

Go to the next one.

All right.

So can I ask a great question?

So just in you know, going back to like common understanding, yeah.

Um where is the risk in Bend?

Is it just on the west side?

Is it in the southeast?

That's a great question.

So when you're considering um housing and trees and all the things that burn, we have more dense housing, which is actually more flammable than our trees, right?

So a house will burn at let's say 20, 300, you know, degrees Fahrenheit when a tree is about 180.

And so when we're thinking about the things that actually cause wooy disasters, we are thinking about the embers hitting the homes.

So I'm not necessarily worried about a wildfire on those um outlying interface zones coming into the city, but more of an ignition in the city sweeping through the city and going out towards the forest because that's where the ignitions are.

So just by thinking I live in the center of town, I don't have a risk is actually not true.

Um, I would say that where there's more dense building, you're gonna have greater devastation if a fire happens on a red flag day with you know winds and relative humidities that are very low.

So the risk is everywhere in Bend.

It just will differ with the different vegetations on the east side.

You've got the what juniper woodland.

Junipers are very flammable, we all know that.

But then on the other side on the west side, we've got dense populated forests, you know, with homes and and ladder fuels.

So I'd say the risk is spread throughout, it's just different how the fire behavior will react.

Okay, yeah.

And we've had too many examples of folks with disposing of fireworks or oh, the rags or something we think would start a fire, but they do.

Absolutely.

And that's how that happens within the city.

It's not always a wildfire.

So the number of red flag days is gonna be very concerning this next summer.

Yeah, yeah, we're yeah, so red flag days.

I kind of want to just reiterate that that day means basically checking again at around your home, right?

We need to get that culture changed of a red flag means I need to prepare.

Um, absolutely.

So going to this next one, home hardening.

A lot of people have heard this term, it's getting more familiar.

Um, so basically what home hardening is is you're making your home resistant to those embers, like we saw in that photo just a minute ago.

And so it addresses the most vulnerable parts.

So having a bush under a window is probably one of the worst things that you can do.

Um, these are the things that we we check on these assessments, and so um hardening um includes everything from the roof vents all the way down to um foundation vents and any of your attachments like a fence or a wooden deck.

Um, and so this will also decrease that structure-to-structure ignition that we talked about, which is a very common factor in all of these um conflagrations.

And so, one thing I think is very important is that um it takes time for fire departments, fire resources, first responders to get to you.

We don't have enough resources, we never will have enough resources for a wooy fire.

So, by home hardening, you're actually buying time for your home for a first responder to get on scene.

Any questions on this?

Okay, so to get into the specifics of R327, just to make sure we have shared understanding, uh, it really is about the building materials and practices related to the home to be more fire resistant and includes things like roofing material, siding, window glazing, ventilation openings.

There's a lot there.

This is just kind of a high level list.

The code is also linked in the agenda.

Uh, but that's just kind of the the high-level overview.

Um, it applies to new residential development, one and two family dwellings and townhouses and accessory structures.

There are some exemptions for some detached structures if they're a certain distance away in size.

To give a sense of scale, in 2025, there were about 700 building permits that would have been subject to these standards to kind of think about what does that look like in Bent.

It does not apply to repairs, replacements, or additions to homes, manufactured homes, commercial development, and some multifamily dwellings like apartment buildings.

Other considerations for local adoption of R327.

So just to put out there that Oregon does have a uniform statewide building code.

So it's we it must be adopted in full.

It's a yes or a no.

It's not we like this part or not that part.

It's that's how it's adopted.

The only area of local discretion is where it applies.

But I'd like to point out here that as it was adopted in Sisters and Deschutes County and Ashland, it was jurisdiction-wide.

And I think to build on Melissa's point, you know, all of Bend is considered high wildfire risk.

Again, sisters in the county, uh, that code becomes effective April 1st.

Um other timeline considerations for local adoption.

Uh, if we wanted to move as fast as possible, just the process would be adoption by ordinance.

So coming back, having a public hearing, first reading, uh, second reading.

Um, once it is in effect, it applies to new residential, detached, um, permitted after that date.

So building permits submitted on or after the that effective date.

Uh kind of bringing up fire season and construction season timing as we think about when do we want this to go into effect?

We really think it's May through October as being the you know the busy season for both of those.

Um, but also communication with developers and builders and making sure they know about these new standards and um making sure it doesn't impact projects or timelines for other goals that council has like housing.

Uh in terms of cost impacts of R327, the most recent report um that I've seen says it is estimated to be a two to three percent cost increase.

Um there are some previous reports that estimated higher than that.

Uh I will note it's kind of hard to pinpoint because a lot of these things are already common practice, like we do see like roofing is often to standard um already, things like that.

Um, there's also insurance implications of not doing home hardening.

We've heard stories of folks who can't get insurance or have high insurance premiums if they don't have some of these.

So when you think of kind of overall cost to the homeowner, it could be higher without it.

Um, and then long-term financing can help spread out impact.

So it's a little bit hard to pinpoint, but just some of those cost considerations.

So, really kind of the question today around home hardening is should these standards be adopted locally?

Um, and then kind of getting into if yes, the desired level of outreach and engagement before that adoption.

If we were to move as fast as possible, uh staff has discussed we could target April 1st for a first reading for this to go into effect um May 15th.

And Ian if we did a first reading with an emergency, how fast would that go into effect?

Uh immediately on second reading.

Okay, so we wouldn't have that extra 30 days after the second reading.

Correct.

Okay.

Um okay, so I was gonna pause here and see how council's feeling about this as far as again, as I said, sort of all or nothing, so we don't get to pick and choose on the butt sisters.

Has gone ahead and county has gone ahead and adopted this uh model from the state, and then I think probably most of the discussion is kind of what kind of outreach do we want to have on this.

But Redmond is also having a discussion about this as well.

Yeah, um, can you remind me at the state level?

There is not a measure, but it's being discussed perhaps that would have some kind of a guaranteed insurability.

Also, if there was a code adoption on this or not.

Did we discuss this a little bit yesterday?

We were talking about the Senate Bill 1540 that's trying to kind of provide incentive around insurance, just because it's a really fragmented market and there's a lot of issues around that.

I don't think there's any guaranteed imperability that's in the legislature right now, and that's a type of one.

So connected, like is it an individual homeowner has to prove they did something, or if you are in a community that has adopted the code, then you get that's a good question.

My read was kind of at the homeowner level, I'm not sure.

Yeah, no, I think I think so.

And this would basically just say that the how I read it is that the insurance companies have to at least consider offering an incentive if they've done X, Y, and Z as far as you know, home hardening and mitigation.

It just it just gets a the affordability to own portion of this argument, which is really really critical, you know, for the long term for our folks.

So can I just clarify the question?

Sure.

So it's single family detached homes or duplexes and town homes.

That's all so triplexes, quadplexes.

Here that was I think if it's over three stories, then it's in the commercial.

I shouldn't talk like I'm a building.

Good evening, Jill McClay, building safety division manager.

Um yes, correct.

Duplexes, single family dwellings, town homes, anything out of the residential one and two family dwelling code.

We have two codes, we call it commercial code, everything above that and the residential code.

You stay in your residential code, new construction, that's what this would apply to.

And what about ADUs?

They're covered because if it's new, if it's an addition on a house, nope, that's considered an addition, not new construction.

So they've really limited it to new standalone ADU.

So triplexes quadplex is not part of it.

Not three town homes would be attached.

Okay, but triplex is the planning term.

Um town homes are individually owned and okay, attached, so they fall into the kind of single family category.

Okay.

Where a triplex, somebody owns all those and you're renting and or a nineplex, more of an apartment.

Okay.

Thanks.

Okay, thoughts, council on moving forward with this.

Council of Francisco.

Oh, yeah, council Francis.

I have some questions.

Um, so I I kind of get why sisters would adopt the R 327 and why the county would, because all those houses are basically in the wooy.

But I mean, like an infill projects in bend.

I you know, I mean, you are out to my house, Melissa.

I'm happy to report all of my gable vents and all that stuff.

It's all eighth inch mesh and all those openings, which is really great.

So, like, is it possible to do certain um like certain local requirements for R 327, like the eighth inch mesh on all vents, um, and maybe some of the other things, but not like everything.

Like I I didn't look through the code entirely, but it's like I am familiar with what you have to do if you have two houses that are too close together.

You know, basically like an added layer of gypsum, like it's it does end up being really, really expensive.

And so, you know, for houses that are in the city.

I mean, if they're gonna if they're catch if their house is catching on fire because your neighbor like left a trash can out, like I don't I don't know what to do.

But if you're on the the urban interface, like out at like tree farm or whatever, like I get I kind of get there why because there is so much fuel, why R327 makes sense.

So I guess two questions like is it possible to do some things like the one-eighth vent mesh um or apply R327 to like development on the edge of town as opposed to like infill development inside town?

So the R327 code is an off-the-shelf adoption code.

We can't make any amendments to R327.

Um so it if we would adopt R327, we would have to adopt it in full.

So absolutely nothing to change.

Um, but as far as where it applies to, um, I there could definitely be more talk on that.

Because that's the one discretionary point local governments have, right?

It's the location within their community.

So you can choose jurisdiction-wide, which is what Deschutes County and Sisters have done, if I understand it right, and what I think Redmond is talking about, or we could identify areas for I mean I you know I live roughly a mile from the woo-ey, you know, the the edge, and um I also have done just about everything since you came to my house.

Um we have the screens we have to do before it's fire season starts.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Um the you know, uh I think to your earlier point, we're still at high risk because of the right kind of conditions, right?

Where the combination of heat and humidity and and wind, um, we're still very vulnerable.

The client, yes, you've got coming into the house, and then if could be my neighbor hasn't done stuff, but then you know they have plants that are too close, and their house goes, and then my house goes, right?

Yeah.

So it's this kind of idea that we're all responsible in some way.

We all have to take some responsibility for this.

Absolutely, yeah.

The climate here is is a lot different, let's say, than on the west side of the Cascades, right?

Where there's a lot of dense housing as well.

They're not gonna have that problem like we would.

Um, and that's because of the climate that we have the hot red flag windy days coupled with all of the flammable native vegetation and the overgrowth in the city with the trees.

Um, all of that together coupled um is just all the right recipe for a conflagration.

To clarify, Melissa, if we adopt this, this would not solve Consorile's problem, right?

Unless somebody builds something new near his home, right?

This is all just to new construct residential construction.

Right.

I mean, so it's it's not it's not reducing the the risk other than for infill projects.

But I mean, there you know, there's multiple new homes that have been built within sure uh thousand feet of my house over the last couple of years, and and and in theory, if some of that continues, the those houses it would apply to your recommendation is across the city.

Absolutely, and just keep in mind too that a lot of these developers are already using 75% of these recommendations as well.

So, like vents and things are the and some windows are like cut some of the only things that they're not doing.

This would just require that.

Okay.

Yeah, I was gonna ask that.

I mean, I think that I know in some of the work that I do that we're already like looking at that.

My only comment would just be that you know, as much on the community engagement, as much lead time that you can give.

I mean, I know that they're already doing it, but to the builder and development community.

I mean, but I also understand the May 15th date and getting ready for the summer.

I just wish we would have done this like a few months ago.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, the time the timing makes me really nervous.

I mean, there's project proformas are already set at this point, so targeting April one makes me really really nervous for all the city.

If we want to say just the urban edge, just the movie, I would be supportive of that.

But this feels a little like a surprise to me.

So I imagine it's a big surprise to builders.

And we have not received any emails on this except from the firewise folks.

Right.

And this has been I think people have known this is coming.

I mean, I've mentioned it to a couple people.

So I I guess we need to just um just is there support to do non-full city from anyone else from besides Council Franzosa?

I'm not seeing any.

I think we're all okay, the rest of us at least okay with jurisdiction wide, which is the staff recommendation.

Okay, so then I guess the question is um if we bring this back April 1st for a reading, I would support doing that.

And I think at that time, maybe we could talk about an effective date potentially and say, let's let's get it, let's get it written down and make sure everyone knows what's coming.

Let's have a public hearing, and then maybe we could talk about if we want to have a little bit of a delayed effective date to allow more time for um builders, and maybe we can get some feedback on that.

At that at that point, because we we can pass it, but say it doesn't go into effect until that state.

Right, yeah.

And so then what's what's the plan to address multifamily multifamily has different standards already?

Is that already addressed then, or is that something that we'll be coming back to hear more about?

So it wouldn't be covered in this code.

We are about to talk about defensible space, which is kind of more mitigation action that we could take when we think about kind of a more comprehensive look for the entire city, but just because of state building code needing to be adopted in full, and that's not something that's currently available, these particular standards would not apply to like apartment buildings, for example.

And and yeah, also keep in mind that R327 is residential, right?

So our commercial buildings, they're already under the state fire code.

So they already are, you know, definitely under a very heavily um inspected, you know, type of system.

But we're not a multi-family.

Does our apartments have sprinklers in them?

What what are the standards for multi-family?

Can someone help me out?

Because they're different from your single family home.

Right.

We know they're more expensive to produce.

So yes, a brand new apartment would have sprinkles in it, but that won't help you in a wildfire that's inside the building.

So as well as commercial buildings are a higher standard, the roof classes are higher, they're just more non-combustible by nature because they're commercial buildings.

Um building goals that I know hasn't had anything in play for commercial building fire harding at this time.

But okay.

Um, yeah, just say we're almost done.

So I mean, the thing I'm expecting now is that we're gonna hear is a lot about the affordability question.

I mean, I talked to one production builder and they talked about this adding roughly 10,800 to the average cost, the cost of their average 1800 square foot home.

Um, and um I you know, I um taking them at their word that that's a legitimate cost.

I'm also hearing you say that you know, many of the things that are in the package are the things that people are already doing.

My home that was built quite a long time ago has two different sizes of mesh.

If you remember, one is really big and doesn't meet the standard, and the other one uh does, and so we're gonna do the ones around the base of the house.

Um, but you know, is there any have we thought at all about like is there anything we can or should be doing?

And then there's gonna be why would we pay for it to help um you know, for some portion of the community?

I mean, is it this affordability issue, something that comes up in everything that's related to the other climate related thing we were talking about, right?

And this one's it's sort of ironic that we're having this discussion in that context of this is one of the consequences of having to deal with these risks and now all the costs associated with them and who's gonna bear them and and preparing ourselves for the future.

That's part of what this code is about, is trying to reduce those risks.

So I I don't know what the ask is really at this point, but you know, to what extent do we have to even are we going to consider or worry about that?

And um what could we do to mitigate that?

And are there some groups of people or populations in the community we need to think harder about that about?

I think one thing here that's a little bit different is that there's a real direct relationship to the home insurance, right?

Yeah, right.

So for loading.

So that's really helpful.

I think it would just explain for folks that um that is probably partially why builders are already kind of going this way, right?

Yeah, um, so I think that's a little bit different than maybe some of the other things.

And I think we also need to acknowledge the strong community support we have for this and the concerns around wildfire and wanting to have that floor brought up a little bit for new construction.

Um I think let's get into I think we can get into our defensible code too, because that's all that's gonna be uh maybe a little more discussion about what we want to do specifically there.

Um but it sounds like we have support to bring this back April 1st um for further discussion and to apply citywide.

And I'm not in any way suggesting we shouldn't we shouldn't be moving forward with this.

I do think is something we need, but just you know, do we need to be thinking about this in some way and what might that look like?

I I don't I don't have any ideas at this point, especially how we would pay for sure any support.

But okay.

So getting into the defensible space side of it.

Yeah, so defensible space.

Um basically there are three home ignition zones around your home, right?

And that that doesn't matter if you live on a five-acre property or in the middle of town, those zones still exist, right?

You just might be sharing fire a share shared fire risk with your neighbor.

Um, so this is basically um a space that is free from combustible man-made materials, flammable vegetation.

Um, the most critical zone is that zero uh to five foot zone from your siding out five feet.

You might have heard that called zone zero as well for the zero combustibles in that zone.

Um, this is important because 90% of ignitions um from wildfires are from embers, like we uh talked about before.

And so embers can travel up to three miles, is what we've been seeing.

So we have a forest fire three miles away from the center of town, embers can still land on your flammable bush right next to your home, start your home on fire, and then we're off to the races with structure to structure ignition.

So um defensible space, I feel should be as normal and familiar of a practice here in Bend as having storm shutters on a home in you know the southeastern states of the US.

No one asks in Florida why you need storm shutters, so it's kind of a non-negotiable if you live in central Oregon, period.

Um, and so this is gonna be a cultural acceptance of wildfire in our society and must be addressed in all aspects of the community, the fire department, private and public organizations, insurance companies, right?

Um, the health and safety professionals as well.

And so these organizations, um, all of us should consider themselves to be one team with one mission, and uh that is to reduce the risk of urban wildfire and that structure to structure admission.

So, in terms of mentioned previously that Oregon State Fire Marshall has this kind of draft defensible space model code that's out right now, and what that is is a pretty minimum minimum standard for vegetation management, fuel modification, and defensible space maintenance that um what we could local consider local adoption of.

It does not include some components, so it doesn't discuss fencing, um prohibited flammable plant lists, um, or where it applies.

So is it just new?

Is it the entire built environment?

So that would be up for local consideration.

Right now it's in draft form.

There's finalization and rulemaking expected for later this year.

We've heard May, May, early May is what I just heard today from the state of Oregon.

They should have, or the state fire marshal's office should have that by May.

When the C the city has previously adopted model code, we know from that experience that it needs to be adapted to the local context, and that that can just take time.

Um other things to bring up for consideration for defensible space code or standards.

Uh Ashland and sisters are the only cities in the state that have some sort of defensible space code.

So this is within their development code, it applies to new development.

In Ashland, it also is saying that if you get a home addition or a deck that increases your law coverage by over 200 square feet, it would also apply there.

So it goes a little bit further.

Um in both Ashland and sisters, they require a fire prevention and control plan for certain types of development.

They do address new fencing within this defensible space code.

So saying that has to be a non-combustible material within that five foot connection to the home.

And they have both adopted a prohibited flammable plant list.

So it's saying if there's a plant on this list, it cannot be planted within X number of feet of the home.

Currently, what we have is a flammable vegetation code.

This is within our Munia code, it applies citywide.

As noted previously, it is needing updates if we want to follow best practices.

So things like including non-vegetative combustible materials, like think about mulch or things like that.

It's been in effect since 2010.

I think we issued the first citation closer to 2019.

So we did a lot of education before we actually started citing folks for that.

More recently have started more proactive enforcement of that code.

When we think about timeline for defensible space standards, so as noted, that state model code is not yet finalized.

When we think about scope, that will greatly impact just timeline.

You know, what is the regulatory process?

What is the engagement?

What does the enforcement look like?

So there's a lot of kind of questions that get connected to how big of this, how big the scope is.

So we have discretion for how we enforce it.

So as I just mentioned with the flammable vegetation code, we could take an approach of you know education first early on before we issue citations.

So there's different ways to be thinking about it.

But you know, thinking about the size of our community compared to even Ashland or sisters, it's just kind of a different scale.

Um, and then to Council Riley's point, kind of that availability of incentives or resources for those mitigation actions, it can be costly.

So, kind of thinking about what's available, how do we deploy those resources, things like that?

Uh some more things to kind of be thinking about.

So, when we think about impacts of these standards, there's a lot that the internal team with folks across the organization have been thinking about discussing.

So, one thing to bring up is the change in urban aesthetics.

We like our trees and our plants, and uh there's a certain way that our community looks that when we talk about defensible space and clearing the first five feet, that changes what that looks like.

So there's a little bit of a culture shift around it.

There's also some implications for local ecosystem health.

So when we think about canopy cover and uh increasing urban heat index and plant communities and wildlife and how you do integrated pest management, there's a lot here that would just it will require careful consideration and education and assistance, all of these things are interconnected, but these are things that we are kind of talking through as a staff level and thinking about.

It is most straightforward to apply forward looking.

So when we think about if it's in the development code and we apply to new, um, there's mechanisms in place where you can kind of look at these things.

But as we've noted throughout tonight's discussion, the entire city is high risk.

So would that be unintentionally in reinforcing this theme that we've heard, especially through these Bloomberg conversations of this kind of non-unified sense of risk?

And we know that fire risk is higher for existing development than new development because it's built to a different standard, there's more possibility of uh vegetation that has not been maintained, so kind of there's a lot, a lot of pieces.

Um we know that mitigation can be resource intensive, so time, cost, ability to perform this work, uh, where to source materials like the fencing material, and do you have a contractor to support this work?

And it does require ongoing management, so it's not one and done every year.

Folks need to be kind of maintaining the vegetation and other things on their property.

And there's limited resources and funding for underserved community members, enforcement, and education and assistance.

So because this is such kind of a complex and um large body of work, there are some recommendations that staff has to kind of bring forward tonight.

So I think first and foremost, it's really yes, we should look at locally adapting and expanding upon this this model code from the state, but kind of with a lens of looking toward our entire built environment.

What would that look like to not just apply to new but the entire city with immediate focus on that zone zero or the first five feet, especially because we're a denser urban environment, and that is some folks don't even have beyond that immediate zone.

That we also recommend more internal coordination to develop a work plan to work through all of these pieces a bit more to then come back to council with some more concrete policy options to get more guidance.

Um, and also recommending uh continued neighborhood district engagement, kind of building upon that round table earlier this week as part of the Bloomberg work, there was neighborhood district engagement, and really we're seeing from like firewise communities and community activation, that's really where a lot of this work is happening, is like at that neighborhood level and out.

So, in terms of kind of the council discussion for tonight, um, kind of wondering if council supports this recommended approach, if we want to discuss a bit kind of applying to new or the entire built environment, or just kind of getting some more thoughts from council of are there additional considerations, concerns, things that you'd like staff to explore, think about, and then come back to council to discuss.

And so Melissa, um, the R 327 does not include fencing.

That's correct.

So the sisters has added fencing to their defensible code.

Okay, got it.

In just the first five feet, not replacing all wooden fences.

Right, just the first five feet of your house and only for new construction.

Yes, right.

Okay, yeah, council Mendes.

Uh thank you, um, Melissa.

So, two questions about this.

One is can you give us a sense of kind of the order of magnitude in terms of our overall risk that you know, you you're out there and you you're talking to members of our community all the time.

If we're talking about development code or or building code rather, um or defensible space, how big of a priority would you say something like defensible spaces?

You know, you wave your wand and you say everybody's compliant.

Well, we might not get there, but how big of a deal is something like defensible space?

Absolutely.

So when we talk about R327, that's almost like low-hanging fruit, right?

We we get it before that that new home is built.

I know there's a lot, it's not easy, but it's simple, right?

It goes to those new um newly built homes.

When we talk about defensible space, that is actually hardening and and increasing the safety over the entire community.

And so when we're talking about the first five feet, if we wanted to say something like, let's have a zero, you know, a non-combustible environment in that first five feet, that would mean um educating there, like Sarah said, there's gonna be an um adoption date and an enforcement date.

I would love to see a year between those at least where we say we're going to adopt this, but we are gonna educate.

There's a lot of funding coming in uh that's gonna be coming in from the state for mitigation efforts.

There's a lot of grants out there that are gonna be available where people can apply for these in, you know, getting in preparation for this new code.

So um, if I had my magic wand, I would love to say a you know, this applies to the entire built environment as far as residential structures.

That is a push.

I completely understand that.

Um, but to me, having seen destruction for 25 years of my career, this is highly needed.

Um, the fencing, I think, is something that is very um very big topic here.

Um, daily I hear yes, but my neighbor, right?

Over and over and over.

And so if we could have neighbors come to an approach where they're understanding they share this risk and their opportunities for them to replace that five feet between their homes, you know, somehow with however we want to look at that with grant funding or whatever the options are, um, that is going to significantly increase the safety of everybody.

I would also like to see a prohibited plant list within 30 feet of homes.

And the last part of it is how does this work for multifamily apartment buildings?

Yeah, again, so that's one that really isn't talked about too much.

Um, these are the single family homes that we're talking about, the already built, you know, existing structures.

Um those other multifamily homes, um, like we said, a lot of them are in a higher fire code already with sprinklers.

No, that doesn't do anything for wildfire.

That is a system where they can escape from a home fire, right?

Um, but I would anticipate seeing some code change in the next 10 years about that, but right now we have so much to do on the back end where the risk is, and that is the risk is at the homeowner or resident level right now.

Okay.

And it looks like Ashley and sisters had some required fire prevention and control plan for multifamily developments and some of those things.

So they're thinking about the bigger plan for these larger developments, right?

How does that work?

So that makes sense.

Um, all right, council, uh, councilor Francis, I see your hand up.

Um, yeah, I'm I'm a little bit worried about adopting a code and like the talk about enforcing it because the last time the um the movement code was enforced.

We you know, there was just quite a lot of backlash and neighbors reporting neighbors and just infighting that wasn't really not helpful.

So when we talk about community buy-in on stuff, like that's the kind of thing that I'm thinking about and makes me a little bit worried.

So I mean, forward looking for new development, like okay, great, but I think what um what we're doing right now, and I don't know what to what degree the city is actually supporting folks, um, like Robin uh who's going out and doing the assessments of people's homes.

I just I'd love to see more of that.

I'd love to see you know some education to some of our um like plant material providers.

Like, hey, can you guys like try to convert you know push builders in one direction, some education to builders, like hey, here's the recommended plant list.

This is the you know, the black list of plants in you know, in band.

I'd I'd kind of like to see a softer touch before we go this way because like I you know, looking at the list of things I had to do after, you know, um after Melissa and Robin came to my house, it's a lot of things.

Um, and I'm sorry, like I don't have 30,000 sitting around to do all that right now.

And and most people in Ben don't.

So I just I just want us to be realistic about this.

This is some like if we're talking about doing this and and then you know, getting complaints from people and then having to enforce the code, you know, on existing homes, that makes me really really nervous.

So one thing that I want to just interject here, this is actually goes back to an earlier conversation about this coordination we have with the rural district of looking at funding opportunities um and uh potential renewal of the fire levy is to possibly include some resources to your point, counselor Françosa, to help actually hire some crews to actually do the work at either low or very no cost to homeowners, so not just doing assessments but um doing some vegetation removal through uh whole system of uh you know these this could be high school students or you know, work crews, kind of there's there's models out there.

We have we've done some of that.

We also um have community grants that we're currently in place through the rural district, and I think the ideas maybe add to that, expand it for um all residents of the city as well.

So good to know.

So I think what we need to kind of get direction on tonight is just do we want staff to move forward with um a defensible space code at all, and then do we want them to look at how that would work if it was to apply to the entire built environment versus just new construction?

So um, I'm hearing councillor Francosa's um trepidation about the entire built environment.

Do uh people have other um opinions or comments they want to give around what we want our staff to work on next with this.

I would like staff to move forward on both both items.

So for the whole environment.

For the whole built environment.

Okay.

And I think we need to look at some kind of a phasing plan for implementation and the timing of this, and I I would encourage us to look strongly at including some resources in the fire levy to help pay for some of these activities, especially for talking about you know, the biggest challenge, probably that the hardest piece to crack financially is for people that are already in an existing home, and I mean to make some of those changes, especially that fence piece if that's gonna be required.

And you know, starting with that zone zero first.

Um I have more of a question or just something to look forward.

But um, you so I was looking at the tree canopy, and as you're moving, you know, is there any sort of like analysis or studies done on you know consumption, energy consumption for the home, like being more because of lack of shade or I would say I pull my partner the urban forester in on this one.

Yeah, just sitting in the back there and didn't want to talk today.

But I think it's a good point that um one of the slides Sarah presented was sort of in and you can come on up, Ian, because we're gonna have yeah, um the inconsistency in our code around our flame vegetation and then our tree code trying to preserve trees.

This is a I just want people to this is gonna be a big project.

And it's not gonna be happening in two months.

And right, we're gonna have to have a lot of working with the community, figuring out some tough questions, you know, because you can speak to the importance of the canopy, maybe.

Yeah, yeah.

Thank you, mayor, counselors, Ian Gray, CDD, urban forestry.

Um yes, it is it is nuanced, and this is the challenge with this whole issue.

Um, because yeah, absolutely support a defensible space code of some shape, form or another, it's absolutely needed.

Um but you lose tree canopy cover, your urban heat rises, everything becomes uh hotter, more dried out, and it's actually more prone to uh you know sudden combustion when you've got uh a wildfire outside of town just throwing embers into the urban space.

Um trees actually provide uh an umbrella of sort and a catcher's myth will stop embers from blowing through dramatically, they'll slow down wind speeds.

Um they definitely they definitely have a purpose from a wildfire perspective.

But yes, we know with uh storm events that well-maintained trees are less prone to catastrophic failures.

You have the same effect in a welfare situation if they're clear of dead wood.

They don't have any low pain branches, ladder fuels, less prone to catch on fire.

Yeah, if you get a wind-driven, you know, canopy or crown fire, yeah, all that's are off.

That's what you want to avoid.

Um, but there's definitely a place for uh trees in the urban environment, even with wildfire concerns.

Yeah.

So what I yeah, Melissa, I'll let you go and then Modeman have you do, sir.

Let's move to the next couple of slides just so we can see those before we make a final decision.

Thanks, Ian.

Thank you for that, Ian.

Um, yes, 100% agree.

And so this defensible space code, um, again, these are things that we can alter, we can make exceptions to.

Um, in the first draft, they talk about tree spacing of 10 to 15 feet, you know, that that's not doable here.

We can't do that.

I'm not completely understand that.

Um, and and like Ian uh alluded to healthy ponderoses can actually shield your home from embers.

They also have more shades, so embers will go out in an environment that is cooler than it that is hotter.

But the defensible space code would be saying things like um no branches, no limbs within the first 10 feet of the home, right?

So we're not actually encouraging anyone to take out trees unless that 10 foot branch spacing could not be achieved.

Let's say it's a spruce right next to the house.

You couldn't you couldn't cut that back 10 feet without that tree dying, right?

So thinking about your your question there, it wouldn't be like going into those extended zones and just taking out and thinning out the city.

Um we would only be focusing on that critical first five feet area.

Okay, so Sarah, if you can show us just so we know if we are saying yes, what the next steps would be and who would be involved, just so we're aware of that.

Yes, so just want to highlight that this cross-departmental coordination is already underway, it's being managed out of the city manager's office just because it touches so many different departments.

Um, as we talked about, it's very nuanced, and there's a lot to be considering.

So, in terms of recommended approach, kind of as first steps looking at that adoption of the home hardening standards, finishing the Bloomberg work that we discussed to really develop those prototypes and better inform this education component that we kind of keep going back to.

Um, and that will inform those engagement strategies, and then develop that uh defensible space standards work plan.

So kind of taking into some considerations tonight, but continuing to really look through options and what would that look like here.

Um beyond that, um, continuing this ongoing uh cross-organizational work, um, neighborhood district engagement, and then really kind of looking deeply into education and incentives.

Um beyond that is adoption.

So kind of that adoption of the standards would be farther out because it is just such a large body of work, and then all along the way, continued education incentives, thinking about programs, thinking about what this looks like, how to mitigate the impact, community members, and then beyond that is enforcement.

So I think Melissa really alluded to it, but kind of staggering what is like adopted versus enforced because it's taking kind of a stronger education approach, um, just because there's a lot here.

Um, and in terms of next council touch points that would be coming back for when we do want to um do the adoption of the ordinance and the public hearing for home hardening, and then uh work session or round table, really looking at those Bloomberg prototypes, those engagement strategies, and then some more defensible space policy development.

So as staff can look in a more in-depth way into all of this and what it would look like here, presenting some more detailed policy options for council consideration.

So it sounds like if we wanted to move have staff move forward with looking at what it would look like to do this for the entire built environment, we'll have a touch point where we can maybe pull that back.

If we say, okay, that sounds like maybe too much, we could pull that back and proceed with the rest as we develop the policy.

Okay, yeah, comes.

Just thinking about that kind of magnitude of risk question and what counselor friends also raised earlier about the importance of getting community buy-in and education and support.

Is there the opportunity to uh when we develop standards?

Maybe it's it's sort of a tiered approach when we're talking about phasing, and maybe we think about here's the here's here are some recommendations that maybe they're not enforceable, but we have clear guidelines.

Uh or if there's low-hanging fruit, that's like no, this is really important.

Then that part would be enforceable.

But just to think about give us some time to talk with the community and kind of start that education uh wall, you know, so it's not all at once, it's ongoing.

I guess.

Yeah, I think we can absolutely do that.

And I think there's a lot of motivated folks in the community who care about this issue that would want to be helpful to us, and I think the neighborhood districts and the firewise communities um I think would want to engage this and then also in hopefully engage their neighbors, right?

enforceable but we have clear guidelines uh or if there's low hanging fruit that's like no this is really important then that part would be enforceable but just to think about give us some time to talk with the community and kind of start that education uh wall you know so it's not all at once it's ongoing i guess yeah i think we can absolutely do that and i think there's a lot of motivated folks in the community who care about this issue that would want to be helpful to us and and i think the neighborhood districts and the firewise communities um i think would want to engage this and then also in hopefully engage their neighbors right and start to develop that community sense of hey this is just what we do here is we really um watch out for this risk and we take care of our property so okay um I just I think the only thing I don't really explicitly see up there is how are we paying for some of the stuff that we need to do especially incentives and all that and just making sure that that's written into the the work plan I know we're talking about it but I just don't see explicitly up here on the approach and it seems like it's somewhere in phase two phase three because we're right a little more than a year away from when we need to be talking about the specifics of the fire levy right if that's gonna be enough right sometime in 2028.

Yeah so that's a potential and then I think so there's there's some state funding right now that there's actual ongoing wildfire funding so that's a potential as well.

Yes absolutely I think it's something in like 43 million is coming in and they're going to be dispersing that through all municipalities in the state of Oregon very soon.

And that's all specifically mitigation related yeah okay so I'm I'm thinking I'm feeling council is okay with this plan again we you know there's still trepidation around built full built environment versus just new construction but I think we'll have another touch point to really um do that if we want to make a decision there but I think having staff explore that is there's enough support for that at this time.

Okay I'm seeing head nods okay all right anything else we need from us no thank you very thank you so much for the presentation on this important topic okay um we have like one minute if we want to get it just a reminder that we have the a summit tomorrow with our boards committee commissions uh at four o'clock at public works our um march fourth regular business meeting uh the agenda is posted online and then the next work session is uh update on our transit system along with our micro mob or our mobility programs in general um as well as the some decision points on the franklin underpass closure yep uh and juniper trees uh we're gonna have the juniper tree code or the the tree code in front of council on march fourth and then a separate work session on march 11th to talk specifically about juniper trees which we've already gotten some emails about so all right okay that's it for today thanks everybody thanks thank you