Okay, the Venn City Council will now meet an executive session pursuant to RS 192602B to conduct deliberations with persons designated to negotiate real property transactions.

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

Representatives of the news media are specifically directed not to report on any of the deliberations during the executive session, except to state the general subject of the session is previously announced no decision may be made in executive session at the end of executive session.

We will return to open session.

Um so I will call this city council business meeting to order and let's start with roll call on your end, Councillor Platt.

Steve Platt, he him.

Megan Norris, she her.

Megan Perkins, she, her.

Melanie Keebler, she, her.

Mike Riley, he and Rome Mendes.

Gina Franzosa, she her.

All right.

And we are going to start with a proclamation for 100 years of the Ben Chamber, Counselor Perkins.

The Benn Chamber of Commerce traces its origins to 1926 when local business leaders formed the Bend Commercial Club to promote economic opportunity and civic development in the growing community of Bend, Oregon.

And on May 26, 1926, unanimously voted to rename the organization the Bend Chamber of Commerce.

And during the early 20th century, Bend emerged as a major timber center, supported by the Chevlin Hickson and Brooks Scanland Mills and the Benn Chamber of Commerce played an important role in supporting business coordination, economic development, and community growth during this period of expansion.

And throughout the 1930s and beyond, the chamber served as a forum for business collaboration and civic leadership, advocating for policies and infrastructure that strengthened the local economy, including early leadership in 1937, recognizing the need for sustainable forestry practices.

And over the past century, the Benn Chamber of Commerce has helped guide the community through economic transitions, including the evolution from a timber-based economy to a diverse regional economy that includes tourism, outdoor recreation, health care, advanced manufacturing, and technology.

And the Benn Chamber of Commerce has grown into one of the largest chambers in Oregon, representing more than 1,600 member businesses and organizations, and continues to convene businesses, nonprofits, educators, and public leaders to address shared priorities and support regional vitality.

And through programs such as Leadership Bend, Bend Emerging Emerging Talent, Youth Career Connect, Bend 101, and Next Up Leaders, the Chamber has four foster leadership, workforce development, and civic engagement.

And now, therefore, we, the City Council of the City of Bend, Oregon, do hereby proclaim 2026 as the centennial year of the Bend Chamber of Commerce, recognizing and celebrating a hundred years of leadership, advocacy, and service to the Benn community and the Central Oregon region in honoring the generations of leaders, members, staff, and volunteers who have contributed to its enduring impact.

I move to accept the proclamation.

Second.

All right, moved by Council Mendes, second by Councilor Norris.

All those in favor?

And looks like we have Sarah, Emily, Chris, and Gary to come up here and say a few words.

Oh, speak.

Some are saying hi.

Yes, okay.

Awesome.

Um, thank you, Mayor, Councillor, City staff.

Um, thank you so much for this recognition.

This means a lot to us.

Um, thank you for helping us mark such a meaningful milestone for the Ben Chamber.

Reaching 100 years is truly remarkable.

For a century, the chamber has had the privilege of standing alongside Ben's business community through every season of change, from our early days as a growing mill town to growing tourism destination to the dynamic community we know today.

One of the really special things about looking back is seeing the businesses that have been with us since this beginning.

The Ben Bulletin joined the chamber in 1926, the year that we were founded.

Uh QXO, formerly Miller Lumbert, joined in 1927.

Bryant Loveland and Jarvis joined in 1930.

Neil Bryant was not part of it then.

Umbine Communication, 1938, and Bigfoot Beverages in 1969.

So the fact that these businesses are still going strong says so much about the resilience, creativity, and commitment of Ben's business community.

We receive this proclamation with deep gratitude, and on behalf of all the business owners, civic leaders, volunteers, board members, staff who are all in the audience today, um, and partners who've helped shape the chamber story over the last hundred years.

Thank you for this honor and thank you for celebrating this milestone with us.

And I'll leave it give to Chris.

Thank you, Sarah.

Um thank you to the city for recognizing the chamber centennial.

One thing that makes this milestone so meaningful is that the chamber's work has always extended beyond just supporting business.

Strong businesses help keep create strong communities, and over the years, the chamber has served as a bridge between private sector, public partners, nonprofits, and civic leaders.

Through the chamber and the chamber's Ben Next Foundation, we have fostered, we we are focused on fostering leadership, strengthening workforce pathways, uh, supporting entrepreneurs, and helping our community respond to the issues that affect Ben's long-term vitality.

Our work is about connection, but it's also about stewardship.

We want Benn to remain a place where people can build businesses, grow careers, raise families, and contribute to something larger than themselves.

As we celebrate a hundred years, we are also looking ahead.

The next century will bring new challenges and new opportunities, and we are committed to being a thoughtful, collaborative partner in helping Bend thrive.

Thank you.

Thanks for behalf of the Bend Chamber Board of Directors.

It's a real privilege to help steward an organization with such long history and service to Bend.

But the Chamber's strength has never come from one person or one board.

It comes from its members, volunteers, staff, partners, and the many people who show up year after year because they care about the community.

The chamber matters because Bend works best when people are connected.

Business leaders, elected officials, nonprofits, educators, and community members are willing to sit at the same table.

We can solve problems better and plan for the future with more intention.

That spirit of partnership has carried the chamber for a hundred years and is what will carry us forward.

So tonight we are grateful for the recognition, proud of the history, and excited to work at the work still ahead.

Thank you for honoring the Bend Chamber and being part of this next chapter with us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, next we have our proclamation for Wildfire Awareness Month.

Okay.

Wildfire Awareness Month.

Wildfire poses a significant and increasing threat to the safety, property, and natural resources of communities across Oregon, including the city of Bend.

And wildfire seasons are becoming longer and more destructive due to factors such as increasing temperatures, reduced snowpack, decreased summer rainfall, accumulated dry vegetation, and human activity.

And most wildfires are human cause and are largely preventable through responsible actions such as following outdoor burning regulations, managing yard debris, properly maintaining equipment and vehicles, and safely using fires used for cooking, warmth, and recreation.

And Bend Fire and Rescue is dedicated to protecting life and property by actively promoting wildfire prevention through public education, outreach, defensible space assessments, and coordination with local, state, and federal partners, such as the United States Forest Service, Oregon State Fire Marshal, Department of For the Oregon Department of Forestry, Central Oregon Wildfire Prevention Co-op, and Project Wildfire.

And community members play a critical role in reducing wildfire risk by creating and maintaining defensible space around their homes, hardening their homes against wildfire, preparing evacuation plans, and remaining informed during fire season.

And proactive preparedness efforts not only improve a home's chance of survival during the wildfire, but also create safer conditions for first responders and strengthen overall community resilience.

And May is recognized throughout the state of Oregon as Wildfire Awareness Month, encouraging all Oregonians to take action to prevent wildfires and prepare their homes, families, and communities.

Now, therefore, the Benn City Council proclaims the month of May 2026 as Wildfire Awareness Month in the City of Bend and urges all residents to take meaningful steps to reduce wildfire risk and to protect their homes, neighborhoods, and surrounding natural areas.

We further encourage all community members to participate in wildfire preparedness activities, stay informed during fire season, and work together to build a safer, more resilient community.

Move to accept the proclamation.

Second.

Move by Council Mendoza, second by Councillor Norris.

All those in favor?

And then we have Melissa Steele from our very own Ben Fire and Rescue and Lon, and I'm not sure how to chair of the Project Wildfire Neighborhood Coalition.

Good evening, Mayor, Councillors, and Community Members.

My name is Melissa Steele, and I serve as the Bend Fire and Rescue's Deputy Fire Marshal of Wildfire Preparedness.

This proclamation is more than a statement.

It's a commitment to protecting our community, our environment, and our future.

Bend is surrounded by beautiful yet fire-prone landscapes.

And we all understand that wildfire is not a question of if but when.

By adopting this proclamation, the city is acknowledging that reality and taking an important step towards building a safer, more resilient community.

Wildfire resilience starts with awareness, but it must translate into action.

It also means fostering a culture of where preparedness is part of everyday life in Bend.

The proclamation sends a clear message that resilience is a shared responsibility between government, fire services, and the community.

When we work together, neighbors helping neighbors, supported by strong city leadership, we reduce risk, improve response, and ultimately save lives and property.

What success, what successful wildfire awareness looks like?

A strong community that feels informed and empowered, strong partnerships and coordination, clear, accessible, and reliable information, tangible risk reduction on the landscape.

Wildfire is not a distant possibility.

It is an expected part of our future.

The question is how well are we prepared when it comes?

I want to thank you for your leadership.

And this proclamation sets the tone for a stronger, more prepared culture of proactive, not reactive preparedness.

I'm Lon Laneeve, co-chair of the Project Wildfire Neighborhood Coalition, which is a group of about a hundred communities that has grown rapidly over the last three and a half years to focus with it with our communities, many of which are firewise communities, but also you don't have to be firewise to be a member.

And our job is to share best practices, educate and mentor communities to try to get up to speed as quickly as possible in developing some uh resiliency and fire safety.

We also advocate for certain uh issues like uh home hardening and defensible space.

So we do that as well.

And this proclamation is music to our ears because it's really a challenge to get folks to focus on uh what we think they should naturally want to do.

But creating defensible space, uh protecting their home, which also protects their neighbors' homes in the community.

So thank you so much for this proclamation and continuing to raise the awareness of what we need to do in this unfortunate situation where we're we all have to deal with fire seasons every every summer now.

Thank you both for being here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And our last proclamation tonight is for Mental Health Awareness Month.

And I get the honor of reading this one as well, sponsoring us.

So Mental Health Awareness Month.

Um, nearly one in five adults and one in five adolescents in the United States live with a mental illness.

And mental health impacts a person's emotional, social, environmental, financial, and overall well-being with gender diverse and mixed race people experiencing higher rates of mental health challenges in the general population, and along with Native people and other people of color, experience higher barriers to effective mental health support services.

And suicide is now the second leading cause of death for 15 to 24 year olds with teenagers experiencing a 17.3% increase in the use of anxiety medications since 2010.

And greater public awareness can help reduce negative attitudes towards people who suffer from mental illness, which in turn can make it more likely for them to seek treatment.

Now, therefore, the Bend City Council proclaims May 2026 as mental health awareness month in the city of Bend.

We encourage talking about mental health in our homes, in our schools, and in our workplaces to further awareness of the devastating consequences of unaddressed mental illness and to shine a welcoming light on all available paths to recovery and all those individuals who seek it.

Thank you.

I move to accept the proclamation.

Second.

All right, move by Councillor Platt, second by Councillor Mendez.

All those in favor?

And I just wanted to add one thing that um one of our speakers reminded me about why I I wanted to sponsor this one tonight, and that's because in my family we've had some real challenges.

I've had family members with significant mental health challenges over the years.

And as a result, even need some mental health support services myself.

And I just think it's important for us to normalize this stuff and make sure that everybody understands it's something that affects probably everybody in this room, either directly or indirectly through a family or co-worker member or co-worker.

So Casey Monk with the National Alliance for Mental Illness and intern um Stanley Duca.

Tonight is his last day of his internship.

They're going to join us up here tonight for a few words.

It's okay, I'll join too.

Great.

Yeah, thanks for being.

Good evening, Mayor Keebler, City Council, and neighbors.

I'm Casey Monk, Regional Director of NAMI Center, Oregon.

On behalf of the thousands of Central Oregonians and families affected by mental health challenges, thank you for declaring my mental health awareness fund.

This proclamation matters because awareness saves lives.

When people with lived experience share openly with and support one another, it creates a powerful healing connection for individuals and families navigating mental illness.

Too many in our community still suffer in silence.

They're afraid of judgment, they're unsure where to turn.

Nami Center Oregon offers free peer-led education, support groups, and crisis response to help people find hope, connection, and paths to recovery.

This month, let's commit to three simple actions.

One, start a conversation about mental health.

Number two, learn the signs of someone in mental health crisis.

And three, share local resources so no one has to face this alone.

You can visit NAMICentoregon.org for more information or how to get help.

Thank you, honestly, for standing with us today and with our community and helping to end the stigma around mental illness.

Together, we can make Bend a place of compassion, understanding, and recovery.

Yeah, I think every time we have an official proclamation, every time that we from from respected authorities, we talk openly about mental health and acknowledge it, period.

It makes a huge difference in uh combating that stigma.

The average amount of time it takes between onset of severe mental health symptoms and treatment is 10 years.

And uh I mean, there's no reason there shouldn't be six months.

And really a major aspect of that, and we've seen it in our work here in Central Oregon is that stigma, that fear.

We have we provide amazing programs, and they're they're widely available and they're free.

And I've talked with people, I've I teach a family-to-family class.

I talk to the people before they come to class, and it's incredible the stories they tell the trauma in their families, and they still say, I don't know if this is the right class for me.

I maybe we'll just figure this out.

And you know, you should hear these people's stories, and and what that is, it's just that internalized stigma.

So the more we can do as a society to acknowledge and keep this conversation going open and encouraging people to seek treatment.

Um, and really it's not just about a good feeling or like acknowledging diversity or something like that.

It actually has really tangible outcomes.

So I think mental health needs to be recognized more.

I feel like as a young person, kind of picking back off what Kenny said a little bit.

If I had known about more mental health stuff, had the resources, you know, even six years ago, I'd be in a very different place than I am now, a much better place.

Um we need to acknowledge mental health stuff more, and we gotta uh I feel like mental health needs more support, not only in our community, but all around the world.

Uh Nami here, we only have two actual staff members.

Kenny, he's the volunteer board president.

We've got maybe 12 people on the board.

Um I believe, like one of you said earlier, uh, everyone, either directly or indirectly in this room, it has been affected by mental illness, and it's an important thing that we should acknowledge and be aware of.

Thank you.

Thank you for being here tonight.

Thank you so much.

All right.

Um that will move us into council action and reports.

Um, one letter for tonight that I had a copy in the back because I didn't get it emailed out quickly enough, but a letter to OSU Cascades regarding the little the closure of the little kids um daycare and child care center.

Um, so if anyone had any other feedback on that letter at this point that I was gonna sign, and we had Katie Brooks who um actually, in her role in early childhood work, um, actually helped get some of the funding for that center back when it was getting stood up, who gave some input on that letter.

So anyone have any other comments on that?

Okay, glad we're sending it up.

And I will get that sent out tomorrow.

Um, and then other than that, no other letters.

We are getting into interviews for our committees in the next month or so, so we'll have some appointments coming up, but none tonight.

And then um, we'll go to our council reports and start with council.

Thank you.

Um it's it's meeting and event season, so I'm not gonna talk about everything.

Highlights are great in the past.

Highlights are great.

Um, but the most fun neighborhood block party of all of our neighborhood districts is the old Bend neighborhood block party um with live music.

So I really enjoyed that on May 7th.

I know, put on your calendar next year.

Um, I attended the Bend Central District Business Association where we um talked about the uh the EID and trying to convert some of the descendants to the EID into supporters, and so I'm hopeful that um the BCEBA will have some more luck in the work that they're doing around that.

Um, and just want to kind of thank them for all the work they put into it so far and the Bend Central District itself.

Um, I took a tour with Central Oregon villages, I think some several of you have of their facilities in Bend, and then join them for some outreach at the TSSA, the temporary safe stay area, aka Juniper Ridge or Dirt World.

Um, I was really really amazed.

Um, I was probably there on a very lucky day, but we we actually met with someone who asked to uh be put on the list to work towards housing, and he had been living in the TSSA for six years.

Wow, yeah.

So for someone to um make that, and that was the result of uh years of building trust, patience, um, and um yeah, and just always being there for these people, and that's what Central Oregon Village staff does.

So that was really really amazing to see, and I'm so proud of their work and glad that we can contribute to it.

Um two Saturdays ago, I believe it was.

I attended the Wildfire Preparedness Fair, um, met with some folks, uh, spoke with some amazing people from various agencies.

We're doing so much in our community prepared.

Um, I also removed some flammable vegetation from around my house and have lots of scratches on myself to show for it.

Now I have to get it to not landfill.

Um and I just I want to um just put something on counselor's radar.

You know, last November um we got uh asked to um make a little bit of a change to the land use process that the parks department has to follow when they do fuel reduction on their properties.

It's uh it reduced it from a type two to a type one process, I believe.

Um it's I don't think that's aggressive enough.

I think I think we need to give um BPRD a lot more latitude to be able to manage their land for the um for the safety and protection of our of our community.

You probably saw an email from a homeowner who um had a hard time getting their homeowners insurance renewed because BPRD hadn't thinned the land.

That's something that happens in sisters pretty regularly in the rural areas pretty regularly, but I was really shocked that it happens like in the city of Bend in Northwest Crossing, frankly.

Um so Eric is now in touch with Michelle Healy, and I'm happy about that, and I hope that they can um come up with a way to really dramatically expedite that.

But that's just another thing I was working on, and I'll leave it at that for tonight.

Okay, sounds remended.

Yeah, thank you.

Um the transit vision work group met uh twice, which I serve on with Councillor Riley.

Uh the mayor joined us for one of our meetings, and we talked about uh the goals for for improving transit, and uh I I shared a quote that I want to just share it tonight as well.

It's from Enrique Penillosa, the former mayor of Bogota, Colombia.

An advanced city is not one where even the poor use cars, but rather one where even the rich use public transport.

I think I like that quote because I think that um transit should be a good safe option for everybody.

Uh, you know, if you think about you see celebrity sightings on the subway in New York, and part of that is because New York has amazing public transit and people don't want to sit in traffic, so they take the subway.

So those are some of the goals that um I I find attractive as we talk about what we want to see for public transit in Bend.

Um we also met with Via Transportation to learn more about how they have transformed transit in other cities like Park City, Utah, and Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

On Friday, May 15th, the Bend Metropolitan Planning Organization Policy Board met.

Uh, one item of business that I wanted to highlight is uh part of our um uh MTP amendments that we approve, the Metropolitan Transportation Improvement Plan amendments.

There's a multi-use path that ODOT is building from the southern part of Bend uh at Baker Road to Lava Butte via the High Desert Museum.

And there's been an unfortunate delay that means that the whole path won't be constructed all at once.

It will be the southern half that is constructed first, connecting the High Desert Museum to Lava Butte.

But the good news is that there's still funding and time available to build the northern half, and that means that they will continue consultations with the park district to try to ensure that that trail is an integrated in our urban trail system.

Um I also had the opportunity to follow up with our our police chief Mike Kranz to talk about the city's new uh police department policy 428, which is largely based on Senate Bill 1516.

Um this is a new policy that ensures that we have privacy safeguards and things like end-to-end encryption for our um the cameras that the city uses.

Um I'm still digesting this.

Uh I think that um there's a lot of valid concerns about people's privacy.

Um I know that there's a lot of uh concern about how we use that, and I want to assure people that the city does not share information with uh federal authorities like ICE for the purpose of immigration enforcement.

In fact, um our databases are not searchable outside of Oregon at all.

Um so anyway, I encourage people to look for those that policy, uh read it if you have feedback on it, um let us know.

Um, because uh this is an area of concern.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Councilor Riley.

Um had a couple things.

Um I participated in um economic belt economic development for Central Oregon or Edco's made and bend tour last week, and it was great.

We visited four different businesses Heli Ladder, Blackstrap, Red Plate Foods, and Breed Love Guitars.

It was just really fantastic to see the innovation and perseverance and hard work of people to pull businesses together and to make them successful here.

And Heli Ladder, I thought was particularly inspiring, started by some but the guy who was a mechanic on helicopters.

And therefore how that led to mistakes and maintenance and then flights are down, and then they're not helping people who are in critical need.

And just seeing how his his business took off in particular was was super inspiring.

They're all in different stages of growth and maturity and stuff, but just really really exciting to see those stories of things that are truly made here in Bend.

I also participated with Councillor Norris and Counselor Perkins on judging some community action projects and middle school students did from Cascade Middle School.

And just want to acknowledge the kids and all their time that they put into that as well as the adult teachers and other adult supporters who were there and helped them through their process.

And it was pretty interesting to see most of the you know all the projects wrestled with things that we wrestle with up on the dais here all the time.

Whether you know if they're talking about money, where's the money gonna come from?

Um how much are we gonna spend?

Is this the right priority for it?

That kind of thing, um, as well as a lot of questions related to growth.

Where do we grow?

Do we grow up or do we grow out?

Do we have single family homes?

Do we have apartments?

You know, they the stuff just came up naturally in their discussion.

So they're they're on the on the nose, if you will.

Um and then I had a comment I want to make about something that's not about here in Benn, but it's about the the shooting at the mosque that occurred in San Diego several days ago.

It's a little hard to know exactly how to put all this into words, but I wanted to just express my deep sorrow for the Muslim men who died defending the kids and the other adults at that place, and uh for the lasting terror that that event inflicted on them and their families, and will continue to inflict on the kids who go to that school and their families.

Um my deep frustration and frankly even anger at the range of weapons that the assailants were able to have access to, and that people still have access to in this country, despite all the other mass events we have had and continue to have like this.

Um deep concern from Muslim members of our own community here in Bend in central central Oregon and the fear that I imagine that they are experiencing right now after this attack, and knowing that there's been a rise in anti-Islamic and a lot of other hate kind of activity and incidents across our country.

And just to make it clear that for me as one of our the city councillors, I bet I condemn that kind of violence.

I think that's something we all would share up here on the dais and the hate in particular that motivated it.

And um it's just been really hard to sit with it, as as it is with so many of these events.

Yeah, thank you for that.

Council Perkins.

Um I have spent a good deal of the last uh couple of weeks um digesting the point in time count for those who don't know point in time count is a federally mandated count, and it's it's one day um in our or a couple of days in um in the community where um all of the service providers and volunteers go out and and literally count um our homeless population.

And um for the first time in a very long time, uh we saw a 16% decrease in the city of Bend.

We saw a 14% decrease in um Deschutes County, and we saw a 19% uh decrease in our region, which is Crook, Jefferson, Deschutes, and um Warm Springs.

And um, you know, this is this was due to a lot of things.

Um, you know, a lot of this came from the state investments into our community, but um an investment is nothing if people don't know where to put that investment.

And I give um so much um um credit and thanks to um to the service providers in our community, to um the city county um staff to um COIC and um and and I will say I I I'll I give credit to to elected officials for for all of us leaning into this and saying that this is something that we want to do in in our community um and that we have to do it is our obligation, and we are starting these these investments are bearing fruit, and um I had a chance to share um that with um Andrea Bell, who's the director of um Oregon Housing and Community Services at our regional housing council, um, and and saying like look, we're doing it, it's working.

Please um don't continue you please continue these investments into our community because we we have figured out how to do it and we want to be able to sustain the work that we've started.

Um and that we have to do it is our obligation and we are starting these these investments are bearing fruit and um I had a chance to share um that with um Andrea Bell who's the director of um Oregon Housing and Community Services at our regional housing council um and and saying like look we're doing it it's working please um don't continue you please continue these investments into our community because we we have figured out how to do it um and we want to be able to sustain the work that we've started so um I'm I'm just um really really happy to see uh this decrease but I will say that there are still 187 people in our region that are on that are homeless and that are under 25 and there are still 227 people in our region that are over 55 um and we have we still have 59 uh veterans in our community that that are homeless um and um so we the work the work has to continue um we're not done yet so just wanted to to talk about that for a second um and then um at the human rights and equity commission meeting um we had a great meeting talking one of the things we talked about uh I was thinking about that with with proclamations today is um you know what is a proclamation what is a resolution what is code what is ordinance and and so like how can what's the best way um to to make an impact um and you know do you what do you want to get visibility or do you want to change something you know fundamental in the city so that was and thanks to Ian for sharing that with the human rights equity commission um and we also continue to um walk down the path of water rates and and how um um the the the city of Bend um water department is really using these equity tools um with this project and how and how HREC is is involved um with their lens um it's which is great and then also I'm I'm um personally really excited to see that we are sort of picking back up our hate and discrimination work which is something that is one of our in our council goals um that we you know that we are acknowledging as a as a community that that hate speech um and discrimination is something that happens here uh and um how can we move forward in sort of building a coalition to to sort of help combat that and to stand up to that and um I think yeah just in the those eighth graders were awesome from Cascade Middle School and um it was everything from you know how do you protect the the you know the mule deer population with with uh with urban sprawl um to um how you know how to make um um feminine products uh free um and they thought up um like an idea of like a snap card and they called it the red card which I thought was amazing to like you know to provide uh um and but I think the well the one that won which I think is really interesting because these projects were were all over the place was how to um combat um uh like the the massive traffic jams when you're coming out of Cascade Middle School.

I think that was that was the project that won.

So they must have had a really we didn't get to hear that one they must have had a really good um yeah story to tell about that one.

So yeah yeah thanks.

Yeah.

Council Norris.

Yeah no I live and learn that almost every day.

Well we'll start again but yes it's uh it was a big issue and yeah just uh it's so cool to see um so many young people really getting focused on local issues and even global issues I was really one of the pictures is really cool when they were talking about feminine hygiene products and uh from I served in the Peace Corps and they had a picture of Cynically's women sitting down and um sitting on a mat just talking and GK game people and just talking about it making it more you know commonplace.

The other thing I appreciated was that some of the men weren't really understanding and so they had a toilet paper tax for the men.

Yes.

And then the men kind of like switched their opinions yeah maybe this should be free.

Anyways yeah um I know with some of my fellow counselors I attended the River West neighborhood association where uh staff went and discussed some transportation issues um a lot of impacts are happening there in Galveston um you know overall I think there were a lot of concerns brought up but then a lot of um praise for staff and just some of the projects are really working there so I thought that was great.

The Environment and Climate Committee um met we heard some about waste uh reduction and um there it was a committee within the ECC a subcommittee um uh in the past and so uh there was some desire to start re-engaging in and that work again and I just thought there was there was a great presentation um talking a lot about all the waste and um there's actually 18,000 plastic bottles um that are manufactured in our uh in our world uh a second um there are just some interesting ideas about um food cart policies and just um having more of a uh a standard about um you know more compostable recyclable materials um since we have so many in our in our area um and then there's uh there's development our staff megan's been developing a great uh web page to um to go back to some of the energy navigator work that we wanted to do so basically one stop shop web page where everyone could learn more about like the climate programs in our city um so I think that the uh community approved that and so that will be something that we'll start seeing um pretty soon so it'll be a great resource for folks and then yes I went and did the TSSA and the Central Oregon Villages tours it's just so great to see what um Scott Jones and his staff are doing um just taking just I mean it's really just like scraping it together and just finding opportunity after opportunity to create more pods and um living situations for folks and just transitioning them from homelessness into more stable situations.

Um just taking just I mean, it's really just like scraping it together and just finding opportunity after opportunity to create more pods and um living situations for folks and just transitioning them from homelessness into more stable situations.

Um it was really interesting.

I met a former Olympic skier from Central Oregon, 70 years old.

He was living in a pod, he just lost his car, um, really can't do any work because you know he was so focused on being an Olympic skier that he didn't have a lot of other education, and his body is just wrecked, and he can't physically do any work.

Um, and then I also met a U of O grad.

So um it's you know the impacts are real and they're just doing really great work, they're consistent, they're going out there, everyone knows them and they're respected.

And so I just really appreciate all the work that they're doing.

Um yeah, that's all I have.

Great.

Councilor Platt.

Great, thanks.

Um, let uh uh join Council Francosa at the um wildlife preparedness um uh event, and I thought that was again great.

Uh we had a I had a chance to discuss the state of my to go bag, my uh my go bag, and and uh it has slipped a little bit over the years since some of my military deployments, so I committed to uh tightening that thing up.

Uh so please get your go bags uh ready to go as well with clear and around your uh your area.

One of the things I wanted to let council know that I did a little bit of a deep dive with Eric and uh Stevens on sort of a permit cycling that we have for our building uh production uh for those folks who are building uh in our community.

Sometimes not only is time uh an issue, but the number of times that a permit cycles back and forth, and now we have some data that we put together, and that's gonna be something that we're tracking on as well.

So, how many times do you get a redo and what are the processes for that?

And I think the fact that we've got a concierge sort of service going along with that is hopefully gonna try to do that, but I think that's another customer service ad uh uh aspect that we can work on going forward.

So I appreciate the attention on that.

I had the opportunity to go to the Summit West annual meeting again.

Brian gave uh his his growth uh plan presentation, which is always was was well received, um, and a lot of interest in that and how that's gonna affect the community uh over the long term.

I had the honor of representing the city at uh cadet uh Goodrich's um uh promotion last night from Civil Air Patrol because that Goodrich has uh is going off graduating from Civil Air Patrol uh along with another other number of other young students that were getting various levels of of awards, but Cadet Goodrich uh has been accepted to all five service academies uh and regretfully chose the Naval Academy.

Um but um is is is going off and doing some some amazing things, and that uh brings me to my final point, which is next Monday, which is Memorial Day.

Um it's a lovely 3D weekend that we get, and I'm very thankful for that.

What uh is distressing to me is that because of our administration and a war of choice that we have chosen to do this year.

There are 14 additional names that I'll be thinking of this year on Memorial Day that have been added to the list as a result of our war of choice.

Um consider that on Memorial Day, consider the price that you pay for the actions that our nation does.

That's it.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Um quite a quite a bit of overlap with some folks.

Um also went on the Edco Meet and Ben tour, which was great.

I think my favorite was Breed Love Guitars where they're making very sophisticated and well-regarded guitars right here in Bend, which was amazing.

Um the home committee was last Thursday, um, talked through uh the last few of the topics that they're discussing, and then they're gonna be talking some more in June about how to prioritize and make recommendations.

Um, so for folks who are interested in in housing work, take a look take a look at that meeting when that happens in June.

Um, and then we'll be getting those recommendations to us in August, it sounds like Central Oregon Cities Organization had our meeting on Monday.

Um, we're gearing up to try to have a meeting with legislators from the region and who are part of the natural resources committee around water on June 29th.

Um, and you may have also seen a hold on your calendar for June 30th for a potential hopefully meeting um with our tribal partners up in Warm Springs.

So we're working on getting that uh formed up as well.

Um, had the attended the rural fire board meeting yesterday and then had a small leaders group meeting today with Eric to talk some more about how to really dig into the data, look at our current agreement and how we might update that as sort of leading up to renewing the levy and then taking a look at the study about other other ways to do revenue for um for fire and EMS response.

Um so a lot going on there, but we'll keep you updated as we work through that.

Downtown Bend Business Association meeting was this morning.

Um good meeting.

Um they are working on collecting input around a proposed paid parking scheme for downtown for the parts of the um core parking that are currently self-free.

Right now are lots you pay and our education won't pay on the screen.

So good conversation about how to approach that change, how to keep getting information from people.

I think um we were probably hoping to hear a recommendation from them in June.

I don't think that's gonna happen.

I think they need some more time to keep working with stakeholders in the community and really figure out what the best plan would be to start this and how to do that and how to build some support or just help keep educating people why um this is something that they want to try out that not only would help with people's experience of being able to find a spot downtown, but also would raise revenue that could go back into the district as well.

And that was a big part of the discussion this morning.

Um I think I will stop there.

Um, but looking forward to to celebrating with the chamber of their hundredth um anniversary that we talked about, doing that tomorrow night.

Um okay, and then the last thing I had was I sent an email out about the mayor's innovation project conference that's coming up in July.

Um rules, um, just wanted to ask for council permission to go to that, sort of replacing a different conference I was thinking of going to, and probably the last conference I'll go to this year.

So if that's okay with everyone, we'll get that going.

And I'll bring back some good information from that, hopefully.

Um okay.

So I think that takes us to the visitors section.

And Ashley, I think we just had the one on the online.

Okay, great.

We'll just go with our in-person folks.

So for folks in person, uh, this is the time to give us your comment about city issues.

Please address us as a body and as individuals.

Um, you're gonna come up to the here, sit down, introduce yourself and whether you live in the city of Ben.

Your timer is here for two minutes.

The little light will turn yellow when you have about 30 seconds and red when you need to stop.

And please, um, if I didn't say please address this as a body, not individuals, um, and keep um no disruptive language or actions uh during your comments, which I don't think we'll have a problem tonight.

So let's start with um Frank Seamson.

Did I get that right?

Yes, great.

Good evening.

Um my name is Frank Seamson, and I'm here to propose proposed adopting dark sky outdoor lighting controls for the city of Bend.

Um the 2004 ordinance needs to be updated to meet uh Dark Sky guidelines suggested by an organization, Dark Sky International, which has their world headquarters in Tucson, Arizona.

And I have a sense of urgency uh of many reasons, but Stevens Ranch development in Southeast Bend is proposed 1700 to over 2,000 new homes.

And I wish we would have a stronger ordinance to prevent life pollution going forward.

Um I actually suggest to use the Deschutes County new pass one, and they pass uh pass theirs in uh 12, 23, 25, and I'll use a copy, I'll leave, and I know you can find it online yourself.

And I suggest to actually adopt this as just so we can get something on the book, so to speak.

Um and you can change anything else that you like, obviously at future meetings, but I'd like to get something on, and then you can fix change, add whatever you want.

Um because you authorize like many things for the city uh for the benefit of people, you know, uh like the bike lanes, pedestrian ADL improvements, uh, roundabouts for better traffic movement, then they benefit the people.

But most of them is individual projects are locally in uh certain neighborhood or a couple neighborhoods.

The dark sky uh lighting would benefit all of us, including visitors.

Thank you, Frank.

That's your that's your two minutes.

Okay.

Yeah.

You if you want to hand that to Ashley, she can make sure that we see it.

Thank you.

All right, next is Michael Baker.

Good evening, Mary Coach.

My name is Michael Baker.

I have the honor of being the CEO for the Boys and Girls Clubs here in Bend.

Uh just wanted to put a message out to everybody because I know uh the Parks and Rec Department just finished their um lottery, and I'm sure there's a lot of folks that weren't able to get in, unfortunately.

Uh, we definitely have openings at the Voice and Girls Club as well.

So if you look, if people are scrambling, wondering what they can do, they certainly can reach out.

They can email me directly as well at Michael at BGC Bend.org and we'll make sure we get them enrolled in our program.

I also wanted to share with you that on August 27th, we're going to be doing an end of that's the end of our membership year for the Boys and Girls Clubs.

We we follow the school calendar.

And we'll be having an award ceremony with the members, but also community members that we're going to be giving some awards to.

And I'd love to have uh the mayor of council and city have a uh table there to uh participate.

It's a free lunch, but of course there's no such thing as a free lunch.

We all know that.

Um but um yeah, we'd like to encourage you to come down again.

I I just want to thank each and every one of you for your continued support.

Uh we're looking forward to the um event that we're gonna be having uh this summer with Civics Week at the Boys and Girls Club.

Kids are excited about that, learning about all different aspects of government, and uh we're gonna hopefully uh be able to have some really knowledgeable um members of our society uh at such a young age walking out of the boys and girls club on the end that entire week.

So again, I want to thank you each for your continued support.

And uh, if there's ever anything we can do at the Boys and Girls Club to help, feel free to give us a call.

Thank you.

Next is Jonathan Westmorland.

Hi, my name is Jonathan Westmore.

And uh first I'd like to get on the record that uh policy 428 is currently listed as policy 430 on Power DMS, and as of yesterday, a detailed look at it did not show that it met the SB 1516 requirements.

So I don't know how the public can give feedback on a bill that is not public facing.

I'd also want I wonder uh what the police department website or axon is doing to address the public transparency portion of that bill.

But that's not why I'm here.

Uh I'm here.

I want to tell you about what happened to my family six days ago and then ask you a question about priorities.

Last Thursday evening, my olderly mother heard a loud noise in her apartment.

On Saturday, my sister found the cause a bullet had ripped through the wall from the adjoining unit, split apart in her box spring, punched through holes through her closet door and came to rest in a box of medical school supplies.

My sister called the police.

An officer came, photographed the damage, took the bullets, took her statement, and left.

He did not knock on the neighbor's door.

He did not record the neighbor's statement on an axon worn body worn camera.

He did not assess the mental state of the shooter, he left for four days.

My mother slept in terror while the person who fired the round through the door was still there armed.

It was not until Tuesday afternoon that the police officers returned in force, seized weapons and ammo, and finally removed the danger.

Four days with a bullet in evidence in the suspect's apartment ten feet away.

Now today's source reports that the city manager is preparing to install axon stationary license plate readers at entrances in Ben, starting with a $19,000 CJC grant, but with authority under city code to add it up to 250 grand to the existing acts on contract without ever bringing it back to this council.

This is the same surveillance capability you voted to turn off in January when Flock's data was queried by federal immigration authorities.

Ben's police department spokesman said the department keeps no records on how often the existing Flock ALPR program has actually been a factor in citation or arrest.

So my question is this if we cannot get a follow-up knock on a neighbor's door after a shooting.

Why are we letting a $19,000 grant become the foot in the door for a quarter million dollar surveillance expansion with no council vote, no public input, and no evidence that it solves crime.

Bring this contract to council, bring it to the public, and before we expand surveillance, let's fix the policing we currently have.

Thank you, Jonathan.

Thank you.

And I'm really sorry that that happened.

That sounds very, very scary.

So I appreciate you bringing that up, and we can make sure that we forward that feedback on to our police department.

I appreciate it.

And I do want to clarify with Eric that any any fixed AOPR, any will require a new contract that will come to council.

So there will be a pop uh opportunity, sorry, for public input on that.

Okay.

Okay.

Appreciate that.

Yeah, thank you.

And we'll give you pass your feedback on it.

I want to let you guys know.

I saw your the uh Ben 101.

I I've seen you.

I I'm watching so much your YouTube.

I appreciate that.

I'm learning.

You are so involved, Jonathan.

We appreciate it.

Yeah.

Okay, next, Maureen Johnson.

Hello, I'm Maureen Johnson.

I'm a Wood River Village neighbor.

First of all, I want to thank you all for your proclamation about fire awareness.

I think that's really great.

We've done our part at our house.

We have a metal roof.

We trimmed our ponderos at pine trees so that ground fires wouldn't catch them on fire.

We moved mulch away from our house.

We moved plants away from our house.

We brought rocks in.

I truly believe that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

At the same time, I worry about response.

We heard from the fire department, we should all be worried about something happening.

I too should get my go bag ready to go, but I worry about whether I can get out of my neighborhood.

Part of the reason I worry about evacuation and whether we're taking it seriously is comments from members of staff, some of you, I will name no one for sure.

But things like we can't widen roads, or we have to worry about bikes and pedestrians, road changes won't fix it.

And you know, to some extent, I actually agree with that in a way.

But I also think it's kind of wrong-headed because I think it kind of suggests a wrong-headed attitude to emergency response.

And I know a little bit about emergency response, unfortunately, because I worked for BP before, during and after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill as a deputy commander on said oil spill.

Um and one thing we did have going for us is federally required response plans that made us be prepared for the worst thing that could possibly happen.

And I wonder if we are ready for the worst thing that could possibly happen, or if we're even thinking about it that way.

So I would encourage all of us to think about and talk about this in a way where there are not trade-offs between bike paths.

Um I ride my bike and I walk more than I drive my car, so I care about that too.

Thank you, Martine.

Todd Torreson.

Hello, I'm Todd Tortson, resident in Southwestern Bend and Chairman of Southern Crossing.

In recognition of Wildfire Awareness Month and the dry conditions we are again facing, I have to ask, what are your plans for evacuating Southwest Bend, given all your growth projections and the building permits already approved?

We applaud the city's efforts to improve defensible space on Bend properties.

But even if you were able to get most of Bend ready, if a wildfire happens on the edge of town, emergency management would still call for an evacuation.

The geography limits how residents of Southwest Bend can get out, with remarket being the critical route.

So far, I've proposed the two-lane through roundabout at Bond and Reed Market to improve both every day and emergency use.

You only approve money for a two-lane entrance, one-lane exit roundabout.

A turn-only lane won't help enough in emergencies or in everyday traffic.

Then I revealed the next step: turning Reed Market near US 97 into a three-lane road.

This would allow the center lane to be used as a second evacuation lane in an emergency, and it would speed up everyday emergency response times on this very busy stretch of road.

These measures are relatively low-cost efforts to enhance the last half mile to US 97.

I have tried to engage with the city's engineering staff, but have made no progress.

They point to city council directives as the issue.

Meanwhile, we're seeing considerable growth in Bend that will add to the number of people in Southwest Bend needing to evacuate.

And who use this corridor for everyday commuting?

So I ask, in terms of transportation issues, what in Bend has more risk and fewer alternatives?

Again, I am personally invite you to tour the area with me and better understand the situation on the ground.

Also, a quick shout out to Cascade Middle School Traffic Solution.

Re-market is a part of that problem too.

Thank you, Todd.

Thank you.

All right, that is it for our visitors' section.

That will move us on to the consent agenda.

I move to approve the consent agenda.

Second.

All right.

Moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda.

All in favor.

All right, great.

Um okay.

So that moved us to item number five.

This is the first reading of an ordinance amending to Bend Municipal Code Chapter 1.20, advisory boards, committees, and commissions.

Good evening, everyone.

Um my high city of attorney's office.

I'm going to share a presentation that I think um presentation itself is pretty brief.

But here we go.

Several of the liaisons that work with the three advisory bodies that are seeing the most significant proposed changes.

We may have even a member or two of some of the advisory bodies, and also Brooke Olsen and Elizabeth Oshel from our team that did a lot of the work on these code changes.

So first things first, we ask ourselves when we're proposing code changes, what are the connections to council goals in the council's accessible and effective government goal.

There was a specific item regarding making improvements to the communication and collaboration between the council and advisory groups.

In this case, that's being manifested by some changes to some of the structures, scope, and organization of three of these committees.

Some of the changes concern what has up till now been called the Transportation Bond Oversight Committee.

Feel free to jump in with questions at any point.

BDAB, the Bend Economic Development Advisory Board, this code was last substantially change.

Actually, it was implemented, I think, in 2014.

The city had a business advocate program and a business advocate.

That program has really evolved and grown and transformed into what we we now have an economic development program.

We have staff, we have council prioritization, we have an economic prosperity goal.

BDAB has served the council and the city well in providing strategic input on economic development from a business perspective, but the code needed to change really to I think keep pace with the city and the council's increased focus and emphasis on economic development.

The changes maintain some of the key L things that BDAB has always done.

BDAB has always developed a strategic plan.

I think on a three-year cycle, that's gonna stay.

But the scope of what they're doing has been, I'd say, built out, and we've put some kind of some meat on the bones of the code to really reflect what BDAB is doing.

Next committee, and this one of the three, this is probably the one that is seeing they're not insignificant changes, but it's not really changing the scope.

This is the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee.

This was originally created over 20 years ago to do something pretty specific.

Uh then it became focused on what we sometimes sometimes call capital A affordable housing.

But as the city's again prioritization and uh emphasis on the housing continuum has grown and expanded.

We've recognized, and I think other people have recognized that there's a full spectrum and continuum of housing that exists beyond just capital A deed restricted affordable housing.

Uh it includes shelters, middle income housing, um, homeownership, affordability, market rate rentals play a role in that too.

And so the changes that uh council is considering to the AHAC code, they don't really change anything incredibly substantively, but they do kind of keep pace with the recognition and awareness that um AHAC is advising the council on the broad range of all things housing in terms of affordability and availability.

Uh next, uh what has been called TBOC, the Transportation Bond Oversight Committee.

This uh committee was instituted by the council in is sort of a companion element of the 2020 general obligation bond.

Uh there has been a lot of teamwork between staff and the committee as TBOC has wanted to think about its role, and there is input and expertise and interest, and there has been on TBOC and with its members to do more and provide input that is greater or broader than just the prioritization and funding decisions under the general obligation bond, and some of that includes strategic planning and policy, technical standards and design, uh safety, education, outreach.

Um these are all elements that there's been a desire for TBOC to expand its its advisory role to council while maintaining the the bond oversight.

So the code changes are intended to reflect that.

And this one especially, I mean, all of these changes involve partnership between staff and the members of these committees, but this one especially was um subject to a lot of I think good interactive process feedback uh direction from council, input from people on TBAC, which disappointingly uh might be called the Transportation Advisory Committee, the TAC.

Um not as not as cool of an acronym, um, open to ideas from council, but uh that was in particular a real partnership to to get this get this kind of tuned up to to meet the needs and desires of of the council.

Now, and I was a member of Tactical Air Command for many years, so I come up with the use of that.

At least one vote for tech.

Yeah, I would be confused.

So we and we can come back to any of these.

Um I will say also I want to note that uh we we have this chapter in our code that has covers our advisory bodies.

We have particular sections for particular committees, three of which are subject to potential changes tonight.

Uh we also have some general provisions that are intended to describe sort of how all of these committees work or have standards that apply to all of them.

Uh we had a lot of repetition in the code.

You know, we have something that says, for example, in the the generally applicable section that a quorum of an advisory body is a simple majority of members.

We also had sections in the individual committee or provisions in the individual committee sections that said a quorum of this committee is a majority of its members.

So we took out duplications like that.

We tried to reduce redundancy, some of the language for consistency, but it's only those those three committees the BDAB, the T BOC attack, and the AHAC that are seeing more substantive changes.

But the other sections in the code, there's there's a little cleanup too.

Great.

Um any questions?

I have a suggestion on the transportation committee.

Just because our our department is called the Transportation and Mobility Department, and I think mobility captures some of that safety education outreach, other things beyond just the just just the word transportation.

I would call it the transportation and mobility advisory committee, and that would be TMASH.

TAC T BAC.

Oh yeah.

And then because there are all sorts of technical advisory committees, tax all around, everywhere.

And so I I'd like to have it not be that.

Sure.

That's that's my suggestion.

It works fine.

Question Ian.

Sure.

So I I think this is uh this looks like a really great job, especially on the TMAC front to incorporate a lot of different ideas and try to get the right scope and the right breath.

Uh my question is say you know, you know, at six months or a year, we think things are going along okay, but we want to tweak this.

What's the process for amending it?

Uh I think it depends on what the what the potential tweaker amendment is.

I mean, if it's if it's something as significant as changing the scope, and I won't say authority because authority of all of these advisory bodies is pretty much the same, mostly with a few exceptions, it's give recommendations to council.

But if we're talking about the scope or focus or emphasis, uh I think the process is um, if you have ideas, I think engaging with city managers is always a good idea.

Um if you happen to be a liaison to that committee, one of the things you're not supposed to do is influence the committee, but a question for the staff liaison offline.

Um I mean, these things can develop pretty organically.

Um the affordable housing advisory committee changes, these these were written, I think a couple of years ago uh at this point.

But they weren't really pressing, and so they kind of waited until these other things were ready to go.

Um I just think it depends on the nature of the change.

If council wants to talk about something and really make a big change, that's a work session request item.

But I think there's usually a lot of work and discussion that happens before.

Well, one area that I've been thinking about is the human rights and equity commission.

Um there's not a lot of changes proposed here.

Nothing really substantive.

But I can't help but wonder if some of the expectations might be out of alignment with what some community members' expectations are for that committee in particular.

And looking at the language here, I mean it's paragraph A, sub-paragraph two says create an action plan to achieve an equitable society.

That's a really tall order.

Especially for a city committee that only meets periodically.

Um anyway, I think it's helpful to know about the process for amending, and I think it's something that I want to think about in respect to that committee in particular.

And I will say with that committee, there have been ideas for potential um proposing potential changes to to address some of those issues.

Those have also existed for a couple of years.

We are just recently putting some structure to that, including the consultant we have.

Uh, some of the work they're going to be doing with HREC over time is going to be exploring is there a better way to align the words on the code with scope, the capability, the authority, the focus, the priorities, and so that is um absolutely happening right now.

Our hope is to have a recommendation of council by the end of the year.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yeah, I think we had a touch point last year.

I don't remember when, but of identifying that this this code needs to be updated.

So I think it's just been a long process, but I'm glad to hear that we'll we'll have a results on that this year.

Okay, any other questions about BDAB or AHAC?

Go ahead, Mike.

I mean, it's not a question.

I'm it's a comment.

I've shared it a little bit, staff member too.

The T box stuff still feels really big and broad to me, like they get pretty weigh on almost everything, and it worries me a little bit.

I we had a discussion at a meeting a while back about constraining it a bit, and I I'm just as I wasn't able to spend a bunch of time going back and looking at what we talked about, and assuming that that happened, you know, it's been talked about with the committee itself a couple times, the liaison and staff input.

But that that one just worries me because it's so big and broad, it even talks about specific projects.

I got I think it could be something that the council should be paying some close attention to over time in the scope.

It seems quite broad.

Yeah, thank you, Councilor Riley Elizabeth Oshell with the city attorney's office.

We talked about that at T Bach T Mac.

Yeah.

Um the work or the work plan provision of the code is supposed to be that narrowing focus on a sort of annual or biannual basis.

Um, so that we talked about how this is very broad.

They were very um, I think they felt constrained in some cases by the language of the bond resolution and felt cut off from discussion they wanted to be able to have.

So they did hear that feedback from council.

They wanted to keep a broad focus.

We talked about how not everything is physically possible to talk about in a in a single year, and that would be the the work of creating that work plan to focus on what are the specifics within that broad universe that they wanted to propose to council to work on in a particular year.

Okay.

So as the liaison to, well, I assume I don't know if we're gonna keep our liaison roles.

No assumptions, you know, we don't know.

It's a brand new year next year.

I uh I want to acknowledge that that concern, and I don't necessarily disagree, although I think what I would say is um let's see how it goes for a year.

If there's areas that we think is are being you know unhelpful or something, then we should take note of that and and revisit them as part of a an effort to amend and refine.

What I see in provision D around create the work plan, not expected to engage on every topic, and I think we also um we'll continue to try to align our advisory committees with our council goals, right?

Those sorts of things we can help to make sure that they're not going off scope, but I think it's a good a good call to keep monitoring that one.

Okay, Ian.

Uh just a uh procedural technical note.

Um TMAC, mayor's suggestion.

I think I saw everybody nod enthusiastically, except maybe counselor Platt, who is a soft spot for that.

That's fine.

So I'm I'm just going to consider that moved and seconded and amended as an amendment to the code.

So if if council adopts this tonight, it will come back and all the references will say TMAC or we'll spell it out first and then use their commitment.

Okay.

Thank you for making that easy.

All right, I think we're ready for a motion then.

I move for the first reading of an ordinance amending Ben Municipal Code Chapter 1.20, advisory boards, committees, and commissions.

Second.

All right, moved by council Perkins, second by council Riley.

All those in favor?

Great.

All right, that moves us to item number six.

Council is asked to adopt a resolution adopting the 2026 Outback Facility Plan.

Good evening.

My name is Jeremy Tex.

I'm a project engineer with the city of Bend.

And good evening, my name is Brittany Barker.

I'm a principal engineer in the engineering department here to support.

And today we are here to adopt the 2026 Outback facility plan.

To start, I'll give a brief overview of our water system, highlighting some key work done to date, as well as some risks and issues that we face within our water system.

Then I'll get into the details of the Outback facility plan.

As a brief overview, we pull water from two sources to feed our water system.

Our surface water comes from Prowl Springs for the west of town near Tumor Falls.

And our groundwater comes from the Chutes Aquifer, hundreds of feet below the ground surface at various locations across the city.

The Outback facility highlighted here in the center of the page is a key facility for our water system as it treats all of the surface water that feeds our distribution system.

All of the water that we use comes from the upper district's basin, and we are not the only users of water in this basin.

I have here a pie chart showing the allocation of water rights from this basin, and as you can see, irrigation districts are attributed 86%.

In stream is allocated 12%, leaving only a 2% allocation for municipal uses.

And these are all the municipal users within Central Oregon, including the cities of Benn, Sisters, Redmond, Le Pine, and Prineville.

On an annual basis, we pull about 60% of our water as surface water, with the remaining 40% coming from groundwater.

Surface water generally meets all of our cities' demands through the winter months, and we use groundwater to accommodate and support that our water demands when demands increase nearly four times in the summer season.

Our surface water has a rate limited, is rate limited to 18.2 cubic feet per second.

And this is there's three mechanisms that limit our surface water to this rate.

There's a special use permit with the Forest Service.

It's ratified within our city code, and our surface water production infrastructure is planned and designed with this 18.2 cubic foot per second upper threshold.

Pictured here is the Heidi Lansdown water intake facility right off of Bridge Creek.

This facility diverts water through a raw water conduit 10 miles to the Outback facility where it descends a thousand feet to the water filtration facility.

The water filtration facility is a microfiltration facility designed to treat our surface water for Cryptosporidium and Giardia in accordance with federal regulations.

Some preceding studies that will be referenced throughout this presentation include the 2021 Integrated Water System Master Plan and Public Facility Plan.

This plan looked at the needs of the entire water system and identified the need for additional infrastructure at the Outback site.

With this, we kicked off the 2021 Outback Sighting Study as an addendum to the water system master plan.

This evaluated how the facilities recommended in the master plan could be accommodated on the existing site and the potential expanded property.

Currently, we are pursuing an additional 48 acres, 48 acres adjacent to our existing Outback site for purchase from the Forest Service through a process called the Town Site Act.

Lastly, that 2024 Inconduit Hydropower feasibility study analyzed four different locations across town where we could potentially harness energy with the use of inconduit hydropower.

Here I have a hierarchy of the different capital plans.

These plans influence rates that ultimately lead into our capital improvement plans and then to city projects.

This allows us to operate a mostly gravity-fed water system, which reduces our energy needs and therefore cost to operate our system.

As I mentioned, there's still a thousand-foot elevation drop between the intake facility and the Outback facility, making the Outback site an ideal location for any kind of hydropower.

Currently, the water that we get from that raw water conduit, the energy is dissipated into the atmosphere, so we could operate that water at a manageable pressure zone.

This site houses the water filtration facility, seven wells, three reservoirs, a chlorine contact time basin, a raw water control structure, and an emergency overflow pond, leaving very little room for additional infrastructure.

The 2021 integrated water system master plan highlighted that a major risk to our water supply is a wildfire within our watershed.

This wildfire would increase the debris in our surface water beyond the treatment capacity of the water filtration facility.

And this would have long-term impacts.

Because when a fire rips through a forest, it tears up the vegetation so that that vegetation no longer binds the top layers of that soil, leaving the soil more susceptible to erosion, particularly due to the steep slopes within our watershed.

Today we still see turbidity issues or heavy sediment, as you see in this picture on the left, as a result of the 1979 Bridge Creek fire.

These events cause the water filtration facility to shut down completely, leaving only groundwater to supply the city's needs.

The picture on the right, you see there's a lot of down timber.

This is a was taken on a hike through our watershed.

And since the watershed is within a designated no road zone with the Forest Service, they're limited in what they could do to prevent wildfire, mostly to perimeter thinning.

With these risks in mind, we embarked on the outback facility plan.

With this plan, we developed the priority resiliency needs to a preliminary design level, including the pretreatment system and the in-conduit hydropower energy dissipation system.

We also conducted a reservoir siding integration study, integrating that into an overall facility plan, including permitting strategies, and included as a class 5 cost estimate for all the proposed facilities with within the existing and proposed expansion area.

Here I have a graphic showing the high-level improvements on a priority scale for the existing Outback site and the proposed expansion area.

The existing Outback site, as you see, is marked with that black dashed line on the right of the screen, and the proposed 48-acre expansion area is marked with that blue dashed line on the left of the screen.

The priority improvements highlighted in red include the inconduit hydropower and energy dissipation facility as well as our pre-treatment system.

We also are proposing to relocate the existing Forest Service Road 4606 to accommodate this expansion area.

By relocating this road, we allowed the public to maintain access to Forest Service Road 4606 while using the existing Forest Service Road as a secure site entrance to our water facility.

Improvements shown in yellow are the medium-term improvements and include proposed well facility decommissioning contact time basin that's for chlorine contact time, building a new reservoir, and decommissioning reservoirs.

The longer-term improvements highlighted in that blue, include additional water infrastructure, wildfire defense infrastructure, such as a wildfire helipad, wildfire tanker field stations.

And we're also we have space allocation for additional PFAS treatment should we need it.

To date, none of the water that is produced or that goes through the Outback site has any detectable limit of PPAS.

However, we are aware of this emerging contaminant, and we want to make sure that should we need the treatment, we can seamlessly plug that into our system.

So, Ramsey, can I just I just want to because you've been asking or answering some questions for me over you and Brittany to thank you very much for doing that?

Um when you say kind of plug and play, uh we really do think that there'll be no extra extra space we have to grow uh have to grab or extra facility room that we're gonna need there beyond that specific item when or if that happens.

Yeah, it's that's an excellent question.

It all really comes down to the phasing of the improvements.

For for example, we are proposing if we need it, two different PFAS treatment systems, one for groundwater and one for surface water.

The groundwater we can we can use the energy from the groundwater wells actually to push that through the PFAS treatment.

Okay.

Surface water, we obviously want to use the gravity to feed that as much as possible.

So that would actually be placed in at the in place of an existing reservoir.

So we would need to build a reservoir, decommission a reservoir, and then build the PFAS treatment.

Oh, okay.

So thank you.

Of course.

The incondo hydropower will be constructed upstream of the pretreatment and filtration facility to remove the pressure instead of dissipating that energy into the atmosphere.

The inconduit hydropow feasibility study analyzed the site and found that we have the potential to generate as is enough electricity to power over 750 homes a year, which is more than double the energy demands of the Outback site on an annual basis.

The physical system constraints limit our water production to the demands of the system.

Therefore, no additional revenue could be generated for the sake of generating revenue.

This project will align with the community climate action plan goal of reducing community-wide fossil fuel use.

So sorry, could you share what happens to the additional energy that is produced that is not used on site?

Um there's a few different things that we could do.

It all comes into the interplay connection with Pacific Power.

The number one option that we're pursuing is to sell that energy back to the grid.

Because of course, now I want to go back and look at the numbers for how much additional load do we expect the climate feed and see if there's anything to do with that.

Well, just remember he said 750 homes.

Yes.

And that and about half of that would go to the facility property.

I mean, this is substantially more than the particular number of homes that might be converted.

So thank you.

Of course, just amazing base load power that we're gonna put into the grid, which is outstanding.

Yeah, and it protects our system too against rolling blackouts that we see more frequently during the high heat.

The next priority project is the pretreatment system.

Um this is a combination of uh pre-sedimentation pond and a plate settler facility facility.

This facility will increase our ability to keep the water filtration facility operational during wildfire and heavy rain or snow developments.

While we have the most critical resiliency projects scheduled within our five-year capital improvement plan, we continue to look for additional funding opportunities for our water projects.

Here I have listed the cost for the most resilient most critical resiliency projects, the pre-treatment inconduit hydropower energy dissipation facility as well as our service road 4606 realignment.

Potential funding mechanisms or yeah, potential funding opportunities include the FEMA building resilient infrastructure and communities grant.

That's the BRIC grant.

We applied for this in 2024 and we're not selected.

The program is terminated last year and then reinstated this year with a 20 million dollar cap.

We're also exploring with your funding.

That's the water infrastructure infrastructure finance and innovation act.

That's a federal loan program that provides favorable loan terms for water infrastructure.

This will also be further discussed in a June 24th.

Ramsey, please tell me we're applying for break this year.

Of course.

Okay.

But he said it's reinstated.

I just want to make sure we're gonna be asking July.

It is July, but it's true.

Uh to the state July one and to FEMA at the end of July.

Do they only select one project or is it?

No, they have seven hundred and fifty million dollars for the competitive program nationwide.

Awesome.

But we have a consultant on board and we're actively working on updating our weekend.

Ask for up 2000.

Correct.

Okay.

The old threshold used to be 50 million dollars.

This year it's 20 million max.

But we are separating the pretreatment project into its own and the inconduit hydro into its own project, just so that way they're not competing with one another, and we could get up to that 49% grant.

Awesome.

Great, great.

That encompasses what is included in the outback facility plan.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ramsey.

Um, this is your first time presenting to us.

It is great job on a big topic.

Yeah, yeah.

Any other questions for Ramsey and Brittany on this?

Yeah, I had a question.

Um, I was just curious because I read through the plan, and it looks like some of the items are sort of presented as options, like kind of to be decided later.

So, what should our takeaway be?

Like, how will those options be evaluated?

Because they all come with very different price tags.

Um, great question.

Um for this facility plan, we just really dove deep into the design aspects of those urgent needs, the pretreatment inconduit hydro and the associated road realignment.

Um getting into deeper details could happen as part of the design of those elements as we further evolve that, but also some of these other factors need to have a deeper dive.

So there will be future studies to dive into these reservoir sighting.

We just wanted to lay the groundwork for where things can go on the site based on hydrology and make sure that we weren't having to redo work later in the future.

So we will be diving deeper into when the time comes to do these other aspects.

And in turn, we would have updated costs and more details on the exact scope, and then we'll present that to council also through budgeting aspects, we'll have specific line items for anything that comes in the future.

So although this did address all of the needs at the outback that we see today, we really only dove deep and developed a 30% design for pre-treatment and hydro, knowing we need to keep that going.

And honestly, it's a good thing we did because the BRIC grant, you become more competitive the further along your uh design is.

So we're getting bonus points that we're in a 30% design now than where we were last year with just a conceptual plan.

So it's kind of a roadmap in those out years.

Exactly.

Got it.

All right, any other questions or a motion?

I move to adopt a resolution adopting the 2026 outback facility plan.

So we could all right, move by council Norris, second by Councillor Platt.

All those in favor.

All right.

Thank you very much.

All right, item number seven.

Council is eight at the same time.

Council is asked to approve the Bend Economic Development Advisory Board's 2026 to 2028 work plan.

And council is asked to adopt a resolution establishing a small business assistant grant program to support implementation of the economic development strategic plan and the community climate action plan.

And I am Megan Lee with Environment and Climate.

This is Megan's first presentation too, so she's gonna we're gonna start off with the economic development advisory board's work plan review first before jumping into the small business assistance grant program.

So a little bit of background as was noted in the code amendments item that you discussed earlier.

It is required per code for VDAB to have a work plan that is approved by the city council, and that work plan has evolved and is now in direct alignment with the city's economic development strategic plan.

And you'll see that outlined in the key priorities in a later slide.

And to Ian's earlier point, this is really a reflection of the programmatic approach and the evolution of how we've um developed staffing internally here within the city in how we approach economic development related services.

And uh this work plan was unanimously supported by the board at their meeting earlier in May, and hopefully you had a chance to review the letter that the chamber sent in, also supporting this work plan.

So again, in direct alignment with the strategic plan that you recently adopted earlier in 2026, these are similar um buckets, if you will, of work that BDAB will weigh into and provide some policy input on for retaining growing and supporting businesses.

We imagine in it there's a matrix that was also included in your council packet that more clearly outlines the difference of what BDAB will be more focused on providing input on versus what city staff being using Jonathan Taylor and Katie Brooks will be executing more on a day-to-day basis.

Um so hopefully that creates a little bit more clarity in the differentiation of the workload and how it will be dispersed.

But again, similar buckets of routine and growing supporting businesses.

The oversight accountability and reporting is specific to BDAB, and that's something that they've expressed some interest in and just making sure that there's a lot of clarity in the desired outcomes of what the council's asking them to provide input on the work uh plan for them to complete.

They also have a bit of a unique role in that um they provide feedback to some of our contractors, um, such as Visit Bend and Economic Development for Central Oregon or EDCO.

Um so those um agencies also have contractual requirements to talk with BDAB about um the progress that they're making, about their budgets, um about their business plans, etc.

So that's something a bit unique to the board specifically.

And then council discussion, if you guys have any feedback on that.

Like I said, there was more specific detail outlined in the the program matrix that was included in your council packet, but happy to answer any questions or elaborate on anything further.

Any questions on the work plan?

Go ahead.

I just love to um um council riley.

One of the things you were talking about was like, is this too much for you know for Tbox slash TMAC?

Um that is a conversation that that that BDAB definitely had, right?

They first they took a look as like, is this too much?

And so that's why I think that matrix is really great.

I think that's something that like all the committees and commissions should do.

Like this is what we do, this is what what staff does.

This is you know, so that so now BDEB has um not just not just these like guideposts of retain grow businesses, et cetera, et cetera, but like you know, they have they really know the cycle of things and and and when they provide when when they're providing just you know um general feedback or when they're really digging into something too, which I think is is is really it's gonna help them be more successful um than they already are.

So yeah, great point.

Thank you, Mayor Proto.

Any other questions?

I mean, I think it's great to see it aligned with the strategic, the economic development plan.

Super important.

Right.

Great.

Okay, why don't we if we're in agreement here, why don't we go ahead and do the motion, then we'll hop to the next topic.

I move to approve the 2026-2028 Bend Economic Development Advisory Board Work Plan as presented on May 20th, 2026.

Second.

All right, moved by Council Perkins, second by council Riley.

All those in favor.

All right, great.

On to the next.

Alrighty, for the small business assistance grant.

Um a little bit of background is that establishing this grant program was the specific action item that was included in the economic development strategic plan in talking with our friends over in Environment and Climate with Megan and Cassie.

It sounded like there were some resources that they also had available for small business support, and so we were picking our brains thinking about what Energy Trust of Oregon offers, what we're intending to do with economic development for this program, what the goals of the climate community climate action plan um initiatives are, and how we can maybe consolidate efforts and uh reduce duplicity organizationally with the administration.

So that's how we came to this kind of joint effort in tag teaming a program for uh these grants to be awarded.

Um, and we have a total of 130,000 for this biennium, and we'll get into some of the details about how that's split out between economic development and climate and sustainability here in a bit.

Some of the program logistics, as mentioned, we have 100k available for economic development related applications that's in direct alignment with the economic development strategic plan and the just adopted BDAB work plan.

And we have 30k available for the climate sustainability related applications, very similar process of having that alignment with the CCAP as well.

Um we'll get into the eligibility criteria here in a bit, but there will be a specific rubric for each of the applications depending on kind of what route they take based on um what the needs are that they're inquiring about.

So can you remind me that's annually a variable annually?

So this is for the biennium.

Okay.

So in future Biennia, it would need to be reallocated resources.

Thank you.

And I'll toss it over to Megan.

Um sorry, we're gonna do that.

Oh, sorry, we're having a side conversation about the word by end.

I never heard that word before, sorry.

I was tracking.

We're basically through the biennium, so it's really for the next year or so.

Correct.

Yes, through the next year, it is a brand new program, yeah.

Um, just to make sure that that's clear as well.

Um, and I'll pass it over to Megan.

Um, but just want to say that this is an existing rubric that we imagine having be a very similar concept for the economic development related applications that come in, but this is something that we've already executed here internally with the program that Megan's helped manage.

Yeah, so I'll just talk briefly about the climate action partner grant program.

Um we launched this last year in October, and we got um to fund some really cool projects.

We awarded 150,000 to seven different projects that are run by nonprofits or government agencies or institution or uh educational institutions here in Bend.

And so um we're really excited about this opportunity to work with Cyrus because our existing program doesn't fund um any private businesses or small businesses, and so this is where we're trying to fill that gap.

Um we use this matrix to kind of score the different projects, um, and it was a really big success using this matrix, and so I think we'll kind of adapt it to this small business assistance grant program.

But this is kind of the basis for um what we're working with when it comes to scoring.

Um, so could I ask a question about that?

Yeah, so I really like to see project impact weighted so heavily.

Do the grant recipients come back and report uh you know, at the end of a grant period, you know, here's how many can we estimate what the impact actually was, or were greenhouse gases actually reduced?

Yeah, I do say for the gr for the climate action partner grant program, we ask for quarterly reports and kind of like an interim um uh status update on these different things, and then we'll ask for an annual kind of more substantive um report where they'll have to like yeah, meet all these different criteria and kind of explain their progress on project impact and like a lot of things.

And I imagine we would do something similar if it was like employees retained as a result of the grant that was awarded to them or increased revenue, etc.

for the metrics depending on what the application is and the nature of what they're asking for.

And uh maybe you've got a couple of teachers up here, so when you said rubric, I wondered where is there subsets for those 42 points, obviously, right?

In your rubric to add up to 42, is that right?

There's some or is there just a yeah, yeah, there's kind of a more nuanced um breakdown of this in our Excel sheet tell you exactly what it is right now, but it is kind of just got excited when you said a rubric to score the thing, so I just okay.

Thank you.

Okay, um some of the program logistics, and I just want to clarify that I think the intent in talking with BDAB and internally about the um economic development portion of this grant program is that we hear a lot of feedback from businesses that the loan and grant options that are out there oftentimes have some really strict specifications in order to qualify, and that can oftentimes exclude um people from being eligible to be awarded those.

And so with a hundred thousand dollars, we know it's not a ton, but if it can provide some of these five or ten thousand things that can help a business keep their doors open or keeping their staffing shortages at a minimum, I think that's really our intent to help bolster in a time of you know great uncertainty and some headwinds that we're facing here economically.

So I just want to clarify the the intent a little bit with what BDAB was envisioning that this program, at least in this point of time with its current resources, could really be effective in achieving.

Um so the goal is for us to open an applicant open applications hopefully in the next month or two and have decisions on awards made in the early fall.

You wanna jump in?

Um, sure, yeah.

So staff will kind of do an initial screening of the applications for eligibility and like completeness.

We'll bring it to either BDAB or ECC, depending on if it's a sustainability related project or just an economic related project.

Um, and then we'll kind of collect scores using the matrix um and then make a final recommendation to the city manager for final approval of the words.

Forgive me if you already said did you say the timeline for when the grant rubric for the economic development plan will be available?

We're currently drafting up the administrative policy that will accompany the resolution for the program.

I think our goal is to have that done in the next two or three weeks.

Okay, and then yeah, we'll be able to share that more broadly, and obviously it'll be in the application that goes out to the public.

Right.

Hoping that we can really rely on partners to help get the word out that this program's out there and available once we get to that point.

Okay, thank you.

Um and I've heard some concerns about the transparency of these dollars.

Um, how would uh a public member um search or look at the results of this rubric or something like that to see the the scoring that was done?

How would they do that?

When when this is done.

I don't know if you've ran into that in previous examples, but I think just thinking about the hypothetical situation, those would all be public records that would be available for what the advisory bodies would provide based on their scoring.

Okay, what the staff would also provide in their recommendations that eventually go to the city manager.

So all of that feedback would be publicly accessible and when it's discussed in public meetings.

Obviously, that would also be another way to hear about the justification for which awards were given.

I just want to make sure that folks are hearing that that they can get access to that data if they want.

Okay, any further questions on this program?

If not, we're ready for a motion.

I move to adopt a resolution establishing the small business assistant grant program and authorize the city manager to award program funding and enter into grant agreements and an amount not to exceed 250,000 per grantee, taking into consideration the funding recommendations of staff.

I second.

All right, moved by Council Norris, second by counselor Platt.

All those in favor.

Great.

Really glad to see this getting off the ground.

Really excited to see what people apply for and how we can help.

Thank you.

Yeah, the job is well done.

Thanks for spelling your name the right way.

We are team Megan with no age.

Okay, um, we'll move on to items nine and ten presented together.

Council is asked to authorize a contract with K any excavating ink for construction of the NEF Road Bicycle and Pedestrian Project.

And councils asked to authorize intergovernmental agreement with the state of Oregon to deliver the Larks for Path School Connection Project.

Part of the NEF Corridor project with a city contribution not to exceed 441,444.

Thank you all.

Good evening.

I'm Todd Johnson, senior project engineer.

Um here for two items.

Yeah, agenda item nine construction contract with KE.

It was a low boot construction contract.

Agenda item 10 is um the intergovernmental governmental agreement with ODOT.

These are not dependent on one another.

So if we do one, we don't have to do the other, just for clarity there.

However, doing both of these projects together would build a large portion of the key route three on the east side of Bend.

Background and design, um, yeah, so the the everything to the west um along Norton up to Juniper Elementary School, up across, and then along Pilot Butte Middle School would be ODOT designed and delivered.

You the council actually approved the arts grant, the all roads transportation safety grant, November 19th of 25.

And so this the IGA with with ODOT would likely be combined with that.

This is Oregon Community Paths, but to build functionally up to the um end of the Larksburg Trail on the east side of Pilot Butte, and then the construction contract with KE would be along NAF Road east of Darksburg Trail, skipping thankfully the Neff Percell intersection.

We've heard of that.

Don't touch that.

Let's do it.

Um generally, so generally the construction, we're building a 10-foot path on the south side to the to the west of Purcell, and on the north side to the east of Purcell.

The construction should knock on wood because it's behind the curve will be less impactful than other construction that the area has seen.

We're doing a lot of work building receiving ramps on the south side of NEF to receiving ramps being the ADA compliant like tactile dome reacts.

Yep, is this gonna construct a crossing on 8th Street as well?

No, we are not building a there's just the marked cross.

We're working with so the arts grant right now is 560,000 somewhere in that area for three speed bumps and striping, so we're trying to ask for a little bit more from ODOT.

Um see where we get to be able to get across the crossing too.

So yeah, potentially.

There is we have kind of a conceptual design.

One of the other ideas since the roundabouts getting constructed at Penn only and eighth, potentially waiting for what that looks like with traffic before looking at what we could do at eighth and eighth and norton there.

Just seems like uh, you know, I was riding my bike on there the other day, and just in terms of it being a place for kids to get to school.

Clearly, there's a lot of kids that live in that neighborhood on the west side of 8th Street that are going to the elementary school and or the middle school.

Yep.

And I I actually was like, I thought we did this.

I don't think it's a different crossing by pilot view, yeah.

Um to be determined.

To me determined, yes.

The IGA with ODOT would be constructing sidewalk along Juniper Elementary up from Norton over to NEF Road.

We noticed a lot of crumbling infrastructure along Pilot Butte Middle School, so just widening that road, making it a 10-foot path.

Um currently, I don't know if you've been there during the chaos of pickup and drop off, but um, yeah, there's vehicles parked in the bike lane, and this would certainly alleviate that and give kids more space to walk.

The one thing in full transparency, too.

We are that's maybe atypical.

We're asking for on the construction contract, we're asking for city manager authority up to 500,000.

We received a letter from Juniper Elementary and Ben Lepine School District, just the importance of the Norton and 11th intersection, and for us to be able to make a four-way stop-controlled marked crosswalk intersection.

We need to do quite a bit of grading that's on the side of a of a butte there.

So we are we did get a uh a pricing quote from KE, which is at our engineer's estimate at 200 roughly 240,000.

That would leave an additional 250 or 260, which is close to the city manager's authority.

So and this was probably, you know, we were talking about the whole length of the NEF project, and and this was definitely what we heard feedback on at the open houses of the importance of this intersection.

Just generally the budget.

Um say there's there's potentially um, yeah, we're very close on the budget.

It helps when you're very close to um working and getting the biennium updated.

So I think with that, any questions or discussion?

Questions on this?

Yeah, just a quick question about uh crossing Neff.

I know we have you know path on the north side and then path on the south side.

I spent some time with one of the crossing guards at Pilot View Middle School two weeks ago, and at the chaotic time.

Um I think there I wanted to know if there's the prospect of just including some really cheap stuff, like uh we have one enhanced crossing on one side of the street, but there's not even a marked crossing on the other side of the street.

And is there anything that we can do?

You know, I mean the crossing guard said she wanted a four-way stop sign.

I don't know that that's something that we would do there, but is there any prospect of just painting some more crosswalks?

Anything to just let drivers know that there's gonna be people crossing here, especially since we have facilities on both sides.

Yeah, if we can't do an enhanced crossing, can we just lay the white paint down?

Yeah, no, that's that's always an option.

Yeah, I probably connect with David Abbas over in our transportation mobility group, they can get some relatively easily, but yeah, we can definitely look at coordinating that with this.

Sound like a better channel for that that kind of request.

Yeah, yeah.

If it's paint, yeah, that's pretty simple.

We can do that in-house.

Thank you.

Yeah, I'll I'll connect with you to make sure I'm tracking the exact where we want that in the way.

And the other thing there might be an opportunity for is the Oregon Community Paths gets designed and built.

Um, us providing on the city side feedback potentially would happen along that frontage.

We had concepts on this design to reconfigure those, the medians that exist where you were talking about.

Um, and we also heard a lot of feedback about requests for rapid rectangular flashing beacons, especially being in a school zone, but generally we haven't placed those on two lane roads.

Okay, so it sounds like there's opportunity with the with as that project develops to get feedback.

Which will be a little bit behind ours, yeah, yeah.

But also that we can maybe do some painting in the meantime.

Council thanks.

We did have a student actually hit at one of those crosswalks at one point in time, right?

Not in the not too distant past.

So, as do you guys have a process to like maybe flex with your standards if there's actually an history of questions, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, because I think I mean I I think the rapid, whatever flashing, whatever they're called.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I've said this before up here, but like third street, I can't believe that actually works.

Like you push the button and the lights flash and the cars stop, and you can get safely across the street.

So I really believe in them.

So yeah.

And cost for those are coming down as the solar powered options are getting better, they're becoming cheaper and cheaper to install, and it'll require all the underground electrical work to accompany it.

So it's great.

I think I mean it's just it's worth saying the I've had the same conversation about the rapid rectangular flashing beacons, and the worry is as I understand it, the that if they get overused, drivers become accustomed to them and don't stop as much for them.

And since it's a flashing yellow, there's no citation for driving through them.

So if you don't stop at one, it's not a citation, it's it's the presence of a pedestrian that would trigger the citation.

So going through the yellow light isn't isn't, I think, a citable offense.

Um, but I don't know that we've reached the point of saturation yet either.

So I I think I'm they if as long as they're effective, I would like to keep using them, but sounds like we have an opportunity to explore that and um I think some council agreement to look at um some paint and things there to kind of also help the signal to drivers as we get this going.

So just so I'm clear the crossing of Norton of 8th Street is really just we we we have a concept design.

Yeah, that's what I thought.

And I and maybe I want to talk a little bit about um, surprise me that we're is it intensive?

Like, what do you what's what we mean?

Yeah, yeah.

So the concept design, I think one of the things we could if that roundabout when that roundabout gets built at eighth and only functionally, um if there were modal filters potentially put at eighth vehicles would be able to like access to the to the east of Norton a little bit easier, potentially using the roundabout to re-maneuver.

So that's why we could potentially put a safer option there once that roundabout goes for a pedestrian crossing.

For a pedestrian to cross.

There's the other option of just putting kind of your standard median island in there.

Um, vehicles will still be turning left at that location.

Um so that means we probably have to offset the I was just thinking that race crossing.

Okay.

Well everyone's very excited that a race crossing is being built at Galveston in 17.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

And that might be another thing if speeds get reduced with the roundabout, but they're actually and that's uh that's roughly 18 months out, right?

Those roundabouts, code four pack.

That's what you're talking about.

Yeah, yeah, eight and all we can review, those two roundabouts.

Yeah, we gotta we gotta time those appropriately with Butler Market phase two.

Uh but yeah, that you'll see the progressive design bill contract for that coming in front of you next month.

Yeah, yeah.

I under I understand the concerns about that intersection.

I also think a lot of what we see here is gonna be a really big improvement for people going to school in this area in this neighborhood, so we'll make sure we do move it forward.

Yeah, this should move forward.

I think it's just I'm basically saying it's a missing piece that's gonna be really it really is a missing piece that doesn't complete the safety improvements along this route key route.

Obviously, well, it's only an opportunity to look at the crossing at eighth with the contract with it, right?

Yeah, we'll look at that.

Great.

Okay.

We have two motions, number nine and ten.

I move to authorize a contract with KEXVATING and substantially the form presented to council for construction services in an amount not to exceed two million two million seven hundred and seventy-eight thousand six hundred and five dollars, and to authorize the city manager to approve amendments in an additional amount not to exceed five hundred thousand dollars.

Second all right, move by council perkins, second by councilman Dennis.

All those in favor?

Aye, aye.

All right, number 10.

Uh we'll go ahead.

I'm about to authorize an intergovernmental agreement with the state of Oregon and substantially the form presented for delivery by the Oregon Department of Transportation of the Larksburg Path School Connection Project with a city contribution not to exceed 441,444 dollars.

Second councillor Ryan Councilor Platt with the second, all those in favor.

All right.

Great, thank you.

So much thanks.

Well done.

All right, um, item 11.

This is a second reading of an ordinance to establish an economic improvement district in the Benn Central District.

All right, roll call vote.

We need a motion.

I move for the second reading and adoption by roll call vote of an ordinance to establish an economic improvement district in the Benn Central District.

Second.

All right, move councillor Riley, second by Councilor Mendes.

Okay, Counselor Franzosa.

No.

Counselor Mendez.

Yes.

Counselor Riley.

Hi.

Um Mayor Proton Perkin.

Yes.

Councillor Norris.

Yes.

Counselor Clapp.

No.

Mayor Kehler.

Yes.

All right.

That moves us on to city manager's report.

All right.

I have a couple of items tonight.

I want to begin with our Sparky awards.

Super exciting.

Sparky is a dog, but we um we've kind of used that as our mascot to award uh our employees for continuous improvement efforts.

Um it's a whole program that we started about five years ago.

It's it's really around continuous improvement.

The program is uh the mission is to empower staff to improve the way the city works.

Um it teaches continuous improvement and innovation tools, partners with our work groups on in improvement projects, and helps to develop new ways of serving the community.

Um also uh this program also is dedicated to student specialists for the cities online permit center and our utility building operations.

If you remember, we highlighted our utility building operation uh group last year, they were the recipients of the award for the the first the first ward uh annual award last year, and that was really saved us about one year or uh an equivalent of a staff person, um, all of the hours in the process for utility billing.

So I wanted to highlight this year's uh award recipient, and so uh we have just a short video to really recognize those folks.

I'm gonna put in the council memo the full list of the uh award winners.

There was 141 employees that participated in nominating 30 different projects.

We had a big award ceremony a couple of weeks ago, and I just think it's really cool work to to highlight.

So enjoy the video, and then I have a couple of other items after that.

Hi, I'm Rachel Ruffle with the City of Ben Spark program.

Spark is all about continuous improvement where we empower employees to make changes for the better in their daily work.

Today I'm really excited to showcase a project of three different departments working together to transform how we prioritize, plan, and deliver projects to improve our drinking water system.

We'll hear from employees from our engineering, water services, and performance management departments about the water repair and rehab program.

The 2021 integrated water system master plan identified over 100 million dollars of repair and replacement projects over the next 20 years just to maintain our existing agile water system.

We have limited resources and need to make significant investments in our system.

That meant strategically prioritizing projects to address the most critical needs in the most cost-effective way possible.

After looking at our options and evaluating expensive software, our team realized that we have tools and resources in-house that could help us build our own prioritization tool.

And it would allow us better control over how projects are evaluated and bring in more insight from our water services operations team.

To start building this in-house tool, we had to map and prioritize our water assets in our GIS system.

Using the data across departmental team developing this matrix to wait and score the list of over 900 pipe segments identified as needing replacement through master plan.

In the end, we had a map showing the parts of the water system ranked highest for repair and replacement.

Collaborating with several internal departments, we identified skill sets that we could utilize to develop a tool that we could use specifically for the city of Benz water services needs.

This is focused on looking at the consequence of failure and likelihood of failure of a lot of linear water assets.

And we now believe that we have a tool that will focus our efforts on capital improvement projects that are specifically beneficial to the city of Ben.

Our group meets regularly to review and plan how our top rank projects will be scheduled and implemented.

This routine touchpoint allows us to be proactive in scheduling projects to limit the public impacts of road closures and detours, and allow for scheduling underground construction with road projects whenever possible.

As a result of our upfront work, our first repair and replacement projects have gone smoother through design and construction.

Our first project was a water line replacement project under Stat Street, managed by water services in 2025.

We are now working on the design of the second street water line project, which will go to construction this summer.

Building on the success of the water prioritization tool, we will be doing something similar on both the sewer and stormwater master plan repair and replacement programs.

Working together more closely like this between departments, it really allows us to deliver the best product and project for the community of Bend.

It's really something to celebrate when we have a project that saves hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But this project is about so much more than just dollars and cents.

It's really about changing how our city works together.

So we have employees from different departments communicating and collaborating to make smart decisions for the city's future.

So a big thanks to all the folks that spent on the love.

Yeah.

Um, also, we celebrated Public Works Week this week, and nobody mentioned the event, the public works happening last week.

That's okay.

I'm happy to talk about it.

Yes, it was all great.

Thank you, especially to our comms team for um helping put on that great event.

And I think we all realize we need to do this every year to really open up that great facility to the community so they can see the city kind of behind the scenes in action.

There was a lot of actually, I love the kids being kind of seeing all the equipment and getting the eyes really wide, and it's really cool.

So another upcoming event is the round table with the planning commission.

We've been talking about this as part of our focus on complete communities is one of the kind of key elements.

So on June 22nd, that's being held.

We've kind of given folks homework for that assignment.

So uh memo is going out June 1st uh with a more detailed agenda.

We're asking feedback from neighborhoods to sort of help prompt the discussion around what more sort of small-scale commercial activities they'd like to see in their neighborhoods.

Uh, we're also be kind of sharing what what's currently in our code so people have a little foundation to uh to have uh that really fruitful discussion on the 22nd.

Uh, we're hopeful that we can have some recommendations to council on changes to make by the end of the year.

We're not invited to that.

I mean, you can always it's a public meeting.

You can make a comment.

But you can watch.

We can watch online.

I'm gonna bring a sign.

You can roll role play.

These are just gonna be your hand to act about commentary.

Um not go in disguise and also uh DLC Disney is doing some.

Oh wow, we're getting punchies.

Uh DLCD rulemaking um is taking place around middle housing.

And I just wanted to let you all know we're gonna be submitting some comments.

Uh again, really good intentions from the state on more middle housing, but there's some unintended consequences of the state trying to do this.

And actually, with the way that we've looked at some of these proposed rules, it actually would um damper some of the flexibility that we have.

So we're commenting on that.

We're really wanting to see more cottage cluster housing, more flexibility, um, more opportunities there.

So I will send you all a copy of that letter that we're working on.

Um, I'll put it in the council memo, but just to let it let you know that we're commenting on that.

Uh and then some good news water bond refinancing, our bonds went to market um just the other day, like two days ago.

Um, we had 17 bidders, so these are municipal bonds, which is awesome.

Ben's a very attractive place to buy bonds, and as a result of all that competition, um, we got a great interest rate of 3.06% on those, and that's gonna save us 10 uh 3.8 million dollars over 10 and a half years.

That was not that was what those are water funds.

That's really significant um uh given our car sort of just competitiveness in the market.

So and then lastly, our fire free week is uh started last week, it's through this week when we're talking about wildfire.

Um so you if you just clean up your yards, you can dispose it for free at not landfill uh until May 24th through is that side.

Through the weekend, yeah.

That's it.

All right, great.

That will do it for our meeting.

We're adjourned.

Thank you.