This meeting to order this is official meeting of the Bend Urban Development Agency.

The Bendy and the Benn Budget Committee.

That's what I was wondering.

I had that right.

Yes.

Okay, the Benn Budget Committee.

My name is Jared Slaminski.

I'm the vice chair of the committee.

Um, and I will be chairing the meeting here, obviously today.

Let's start with the roll call and introduction, and I'll start with you, Mr.

Peters on my right.

Chuck Peters, budget committee.

Gina Franzosa, City Councillor.

Trevor Camp, Trevor Campbell, budget committee.

Mario Mendez, uh, city councilor.

Pachazad, budget committee.

Melanie Kiebler, Mayor of Ben, she, her.

Megan Perkins, I'm the Mayor Potem, she her.

Megan Nora, City Councillor, she, her.

And Steve Platt, City Council, he liked that one for the question.

We'll just try Ben City Council or he him.

All right.

I'd like to move to the first item on our agenda today.

This is a public hearing on the proposed uses of state shared revenues for fiscal year 2020 and 2027.

I'd like to turn it over to Dan Quick for a brief overview of this topic at this time.

Perfect.

Thank you.

So Dan Quick, budget and financial planning manager for the City of Bend.

As uh Vice Chair Slaminsky mentioned, we have a couple of items to go through tonight, uh, first of which being the state shared revenue.

Uh just want to mention really quick the the full agenda here, just so we uh we don't have a whole lot of time tonight, so we're gonna try to keep on schedule.

Uh we do have two actions that the budget committee will be asked to take tonight.

Uh the first one being the state shared revenue, the second one being approval of uh tax levies for the uh some Borough, uh some tax increment finance areas.

We'll then have some informational items where we'll give a mid-biennium uh budget update and then we'll give a preview of some of the budget items that will be going to council on June 17th.

Uh those are all subject to change.

Uh more details will be coming uh with the council packet, uh, but we'll just we're just trying to give some high-level insights into what we'll be discussing uh on June 17th with City Council.

Um, and due to our time restraints, uh, we'll ask the questions uh on those informational items, wait until the end.

Um if any questions remain after the fact, uh folks are encouraged to reach out to to myself or to Eric King or Samantha Nelson, and we'll we'll get you answers to your questions.

Uh so to jump into the the public hearing uh that has been opened.

Um this is a requirement from the state that every year the city of Bend uh certifies that we uh plan to use state shared revenues in a certain way.

Um, and so the state shared revenues that we have or that we receive uh include liquor taxes, marijuana taxes, and cigarette taxes.

Um we receive those on a pro rata share based on our our population.

Uh we're currently projecting to receive 3.3 million uh in the next fiscal year, and then uh we also receive state highway apportionment.

This is gas taxes and vehicle registration fees.

We're anticipating to receive about 8.6 million.

Uh these fees or these revenues come into the city.

Uh the general fund portion is used to pay for police services, long-range planning, street preservation, um, growth management, uh, some of these other things.

And then the streets and operations, or sorry, the state highway apportionment is used specifically for streets operations and streets preservation.

And so essentially what we're asked to do as a budget committee is open a public hearing, see if there's any public comment.

Um, and then we will be doing the same thing with the city council on June 17th, uh and we'll just certify to the state that that this has happened.

If there are any questions, hearing no questions, I would like to open this uh open hearing on this topic at this time.

Do we have any comments?

Hearing none, I'm gonna close the open meeting on this topic and move to the next topic, uh, which is the approval of the Bureau, Banned Urban Renewal Agency, property tax levies on Britta Ridge Tax Increment Finance Area, Emblem Tax Increment Finance Area, Century Tax Incommit Finance Area, and Veridian Tax Increment Finance Area.

At this time, I'd open it, give it back to Dan for some discussion of this topic.

Thank you.

Uh so this is the second action that we're asking the budget committee to take tonight.

In short, uh each year this uh the Bend Urban Renewal Agency and the city are required to approve tax levies.

Uh one kind of caveat to that is we have a biannual budget, and so the budget committee is able to approve for both years at budget development.

Uh in this situation, we have four tax increment finance areas that were created after the budget was adopted.

Uh, as such, the budget committee was never uh able to take action on levying taxes for those areas.

Uh so at this point we are asking for the budget committee to uh basically essentially approve the levies for the British Ridge tax increment finance area, uh the tax increment finance areas at emblem century and Viridian.

Um again, this is an action that the council is taking right now, or sorry, the committee is taking now, but the council will uh be taking a similar action on June 17th.

Uh, we're working with the county assessor still to to figure out the timing of when these assessments are going to take place, uh, but we are looking for the committee's action at this point uh to allow council to take action on in June on June 17th as needed.

Uh are there any questions?

Uh open to respond to those.

Okay.

Any further discussion?

At this time, I would like to make the motion myself to approve the property taxes for the Britta Ridge tax increment finance area, the emblem tax increment finance area, the century tax increment finance area, and the Viridian tax increment finance area to be derived through the division of tax through fiscal year 2026-2027.

Do I have a second to my motion?

Sign up that's all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

No.

One opposed.

I didn't vote for them anywhere.

Ready to move on to oh well.

The motion has passed as a uh rule that there's a majority of votes in properly.

We'll move on to the next item for the agenda, which is an overview of the June 17th budget agenda items.

Uh everybody on the committee should be aware that hopefully is aware that there will be another meeting of this budget committee on June 17th.

Uh, and these are the agenda items that are going to be discussed: the mid-biennium biennium update, proposed fee changes, proposed staffing schedule updates, and proposed budget adjustments.

Once again, Dan, you're on.

Perfect, thank you.

Uh, and just to clarify, the June 17th meeting is of Justice City Council.

Oh my fault.

Uh, so these are informational items, only again, high-level overview.

Uh, these things are subject to change, open to questions.

Um, and we will be taking these items to the city council on the 17th uh for actual action.

Uh but before we get into those items, we're just gonna give a quick mid-biennium uh budget check-in.

Uh first off, I wanted to dive into uh our kind of biggest revenues that the city receives and talk through how those have come in relative to budget.

Uh, in the the graph up on the screen right now, we have a dark blue line which represents budget and a light blue line which represents projection.

Um, as you can see, most of the lines are pretty close to budget.

Um, so just a couple that I want to highlight.

Uh, property taxes are in line with uh budget, slightly exceeding budget.

We budgeted for a four and a half percent increase in uh taxable assess value.

Uh what we actually saw was about 5.2%.

Uh so there's a slight uh increase there.

Franchise fees we're seeing come in slightly low.

This is primarily tied to natural gas providers, uh, haven't been seeing the same revenues coming in.

Uh room tax, we are seeing we're projecting room taxes to come in about three percent above budget, uh, which is always positive.

That's money that comes into the general fund uh for use for police and street preservation and those sorts of things.

Uh state shared revenues are on track.

Uh touching briefly on development fees uh in the building planning and private development engineering funds.

Uh, those have been in aggregate coming in above budget.

Uh that's primarily primarily led by the building fund.

Uh we've been seeing quite a bit of activity there.

Uh, they are uh coming in uh about two million dollars over budget in a good way, uh, and that's helped to build their reserves up to kind of our target reserve uh area.

Uh planning is uh also seeing a bit of a turnaround.

We had a recalibration of fees that we brought to council last year.

And if you'll recall at budget committee last year, we had budgeted about $850,000 in subsidy for the planning fund.

Based on that recalibration and the activity that we've seen this year, we're only anticipating to need about $350,000.

So that's a turnaround of about 500,000 in the positive.

So that's good.

Engineering, we're still seeing some lagging, but we're working through some process improvement and fee recalibration there as well.

In the future, to highlight uh stormwater, water, and sewer are all within plus or minus 1%, or sorry, 2%.

Uh so those are pretty well on track.

And then lastly, to highlight the SCCs or system development charges, uh, those are all coming in uh well over budget.

Um, and that's primarily due to uh one-time larger developments, um thinking the uh Mosaic Medical Building, Eastmont Church, uh some of those larger uh developments.

Uh just a couple other things to highlight from the mid-biennium.

Uh state transportation funding remains a big question mark.

Uh several months ago we had a meeting with the budget committee where we were talking about uh what to do with state transportation funding, and that is no longer available.

Uh so we're still waiting to see uh where the legislature lands uh there.

But to provide some follow-up on some other things that we discussed at budget committee last year, we talked about cost of living increases as well as health insurance premiums, and just to highlight uh cost of living through labor negotiations, the cost of living increases are now tied to the consumer price index for all but the fire association.

Um, and so for the majority of our employees, they will be seeing a 3.3% uh cost of living adjustment, and that is again tied to the CPI.

We had only budgeted for 2%, which creates a variance of about 1.2 million.

On the health insurance side, we're seeing actual increases of 13.95%, and we budgeted for 15, so we're seeing some savings there.

Across the board in aggregate, looking at the city, we're projecting to have five to six percent uh personnel savings, which comes out to be about eight or nine million dollars.

So in the end, we're not anticipating any funds to be exceed their personnel budgets in FY26 or FY27 at this point.

Um, so in aggregate, things are uh on track.

And I mentioned a little bit already about the development fund reserves.

Uh the building fund is at about 20 months of reserves, uh, which is within uh striking distance of of their goal.

Uh planning is at about five and a half months of reserves, and their goal is to get up to six months of reserve of reserves with general fund support.

Uh, and then the private development engineering fund is at 10 and a half months of reserves, uh though they are deficit spending at this point.

As I mentioned, we're working through some process processes to uh change your trajectory on that fund.

So moving on to the preview portion of some of the items that will be coming on the 17th.

Uh in the agenda, there was a link to the red line fee resolution.

It's a 30-page document.

Uh, it's hefty, there are quite a few changes, quite a few fees in there.

Um, I'll just be going through some of the across the board fee increases or some of the ones that we need to call out that are uh more significant in nature.

But again, all the fees that we are proposing to change are highlighted in that uh document.

Um I'll also recognize that we have staff here from other departments that are experts on all these fee changes.

Uh so if we get to the point where we have time for questions, uh we have uh other department staff that can also assist in answering those.

But to start off, I'll just try to, since we don't have a ton of time, I'll try to tie these to whether they are in line with what we budgeted for or not.

Um first off, the building fund, we're requesting 2% increase in the budget.

We and with the budget committee, we had talked about a 5% increase based on the year that they've had.

We're not anticipating the need for that 5%, and we're just proposing two.

Private development engineering, uh, 5% is in line with what was in the adopted budget and what we presented before.

Planning, uh, we had proposed a 10% increase, but based on our fee recalibration, uh, we're only looking for 5% at this time.

Licensing fees, uh, this is looking at short-term rental fees, uh, taxi fees, taxi licenses, sorry, license short-term rental licenses, taxi licenses, that sort of thing.

We're looking at a 4% increase.

This increase was not projected in the adopted budget, but the licensing division is trying to trying to get to more of a cost uh cost recovery model, and this is tied uh in small part to the expenses that they're seeing or the cost increases that they're seeing right now.

Uh as far as business license registration, uh we've had some updates in the last 24 to 48 hours from what the documents were that were posted a few days ago.

Um previously we had been proposing a restructuring to how business licenses were uh being charged.

Uh we have since substituted a new proposal, and we're now proposing uh a 10% increase to business licenses, which is in line with what we had proposed to the budget committee last year and what is included in the budget.

So all the other changes are on pause for now, and we're just proposing a 10% change.

For water sewer and transportation system development charges, uh, there are a few changes going on here.

Um typically we tie our system development charge increases to the engineering news record cost construction cost inflation index that occurs in May, and that is slightly higher than what was in the budget.

The budget we budgeted for 1.8%.

The May ENR was 2.4%.

In addition to that across the board increase for transportation SECs, uh, we are also seeing the year three phase in uh from what was adopted by council back in 2024.

Uh this is the third year of implementation.

And also uh there's a new Institute for Transportation Engineers handbook, which sets the trip count for all the different uses in the system development charges.

Uh this new handbook increased some trip counts and decreased others.

At this time, we are proposing to implement the decreases in trip count, so there'll be a slight decrease, but we're not proposing to implement the increased trip counts at this time, uh, but may do so in the future.

Uh but there will be more information on this coming out with the council packet.

Um, but just again trying to say high level.

Uh parks SDCs, uh, these are uh just changes that are adopted by the parks board and we act uh we collect on behalf of them and then disperse to them.

And they adopted a 1.88% increase.

I'm gonna speed up here a little bit.

For water services, we're seeing a 4.9% increase in water, 1.8% in sewer, and 8% in stormwater.

The average impact on the customer bill is about 4%, which is in line with what was in the budget.

Airport charges are in line with uh lease language transportation fee, is again tied to that construction cost inflation index at 2.4%.

And then lastly, the solid waste hauling.

This is tied to our solid waste franchisees that operate within the city limits.

Uh they have requested a 4.5% increase tied to their cost of service.

Um, and we will go into more detail on that on the 17th as well.

Moving on from the fee schedule, getting to the staffing schedule update.

There have been uh nine point nine and a half positions requested uh for inclusion into the staffing schedule, three of those being limited term.

I'll go through these quickly.

Uh, first off, there is a half FTE single roll EMT being requested.

Uh, this is tied to the transition for fire EMS operations to a uh four shift structure.

This is not an increase in head count.

This is merely administrative.

Uh the employees that we have, their hours are shifting based on scheduling, and we required an extra half FTE to make it work from an HR perspective.

The four uh firefighter E uh paramedics are this is also tied to that four shift uh transition.

The fire department is experiencing challenges with vacancies, uh protected leaves, uh injuries and extensive training requirements, uh and they often have to supplement their shift, uh their deployable shifts with overtime rather than regular employees.

And so these four positions are intended to decrease our reliance on overtime.

Um, as such, they're not asking for additional budget authority for these positions.

They're intended to be funded via vacancy savings and that decreased reliance on overtime.

So we're trying to shift more of our personnel costs onto regular hours rather than overtime hours.

The police department is requesting a wellness coordinator.

Uh, this is intended to help uh design, implement, and manage a wellness program within the police department.

They currently have this operating as a contracted service, but they're looking to make a transition to in-house staffing to cut the costs there.

So they will be repurposing materials and services budget for this personnel.

Next on the list, the health and safety compliance coordinator.

This is a position that council requested in November 2025.

They've been working up at the temporary safe stay area north of town.

This is just formalizing it in the staffing schedule.

This is a position that was but included in the original adopted budget, but we had not added it to the staffing schedule yet as we were determining what the needs were at the new public works campus.

So the need has been identified, and we are now asking for that staff to be activated and added to the schedule.

They're asking for an urban renewal manager to help manage all the activity going on there.

And that will be funded through urban renewal dollars through their tax increment finance and through uh investment income that came in higher than budget.

So and then lastly, there's a community relations manager being requested by the community engagement community and engagement department, uh, and that is primarily focused on community engagement and trying to uh engage with uh ensuring that the community feels a part of decision making and engaged.

And lastly, the last item I want to go through is budget adjustments that we'll be taking on the 17th.

Uh we will be taking a but a supplemental budget to create the new tax increment finance area funds so that we can account for those.

Some year-end housekeeping is primarily tied to overhead transfers, interfund loans, uh just trying to balance things as the year has progressed.

We're also recognizing additional investment income that is above and beyond what we'd anticipated.

Uh with the public works campus, we've also consolidated our efforts there, and we now have a public works director and consolidated public works communications staff and HR staff that were repurposed from other departments.

But the way budgeting works, we have to do some adjustments so that we can transfer from the proper departments.

So again, that's uh mostly housekeeping.

The Bend Urban Renewal Agency, we need to appropriate additional funding for that new position that they've requested.

And then lastly, uh general fund one-time allocations.

Uh, this harkens back to the February meeting of the city council where we allocated some of the Juniper's land sales, uh land sale reserves to a few things, uh, for instance, 1.2 million dollars for streets uh for transportation projects, 1.7 million for the last six months of the shelter funding for the biennium, $750,000 for the uh TSSA for the last six months.

Uh and then we also allocated uh general fund contingency, $50,000 for a study of uh fire uh shared governance structure for the fire department, $50,000 for small business grants, and then uh we are also taking allocations for the health and safety compliance coordinator, which council requested in November, um, and general fund subsidy in the business advocacy fund uh to help support uh the addition of KDE Brooks uh as well as other programs within economic development.

And we have gone through all of the preview, and we have a couple minutes for uh questions.

Um thank you, Dan, for that presentation.

Uh yes, we do are do any of the members of the committee have questions regarding the topics covered by Dan.

I recognize the mayor.

Oh no.

Sorry, Councilman Councilwoman Morris.

Oh no, it was Councilman.

Brad.

Uh I just want to say that uh since I got on the band on the on the budget committee several years ago.

Uh one of the things that I identified early on was our sort of our burn rate on uh on overtime.

Uh and that was primarily in the fire and the and the police.

And I I just want to call them out as is taking steps to work on that, and and I really appreciate that because dollar for dollar, that really helps us as a city.

So I I just want to acknowledge and recognize the changes that they've made and say well done on that.

So thank you.

Um mayor?

Yeah.

Um I just wanted to thank the staff for taking into account some of the feedback we got about the potential for the business to be change.

That um I'm not sure if everyone on the budget got the same memo we got and saw that in the materials, but that was a pretty significant change that felt like we weren't ready to really take that on yet, and it was going to be impactful.

And it was going to be impactful.

So I appreciate pulling that back.

And we'll take a look at that later on.

Um instead of doing that now.

So thank you for that.

So it might clarify the question about that is just the so ten percent across the board and the existing fees, right?

Is that we do?

It's an increase from a hundred and twenty-one dollars to a hundred and thirty-three dollars for initial and ninety-four dollars up to a hundred and three dollars for renewals.

Do we know what the timeline for revisiting that new methodology is?

Uh defer from the folks on this diet.

Yeah.

I think we can discuss that at the seventeenth, maybe Ariel, on whether we think that might be appropriate or not.

So there are the comments or questions.

We have a hard stop in six minutes.

So we got a couple minutes.

If not, we're well ahead of schedule, and we can stay there, and I'm sure the mayor will be happy if we do.

Uh so let me just say, uh, first of all, I apologize for my misstatement about the budget committee needing further meetings.

I did have a discussion with Dan earlier before this meeting about what actions are required by the budget committee and which ones are not.

And we did indeed vote on the requirement of the budget committee, which involves revenues to the city.

Uh the changes or discussion and points, motions and changes to the budget that will be made by the council in two weeks are not required to have budget committee approval.

Those changes fall within the budget that was approved last year by the budget committee as a whole, so there will not be a meeting, and I really apologize for making that.

And I have no idea why I said that.

Why not?

Uh I just was asking for another meeting, I guess.

I would like to particularly thank the members of the budget committee who are not on the council for being here.

I think it's very important.

I'd like to thank the budget staff as well as the mayor for keeping us informed as part of this process.

I think that's highly important as we tend to get lost in the budget committee's not councilman or mayor.

Um do not get the constant feedback that the council does, and I very much appreciate being invited to this, as I'm sure the other members of the budget committee do as well.

Uh with that stated, I think I will entertain a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

So moved.

Uh do I have a second?

Second.

Uh second is heard.

All in favor say aye.

Everyone is naturally settling down, which is great.

All right, Trisha.

We're good.

Okay.

So we're going to go ahead and call to order our Fenn City Council meeting.

And we will start with roll call on your end, Councillor Franzosa.

Gina Franzosa, she her.

Melanie Keebler, she her.

Megan Perkins, she her.

Megan Norris, she her.

And so we're going to move into go to the order.

I am going to ask Council for permission to move items C and D to the end of the meeting.

A lot of folks who are here to talk.

So we'll do a two proclamations and then go into the consent agenda if that's okay with everybody.

Okay.

So that will get us right into our proclamations.

And it is my honor to read our Pride Month proclamation tonight.

So I'm going to go ahead and do that.

This month and every month, the City of Benn stands with individuals who are two spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and are questioning, intersex, asexual, and other sexual orientations and gender identities as they declare their pride in who they are and whom they love.

Queer and trans individuals deserve to live in dignity and safety, equally deserving to love and be loved.

They are our family, our friends, our neighbors, our leaders, and our co-workers.

They are our community.

During Pride Month, we are reminded that our remarkable diversity is a gift that makes all of us stronger.

And we recognize the resilience and determination of the many individuals who are still fighting for the freedom to live authentically.

As leaders of the city of Benn, we affirm our commitment to support the rights of our queer and trans community members.

Ending violence and discrimination against the queer and trans community demands our continued focus and diligence.

We are currently witnessing attacks across the country on the dignity and rights of all queer and trans people, but most specifically transgender adults and youth who are being targeted and denied basic health care and rights that many of us take for granted, like having a license, using a restroom, or accessing a passport.

It is vital that our community recognize the threats our queer and trans community members still face today, as well as continue to find ways to protect and support them.

Now, therefore, we the Bend City Council do hereby proclaim June 2026 as 2 S L G B T QIA plus Pride Month in Bend, Oregon.

We call on people of Bend to recognize past injustices and to realize that the fight for civil rights is not yet won.

It is up to us to stand together as one community to uphold the rights of everyone.

I move adoption of the proclamation.

Second.

Alright, move by Councillor Riley, second by Council Mendes.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

And we have a couple folks here to accept the proclamation from Ben Pride in Out Central Oregon.

So if you all want to, you can both come up together and say a few words.

And please introduce yourselves too.

Thank you.

My name is Jake Redding.

I'm the president of Ben Pride, which is a 50123 here in Bend, Oregon.

And just a huge thank you for the opportunity to publicly proclaim on behalf of our city the safety, the injustice, inequities that do exist, but also that we're moving towards standing behind our community that is marginalized.

Also accepting this proclamation on behalf of marginalized community members that are not don't look like us.

And so while we are in deep gratitude, we want to also honor the backs of black and brown and people of color who have come before us who have paved the way our two S community members that have created a privilege for us to be able to accept today's proclamation as well.

So just a huge thank you for continuing to have our back on behalf of the city and Ben Pride.

Just a huge thank you.

Excellent.

Well said.

Justin Bubenick with Out Central Oregon interim president.

Just want to echo those sentiments and echo the thanks and gratitude that we have to accept this proclamation on behalf of the community, recognizing that there are folks out there that still aren't ready to come forward and able to come forward, and that this is just a small step to make the world a more welcoming and place where we can all feel comfortable as ourselves.

So thank you.

And we have a pride celebration coming up.

Would you give some details on that so people know?

We'd love to.

This Saturday, June 6th in Drake Park from 12 to 3 is our annual summer pride.

And we've got vendors, artisans, the whole collective of community.

We have shifted our uh experience to be community-led community first.

Um and so it is happening because of a multitude of organizations, individuals, and collectives that are putting on a great experience for our community.

And fingers crossed it doesn't rain.

But please come out and enjoy the celebration and also recognizing that it is still a protest for what you've articulated that our rights are still being challenged, and that's what we're here to continue to find our voice in amidst the societal um silencing that's trying to take place.

So I hope folks can go to that.

The city will have a booth.

We may have staff and counselors there.

Um if you can see you can get this really cool sticker for Pride Month.

So thank you both for all the work that you and your organizations do in the community.

So I'm particularly excited to join you on Saturday.

My oldest son is gay, and it's also his birthday on Saturday.

Oh, great day to celebrate.

All right, thank you so much for being here.

And um, everybody.

Yeah, exactly.

Let's get in.

Yeah.

Yes.

Let's get it the right way.

I think we all have it.

Everybody.

Okay, very good.

Thank you.

Thanks so much.

You might use getting one.

I was always going to ask.

Okay, so for our second proclamation, this is about National Gun Violence Awareness Day.

This proclamation declares the first Friday in June to be National Gun Violence Awareness Day in the city of Bend to honor and remember all victims and survivors of gun violence and to declare that we as a country must do more to end this public health crisis.

Every day, more than 130 Americans are killed by gun violence, with more than 19,000 homicides and 27,300 suicides each year.

And for every person shot and killed, two more are shot and injured, and 59% of American adults have experienced gun violence.

The leading cause of death for American children and teens is gun violence.

And three million American children have witnessed gun violence.

Oregon has an average of 600 gun deaths every year, a crisis that costs the state 8.1 billion each year, of which 89.1 million is paid by taxpayers.

And in Oregon, the rate of gun deaths increased 25% from 2015 to 2024, compared to a 15% increase nationwide.

Deschutes County in particular faces a severe youth mental health challenge with local youth suicide rates historically exceeding both state and national averages, with the majority of those deaths completed by firearm.

Cities across the nation, including Bend are working to end the senseless violence with evidence-based solutions and support for the second amendment rights of law-abiding citizens that goes in hand in hand with keeping guns away from children, teens, and people with dangerous histories.

Anyone can join this campaign by pledging to wear orange on June 5th to help raise awareness about gun violence and to honor the lives of victims and survivors.

And we renew our commitment to reduce gun violence and pledge to do all we can to keep firearms out of the hands of people who should not have access to them and encourage responsible gun ownership to help keep our families and communities safe.

Now therefore be it resolved that we, the Benn City Council, proclaim the first Friday in June to be National Gun Violence Awareness Day.

We encourage all citizens to support their local communities' efforts to prevent the tragic effects of gun violence and to honor and value human lives.

I moved to set the proclamation.

Second.

All right, move by Councillor Platt, second by Councilor Norris.

All those in favor.

And we have some of our local advocates here from the Central Oregon Gun Safety Group.

Okay, good.

Just a fall.

Hi everyone.

My name is Deb Gazeford.

I'm here today with Central Oregon gun safety advocates.

I did not bring my stickers.

Next time I will remember them.

This month we wear orange to honor the many Americans who have been impacted by gun violence and to bring awareness to the fact that, as you said, every day in our country, 130 people are killed by firearms and many more are wounded.

I don't know if we have a slide where we were going to put up, but you know, for the last 15 years, the Giffords Law Center has analyzed state laws compared to gun deaths, and the data are really clear that fewer people die from gun violence in states that pass evidence-based laws.

There's the trend line right there.

So it's pretty clear what we need to be doing.

And in Oregon, we have taken some legislative action, and we're thankful for that.

Yet our gun deaths per thousand are still 14.2, which is 11% higher than the national average, and actually double the rate of California's rate.

A lot of that difference is due to suicide in Oregon.

So three-quarters of firearm deaths in Oregon are suicides, and in Deschutes County, that's even worse.

The Deschutes County suicide death rates are higher than the state of Oregon and almost twice the national average with rates of firearm suicide in Deschutes County among 10 to 17-year-olds, two times higher than the state and three times higher than the national average.

So we thank our state legislators and local officials for advocating for the recently funded youth psych facility, which will definitely help kids in crisis.

But the responsibility lies with adults to protect children and teens from gun violence.

So we ask uh this month and every month, the community to please store your firearms locked and unloaded.

The research is clear on that as well.

Safe storage saves lives.

So Mayor Keebler and Council members, we're grateful to come every year to uh witness your proclamation.

We thank you for your commitment to addressing uh this public health crisis of gun violence.

We know Bend is safer because we have you here, and we greatly appreciate it.

So thank you, Deb.

Thank you.

Um and I'm uh I'm proud of this council for supporting measure 114, which we know is still held up in court, but is one of those laws that helps us move down that graph in the right direction.

Um, and also want to point out that the Benn Police Department recently put out an alert about two different accidental discharges of firearms.

Again, the safety aspect of this is really key for people to be aware of and to follow the rules.

So we really thank you for all of your advocacy.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I did actually look at the case.

No, I know.

Okay, thank you.

Thanks, Daniel.

Are we we'll we'll get to you.

Yeah, let's do it.

Thank you.

Thanks, everyone.

Go ahead.

Okay, so that will conclude the good of the order section and bring us to our visitors section.

This is time for um the public to give us feedback on city issues.

Folks who are here for um the climate pollution fee item.

We will be calling you all during that item is out as a public hearing separately.

So these will be folks who are here on a different topic.

And give me one second while I sort my forms.

Okay, great.

All right.

So um, what I will be doing is calling you up to sit up here at the table.

You'll have two minutes to speak to us.

Here's your big timer right here to keep an eye on.

It will turn that little light, will turn yellow when you have about 30 seconds left.

Um, please speak to us as a body and not as individuals.

Um, and please avoid any derogatory or um discriminatory language that would disrupt the meeting, and I don't think we're gonna have any problems with that today.

Um, okay, so we have a few folks here for the general comment that I'm gonna call through.

Um, and we'll start with Marissa Hurley.

I think I'm reading that right.

Also on touches, sorry.

It is important, but uh thank you guys all for being here.

And if just for everyone, if you can start with saying your name and whether you live in the city of Bend.

Go ahead.

Um, my name is Marcel Hurley.

Um, I live in the city of Bend.

Um after living in Cook River for 12 years, the 13 years I've been here, and it's a welcome change.

Um, I would like to talk about the ALPR cameras with our police, our Bend police department.

Um I would like to say thank you all for being here today.

Um my gosh.

This um is a sorry, I started with it.

Okay.

Um this morning we learned that it is an option to opt out of the ALPR surveillance while maintaining other necessary public safety monitoring measures so as to not create the space for our valuable and sensitive data to be mishandled.

Um we need to create an open information sharing with the public in a friendly and easily accessible way.

We need clear disclosure on the rules that will govern our city's surveillance data example, where it's stored for how long, who can access it, and to those um access it and those inquiry and where those inquiries are logged, amongst many other important questions.

The passing of Senate Bill 1516, specifically sections three through nine have brought up the conversation of ALPR data storage access and security for misuse.

The city of Benn, please, unlike the Deschutes County Sheriffs, are already using ALPR without much public oversight.

We the public deserve to know how the city of Bend PD plans to safely store and maintain our data and keep it from being misused.

We the public would urge the city to create real defined policies to hold the vendors and users of our information to the highest of standards.

Um the format for a better public oversight on this matter already exists, and I think we could do a better job at using it.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Marissa.

Thank you.

Next is Foster Fell.

And after that will be David Baker Yule.

Alright.

Okay.

Do you want me to do that?

David, why don't you go first?

Okay.

While they get foster.

I'm not going to take much time.

Go ahead, David.

Good evening.

I'm David Baker Yule from Bend.

I'm not in favor of surveillance as a whole.

But if surveillance is inevitable, I'd be in favor of reviewing ALPR policy or surveillance policy as a whole and having citywide surveillance ordinance before entering contracts.

Policy, I like a policy that is approved by the city with input from the citizens, which I'm aware you're doing now, and I appreciate that.

And potentially oversight of operations, possibly from something like a uh independent oversight to be sure that just to have autonomy from the city or government.

And that's all I have.

All right.

Thank you, David.

Thank you.

Foster Fell.

And then after that will be Victoria Wilde.

This is a supposed repurposed No Kings rally sign.

I'm uh I'm not here.

Oh, there's a microphone.

You're good, right?

I'm not here associated with Ben Privacy Alliance, but I do believe it's a wonderful addition to our community.

Um I came upon um Jonathan's library, an item about an October 2024 City Council agenda concerning a five-year axon officer safety plan premium subscription, costing 2.5 million dollars.

Uh and it's a bundle project product.

I'm afraid that um Axon might want to integrate its uh uh ALPR into this um into this uh what they call the ecosystem.

Um may already be too late to to the gate to regulate this kind of vertical integration.

I compare it metaphorically to a high-tech timeshare from which there is no exit except by taking on enormous costs and amounts of time to do so.

Um speaking probably as an individual right now.

Um I don't feel that uh Axon's business model is in keeping or consistent with our community's values, and uh that poster uh uh depicts some of the the reasons uh um companies like Axon exercise so much outsized influence in our civic life, especially in the realm of human rights.

And I might I would just uh take a moment to say that if we have controversial contracts like this coming before us, I think we should um probably divert some of the uh uh some of this to the human rights and equity commission for their guidance and their advice and their wisdom uh before we make any any decisions.

Uh we could go okay.

Uh so uh I'll I'll have this one display out in the lobby.

And anyone who wants to see it uh uh please please feel free and then um oh my other recommendation uh uh a civilian police review board to meet with the chief of police uh in public with public and press present on a regular basis to uh secure accountability and transparency.

Thank you.

All right, Victoria Wilde, and after that, Jonathan Westmerlin.

Mayor and counselors, my name is Victoria Wilde, Bend resident.

The installation and activation of ALPRs or fixed license plate readers is an expansion of surveillance technology that threatens the safety and privacy of Bend residents as well as makes the city subject to litigation.

The three-week activation of the flock system showed its permeability to federal immigration authorities.

279 queries in three weeks.

Oregon state police are now being sued for permitting federal inquiries of state databases this past year.

Axon is known to have tens of millions of dollars in federal immigration contracts.

I foresee leaks of information, private data being shared without permission.

Today, federal overreach is a constant.

I have three asks.

One, do not adopt policy 428 without a full public hearing and amendments to align with SB 1516's intent.

Two, do not approve any new ALPR system until the policy is fixed.

That policy 428.

And third, adopt a citywide surveillance technology ordinance that requires council approval with public notice and comment before any new surveillance technology is acquired, expanded, or updated.

Thank you.

Thank you, Victoria.

Jonathan, and then after that, Madison Bordeaux.

Hi, my name is Jonathan Wetzmore, and I'm living Bend.

Over the last two weeks, I've read the contract, studied the state and local laws, and tried to understand what rules will govern a fixed camera system before one gets built here.

I'm not here to tell you surveillance technology is wrong.

I'm here because the rules matter, and right now the rules aren't ready.

The mayor has confirmed any new fixed ALPR system will come before council to vote and public comment.

I'm grateful for that.

It means this council has a real decision to make and the public will be part of it.

But City Bill 1516 should be treated as the floor, not the ceiling.

It passed quickly during a short legislative session.

Bend can do better.

Who controls the encryption keys?

What happens if Axon receives a subpoena or warrant from another state or federal government seeking Bend residence location data for immigration enforcement, abortion related investigations, or other purposes that conflict with Oregon law?

If the city does not hold the keys, then the city does not truly control the data.

And whether or not Axon fits the technical statutory definition of a data broker, the public concern is similar.

A private company is being paid to store, process, and facilitate the sharing of sensitive location data between agencies.

There's also a purpose question.

This is funded through a retail theft grant, so why are the cameras being proposed at entry and exit points to the city?

That looks less like retail theft prevention and more like tracking movements into and out of Bend.

When that contract comes before you, make sure the policy framework comes with it, not after, assumed, publicly before you vote, so residents can see the rules for how location data will be collected, stored, shared, protected, and deleted.

Tonight I filed a petition asking council to review policy 428 before that contract arrives.

Policy review should happen while council still has leverage, not after the framework is already locked in.

A citywide surveillance ordinance would mean Bend never has to have this conversation from scratch again.

Clear rules adopted by this council applied to every new technology.

So the community doesn't have to change each contract, hoping the rules catch up in time.

You have the time and the authority to get this right.

I hope you will.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jonathan.

You're here.

Madison Bordeaux and then Kim Mander.

Hello, Council.

Uh, my name is Madison Bordeaux.

I live in Bend.

I've written written testimony, so I will or submitted written testimony, so I'll keep it to what I'm asking for tonight.

I'm against any proposed ALPR system, full stop.

I know leadership is committed to bringing the axon add-on before council with a chance for public comment, and I appreciate that, but a comment window on one contract is not the fix.

The reason we're here is structural.

Under city code, a quarter million dollars can be added to an existing contract without a council vote.

That threshold is written for office supplies and routine purchases.

It should not apply to surveillance technology or policing gear.

As long as that rule stands, the next expansion just rides in the same way this one did.

I want to remind us of how we got body cameras.

They came out of a public demand for police accountability after George Floyd was murdered.

Uh, they were never meant to become cover for surveillance infrastructure.

The public never agreed to and never even saw coming.

I want to thank the counselor for the pride proclamation read tonight, and I do mean that, but I'd also like to ask you to hold those two things in the same hand.

The surveillance stack this city is building doesn't stay local.

It feeds into federal systems, including platforms built for ice and homeland security.

A proclamation protects no one if the infrastructure underneath it can be turned against the very people it stood up for.

Sanctuary and shield commitments are only as strong as the data systems that can route around them.

Uh so I'm not asking only for a hearing on this one contract.

I'm asking council to change the rule to carve surveillance technology and policing gear out of the city manager's 250,000 dollar approval authority so that no future systems can be bought in without a public vote.

Uh member, this council has already said publicly that decisions like this should come before the public before they happen, so let's make that the rule and not the exception.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madison.

Kim Mander and then Emily Brown.

Thank you for your attention and time, Mayor and Counselors.

My name is Kim Mander, and I'm a resident of Bend.

I'm here to talk to ask the council to adapt a surveillance ordinance.

We need a clear, solid framework that will guide the approval of any uh ALPR's contracts.

Meeting a minimum at minimum of our OR Senate Bill 1516 is a starting point.

We can do better in Bend.

There are a lot of unanswered questions, which you've already heard tonight regarding ALRPs.

How long is non-relevant data stored?

Who has access to this data?

The most vulnerable need to be protected.

BIPOC, children, women that the data can be used to stock and people they're going to seek out under ICE.

Policy 428 needs a public hearing and needs to be amended according to valid concerns.

Ben should not sign any ALPR contracts without a solid policy in place.

Thank you.

Thanks, Kim.

Next is Emily Brown, and then we have a couple of online commenters.

Hello.

I'm also here to talk about surveillance.

And some of the things that stuck out to me so far is what Jonathan said about tracking women over state lines, erasing trans existence, and tracking and kidnapping immigrants, which are all things that have happened like in the last month.

And I ask that you pause any contract amendments and strategize on a specific and actionable surveillance ordinance with input from the public, from privacy experts, and legal professionals, such as those who work with the Electronic Freedom Foundation.

Axon is a private for-profit company with contracts with ICE and DHS, as well as governments overseas found to have been committing genocide.

They have no ethical qualms with violating people's rights in those respects.

So there's so their interest is the bottom line, not protecting citizens or their data.

Axon is an ecosystem, the hardware, the software, the evidence locker, and the analytics.

This concern is more pressing now than ever due to the scope and scale that AI adds to the invasiveness of our surveillance state.

This morning, the county sheriff said that they trust the vendor to implement their own controls.

Quote, being a SAS product, they're role controlled and audited.

So they're auditing themselves, and we are to take them at their word that they're following our state's laws.

Axon also told the sheriff's office that the new Oregon law to protect protect from federal overreach doesn't apply to them because, quote, Axon is not a data broker.

We need civilian oversight.

We need external to the company and then PD auditors.

Law enforcement officers, both interstate and interest state, should be required to get a warrant to query data.

Retention of data not related to a crime should be hours, not weeks.

There should be a strict timeline in which law enforcement officers must report breaches of the system to the public.

And in regards to the tax dollars used to pay for all of this, we should have public-facing reporting from law enforcement officers and axon about the efficacy and the real use cases for the subscriptions and installments, as well as installments of sunset clauses in the contracts.

Thank you, Emily.

That's the end of your time.

Thank you.

All right, so going to our online commenters, we have two.

So we'll get that set up.

Okay, so we'll start with Darren Ash.

And Darren, if you can hear us, you can go ahead and unmute and start speaking.

All right, good evening, Council members.

I'm Darren Ash, speaking on ALPR and policy 428.

I live in La Pine, but I drive to Bend a lot.

And how tracking and surveillance information is handled affects everyone.

I also have a degree in computer science, and I've been in the compute uh computer security professional for over 20 years.

There's a lot to talk about on this topic, but I'll stay in my lane of computer security for tonight.

The issue of how our data is stored and who has access to our data isn't just a purchasing issue, it's a public policy issue, and it's in the public interest for the elected council to oversee it.

As currently written, policy 428 has some major holes.

The biggest hole is how data is stored.

Contrary to standard practices in the software industry with 428, the vendor can still access our data, even if a contract says they're not supposed to.

So it happens when ICE issues a warrant for immigration purposes, the vendor can have hand it over.

What happens when an agency issues a subpoena to the vendor for data on protesters or patients getting abortion or gender affirming health care?

The vendor can disclose the data.

If the vendor has access to the data, then Oregon's SHIEL laws are completely useless.

Not to mention a disgruntled vendor employee could steal the data and sell it to data brokers or scammers.

The fix is really simple.

It's suspensifying to find end-to-end encryption, and who has access to the keys.

The vendors hate that because they want access to our data, but don't believe them when they say that it's too difficult.

End-to-end encryption is straightforward, it's software industry standard, it's something that'll be around long after all of us are gone.

And frankly, in my expert opinion, it's outright negligent not to do it.

And in the interest of time, I'll send you a short email with more details because it is in the public interest for you to oversee and fix policy 428.

Thank you.

Thank you, Darren.

And then the second online commenter is Michelle Martin.

Michelle, if you hear us, you can go ahead.

Good evening.

I'm can is the audio okay?

Yeah, we can hear you.

Go ahead.

I'm here about the axon camera use also.

Hopefully, the city heard us when our community pushed back to stop flock.

Exxon cameras are mass surveillance solution in search of a problem.

Now is not the time to use axon or expand surveillance, creating a digital dragnet.

Now is not the time due to warrantless searches, unauthorized federal data sharing.

Federal government overreach is happening.

Requirements of Oregon SB 1516 signed recently also need taken into account.

As the city council may know, county commissioners did approve Exxon this morning.

County discussion centered around a perfect scenario that data breaches are prevented by CISO, cyber information security controls and operations, along with audits and contract clauses.

Perfect scenarios are not the land we live in.

Who is not the modified of a data breach?

Cloud software as a service on premise servers, data breaches do occur.

My family has accrued oodles of free year of identity monitoring.

In fact, the most recent data breach, we took the $80 instead of the free monitoring.

Apparently, our data in the U.S.

can be had pretty cheaply.

And it is not possible to put that data genie back in the bottle.

I asked the council to also consider this question in their future decision making.

Who is most vulnerable to abuses of mass surveillance systems?

It is communities of color.

Women who have been stalked and data breaches implicated.

And people without the financial resources to defend themselves against unauthorized data access or breaches.

Bottom line, axon should not be used or expanded.

We should ask axon.

Thank you for your time tonight.

Thanks, Michelle.

Okay, so that's it for the online commenters for this section.

And we have one more in-person commenter, Kimberly Lear.

Is Kimberly here?

We'll check the hallway.

Okay.

All right.

We will end the visitor section then.

And that will move us on to the consent agenda item.

I move it off to another consent agenda.

Sorry, that was fast.

All right.

Uh motion made by Councilor Riley.

Second by Counselor Platt.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Okay.

That will move us to item number five.

Um, oh yes.

Uh five, six, and seven, five, six, seven, and eight are all together.

So if you wouldn't mind reading, let's read five, six, seven, and eight.

Yeah, thanks.

This is a public hearing motion to authorize use of and adopt findings supporting the construction manager, general contract, contractor alternative delivery method for the digister for and health waste project.

And number six, council is asked to authorize uh city manager to accept a grant from and enter into a grant agreement with the federal railroad administration for final design construction of the Reed Market Bridge project.

And number seven, council is authorized to is asked to authorize a guaranteed maximum price.

Amendment number four to the progressive design bill contract with KE excavating for the midtown multimodal connections and street schemating project.

And number eight, council is asked to authorize a progressive design build agreement with KE XVI ink for the only review or intersections project and an amount not to exceed 2,475,648.

Great job.

Right, I'm in a two-minute mark.

All right, good job.

All right, good evening, Council.

Sorry, they are you opening the process.

Yeah, sorry, I'm sorting some paper right here, and I'm missing my option to open the public hearing on item number five.

Perfect.

Thank you.

So good evening, Council Ryan O'Strom, the director of the engineering department.

Uh, as you just heard, you're gonna get four consecutive agenda items here.

So staff will rotate through as each specialty and expert speaks.

So to kick us off, I'm handing it over to Jason Sir, one of our principal engineers within the engineering department.

Great.

Uh good evening, Jason Sir as Ryan said, Here to talk about the digester for and hauled waste uh project that the city is initiating tonight.

We're here to adopt the findings to support the use of alternative delivery or low bid exemption, primarily with the use of construction manager, general contractor delivery, in which the city hires an engineer of record and then a general contractor, and then we form the team from there.

The purpose of this uh night is to approve the findings.

We did go to the public contract review board two weeks ago, May 19th, to present our um findings, and there was support from the committee at that time.

So now we're here to formally adopt them.

This is a project that is in the proposed CIP.

Um, it is one of the projects that's being fast tracked out of our facility plan update at our water reclamation facility.

It is a large project on the order of 115 million dollars.

There's a lot of technical complexities, and so the CMGC delivery methodology further supports the scale of the project.

Overall, the scope of the work is to add a fourth digester that's on our digestion side, so the solids handling, those are the tall round structures out there, 80, 85 feet tall.

So we're going to be adding the fourth one of them out there, and we will also be receiving hauled waste, which is a combination of fats, oils, and grease, with which is a byproduct of restaurant industry.

Uh, we will also be receiving the septic waste that haulers take from properties on septic, and then um additionally the uh portopody waste from all the events that we do have around central organism.

So this is also not limited to the city of Bin.

This is a regional um solution to hauled waste.

Overall timeline for this project, we do need to get going on it.

We do have an estimated completion of the end of 2030 in June 30th of 2030.

Our current third-party hauled waste contractor is vacating the industry, and so we do need to act swiftly to have a solution in place to make sure that we can handle the regional solution the regional production of hauled waste along with capacity improvements on our digestion side of treatment.

Um so as you can see throughout the life of the project, it is lengthy, but overall we will be handling our approving the findings tonight, going to an owner's representative, then an engineer of record, and then a construction manager or construction general contractor.

So overall, that's the timeline.

Um, open it up for council discussion.

All right.

Um, so this is a public hearing, and we have not had anyone sign up for public comment on this particular item.

If there's anyone here for a comment on item number five about the digester.

Hearing none, I'm gonna go ahead and close the public hearing and we are ready for a motion.

Well, I mean, I just want to stress from the from the um contracts subcommittee that the importance of this moving forward, not just for the hauled waste, but also for the digester in general.

I mean, this critical infrastructure for the performance and safety of our overall um sewage treatment system, right?

Which is a really important quality of life and public health and safety issues.

So um, you didn't emphasize maybe that quite as much as we heard the other day, but I just want to make sure everybody in the public is clear about that.

It's really important we move on this and the environment now.

Yeah.

Even I heard about this in the tour about a year ago.

Yeah, so do they have an expected lifespan?

Overall, yeah.

I mean, the right now the adding the fourth one is really to allow for capacity where we do have implemental or incremental process improvements equipment production.

So we could be using this the same one in a hundred years.

Yes, you can if you can't take care of it.

Take care of and swap out equipment, yeah, maintain it.

We do have uh two digesters from the original inception in 1980.

We added a third one later.

Um, so the ones of 1980 are still in operation, and we think you continue to operate them.

Jason, if I remember if I remember right, this also allows you to do maintenance more efficiently, right?

Because extra capacity allows you to get in the other ones and clean them out when you when you need to.

Correct, right?

Yeah, so right now we don't have the ability to take our our digester three, which is the large one offline to also treat to the um class A exceptional biosolids that we do.

So otherwise we clap treat to the class B.

So this does provide some resiliency on the digestion side of things.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

All right.

I move to authorize the use of the construction manager, general contractor, alternative delivery method for the digester 4 and hauled waste project and to adopt the findings submitted to council.

Second.

Alright, move by Council Riley, second by Councillor Franzoza.

All those in favor.

Aye.

All right, unanimous.

Thanks, Jason.

All right.

Next project is the Reed Market Bridge Federal Rail Administration Grant Agreement.

So to walk us through that, uh Mike Gaffney from the city's attorney's office and Alex Stoza, one of our senior project engineers in the engineering department.

Good evening.

The Reed Market Bridge project was included in the 2020 uh transportation system plan and the voter approved 2020 general obligation bomb.

It will increase east-west east-west traffic flow capacity and connectivity in Benn.

The basic elements of the project include a bridge over the BNSF railroad tracks, maintaining that 9th Street connection to Reed Market Road, and constructing a pedestrian tunnel underneath Reed Market, connecting to the key route on the west side of 9th Street.

In June of 2023, the city was awarded a 1.05 million dollar Federal Rail Administration grant through the railroad crossing elimination grant program.

That was for preliminary design and engineering.

Preliminary engineering and environmental review.

That phase was also a uh a requirement in order for us to be eligible to obligate this next grant.

Um and so really proud to say that in just three months we're sitting here for approval.

Um the in January of 2025, we were awarded $32 million grant under the same program uh for final design and construction.

Um and I'll let Mike get into that a little further.

So we've worked with FRA staff to negotiate on both project specific and general terms in the grant agreement.

We've removed those terms that we've talked with council about that are the subject of various favorable court orders, and we're in the process of reaching final agreement with the FRA on those terms, which is why you'll see in the motion that it says that you're moving to authorize the city manager to enter into an agreement in the form approved by the city attorney.

Those conversations we think are coming to a close, and we expect final terms probably in the next week here.

So the 32 the 32 million dollar grant is the federal share, 70% of the total project cost.

Uh the 30% is uh just under 14 million, and um the non-federal funds are predominantly general obligation on funds with a small contribution from the NSF um rail, and so the estimated project total is about 46 million dollars.

All right.

Council, any questions before the motion on this item?

Hurrah.

Excellent.

Pretty exciting.

I'm very glad that we are a party to and have won some of the lawsuits that allow us to continue to operate independently without the interference of the federal government reaching out beyond what I think is constitutionally permissible, and um very excited to have this grant.

I think it's gonna make a big difference for people in Bend.

Great.

I move to authorize the city manager to accept a grant from an enter into a grant agreement with the federal railroad administration in a form approved by the city attorney in an amount up to 32 million 321,299 to complete final design and construction of the Reed Market Bridge project.

Second.

All right, moved by Council Franzosa, second by Council Mendez.

All those in favor.

All right, unanimous.

Thank you.

Item number seven.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Item seven is the guaranteed maximum price, often referred to as the GMP for the Franklin Avenue, which is a component of the larger midtown crossing project.

So I have Todd Johnson here with me, one of our senior project engineers in the engineering department.

Hi, yeah.

So just for background, the next slide should show where we've been with this project.

Guaranteed maximum price GMP 1.

We constructed in summer of 24.

It's constructing Greenwood and the 2nd Street water line.

GMP two, we constructed all of 2nd Street in the fall, going into summer of 25.

GMP 3, we just constructed to the east of force of 4th Street on Franklin, going out to 8th, completed that in early 2026.

And GMP 4, we're anticipating will we have set as the completion date is July 1st, 2027.

The scope of Franklin were propose we're building eight foot sidewalks with six foot bike paths adjacent generally where we can where we get right of way constricted.

We do have a shared use path generally mirrors what we constructed to the east on 4th Street on Franklin with a few exceptions where we are adding um requested parallel parking and then landscaping is also important.

So adding trees and trying to green make this corridor greener where we can.

And then budget the one the thing I wanted to point out here on the budget.

The the motion tonight is for 15.8 million.

When we when we originally put out the RFP, we said generally these midtown improvements will be at the 30 million dollar level.

And if you look at our previously approved contracts versus the contract on tonight's agenda, we're just shy of the 30 million dollars on the estimate.

And again, there's yeah, there's quite a lot of stormwater and water funding because of those infrastructure improvements that we're proposing.

All right, great.

Um flooded last year, right?

So we will take care of that.

Yeah, and I I have a picture of the flooding in the tunnel that I was gonna ride my bike through, and then I turned around and go the other way because I wasn't gonna do that.

So very needed.

Um further questions on this one long road to get here.

Yes.

Just comment Todd.

I know it was a there was some a lot of moving parts that you did to to have that break for the holidays uh right there, and and I really appreciate you responding to public input and in making that happen.

That's that's well done, and I know that's not simple for what you're doing.

So thanks.

All right, we're gonna change the motion.

I moved off the guarantee maximum price amendment to the progressive design build contract with Canny Excavating Inc.

for the midtown multimodal connections and streetscaping project, and substantially the form presented to council and an amendment amount not to not to exceed 50 million eight hundred and twenty-nine thousand one hundred and sixty-one dollars and twenty-two cents for total contract amount not to exceed 29,917,442.36 cents.

That's a lot of dollars.

I'll second.

All right, move by council Norris, second by council Perkins.

All those in favor?

Aye.

All right, unanimous.

Okay, on to item number eight.

All right, finally, last agenda item is the approval of the progressive design build, often called a PDB agreement for the only revier intersections, often referred to as the four-pack.

And so to talk to us about that this evening, I'm Carrie Harris, who's one of our project engineers in the department.

Good evening, council.

Yes, as Ryan said, this was authorized for PDB alternative delivery back in November 2025 by council.

This was selected as the delivery method in part due to cost savings and sequencing needs for traffic detours during construction because we do have four close proximity intersections that we're gonna be improving.

Those are shown on the screen here.

It's a northeast bin in the orchard district.

For some background on this project, this was at first identified in the 2020 transportation system master plan for capacity improvements at the four intersections.

These were then included in the 2020 transportation general obligation bond project list as four separate intersection capacity projects.

The transportation bond oversight committee then uh group these sub projects together into one larger capital project for efficiency coordination and cost saving for the TSC and geobond resolution language improvements include installation of a roundabout or traffic signal at each of the locations.

The two intersections on 4th Street, we're currently planning for those to be moved towards a signalized intersection, and that's due to the proximity of the third street existing signalized intersections on those corridors.

So we're able to get a green wave effect and have those signals communicating with each other, whereas we wouldn't be able to do that with roundabouts at 4th Street, and we would start to see cues potentially into 3rd Street.

And then on 8th Street, we're planning for both of these to be uh roundabout improvements at this time, but we have been having some additional conversations around Olni and 8th.

And so we are digging into that one more over the next month, and we're conducting new traffic counts for today this year, and looking at like a 24 hour analysis of how this intersection at Old Nian Eighth operates, not just during peak hour, which I'll show you in a second, but also over 24 hours.

Um so we can jump to that if you want, Ryan.

Thank you.

So this is what we're modeling for 2040 at the intersection of Owning and Eighth around 5 p.m.

So that peak hour after work traffic.

This is along the hospital route.

And so what we're seeing is just shy of about a mile long queue.

That's around like 10 red lights, if you will, for a vehicle to wait in this line.

I will know our modeling starts to break down when we hit failure of this kind.

So there are realities where some people might start to take different routes or cut through routes through neighborhoods instead of waiting in a mile long queue.

Um, but that's what we're seeing here.

And that's just about eight times worse than what we see today during peak hour at this time to give you some perspective.

Um, and then in the light blue color here, that's if we did everything we could to this existing signal.

So we could add a southbound right turn lane.

We could try to do some um coordination improvements at this location, but we're still seeing a cue about a half mile with that improving the signal option.

Note that this doesn't include influence from pilot mute middle school, which also creates cues around here, as well as the only and third intersection that is already at capacity for eastbound and westbound movements, and so those do have influence that's not shown here.

So, because of those reasons, we started looking into the roundabout options at this location.

The single lane roundabout is shown in the light green color.

Um, or sorry, the dark blue color, and that is modeled to fail in this PM peak hour around 2031.

And so, because of that failure in 2031, we started looking into a partial multi-lane roundabout.

I want to note with the light green partial multi-lane roundabout here, that's only multiple lanes on the entrance where vehicles are already starting to yield and slow down, so it's not two circulating lanes or two exit lanes.

Um, and then finally on this map, we do have the city's identified key walking and biking route on the black dashed line, and that is not through this intersection, it's actually one block south.

So the city and Oda are performing improvements along this route, and that would be our more protected system for someone to walk or bike with kids or whatnot.

So, our project schedule, we do have um more council engagement opportunities coming up.

We have an owner's representation contract coming to council next month, as well as anticipating a right-of-way imminent domain authorization later into the fall and GMP negotiations.

And construction isn't to say it could be completed by fall 2028.

And then on our budget slide, I wanted to note I haven't said yet about water improvements that we're planning to do at the four intersections.

Our existing water line through here is around on average from 1940.

So we are planning to put 1.4 million dollars into the water line at these locations, and then 14 million from GeoBond, making a project budget of around 15.4 million.

I think that's all I got.

Okay.

Questions, council in a motion?

Yeah, is the is the water line at all four intersections?

There's gonna be a water line work at all four.

Yeah, for the fourth street, we're just getting out of the intersection, so we're not going very far.

Just where we're impacting, we're planning to improve right there since we're already replacing the road in that location.

On the eighth street, we are planning to replace the water line between the two intersections if we do the roundabouts because the roundabouts will have a little larger impact that we can replace more of that 1940 water line.

Do we want to pull the um slide back up with the queue?

The fun slide, yeah.

I mean, the red line is obviously not we're not like gonna let that happen because we promised the voters that in the geobond.

So that was a little dramatic, but um so I I pulled asked for this to be pulled from the consent agenda because uh, like some members of the community who have emailed us, I have some concerns about um uh roundabout at this location because I feel the the context of this location is in a walkable bikeable neighborhood.

I I understand the key routes are are where they are, but um, but we actually have council goals that say that we're gonna um you know focus on pedestrian and bicycle safety and accessibility at all of our intersections.

So I felt like this one is a a really kind of a good example to sort of have a conversation about roundabouts versus um signalized intersections because signalized intersections offer a little bit more control and a lot more accessibility, particularly for blind folks in our community.

Um, and the other reason is in this instance, um, since there already is a signal there, it's already a fairly large intersection.

The cost difference between a roundabout and a smart signalized intersection is about two million dollars, the roundabout being three and a half, the smart signalized intersection being one and a half.

So that would save potentially two million dollars of a 15 million dollar total project budget, which is you know, nothing really to sneeze at.

So I'm glad to hear that there's going to be a little bit more kind of analysis on this, but I'm actually kind of interested in in maybe when the analysis comes back that we actually look at and have a little bit of a conversation about the context of this location and whether you know there are some spots in town maybe where roundabouts just don't make sense because we're really trying to create intersections that provide that accessibility.

So that's what I had on that.

Okay, any other questions?

I have a couple questions.

All right.

Is um does this budget assume the the big the big number at the end, the total of 15 million plus.

Does that assume a partial or in the partial roundabout with the slip lanes and all the right-of-way acquisition that might be involved in that?

It is pretty big intersection, so I don't know how much.

Yeah, that baseline budget of 14 was based on four intersections, four roundabouts, typically three and a half each.

So we have an all in at 14.

So the signals at fourth are gonna be cheaper than that.

And so we can push a little bit over to 8th Street.

Okay, so it does at this point if we if that was the route that the council chose was a more significant roundabout if this it covers the cost.

Yeah, I'm confident we could do that in our current budget.

Um when are the design options going to come back to the council?

Yeah, so we're planning to have those uh early fall.

We do have an open house that we're planning around that time.

So you'll see public open house one fall 2026.

We could highlight for council in July that kind of update analysis if you want when we come for the owner's representation.

We'll have a little bit more info, but not full design concepts.

Really, when we're gonna have those full design concepts where we could already show council will be on your agenda is that right-a-way imminent domain meeting.

We could highlight that.

Great.

So there's a couple touch points where we could come back to this conversation.

I mean, I think it would be valuable for us to hear if we're gonna look at some alternatives, um, what the cost savings might be more specifically, and also what kind of safety improvements or different outcomes we might get in a roundabout scenario versus an intersection, a signalized intersection scenario.

Yeah.

Um I think it's a legitimate question to ask at different places, and maybe this is one of them.

But just to make sure that we're focusing not just on cost, but also what safety outcome or improvement differences might be pro or con.

Yeah.

So the different scenarios.

So just to clarify, then we would be able to consider, for example, the alternative of spending some of that money on the eighth and only on bond eligible safe routes.

So schools, you know, two-thirds of our kids are in Ben Le Pine School District are driven to school, and you know, I think you see that's pretty apparent there at Pilot Beauty Middle School.

Yeah.

During pickup and drop-off times, uh, Juniper Elementary is also there, not marked, but you know, you can imagine if there was a way to help more of those families get to school without driving.

Well, that red line would probably get shortened somewhat.

So I would love to see what kind of alternatives there might be to also addressing congestion from the perspective of what can we do to reduce some of the barriers and help some of these kids get to school safely as well.

I just want to point out that line that goes by Pilot View Middle School is the key route that we just funded to the piece going.

Except for the crossing at 8th Street.

Right, as I brought up when we had that discussion, I I'm surprised and frankly still kind of disappointed we still haven't made much of any improvements at Norman and 8th and we don't plan to with that other contract that we approved.

So I'm hoping that at least through this that we're able to make those investments because it's on the key route.

And as I understand it from people who live in that area and what I've heard over the years, it's really important in terms of kids moving back and forth to the schools there.

Well, and and Councillor Mendez's point that key routes are on the GL bond.

So we would be happy to come back to you with when we come with these signal and roundabout results to give you an option for a safer crossing at that intersection.

I think that should be it's around where our limit would be already with around if we go the roundabout there, that's around where our tie-in limit would be.

So yeah, I'll try and maintain that 14 million dollar mark and anything we spend under that or allocate otherwise according to the bond resolution is perfectly justified.

Great.

Okay.

Any other questions or motion?

I move to authorize a progressive design build agreement.

Uh substantially and substantially the form presented to council with K and E excavating incorporated for the only slash reviewer intersections project in an amount not to exceed $2,475,648 and 25 cents.

Second.

All right, move by Councillor Mendes, second by Council Riley.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Thank you for that package of the great projects.

All right, move us on to item number nine.

This is the public hearing and first reading of an ordinance creating then municipal code, chapter 18.20, climate pollution fee.

All right, so this is going to be a public hearing.

So I'm gonna go ahead and open the public hearing.

And we'll have a presentation and then we'll do public comment, and then we will have the uh council deliberation in vote.

And then go ahead, Meg.

Yep.

And then I needed to clear an actual conflict.

Um this item would have a financial impact on my employer Hayden Tom, so I'll be submitting away from the dias, and I'll actually probably not return, but maybe dial in a little bit later for the rest of the great meeting.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, good evening, counselors.

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

Tonight we have the first reading of the ordinance creating a chapter of the Benn Code that establishes the climate pollution fee.

Um, so as uh first I have just a reminder of the why we've been working on this climate pollution fee.

50% of our greenhouse gas emissions in Benn come from our buildings.

The state of Oregon has requirements that electricity from our investor owned utilities must be completely decarbonized by 2040 and must achieve an 80% reduction in emissions by 2030.

So with this statewide policy framework, the most viable way to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions from buildings is to transition those buildings to use electricity for as much of their power needs as possible rather than natural gas, and then continue to work with our electric utilities to ensure that they meet those decarbonization goals established by the state.

Um, because of the potential to help decarbonize our buildings.

Electrification is a major component of our community climate action plan, and this is why it's been a focus of this policy initiative over the last several years.

Next, I have a timeline of our electrification policy work in full to outline at a high level some of the background and key engagement steps that we've taken to get this climate pollution fee created.

It was over two years ago in March 2024 that council had a work session and directed staff to begin exploring policy options to reduce natural gas consumption in buildings in Bend as a key part of our um a key strategy to achieve our climate goals.

We spent much of 2024 doing research and analysis to determine a suite of policy options that we could pursue to help reduce natural gas use, including looking at state level advocacy, education, incentives, regulations, fees, options through local building code amendments.

We also conducted stakeholder interviews with the utilities, the development community, the business community, and environmental advocacy groups.

Um the council had requested that the environment and climate committee review the research and develop recommendations about which policies to pursue.

So sorry.

Um so the environment and climate committee held several meetings specifically focused on exploring the policy options during that time period.

Then in December 2024, the ECC came to a work session with the council and shared their recommendation for which policy options to pursue.

They had recommended a multi-pronged approach that involved um pursuing some of the regulatory options for new construction, including the climate pollution fee, and then they were also interested in developing incentives for existing homes.

Council then directed staff to get additional feedback from the Bend Economic Development Advisory Board and the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee, which we didn't in a joint committee meeting in February 2025.

And then finally, in April 2025, we discussed the policy options and all the feedback we had received from the advisory bodies and that uh that previous work and a work session with the council.

That was when the council directed staff to create a package that included both a disincentive for natural gas through the climate pollution fee and also incentives uh for electrification, potentially using the revenue from the fee as a funding source.

Um so since April 2025, we've been very focused on the fee part of this policy initiative.

Throughout the rest of last year, we did a lot of research and analysis to inform the approach and the calculation of the fee.

We held three work sessions in August, October, and December.

Then in February of this year, we held another work session where we had finalized the uh proposal for the fee formula and we got direction from the council on an adjustment to the fee level as well as on an engagement plan for the rest of the policy development based on the direction in that work session.

Based on the direction in that work session, we held a council round table on April 8th with stakeholders to get feedback specifically on potential exemptions and the implementation timeline of the fee.

And then we held one final work session on April 22nd to get direction from the council following the round table.

And then here we are today with the code and the ordinance drafted for the fee and ready for council to make a decision on adopting tonight.

So now I'll walk through a little bit of the actual code and the ordinance.

I'm not going to go through every single section, but I will walk through some of the just key sections of it that have most of the substance of the policy.

So the code chapter is a new chapter 18.20 in the environment and natural resources chapter of the Bend Code or section of the Benn Code.

And the first section I'm highlighting is 18.20.040 fee applicability.

This says that the fee applies to all new residential structures governed by the Oregon residential specialty code except for manufactured homes, and that it does not apply to structures governed by the Oregon structural specialty code.

As discussed as discussed at the work session on April 22nd, this means that the fee will apply to all single family, duplex, townhomes, and ADUs.

It will not apply to triplex, quadplex, larger multifamily or other commercial buildings, which all fall in the Oregon structural specialty code.

Just to reiterate, the fee applies to new construction only.

The fee applicability section says that if a gas appliance is installed in an applicable new residential structure, the responsible party must pay the climate pollution fee, and the fee is due on the date of permit issuance.

Section 18.20.050 is about the fee structure.

It says that the fee amount shall be set based on a calculation that takes into account the social cost of carbon, the net lifetime carbon produced of the relevant household appliance, and the relative size of the residential structure.

I have a few more slides later in the presentation where I'll walk through the fee calculation in more detail.

Section 0.060 is the segregation of revenue and use of funds.

This section describes how the funds can be set spent.

It says that the revenue collected under this chapter shall be deposited into the city's climate pollution fund.

The fund must be used for any costs related to mitigating present and future climate impacts from fossil fuel emissions, including but not limited to responding to flooding, fires, extreme heat, and preventing such future climate impacts, including but not limited to building decarbonization measures.

Based on the council direction and the broader electrification policy discussion, we have been planning on allocating these funds towards financial incentives for electrification of or other building decarbonization, which is what we'll work on in our next phase of this policy work.

But this part of the code is written to encompass the broader range of climate change damages that this fee could be used to address.

And then section 0.070 is about enforcement and says that violation of any provision of this chapter is considered a class A civil infraction, and that each day of the violation would be a separate infraction.

So if the fee is not paid by the date of permit issuance, it is referred to code enforcement as a violation, and then it is it will follow the standard code enforcement process.

Next, I'll highlight a few key pieces of the ordinance.

Much of the ordinance tells the story of how we got to the climate pollution fee and some of those key council steps and key pieces of engagement.

There are some parts of the ordinance that are more specific to the policy direction.

So some of the parts I wanted to highlight is that the ordinance says council may reduce the fee level to an amount lower than the value determined by the fee formula.

At the February work session, council directed staff to adjust the initial fee by 20%.

So that's captured in the ordinance.

Fees will be set annually in resolutions adopted by council at a public meeting.

This annual process will happen alongside all the other fee updates that we do in June of each year.

The fee will go into effect on April 1st, 2027.

Prior to the effective date of the fee, council will review the fee schedule, including any adjustments made from the I'll show some of the preliminary values tonight and adopt a fee resolution to establish the fee level.

And then on an annual basis, staff will provide a report to the council about the fee.

The information that we'll report on will include the adoption rate of all electric homes, the number of homes that paid the fee, the specific appliances installed and their efficiency levels, the revenue generated, information about the energy mix, greenhouse gas reduction impacts, utility bill impacts, equipment cost trends, the number of triplexes and quadplexes built, which are not subject to the fee, and any relevant changes in state or federal policy, and then any administrative issues we have with administering the fee.

So next I have a few sides to explain the fee formula in more depth.

None of this should be new information for the council, but I just want to recap to remind us all how the fee is structured.

The fee formula is the social cost of carbon multiplied by the net lifetime carbon produced by the appliance, multiplied by a tier factor correlated to home size.

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

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

The net lifetime carbon produced by the appliance takes into account the amount of the amount of carbon that the gas appliance produces over the lifetime of the appliance minus the amount of carbon that the alternative electric appliance would emit over the life cycle of the appliance.

So this allows the fee to be charged based on the additional emissions caused by that gas appliance over the life cycle.

The carbon intensity of the electricity mix is a really key driver in this part of the equation because the cleaner your electricity is, the greater the difference in total carbon between gas and electric appliances, and therefore the fee would be greater.

So as our investor of utilities work towards compliance with hospital 2021, that's the part of the fee equation that we expect to be a little bit dynamic.

And then the tier factor is a multiplier that scales the fee to account for lower or higher energy use and carbon emissions based on the size of the house.

We've established three tiers for home size.

They're shown on this slide.

The lowest tier includes homes that are 1600 square feet or less.

For those homes, the tier factor is 65%.

The middle tier is tier homes that are 1,600 to 3,000 square feet.

This is the tier that the average size home falls into.

So for this one, the tier factor is just 100%, it just doesn't get adjusted.

And then the larger tier includes homes that are greater than 3,000 square feet.

Those get homes, those homes get scaled by 150%.

And then the one additional adjustment that we have made to the fee formula is to adjust the fee level to 20% of the calculated fee value.

So as I mentioned, the council directed this additional adjustment in order to minimize the additional cost impact of the fee on new construction to support our housing goals while still maintaining a fee policy that helps meet the city's climate goals.

So this slide is a table of what would become the fee schedule.

The fee is established on a per appliance basis, so each piece of equipment has a dollar value that varies over the three tier sizes for a new home being built.

These are the amounts that would have to be paid for each of these pieces of equipment, and then the different equipment pieces add together based on what's in the home.

You can see from this table that if an average size home installed all equipment, all gas equipment, the total fee amount is a little bit under $2,000.

And the amounts are correlated to the relative energy use of the equipment, which is why the gas furnace, which is the largest energy user in a home, is the majority of the fee amount.

Something like a gas stove is like less than 150 dollars since that has uh lower energy level.

So this fee schedule will revisit next year before the fee goes into effect.

It may change.

And the biggest variable that we're anticipating are that our assumptions about the electricity mix.

Um, we anticipate those might be different than the assumptions we use in the fee schedule that we have today.

And then the other thing that will change from this fee schedule when you see it next year is that based on council direction in the April work session, we'll be adding dual fuel heat pumps as an additional equipment option and calculating a fee based on their the relative energy use of those those technologies.

So that's the overview of the climate pollution fee, and then I just have a few slides of next steps before we move on to council questions and then the public hearing.

The next steps for the policy adoption of the fee itself include the first reading of the ordinance and the public hearing tonight, then we have the second reading scheduled for June 17th, and then as I mentioned, we'll come back with a work session to review the fee schedule with updated assumptions before the fee goes into effect.

So we're expecting to do that in February of 27.

And then the last step is that we'll bring the fee resolution for you to adopt in March of 2027.

And that would be the only time that we do a fee resolution sort of off schedule to get it on, just to put it into place, and then after that, it would be on the following June with the rest of the fee fee updates.

And then the other next steps in the electrification policy broader initiative is that we will begin.

Um we'll be starting to actually develop the incentive programs next.

There's two incentive programs that the council has expressed interest in and interest in exploring.

Uh, one is financial incentives using the revenue from the fee, and then also exploring non-monetary incentives to encourage electrification.

So we're planning on working to develop those on sort of concurrent parallel tracks for the financial incentives.

Our plan is to work with the environment and climate committee to develop recommendations on how to use those funds and what types of incentives are those funds will be best spent on.

We will be getting feedback from the development community, environmental advocacy organizations, utilities, other incentive providers like the energy trust, other city advisory committees.

So the ECC will be hearing input from those groups and then incorporating that into their recommendations.

And then for the non-monetary incentives, our plan is to work directly with the development community to identify and explore potential incentive opportunities through the development code.

Um we do plan on reviewing these ideas with the environment and climate committee and or additional advisory boards if desired.

Um, and then we'll be working with our community development staff to really consider the implementation of any of those potential code-related incentives to try to make sure we really understand the impact and any potential trade-offs, um, and then we'll be providing some options for the council to consider.

Um, so we plan on bringing recommendations about both of those things to you all in early 2027 before the fee goes into effect.

Um, and that's it for my presentation.

So I'm happy to answer any questions.

Um, council if you have questions now or if you want to hold questions until after we have public comment, and there will be obviously time for everyone to make any kind of statement they want tonight as well as we vote.

So I said we're clarifying.

Um, this is the first time that we've seen the language and the intended use of how the revenue that the fee generates.

I just wanted to clarify when we talk about decarbonizing, we're talking about reducing direct emissions.

We're not talking about carbon offsets or removing carbon from the intended by that.

Yeah, I was just I we added electrification and building decarbonization in case there were incentives we wanted to explore that are not purely electrification, like some of the ideas have come up.

Should it you be used to incentivize solar, for example, which is more of like a renewable energy rather than electrification?

So that was the reason for the broader language.

I just wanted to make sure we're not interested in offsets at this point.

Okay, yeah.

Thank you.

And of course, council will you know approve whatever the incentive program is.

So if that were to be recommended, even under this language, it would be discussed further.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

So I think we will go ahead and move to the public comment section.

Um, we have quite a few people signed up.

We're gonna do the same two-minute limit.

We're I'm expecting we're gonna be over an hour with the amount of folks who are signed up just to give everyone an idea.

Um, the same rules are gonna apply that we you just heard me explain in the visitors' comments section.

I'm gonna add um I don't want to see people talking about other commenters.

Give your comments to us.

We don't need to react to other commenters.

We're gonna have folks in this room who disagree tonight, so just expect that.

We're gonna be respectful of everyone's opinion.

Everyone has a right to give their opinion to us on this policy, and we're here to listen to it.

Um, I also am gonna try to say no applause or reaction to other people's comments just because we want everyone to feel that they have the opportunity to tell us what they think, no matter if this room disagrees or not.

Um, silent support is okay, right?

But let's and also it does slow things down when we applaud as well.

So, and we have a lot of folks to get through.

I'm gonna hold close to two minutes pretty tightly, so keep an eye on uh the timer here.

Um, and um we will try to get through everybody and we will listen to all your comments.

And I did we only have three folks online.

I thought we would start with those and get those done, and then we'll move into the in-person comments.

All right, so let's start with um Brad Archuletta.

Can you guys hear me?

Yep, go ahead, Brad.

Hi, I'm Brad Archuleto with local Two Nighty Plumbers and Steam Fitters.

I'm pleased to be able to represent our members over the last year.

I've been honored to work alongside a coalition of people and organizations with the Northwest Coalition for Energy Choice.

The members include thousands of Ben residents and important partners that span from building trade unions like us and all the people who work on energy projects from wind to solar to yes, pipelines as well as our local propane provider who is part of the electric co-op to housing partners, local businesses, nurseries, farmers, and more.

We have all asked for your to consider the facts physics, engineering, the science of energy planning, and which climate and emissions are one variable but not the only one.

Here are some variables.

I hope everyone understands as you take this vote.

The city made decisions before you heard from the experts in energy.

I don't know whose decision it was to order the process that way, but it was wrong.

The city does not have energy planning experts by not looking at both energy systems together.

We are not taking responsible for the electricity grid.

We already know is a nine megawatt gap.

More electrification right now.

We have we'll have coal fire plants in Montana, Wyoming, Utah, and beyond to work double time to supply Benz electricity.

And because those emissions aren't happening here, we are saying they aren't our problem.

I think they all are our problem.

I want you to know that the local area around these coal plants is, and I want you to know how they treat the workers.

I want you to know where they get their coal from.

I accept these concerns as my responsibility.

I am proud to have been able to represent our members and join this coalition.

We have offered studies.

We have offered our life, lived experiences.

Our innovations to speak with experts beyond us has been dismissed.

You have a vote coming up.

I don't accept expect my voice to change your mind, but there is still time for you to do work with these studies and have shown you and consider how much more time you need.

And more importantly, if you're willing to trust the people of Ben with this vote on this new tax.

If you're not willing to trust the people in this vote on this issue, I encourage you to ask yourself why.

Thanks for your consideration.

Thank you, Brad.

All right.

We will go to Sophia Borgison.

Who I see online.

Yes.

Sophia, you can unmute you and go ahead.

I won I wanted to come in person today, but alas, I have a cold.

Um in my first comment on the climate impact fee.

I told you that I hoped you all find this opportunity to take climate action as meaningful and empowering as I would.

Um and I want to reiterate that today.

For the past few months, I've spoken to so many people at events like Earth Day and Peddle for the Planet and Eco Chella and the Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon Earth Summit about the dangers of natural gas infrastructure and the advantages of energy efficient electric appliances, as well as this policy.

And uh first, I want to say that people are really jazzed about it, really excited to learn about it and pleased by it.

And second, every time I'm confident that I've convinced someone to go for induction when their gas stove breaks, for example, um, I feel very fulfilled and partially responsible for the potential avoided emissions that might result from that.

And I hope that you can relate by passing this policy because every step counts.

Um this is a time when local politics are at the forefront of environmental policy, and people all over the country are having very different experiences with their city councils and they're not always being supported.

And um, but some are like our neighbors in the pine who successfully opposed a data center proposal, and like us.

So I guess thank you in advance for supporting us and hearing us and passing this fee.

I'm really excited to see how this policy evolves over time and and what we learn from it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Sophia.

Next will be David Berger.

There we go.

You can unmute Dave.

All right, thank you.

Uh good evening, Mayor and City Councillors.

Can you hear me?

Yep, we can.

Thank you.

Uh, my name's David Berger.

Um, I represent um construction workers throughout the state of Oregon and and thousands in central Oregon.

On a personal note, I live here, I'm raising my kids here, right in the city limits of Bend.

I'm here today to remind you that uh a broad cross-section of people and businesses in Bend want the council to oppose a 20% appliance tax.

We've heard from thousands of people over email.

They've asked the city councils not to enact this 20% appliance tax.

We've heard from businesses large and small, saying they don't want this kind of regulation in the community, and this is not the role of the city council.

We've heard from workers, many of those that are plumbers and pipe fitters, electricians, uh, laborers, uh equipment operators asking you to please take a step back and understand the larger context.

As people who do the work in the energy uh industry every day, we actually understand the physics of energy systems.

We work side by side with utilities and engineers who make the uh sure residents and businesses have the energy they need to not just survive but thrive.

The utilities testified, their testimony made no difference uh because your minds are made up.

With all of that said, the ordinance says costs attributed to such emissions are internalized by those choices, contribute to increased emissions.

And yet now Pacific Powers electricity has a higher carbon intensity than Cascade Natural Gas.

And before we even talk about reliability and accountability, so my question is when the emissions from electricity go up, will everyone who paid into the natural gas appliance fund get their money back?

If you are confident the Pacific Power will achieve its carbon goals, please offer your residents a money back guarantee.

If you are not willing to do this, please explain why not.

I couldn't be there tonight.

I'm at an energy conference, seeing that our energy system is in critical.

Um just is critical right now, and that's not even removing natural gas.

So please consider this.

Thank you for your time.

All right, and last will be Darren Ash.

Go ahead, Darren.

Counselors, I'm Darren Ash again from Le Pine.

Um I mentioned earlier this evening that I have a computer science degree, and in my computer science program, I had to take a lot more terms of math than I care to admit.

And so I keep hearing the talking point that the fee would increase cost for affordable housing.

And on that talking point, I'll just say the math ain't mathing.

Uh I understand that there's you know big issue of personal preference on gas versus electric.

It's actually a very divisive issue in my family.

My dad prefers the gas cooktop, my mom prefers induction.

For the record, I'm team induction, but there was a learning curve.

Although I do realize that there are other types of appliances, um, especially heating is a significant carbon difference.

And a modern electric heat pump uses or positive about 30% less carbon, even when it's fossil fuel source electricity than a gas furnace.

Um when it comes to affordability, affordable housing, even without the climate fee, building new housing for gas appliances is already significantly more than electric to the tune of several thousand dollars.

And uh I mean the idea that it's for affordable housing.

I guess I bring that up because it's the talking point I hear most.

Um electric only is really the only thing that makes sense either way, and the fee doesn't apply.

So I think also it doesn't quite add up the talking point that the grid can't handle it.

I might have heard that earlier.

Meanwhile, Pacific Power, which serves Ben also loved adding multi-megawatt data centers in Primeville.

Personally, I think residential power is more important than AI slop.

So having the fee still gives people like my dad the option of using gas if they prefer.

They just have to pay for the implant impact that they have on the rest of us for that privilege.

Thank you.

Thanks, Darren.

All right.

So that will do it for our online commenters.

So we'll move into our folks in person.

What I'm gonna do is have you come up um to the seats in three so that you can go one, two, three to testify to help us speed up a little bit.

Um so I'm gonna call up um Brian Adams, Morgan Greenwood, and Garrett Mosher to start us off.

And Brian, if you want to start us off, yeah, absolutely.

Um first off, um, my name is Brian Adams.

I'm a Ben resident.

Um, I'll also say that I provided written testimony through email to receive the correspondence laws also provided a physical copy.

Um so as I stated, my name is Brian Adams.

I'm a Benn resident, president of Co-Energy Propane and a board director of the Pacific Propane Gas Association.

I respectfully request that the council postpone the first reading reading of ordinance 18.20 and direct staff to clarify the ordinance language before moving forward.

Throughout the process, the city's technical studies, consultant and staff memos, staff reports, and public discussions have consistently focused on natural gas appliances and natural gas emissions.

The Brightline Group's December 2025 fee study states that the city was evaluating a fee for the installation of natural gas equipment in residential homes, and that the fee is based on climate damages resulting from the burning of natural gas.

Similarly, the city's March 2026 climate pollution fee update memo states that the proposed fee is based on the lifetime carbon emissions produced when burning natural gas.

Most importantly, on February 16, 2026, City Manager Eric Key explained the council's prior direction was to move forward with a fee on natural gas appliances.

Councillor Platt, then move direct or move to direct staff to pursue the development on a fee of natural gas appliances.

And that motion was seconded by Councillor Riley and approved by council.

And that language matters.

The ordinance now uses broad terms such as gas appliances, gas equipment, and fossil fuel systems.

These terms apply uh these terms appear broader than the technical analysis, public process, and council direction that support the ordinance.

If the council intends to regulate only natural gas appliances, and the ordinance should clearly state that intent.

If the council intends to regulate something broader, that broader scope should first should first be supported by additional analysis, public notice, and stakeholder engagement.

Thank you, Brian.

That's the end of your time.

We got your point.

Thank you.

Okay, Morgan, go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor Counselors, for the opportunity to testify this evening.

My name is Morgan Greenwood, Government Affairs Director with Cascades East Association of Realtors.

My organization respectfully requests that the council delay adoption of this proposed electrification policy until additional analysis can be completed and further questions can be answered.

The city has not conducted adequate analysis of how this policy will affect the cost of home building in Bend.

We have reason to believe that it will add tens of thousands of dollars in both infrastructure and home appliance costs to the price of homes at a time when affordability remains one of Bend's greatest challenges.

This concern is supported by the recusal of one of the uh counselors that on the dais this evening as a result of the impact that this policy would have on her employer.

To that end, we encourage the city to conduct a pilot project before implementing this policy.

Local builders willing to participate in a pilot program would allow the city to gather real world data on the cost to build and operate all electric homes in Bend.

That information would provide a much stronger foundation on which council can base future policy decisions.

Middle housing should also be exempt from this policy.

Duplexes, triplexes, cottage clusters, townhomes, and accessory dwelling units are among the most land efficient and cost efficient housing types to build.

Middle housing is essential if Bend is going to meet its organ housing needs analysis production goals and provide attainable rental and homeownership options for local residents.

Policies that increase the cost of middle housing risk undermining the city's housing objectives.

Finally, we remain concerned that no dedicated purpose has been identified for the revenue generated by this fee.

Before creating a new housing related cost, the city should clearly define how funds will be spent, who will make those spending decisions, and how the program's efficacy will be measured and reported to the public.

We appreciate the city's commitment to advancing sustainability goals.

Thank you very much for your time and consideration this evening.

Thanks, Morgan.

And Garrett.

Good evening, Mayor Keybert, member of council, members of council.

My name is Garrett Mosier.

I'm a resident of Bend, and I'm here today on behalf of the Central Oregon Builders Association.

COBA represents over 800 members of the development community and related professions.

Thank you for the opportunity to share concerns with the proposed natural gas impact fee.

COBA remains opposed to the fee as written due to its direct and indirect costs on housing development, overall impact on housing affordability.

On this point of affordability, I respectfully respectfully ask you to reconsider an exemption for housing options in the 80 to 120% AMI range to avoid affordability impacts on middle housing, like Morgan just said.

I understand that you've heard from Capital A affordable housing developers on why that's unnecessary for their work due to how they assembled their capital stack.

I want to be clear that we do not want to impede their great work or anything they do by any means.

They're great collaborators and partners of ours and understand why an exemption up to 80% AMI is unnecessary.

However, when we get to the 80 to 120% AMI, there is no subsidy for these middle housing or workforce housing options.

Given our region's high cost of land, existing regulation, other market dynamics, it's already very difficult to make these projects pencil at that price point.

The proposed fee adds additional layer of cost, jeopardizing the city's ability to bring these much needed housing options to the market at scale.

Additionally, I'd like to point out that there is no plan in place for how the revenue generated by this fee will be spent.

So we're adding another layer of cost and complexity amidst a housing crisis, an inherently expensive place to build to fund undefined priorities at unspecified time.

Simply put, the groundwork to understand what would incentivize electrification, how fee revenue could be most effectively spent, has not been done.

Adopting a fee without this information is premature.

Lastly, and maybe for the last time I'd like to reiterate we're still willing to participate in the pilot program.

Please reach out.

I've explained this at the round table what it could look like, open to feedback on that as well.

Thank you.

Garrett.

All right, thank you.

So next is going to be Mike Reed, David White, and Sarah Odendahl.

And while they're coming up, is it possible to move this guy since Megan isn't here, maybe over, Steve could you help or just slide it so it's a little easier for folks to see.

Um it's kind of on the side there.

I love that we have a bigger timer now, but someday we'll get a longer court as well.

All right, Mike, you want to start us off?

Sure.

Good evening, Mayor Giegler and City Council members.

My name is Mike Reed.

I'm a citizen of Ben, resident of Ben and a grandfather, and I'm speaking tonight on behalf of my grandchildren's safety and health.

I want young gener uh young generations to not face the issues of the tremendous burdens associated with a warming planet, which is already happening.

Bend already has a proud history of being an eco-friendly city.

It supports culturally sustainable practices, it supports outdoor recreation and environment.

We need to protect these values.

I, along with many others, recognize that the current carbon fee is not perfect, but it is a step in the right direction.

It's a courageous small step to help protect our children and our community.

This carbon fee gives hope to policymakers that will stand up to the detrimental harms caused by natural gas.

Cascade Natural Gas is following the same playbook as big tobacco, big pharma.

Caring little about citizen health, community safety, damages to the environment, and the cost of a warming planet.

Sadly, home builders will probably pass this fee right back to the home to the new homeowners.

Bed taxpayers, not homeowners, not I mean, excuse me, not home contractors, not Cascade Natural Gas, will probably end up bearing the cost of this carbon fee.

But if this fee convinces just one home builder to say no to CNG's generous connection discount, which by the way, CNG recoupes by billing all its customers, and instead decides to build a healthier and cheaper electric homes.

Preventing one child from developing asthma, preventing one death from a gas explosion.

This fee will be justified.

Thank you, Mike.

Thank you, David.

I'm David White of Ben.

Would you please address these questions before you vote on the climate pollution fee?

CPF.

Why is Council now ready to vote on the CPF to start in 2027 before renewable electricity plans are received from Pacific Power, as stated in April, and before the 2030 state mandated renewable goal?

The approval of the Outback plan is a plus, but it is not just operational and will only account for less than two years of new bills.

Early implementation of incentives to shift from gas to electricity could actually increase the use of gas generated electricity.

Alternatively, why won't council consider a no grid impact incentive plan now for homeowners to install solar panels instead of the proposed fee?

Staff presentations show the 10-year residential use of natural gas over electricity is the economic winner, even after paying the fee.

Why then does council propose the CPF to incentivize use of electricity over gas if gas ends up cheaper even after the fee?

There are at least three strikes against the use of the EPA social cost of carbon in the CPF calculations.

Please provide your technical justification for Bend to continue to use this flawed study as the foundation of the fee calculation.

Finally, climate change is global, and it is best left to national and global authorities, not city councils.

The impact of this proposal on the environment will be unmeasurable, but the proposal will continue to make Bend more expensive.

Thank you, David.

And Sarah.

Good evening, Mayor, Counselors.

For the record, my name is Sarah Odendahl.

I'm the CEO of the Bend Chamber of Commerce, and I do reside in City of Bend.

First, I want to thank you for the opportunity to participate in this process.

I appreciated the chance to join the stakeholder roundtable and the many conversations we've had over the last 18 months.

While we have not always agreed on the policy direction, we do share a common goal of ensuring Bend remains a sustainable community for future generations.

But my concern tonight is that this ordinance remains at odds with the city's housing affordability goals, as I've stated here before.

Earlier today in this very room, the home committee finalized recommendations focused on creating more housing opportunities for households earning roughly 60 to 100 percent of AMI for renters and up to 100% and 20% AMI for working households seeking homeownership.

Yet tonight, council is considering a policy that will increase costs on many of the very housing types intended to serve those households.

I encourage council to continue exploring exemptions for middle housing products, as we heard earlier from Morgan and Garrett, such as cottage clusters, townhomes and ADUs, as well as housing intended to serve households earning up to that 120% of area median income.

These homes represent some of the most important opportunities to create attainable homeownership and workforce housing in Bend.

If we are truly serious about expanding housing options for middle income households, we should be cautious about adding costs to exactly the housing types designed to serve them.

I do appreciate the ordinance includes annual reporting requirements.

Those annual reviews should be more than a status update.

They should be an opportunity to evaluate real world impacts on housing production, affordability, utility costs, and emission outcomes, and adjust if needed.

I would also encourage council to consider a future sunset or formal review provision.

Housing markets, technology, energy systems continue to evolve, and we should evolve with them.

We all want Ben to remain sustainable and healthy.

My hope is that we remain equally committed to ensuring how those objectives are advanced alongside housing affordability, not at his expense.

Thank you.

Thank you, Sarah.

All right.

Jules Murati Green, Evan Ferguson, and Joe Henry.

Mana.

Thank you.

And folks who are standing in the doorway, there are quite a few chairs over here.

If you want to come over and sit down, feel free.

If you want to stand, that's fine.

All right.

So Jules, you want to start?

Sure.

Thank you for letting me be here.

I'm glad to be here.

My name is Jules Green.

I'm a retired nurse, uh, emergency nurse practitioner, and I'm here to look at the potential we can make.

It is not just simplifying a climate policy, it's about public health policy.

No one is speaking about what happens when we uh get exposed to toxins from methane.

And the children and the people get very ill.

But anyway, long story short, the new construction, the proposal would apply to new construction.

That's great.

The purpose is to guide future building decisions towards cleaner, healthier electric systems before new gas infrastructure is installed.

Every home built with gas appliances locks in decades of indoor combustion.

When natural gas is burned inside a home, it releases nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, and other pollutants directly into the living environment.

Nitrogen dioxide is a respiratory irritant associated with asthma, worsening breathing symptoms, especially in children, older adults, and people with existing heart and lung disease.

Recently, Stanford did a study.

Gas and propane stoves can increase household exposures to nitrogen dioxide, including the bedrooms, the living room, all of that.

And what happens is that when you turn off your gas stove, it still leaks, and then you get exposed to all those toxins and they walked into the rooms.

The fee is reasonable because it does not ban natural gas.

It's simply as builders who choose to install new fossil fuels.

And electric homes can reduce exposure.

And the policy protects future residents, it protects children's lungs, it protects healthier indoor air.

For this reason, I urge the council to support the natural gas install installation fee.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Clayton, I know you're getting your shot.

You're right in front of the timer though.

So I'd ask you to move just so you don't block that, but you go ahead.

All right, Evan.

Um yeah, I'd like to start by saying thank you to all of you, counselors.

I've been sitting in the back watching all of you, watching everyone, and I see that you're all very attentive, and I imagine that's tough for such a big group and so much to consider.

So thank you.

My name's Evan.

I was born and raised in Bend.

Um, so over the 30 years, I've obviously seen it grow a lot, change in some ways for the better and for the worse.

Why has Bend grown so much?

Why do people want to live here?

I think it's pretty clear.

We all know everybody who lives here deeply values nature, being connected to the outdoors.

And it's arguably our most shared common value of Bend and Bendites.

Um, counselors, you have the chance today to act on these values and to make a big difference.

This is not a chance that many people get in their life to make such an impact as you do.

As we know, even before the current administration, the US federal government has failed to be a leader in climate action.

Long ago, we were behind on our commitments to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and now we're even further behind.

So, should we follow this leadership or lack thereof?

Or should we do the responsible thing and be leaders in our own community?

We know that our country pollutes the second most to greenhouse gas emissions in the world with only about five percent of the world's population.

I believe it's our responsibility to use our privilege and our wealth to do the right thing to create new systems that do less harm.

So we can grow.

We can grow bent, but we can do it in a better way.

As a young voter, my number one issue that I look at in a candidate is environmental policy.

Not just rhetoric, but votes and action.

I'm really excited to see this council do the right thing.

By voting yes on the climate pollution fee.

We align our actions with our shared values.

We put people and the planet over profit.

So please make me and future generations proud with your vote tonight.

Thank you, Evan.

And Joe.

Good evening.

Uh thank you very much for the opportunity to address all of you.

My name is Joe Henry, and I live here in Bend.

I recently retired as a senior vice president of policy for a community solar company.

I've worked on energy policy across the country, including here in Oregon.

And in my 35 years in the energy business, the first 15 were spent at Pacific Gas and Electric Company, which is a major utility located in Northern California.

Executive level utility experience gave me a front row seat on how to on how utilities, regulators, and energy markets operate.

It also taught me that well-designed market signals are often the most effective way to achieve public policy goals.

So I am here to enthusiastically support the climate protection, climate pollution fee.

And appreciate the thoughtful effort that's gone into its design.

Rather than relying solely on mandates, this policy uses a market-based approach and leverages the growth that Bend is already experiencing to help achieve the community's climate goals.

From a utility planning perspective, this policy makes sense.

Investor-owned utilities love to invest.

That is how they make money.

That is how they increase the dividends for their for their shareholders.

And by encouraging efficient electrification and new development, this program will help electric and gas utilities better anticipate the future infrastructure needs of this community and help make smarter long-term investments.

This fee helps to improve affordability in Bend, and not just for the buyers of the new homes who are going to have access to the more energy efficient electric appliances.

The revenues generated by this program can help support energy efficiency upgrades and electrification projects for lower-income residents living in the older, less efficient homes, so that the benefits can be shared broadly across our community.

Thank you, Joe.

That's the end of your time.

Thank you.

All right, next is going to be Bobby Kaminsky, Kyla Guerrero, and Jade O'Hara Vlachos.

And then just so folks who knows who is on deck.

After that, it's Michaela May, Rebecca Kay, and Gianna Gramont.

Hello, counselors.

My name is Bobby Comeski, and I live in the city of Bend.

I know at this point in this process, you've heard probably every argument for the climate pollution fee.

Now I am still going to speak in favor of it, a little bit off the cuff in just from personal experience.

I was fortunate enough to be able to purchase a home for my family to live in in Bend, which came with all natural gas appliances.

Looking at replacing those appliances would cost a lot more than a couple thousand dollars.

So as a new homeowner in Bend, thinking about my values as a resident of being very rooted in compassion for the climate and compassion for the people who live and have to deal with climate change.

And this is something that I am very uncomfortable with.

And if I had the financial resources, I would absolutely change.

Implementing the climate pollution fee will allow new residents of Bend, people moving into new homes of Bend to be able to live their values.

And if that isn't what local government is for, um, not quite sure what it would be around here for, then.

Um I'll donate 36 seconds.

Thanks, Rodney.

All right, Kyla.

Greetings, City Council.

My name is Kyle Guerrero, and I thank you for this opportunity to share my testimony.

I have grown up in Bend and currently intern for the youth engagement program at the environmental center.

Last week at Smith Rock, a third grader from the Culver School District said, I didn't know how nice it could be to spend time in nature.

And this claim is why I love my work and why I'm here today.

It pains me to think that the resources real rely on from our environment may no longer be accessible, and that the outdoor landscape we enjoy may not be what we see today due to our rapidly warming climate.

The effects are already becoming our realities.

My reality is worrying for the safety of friends when fires break out mid-spring.

My reality is the feeling of terror driving my sister home from a storm with hail larger than ice cubes that pound on my roof, stressing that my windshield can blow.

My reality is not skiing at Mount Bachelor during the winter for the first time in 14 years.

We live in a reality where anxiety about the fate of our futures is scary to imagine.

We need you to pursue policies to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels in Bend.

And because although this fee won't completely eliminate the impacts of climate change, I believe that as a city we can set the precedent for a value and culture shift in our nation towards affordable and clean energy.

We appreciate you taking our everyday realities seriously because they are in your hands.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Thank you.

Sorry.

I don't know if I Okay, we've got it.

Mayor Keebler and City Council, thank you for moving forward with the climate pollution fee.

I'm asking you to vote yes on the climate pollution fee going forward.

I wanted to tell you guys more about my stories.

I'm sure you've heard a lot of arguments about why you should move forward with this.

I was growing, I grew up in the foster system, and I was born into a family that struggled with addiction, and this led to neglect.

If I was placed in the foster system even two weeks later than I was, I would have died of starvation.

I solely relied on my grandma's garden and whatever I could get my five-year-old hands on in the kitchen.

If I didn't have access to that garden, I would have passed away.

Children all across America are already struggling with food scarcity and facing malnutrition.

And I don't need to explain to you how that how climate change is going to strip away the ease of a garden and the affordability of food.

You know that.

I know firsthand what it's like for the pain of your own body to digest itself and to wake up in the middle of the night choking on your own hair because I was so choking on my own hair because I was so hungry.

It has taken me my whole life to heal from the damages of malnutrition of that intensity.

My story is extreme, but you're gonna hear my story echo all across America when food becomes less of a given and more of a luxury.

If you and other influential policymakers don't take radical action now.

Bend is an influential city.

As a tourist town, imagine the waves it can make is um with this climate impact fee, if it's a strong one.

The grassroots initiatives, it could start.

There's a lot of duality in this fee that I know you have to maintain, such as housing and affordability.

But I want you to remember my story when you get another opportunity for climate action because we're running out of time.

And the likelihood is I'm gonna have to spend the rest of my life fighting tooth and nail to undo the inaction of the people in power today while the kids of tomorrow choking on their own hair.

Thank you, Jade.

Thank you for sharing your story.

And if anyone has a bottle of water, we'll be in.

I'm very sick.

Yeah, there's a fountain outside.

All right, Michaela May, Rebecca Kaye, and Gianna Ramone.

And then after that, it's gonna be Nate Springer, Annie Merrill, and Joe Craig.

All right, Michaela, if you want to start us off.

Okay.

Um, Mayor Keebler City Council and staff, hello again.

Um, in case you don't remember me, my name is Michaela May.

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

Today I want to thank you for being willing to engage with a policy aimed at local climate action.

As my school's resident climate activist, my friends and peers often speak to me about their climate anxieties, and what I hear most often is that they feel no hope for their future because they see elected officials fail to address the climate crisis again and again.

Um, just the other day, one of my friends said that she doesn't participate in climate action because she feels like she her voice won't be heard and that we're already too far gone.

I know how she feels, and that's why I'm here.

Um, by passing this policy, you're sending a message to the young people of Bend that you care about our future and that you hear our concerns.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Rebecca?

Hi, I'm Rebecca Kaye.

I do live in Bend.

Thank you all for considering this policy.

Um, Mayor and City Councilors.

Um, according to the last IPCC report off target released in November 2025, we are currently on track for 2.8 degrees of global warming if emissions reducing policies do not catch up.

What does 2.8 degrees of warming look like?

Well, we've seen the impacts of just 1.5 degrees of warming.

The threshold we surpassed during 2024.

It looks like more severe drought, more years with dangerously low snowpack, the loss of our beloved snow-based recreation activities, and the economic value that comes with them.

Reduced water security and food security as a result, a less stable climate, more frequent days of extreme heat, and perhaps most frighteningly, extreme fire risk, to name a few possibilities.

Bend's residential energy use makes up 28% of our community's local emissions footprint.

A sizable chunk, second only to transportation emissions.

Without guardrails on new gas and fossil fuel dependent developments, we're locking our community into decades of more reliance on fossil fuels and the climate and health implications that come with it.

Not only do gas suppliants harm us all through climate pollution, but they harm individual households through cancerous indoor air pollution.

I'm asking the council to pass the climate pollution fee for our future, our health, and our beloved natural environment, which so importantly is a core value to our community.

Thank you.

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

My name is Gianna, and I am a resident of Bend.

I'm here today to urge you to vote in favor of a climate pollution fee to make Bend an affordable, healthy, and sustainable place to live.

Affordability has been a point of discussion around this fee, and I want to address that directly.

Housing costs in Bend are high, and as we continue to build more and keep up with our population growth, we need to build quality homes that are affordable to build and live in.

All electric homes on average cost $1,600 less to build than homes with gas.

Living in these homes is also cheaper as residents save an average of 192 dollars per year on energy bills compared to homes with gas.

With all electric homes, we can also avoid the soaring costs and instability of the fossil fuel market.

I currently live in a rental with gas and electric power.

The revenue from this fee could also help residents like myself with energy efficiency initiatives so we can live more affordably and sustainably.

Beyond being a resident who cares about affordability and my community, I'm also a chemical engineer, and in my career, I have focused on industrial efficiency, environmental sustainability, and human health.

As you consider this proposal, I encourage you to consider three benefits.

The first is efficiency.

Sustainability.

All electric homes reduce climate pollution by over 80%, helping us minimize our climate impact and health.

If you've lived a summer in Bend, do you know that air poor air quality reduces our health and quality of life?

Even inside our homes, children have a 42% increased risk of asthma when living in homes with gas appliances.

At the end of the day, the people of Bend are passionate about enjoying our natural lands and maintaining our personal health.

We must do our part to move away from fossil fuels and towards sustainable growth.

We all thank you for a vote in favor of the climate pollution fee.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

So next up is Nate Springer, Annie Merrill, and Joe Craig.

And after that will be Isaiah Cost, Ken Wilkins, and Brennan Breen.

And Nate, you want to go ahead?

Thank you.

Yes.

Good evening.

I'm Nate Springer.

I'm a resident of Bend, and I'm here in support of the climate pollution fee.

I want to thank you, Mayor and City Council, for bringing the process as far as it has come.

This has got to be a thankless job.

Because literally, literally everything you guys propose will be opposed by some.

So thank you for an extensive public comment period.

Thank you for directly engaging the key stakeholders who will be affected by this or who believe that they will be affected by this.

And also for bringing analytic rigor to this to ensure that this fee does, this policy does what we hope that it will do.

Now, as a homeowner and a Bend resident, I wish this fee existed when I was buying a home because then I could have chosen what kind of appliances that I had wanted, what kind of house I wanted.

And instead, I have higher energy costs, I have a higher impact on the climate.

Also then to change that, I will have to have very high retrofit costs to install electric appliances.

As an individual as a professional who advises the private sector on their adoption of clean technology, I love how this fee incentivizes innovation.

The developer, the builder who wants to install the natural gas appliances, can still do so, but now the level, the playing field is level, and the builder who also wants to offer the all zero emission appliances can do that as well.

And in between, that is the zone of innovation.

Builders and buyers can decide what types of uh what portfolio of technologies that they want in their homes, and they can come together.

And that's the way the market's supposed to work.

So thank you, and I hope you'll pass the policy.

Thank you.

Annie.

Thank you, Mayor Keebler and members of the city council for the opportunity to provide testimony.

Uh, my name is Annie.

I've been a Benn resident for about four years now, and I feel like I've finally found a forever home here.

Um I'm testifying to ask that you please pass a strong climate pollution fee.

Um, I care about this community a lot.

I really care about responsible development and the world that we'll leave behind for future generations.

I also care for health reasons.

I've spent most of my life as a tenant unable to afford a house for myself, and like many many renters, I have no choice in what type of appliances are in my home.

And I've also developed asthma as a young adult.

And we know that gas stoves increase the risk of asthma by 42%.

And of course, this risk is also worsened by the growing impacts of wildfire smoke that we're seeing in the summer.

Public health and safety risks that these tenants will then experience.

Passing this fee is an important step toward protecting future generations and vulnerable populations in their own homes.

It's a big step for catalyzing a transition toward renewable energy future.

But I also just want to emphasize that it's just a step.

Over time, we need to see this fee increase and the city's commitment to its citizens deepen to meet the scale and severity of the climate crisis.

I love the city, and I don't want to be forced to leave because of worsening wildfire smoke, but if it does come to that point, I know I won't be alone in that decision.

And the overall cost to developers and businesses will be far greater than the impact of this climate fee.

Thank you, Annie.

All right, Joe.

Yes.

Thank you for allowing this public comment period.

My name is Joe Craig.

I'm a resident of Bend, and I'm here to urge you to pass a strong climate uh pollution fee.

We think about climate change, we must think about reducing our fossil fuels, and that includes natural gas.

I'm probably the only person in this room that grew up with a coal furnace.

So I know about unhealthy heating.

When I had an opportunity to buy my first house in 1980, I bought an all-electric home with a heat pump and air conditioning and clean air.

And that's been important to me my whole life.

And I fought for energy that is safe and is healthy for everyone in an environment that's safe and healthy for everyone.

We have to move forward.

We have to be progressive.

We have to think globally but act locally.

And you have that opportunity to do that.

And again, I thank you, but I want you to look at this climate pollution fee as one step.

It's just one step towards sustainability that'll make it a healthier bend, a healthier Deschutes County, a healthier United States.

We're lagging in the United States when it comes to environmental issues.

We need to step up.

We need to be creative.

We need to use things like this climate pollution fee to move ahead.

It's so important to all these young people that are speaking up.

I'm so proud of all of them here.

That they're coming out and they're looking to their future.

When I was in high school, I would never have thought of going to a council meeting for any reason.

And I I just I've been to numerous of these meetings, and I'm very proud of everyone that comes here and speaks about our future and how about how we can have a safer, healthier future for future generations.

And as I've mentioned before, the house I live in now we have built, it's net zero.

It's solar panels.

Okay.

It people can do that, especially the expense of homes in Bend.

Those people can do it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Isaiah Cost, Ken Wilkins, and Brendan Breen.

And then last is going to be Freddie Penny Jordan.

Ken, why don't you start us off?

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

My name is Ken Wilkins.

I'm a Bend resident and a board member of 350 Dissutes and an organization committed to combating global warming and the climate crisis by reducing emissions of carbon dioxide from combustion of fossil fuels.

In recent years, many of us have testified before you about ways to reduce our community's carbon footprint and meet goals of the city's climate action plan.

We're pleased to work with the council that has considered an enacted policy that makes progress toward these goals.

Examples include committing to construct new city-owned buildings as all electric, all solar powered structures.

Another example that renovation of city-owned buildings will involve conversion to all electric to the extent feasible.

Another example, transitioning toward an electrified vehicle fleet as availability of suitable models allows.

Currently, you're deliberating on a policy to encourage builders of new homes to shift to all electric construction rather than the current practice of building homes with most appliances powered by fossil gas.

The list of hazards posed by combustion of natural gas is long, ranging from health dangers to wildfire risk to climate change.

The council is on the cusp of a decision that will have a significant positive effect on the quality of life of buyers of new homes.

You will vote on a climate pollution fee that encourages a shift from gas power to electric powered homes.

The fee would be calculated at 20% of the social cost of carbon, around $2,000.

For perspective, compare this to the City of Ashland ordinance at 100% of the social cost of carbon, around 10,000.

With Ben's proposed policy, anybody desiring gas supplies is in their new home.

And importantly, be living in a healthier home environment.

We urge you to pass the climate pollution fee.

Thank you for governing in the public interest.

Thank you, Ken.

Thank you.

All right, Brennan.

For a while.

Number one, I got some cards for you.

We wanted to save on postage so we could buy some damn hot t-shirts.

The record show that's a pun and not an obscenity, so I will give them to you after this.

Number two, just want to highlight on the record this Northwest Coalition for Energy Choice.

They have one study on their website.

It is from the Discovery Institute, who's also famous for publishing studies about anti-evolution conspiracy theories.

So we should all, you know, take a lot of scrutiny towards the integrity of a group pushing studies from another group that says dinosaurs didn't exist.

Just saying there's a bit of an irony there.

Number three, just want to thank you all for the job you do.

Today's point.

It's frequently a thankless job.

Um that's a really hard job, and you're all paid less than a line cook at McDonald's to do it, which is like a whole separate issue, and it's crazy, but I appreciate your service.

Uh also want to thank staff at the attorney's office and the city manager's office, city recorder's office.

I don't think anyone from facilities is here, but facilities like uh and all the volunteer advisors that have pitched in on delivering a legally defensible and a practically sound policy.

Um it's a compromise.

I I will be the last one to say it's a perfect policy, but it's important, and it's an important first step at a really important time.

So I hope you all are willing to take that step with us.

And I yield my time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Isaiah.

Hi, Mayor Keebler, Council and staff.

Um I'm Isaiah, a four-year resident here at Bend, lifelong hater of public speaking, and apparently missing the B League volleyball playoffs to be here.

Um I think it's crucial that as a community we take the steps toward lowering our emissions to protect the climate and the environment it provides.

Um the transition to a fully electric economy will take decades, and we have to start now.

Making buildings electric starting this year will be the stepping stone needed for a clean energy transition.

Um it shouldn't be on individuals to combat climate change, rather, we should put systems in place to make it easy for individuals to effectively reduce their carbon footprint without having to consciously think about it.

Umfortunately, being able to act sustainably is a privilege.

Uh, most do not have the time to walk or bike to work or the money to buy the more sustainable product.

Incentivizing electric powered homes and appliances forces builders to create homes that are healthy and equitable for those that are unable to use sustainable options otherwise.

Um this fee will allow all individuals to contribute to Bend's ultimate goal of reducing emissions.

Uh, this fee also will not deter new home buying in Bend.

Those that are buying homes have the privilege and or do have the privilege to care to want to have harmless gas or harmful gas appliances.

Um, anyways.

Uh, thank you for passing the climate fee.

Please try to increase the climate fee from 20%.

Um yeah, thank you for your time and thanks for passing the policy.

Thank you, Isaiah.

All right, Freddie.

I did not want to be the final word.

Yeah, great.

I'm so excited.

Well, hi, council.

Thank you for this opportunity to comment.

I'm Freddie.

I use he him pronouns as you all know.

I'm speaking today in favor of the climate pollution fee.

I'll also follow up follow up in an email with my uh written comments.

I've lived in Benz since I was born here 24 years ago.

Um, I'm also a union member and I'm a renter on the east side.

I've been working on this policy for at least at least three years.

That's as far back as my email goes.

Um, and I've been right here in this chair at this table many times.

Um, I'm really excited that we're almost here at the finish line.

Um, and I'm excited to uh work with you guys to get over that finish line.

Meanwhile, over those last three years, the climate crisis has gotten significantly worse, um, as we know.

Uh we all saw the low snowpack this winter.

We're all gonna see the horrific wildfires this summer.

They're an inevitability at this point.

Um the smoke of those wildfires and the irreversible damage that they will cause.

That is the climate crisis.

It's here.

So we're we're kind of past the 11th hour, as you guys know.

Um, this is no longer like it's it's late at night and we're trying to get the assignment in by 1159.

This is like it's 8 a.m.

the next morning, and we forgot all about it, and this fee is our like rushed apologetic email to the professor, like, please can give me a 24-hour window.

Uh and that's fine.

That got me through college.

That can totally help us.

That's good.

No time like the present.

Um so we need your local action to immediately reduce the extraction of transportation and use of fossil fuels.

You guys have done an amazing job so far.

I'm really proud of the uh policy you have all created.

I'm proud to tell you my counselors.

I'm sure you're proud of the policy too.

I hope you are.

Um I didn't want to give sign up to give comment twice, so I'll just say really briefly here that I'm also very much against the use of ALPRs.

I'll save you like an extra two minutes there.

Um, yeah, thank you.

Uh please do pass the climate pollution fee.

And um thank you again for this opportunity to speak.

Thank you, Freddie.

All right, well, that concludes the folks who have signed up for public comment.

Thank you all for being here.

Thank you to everyone who wrote us an email or um you know, sent us a postcard or otherwise engaged on this really important topic.

We really appreciate it, and it did help us in creating this policy and moving it forward, and your input is reflected in the policy.

Um, with that, um, and unless there's any further questions for staff, I'm gonna go ahead and close the public hearing and move to deliberation.

Counselor's any other question for staff that we need to take care of.

Okay, so seeing that I'm gonna go ahead and close the public hearing and we'll move to deliberation.

And I'm just gonna move down the line for everyone.

So I'll start with you, Councilor Franzosa.

Anything you would like to say before we formally take a vote.

Yeah.

Um I guess I just want to thank everyone for being here to testify for all the times that you've been here.

Um proponents alike.

I I think it's been just really enlightening for me to see how this policy affects the community and how it moves all of you to you know take different actions and make different choices in your lives.

So and I know, like the mayor said, it has had a profound impact on us too.

Um so thank you for that.

And and I want to say uh to my fellow city counselors, this was not my first choice for climate action.

Um, super supportive of our community climate action plan.

Um there are a lot of other things that we need to do in that plan and that are you know kind of in process um in the community.

Uh complete neighborhoods, for example, and neighborhood commercial, um, even safer street design, so that folks we talked about that earlier tonight, so that folks want to choose to walk and bike.

So I hope that we uh put the same resolve and maybe act a little bit faster than two years to get um some of those things done uh here for the people of End.

Um I also want to point out, you know, I I really uh having been a developer and uh still am one really and friends with so many people in that industry.

Um I just want to point out that it's it is a tough pill for folks in that industry to swallow to have to pay an extra fee when currently it takes 132 days for the city to issue a single family residential permit.

So it's 200 days for a tier three engineering permit.

Um and I've heard that from folks in the development community that the planning and engineering team are warning that the shot clock bill passed in the last legislative session will not make things better but could make it worse.

So there are some real issues to be addressed at the city.

So if we're pushing policy like this, like really, like let's be accountable to ourselves to make the city an efficient government body to work with to meet our housing goals.

Thank you.

All right, Councilor Mendez.

Um thank you.

So, yes, we have heard comments on all sides, many of them very valid.

Um I'm not gonna go through all of them, but I want to acknowledge that we have heard a lot on this fee.

I think this is a very important step.

Taking action on climate has always been a how, not an if question for me.

Um this fee is not the complete solution, it is part of a solution.

And to ensure that we're meeting our goals, I expect that we will be monitoring the impacts of it closely.

We know that we need cheap energy, and that energy has to be clean if we're going to meet our climate goals.

If we have no chance of successfully reducing greenhouse emissions with this fee, I wouldn't support it.

But I think this provides a reasonable, if uh somewhat uncertain, path towards a cleaner and more affordable future, one where we avoid the worst impacts of climate change and enjoy all the benefits of reduced home emissions.

It would be reckless to see the continued impacts of climate change and do nothing.

So I'm glad that we are taking action on this.

One thing I wanted to also highlight is uh support for the workers that may be affected by this fee.

I wanted to ask for consideration as a potential expenditure for the revenue generated by this fee on things like job training or job replacement programs as a potential eligible revenue expenditure.

That's something that we I know we'll be considering in the future when we talk about more than just the outline of what the eligible expenditures of this revenue are.

So just something I'd like to put on the table to consider.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Riley.

Um I just want to echo the thank yous to everybody in the room who's been here tonight and engaged and provided input throughout the whole process, both the supporters and the opponents, everybody who's come to all these kinds of meetings, to the very stakeholder meetings, the listening sessions, all of that.

Um, your input really has helped shape this policy and made it stronger.

And I appreciate your time, attention, and involvement.

Um I want to big thanks to Cassie for all her hard work to make this happen and all the other staff and even the consultants that we've had that have strengthened this policy and made it better.

We've been at it for over two years, and it's nice to be at this milestone in moving this forward.

I so I plan to vote on this for a range of reasons.

Um most importantly, I think it's because this is the right thing to do to help reduce our local contribution to climate change, and it's very real negative impacts on Bend, the central Oregon region and beyond.

I just spent some personal time uh traveling to and from Utah and just looking at the amount of pinion pines that are dying across the landscape is really quite something, and when you think about what that means ecologically for the species that depend on them, but also the beauty of that particular region down there.

It's just one small piece of the evidence of climate change impact across our region, not to mention a variety of economic concerns here in Central Oregon.

Um there is really no credible pathway to make a difference on the climate change without reducing our use of fossil fuels.

That is why fossil fuel reduction was the primary goal that was established by the council back in 2016, back when I was an advocate trying to move this stuff forward, um, and still remains that the primary focus of policy at the city.

Um, you know, the portion of greenhouse gas emissions that we can control at the city level and that we have a strong ability to influence beyond transportation, which we are working on, um, really is about buildings and and the gas that we use for heating and cooking in our homes.

I think as we heard from a couple people tonight, um, this policy, this policy framework of a disincentive combined with an incentive is the right approach.

Um, we looked at a whole bunch of options, but they were not legal defensible, and many of them were not supported by the community.

And I think we heard that loud and clear, especially when it came to allowing people to continue to have choice.

So we've retained that in this policy.

Um I think it's important to emphasize that the fee is on new homes only, not on existing homes, right?

That is kind of a very different can of worms, and it's much more complicated, and hopefully we'll be able to get it changing some supporting change with some of those homes through the revenue that we generate with the fee.

The reason for that is because the fuel choices that we make today are gonna be with us for 15 to 20 years, if not longer.

Um, I've lived here in the same home for almost 30 years, and we just finally changed out the original not very efficient gas of furnish that we um purchased after over 25 years of use of that furnace.

So I expect many homes will see the same kind of lifetime for for use of their equipment.

Um, and the other reason is that you know, homes that become all electric or close to all electric, if somebody chooses a mix of electric and gas appliances, they're gonna they're gonna be with us a long time.

And as the grid decarbonizes, they will become let have less and less impact on the environment.

Um I think the other thing I want to emphasize is that the final fee fee charge will reflect the actual fuel mix of the energy sources that are used to generate our electricity in Oregon, and it'll be updated based on new utility data as it becomes available.

So, if a particular gas appliance is less carbon-intensive than the comparable electric option, the fee could very well be zero for that appliance.

That's the reality that reflects the valid community concern we heard during this process about what may be a slowing timeline for transitioning our grid to 100% renewable energy.

So my point there is that we listened, we heard you, and that input is reflected in the fee that's before the council tonight.

Um just a couple more things.

Umly, there are several things that this policy does not do.

It does not ban natural gas entirely.

We looked at that, I probably would have preferred it, but it's not legally defensible, and as I said, the community didn't support it.

So we took that off the table.

It does not remove choice.

If a builder or homeowner wants gas, they can still have it, they just kind of have to pay a little bit more for it, as we already heard.

And then finally, it does not change, in my opinion, and it and in my opinion, it does not substantially impact the very real and valid concerns we've heard about about grid reliability and meeting our energy needs in the face of rapidly growing demand, some of which a significant portion of which is coming from large data centers, but that's a different issue.

Um, those problems existed before we started this discussion, uh, even if they were not widely recognized then, they exist today and they will exist tomorrow regardless of what we do on this policy, even if we didn't pass it tonight.

Um I think the city of End can and should engage on those issues into the future to ensure that they're addressed as soon as possible at the local level, the county level, and the state level because they are real and they do need to be addressed.

And I just want to remind all of you as climate activists in the room is actually not over tonight because the fee itself still has to be adopted in the first quarter of 2027.

So for those of you who think this is important and want to see it follow follow it through, you need to stick with it through the first quarter of 2027, and um the decisions about how the incentive money will be spent and what non-financial or non-monetary incentives we might use and give to builders who choose to do some of this stuff voluntarily, those decisions also won't be made until the first quarter of 2027.

Um for all those reasons I'm gonna vote yes on it tonight.

I'm excited that we're finally here, and I once again appreciate everybody's involvement.

Thank you.

Councilor Bergens.

Um, as a co-senior member of the city council, I will say that I have never seen an issue that has had more community involvement than this one.

Um I think we've received over 1,500 emails.

Um there's been phone calls, hours and hours of public comments, um, texts, meetings, um, it is it has all been done, and I want to also just uh say thank you to everyone for participating.

Um, you know, and I'd also like to say that while form emails are easy and they don't all give you the whole story, they are still a really important part of being a part of an issue, um, and we should take them seriously too.

Um, and as you saw tonight, we we have taken two years um preparing for this moment, and we've all been listening and studying and and deliberating and and doing doing research, and this is not something that we took lightly, and I really admire the work that we have done here, and I am really grateful to my fellow counselors.

Um, I think this this thoughtful approach is the way that this is supposed to be done.

Um we first here's the hard part.

When we first put this in our council goals, I was in support of this as a concept.

And um, I started having misgivings when we got into the specifics on the fee.

Um, I support all other aspects of of this work.

And so I did my research and I read a lot, I attended conferences, I met with people in the community, and I started to believe that this mechanism to impact our client climate here in Bend was not gonna do what we wanted it to do, and that the assumptions we were making in creating this fee were assumptions with a whole mass of unintended consequences in a variety of areas.

Um what I've been struggling with a lot in this conversation here in Bend is that a lot of it is right versus wrong or truth versus lying.

And I really don't believe that this issue is like the big bad gas company and greedy developers versus people who care about the climate.

I believe that we all want clean water and air for our future generation.

We all want our kids to be able to enjoy this beautiful community, and we all believe in climate change.

Um, even if you work for a gas utility or if you are a young community member, or if you you know lay pipe, or if you work for an environmental organization, um it's also it's not stealing choice and raising home prices astronomically, but it's also not the one thing that's gonna make all the difference for our climate in the future.

And this issue is full of nuance and one of managing crises, whether it's a climate crisis or housing crises or energy reliability.

And it's precisely because of all that nuance that I am voting no tonight.

Um, while I'm incredibly supportive of the idea of having a yearly review process, and I'm incredibly supportive of all the hard work from our staff.

Thank you, Cassie.

Um, I just do not believe that this fee will result in the decarbonization that we see we all seek.

I believe that energy and water are the issues of our time, and that this fee is being implemented before we understand the consequences of the strain on our grid.

I have deep concerns after reading research and listening to our electricity providers that we do not have the capacity storage or the planning to be able to attend to any of those needs.

We are borrowing power already, we'll continue to need to borrow power, and that borrowed power is not clean.

Electricity still relies on gas, and it will for a long time.

I have concerns about reliability during extreme weather conditions, and I worry about the impact of this fee on our middle and workforce housing that might disproportionately be affected by any interest increase in cost.

I worry that this fee is not just $2,000 but would end up being much much more in cost to our future home buyers and would create another barrier.

I also worry that we aren't including other renewable forms of energy into this process.

From everything I've learned, a strong energy mix means reliability and stability for the future, and if we are just choosing one to promote, we could be leaving key opportunities to strengthen our capacity behind.

And I am worried that our main electric utility is in serious financial danger from wildfire litigation.

Um my fellow counselors have told me that a lot of these things are out of our control, but choosing a policy and a fee and ignoring these massive roadblocks and impacts is in our control.

And as stewards of the cities, we have to be thinking forward while also acknowledging the realities of where we are today.

And I don't believe it is the responsible thing to implement this fee now when there are still so many questions that we need answered.

Okay.

Thank you.

Council Platt.

I want to start by uh thanking Mayor Potem Perkins for uh staying staying to the to the process and uh for you know taking a lot of flack for for her position.

So I I appreciate that and I honor that.

Um I think it's no surprise to you that I'm gonna be on the other side of the issue from you, and I still look forward to working working with you.

This problem began when humans decided to burn stuff for heat and for power.

It's been a long-running problem.

It's begun to affect our our climate over over years, and we are not gonna solve it in the bend.

Um I want to talk about I just got done seeing my uh my june or my seniors off this year in my classroom today, and I talked to them about picking something where you have an effect, where you have an impact, and where you do some good for your society.

And I know that some of them who know that I'm on city council were understood that I was alluding to hard choices, hard choices that you make.

And this is a hard choice.

This is not easy.

We have people who have a real life impact, as councilor Mendez pointed out, to their livelihood and to the cost to get into a new home.

And I don't take that lightly right here.

I acknowledge Councillor Francosa's concerns about where we and the inefficiencies of our government are adding costs already to the housing.

These are all these are all inefficiencies and problems that we need to work on as we adopt this policy.

But here's where I want to point out a couple of extra things.

First of all, please recall the start date for this policy.

On April 27.

Why did we pick that date?

Do you recall?

We picked that date because that's when the state code comes online that says that the vast majority of homes are going to install heat pump uh heating systems into their homes.

And when that happens, fully three-quarters of this fee evaporates for those new homes because that's where most of the carbon reduction is.

That's gonna be mandated by the state, and we are choosing to align our policy at the same time with three-quarters of that fee associated with a statewide policy that in my mind is right-minded and aimed towards the future.

So it is responsive to policy, it is responsive to the future, and this is the right thing for us to do.

It's not easy.

But I'm proud of us sitting up in this dais with all words and all on this policy that we're moving forward on an iterative process that we can respond to changes and the real community impacts year over year with further community input to get it better and better as we go forward.

So I'm firmly in favor of this, and I thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Platt.

And thank you to all the council for engaging in a very lengthy process that's again Megan and I have been here the whole time.

And I think there are a lot of people that have said this is a step, and I agree.

This is a really important step, but it is a step on a continued journey that we're going to have to keep taking both to enact our climate action plan and keep working on our housing leadership as a city.

But also a step where we have to continue to evaluate this policy.

And that's what I've been pushing for in this process is being willing to try something, look at it, and adjust it as needed is how good government should work.

And this is a great way for us to take a very deliberative process with a lot of input and a lot of data to craft the best minimum viable policy that we can think of, and then put it out, see how it performs, and come back and say this is doing what we want.

Do we need to adjust?

And that includes building in the adjustments to the fees to actually look at what is the actual net part, which is one of the earlier decisions we made in this fee development that I think was really responsive to people asking.

So I'm really proud of the process that we've taken to get here.

As Councillor Perkins says, even if all the only energy you had was clicking for to do a form email, it is a way of giving input.

We do see those, we do appreciate the effort that people take to say, hey, I do care about this issue on either side for the city of Bend.

Um and I think a lot of when I think about why this is important, this particular type of fee.

But we're pushing so hard, and we're going to continue to do that, as Councillor Platt said.

It's really important what all those new homes are going to be built like for our future as a city.

And so this is a way to signal that we want those homes to be better for the long term.

We want those homes to align with our climate goals.

And so for that reason, I'm going to be in support of it.

And I just want to thank we can't thank the staff enough for the work that they've done on this.

It's a fairly meaty issue.

We can't make our community, all the experts who have sent us information and really engaging as Councillor Perkin says this is the most and the deepest sort of input that we've had on a policy so far, and we're really grateful for the community's engagement.

So I think we'll go ahead and do a roll call vote, Tricia, just to be clear on the record.

So let's see.

Should I do the motion?

After we get the motion in the second, yeah.

I move for the first reading of an ordinance creating the Ben Municipal Code, chapter 1820, climate pollution fee.

Second.

All right, moved by Councillor Platt, and second by Councillor Riley, and we'll do a call vote.

Counselor Francesa.

Yes.

Counselor Mendez.

Aye.

Councillor Riley.

Yes.

Mayor Votem Perkins.

No.

Councillor Platt.

Yes.

Mayor Kepler.

Yes.

All right.

The motion passes, and we'll keep moving forward.

We're going to take a five-minute break.

We've been sitting for a long time.

Five minute break.

We have a little bit more business to do after that.

But thank you, everyone, for being here.

We finished with item nine, we're on to the item ten.

This is the second reading of an ordinance amending Ben units of chapter one point two zero advisory boards committees and commission.

I have an ordinance amending Ben municipal chapter one thing two zero advisory boards committee and commission.

All right.

Um by council second by council platform.

Yes.

Councillor and Councillor Riley.

Yes, Councillor Platte.

Okay.

So I'm just checking to see um that I don't care.

Oh yeah, let's give her a heads up.

Um, okay.

So that will move us back up to the items that we moved down to the agenda earlier.

So the first one under good of the order was um an item to address the Ben Central District Economic Improvement District Remonstrance Schedule.

Um Councilor Riley and I had a meeting with one of the um folks who has property in the EID area that was not sure if they were gonna support yet and had talked to them about if it would be helpful if there was a little more time before that remonstrance hearing um for them to um get more questions and we got that letter from Taylor Brooks.

Um also had staff speak with uh the the Benz Central District Business Association, who is the proponent of this who brought it to us and is who wants to move forward with the process to get their opinion.

And you saw the email from staff that um they it wasn't unanimous, but they did not prefer to move that response remonstrance hearing date.

So um, you know, was trying to bring that up as a possible solution um on our agenda, but having heard that the BCDBA isn't supportive, I'm not super interested in moving forward with moving that.

If they want to keep trying to get it done on that schedule, then I think that that is what they asked at this point, and I'm okay with letting that go forward.

We'll continue to help them you know make the case to other um businesses in the in the area.

So um it was just still on our agenda because we kind of got that information a little late yesterday.

So any other discussion.

I I'm supportive of just kind of staying the course with where we are.

I think um it may be that this is not going to be successful, but um I hope that that's not the outcome.

I think as a counselor I support moving forward for the various reasons we talked about before, but um it just doesn't make sense to me at this point um for a variety of reasons to make some changes.

So I think we stick with the process, and um if we have to if it fails, then we'll have to pick our wounds.

We'll have to see what the lessons are, and we'll have to regroup and with all the various stakeholders and see how we move forward.

The big issues in the BCD are not going away that have to do with right of uses that are down there that may be in conflict with um our our housing goals um and our plans to address those.

City hall, there's a whole bunch of things that need to be addressed, and those issues are not going away regardless of the outcome of the EID and the EID will not solve those problems for us.

So we need to tackle those problems at home.

Yeah, and I think um just if there are any B C D A folks watching or other folks interested in this, you know, the commitment of the city to this the core area and the B C D is pretty apparent in the 12 million dollars we've spent acquiring property there, over 50 million dollars of infrastructure investments.

Um, and I think we want to continue to talk about how we're gonna make commitments to this area.

Again, not totally because of the data, but as um our continued commitment in our council goals and our interest in making this area really um get going.

And we're gonna have a great conversation next week around our property down there and what's the best use of that is.

So I'm not hearing anyone that wants to make a change to that remonstrance date at this point, so we'll just move on from that.

Okay.

Um so that gets us into council action and reports.

There was just one letter that I sent out today, which was uh a support letter for the um the River House um who's looking to try to get um on topic and energy innovation conference to come to Ben.

So was happy to send a support letter for that.

There weren't really any other letters at this point, and then we have a list of appointments here on a various committees um that we'll need a motion on.

Thank you to everyone who's helped with interviewing for those committees.

I would to approve the city advisory body appointments as recommended by Mayor Tler.

Second.

All right, all those in favor.

Aye.

Okay, those appointments are made.

We'll have a few more um more committees still to go at our next uh meeting or two.

Um okay, so then we have a couple of schedule requests under our council reports.

Um so first one is you, Mayor Pro Tem Perkins.

Yes.

Um, I hope that you all received and had a chance to maybe just glance at the email from Cyrus from City of Bend.

Uh at BDAB on Monday, we received we had a presentation from Taylor Brooks that was really talking about the challenges being faced um in industrial land development, particularly in Juniper Rich.

And um they there are a couple of things that they're interested in and looking to that they think would improve um things in Juniper Ridge.

Well, one of them would be um uh impacting the tree code, and the other would be about mask rating, so you can have the site readiness was was what we talked about about.

So um BDAB did um vote unanimously to recommend that we do um look into this as a council um and do it as as expeditiously as possible, and so was hoping that I could get um uh your uh approval that we could get this on um our schedule to do a work session on this topic.

And um, was there a timing that you talked with Eric or staff about when that might be?

We have not um I think the uh the idea is is just as soon as possible because this process does is going to take some time um and um there there is some urgency.

Okay, great counselor thoughts.

So just to clarify, I thought that this uh topic was already part of the economic development plan.

So you're essentially requesting just move it up.

I don't know the specific specifically no regulation ask is part of the economic development strategy, but um maybe if sorry I think evaluating our industrial lands was in the economic development, but not this specific readiness piece.

Okay, maybe that's what I was thinking of then.

Um it sounds like also there's some questions and concerns about the tree code about um how we kind of what are what are we doing to get lands fully ready, like there may be a there may be some ways or should we consider some additional actions that the city may take?

Yes, right, in terms of having those lands be fully ready.

Yes, and I think from an employment perspective, you know um our economic development strategy and our housing goals are extremely important in supporting local businesses that employ so many, if not most of the people who live and work here, um and achieving our housing goals around affordability, but we also know that there's a huge gap between um the rising in income rates, right?

Overall averages and median incomes relative to the price of housing, and we need to close that gap.

And if part of that is about industrial readiness to have more opportunities for employment growth, that's really important to achieving our overall economic development goals and for the affordability and livability of our community.

So I very much support moving forward with this.

Great.

And I think one aspect is around the tree code, and we're already going to be talking about that, so that will line up well.

Um other thoughts, council?

Okay, it sounds like there's support for that.

Okay.

Um, if I may, um, in conversations with the Eric, it sounds like we can work that into the same work session as the tree code, and that would be in September.

Okay, great.

All right, and then uh the second second schedule request from Councilor Francisza.

Um, yeah, so uh kind of related to the eighth and only roundabout.

I went down the rabbit hole of all the sort of research that is sort of behind the reason why Bend uses roundabouts and how ODOT looks at roundabouts, safety data and and all of that stuff.

And so um I think that given the pace at which we're moving forward and we have to move forward with GoBond projects.

Um, I think that we need some uh we need to really refine our policy around roundabouts.

Um, and so the idea that I came up with with um in meeting with Eric and Ryan and Councillor Mendes was there too, was to um ask the transportation and mobility advisory committee, formerly T Bach, um, to look at our policy and standards around roundabouts and in particular in comparison to council goals uh reviewing research findings um and factoring in our goals of accessibility and pedestrian and cycle cyclist access.

Um so I wanted that also to be a schedule request, but really it's a I don't it's a schedule request, but it's kind of not, it's kind of like asking to send it to the subcommittee.

So as I think with schedule requests, so okay, that's one of the outcomes of them.

So all right, council thoughts on specific roundabout policy to TMAC at this point.

I mean, I'm supportive of this.

I think it's important for us to review the research regularly and make sure that we're understanding like what does it say today and and is it is the research grounded in context or you know um situations that are relatively comparable to our community versus maybe something much bigger or much smaller or whatever, and in particular around safety because those concerns are coming up as we consider more and more widening roundabouts, but um I guess my question is are we asking adding this to TMAX uh work plan in addition to the standards and specs discussion?

Because it seems to me this part of the standards and specs discussion, and since that's already something that is moving forward and they will be engaged in because it's now part of their scope.

I I see this being incorporated into that process rather than adding something else that's outside of it and complicates the work plan given that it may be for us and or for team team hack.

So I don't know the extent to which that's been talked about at the city manager level.

Yes, um, there have been some conversations on where the appropriate place or where the places for the conversation could occur.

It could be conversations with TMAC.

It could also be part of council's conversations around the standards and specs.

Um and I do want to note that every time staff does roundabout design, they do look to see if there have been changes in best practices.

I'm gonna do research and accessibility and then update the standards and the way that they approach this roundabout.

So that is something that's continually being evaluated, but um to your answer to your question specifically, there are a couple of different paths in which that could occur.

That actually makes me even more supportive of it because my impression is some of the more recent roundabouts have actually been not so great.

So I'd like to get back to looking at how do we actually achieve a 15 mile per hour design speed and make it safer for people to cross.

I know we're talking about flashing lights and stuff, but given I think this deserves particular attention within the standard inspects conversation just because we we have over 50 roundabouts in Bennett.

I mean, we even have parking lots with roundabouts in them.

Um so I think this is a particular interest that maybe warrants uh an elevated consideration.

Um maybe this could be like prioritized in their standards and specs discussion.

I think that would that could be appropriate, yeah.

Um I I think we should have this in our in our already planned standard and specs discussion.

I don't I don't agree with just sending this little piece to T Mac that doesn't make sense to me.

I think it needs to be part of the bigger conversation that will then be involving TMAC.

We also um just upgraded TMAC, they haven't had a chance to set a work plan or or kind of figure out how they want to prioritize their time and kind of give us that input.

So I'd like to let them do that.

Um, but I don't disagree, like taking a look seems fine, and I think it's part of the standards and specs.

Um I do I do want to note, you know, I've got some notes Eric forward me from staff that there are a lot of things that staff is tracking around um 3D models to help folks who are um blind of intersections.

Um, what are the trade-offs with all of this, all the things that you all have mentioned?

Um, and um especially around adding second lane and things like that.

So I think it's a good time to really look at this.

Um but I just don't think I don't think starting a T Mac makes sense to me.

I think starting at our level and then maybe going to T Mac after that as part of the the bigger discussion.

Well, can um we request that Eric come back to us at the next meeting with sort of what an outline of the time frame might look like and see if that's so we can have a little sense about time frame.

Of the standards inspect discussion, yeah, yeah, how it fits in.

Yeah, sure.

And if it's and then if there's an alternative, people need we could figure it out from there.

Yeah, we can certainly do that.

I don't you know shouldn't be take us a year, hopefully, but I don't know.

Well, it might take more than six months, so it might take seven or eight.

I don't know.

Okay, yeah, we did have our first standards and specs discussion in the boardroom a year ago.

And I think a consultant was hired last month.

Right, so they're the staff is scoping it, so this is actually a really good time to say this should be part of the scope.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it is the work pro the work, the work plan and workload challenge, right?

Adding in new things that are big and substantial, and how does it fit in?

So you always meet at the next meeting.

Great, great.

Okay.

Um that leaves us just with our individual reports.

How I'm I'm slightly mentally fatigued, but however long folks want to go, go for it.

Um counselor Francis.

Um kind of a quiet couple weeks.

Um, I did meet with Eric and Ryan and and Councillor Mendes to talk about Aiden only.

Um, and uh also sat down with um the police chief to talk about uh speeding um and traffic enforcement, and um, and it was an interesting conversation um that uh I'll probably follow up with some of you on.

Um the police department prioritizes uh investigations um and filling detector roles and patrol roles before uh traffic enforcement, so traffic enforcement is kind of the last on the list.

Um but the police chief is the first to acknowledge that it is probably the number one concern in the community.

Um so anyway, that was what I learned.

I'm sort of trying to wrap my head around that, and that's all I have.

All right, Councilor Mendes.

Yeah, thank you.

Uh the City of Bend Accessibility Advisory Committee met last week, and one of the things that they got a chance to preview was these tactile maps, these uh raised 3D maps of our intersections that uh help particularly people who have visual impairments and actually see or put in quotation marks the or maybe yeah, to get a feel for what a roundabout looks like because some members of our community have no idea what they actually look like in practice, and so this is one way to try to give them a glimpse of that.

And I I feel like it's hard to even use these kind of euphemisms that rely on things like site.

Um but I think that's a great uh initiative.

It's we're kind of on the cutting edge here.

I mean, some other cities have experimented with things like tactile maps before, uh, but not very many.

So I think that's great.

I don't want us to lose track, lose focus on actually making the intersections themselves safer, but I think this is an important initiative, and I'm really happy to see it taking shape.

Uh, yesterday, the Cascade East Transit uh transit provider kicked off the Tri-Transit Week, uh, which is a an effort to try to spotlight our improvements and services that have have already been implemented.

Transit is free for the for the next, well, I think five or six days now, because it's it just kicked off.

But Councilor Riley and I were happy to attend, and there was a good crowd there, including bus drivers.

And I feel like these are kind of unsung heroes.

They're the face of the organization, and I've had so many great experiments, experience experiences with our bus drivers.

So very happy to see that moving forward.

That's it.

Thanks, Council Riley.

I have nothing to report as I've been kind of out for the last pretty much since our last meeting.

I did have one comment I wanted to make, and that's that I appreciate the U.S.

House today voting to move forward with the war powers resolution and end the war in Iran.

Though I in my opinion, the war was unnecessary and it unnecessarily risked the lives of service members and many, many local people in Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East.

And it further inflames tensions in the Middle East and does not increase our security or safety or others, is having a substantial negative impact on the local, national, and global economy.

And I think it damages U.S.

credibility around the world.

So I'm really hopeful from the action that the House finally took today, and I'm hopeful that the Senate will also stand with the House to oppose the war.

Thank you.

Council Perkins.

And that was a really good conversation.

We had Commissioner Chang and Arwen Cyrus was the was the moderator, facilitator of that conversation, and Nate Wyeth from Visit Bend.

I today had interesting to like this energy thing is just it keeps happening.

Was able to have the League of Oregon Cities, Energy and Environment Policy Committee, and we learned today about what Umitella County is trying to do to get some small nuclear in their community, and learned a whole lot about nuclear and how much it has changed and how it is really sort of the gold standard because not only is it clean but it actually is reliable, and a lot of the other forms of energy are not reliable due to various conditions.

And how in a lot of the what I'm learning on this this League of Oregon Cities committee committee is that you know a lot of these rural counties really don't like the land mass from from wind and solar.

It has you know huge impacts on them, and nuclear does not have that land mass.

Um it's it's nuclear.

Um so if anyone wants to geek out about that, I can tell you all sorts of um things that I learned today in that in that committee.

Um I mentioned BDAB earlier, uh we had that on on Monday.

We heard um the set the second presentation from um Visit Bend.

They really wanted to kind of get a little bit more into the budget um and talk about um sort of give and takes um give and take with um I'm punchy too.

Oh my gosh.

Give and take uh with um their budget and and grant programs and and something that they'll be wanting to talk about again.

Um and just a little bit more on that um the presentation from Taylor Brooks.

Um basically uh you know a couple things that they talked about.

One of them was it was site readiness.

If if it's like the the idea is if you you know if you're selling a house, you have to stage it, and um it's really hard to picture um putting your um business there when it's covered in juniper trees and their slopes are are um are all all over the place.

And um so uh that and also that you know if you if you're mass grading, this is what I wrote down that you're that grading before um saves buyers four to six months of work and can save 87,000 dollars an acre.

Um and so those are some of the things that that I learned in that um and looking forward to that future conversation.

And um, I also finally did the the famous Scott Jones uh TSSA um and um you know Central Oregon Villages tour.

Um and um yeah it's just it's just fascinating.

And and if you haven't been to the TSSA recently, I suggest that you you go and really it really helps you understand um the kinds of things that are going on there, but more importantly, understanding the incredible work that is being done from our service providers.

Um just trying to find, I mean, they were just handing out housing forms of like you know, let me get you house, let me get you house, let me get you house.

Um, what do you need?

And um it was just it was incredible to see.

So I will leave it at that.

Great.

Council Black.

Memorial Day.

I spent a half an hour reading names of the of the fall and um referencing Michael uh Mike Riley's uh comments tonight.

Man, you look at the names, you look at the ages of the folks 19, 20.

You think about the the lives that are just cut short.

Uh I really hope that we have a good reason for doing so.

And uh yesterday, AHAC uh staff brought together five new designs for ADUs of a variety of different type to include two that were fully accessible, along with one that is like a band special with your with a couple of garages underneath, one for your toys and then your stuff upstairs.

So really excited to see those coming forward and uh being added to the stock that we can get uh in the ground and uh go in vertical quick.

That's it.

Great.

Um I won't give a lot of details, but did meet with county parks and schools all last week, just continuing to have good touch points with them on our shared issues.

Um went to Eugene for the Life Science Task Force on Monday, trying to get them to hold a meeting here so they can see our OSU Cascades campus so they can tour Sarran and Lanza and understand that we are one of the hubs of biotech and bioscience right now, and we're very very interested in how the state can continue to invest and attract businesses in that area.

Um gosh, I also met with the president of COCC today, so I think they did almost all the taxing districts.

Um then I I'm also on an LC um policy, the housing and land use policy that met yesterday and is closing in on our recommendations.

Um the home committee also met today.

Great discussion.

We're gonna get their final priorities in July.

I think it's gonna be a really good document for us to work on and make some good decisions on and some next steps on some good um tools for housing.

Um there was one issue that came up tonight, it's a little quirky.

So if you remember, I was calling for Kimberly Lear, who um was not present in the room, but she did file um an appeal to a noise variance permit.

So I'm gonna have Ian just explain that, and then we can make a decision on it.

Thanks, Mayor Keebler.

Um City's municipal code has uh decibel-based limits on noise.

They apply from or to well, they're measured from properties other than the property where the noise is generated.

Um there is a procedure or an option in the code for uh party to apply for what the code calls a noise permit, sometimes can be called a variance to the code where they can say, for example, uh we're putting on an event, certain place, certain date, certain time, we'd like to exceed the applicable decibel level for the event, and the city manager has authority to consider those applications.

There's an administrative policy that outlines criteria they were supposed to consider the organizers of this weekend's band pride event, submitted an application to uh exceed the applicable decibel limits for the event, which I think the website says the event is noon to three on Saturday, the application for the noise permit, and the what uh um the granting of the permit specified as 10 30 to 3, but I say that to note that whether it's 10 30 or noon, it's a limited period of time in the middle of Saturday.

Um, city manager considered the application granted the noise permit.

The applicant wanted to go up to 85 decibels for the event.

City manager looked at some previous history and comparable events and said um 80 is okay between 10:30 and 3 on Saturday.

So permit was granted.

Uh one party don't I personally don't know much about them.

They appealed it.

Uh they submitted a written appeal of the permit uh just before 5 p.m.

today.

It's a very simple email.

Um they submitted an appeal because the code allows anybody to appeal the city manager's decision to the city council.

So we did receive that late today.

Um there was some expectation that the person filing the appeal would be here at visitor section and could not necessarily make a case to council, but explain the basis for the permit or for the their appeal.

Um they they didn't do that.

I will say the code doesn't outline any particular process or procedure.

It just says the city manager has authority to consider and grant a permit uh if they'd like, and a party can appeal that grant of the permit or denial of the city manager denies it to the council, and the council can make a final decision on that appeal.

Code doesn't say this, but logically speaking, the council and an appeal can um deny the appeal, meaning things stay the same, the party keeps their permit, the event goes on as planned.

Um the council could uh accept or affirm the appeal and overturn and or rescind same thing uh the permit, and in that case, the event would have to adjust and comply with the decibel uh limits that are in the code, or the council could do something different, they could modify it and impose some different decibel limit or different conditions if they wanted.

So as as we see it, those are the three choices.

Uh unfortunately, we don't have a lot to give you to go on other than that.

Um I suggest that we deny the appeal.

Did they get the variance last year?

Pride.

Uh I'm not certain of the history of this.

I mean, the event happened last year.

would have to adjust and comply with the decibel uh limits that are in the code or the council could do something different they could modify it and impose some different decibel limit or different conditions if they wanted so as as we see it those are the three choices uh unfortunately we don't have a lot to to give you to go on other than that um i suggest that we deny the appeal did they gather variance last year pride uh i'm not certain of the history of this i mean the event happened last year i think it was a bigger event last year at least from from how it's being yes framed this year um i'm not completely sure of history i don't know but i've permitted record i've never seen an email with a noise complaint from the pride fest no and and does the mic munchin do we know anything about munching music and what they're doing yeah i sor I think i i believe that a permit meaning a variance has also been granted for munch and music this year i think for the series um i think munch and music was allowed to go to 75 decibels under the permit which is a nice yeah so later it's an ongoing series i support denying as well yeah disagree with it's it's really hard to judge these things 75 versus 80 but personally i'm sympathetic to saying like the concerts at munchin music are great and if they can do that at 75 then i'm tempted to say I don't see why pride fest couldn't also comply with 75 I'm not really interested in setting a precedent where we adjust Eric's decision by five decibels I guess especially three days before the event and I will say one of the difficulties here is this um the appeal was filed just before five uh there I I don't know if any notice was provided to the organizers of the event they haven't really had an opportunity given the timing to to be here and and maybe say why 80 is makes more sense than 75 I don't know if they'd have input but they don't really have the opportunity to to provide it because of how the timing is lined up.

Well I would say take it for future advisement something to consider but I agree changing it this late is seems uh impractical um but uh it's it's it's a couple of hours on one day not an ongoing event series so I'm fine with 80 I just don't really understand the yeah yeah 75 also seems reasonable but well it it is logarithmic scale so yeah okay just a map on backing is that yeah if you want to get a motion uh I move to deny the appeal second all right moved by council burgen second by counselor platt all those in favor aye all right okay there you go again um if we could is there anything burning in the city manager's report we are going to um put all of the information in the city manager's memo on Friday great okay we are adjourned I guess