order and we will begin with our
roll call. Councilor franzosa.
mendez. >> riley.
kebler. >> perkins. >> moranis. >> platt.
so we're going to start with
the good of the order first with our legislative update from
staff.
good evening, council, I'm kite schneider and with me is
sarah hudson and we're just here to give a brief update of the short session.
As you know, it ended earlier this month.
We put together an issue summary trying to highlight the most
important bills to the city, but
eric is our contract state lobbyist, so the one on the
ground and we wanted to give you a chance to hear directly from
him on the more important bills this session.
thanks, kate.
For the record, eric kansler, city of bend lobbyist.
It's good to see you all. I think there's really four
primary issues to talk about.
As kate alluded, we have formalized legislative
priorities, a press release about where we focused our
attention, but in terms of on-the-ground interaction and
what we were really invested in,
there was primarily the lodging
tax issue, the protection of
shelter funding, and then a couple housing issues related to
urban reserves and complete
communities.
The effort to gain flexibility has been going on for a long time.
The first time I engaged on the the city's behalf was 2017,
almost a decade ago.
It took a lot of buildup. A lot of past efforts built on
themselves and led to the
success this session, and effectively what happened is I
think you all know that under
the historic regime, 70% of the lodging tax dollars had to be
earmarked for tourism and
marketed oriented purposes,
leaving 30% for other things,
general fund or a mix of responsibilities.
The 70/30 has now shifted to 50/50, and that is true whether
or not you're lodging tax
increment is pre-2003, a lot of
which was grandfathered in. Post-2003 and already existing
or whether it's prospective in
the future, so bend, our health
care pre-2003 lodging taxes is
better than 50/50, so this doesn't affect us in that regard.
There are local governments, cities, and counties
grandfathered in at a very high ratio. Wayne county was grandfathered
in to use all of their increment for marketing.
Now they have a considerable amount of flexibility.
So there's flexibility we can consider with the 2013 increment
and then there's flexibility
should the city decide to consider another increment in
the future.
And at a high level, that is really -- the bill is very
simple in that regard. There was one additional element
moved into the restricted
portion which involves what the
legislature turned resiliency grants for small restaurants and the lodging industry.
It was a bit of an odd fit. It was important for getting the
bill out of the house, but nobody really loved it.
There was consideration about whether they should strip it
out, send it back to the house for a clean fix.
They left it in, moved it
through, so it's quite possible that I don't know if the
legislature is going to come back in the long session and
re-look at that one little element, but I don't think it's
really a game changer. It's just an additional thing
the restricted portion could be used for.
But it's not just a handout. You need a business or
restaurant experiencing some
sort of hardship was the intent.
So that's a component of it as well.
So moving on -- and that was our number-one policy priority.
Our number-one budgetary
priority in materials of
discrete budgetary priorities
was protecting the shelter funding established through a lot of work including by the
city of bend and others ahead of
and during the 2025 session.
There was a lot of speculation that that allocation for shelter
funding which is pretty bare bones for essential facilities
around the state would get robbed to pay for some other things.
Of course, we had maybe six
months out before session really dire-looking revenue forecasts
and they got incrementally
better as we got into session.
so fortunately, that allocation
was kept entirely intact and so that means -- that was our
number-one budgetary priority,
so on those two fronts, we did very well.
Of course, we were part of large groups of people who were on the
one hand fighting for lodging tax flexibility and on the other
hand protecting shelter funding.
It certainly wasn't the city of bend leading the charge, but it
was a really good group of people and we were at the
forefront with them.
More specifically to our initiatives are two concepts
that we talked about I think the
last time I met and presented in
front of you all prior to session.
Both in the land use and housing realm.
The first is related to urban
reserves. We've spent a number of years
here trying to improve the statute and rules standard for
how you can designate a 50-year urban reserve to allow us to
bring in a 50-year land supply that's actually conducive
towards efficient infrastructure and building housing.
And I would say bend has been at the forefront at the state level
of the effort to improve the urban reserve process.
We passed a big bill, senator
broadman was a sponsor in '25, and there was one piece of
unfinished business around how
you can account for the cost of serving potential parcels
outside the ugb.
We were stuck with the regime previously where oftentimes we'd
have to bring in very expensive to serve parcels, and that
translates to increase in housing costs.
So we were able to get that through in an amendment to a
much larger bill, house bill 4037.
It was sort of a housing omnibus bill and now that's passed
through what's required to just
literally adopt that into their rule making on urban reserves.
And then lastly in terms of the
big issues that we were involved
in is the topic of -- you can look at it a couple of different ways.
I would look at it as a
protection of complete community planning.
This city, if not more than
other cities, has made a
deliberate effort to mix uses, neighborhood serving commercial
together with residential, walking, biking, transit, trying
to blend all of those things and create the neighborhood that
people want to live in at all of
the price points that they need.
And in the '23 or the '21 session, senate bill 8 was
passed that created a by-right ability to do affordable housing projects anywhere in the city.
We broadly supported that, still broadly do support it.
Actually lobbied in that session
to make -- I think it was '21 --
to make it more expansive.
One part we kind of overshot and this is coming to light in other
communities around the state is
when you've got these
neighborhood customer nodes, one
or two projects can really take
that neighborhood-serving commercial opportunity away entirely.
Obviously that's a big issue in this community.
it's becoming a big issue in other communities.
Also as an amendment to 4037, we moved through language that kind
of got a foot in the door and protected those
neighborhood-serving commercial areas.
That's not going to be the end of the story in the interim, and
I've been in pretty regular contact with the housing staff
in the governor's office about
how to take this conversation forward.
I think there'll be a really robust interim conversation
about what cities need and what
communities want in terms of complete community planning.
And I, for one, am very excited
about being able to to get what we need in the moment and create
an opportunity I think for a
much more robust and comprehensive solution around
all of those needs.
So those are the main issues. Obviously there were a bunch of
other issues, but I know we're
short on time here tonight. >> yeah, any questions from council?
We sent out some information on this as well.
Go ahead.
on the sb 1551 related to
wildfire and the hoas, it all
applies to existing hoas, as well?
It just removes their ability to
set any any restrictions on materials?
there was a previous bill I'm
thinking back to when there was
a governor-declared drought that
the hoa couldn't stop you from watering your lawn.
I don't think this has a pre-condition like that.
in my understanding, it was around landscaping too.
Just water-wise, plants and
things like that that the hoa
couldn't prevent people from using those.
the other question I had was
on the 4037, there's a
description in the issue summary
that talks about -- it prohibits a public hearing to consider the
application for developments
that are subject to clear and objective review standards.
Can you just talk a little bit more and maybe it's more a
question for staff.
How would this show up in our community?
that would probably be a
better question for staff, but I
can say thematically it was --
that's part of expediting. If you're going to do things
with clear established standards, do you need to go
through all the public participation notice and whatnot.
And I think that is indicative of a number of policies that
we've seen where they're trying
to speed things along if you're needing those clear and objective standards.
But in terms of the specific change, I'd probably want to
defer to planning staff on that.
was that in response to -- I forget the name of the
community, sherwood, where they passed some kind of -- was this
a response to that? >> I don't think so.
was it sherwood? >> sherwood has passed some
local measures that are clashing
with state directives, but this
was more of how we could speed up the housing process.
and I don't know if it's a response to what the city of
sherwood has done, but I think what sherwood has done and what
this bill did in that regard, they are opposite ends of the
continuum of views on how applications for housing
development should work. I think that's accurate.
I mean, is there an example of how something would be treated differently in our
community recently with this
bill in place? >> I would probably want to talk
to planning staff, and I don't know if it's an issue of people
being treated, it's what applications for needed housing
can be subject to in terms of processing.
But it does prohibit local jurisdiction from requiring a
public hearing prior to making a decision on an application that
is subject to clear and
objective standards because it seeks (Indistinct).
I'll provide some information and put it in the council memo
so you can get all the details. >> okay, thanks.
any other questions? Okay, I did also want to
highlight just in theme with our meeting tonight that there was a
lot of work the legislature did
on immigration rights and also a bill under reforming care and we
did weigh in on a couple of those in support of those for
our community which did pass.
Any other questions for staff? Okay.
thank you. >> many of you helped us with
testifying orally or with
letters, so I just wanted to thank council for their
engagement this session. >> and thank our legislators for
getting so much done.
yeah, I think that is important as well.
Our legislators were deeply involved in a lot of these
issues and also as well we didn't mention the bigger
revenue picture they needed to solve. Our senator and representatives
were key on these issues. We were able to work closely
with with staff and our electeds, and that's important.
the bend delegation had a very good session.
I think the central oregon delegation broadly is kind of
coming into its own, starting to
gel gel, and that's
as well.
all right, thank you.
All right, that will move us into council action and reports.
And so before we get into individual reports, I wanted to
start with a report out from our neighborhood roundtable that happened on thursday and just
have a little discussion around that.
So for folks who weren't there
or didn't know about it, this
was a new format. The roundtable, we meet as
council and sit in a discussion tail and have
table and have a listening discussion rather than a formal meeting.
The format of this meeting was a presentation from staff about some of the issues that are
going on in southeast bend where there's a lot of growth and
change and infrastructure investment to lay the scene.
Then we sat at the table with three neighborhood districts in
that area to talk about what they'd like to see and some
issues and concerns on a couple
of topics we knew they wanted to
talk about, wildfire,
neighborhood issues, and folks
could talk to city staff, get questions answered, councilors
to mingle with folks.
From my understanding, it was very successful. I'd love hear feedback from
council on that format and talk about where we can go next.
We also have multiple different neighborhoods now asking us to
have the same type of meeting for their corner of town which I
think is great. So reflections from councilors
on how that went and then we can talk about what we want to do next.
Does anybody have any thoughts?
I loved that format. >> ditto.
I thought it was amazing to have so many staff present with
so many community members where a community member would come up
and have a question and if I didn't know the answer, I could
say you need to go and talk to this staff person over here and
off they'd go and someone else
would come up, so I feel like there was lots of circulating
and information sharing and lots of good questions answered.
So I thought it was great.
I think the real question for us
is how many of these can we do. >> right. >> I think it was really helpful
for people in that part of town to get the bigger picture of
what's going on and for folks who haven't connected as much
with the planning efforts that have gone on in the past to come
and get up to speed. I think people really
appreciated that, and I think there was a lot of additional
questions it generated, but some aha moments as well.
Oh, there's actually more of this happening that I understood
and anticipated. I didn't know that project was
coming soon in terms of the transportation improvement.
And I think that kind of information sharing is really
valuable in a community. >> steven?
just the fact, really kudos
to the planning staff and our transportation talking about
really just as you said, councilor riley, there is a lot
of thinking going on. There's a lot of forward
thinking going on and I saw a
lot of ahas in the audience of folks, particularly when they
were building out showing how the transportation system had evolved over time.
That was so effective and so many people come up and talk to
me, so eric, really well done on the team for that.
That really got the message out
well and I'd love to see that in the other four corners around
town.
I'd love to see that. >> right.
So I think we've had a specific request that I've seen from our
southwest neighborhoods, but I know other neighborhood groups
are interested as well.
I don't know what the next step, eric, would be?
Maybe in the next quarter, try to find another time we can do
anotherone of these? >> there's general support from
staff, now that we've built the
model, to do it in groups of neighborhoods. That makes a lot of sense.
So we'll come back with a plan
on exactly when and we'll poll council to see when you're
available and plan for a similarly structured event where
we have direct engagement,
roundtable discussion, and some level-set presentations as part
of that format.
I just wanted to do a
shout-out to renee mitchell for
being the vortex for making this first one happen.
There was a lot of learning and it's the first time and I think
we'll get more efficient, but many staff participated and I
appreciate everybody who was there, but in particular renee
just really pulling this together and making it happen.
great, yeah.
And shoutout to old farm, larkspur, and southeast bend for
helping get the word out, it was
well attended which was great. >> can I point out, I think
following on what your comment
was, councilor mendez, we have a couple of outstanding
roundtables we've committed to
holding with the human rights and equity commission,
electrification fees separately,
and some other things, so I just
want to kind of raise that flag of our ability to kind of meet
all of these requests as well as have our business meetings and
work sessions and we're taking a
break at some point, JULY, AUGUST, so I would really love
to see the full calendar
picture. >> to make sure we're meeting
our agenda on the work that needs to get done.
I'll actually going to talk about that in my report tonight.
We're going to send out a survey. I'm going to propose -- I'll
talk about it in my report tonight.
since we're going to talk
about schedule later and survey council, I think fitting the
roundtables into that idea of what might be happening next and
what we should prioritize makes
a lot of sense. >> okay, thank you.
okay, so moving to individual
reports, councilor franzosa?
yes, I attended a meeting of
the central oregon
transportation committee, the odot feedback committee, and so
we had some further discussions about the project that central
oregon would be putting toward to odot for funding.
It was not a public meeting. I think our next public meeting
is APRIL 9th where we'll be actually voting and then really
determining what projects go forward. So I'll actually forward that
spreadsheet to everyone so you
guys can look at it.
That's been my activity. >> councilor mendez?
yeah, thank you.
On saturday, MARCH 7th, I attended civics lab human
library edition in redmond.
That was a good experience to
talk with people about basically
how people feel about belonging in their community.
And it was an opportunity to meet people I hadn't met before
in some cases and in some cases
familiar faces, but to talk
about an issue that I think is
central for all of us up here and people perceive it in different ways.
And I think it was a good
opportunity to hear different perspectives.
So that was a welcome opportunity.
And yesterday, MARCH 17th, the bend metropolitan planning
organization and budget
committee met and recommended passing its fiscal year 2027
budget.
The two items of note on there
were some discussion of concerns about the future of federal
transportation funding. There's a lot up in the air
right now and nobody really
knows what congress is going to do. And that could have some
important effects for us locally.
And we also discussed the
allocation of state highway
funds for street preservation and safety and transit initiatives.
There's a large amount of discretion over how those funds
are allocated, so we had some discussion about whether we felt
like we wanted to revisit that allocation.
And I think that we'll continue to have that discussion as we
move forward. >> great, councilor riley?
one, I just wanted to say thank you to a couple folks.
One was the folks at embrace bend who organized the civics
lab and the human library thing. I also participated in that and
thoght it was a great event. I went to -- I wanted to thank
the organizers of a film shown
up at cocc last friday. It tells the story of the
killing of a young palestinian girl in gaza and the adults in
the palestinian red cross in the west bank trying to reach and save her.
It's a recreation of what happened a year-and-a-half ago.
Very powerful, very moving film about all that's going on in
that part of the world. And in particular, there was a
gentleman named omar who joined
us live after the film from ramallah and the west bank.
He was one of the adults
portrayed in the film and was working in the red crescent
office when this all transpired.
Him making the effort, it was 5 A.M. In the morning his time
when we showed the film. It was his first speaking
engagement in the U.S. And it was all virtual, so I want to
thank him and his translator who
was from the washington D.C. Area as well.
I went on a tour of home-made toffee.
They're in a building that's strictly organic coffee, and I
want to thank don mill for making that happen and randy who
was the owner and ceo hosting us
and talking with us honestly about all the challenges she
facing, including some she experienced with the city of
bend in terms of getting some permits. There was interesting learning
there. Councilor platt and mayor kebler
were also there. We already talked about the
roundtable. The last thing I wanted to share
with folks, the board meeting
last week, we agreed to support
the central oregon civic action
project which josh burgess started.
Cioc is going to be acting as a fiscal agent to help them get
started as a non-profit and hopefully receive a pretty big
grant to help them become an independent organization and
fund their activities over the next several years.
Eric sheridan, his report to us last week about an event coming
up on APRIL 7th from 1 to 3 in redmond.
There's an overview of the civic assembly tool and what it's
about and how it can be used in communities. I plan to go.
If anybody wants to go, reach out to me and we can figure out
how to get there.
So I'm pleased that cioc is going to be helping launch that.
I think it's a valuable tool that could be used
(Indistinct). >> all right, councilor perkins?
well, first I guess shoutout
to all the teachers who are doing all the important work
this week of doing school conferences. I've had many, many conferences
and have many more tomorrow. But just thank you to them for
all that they're doing.
I guess picking three things,
one is the coordinated houseless
response office board met and we
got an update on the
point-in-time count and we're
hoping to get that information next month.
There were some data issues interestingly not with the
unsheltered but more so in the
shelters with coordination, and so they are frantically and
diligently making sure that the
data that we do receive as a community is as correct as it
can be.
I wanted just to highlight sort
of the importance of funding.
We were able to, with our small
amount of money that we had at
the response office, did an rfp
sort of to fill for service
providers and organizations to
help fill any gaps that they have in services that they're
providing. And there were 23 applications,
which is the most that coic has ever received for an rfp which
goes to show you what we're dealing with here.
And these are all organizations that you have heard of.
I'd like to highlight the ones
that we did decide to fund.
One of them is an antitrafficking project.
This provides rapid rehousing
for youth who are in danger or
are currently being trafficked.
We gave some money to bend church for I think it's called
their open door program, which
people can come and get things
that they need, toiletries or
food or just any kind of supplies.
We gave money to saving grace for obviously for domestic
violence survivors, but this is
for finding emergency shelter or
motel placements for saving grace.
And we gave money to habitat for humanity. These are for people that are
not in habitat homes but are in homes and have an issue,
something that needs fixing in their homes that they can not
afford.
this goes in and says we'll replace your window -- it keeps
people in their homes, so it's a
great one too, and we gave money
to st. Vincent de paul of redmond.
It felt good to give what we could.
And to jump off that, today I
was able to sort of pitch the
bend business roundtable group
as a representative from the coordinated housing response office.
I've been talking about how we've been actively trying to
find a public-private
partnership in order to get more funding.
And this would be funding for
helping get our workforce that
is homeless, that is experiencing homelessness,
finding some more stable housing, because there are a lot
of our workforce that is actively homeless.
I've shared this statistic a lot. But 20% of the people that live
in our emergency shelter, that
are sleeping on cots every night, go to work every day, so
we need to do something as a community to support that.
So we are trying to get -- the response was fantastic.
There are a lot of people, a lot of businesses that really care
about this. They know some of these people
are their employees, so we're
going forward with awesome purpose and enthusiasm, and I
hope that we can see something
come out of this in the near future.
And then finally, just wanted to
share a little bit about the commission meeting. we will talk a little bit more
about the resolution later, but
just to summarize the gist of the conversation that the human
rights and equity commission had
on this, they saw it as a yes/and. So yes, we're doing this
resolution, and what more can we do as a city.
Because there are a lot of
people that are living in fear.
We also got an update on the
equity process with hiring the
new individuals for the city of bend and restructuring, and I
would say the summary of those comments were how do we do
buy-in and what's going to be different this time around.
They wanted to make sure there was going to be something
different.
And then finally, we talked with
bend duncan, the equity consultant, about prioritizing
the massive amount of work that hrec wants to do, that the city
would like for hrec to do, that the community wants hrec to do,
and that conversation is going to continue.
all right, thank you. Councilor norris?
yes,
just briefly, I attended the southwest meeting as well
and I appreciated the turnout and the tenure and the
conversation. Everyone is really respectful
and it was a good dialogue, so I
appreciated that.
Parks and rec meeting along with
wall my fellow councilors. Great to find more opportunities
to work together with bprd.
That's it. >> councilor platt?
I had the honor of going to
the provost reception at the
cascades where they were talking
about what those funds are going to do and were able to point
over to the big hill and say that big hill is going to be
gone and they're going to have this fantastic facility that's
going to serve a lot of the needs for the student body there.
It's been a long time coming and that was really great.
They were just glowing at that ability. >> and community members will
have access to it as well. >> exactly.
yeah, it's going to be beautiful.
The planning commission is going to bring timber yards coming
back our away, going to the planning commission. An interesting discussion, a
couple last week. And then I think I'll leave it
there. >> okay, thank you.
Yeah, we did have a joint meeting with the bend parks and
rec district board last night, which I thought was really great
and we had a good chance to talk
about how we can both work together on housing and
affordable housing in particular but also some other projects
we're working together on including the riverfront project
and our bridges over in drake park and along the river and how
we can improve those and work together on that.
So more to come, already started talking with eric about how to
structure our leadership meetings and get us to a point
for recommendations for each of the bodies around the housing
topics. Eric and I were at the rural
fire district meeting on
long-term funding and so we will
be having a work session in MAY that we're going to invite the
rural fire board to sit with us for part of that and talk about
the plan that we've come up
with, which is very succinctly
to look at renewing our fire levy in 2028 and immediately
after that looking at the feasibility study for what other
long-term funding options might be possible. In the meantime, we are
currently doing a study around
our ems and ambulance costs and what those are going to look
like and how we can recover those and going forward from there.
So looking forward to having them here with us and discussing
and finalizing that plan.
Went to dvba's meeting this morning. Good discussion as always.
One thing to highlight, we reflected back our discussion on
franklin, which they were thankful for.
They are working on a paid
parking plan to sort of take to their stakeholders and bring to
us in JUNE when they do an update. That will be the next time we
hear about that from them. Otherwise, we're looking forward
to the city events, one in MAY just down the street here at one
of the local business parking
lots that we're putting together and that will be great to
coincide with one of the firth first fridays.
I had a chance to sit in this
room with a bunch of cub scouts
today and they're learning about local government. It was basically a little mini
town hall. I got asked everything from when
are we getting an in and out to
how I get elected. Really good questions actually,
roundabouts and all sorts of things, so that was really nice
and they always like when they
get to come up and use the gavel. Everyone took a turn.
With that, I think we are done with our council action and
report section, so we'll move on to visitors section. This is the time for members of
the public to give us your comments. And our rules are that you
address the council as a body, not individually.
That you come on up to a table if you're here in person and
there's a timer over here that
will show your two minutes and it will blink yellow at you when
you have 30 seconds left. And we ask that you be
respectful in your comments and
that you not disrupt the meeting with your comments tonight.
Okay, so let's start with our online, because we just have
one, so we'll have michelle go
and then we can move to our in-person. >> great.
Is the audio working okay?
yes, we can hear you, michelle, hold on one second.
good evening, yes, that
southeast bend roundtable was
great, asking city planners
questions in the booth and the
roundtable itself. So there was a roundtable
question, what commercial development is desired.
The responses were verbally recapped, however a key item was
missed in the verbal recap. Southeast bend clearly said we
do not want for this gas stations approved across from
elementary schools. The no gas station response
wasn't in the verbal recap, so firstly I'm here tonight to make
sure it gets in the public record.
Clear response, no gas stations.
Secondly, I'd like to confirm if the conditions that got us that
gas station by the school are still in place.
And if another gas station would
get approved by this city council.
Basically, I'm asking if any
decision to update the planning
text of the zoning law and the associated 13 conditions was
made or has any decision been
made as to how council
interprets that zoning? Specifically auto-intensive uses
like a gas station across from our kids' elementary school.
If no decisions to make changes
were done, then no decision is a decision.
And the council has left in place the exact same conditions
that got us that gas station
across from an elementary school.
Our neighborhood had over 2500 signatures in a petition, a
website, we raised $10,000. We had a lot of activism.
We need to put our money into making sure council doesn't
approve gas stations or enable conditions that permit it.
Why does this matter? Beyond the obvious negative
impacts, we've already had one
school child hit on a bike on a roundabout. Thankfully, the child is okay.
But these hits and near misses
are occurring before the gas station and drive-through are
built is horrifying. None of us wants a further
tragedy or have another gas administration approved near an
elementary school. I would appreciate a response as
part of the public record on behalf of those 2500 people that
were active in our community on this issue.
Thank you. >> thank you.
Early last year, we changed the cc zone to not allow
auto-dependent uses, so that's been done.
So thank you. >> thanks.
okay, so that will move us
into in person, so let's start
with johnathan westmoreland. And please introduce yourself
and state whether you live in the city of bend.
hi, I live in bend. Bear with me, I am going to try
for the first time to not read
this verbatim and actually have a conversation.
There was a number I want you to
stick with you guys today,
that's 45%. I scraped from the league of
oregon cities the e-mail addresses for all the city
employees including your own. There were 62 of them.
28 of them have been involved in data breaches.
That's almost half, 45%.
Some of those data breaches involved password data.
I'm saying this to you not as
like a gotcha but this is why
end-to-end encryption is such an important deal.
And sb 1516 passed, and I think that's great.
There's a lot of good stuff in there.
But I'd like for bend to see
that as a floor and not the ceiling.
And as you go through contracts
with these vendors, especially
for security, just be very
diligent and make sure that the public's security and data
privacy rights are being observed. So moving forward, I've got some
questions that I think you
should be asking yourself. One, at the state capitol, why
were so many ordinary citizens willing to take time out of
their lives to advocate for
having end-to-end encryption
defined in the bill.
Two, why did flock, axon lobby against this?
After learning about flock's
data security practices and
canceling flock in JANUARY, how
do you feel knowing that axon
and vera mobility currently have partnerships with flock and how
are you going to protect bend
residents from corporations in the future.
I gave this to her. I'll e-mail you one every week
just to open a conversation with
you and get your internet
bubbles and algorithms that are
not going to show you what they're going to show me and my software friends.
thank you very much.
all right, thank you.
todd? ? >> hi, I'm todd.
I live in bend.
and I'm speaking on behalf of the southern crossing
neighborhood association as chair.
We were pleased to see you had a southeast bend roundtable.
I recently asked representatives of the southeast bend and
century west neighborhood districts if they would like to
participate with us in a roundtable for southwest bend.
I explained that southern crossing's focus was on the
bond, brookswood, and reed market given all the growth in the area.
They said they were interested in discussing that as well.
We would like to meet soon, since some council funding
decisions are coming up that are
relevant to these discussions.
In the near term, an nssp project for road crossing of
reed market will come before you.
On our website, you will find our counterproposal that is a
more comprehensive solution to the problems on reed market just
west of U.S. 97. I will send you an e-mail by
tomorrow morning with more details.
Last JULY, we asked council to
reject the same nssp project for a long list of reasons.
We hope this money can be more wisely spent on a better
solution. If you would like to better
understand both this proposal
and our proposal for the roundabout, I would be glad to
give you a personal tour on-site. Feel free to respond to my e-mail.
You're also welcome to attend
our zoom board meeting tomorrow at 5 where we will be discussing
these issues.
Switching to parking, when the glass water townhomes began
construction on the site across
from bend parks and rec headquarters, we lost an essential parking area.
It was frequently used both by
river park visitors and concert goers. Please consider reaching out to
the old mill owners and bend
parks and rec to work collectively to create a new
parking area. Each entity has something that
they can bring to the table to
solve this issue.
Southern crossing neighborhood
should not be used as overflow
parking due to a lack of planning.
thanks, todd.
jane? >> greetings, mayor and council
members.
I live in southeast bend in the king's forest neighborhood.
And I recently have become
appalled at the lack of
attention to evacuation routes especially in light of the
expansive new high-density residential development.
For example, the wild flower
project at 15th and wilson will
have 4,000 in and out trips per
day, per vehicle. Or 4,000 vehicles.
Those people will want to get out if the wind blows and the
fire comes in this hot and dry
summer ahead of us.
Reed market will be a parking lot.
We all saw what happened in paradise.
People started abandoning their cars and walking.
They were burned.
We don't want that here.
So I would like as a beginning
to have you fund and assign evacuation routes that will help
us get away from a horrific fire
here in town.
I've talked with the county, the
state, the city, planning and engineering.
There's nothing substantial happening.
I have three generations here in town.
It's frightening really.
And I think it's time to do something.
There's nothing in the state code. The leadership needs to happen
maybe locally and get something done so we can protect
ourselves.
thank you, jane.
michael baker? >> good evening, mayor and
council, I'm michael baker and I have the honor of being the ceo
for the boys and girls clubs here in bend.
A couple key things, information
that you might find interesting.
Last year in 2025, we were open 222 days.
This year, we'll be open 273 days.
We've expanded our hours of operation. That includes saturday hours
which has never happened in the organization, so we're very excited about that.
In addition to that, we also are seeing an increase.
Last year, we handed out 17,400 meals to the children throughout
the year.
We're already on track to break about 25,000 this year.
and we are maximizing that space. Every aspect that we can use,
we're trying to use every inch of that space for programming
and having the kiddos go from room to room to room.
What's really exciting that just recently happened is for the
first time in over seven years,
we actually -- many of you MAY have seen this before.
We have a rock wall on the stage
area that we've been able to get recertified and are using that
again, so the kids were excited this past saturday to use the
rock wall for the first time.
So it's a pretty exciting experience there.
I will also encourage each and every one of you as I always do
to come down and see the club in action any time you want a tour.
Love to do that.
Those of you that want to
support the boys and girls club, we have a big event coming up,
APRIL 18th are the great
promsby, a '20s thing, and I will end by telling you
something that I've worked in a lot of communes across the
country, boys and girls clubs, worked with a lot of city
administrators, and I'm telling
you, you're very fortunate to have MR. King in the role he's in.
Thank you for everything you've
done for this community. >> thanks, michael.
All right, kinsey martin, I see you're here for the resolution.
Did you also want to speak -- >> yes.
okay. >> good evening.
My name is kinsey hood martin, she-her pronouns.
my family, my home, my career
are rooted here in bend, the city of bend.
My grandparents were doctors and teachers here. My parents grew up here.
I was born and raised here.
And despite a short stint of, like, I'm never moving back to
that town, here I am, my own
kids are born and raised here as well.
Because of that, because of knowing some of the old bend
community can tend to be less appreciative of growth and
change, I wanted to just come say thank you for the resolution
that I know is on the agenda
this evening. That resolution in support of
our immigrant neighbors and friends and community members
means a lot to me personally and to our community.
At this point in history and where we are right now as a
broader community, those words
matter a lot, and it really is -- I'm really proud to see
the community that I live in taking a stance and being public
about that.
That's really significant.
I know that our leadership spent a lot of time on that.
I know it's an intensive process to do that and do it well and
get it right.
And I appreciate mayor pro tem perkins and melissa, the hrec
members, and then the immigrant
initiative leaders who informed that work.
And so I just wanted to say thank you.
I'm hopeful to see that it has
the beginnings of tangible resources and commitments in it,
and I'm hopeful to see that
continue over the next several years in council's work and the
city's work as far as changes that our immigrant community
members can see and feel directly.
But I know public comments are not usually an appreciation, so
I just wanted to say thank you, that work matters and it matters
a lot.
thank you, kinsey. All right, that will move us to
our consent agenda. >> I move to approve the consent
agenda. >> second.
all right, moved by councilor
perkins, seconded by councilor norris. All in favor?
[Chorus of ayes] >> unanimous.
That moves us to item 5.
a institution supporting bend's immigrant communities, condemning the current federal government
approach to immigration enforcement, allocating funding to support bend's diverse
immigrant communities, and >> I wanted to introduce
melissa, our city's affordable housing coordinator but is also
filling in as the human rights
and equity commission liaison
and with melissa, catalina frank, this resolution before
you was brought in part by catalina's presentation that
came to council early JANUARY really requesting some support.
And I think we listened and we
wanted to offer some meaningful, tangible support in the form of
reaffirming our values as a welcoming community but also
going beyond that and offering some resources.
so melissa and catalina will outline what's in the resolution
and then I can talk about some
next steps as we're implementing the resolution into various
contracting methods, et cetera.
thank you so much. So as eric mentioned, you're
used to seeing me in the housing realm.
But it's my honor to be the
interim hrec staff liaison.
And this resolution is a body of
work that is not just one person.
It has been touched by many hands.
As you know, catalina came to council in early JANUARY talking
about the imminent crisis and urgency of potentially declaring
a state of emergency.
In a follow-up meeting, our city attorney, ian, outlined what
could be done as a resolution.
From there, the resolution went to hrec.
Ian had drafted a resolution fabulously by looking at other
cities that were in a similar situation.
By the time the document got to
hrec, it had been edited a few
times, many times actually, and hrec, as hrec has been developed
as a group that represents our community, when this body of
work got to r heck,
hrec, they realized the eyes that needed to be on
the document aren't represented necessarily on our current
commissioner seats, so hrec made the decision to send the
resolution with some hrec
members to a subgroup outside of hrec.
How that subgroup was formed was
in partnership with catalina and in different immigrant groups
throughout the community, they
were consulted, the leaders of different immigrant groups, and
they were asked to send a representative of their group.
These folks came together, looked over the resolution,
provided tremendous input, which then created more and more
iterations of the document.
The document came back to hrec.
Hrec reviewed it and decided to accept the document and
recommend it to come back to you.
And so through all of those
iterations, you'll see in the resolution that it is a restatement of the city's
priority to be a welcoming community and so half of the
funds that will be going to the latino community association are
to further the welcoming city work.
And the other half of the funds going to the latino community
association are to support
families that are impacted by immigration.
And so both bodies of work are incredibly important and
significant and as catalina mentioned in JANUARY, it's
really difficult to quantify the impact of immigration activities
in our community. While some MAY think it's not
here yet, it can't be impacting yet, there are kids that don't
go to school.
Folks that don't go to work. Groceries that aren't being
purchased that the store because people are too afraid to leave
their homes, so this body of work, as I mentioned, it's not a
single person that has had their hands on it.
I think it's important to recognize all the many folks in
the room and online that participated and some that
weren't able to join us today. >> I just want to take a moment
to recognize melissa, because I think this many hands approach
in really opening this up and your facilitation leadership that helped us get to a really
good place, so thank you. >> absolutely.
All right, so council, we've got the resolution -- there's no
slides, but we have the resolution in front of us with
the issue summary. Any other questions for staff or
for catalina? Thank you for being here with us
tonight. >> you're welcome.
I just wanted to confirm, my understanding is that based on
the discussions that you've been having, part of the funds is to
support the immigrant community. Not the 50 for welcoming week,
but the other portion is meant to be opened up into the
community as a hole and provide some of that support and
activities, but potential potentially in
partnership with other groups in the community who do similar work.
I just wanted to confirm that's part of the intent behind that
chunk of the funds?
yes, it's not limited to the latino immigrants.
It's the immigrant community impacted by law enforcement.
I'm so glad you brought that up, because one of the beautiful
parts of that small group that met offsite and mayor pro tem
can speak to that as well, is the group worked really well
together and had some difficult conversations.
So much so that there's a desire
to continue that body of work.
And in those discussions, it was bridged that all of the groups
in the room and those that were not able to be in the room
learned that they have access to these funds through the latino
community association as well. >> thank you for playing that
role. >> and just in terms of next
steps, so we are working on contract drafts for contract
services for our welcoming
program as well as grant agreements.
They're two separate mechanisms
to execute the outline in the resolution. As well as continuing these efforts.
I think we made a commitment to
not just have this be a one-time event but really building this
coalition and supporting it in many different ways, so we're
still working through the details of that.
and there's a provision here about advocacy with our federal
representatives in oregon, so we'll have a letter that goes to
them with this resolution attached as well as part of that
action. Any other questions before a
motion?
I can't help but comment on the difficult position that we
find ourselves in with a federal
government that is pursuing such -- I mean, harmful tactics.
We are severely constrained. There are consequences that we
cannot prevent as city and as a community.
But we're not powerless either.
And I'm really proud to support
this as one thing that we can do
to demonstrate our support and our commitment and as an
expression of our values and desire to make bend a welcoming
and safe community regardless of
people's identity or their backgrounds.
So I just wanted to address the
challenge that we face, because there's no way that we're going
to be able to protect everybody from this federal government,
but we are going to do what we can.
yeah, and I'll say that I
think being in that room, there's so much that we can't
do, but one of the things that I
saw in that room and I see at the human rights and equity
commission too is we're going to take care of each other.
And that's what matters. And so we are going to take care
of our community here in bend.
And so that's the hope that I have and this is sort of a
statement of that. >> and I just want to say as a
daughter of an immigrant from mexico, I just appreciate all
that you guys are doing in our community.
I appreciate bend standing up. This resolution is so important.
And I hope it's just the beginning. >> is there a motion?
I just wanted to add one other point.
Thank you for making this happen, thanks to mayor pro tem
perkins for being part of that
on behalf of the council, other
people in the room and hrec and other community members that participated in it.
I just wanted to emphasize paragraph 3 in the resolution
that declares no matter when someone has joined our community
or where they come from, every person deserves to be free of
fear and intimidation and to be
treated with dignity and respect.
I value all the folks in our community again no matter where
they came from or when they arrived and all the ways they
make our community stronger.
I think as councilor mendez said, I'll super proud to be
supporting this resolution tonight and taking this step
forward and look forward to more
we can do as we move forward. >> I move to adopt a resolution supporting bend's immigrant communities, condemning the
current federal government approach to immigration
enforcement, allocating funding to support bend's diverse
immigrant communities, and authorizing city staff to take
steps necessary to implement the
resolution. >> second.
all those in favor? [Chorus of ayes]
greater
great, unanimous. Yes, immigration is a strength
of this country and this community.
Thank you for being here.
thank you.
All right, that will move us to
item 6 and 7 together.
council is asked to adopt a resolution to authorize the city
t enter into a clean water state revolving fund loan agreement to
finance the king hezekiah and fargo sewer project in a total
loan amount not to exceed $2,879,000.
and council is asked to
authorize a contract with bar
seven a companies for construction of the king
hezekiah and fargo sewer project. >> all right, hi.
good evening.
So I'll go first.
I'll be presenting the construction contract for
approval and then we'll talk about the funding that we are
presenting associated with it.
King hezekiah and fargo were two individual applications selected
by the sept
septic to sewer program.
2024, they were selected, 2025, they were designed, and then
here in 2026, we are looking to
actual construct them.
So a little bit about the septic to sewer conversion program.
It was originally identified in the 2014 collection system
master plan, further reconfirmed in the 2018 public facility plan.
This is the seventh selection
that we have made through the program. It's important to note that king
hezekiah and fargo are a
component of that selection. As the municipal code states,
the city of bend will consider selection through this program
on an annual basis. As the principal engineer, I get
the opportunity to look through the cip.
We had an opportunity to over-select, meaning over-select
from the funding, the 3.5 million annually that we
have set aside for this program,
we actually selected over $6 million worth of septic to
sewer applications. this was in combination due to
the fact that we were about to
set sail into a collection system master plan and a
facility plan update at our treatment plant.
Knowing those were coming, there was a lot of priorities those
two system plans were going to identify and then the priority
was likely going to shift to improving the existing
infrastructure associated with either the collection system or
the treatment system, so we did
have the opportunity to over-fund this program and
present to the committee for
selection of 6.2 million of applications.
Two weeks from now, we will be
presenting another construction
contract for powerful for the contract for approval.
We did stagger those to make sure the bidding community could
have a chance to take a swing at
one and then all the losers or anyone that did want to bid on
the second one could have an opportunity to go there.
So it is important to stress
this is the seventh selection through the previous six, we
have installed over 400 laterals
to properties, 230 of this have
connected, so that's a success rate of 56% and some of those
just got the opportunity to convert through the completion
of the 2025 project.
So that's a huge success to the program. And so just emphasizing what the
program is, it's an applicant-driven program where
people who are on septic can submit to the city for
consideration for selection to convert their septic system on
to city sewer. The city evaluates their
application based on a number of criteria. The age of the system, whether
they have failing systems, the
cost to convert, but one aspect I do want to stress that I
always stress, you'll know what
I'm saying, is the participation
that the applicants have in the program. So at the completion of the
construction project, we issue
what's called a notice of operational completion, the noc.
That noc is their ticket to go down to permitting and pull
their plumbing permit to start their conversion process.
They do get presented a window would have two years to get a
50% reduction on their
connection fee, which is about a $5,000 savings.
They don't have to convert unless they do sign that
petition, which is that
commitment to participating in the conversion upon completion
of the project.
Overview of this application or
this construction project, these two applications at king
hezekiah and fargo are both in the kingsport area south of reed
market, east of 15th.
These ones were completed, the design was completed to the 90%
level as part of the overall
basin study when the southeast interceptor went through kings
forest area and they were designed externally.
We do present opportunities that we do have internal capacity to
do design services.
The next construction project you'll be presented for approval
in two weeks was designed internally, so we do evaluate on
a case-by-case basis how best to deliver the projects.
These projects do include a full width pavement restoration and
given where these projects are,
there will be limited traffic closures really with local
access restrictions. King hezekiah, jumping into that
one, there's 25 properties that will benefit from this sewer
line. Of those, 13 had committed to
connecting within with the two-year period.
1900 linear feet. The dots indicate the properties
that did commit to connection. Going to fargo, that one is a
little over 1,000 feet, 17
properties will benefit, and 12 did commit to participating.
So another case, both of these
projects are over 50% commitment. So as far as a lot of the public
that does benefit from this is wanting to participate directly
in this program. >> jason, can I ask you while
you're on these slides, please, how many folks do you suppose
will also jump on a little bit later but still within that
window just based on your experience?
I'm not going to hold you to it, but anyway, do you think? >> oh, absolutely.
A lot of the people don't want to have the commitment, right?
So they have to do it. But some of these applications
also have been in consideration for multiple years, so there
might be a lot of interest at
first and it has dwindled, but
once the project is selected and proceeded forward, it renews
that interest. >> right.
also that system is that many
more years aged. >> makes sense.
so they need it even further. Unfortunately, there are cases
where people apply and then their system fails and their
application is not selected, so
we just have to go and fix their
system so when we come through, they aren't really attracted to
connecting, because they just
did a large investment on to their septic system.
thank you for the context, appreciate it.
there's been a lot of work in this neighborhood, so I just
wonder how many people have seen it happening on other streets in
the neighborhood and are aware
of hey when this comes down my street, maybe I should consider
it. >> exactly. Overall timeline here as
mentioned, end of 2024 we did select these two applications
along with the azalea and windsor. We did then proceed into the
design of this.
We are here MARCH 18, 2026, for council approval.
We are looking to start construction at the beginning of APRIL.
We do have a public open house scheduled already, the
contractor is ready to get after the construction.
And then construction is slated
for completion in the end of OCTOBER. Overall budget here, the budget
for the project at time of selection, so going back to
2024, was 2.875 million. we did receive seven bids on
this project.
The lowest bid came in 26% under
the engineer's estimate, so that
is beneficial to city, the water
reclamation fund and the septic
city program, so it has a ripple effect there.
Survey and design, call it
minimal cost, $160,000.
That's the amount that we have incurred to date through the
design services surveying miscellaneous and then some
additional services that we will be providing.
Overall total, 1.855. So while there's a good gap
there, we aren't intending to
spend the full million dollar deficit.
That money goes back into the
beginning working capital of the
water reclamation fund, but we are taking provisions as necessary.
But that 2.875 was the number
back to the selection time period.
and as jason mentioned,
there's also a resolution this evening to enter into a clean
water state revolving fund loan.
It's a bit of a mouthful. That will be used to finance the
king hezekiah and fargo septic to sewer project.
The not to exceed amount, the 2.875, but consistent with our
other cwsrf loans, we'll only draw down the amount needed to
complete the project, so the loan amount will end up being
whatever we end up using.
Some of the benefits to
obtaining the cwsrf loans over issuing traditional revenue
bonds include things like no prepayment penalties.
We don't have bond issuance
costs, pretty low debt service coverage requirements and lower
interest rates than your typical market bonds.
This particular loan is eligible
for a million dollars worth of
forgiveness and up to principal
forgiveness up to $450,000, so we'll be roughly requiredded to
pay back half of that 2.87 were
we to utilize the entire amount.
The biennial budget and the sewer rate models include the
rate plan to fund this cost of the project.
great, all right. Any questions, other questions,
council? Looking good.
I have a question.
That is a pretty big budget gap. I recall when we looked at the
projects that were proposed, I
mean, obviously changes go out to bid and bid it tomorrow, but
there were a lot of projects proposed.
So, yeah, I don't know, I'd be curious, so those dollars will
just go into the program? Because council in the past has
funded the program at 3 million a year?
three-and-a-half.
yeah, so we're spending a million less?
going back, we did commit to
spend 6.2. >> 2.
So we did overcommit because we had that opportunity, and I want
to stress that was because of the collection system master
plan and the facility plan update at the treatment plant
that were coming, so we are starting to land those ships.
And so we are identifying all of the needs outside of septic to
sewer, so a lot of the attention
either from staffing or from funding is going to have to
shift to the highest priority areas. And so that's a conversation
that we need to have on how to
best support all of the needs within the collection -- within
the water reclamation system, so collections and treatment.
Because we have a lot of existing infrastructure on the
collections and on the treatment
side that have been deferred, because we haven't had
necessarily a master plan to tell us exactly what is is
needed. So we were looking to identify
those needs, prioritize those
needs, develop the funding strategy and then balance other
programs such as septic to
sewer, pump station, r & r, but
we do have a lot of other capital needs through those
systems.
mm-hmm, okay, yeah. I did get an e-mail from
someone. It's a couple months ago now,
and I thought they were
following up with you, so it's
probably fine, but I think it's actually cabin lane, in that
area, there were some cul-de-sacs that did not get
picked up on the septic to
sewer, so homeowners on those cul-de-sacs are still on septic,
but there is a sewer line right there and it seems like sort of
little connections that the city
has promised that neighborhood and made a follow-through to
most of the neighbors but not others. I'd be interested.
I'll follow up with you on it separately.
the city goes through a
diligent process to identify the
drainage area, not to come do
short segments, but you also can't do excessive, because the
funding doesn't support it.
So there's a strategy on how to
identify what that drainage basin is. There's a lot of areas within
the city of bend, southwest,
southeast, some of the north,
northwest are on septic, so it is competitive.
And it would take a lot of money to convert everybody over and
that's balancing the existing system and the operations that
we do have to have. So it would be great to do it
all, but we do have a system to
maintain and treat the sewage too.
okay, any other questions? All right.
We got two motions, 6 and 7. >> I move to adopt a resolution
authorizing a clean water state
revolving fund loan agreement to
finance the king hezekiah and fargo sewer project in a total
loan amount not to exceed $2,875,000, in substantially the
form presented to council and as approved by the department of
environmental quality. >> second.
moved by councilor platt, seconded by councilor riley.
All in favor?
aye. >> okay.
Next? >> I move to authorize a contract with bar seven a companies, inc., in
substantially the form presented to council, for construction
services for the king hezekiah and fargo sewer project in an
amount not to exceed $1,674,186. >> second.
all in favor? [Chorus of ayes]
we'll move on to item 8. >> council is asked to authorize
a contract with diamond parking services llc for city-wide
parking management and
enforcement services not to exceed $536,000 for the first
year and authorize the city
manager to approve annual renewals for a total contract
amount not to exceed
$2,906,000 over five years.
good evening, mayor and council.
It's time to renew our parking
management and our enforcement contract.
So today what we're asking is to authorize a contract as was
mentioned with diamond parking services llc for the city-wide
management and enforcement services. I'll give some details and we'll
circle back around to a motion
at the end.
I threw up the wheel of the connected city.
I think parking touches
basically pretty much on all of those.
But this contract helps suppor efficient, responsible
transportation, system managemnt. We got multiple districts in
town as you know today,
downtown, old bend, Mckay,
parking garage, surface lots. We do have some future districts
that we have talked with council about before. I'll share some more information
on those in a later slide. But this contract is a phased
approach with some new districts proposed. Services support parking
availability, circulation,
compliance, just to expand a little bit on what the contract
does or doesn't maybe include, just a few examples.
Enforcement parking management strategies in compliance with
our bend municipal code, oregon statutes, inspect, enforce,
maintain compliance with all parking facilities. We want our parking system to be
functional, clean, maintained.
Manage the online and anywhere in-person
parking permits, supplies, materials, the surface lots.
Daily maintenance and operations
of the parking garage.
Example of maybe what this
doesn't include, diamond parking
do not create a parking
management strategic or
strategies or policies. We work with city council on
what those parking management strategies and policies are but
then diamond helps us manage and enforce those.
So the procurement process.
We did do a formal rfp request for proposal process.
I was happy to see five
proposals come in. Diamond parking services llc was
the highest ranked proposal.
We had basically a committee, a
scoring process with a total of 1,000 points possible.
Those things we looked for are project understanding and
approach, that was worth a few hundred points.
Project team, experience, and quality of service worth another
few hundred points, so 60% of
the ranking of these proposals
was based on those. cost was another 400 points to
make up that 1,000-point total.
We had five proposals total.
The top two were very competitive. Diamond parking was the highest
overall scoring proposal, the
highest in the project understanding, experience, quality of service.
They were the second highest
scorer for cost.
They were the second lowest proposal.
And that was pretty much a straightup formula on cost.
The lowest cost proposal, you get the most points and second%
and third and fourth and fifth.
Proposals ranged from about
503,000 to 6.
655,000 and some change. Here is a picture of some of the
members of the diamond parking team.
So I mentioned the phased approach. Phase one really is taking care
of what we have today. So that downtown parking
district, the Mckay district, old bend benefit district, the
surface lots that I mentioned
and centennial parking garage.
This summer, we look to expand old bend east district and what
we're calling the miller's run district.
I've got some maps.
I'll shirr a little bit more
share a little bit more about that.
We were within the next probably two weeks here, we're working
with communications, legal, met
with the members of the old bend neighborhood association just
monday of this week to go into the 60-day public comment
period, and so looking to be
back in front of council with
the final recommendations on these districts accounting for
the public comment in JUNE.
And so just a quick snapshot of our districts.
I think most of us are familiar with them. We've got the downtown district.
I won't go through all the text
there, but 400 spaces in surface
lots, 547 in garage, on-street,
about 40 blocks worth, 1500 spaces.
Old bend parking benefit street,
1200 on-street space.
Mckay, 250 on-street spaces.
And then we get into the two new districts that I was just mentioning.
I went ahead and put some anticipated strategies up here,
but we'll be back in front of
council in JUNE after accounting
for public comment and with what strategies we're recommending
for the final proposal. But these are some of the
examples of what we're anticipating there.
And then the old bend east, so this would not just be an
expansion of the existing district.
We got some different nuances, existing district on the west
side of broadway down to drake park, Mckay park, you got the
river floaters, the deschutes river trail.
Over to the parkway and along the arizona, colorado area, more
of a commercial use more so than park and businesses along
franklin and along the parkway.
Some different strategies there. So available for questions and
have a recommended motion on the screen.
all right, council, questions
for david on this contract? >> and I'm sorry, I didn't
mention in the beginning, we
have patrick from the parking
division as well as carina from diamond parking.
go ahead. >> so what I would really like
to dig into a little bit with my fellow councilors here is the
distinction between a parking benefit district and those areas
versus the commercial areas where we have a lot of paid
parking and we have some very regimented -- and we don't have
people who live in homes who are trying to go about their lives
and their daily business, many without driveways, for example,
because we've moved away from that.
I very much support that.
And so I'm now the old bend neighborhood liaison.
You probably heard the same things I've been hearing.
I've spent hours meeting with
dave and russ grayson to talk about some of the issues the old
bend neighborhood is facing.
So what my concern is, is that
we're enforcing laws and rules in a parking benefit district
that was not really explained to the residents of that
neighborhood when they signed up
for the parking benefit district.
The rules that are being
enforced there are rules of
parking and traffic that it's just going beyond what I think
anyone really signed up for.
So the way that I read the contract is that -- and the way
that david has explained it to
me is that the contractor, diamond parking, who enforcing
the ors, but they don't do that
in every neighborhood, right? The only reason they're going
through the old bend neighborhood is because we now
have the benefit district there. In the old bend neighborhood is
for us to actually kind of live up to the promise we made to the
neighborhood which is to make it a benefit neighborhood.
So the neighbors are paying for
a parking permit and they're hopefully getting some parking
on their street when tourists
are in town, but they're not
getting penalized, laws enforced on them that we're not enforcing
on other nakeds in
neighborhoods in the city.
So I think it's a clarification of council's policy to the staff
and the contractor who are administering the policy.
I don't think it's necessarily a change to the contract itself.
I think this is a point of clarification that I'm asking
for you to help me convey to the staff tonight. >> so you're saying there's
people who are living there that are getting tickets for maybe
staying too long on the street? >> exactly.
or when they have -- I mean, I've heard about this from a
couple of people who live there. People have a dinner party and
they have people there for four hours and the systems that have
to be used and the hoops that these folks have to go through
or their kid comes home from college for a couple weeks.
It does seem like it's maybe
gotten to a point of we need to
review how some of this is working.
I can just chime in on a few examples. >> I'm not sure if tonight's
meeting is the right venue. I don't disagree with you, but
I'm wondering is this an agenda request and/or do we have a time
at some point in the future here where we're going to talk about
parking anyway and we review some of those rules as part of
the new districts? >> we'll be in front of you with
the old bend east. >> that sounds like a good plan,
because we're coming back on this anyway and we'll have new
rounds of public comment.
So I'm not necessarily married to the original pilot which was
before any of us were on council. I'd like to hear what people
want now and what they feel the
pressures are. People who visit who are taking
up street parking, that was the concern, right?
And so I don't think the folks in this neighborhood think they're entitled to the street
packing, but we do need a system that is usable for everyone.
some of this is from the new
code from JANUARY. Yeah, we can talk about it,
certainly some more.
We want it to work. Another example is parking in
the wrong direction against the flow of traffic.
That is a state law. >> no one here has ever done
that, have you! (Indiscernible, simultaneous
speaking).
but to your point, councilor franzosa, this contract, diamond
parking would enforce whatever
bend code and policies and enforcement that we'd ask them
to. >> so I would be supportive of
having that policy discussion,
and I just didn't want to MISS The opportunity to say thank you
to patrick and staff and to encourage people if you see
diamond parking agents or city staff working on parking, say
thank you, because I think there's a perception that
somehow these programs, these policies and the people that
enforce them are somehow
intended to make parking more difficult.
And actually if we get the
policies right, it's going to make marking easier, and that's
one of the reasons why downtown bend business association is
coming back to us with their ideas for parking, so thank you
for making parking accessible and available and I'm happy to
have that conversation about the
policy.
thank you, council member. >> we want it to wok,
work, but it's a team effort.
Just to expand a little bit on the parking benefit, just
because you mentioned that was before that time and the pilot,
and we're coming back with are
with a
final proposal for bend east.
Part of that benefit district is some funds that get generated
within that district, and so the
existing old bend is up to about $85,000 or something right now.
And so we've been talking with some of the folks out there,
lauren and that group in the community, but the idea is that
benefit, if they want something within that neighborhood, they
can come to the city with ideas.
A park bench or formalizing maybe some areas on the
landscape that can be parked on that aren't in conflict with a
water meter or fire hydrant as an example.
There's a financial piece that we're trying to have, that that
neighborhood can pick some things they'd like to maybe try
and do and fund within their neighborhood.
I'm grateful for everyone who
wants that policy conversation, because the neighborhood, that
money has been in the fund for quite a while and the neighborhood has not been able
to figure out how they can actually use that money for the
city, so hopefully that will be
part of the policy discussion. >> I think we can make sure we
provide direction to diamond, let's not enforce some of those
things.
that's all I'm asking. >> I don't agree with not
enforcing parking the wrong way
on the street. But I think --
we have resources to do that
city wide, what we're trying to
do is do that where we have the parking district.
We're asking for some discretion from our parking director.
we want to be a little bit careful in the case of state law
and we also want consistency across our community. Other districts as well.
state law, you're not supposed to park the wrong
direction?
yes, with it is. Yes, it is.
I'd be fine with doing that
if we did it everywhere! (Indiscernible, simultaneous speaking).
these neighborhoods have
asked for extra enforcement. They wanted that.
They want more enforcement of
parking in their neighborhoods in rules and time limits because
of the parking pressures that I were feeling.
So to turn around -- due -- >> due to tourism.
I know that's the case, but we need to acknowledge -- and
then to turn around to the people enforcing the law,
actually, never mind. I think we can find a balance
here, but the parking pressures
on these neighborhoods are the reasons they asked for
enforcement. >> they're asking for the
enforcement to go away, for the benefit district to be undone.
I'd like to make sure we go through the public comment
process on this and get a wide swath of comments.
When your guest gets a ticket
for coming over for dinner, yes, you'll write to us.
we reinstated the paper visitor passes. We want it to work.
We want to make improvements. The east old bend area -- well,
actually it was all of that area.
They did an effort and survey and the majority of the folks
that responded are supportive of a new district on the east side
too. There were some that were uncertain.
But the majority of folks were looking for some help.
And really in that area, we're
looking to be proactive ahead of
the continued commercial area with the box factory and the new
developments and things that are
going there, the timber yard was mentioned earlier tonight, be
ahead of that and have a
right if we start to regulate in the become area they will go
to neighbors to park. Good to have something set up
there.
I am talking about locals. Not just tourists.
We can find a happy medium here.
that will happen when to come back in.
we will look to come back in
JUNE for recommendation on the proposed east.
Two districts I talked about.
We can have the bigger policy discussion.
When they did the survey to help us guide with the new district.
Existing district as well as new proposed area.
94 comments were part of that.
We will come back to you within
put, concerns, questions.
Existing district as well as how
those apply to the new district.
I move to authorize with diamonds parking services for
city-wide parking management enforcement services in
substantially form presented to
council in an amount not to exceed $536,000 for the first
year and authorize city manager
to approve annual renewals in
accordance with terms of
agreement not to exceed $2,906,000 over five years.
second.
moved by perkins.
Second by franzosa. In favor. >> aye. >> thank you.
we have one second reading left.
this is the second reading of
ordinance amending bend
development code bdc related to
prepreservation requirements b d
c-3.2.200, tree preservation.
I need to declare conflict
like the first reading. My employer is hidden homes.
I will remove myself for this.
we need a motion.
move second reading roll call
vote ordinance amending bend
development code bd c-3.2.200
tree preservation. >> second.
motion by perkins, second platt. >> franzosa. >> yes. >> mendez.
aye.
riley.
yes.
perkins. >> yes. >> platt. >> yes. >> kebler. >> yes.
city manager report.
we have had a couple busy months and work sessions where
we typically have time to say what is coming up on the next
couple months? I want to share that with you.
Lead in to earlier conversations
proposal to share with you.
APRIL next meeting on APRIL 1.
Stevens ranch or legacy building.
High points. APRIL 8 roundtable with the
electrification policy work
looking at exemptions
implementation timeline inviting
four city committees.
Then on the 15th we have another
master plan timber yards as item.
We will have update.
I will talk about that goal update.
We will look at one year into
work plan to go through prioritization we will talk
about in a second. MAY 6 bura meeting.
MAY 13 is a big work session.
Prioritizing capital improvement program.
If our grants hold we have room
in geobond and transportation construction fund to address
issues we talked about last
night with parks and bridges.
Areas cut to add on.
Significant item on MAY 13.
Along with the transient lodging tax about the shift.
What does council want to do
with that split shift from 70/30 to 50/50.
Joint work session with rural fire district on 13th.
I will stop there.
It is a lot. We still have some other
meetings to try to schedule roundtable ideas.
One in southwest. Interaction.
We will send out survey later this week.
I will ask for your input how this is going.
Six months into the new schedule
with meeting every week.
Layered on to that are special meetings.
I want to test your capacity in
terms how to manage.
I would stay from staff
perspective one city strategic plan. Off site with leadership.
A lot of prep. Staff is feeling it.
Partnership is seeing stress on elected and staff side.
I would like to look at both the
schedule how to prioritize those meetings.
Prioritizing the work plan items as well.
I am planning quarterly goal
update in APRIL to take input
from survey that you will see,
coupled with ideas of things to
slim down to make sure we are --
sometimes we talk about this we
go so fast and we might MISS Things. Slowing down is a good thing. It is hard.
This is a community that expects a lot.
Fast growing and want to do all of the things.
Any effective organization is realistic about resources they
have and how best to tackle these problems.
I will ask for your help and guidance over the next couple
months.
for the start quarter one. I meeting every week.
Three special meetings at least
that I can think of maybe more. County, parks, roundtable, advisory summit.
A lot going on in quarter one.
When you look at survey look at
maybe providing the rest of the
year more breaks, more fifth weeks.
I don't disagree that this is a particularly hard quarter to
start the year.
the other piece everybody
else has commitments.
Hrac or Coc board in addition. >> it is okay.
We might have different perspective on council.
Let's talk about it. I wanted to let you know that
our notices for the bend central
district economic improvement district went out.
Delay with maps and properties.
We re-noticed folks.
If you get contacted new notice is going out.
Public hearing council will see in the next couple weeks.
I will put more information in
the memo so you are aware. I think that was it.
A lot of public engagement with projects now.
There is too much -- open houses
and things. >> downtown bend library closing
to be renovated in APRIL will be
closed for a year. Central library opening MAY 11.
They have ability to pick up and
drop off books at central
library east side for folks that
care about downtown access.
It will be great when finished painful closure.
can you pick up and drop off downtown?
apparently library board discussed that to make sure it
is ada accessible while they
renovate building it is tough. They weren't able to figure out
how to do that.
thank you for the update.
surprise library update.
Get your books now.
With that we are adjourned. Thanks everybody.
Live cc by aberdeen captioning. 1-800-688-6621. Www.Abercap.Com.