City Council - Regular Meeting

Ben, can you hear us? Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Ben, I can hear you. Can you hear me? Okay. Y success. Yay. here. It is 4:00. I will start the Ben City Council work session for today, uh, January 28th. Uh, the mayor is in Washington DC at a mayor's conference right now, so she will not be here today. We can start with roll call. Gina, could you stop?

Gina Franosa, she her. Ariel Mendes, he him. Mike Riley, he him. Megan Perkins, she her heard. Megan Norris, she her. Steve Black, he him. All right. And first up today, we have a presentation from Ben Duncan, who is online um on the equity program structure.

I'm just going to uh provide a few opening remarks. And yes, uh want to introduce Ben Duncan with Karns West. Uh the city contracted with Karns West last October to examine the operations and structure of the city of Ben's equity related functions, services, and programs. So council will hear from Ben today uh the methodology uh that he used, findings, and recommendations. Uh upon Ben reviewing his recommendations, I'll then share uh the plan of action to implement those recommendations. Uh we'll close with some questions that Ben has for council to help shape his final report and any questions that you may have for Ben or myself. Um, I just wanted to note that I'm really excited to carve out a new path as in the as the city considers the future of its equity work. There's an opportunity to build a greater sense of inclusion and belonging uh through thoughtful and rigorous implementation strategies that focus on structures, policies, practices, and programs to ensure that all employees at the city have the opportunity to reach their full potential. Uh, equity work is deep and broad and grounded in understanding lived experiences of our community members. We'll continue our commitment to creating policies and systems where our community has the opportunity to thrive. We know that trust is not built through words alone, but through sustained action. We also know that there is more work to do to ensure that our organization is welcoming, equitable, and supportive for everyone. So, with that, I just want to welcome Ben into the space and I'll I'll again chime in after he walks through his recommendations.

Okay. Well, thank you, Eric. And it's uh I apologize that I'm not there. Um I I misspend already. I was there not that long ago. I I believe uh somebody else is going to share slides. Is that correct? Yes.

You can pull those up. Thank you. Uh well, mayor prom Perkins counselors for the record. Uh my name is Ben Duncan as Eric said, consultant with Karns and West and really honored to be here uh this afternoon to share my findings and offer some recommendations for how the city of Ben can continue to advance and strengthen its equity work. Uh just as a point of introduction, I'll note that I I come to this work having served myself as a chief diversity and equity officer for Multma County in Portland where I live and and had the the honor of supporting the governing alliance on race and equity as a founding steering committee member. and it really afforded me the the privilege of working with and and supporting jurisdictions all over the country on how to build up um improve upon and leverage structural and organizational governance models to advance equity work for jurisdictions. And I'll just say at the outset, Bend, like any city that's growing and seeing demographic changes and, you know, having to respond to all of what that means in community has a really unique opportunity uh to continue to invest in and support equity work. And I'll say, you know, I've been really impressed by the passion of of staff, of leadership, of community members to to be part of that investment. Um I'll also say at the outset is kind of the old adage is that you know this work is a marathon not a sprint. Um and it's going to be important as you all think about your future structures and implementation to balance the kind of immediiacy and the urgency of working towards um really necessary equitable outcomes for community while also you know moving at the pace of relationship the pace of process and structural planning that allows the work to be most successful. If we go next slide, I I'm hoping to to really utilize the

time I have with you all today um to to align with a few outcomes. Um, I'll I'll reflect on the scope and methodology, and Eric did a good job of kind of describing kind of what I was brought in to do that really guided this work. Reflect on some of the key findings and themes from the analysis, um, that I've done. Um, including the identification of core functions that the city has in place. Um, and do all of that in service to connecting it to some recommended structural and implementation concepts that, uh, I really do hope guide your next steps. Um, finally, I'll outline kind of where uh, you know, at least my work goes from here. Um, and as Eric said, really close our time together with some space for you to have discussion u, particularly focused on the role of council and your role in advancing equitable outcomes. If you go to the next slide, I'm uh, I'll come back to this at the conclusion. And this is kind of a bookend uh slide um at the conclusion of my presentation, but I did want to preview these questions that I hope you all will explore together. Um as elected representatives, right, you have an opportunity and I'd say an obligation, right, for ensuring that equitable outcomes for your constituents are realized. And my hope is that while a lot of this work and a lot of my recommendations is really centered on kind of operational and structural decisions that are are in the purview and led by the city manager that it's imperative that you all are also exploring the role you have as a legislative body and the responsibility that you carry to ensure that the decisions you make are informed that they seek to mitigate disperate outcomes or what we sometimes call unintended consequences. Um, and just as importantly, invest in policies that expand benefit to all of your constituents. And I say that also recognizing and challenging and pushing

you all to do so with a focus on ensuring that those who are most vulnerable, those who have the least resource, those who carry the least power are centered in your considerations and centered in your analysis. Um, it's also a unique opportunity for this body to help to clarify and solidify the role and relationship with the Human Rights and Equity Commission, a group I've had the pleasure to connect with and who um, by all accounts, you know, both from what I've seen, right, are eager to be a value ad for the city and to support council u, as appointed members by you all as a body u, to be a resource for issues that come before you. So, we'll talk more about those questions and really hope that it's a a good platform for you all to to speak to later. You go, next slide. Eric kind of hit this piece around uh scope and purpose, but u you know the value that I hope I bring is is really as an independent and objective kind of third party um being able to review the work that you all are doing to try to have a deep understanding of kind of what the existing systems and structures and staffing and strategies uh but how that really aligns with where you want to and where you can go. And there was kind of two phases and I'll kind of unpack these a little bit as we go along. One being kind of just anal an analysis and trying to understand the kind of state of of uh you know the kind of current state. Um and then moving into what this conversation really represents as part of developing recommendations for accessibility and equity work that u really allows you uh to move forward and things that you can adopt in the future to be successful. If you go to next slide. So, I'm not going to name names. Um, in fact, it was important that some people you'll know when I say city manager's office, but um it was important that, you know, folks I met with had some

sense of of of confidentiality and so we could have candid conversations and we did. Um, so as I go into some of what uh the themes and findings are, I just want to both acknowledge um and give some some illustration to the conversations we had um but also really thank everyone who's represented on this slide, including folks that are doing the work every day as equity and accessibility leads, uh senior leadership and city manager office and the executive team, department leaders. I appreciate, you know, the time I had with with many of you as as electeds, council members. um did spend some time with the community relations manager, the DEIA advisory committee, diversity, equity, inclusion and um accessibility advisory committee. Um the human rights and equity commission, ATRE, um met with some wonderful folks in community both organizationally and individuals that u just care deeply and are working, you know, every day tirelessly to improve community outcomes. Um and then did some analysis of of what I might call comparable cities. Alongside that, also had the opportunity to really dive a bit deeper into some of the background documents, plans, structures that you have in place, including, you know, you all uh as council, your goals that you've set, the employee experience action plan, the AIM tool, Hrex work plan, you know, perusing websites. Congratulations on I think you just released a a revamped website. um looking at program descriptions, really trying to understand the work that's that's occurring and then of course looking at kind of the the model and structure for Kobach um and and aligning with national best practices as I said really referencing organizations like the governing alliance for racial equity international city county management association urban institute and others who have done national scans of best practices across jurisdictions of all sizes across geographies um throughout the United States. the next slide.

And so from that analysis, these next two slides will really speak to um kind of what I've learned and and I'm going to start by saying just as we show this slide, um the work is happening. um it's happening already and I'll speak briefly on the next slide about some of the themes that emerge that can in inform you know kind of structural efficiencies but just looking at what the city is currently investing in um there really isn't anything that I felt was a glaring miss in terms of equity efforts across the city and of course all of this work has opportunities for quality improvement all of this work has opportunities for consistency of practice um and deeper adoption but the core functions for equity across the city are strong. And similarly, there are some solid structures like HRE and like Kobe that exist alongside some of the internal structures u whether that's around uh external complaints um investigations through civil rights uh the tribal consultation and relationship building that's happening across uh many of the departments and and and some really direct connection to models of community support through some of the broader level engagement um but also specifically some of the city's support and sponsorship of of community events and again plenty of room for improvement for every one of these efforts. Um but a solid platform in which to leap from. If we go to the next slide, I know some of you um either live or in the a, you know, online have have heard me kind of reference this and I wanted to take the opportunity to dive a little bit deeper and this will have of course in my report we'll we'll we'll have a deeper dive into this as well, but I did want to unpack some of these key findings because there really is a a relationship and intersection between these findings from analysis and the recommendations and implementation vision u for what can come from them. Um, and I'll work through through each

of them individually. So, from clarity and direction, an overarching theme, you know, participants that I talked to uh really noted that the city council's goals provide a a clear and kind of motivating foundation for equity work. But there also remains kind of uncertainty about how those goals are operationalized and specifically who's responsible for leading, coordinating, and ensuring accountability for different aspects of equity and accessibility. Um, and you'll see some of these will weave together. Um, not too dissimilar in roles and responsibilities. There appears to be kind of an organizational culture and commitment to collaboration. Um, and interviews interviewees describe kind of an uneven understanding of how equity work is happening across departments. So, there's teams, you know, some teams that are demonstrating really strong cross-disciplinary partnerships, but those practices are not consistent across the organization. And a lot of folks really reflected on the challenge of realizing quote one city approach um where goals, expectations and and communications can be fully aligned and some some tension uh between those two things. As far as consistency of practice, um several stakeholders really identified a need for shared standards, uh shared expectations that again you'll hear this word a lot that ensure consistency across programs and departments um to help kind of rise to a level of excellence in all of the work that you all do each and every day. Leadership structure was a theme and a recurring topic. um kind of the role of a director or leadership position that's responsible for leading equity and accessibility work. And um a lot of folks really favored a leadership role that's located kind of internally within the city but also has this meaningful connection with community which is a kind of challenging dynamic. But there's certainly an interest in defining the authority and the scope of these type of

leadership positions to ensure um again alignment to be able to set standards and vision and direction and reduce kind of duplication um in many different areas. uh the concept of distributive leadership um and how coordination kind of happens at the city um was described as kind of part of the culture and and I would say part of a kind of core leadership philosophy and that was reflected in a number of participants emphasizing the value of distributed leadership noting you know there's functions like ADA compliance or website accessibility or procurement or policy analysis a number of things that just kind of naturally are relevant across departments. Um, at the same time, several employees really suggested that those types of responsibilities could be most effective when they are coordinated through the city manager's office, right? Some sort of centralized authority and responsibility with really strong dotted line relationships or dedicated liaons to ensure that collaboration actually happens across teams. Uh so this current model as I see it of distributed leadership might be contributing to some of the lack of consistency in practice particularly um as there seems to be kind of a culture of opting in um even for some of these core functions whether it's performance management or competencies or equity analysis or kind of other operational responsibilities that are conducted across departments. accessibility um I'll say was widely recognized as a strength um and certainly supported by compliance requirements clearly defined expectations a lot of those are are legally um provided um and certainly participants saw opportunities to build on that foundation to develop tools and templates that can provide kind of practical guidance for for pract and support for staff while also maintaining

some flex fibility for departmental and kind of discipline specific needs. And you know, in some ways accessibility is really unique. Um, as I said, it it reflects a really strong legal requirement. Um, this mandates kind of specific types of activities, structures, and practices. But also note just that, um, you know, I don't know if Cassandra, you're watching, but you know, folks really spoke highly of the leadership in this area of work. And um you know I don't want to lose and while I primarily focus on structure um how critical it can be to have the right people in the right roles uh with clear direction for their work. Uh for core functions there was a number of folks you know many of the interviewees really referred to a collection of actions that reflect those core functions that that that I named earlier and the city's either obligated or invested in advancing. Um, but participants didn't really seem to have a a strong grasp of where that work was at, how departmental or organizational progress was being tracked or whether departments had specific action plans to be able to implement um some of these functions consistently across the organization. And then the final two that is is probably more of an external focus, although the DEIA advisory committee is is an internal focused body. um they really discussed the roles and particularly ATRE folks that I spoke with um discussed the roles of of these advisory bodies um really as valuable mechanisms for community input and um for the DEIA advisory for for internal collaboration um but strongly named these groups lacking clarity around authority around consultation processes and importantly decision-making influence and strengthening the role goal and the vision for these groups, how they're supported for success and building more trust uh to empower these bodies to be really value ads and not

what several folks described as just checking the box uh will be really important is a great opportunity to kind of invest in those spaces. And then finally, community trust and relationships. And we could spend, you know, the next two days talking about community trust and relationships. It's complex. it's ongoing. But a number of folks reflected on the importance of trust and transparency in relationships with community partners. And while you know some noted really positive engagement and really positive relationships and partnerships with the city, there was others that really described experience that felt um transactional or or performative was one of the terms that I heard uh quite a bit rather than maybe reciprocal or or mutually beneficial more of that relationship that's long-standing. And so building and maintaining long-term relationshipbased partnership is really one of those keys that are essential for not just you know trust and relationship but lasting progress and making sure that the work you do is informed by community um expertise. If you go next slides

and just for a second we're going to um we had a wrong version of the slide deck so Stephanie's going to share the correct one. So give us just one second. Okay. Second, the slides I were showing seemed right. Right. It's the next slide. Yes. I think we had just one small change in one one of the slides. Make sure it got captured. Thank you. I was gonna say for the record that was not a Ben Duncan um is No, it was just it was it was a word that Ben wanted to change in a slide that we reposted, but it just didn't make the other version yet. Thank you for catching that.

Yeah. Well, just as you're pulling out the slides, I'll just note I'm going to kind of transition into kind of the findings and background to high level recommendations and then you know uh Eric as you you um previewed at the beginning ask you to reflect on some of the ways in your role as city manager for how those recommendations can can become actionable. Uh so I'll do so when the the slides come up. Right. Okay. Perfect. I see the words that I want to see. So, thank you. Um, so we're kind of combining where Eric and I will tag team this a little bit. And what I'll really be doing and again this is what you see in these kind of four high level recommendation areas uh are really built from what I just described but also really deeply connected to national best practices. These are not just coming from the city of Bend or from folks that are internal experts. This is not just Ben putting some stuff on paper. Um these are things that have been tried and tested across jurisdictions all over the country in different geographies, different sizes and different leadership models. Um but there are some key things that feel really important to name. So one is embedding equity into decision-m and equity analysis and expertise really needs to be able to influence decisions and practice at every level of the organization and that includes policy programs and practice. Um, and so you all thinking about how you ensure future structures elevate that expertise is a really critical part of a best practices model. This balance

of centralized oversight and decentralized implementation, what we might call this hub and spoke model really is recognizing that to address some of the themes that I outlined, having that strong centralized structure that can help set what we might call the north star for equity work um and serve as a resource for the organization by ensuring collaboration, coordination, best practices, right? having that centralized northstar setting direction for the organization and then providing those wraparound supports through developing capacity organizationwide to sustain that change. And so that capacity building is really important. That's the development of frameworks. You have tools like the AIM tool which uh I think you know Eric will talk about that's a real opportunity for you all models for best practices but also training technical assistance and what I might call thought partnership which shows up in lots of different ways just to be able to you know throw ideas off each other to help think about how to improve the work u really will help the city ensure that you know equitable practice and this advancing of equitable outcomes becomes just part of how the city does its work uh across all the departments and all the programs. And then finally, and it wasn't a a key part of my analysis to look at your engagement models, but I will say that embedding community engagement and embedding like is is kind of the action word here is critical, right? Being able to leverage and strengthen not just the existing structures, but also building out best practices for engagement. So whenever the city and whomever in the city across all of its work is doing engagement that it's meaningful and when I say meaningful I mean that communities have an ability to impact decisions that affect their lives and doing able to being able to do that in a

relationship-based and mutually beneficial way uh will be an important part of it. So Eric, I'd love to to pass it to you to help translate kind of how do you take these highlevel recommendations and and really allow you to speak to how that could be action uh made actionable.

Yeah, thank you Ben. So I'm just going to kind of walk through from top to bottom and how we're reflecting uh these high level recommendations. It should be noted that we're still working with our internal team on the a lot of specifics and with HR on job descriptions and classification all that. So I'm but I'm going to give you a little more specificity. So, under that first category, um we are proposing to move our accessibility and equity uh program into the city manager's office. Um really as a as a team, um we're wanting that to be focused on our our policy team so it has the most uh direct impact with council and the council goal setting process and the council projects. Um so it provides the the best positionality I think to accomplish that is reflected in Ben's recommendation. Uh the move will ensure direct participation in decision-making with the city manager and and our executive team. Uh it'll ensure that the equity leaders are part of decision-making processes and bodies uh such as our policy groups. We have a housing public safety transportation etc. Uh we have a city manager office strategy group, an innovation steering committee, an employee experience committee. All of that is wrapped up into that structure. Um so that's kind of first off uh on the centralized oversight with decentralized implementation. the recommendation. So I I mentioned a centralized hub uh as our content experts but we really want we envision a hub and spoke model and so these spokes would be uh positions that are defined these are existing positions defined in our departments and really formalizing the role of those positions with administrative policy to create a more of a two-way you know so there's calibration that's happening so we have the content expertise but then how we calibrate to those departments is uh defined in that role of those liaison equity liaison roles. Um and then with the third recommendation developing capacity organizationwide to sustain change. Uh so our big focus here is the use of the AIM tool. And just a little more uh for those that are watching that might not understand what

that stands for, it's assumptions, impacts, and measures. These are three areas of questioning that help the city staff examine how decisions um are uh that affect both internal and external customers. Uh so it's a streamlined tool that's intended to be easy to use, repeatable, and adaptable across all departments. So the real big focus here in terms of increasing that capacity is using the AIM tool as that vehicle. Council has identified four areas. The uh water rates, um our wildfire work, uh mitigation work, the home committee, housing opportunities made for everyone, um as well as our growth plan as our four content areas. Uh we really envision this to go deeper than that. that's just where council has the most visibility as we kind of pilot and test and continue to perfect the tool. Um, but that's the big opportunity there and I think with that structure of that hub and spoke model uh will be much more effective in our implementation. Um, and then we also have uh this one city initiative going on that's uh mentioned in our council goals. It's a an update to the city's mission, vision, and values. uh we've engaged I think about 500 of our 800 employees in that process over the last couple of months. Um so it is going to provide a framework uh for this work as well. So I just wanted to make that mention there because that is we talk about capacity building when we have that solid framework that allows us to um drive some of some of these recommendations through that uh through that plan. And then lastly embedding uh community engagement as a core function. Um, so the human rights and equity commission and the accessibility advisory committee are really bridges to the community and bring insights, expertise, and lived experience and decision-m. So what I am proposing to do is to expand Ben's contract uh a bit to really help us with particularly with ATR. Um, so I think we had a really uh insightful meeting a few weeks ago [clears throat] and want to continue that work and really define the purpose. uh council has approved the HRE work plan, but I think there's some some

more work to do on purpose of of that as a body, you know, zooming up a little bit. Um so I'm proposing to add a little scope to Ben's existing contract to help with that over the next couple of months. Um and then I I think one of the things that we really see an opportunity is to add a position in our community engagement team. Um, so this is also backfilling the community relations manager position, but so it's really adding more capacity for engagement and focusing our engagement around equity as as mentioned in this uh recommendation to really embed that because that is a critical touch point as we're uh looking at our growth plan or we're building transportation projects is to really uh uh increase the resources and how we're engaging and centralize that a bit more. I think we've had a more ad hoc approach that I think we're we're seeing an opportunity with the recommendations here to also strengthen that effort as well. I think that covers kind of the headlines of how we're implementing. Again, we're still finalizing. I'll come back with some next steps after Ben finishes his presentation.

Sorry. Uh and then we'll do the question. So, uh the um just in terms of what we're planning on doing next is uh we have uh another workshop with our internal team to kind of solidify that uh that structure and those recommendations I outlined and then we'll be working with HR on job description and class comps uh for um or classification specifications for for all those positions. Our hope is to get them out by the end of February, early March. and we will be involving our external partners ATRE, Kovac, etc. our community members in the uh selection process and so that would probably take some place sometime in March. Um so more work to do. So just wanted to kind of give you a sense of of timelines and again how we're taking these recommendations and putting it into action. And then Ben's final report and Ben can speak to this is is going to be uh finalized over the next week or so. We expect sometime next week that uh to be available to council and the public

100%. Yep. So maybe I'll as I promised earlier, thank you for moving the slide uh the kind of book end here and and mayor prom I'll maybe look to you. I mean this is really meant to be a conversation for you all around these two questions. Um, again centering in my job is to kind of work to advise on kind of the structural components kind of from an operations standpoint. And I think there's a real unique opportunity for you all to think about your role as electeds. And so the two questions I'd love to tee up just how does or how could the council ensure that it's analyzing policy and legislative decisions to advance equitable outcomes? And then the second really honing in on on HR track, what is or or should the role in relationship to the human rights and equity um it should be commission sorry uh be for advising on council goals and policy. So Mayor Prom, I'd love to to pass it to you. I'm happy to answer questions too. Um but wanted to make sure you all had some time in this uh format. Yeah, what I was hoping we could do is if you had any start with maybe questions for Ben or just general feedback thoughts first and then we can get into these two questions. Does anyone have anything that they'd like to ask or say? Yeah, Mike,

I mean I think it's related to these though, but anything general first want me to start? Go ahead.

Okay. Um I'm maybe this is more question for you Eric but um just a better understanding of where the this new team hub group the um where that's [clears throat] and and especially that team's new leader because there's going to be a position that's going to be hired for that right um sit within the power and authority structure of the city and um and I'm curious about that whether that leaders how that leadership team will either be part of or report to or engage in the leader the leadership team itself the executive I as I mentioned that uh um office will be in the city manager's office at the highest level of the organization. We'll be a member of the executive team leadership team, our CMO policy team. We had a mentioned a couple of them in the in my recom in my um reactions to Ben's recommendations. So yeah.

Okay. Um and that's different than how the last the last time was not on the exact team but on the leadership team. So we'll be on both.

Okay. Um I I mean a question for you Ben is um if you have thoughts about this is what do you see as the core competencies for that new leader of the the DEI team or that hub group? That's thank you counselor. I mean that's a big question. Um you know what just reflecting somewhat off the cuff there's a couple pieces that I would name. one this is a political position right and I that's big P and little P political right so the ability and what I mean by that is the ability to navigate government is really critical right we had an old colleague that used to describe herself as a bure activist um and I think there's times where being a bure activist is really effective and there's times where understanding how to leverage influence and to build strong relationship ships and establish trust to be able to impact and influence work is really important combined with what Eric just described and what you just asked a question about combined with the positional authority to be able to also lead through um that piece. I think your the ability to have strong analysis, right? To be able to be curious and to be able to dive into issues that I might, you know, for example, not have a disciplinary background in, but I'm an expert at asking the right questions, understanding the type of data that can inform and being able to be a thought partner to help people move the work forward. I think the bigger question that I can answer and I think you all will have to answer as you develop the the job description and the the both required and preferred qualifications is really dependent on the role that you hope that this work will play or this leadership will play. And um you know I I it's probably an offline conversation because

I could talk about it for another hour. Um, but for me it's the ability to understand how to leverage the the kind of workings of government in order to be able to create change and to have influence and impact um through relationships and not always through kind of hierarchy. I'll start there. I mean there's probably a hundred more questions that that might raise for you, but I have one other like but I can come back to others. Sorry, I'll element.

Um, well, first I just wanted to quickly say thank you, Ben. You know, looking at your background and your expertise and your experience, I think this is a fantastic opportunity for us, including related to that last question, uh, you held the chief diversity and equity officer position for over seven years at Multma County. So, for us, this is a really great opportunity to hear from you about these kinds of ideas. Um my question for you is about the um uh the embedding equity analysis into decision-m and if you could just elaborate a little bit about what that looks like and for example um the the Bend Metropolitan Planning Organization has an equity demographic mapping tool that has lots of different demographic characteristics. percent of the population living below poverty level. Uh different language attributes uh racial attributes. Most of it is based on census data. But are you thinking, you know, sort of like checklist manifesto style, we need to be thinking about, okay, for certain decisions or all of our decisions, what does this look like from the equity perspective and then we can have if this is an opportunity for us to have a conversation about that and, you know, relate it to the data that we have or or how do you think about that in practical terms?

Yeah, it's a great question and, you know, I think Eric spoke a little bit to the AIM tool. Um, I'll just go back, you know, 2012, 2010, 111, 12 as some of this work nationally was was emerging, um, the city of Seattle created the it's it's oh my god, RSJI, race and social justice initiative, and they were the first ones to develop an equity analysis tool. And I think you're going in the right direction. I mean at their core it's understanding kind of what are you trying to achieve who would be impacted positively negatively and how do you mitigate for the negative and and lift up the positive. Now a mapping tool is one way to understand who might be impacted geographically demographically right any number of layers that you might use. Again I could talk for hours about this. What I would say is you all have the opportunity because you have an AIM tool to try to set an expectation for there its use to have some rigor and accountability and to build capacity for how to do it well. Right? So my time at Multim County, we had an equity and empowerment lens. We trained staff on it. We built capacity to be able to use it. It was a virtually a uniform requirement. If you went to the county board, they would ask you, did you use the equity lens? and you had to demonstrate your analysis, right? You had to demonstrate that you've considered impacts positive and negative and work to overcome those. So, you know, I think you all have it right in front of you and how you kind of, you know, I don't know if it's a manifesto. I that's not the language I would use, but it's really about setting expectation um that this is how you do your work because it's in service to the outcomes for your constituents, your communities um to try to do good governance. It's just part of good governance.

Thank you. Um so a question about I guess to you Eric about um the plan. Is there a feedback there? Um about the what you discussed as your implementation plan? um what was the level of involvement of all your departmental leadership and in defining that cuz and I'll just be straight up I am very concerned about hiring filling this position again was going to be the fourth person I think that'll have had the equity director position there was someone before Anna person no there was no one before Ann first

okay well still the third time that we're going to fill this position um and if if your departmental leadership is not understanding that like they need to be partners in this work then I would hate to put someone else through that. Yeah. So, how is that? Yeah. So, you know, back in 2019, we did a a book club where we our executive team did where we read uh White Fragility, my grandmother's hands. We did a really deep dive over about two years.

Um before we launched into our plan, we envisioned, we talked about this with our executing, we're going to do it again, right? just that deeper understanding and more um not just go to a training but uh do it in partnership and really go uh more intimate in terms of um understanding um you know how we can provide support and um you know just create more relationship and connection to the to the issue. So I think we had a really good experience a couple years ago. It's time to do it again. It's not something that you do as an event. It's something that you continue to do. So, we've talked about that coming up in the next couple of months. Okay, that kind of leads to my next question actually, which is um the um

we council has set a lot of value statements kind of around how important equity is. Um do you feel and maybe this is a question for both of you really. I mean, do you feel the why we're uh interested in incorporating equity in the way the city conducts its business internally and externally? Do you feel that why is well enough defined or does it need better definition? I mean not so I

I could start I mean it's one I'd just say counselor to your previous question you know combined with what you described I think this will take some change management right as I described right an organization that hasn't really relied on kind of centralized direction dare I say kind of mandates um you know that will take change and buy in and and support Right. Um, and I think to where you were going, Eric, I just want to lift up, you know, and counselor, you had asked a question around kind of qualifications. I mean, some of it is the qualifications someone has, and some of it's the wraparound support um that you provide for any individual that's coming into a really hard job with gigantic expectations internally and expect uh and externally that are almost always impossible to meet. uh and that's really difficult let alone right if uh you know reflecting on the experience of for example people of color kind of coming into a a city that's um predominantly white I think there's the the to answer your question I think there's there I think the the values have been articulated and as one of my mentors used to say it's about how do we rise up to those values how do we rise up to those values in our practices and our behaviors and our communications and our relationships. So there's a real opportunity to write to name, you know, the vision and values and mission and align that with practice. And then finally, I just say, you know, I had another colleague who used to say, you know, our obligation as government is get the the the best value for the taxpayer and the best outcome for all of our community members. And I recognize those are kind of the same thing, but it was it was a comment around, right, that it's it's a key part of your obligation as electeds and as public servants to seek universal benefit and well-being for everyone in your community. And so, you know, I don't know if that gets to the

answer of your question, but I think there's a real um, you know, there's a real opportunity to try to put it into place. And I think, you know, where Eric's describing the structure, what I've reflected in some of my recommendations, I I believe that sets you on a a strong path.

And I would also just maybe make a an ask of council. I think we are a fast growing city. We our community expects a lot. Doing this work means actually slowing down. And uh taking the time to do it because I think that's where it be can become a check the box because we're doing 30 other things. So I would ask you all in partnership to have a little more grace of what's on our work plan and maybe start slimming some things down because I think we we have uh if we're going to do this well I to me we need the time and space to do it because it's really about relationships and trust is not built through it is built through actions but those actions also need to be have a foundation of of just a human connection which

yeah I was going to address that a little bit. I think a lot of this um takes a lot of time and it's um a lot of trust like you say needs to be built and it doesn't happen overnight and so I was you know thinking about that and a lot of the goals that we're trying to set. It's I think a lot of those time um commitments are going to need to be extended. So I think we're really going to need to take a look at some of those um more closely

because relative time that's when it becomes performative and transactional. Um and I think yeah council council friends are one of the things I was thinking of when you were talking about it's not just it's not just the support uh Eric that I was think that she was also getting it and correct me if I'm wrong is like the buyin right from from the senior staff and the exact team like how do we make sure that that they are bought into this and not just sort of in in words and and that's an answer I don't have and that's an answer I'm sure you don't have but how do we create that

I mentioned it maybe just to spotlight it in the recommendations is not just so the hub and spoke model so then we have that that person in the department but then really formalizing that through administrative policy. So that role is very clear and then as we build out our central sort of hub of policies we are much more clear about what's have to right and not a optin right and so that's that's also work that's embedded in the action plan with those recommendations right yeah Steve

uh Eric it's a it's a tough position that that that you're in leading this organization I think you do it very well I've been through a lot of organizations led some uh where you got to do changes Um, first of all, I understand a net ad of one FTE. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. And then the spokes are people that are currently in organizations around the city. So are we're going to ask those people to do an extra job essentially.

We have some of this structure already. So we have our diversity, equity, and inclusion task force where we have folks that are uh embedded within departments, but we'll be working with their department leadership and carving out a piece. So a lot of these folks have maybe an HR role tied to them or a communications role. I think there's some flexibility with what we, you know, carve out, but it's, you know, 10% of somebody's role is what the what the vision is, but then creating that support system so that those folks that are embedded in those departments also make up that uh leadership within our diversity, equity, and inclusion task force to really formalize that and create that information flow. So, if something is happening in a department or not happening in a department, then it can be raised up um through that internal structure. I guess to that end, one thing I I would offer and something for for you to chew on leadership, but the person who was in the the central city manager's office, one way to allow the person at the end of the spoke to have a little bit more authority and perhaps support when they're doing this additional duty along with the other things they're doing is perhaps to have the person in in the central office to have some kind of an oversight role to that person in their annual view or something like that. I' I'd leave that to you. But that that gives that a little bit more horsepower and lets us know how serious we really are being about this

because those people are going to be balancing all the other things that they have to do for the city. So those are all great um suggestions and we have sort of this model does exist with other disciplines. So like for example, we have a centralized communication with spokes in the department. We have that with HR uh to some degree with within finance as well. So we have models to build from which has those feedback loops as well. So yeah, thank you. In the interest of getting to these questions, um does anyone have any we'll start with the first one. Anything to to ask or add or thoughts for Ben?

I can go first. Yeah, I mean um yeah, I mean I um I don't know that the question is actually asking the what what I would like to see um but what I would like to see is um is council uh to um be much more involved in in the um you know sort of the monitoring and the development of how um equity this this model this new the plan the new structure and everything is is kind of rolled out. Um and and uh you know I I might like I I really think that Ben's provided a lot of insights um and having a third party kind of be a reality check might be a real benefit to the city. Um so I would encourage and I would support um having his role um or if he doesn't want to work with us anymore, someone's role um be involved with all of those four highlevel um recommendations. That's that is uh yeah

you mean as a as an ongoing thought partner and consult consultant and adviser is that what you're very open we have great relationship with Ben very open to that um in fact his contract we built it in such a way to allow for flexibility like uh the recruitment process for example to really kind of continue to have um some guidance as we get our job descriptions and things like that. I do see that benefit. Yeah. And and I already mentioned the HRC role, so I think Yeah. Yeah. And is that because um you're we're proposing to have Ben support um on helping to refine the purpose and and um kind of goals for HR because I understand it, right? What's being talked about already. So

what council Franos is proposing is maybe a little bit more than that. Yeah. Yeah. Like like Yeah. I mean, I frankly I'd kind of like some updates from Ben. You know, here's the progress that we've made. Here's where we could have been a little bit stronger. Here's where we had to slide for whatever reasons. Um, you know, here's some success stories. Here's some hiccups. Um, I I think that would be I I as a city councelor would like a third party to be delivering those reports to council. I think this matter is important enough that um that's what I would like. Yeah.

Um I I'm not opposed to that idea. I think I'm open to it. I don't I don't know that I feel as as strongly about it as I do about um sort of being more self-reflective on on on our work. And one thought, I guess I do tend towards this checklist manifesto a little bit, which is why I was curious to ask your your thoughts about it, but when we have our city council issue summaries, we have background, budget, and financial impacts. And then we also have community outreach process and potential impacts. And I wonder if this might be an opportunity for us to also add yes or include in maybe that last paragraph something about equity impact. you know, what kind of dimensions has staff identified that are relevant here? You know, I can think of a couple things for different issues, but I would love to hear more people's ideas about this. And so, I feel like maybe that's an opportunity for us to try to incorporate this concept into our work.

I have long been proponent of just that actually. Um I mean I think the the the question is um who is doing that analysis and are they um trained in any way to do that kind of analysis, right? I mean we could all say what we think the

the equity implications but it's probably might be seven different things. Um, and so I I I agree with that. And one of the things I I like about um this plan for the future of the city is that there's, you know, is I was just thinking about that today with the next topic where, you know, transportation standards, right? Wouldn't it be great if we had some kind of equity analysis of of of this um before we had our conversation? And so the more standardized that we can have um this, the more the more it just becomes a part of our decision- making, I think is is a real benefit. And the other part of it is having that person be in um you know a member of the executing team be in the city manager's office and have more access to to us and and our policym and our decision-m too. I think both of those things will will help us make better decisions. I think my only concern about it is that if we're still learning how to do this, especially using the AIM tool like that, we don't quickly get into well let's just make it all happen in every single issue summary and then it just quickly becomes a checklist and performative. So

is there could we come up with some kind of an action plan that says ramp? Yeah. like by by this date we hope to be there and we're going to use these two or three exercises to inform what that might look like because I I don't want it to just be preuncter and superficial and therefore meaningless. I I it's we got to strike that balance. So, if I could just I just want to push back a little bit on the benefit of checklists because yes, they can be performative, but that's that's that's the point is that's why we do it before surgeries, before flight takeoffs, like they're kind of what you make of them and so we don't have but they could be. That's the risk for sure.

Yeah. But but just some, you know, process there for that. Uh especially with this new person who's coming on board. So they're going to be in charge of making that happen. I have a proposal. I do want to make sure I have one other question that I wanted to ask earlier that I get a chance to to ask somebody here. So do you want me to do that now or do you want me to

Sure. Let me just let me just I have a So in the interest of time just the human rights and equity commission. I've been doing a lot of thinking about that and um had some conversations with the chair, the new chair and vice chair of um of the commission and um had the thought of um you know we've heard a lot from the human rights and equity commission that they want access to us and not just me right every month at their meetings um and they really want to get into this idea about this rule and relationship. So, I would like to propose um with the blessing of the human rights and equity commission that we have a meeting with council and the human rights and equity commission um probably uh see if we can do it at a at a regular meeting time for them being you know so that we're not putting them out in terms of of finding another time um maybe at their March meeting and just having you know a loose agenda and and um talking through this this this conversation face to face about about you know how how do we want to interact in the future and um how how do we help them and support their work in providing us with the important feedback that we need to do a better job as counselors. So, just wanted to float that idea and see if there was some interest in that as as fellow counselors. And

yeah. Yeah. And I wonder about some kind of ongoing rotating that so the b one the burden's not all on you but also that the rest of us are continuing to build those relationships over time and and um you know in various because they they're talking about trying to do more in terms of engagement and reaching getting out into the community as a commission and that maybe we're periodically kind of in addition to you having two other counselors join that. So people are continuing to kind of hear and see directly what's going on and building that relationship with the patriarch members as well as the the community members that are participating in these activities. So maybe that we could look at how we structure that a little. Absolutely.

So the other question I wanted to ask is just I I um as you know I think really this is mostly for you Eric. You and I have talked about this a bit and I think right now it's pretty important for the city to take some time to um review and reflect on the the established processes and practices we have for any kind of future identity based investigations. I think it's important that we ensure they're aligned with the current thinking on the most equitable practices for th those investigations and um you know I think that's largely going to be uh you making that happen with the engagement of um of the team and so I'm just wondering if you could speak a little bit to how you could make a review like that happen internally and who would be involved and what kinds of stuff they would be looking at. Yeah, I was just talking with our HR director, Randy Laos, who's in the audience. So, if we we probably are short on time, but we've talked about kind of a comprehensive review of our processes. We we have things um in our employee handbook um in terms of what it's mandatory for us to investigate. So, there's certain we do get right.

Um but really continuing to and actually using our DEIA task force. we talk when you as you talked about sort of if identity is kind of a core issue that needs to be looked into um that we have consultation we have done that with both our accessibility and our equity teams in the past when we've had employee issues so it is not something new that's something we'll do and I think continuing to look at how we do it and involving our folks as many folks with different lived experiences particularly through the DEIA task force is a great uh model to kind of do another another uh kind of look at what we happen where we can make some improvements for sure. So, is that something that you see happening in the next 12 months? I talked to Brandon about that. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Great. Right. Is there anything else before we move on? I we're behind schedule, but this is obviously not something that any one of us want to cut short. So, is there anything else? I think the only thing I'll add, and I think is only is already looking at this, but just making sure that we're involving. We have so many great community groups, LCA, the father's group. I mean, we just need to make sure that we are hearing from them. Um it sounds like ATRE is willing to be a convenor of that in some way and I just would really encourage that. I think it's really important that we hear their voice in some way, shape or form and um yeah so

and the LCA and Human Rights and Equity Commission will be working together um on a resolution um to support our neighbors at the next meeting in February as an example of important collaboration. And I think the answer to that first question for me a big part of it is about the this the AIM using that AIM tool. Now for us we we need to get practical experience of engaging with that and seeing the kind of information that we get and I think that's going to be really valuable for us in terms of learning and what's working not you know how do we need to tweak it and just getting into that I think is important and it's exciting that it's that it's coming

and I just want to u thank Ben for all of your work and also thank the staff particularly Cassandra Lindseay Lisa and the many folks that are been doing the work as Ben noted earlier the work has going on. It continues and it and they're doing great work and I I just don't want um us to sort of for any one minute know that we are not taking our foot off the gas. This is part of our value stream as an organization and we have great folks doing this work. So, thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Yeah. Thanks, man. All right. Thank you all. And and just real quickly, Councelor Fosza, don't tell all my other clients, but you're my favorite client, so I'd be happy to keep [laughter] it here.

Appreciate the time. Thanks. All right, we're shifting gears to another meaty conversation. Nice one. Oh, I didn't even know I was doing that. Did you ride your bike? We're not taking our foot off the gas. We're Oh, yeah. That was a good bunch of I shouldn't have said that. Sorry. No, you should take uh We're gonna uh look at our standards. And Russ, you're starting us off or Eric? I'm going to start you off. Okay. And Eric is gonna fill in the gaps as we go.

And and I will say as you're getting started also tying the two um topics together. Ryan and I were just talking in our transportation system plan. One of the program goals is equity specifically around transportation. Right. So this may be an opportunity with this project to start uh start the work.

So I know I know we're running a little behind schedule. So, I just want to know that this conversation is we're not trying to make final decisions with this conversation at all. It's really we're trying to continue to move this conversation forward. Um, and what we're trying to do right now is just kind of [snorts] refine and make sure that we're um we know where the kind of high level value statements and policy statements are from council as we start to develop a plan to have a community conversation around transportation standards which I'm going to get into. Um, so what we'd like to do is just Janet's um, so first of all, respiration chief operations officer. This is Janet Ruby. She is our assistant city engineer with our transportation mobility group and she's really the expert in all this. I'm just going to try to facilitate the conversation and Janet can help with all the details. We also have Ryan Oster here who is our um, city engineer and director of our engineering group. Uh what what I want to do is have Janet provide a quick overview of kind of again just remind everybody why we're here, conversations we've had to date and what we're trying to achieve with the standards updates. I'm going to give you a really brief outline of how we're approaching the the standards. We have several update packages coming through over the next kind of year, year and a half. Then we do want to get into a discussion with you to to try to translate some of your kind of high level policy goals into more kind of how do we how we going to translate that into standards um and kind of land what we really want to do and the direction we want to go and then I'm going to provide some conversations around community involvement and council touch points as we go through the big standards updates process and then we can kind of make sure you understand kind of the schedule and the next steps around that. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Janet here real real quick and then we'll keep moving.

Okay. So to to lead in uh the place we are today in our standards is our last our transportation system plan update shifted a little bit how we do things to try and accommodate our existing traffic and the growth, right? And so it said we need to focus a little more on walking and biking and safety. So, we developed a new cross-section that had wide shared disc paths instead of the narrower sidewalks and on street buffered bike lane. We added requirements for the bikeway and the walkway, what we called our low stress network and safer crossings. And we added a whole bunch of tools for traffic calming speed in a complete streets guide as a these are things we would like to see happen, but they weren't requirements. So kind of the nutshell to speed things up a little bit in the conversation that we're talking about today is moving some of those things that were in the we would consider doing these things to more of requirements. And so some of the discussion is how do we want to shape that? How far do we want to go? What sort of bounds do we want on those? Right? And so the slide here is some of the sort of foundational concepts that we're looking at and incorporating into the tools we're picking to make requirements to address things that are council targets that council's heard from the public on and that we've heard from the community in transportation and mobility when we get calls about existing infrastructure and in our in all the project work with the open houses. Right? So, it's uh for those listening online, I'll read the list quick. Is lowing lowering speeds on our streets. Uh having travel options of walking, biking, transit, micromobility as well as driving, separating the different uses, addressing cut through traffic, putting the right traffic on the right streets. Also, people are still going to drive. So, whether you're driving, walking, or biking, how do you minimize congestion on your routes and keep you moving? And then we've talked

to you about this is the discussion with the standards today is engineering. It's just one of the pieces to shift to make all these things happen. It's also changing the culture with enforcement and education. And our community has now added a fourth one which is wildfire response and emergency response. And so you've got other work sessions with that specific topic, but they do relate to how we're designing streets and what we're doing here. So we actually so while they're in the options right of the standards we've been doing these because we got the feedback at our project um capital project meetings we're building separated paths you can see pictures of a little bit we're doing different types of crosssections we've experimented with different separated roundabout and separated intersections we're adding um traffic diverters to try and get traffic off the bikeway streets We are having a we added wayfinding signs, right? Because as much as we try to have a consistent intuitive path, some of our systems are jumbled.

Mike and I are wondering what is the top top left. Where is that with the walking the dog? Near the eighth street. It's brand new. Yeah. Where you're just so that's where you're just coming from the street to now. We have Hey bikes, you're on this path that is for you, right? And this both both includes projects that have been done and also projects that are either in construction right now or soon to go into construction like the bend bikeways and that's where the diverters and other things start to really show up.

Cool. So so we're still like we're still a little bit in the experimental stage right of Butler market hasn't been built yet another shared use path. So we're still honing this right. So the challenge is to get more of this in the required standards when we don't have your typical level of detail but there's ways we can work through that. Um and so part of the discussion today is policy questions around how and again the limits that we do that. So next slide. So the other thing in addition to moving the elements into the required standards is looking just fundamentally when we're building these street sections how we're doing it. The old way was is it an arterial collector? Which type of local? Get the rightaway build the street right? But so many of our streets if we didn't tell you you wouldn't know whether it's an arterial or a collector because they look the same. they all have homes renting them. Um, other than the volume of traffic on it, right? So, through the process of our projects and where we have to make choices in rightaway, we can't always build the ultimate cross-section. We do have a lot of places where they have the rightway or we have building setbacks so that it's easier and less expensive to get, but some places we're making tough choices. Do we spend the money on buying rightaway or can we build a different section that can accomplish our goal? The old model didn't really give us choices. So now we're looking more at the context. What's the what's the land use alongside the street? Street type, not so much in the name, but more in the volume it serves. And then what it does like in that section of the corridor and on a whole place in the network. Um what mode role is it by an interchange? So while all streets are going to serve all modes, is it more vehicle focused or is it a bikeway in a neighborhood that might be more walking and biking focused? And then what are the number of lanes we need to do the medians and crossings and other things. Not on this list also is streetscape, right? And street trees. So we're trying to build streets that people want to be on and walk and bike on, too. So that's shifting how we design the streets. So all of that will happen through a couple

different updates. Russ.

Yeah. So now I'm going to go real quick through kind of the update schedule because there's multiple ones that we're going to be doing. As I mentioned before, the first one is in process right now. It is basically a what we call an annual technical update. Um, and there's there's no big policy changes in that. It's really making sure that the standards read right and we're incorporating certain things that we've seen on the system or interpretations of the standards that those kind those kind of updates typically get adopted by uh the city engineer. Um, we're planning to do that over the next month. We we'll provide um status updates to you in the city manager reports when when that's done. But um again no high level policy questions but just part of our kind of uh annual administration. We have another one that's going to be coming through in relationship to changes that are required by a new state law around engineering review that we've talked to council before about. It's called Senate Bill 974. Um we've already gone through kind of re remapping the process and defining a new process. Systems are getting configured for it. It's getting ready for launch. in order to make that system work right with the changes required by state law. We do need to make some changes in the standards and also most likely the development code. So, um the administrative changes in the standards um can just be adopted by Ryan because again not big high policy level questions, but any changes to the development code will be brought forward to council and our goal is to get that done before that July 1 deadline. A lot of it has to do just really around definitions and clarity on process. Um, but we want to make sure that you're aware of that as that starts to move forward.

I Russ, I have some new information today on this as we're integrating all our departments and working on this. The tree code is happening in April and there may be some um standards changes that go with that. So, if there is, we will rope that into this update number two with those Senate Senate bill changes.

But really, what we talking about is update number three. And this is what we presented before of we're about ready to launch in the process. Um, and this is one where we're going to be working with city council and the public in going through the process. We think it's going to last probably about a year. Depend. It really depends on the feedback we get, the conversations we have with council on how we want to really determine what the standards are. Um, I'm going to lay out a process at the end of this that kind of shows how we want to engage with all the different kind of types of stakeholders we have on the roads. Um, but we will we want to gather information from you today. We we'll start to work. We're going to bring on consultants to be able to do this. We're going to put a timeline out where we go gather information with the public, get their concepts. One of the things that we want to recognize, um I know council Francis said this, we're not coming with the answers, right? We want to engage with the public on options, but what we're going to be asking you is we do if there is strong council preference to go one way or the other. That's what we're trying to get out of this meeting because that helps us set how we're going to engage with the public of well, we've already gotten kind of clear direction. Council likes this over that or no, they want to get input from the public and then we're going to come back to council, make start making some decisions on where we're going to go, start to actually do the design the the drawings and all the language around the standards. We will then do another engagement process with the public. Again, the extent of that will be determined on what we're actually doing. But the idea is get that out for public comments and open houses. And then we would come back and actually go through the formal adoption of that. And that really starts to go into these items that are on the screen here, which I'm going to go into more detail um here in the next section. But I just want to make sure that's like this is this is the the kind of the big update before we go through what we call the growth plan and updating the transportation system plan. One of the things that we're going to be doing as we go through this is um this is just an example of we've heard NACTO that conversation has come up of just that can we just adopt the NACTO

standards. What we're trying to do is on the left is actually right out of the NACTO standards. It's a it's it's an illustration of what to do with a kind of a raised crossing. This is providing guidance and recommendations. You can see how it is. What we need to do is we actually need to translate those documents over into actual design standards that say this is exactly what we want to do because these are directions to in to engineers and consultants on how to build these things. NATO right now is a reference document that we have in our complete streets manual that Janet and the team uses as they try to figure out design elements. What we want to do is start to translate those guidance documents into the standards and make it much more crystal clear what we're trying to do. The other concepts that I want to make council aware of as we go through the policy questions is we are going to be looking at where these conversations go and and what's going to be involved in the standards package and then what's also going to be inputs into the when we update the transportation system plan because there's a lot of policy and regulation that we have that we have to live by um in the state of Oregon around transportation and there are some things that we are we're kind of in clear clear area where we can make sure that that it's going to comply with our TSP, but also we have some we have discretion. There's other things that might come up. We go we understand that's great input. We will put that on the list to to kind of put into the kickoff of the transportation system plan that's going to be in a couple years out as part of the growth plan. So, as we dive into this, what we're looking for is I'm going to go through some examples of how we're trying to translate your highle policy directions conversations we have of how do we how do we create safer systems? How do we reduce speeds and give you some kind of ideas of what the questions that we're going to have to answer as staff and bring back to you of how do we make your high level policies actually turn into realities on the ground. So a couple things we're trying to do with the standards is think of as think of it as again trying to provide instructions to design engineers and

contractors on how to build things. The one context is if we're going to go build a new road as part of a development, these are the rules of engagement of how you design the roads and they need to be very specific because what we want to get away from, if you've seen how master plans have come in, they're all coming in with their own kind of typical sections and and cross-sections that they want to use. We want to get away with that, get move away from that and move towards no, these are our standards for these type of roads in these situations. And then also the standards start to provide guidance on our capital projects when we're coming back into the city. And if we know that we're doing a full corridor reconstruction, they guide us in what we're trying to do with the system. But if we know we only have limited dollars, we're going to we're going to take the kind of the policy direction we're getting in the standards and guidance to try to figure out what we do on those existing corridors. So they start to signal what we want to do with improvements as we come through. So I just kind of So we're going to give you some relative examples of how that works. So, and we gave you a a memo that came in that kind of gave you a high level understanding and context.

So, Russ just to summarize for everybody high level high level uh if we have a strong if there a big theme or a strong feeling about something that is what is taken to the to the the the stakeholders of the users of the system. um if not maybe a more general um process goes forward with the but no matter what still going to all the users of the system and the stakeholder process engagement process

and and I'll just use an example of the second thing second item here is if we're going to you know if we want to explore the use of speed tables and there's unanimous consent from council to say yes we want to see these we're going to enter into the conversations with the public if that's the direction we're heading but or if there is conversations from and guidance from council on like we're not quite sure we like the idea idea and the concept then we will we will carry that forward but kind of have a more of an open conversation about what do you think about this right and we want to gather feedback so that's that's what we're trying to do as we develop our approach to how we want to do the standards so we're going to start with speeds um and ask one or just one general question I mean

is one of the outcomes of this also going to be you know if if in some respects the new developments where it's kind of green field and we have the opportunity to do the perfect um cross-section that we want to do. And then in inside the city, we have a lot of places where well, we ideally it would it would be we'd meet this perfect standard, but most of the time we're not able to do that either because of budget or right whole variety of constraints, right? So, is part of this process going to result in some kind of a in those scenarios. This is the actual decision-making tool we're going to use. Here's the questions. Number one's going to be this to and yes, so that the community is clear on how we're approaching that.

That's where that's we're going to try to get that type of system. And again, it's like, yeah, if we can't do if we can't do the full full intersection that we're trying to do or the full section, what do we value most in that? Is it like getting the bike systems off of the roads or if we can't do that, do we put them on the roads and try to protect them? If we can't do that, we try to get complete systems and make the crossing safer. So the so this iterational design element, you go through and you kind of Russ is going to have some prompting things. I'm going to be looking for some frameworks, some big picture like,

you know, direction that I almost sort of see as a companion or overlay to the standards and specs that really are more about we really want to see speed tier. We really want to use our existing right away. We really want to, you know, those things kind of as like this north star and then how we iterate because it every situation is going to be a little different, right? And so having some kind of guiding principles framework or or something like that. So I think those majority imperfect scenarios that are a lot the existing system exactly

how the when you talk about like the guiding high level all that like what not you know we've already written goals right we've written some council goals that kind of set some high level and then it actually gets to some specific you know zero fatalities and a 10% decrease in crash so you know I don't want to I don't want to start I don't want to waste people's time you know and and re redis things that we've already really agreed upon and we've already really set. So um yeah and some of the we're not these are just again these are kind of the examples of the questions that we need to answer right and

I think as council is aware as we go out and we have discussions with projects with the publics there's a lot of different ways to control speeds there's a lot of different ways to build the bike system and we receive variety of comments if we ask 10 different people we're going to probably get five to seven different ideas of what they want us to do and and as you've seen with the emails that have come in you know there are these things come And so we're looking for things like we just want to make sure and check in because we want to make sure we're representing council's values in this correctly as we go out of no take like we want to get the bike systems separated off get them out of the vehicle travel lanes and get them behind the curb. If that is if that is the objective then we can carry that forward. But we again we're it's also a bit of a checking with council to make sure that we're moving in the right direction as we have these conversations. Right. So, but we we want to also illustrate like

just I just want to make sure though that we're like so council's already said we want to make travel safer and more reliable for everyone. Um we want to uh taking into account economic prosperity and improve transportation projects with sustainable funding and planning. So I'm hearing they're hearing safety. I'm hearing also funding and financing. So So I I've sometimes felt in the past like council sort of led down this path like oh you want ultimate safety but oh we can't really afford it. So like I want you to lead us so that we can make some decisions that are in alignment with our goals, get you the information you need and you know meet what we've already established.

Example is that when we get to intersection form like if you want to have fully protected intersections they are more expensive to build right and and roundabouts they take more rightaway. So again value statements of what we're trying to do there. Um so are you ready? We're ready.

Ready. All right. So let's talk about speeds for a little bit. We know that there is a desire to to lower speeds on all of our roads. That has been clearly indicated, right? Um so what that really means is that then we use that information and that goes into how we design the technical aspects of the roads, vertical curves, horizontal curves. Um and kind of we get into the technical design of it. That's a critical function in how we do it. It means one thing for new roads. um because it's very clear to say if we have a 25 mph road, here's your design standards. We know all that data. It gives us guidance to what to do on our existing roads, but that's a much more difficult thing to do to actually get an existing road if it's at 35 or 40 miles an hour to get it down to 25 m hour with appropriate engineering elements and things in there and make sure that everybody understands the trade-off of those conversations as we go out to the public. Right? So in theory like if we want to lower speeds and we want to lower speeds significantly on arterials and collectors specifically arterials it's going to take some physical infrastructure in the road to do that we need to we need to create some friction we need to put in that's why the next question is around speed tables um and when we start introducing speed tables then we have conversations with fire and freight and buses in the school district right so it starts to allow us kind of a context of how we how do we want to approach lowering speeds and The the last item of this is around we also need to make sure that we're talking about enforcement as well. And so we want to get if we really want to lower speeds, we can't I don't know if we can engineer our way out of it both from just engineering things as well as capital investment that we need to be done on the road. So we we want to pair that up with future conversations around enforcement and how we do that on the on the streets. So, I just want to So, with that, I kind of put this all into one one one hopper around speeds of are we is there objectives? Um, we've seen I know councelor Mendes has sent some information out recently just around

kind of what happens when you do lower speeds, they do become safer, crashes become less intense, but then we're trying to balance that with we're trying to move people across town. And we're also trying to make sure we can actually physically do it on the on our existing road system and and we want to put that investment in the system.

Yes. Yes. To slowing speeds. I mean, I I think it's one of the biggest things we need to pay attention to and it really drives a lot of safety concerns and I think some of the statistics councilor Mendes shared is just about how um survivability rates go down even when you're talking to step from 25 to 30 or 30 to 35 um when a pedestrian and I would assume it's roughly similar for a a cyclist as well. Um but we hear about it constantly whether it's my neighborhood or being other parts of town cut through all that stuff I think is one of the uh primary drivers and impact drivers of um people's concern about how congestion is growing and with a growing community and um I think it's just really important for safety.

I was thinking about um lowering speeds versus speeding right and and how Um like I've noticed a a street which shall remain nameless near where I live. Um the speed limit went down 5 miles per hour. That was all that happened, right? It went down 5 miles per hour. It has done zero in my you know it's totally anecdotal to to actually slow anybody down anymore. Like oh now I'm going to go 35 instead of 40. Um so yes so there are these other things that would help that right. um particularly in some of our larger wider um where you know uh the everyone likes to likes to really go for it. Um and while I I'm I'm interested in speed tables and race crossings and I I I do have a little bit of a concern about about uh what that means for people who are commuting for buses for emergency vehicles um etc. So I think that's the kind of for in my mind a prime example of what we want to do with this engagement process um is is really is really ask the users of our system that that if how this could impact them um as well. So just some initial thoughts.

I think to your to your point uh Perkins May Perkins the enforcement is what I hear a lot about and so I explore I would like to explore additional funding for for enforcement because I think that is what I hear from the community all the time. Yeah. I so I I lost track of whether we're talking about all the bullet points up here or just the first three. For the sake of time, I'm I'm combining them all into one so so we can get some guidance on how to reducing speeds.

I think um yes, interested in enforcement, but I also want to set our drivers up for success. So, I don't want people feeling like they're, oh my gosh, I didn't know that I was so far over the speed limit because the road felt so comfortable to drive faster on and now they have a ticket that maybe they have a hard time affording. So that third bullet point though at the on the top one, construct elements over time on new roads to help reduce speeds. I I was expecting that to say construct elements over time on existing roads. It should say existing roads. Okay, that was my thank you for that.

Um so yeah, I think from my perspective I would like to see us set the target of lower speeds. um you know, for example, uh 20 m hour on a residential street and 25 on a collector and arterial except where there's no crossings or there's no driveways and where where that's present and no people are going to be crossing, then I think it's fine to go faster. Um but the goal isn't to say let's just lower the speed limits and then

wish everyone good luck. And I'm not suggesting that we, you know, go out and redesign all of our roads either. I just want to see us at least set this target and and if there's an appetite for that, then we can talk about how to prioritize problematic areas and how to really make it feel comfortable to drive safely.

Yeah. So what I'm hearing is on new roads definitely try to get the speeds design speeds set set them lower make sure when we build new stuff it meets meets kind of the intention of what council Mendes said and then we will develop kind of approaches to our existing system with the intent of trying to reduce speeds and then looking at different things should they be physical tools and the impacts of putting race crossings into our physical environment and also balance that with enforcement and maybe other options that we may have around that and go explore that with the stakeholders and and public. That makes sense.

Yeah. But that's not quite what I would suggest. I I would say that we're an existing streets. We need to lower the speeds. They be 20 on local streets. They 25 on um collectors and we could set 30 I think you know on arterials. I understand that the design is going to be difficult. But I think what that tells us is that uh or the engineering part is going to be difficult for us to accomplish. Um, I think it means we have to do a combination of education as well as enforcement.

And I think we have to look at different kinds of tools to really remind people, you know, an issue that's coming up in the neighborhood that I live on, the [clears throat] neighborhood I live in, and a street that is an example of a place where there's lots of uh residences and driveways and people needing to cross and all that. And then it transitions into something that is much more open and you want to drive faster. And we recently dropped the speed on that where we can have some variability in there. Um, but there could be a lot more reminders for people in that part of town because people are decelerating when they're coming from outside the community into town and they're accelerating on their way out as well. And so I I I think we need to adjust the speed limits basically around the community.

Um, and we're going to have to figure out how to change the community culture around how fast we drive. And it's going to take some engineering where we can mostly in new areas and targeted in existing and then education and enforcement tools. I thank thank you for saying education. Um I mean that's the three E. I know we've got this fourth E. I'm pretty medium on that fourth E frankly.

Um because I I I I worry that then the fire department's going to be driving our street design and frankly that means that our roads have to be much wider. And when we have wider roads, that mean we means we have higher speeds and that means we have less safe streets and that means we have higher accidents and greater injuries or fatalities or what have you. So so there has to kind of be their user of the street just like everybody else is. So I I feel it's a little distracting but it whatever you guys want to do is fine. Um yeah. So like when I saw this slide and the enforcement um I I had the same reaction I think that maybe councelor Riley did that that should be education expand funding for education. Um, and and as far as enforcement, I'm I'm I don't know. Like I'm hopeful maybe there will be some revenue from the, you know, the red light and the speed light cameras that we can start kind of putting those more around town or maybe have some that are more mobile so we can start moving them and you know um but I think education is just really really important. There's very little we do very little if any I think the police department actually does more education on street safety than um than you know your departments um or or any other department in the the city. And I I thank them for that. And um and yeah, and I think there's I think there's a lot of room to improve there. Yeah,

I I I think we're we're we're kind of in concert with what you're saying. I appreciate I appreciate what you're saying. Um yeah, because we also agree like we can we can do the best engineer in the world, but we can't make someone stop at a stop sign, right? If it's well marked. So, how what what do we do around those type of topics? I have a good question. Not and not to go into the weeds, but things like the um you know the the flashing beacon, you know, people have been told, "Oh, we only put those on roads with like a median in the middle." Like, is that Do you need our direction to say stop? Like, let those happen more places.

Yeah. Let me go let me go into that. I'm going to use that here because I'm I'm going to move past kind of like the refuge island conversation just for the sake of time, but get your kind of ideas here. So, I've had conversations with Janet. I think there's opportunities to look at how we use RFRBs, you know, and where we're going to try KE. We're going to try raised um crossings on Galveastston as part of that project. I'm just looking at council. Do you want us to have conversations about well if we try to expand that where would that be? How would that be? It involves a lot of different stakeholders in those conversations. We would start with at key route intersections. That's where we would focus where we have key routes and most stress networks crossing major streets. We want to make sure those are safe. And then if we want to explore speed tools, I think then we were like, well then what else do we need to do around that to control speeds just in the open segments of road, which is different than how we get people across the road safely.

Um so we would look at different standard options um and and what tools would need to be in place to make these crossings safer. um focusing on key route crossings first because for me I think one of the most important things we can do is make sure let's get people on the lowest stress network and make sure they can cross our major streets safely and then we start to we can start to expand out from there. But again that'll be further discussions if on how we deploy capital around the city. But let's make sure our standards are correct first. Are you looking at crash data too when you're And are you looking at crash data that is like post road like the outcomes that are happening at our hospitals? I'm being told that outcomes that are happening at hospitals like fatalities or major injuries if they're not captured by the police officer who's responding at the scene then we don't have accurate data on it.

And I'll turn to Janet real quick. We're actually in the process of updating kind of our crash collection data. Yeah. And and I think a little bit of that too and we're kind of looking at injury which usually is captured the degree may not and and to some extent while that's important just the fact that there's an injury is what triggers kind of what we're looking at. So that takes takes the importance of that down a little bit as far as data goes.

Okay. Just for the sake of time I'm going to um oh let's go through cut through traffic. So just um another question we have for council is um the way our current standards are written is that we are looking to do traffic coming and cut and kind of look at areas where we have significant cut through traffic where we have key routes but we also get situations where we just have a large amount of vehicular traffic going through like Wood River Village. I know that's an example that council's heard about. We just want to make want to see if council wants us to explore expanding that analysis and where we use these tools regarding cut through traffic to beyond just making sure bikes and peds are safe. But if we have significant vehicle traffic, um we actually need to expand the scope of our standards to to give rules of engagement around that.

I enthusiastically support this. Yeah, we've been getting lots of emails I think about that recently. So yeah. Yeah, this I mean that's basically what the neighborhood street safety program used to address. Yeah, engaging with the neighborhoods on that I think is be great. And it may result in an expansion of that program overall, but let's make sure we get the right tools in the toolbox on how we do it.

All right. Um I'm going to skip this for right now. Um if we have time, we can go back, but I want every because I really want to have a conversation on street sections. I think this is more important. Um so on the street sections, we just want to make sure that we kind of get some heads from council. We've had interest in previous conversations about developing a 50-foot section. we would we're going to move forward with that idea. We'd also kind of have the kind of the rules around where we would want to deploy that 50-foot local standard, why we won't want to. We also need to make sure that it complies like with not only the water and sewer utilities, but where franchise utilities go. Um, but there's interest in there. We believe there's a use for it as well. So, we want to we want to move that forward. And then the second one around local streets is we get a lot of um we've been in a lot of conversations around carfree or wound type streets. The perfect example is the one that just got constructed in front of Jax draw. Our standards are kind of silent on that right now. Uh we think we we know we have to develop a carfree standard as part of the climate friendly equable rulemaking process. But with the runef, I think we want to provide some guidelines around that um to give more direction to the development community of where and how those could be used throughout the city.

Very interested in that. Okay. Um, and then when we get to the arterial and collectors, um, just a couple things we'd like to get from council is just verifying that if there is a preference, we would we want to move the bike systems off of the roadways into separate facilities behind the curb. Um, our current design standard is 11 foot lanes. There has been I know there's been discussions of looking of lowering that. Um I'm just looking do you want are do we are we how hard do we want to push that or do we want to go engage with all the different stakeholders to say yes what are your thoughts about going to a smaller lane section and we can do examples of where those are around town because we do have examples.

I mean there's there's research about what said what the the safest lane width is. So I would say let's just do what's informed by that. Um, but is this also an opportunity for, you know, one of the things we hear from people is they really like the the trail system and one of the problems is the trail system sort of broken up and discontinuous. And when we have a new development, we don't have standards that require off street trails. So, we don't really have an opportunity to say, "Hey, new neighborhood, connect to this." You know, we have open space standards, but we don't have like a connect to this trail standard. So I mean I my I would say I think most people want like an off streetet facility and if that's not available or not an option for whatever reason then let's look at some of these other ones. Can we

is there a way to address that? I think we can look at that. That's we can definitely bring that up in the conversation and and kind of I think there might be some immediate changes we could do to kind of get that in the standards but then I also think it'll it'll kind of blend into development code updates and then also as we start to look at large level policies of what what we want in master plans and things like that we can start to elevate those discussions. I mean, the reason why I feel like it's it's connected is because if we have a really great off- streetet trail option, then maybe we don't need all of the other elements all crammed into one part of the ride ofway. Yeah. Um but that's that's sort of, you know, contingent on what's present and what's available. Okay. Any other any other input around collector RPI or standards would you like to carry?

I just have a question. I thought I mean I've heard and it could be not factual but when you narrow the the lane widths that it actually does lead to safer outcomes um just because it causes people to go slower. is that there there is a big study that came out I guess two different studies that came out and looked at that and they did make some mention of like if you have buses you know you might need a wider lane for that but generally it was across a whole variety of size cities and I looked double check a bunch of different climate zones too so yeah I think it actually makes also for a nicer looking street scene I think it's

and it just allows for better um development site plan layout I know for uh builders developers in terms of the whole streetscape. Councelor Norris, you're talking about like trees and and little wider sidewalks, like all that stuff that gives us more flexibility.

When we say we're going to we want to narrow the sections or move the bikes off, then it also changes how we approach crossings, right? Because we don't have this large expanse to cross. So, we do or do we not need the a refuge island in there if we can keep those tight? Um those are that helps us provide guidance on well then how would we cross these new streets as well? So, that's good direction. I was just going to say like the um you know when we talk about standards and we talked about this a little bit that with in retrofit situations like with Franklin you know I really feel with Franklin we're just trying to jam the street standard the typical standard into what should be in we hope will be in the near future an urban

area you know even though it's an arterial it needs to function as an urban area um and so I just want to make sure that the standards that you guys are working on have sufficient flexibility that you know we don't have to because that is a very expensive street right there that basically sucked up our entire transportation fund right there. So I hope everybody really really likes Butler Market Road. Um so I yeah I just I really feel the standards need to be flexible so that we can be making safe streets all over town.

Yeah. And and I also just want to kind of illustrate as we go through this and we're getting this guidance and having conversations it it helps um Janet and Ryan as we do the next round of capital projects of how we want to approach that. Right. So this this helps us not only have the standards conversation but also when we look at okay we're doing another corridor we're moving in this direction let's let's try to see if we can incorporate some of those principles as we move forward I think that's what I was speaking to earlier in terms of a maybe another level of a framework when we a decision-m tool right or a filter saying we're going to use existing rightaway within our we're going to you know have these things that are not really standards but they're principles that are a little uh more close to the ground from the council goals

that help provide guidance. So we would love that direction from council. Um so that way we when we bringing projects to you they they kind of fit a framework is what we're looking for. Yeah. I mean I think working within the existing right ofway um is a great goal to strive for. I wanted to get that out. I think that's important. Isn't that generally what we're trying to do? except in those circumstances where it's impossible and we we like I think if we had more clear really I think if we had that really solid direction from you all and that that if that is what is the driving it's it's always like what's the priority right if that is the number one priority then it'll shape some of that design particularly in the existing network

improving safety seems to me you know understand it has to be balanced with these other pieces but that seems to be very important to me if not the number on. But again, in those circumstances where you can't be perfect and it's the the balancing of that stuff. So, all right, one more topic. I know. Yeah, I was just going to do a little time check. It's 5:37. We still have We probably can get about 20 minutes out of we 20 minutes. Okay. So, we

I got one one more quick thing. Um so we've we've deployed new intersection forms across the city where we have at Min and Wilson we have the the the the new um kind of protected roundabout standard that we did. Then we're also deploying the the new signalized intersection standards at um we did it at Wilson and Third right down the street at Wall in Portland and then also we're doing it at Butler Market and Boyd Acres. These we typically have been deploying these where we have key routes within our system. We also we want to just check in with council of is is does is this council have a strong preference on moving forward with creating these as our standards or do we want to go to know our standard is a kind of a typical single lane roundabout and we want to do we is there anything we want to consider in the design elements of those. If we don't know, we can go out and test those with the community and bring that feedback. But we need to really start picking a intersection style we want to do to so that we can have clear communication on how our standards are going to get adopted.

I don't know if there's any feedback from that anybody wants to give it. My answer is I don't know and I'd love to hear from from others. Yes, if we can have a a different route, a a separate route for our multimotal transportation that does not have to go through these type of these intersections. Yeah, that would be my first choice. Yeah, what we're talking about is where that's not possible and where we must interact in these cases. My preference is for protected for the safety aspect, but again like Mayor Proen Bergens, I'm really interested in what the public has to say, but that's my preference.

I I would offer, you know, it again, it kind of comes back to speed. You know, if this is an intersection that people are going really fast through then or they have no other choice but to go through this intersection, you know, then maybe that level of protection at Ninth and Wilson is necessary. As a cyclist, I find it tedious. like I go through the lane. Um though I wish there was an alternative to sharing the lane with a car, you know, or getting in front of a car because cars go way faster through roundabouts than cyclists usually can.

An example of that is if we start to move the bike facilities off the street, then it might be easier just to run them through the standard crossing intersections than having to create an entire system for them to go around the roundabout. think you guys should use your engineering creativity and look at the context. And so those are the things that we would, you know, I can imagine either in open houses or in a a survey, we would say, "Hey, we're trying to do this." And we kind of give examples of like what would you feel more comfortable being in? And

I I just want to offer on the signalized intersection. I was actually parked at Wallen only and saw someone almost hit a a guy riding a scooter in bike lane. So, like we put a lot of money into that intersection and you know and I was worried that it wouldn't really do that much to move the needle on safety there and I I fear that that's what's happening. Yeah. And so I like there's other designs like what I've seen in other communities is you stop the cars back further and you have the green box so that bikes can go in front, you know, and then people that is a real education wakeup call like why is that green box there? Like you're not supposed to stop in it, you know, and that I I don't know. is way less expensive than all the curb and everything. Yeah. And I appreciate these are more expensive to build, right? So again, but if I'm

It takes longer. It takes longer. And so what what we'll do is I think we'll go into exploratory mode on intersection forms for both roundabouts and signals and we'll kind of solicit feedback and come back. And I I mean if there is a way to gather some data about how they're performing so it's not just everybody and their brother's opinion. I mean this is one of the places we have the some of the you know we have opinions on most things but this one I think can be very strong transportation stuff and intersections and

so if we have our own data about how are these intersections performing for us in bend and has something changed say at at third and Wilson um so we can help evaluate them um and then compare well this is some things that are tried in some other places and maybe this other alternative is a little better than what we tried. Every single car hits that turning on um well large car hits that large vehicles are having a hard time for corners and we're adjusting as we go to make sure they get better. But yeah,

I mean I would I would say just do whatever is safest and uh I don't even know that we need that much data on like how is it working and bend. It's just are these are these safe in general and if we're replicating that then then fine. Yeah, they're safe from the I think the the point about um the speed of people going driving around roundabouts is is definitely relevant. I mean, I that's that's part of the problem here is I feel like our older roundabouts feel safer. They're easier to cross. People drive slower in them and now we have all these new examples of roundabouts and people are driving like Mario and through them. Well, for low I I if we're since we're already having the discussion lowering speed on the roads, I think we will have conversations around kind of what is the design speed of a roundabout in that new context,

right? [clears throat] Um all right. Um just real quick, is there anything else if there's anything else that we missed that you are really passionate about, feel free to reach out to myself and Janet and we can kind of include I've been taking notes and so what I'm going to do just because we're a little short on time and I want to make sure we capture everything, I'm just going to send a council all email with your notes. if we didn't get it quite right, please don't reply all. Please just respond to me so we don't have a serial meeting and then we'll make sure that we provide more exact direction if needed.

So just really quick, I just want to go through how we're going to go through the process. So we're going to get all this information. We're going to bring we're about ready to go get some consultants on board through our on call engineering contract because we do need help with facilitation and actually horsepower to create drawings and standards because our our team is busy building capital projects all over the city. What we're looking at doing is probably doing around three workshops is kind of our first idea. We want to go talk to the engineers and planners that are actually designing these things and are um working with them day in and day out. We also want to have a workshop specifically with the large vehicle users. That includes um our emergency response, fire, transit school district, and freight. Um and then we may have multiple workshops with the advocacy groups and the general public to make sure that we're getting all the feedback, potential surveys, things like that. We'll start to develop that. You can kind of see the need to go talk to all these groups with the conversation that we had. We'll come back as we after we get all that data, we'll come back probably have another work session with council, make sure we're we're heading in the right direction and if we do need to do more engagement or no, just move directly into creating the new standards. Then we'll put them out for public comment and review and then come back for final adoption through council. Um we'll be getting consultants as I talked about. um we'll be using transportation dollars related to that to do that work. Um but we're going to go actually develop that scope of work and get those those um consultants on board. And our schedule is um hopefully late spring summer we're starting to have these community workshops, come back, have a conversation with you late summer and then we're developing the document um through the summer and the fall um depending on how much outreach we need in the conversations, put it out for comment um over the winter next year and then come back in the spring and adopt. But again, this also provides the flexibility in the meantime. If we are getting consensus on things, we will start to integrate that into our current designs.

One last comment just to ask uh that we specifically incorporate some of the latest research on design for pedestrians who are visually impaired. So, if we can make an intersection safe for someone who is blind or visually impaired, I feel like it's going to work for everybody. And we've heard from people that uh do have visual impairments or are blind that that they're struggling. And so if we can specifically pay attention to some of that research, I feel like that would be really helpful.

Yeah. I think we'll we'll be engaging with co-active things to uh to kind of I I I agree with you. Yeah. Because we've actually gone through exercises of crossing major streets with a blindfold on. Not easy. And we want to make sure that we are you can our designs. Okay. Sorry. Sorry, I know that was really quick, but really appreciate and that gives us a path forward. Yep. Thank you. All right, we will have a consolidated but still thorough bridge.

All right. Well, I'll dive in while Garrett's bringing it up just to kind of introduce this. Uh, first want to recognize some of our partners in the room here. Abby Driscoll is the main ODOT PM on this project. Um, so she's Garrett's counterpart on this as we work through the FAA or the FA. Yeah. Um, was talking about the air traffic control network, not the FAA, uh, FHWA. Um, and then a couple of our consultants, Craig and Kayla, are here as well, right behind Abby. So, I want to thank them for their time this evening. Uh, but that is a good reminder, and this came up in a recent news article that I did. We just wonder ODOT is the primary PM on this project. They have been for a while and the main reason is because we are not a federally certified city uh to take those kind of funds and so it flows through ODOT and we're lucky to have Abby here as our partner uh to help navigate those waters. Um second quick reminders on the funding side of things, we we continue to hear this from the public quite a bit is that this project is almost predominantly if not all funded through state and federal grants. It's not money we're going to have to repay. We do have a million dollar contribution from the general obligation bond and there is the potential that we have to dip into the bond for a few million more depending on where this lands overall. But $32 million are coming from the feds and from the state of Oregon, which is a huge win. Uh we constantly hear people, why are we doing that? We should take that money somewhere else. We can't do that. We applied for the grant at this location for this kind of improvement and that's what we won. And so, um, I'm just going to keep repeating that until I stop hearing people saying we should do something else with it. Uh, but then the last thing that I'll mention before I hand it over to Garrett is because of that federal funding requirement and needing to work with ODOT, it's it's we're in kind of a quick decisive uh uh schedule here. So, we're going to have more frequent check-ins with council. That's why we're doing this tonight. Uh we've got three main topics to cover in terms of the prominade street from the

public outback, the alignment of the bridge itself as well as kind of the people street concept uh underneath and alongside the bridge. And so uh we're having this meeting with you now just to make sure like yep continue on everything looks good. We have another meeting in May to talk about the geo bond budget in general and then we have a a design a more of a detailed meeting in July uh where we'll bring our design team back in and talk about some more of the details like lighting and railing and some of those other things. But just want to also reiterate like we need to keep this moving along because we do have to meet the federal requirement and get this out and bid through ODOT procurement and through DOJ channels by a certain time. So, um, it's rapid fire here and we're just, uh, wanting to make sure at these check-ins that we're going to continue to be in alignment with council's intent. So, with that, I'll hand it over to Garrett.

Yeah, thank you. Thanks, council. Um, so we have three main things we want to update the the city council on tonight. Um, primarily looking at the street level improvements that we're proposing to move forward. Uh, there's been a lot of conversation around the bridge alignment, especially over on the east side or east of BNSF Railway. um starting to move forward on some different uh considerations around what the the people street concept could be if we do that and then what the other impacts would be within that network area. Um so first just a quick overview of the project. Ryan was talking about the federal funding tied to that we have scope limitations. Um so this project here goes from just the west side of Third Street to uh the east side of Haramman. And that uh blue area that you see on both ends is the street level improvements that we're talking about and we'll show more information on moving forward. And then we have kind of a transitional zone where the landing is or or the lighter orange. And then the approach is where we would start going up towards the bridge. That's where we'd have retaining walls for a short a short period before we'd go into kind of a open area underneath the bridge. And that's that's important as we start talking about like what the treatment could be underneath the bridge where we're talking about non-vehicular areas. Um, one thing we're not showing on here right now, but just want to make council aware that we're moving forward on is the Hawthorne extension. So, how we connect to the Ben bikeway on Haramman uh to the west side. So, from that blue area to the west and south uh and then over to the east side over to Juniper Park. So, across Third Street all the way over to Juniper that um we received direction from council in October, I believe, to start moving forward with and we've initiated that project. We're in early stages of developing concepts, hoping to um be sharing something with the community here in April and wrapping that up in June to align with the budget discussions for the bond with with city council here.

Just before you go on, can you confirm for me that the blue area is not federally or externally funded? That is all part of the federal funded part right now. The blue is Yeah. So this everything that whole white dash line is what is part of the federally funded project and we aren't allowed to work outside of that area. The extension goes beyond that. Great. Thank you. Yep. Yeah. Thanks for the clarification.

Uh so we had an open house in early December. Um we had already selected a trust at that or the trust uh bridge structure type at that point. So we were trying to focus on getting feedback around users and then the street level improvements. So those were predominantly our focused questions along with a few other just user consideration and general input. Um we had around 200 people turn out beside between online and in person. Um the bigger question here that I want to highlight for today was just around what people were preferring for the street level improvement. So we had shown a a two-way street a sher or shared street uh concept. the prominade which is what you see here which had the most public support and then just bike lanes like you see typically on a lot of our streets. Uh the majority of the support was around the prominade that had been also our our preference from a project team perspective as as the concept to move forward and that would be specifically on the west side between Hill and Heramman. So as you look at the left side of this um that's the west side Hill to Herman and then over on the east side on the right side is second to third street ending at third. Um that prominade concept would reduce this from a two-lane or two-way traffic to oneway traffic westbound with on street parking and then we'd have a dedicated space or shared space for pedestrians and bicyclists um on the south side of the road that would connect to the bridge. Uh other considerations here are just going to be landscaping. This would be a heavier landscaped project or corridor than what it is today. So a nicer aesthetic as well. Uh also in the open house we had shown this this has gotten a lot of attention I think from city council as well as community and people have emailed you about it. Um we had shown the bridge alignment as it went across first and landed on the south side of the road between first and second street. Uh the feedback that we were receiving was was

why aren't we centering that and making this more of a people street concept non-vehicular. Um, as we had been looking at this early on, we'd kind of been carrying assumptions forward from the feasibility study that we did a couple years ago just around considerations for driveways, fire access, and then looking at the the network system here, east west network between Franklin and Greenwood, which we'll show a little bit more of here. So, talking to the the network consideration, um, if you see the uh orange dash line, that's Hawthorne Avenue. That's the one east west connection between Franklin and Green Greenwood right now that's built out to city standard. To the south we have Gley which is um basically a two-way gravel road and then Irving to the north which is which is developed for about half of the segment and then it's a single lane gravel road for the western segment. Um, so highlighting here that if we are to close Hawthorne and if we are to center close it to vehicular access, there's really limited other access uh on those other two corridors right now from a a street improved section. We do plan to move this conversation forward more. Um, you know, Russ has talked to a few councils, I think, and maybe Ryan through this process about trying to bring this conversation to to CAB to further it. uh as well as internally here with city council to understand if there's priorities to to improve any of those as we're looking to construct the Hawthorne um overcrossing

and just to add to that real quick that's while he's got this up it's really to look at kind of a superb block concept so look at the whole thing from Franklin to Greenwood from first to third and determine a way in which we can keep those movement patterns going may you know maybe first becomes a one-way street right where there's all these different ways you could do that so uh I do anticipate that coming out of this outside of the Hawthorne Bridge footprint, we will have some additional city work that we're going to need to work with CAB and with the city to determine what it is we want to fund. Uh, do we attack Irving? Do we save Gley for a future development and kind of what the options may be for that? You'd also um councils received a letter from the developers on the northeast corner of Hawthorne First um and they had had written about their interest in seeing Irving develop or built through. Uh they are one of the properties right now in Hawthorne between First and Second that has a driveway access that comes off of Hawthorne in this area where we're considering the centering the bridge alignment building the people street. Um, so right now with their interest of wanting Irving, their interest of wanting to maintain their driveway till they redevelop, we are showing a concept that would maintain their driveway access but not maintain the connection all the way through the block. The same goes for uh the business on the southwest corner of Second and Hawthorne. Uh, currently um, Bottle Drop is located there and and there's ongoing conversations here internally with with them as well uh, about their business there. When you say not maintain their connection all the way through the block, what do you mean?

Uh, I'll show a picture here on on one of these future slides. Basically, I mean we would go to their driveway. We wouldn't keep the road going all the way through. So, they would have a driveway access, but there wouldn't be a roadway connection. And that's this one here. Yeah. Question. Is there actually an alley between first and second? Yeah. And it's it's super unique. Um, so right here you can see the the 20 foot mark goes to the edge of this property. So the second property in and then it's 10 ft wide. It continues. Yeah. And it goes 10 ft wide I think to right here or here. So it's not a full width um alley going all the way through. Okay.

And then what about south of the bottle drop there? South this there is an alley a 20 foot alley all the way through. Um this property here actually that's their only driveway access. they don't come off of Hawthorne.

And so that that's another part of the discussion in especially in terms of of fire access if you're going to have to fight a five or six story building fire there. You know, do we can they get down the alleys? Do they need additional hydrants? Do they you know, all these different ways that so we're in conversations with them, but another sub project that's kind of peeling off of the Hawthorne Bridge on both sides of the parkway. And so this this shows a a concept of if we were to center the bridge. Um so you know first streets on the left side, second streets on the right side and then we have these gray shaded areas um would basically show where we would be providing uh these driveway accesses that are ideally temporary scenarios until these properties redevelop. Um, and that was what you received in the letter from from this developer here is in the near term they'd like to have this driveway, but once they redevelop, they would like to have it off First Street. I think we'll continue conversations with them as we kind of go through this design trip effort of what this people street looks like and see if there's additional wiggle room there or not. Um, I think Irving obviously is important, too.

I thought they had asked for access off of Urban to the north specifically. So, are you saying that this is an iteration since that letter and they've kind of agreed to this? So, there's in in their letter, they were saying they want to keep access off of Hawthorne to this driveway that I'm showing on the screen now with a red circle around it

in the near term. Yeah. Until until they redevelop. So, it's uh maybe a technicality of their partnership. There's a different property owner for this purple shaded area than there is from the property just north of that. and then Irving is north of that. And so until they get to the point where they decide to merge those properties and develop them as one, they are seen as separate parcels for them and and they're concerned about plan basically the the one that Garrett Yeah. the next slide. That's yeah, we think this is the temporary solution that they could live with based on their current configuration because they have that large building that basically blocks all potential access from First Street

and it gives us flexibility to decide which street we're putting some money into in the short term even if we can't do Gley and Irving, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is it necessary to provide that second driveway for the bottle? I mean, they have they have two already. eliminate their driveway off of second, right? Off.

They have they have an alley. So, we just built the Second Street project, right? And they had a driveway access off of Second and they came to agreement with us that they would abandon that so we could build that street section, right? If if we helped them reconfigure their their parking. So, they reconfigured it all to angled parking and one-way traffic going through there. So, it'd be pretty poor character for us if we went through and now said, "Now, you can't have this driveway." Agreed.

Yeah. So maintaining for the time being but hopefully it's gone in the near future. I think everybody gets the understanding of this one. Um and then lastly here is just you know I think I think I wasn't here in November when you presented. I think it was in November there was some discussion about like you know what can we do for improvements underneath the bridge in some of these areas where we're having to purchase land or we're not having vehicles as far as like a people street consideration consideration future development. Is there is there park ideas? Um we've started just talking a little bit high level with some of the adjacent property owners. Uh reached out to Ben Parks and Wreck to see if they have any interest in in any sort of park um development and and long-term, you know, maintenance here. Those are early conversations. The the high level position right now is we don't know what our budget is for these areas. And this would be probably one of the first things to get cut if we were over budget as far as the level of improvement. And so we're going to be at a concept here in April. We're going to have some um kind of our first iteration of of uh cost estimates and related to what the structure and approaches and everything is. So, we'll have a better understanding of what we would have for available funds for these areas and start initiating some of those um design cheret meetings in late April to try to further those along and then come back to council in July and have a little bit more detailed conversation around here's what we think we would like and here's what the budget would let us do and see if council has any desires for us to go one way or another. So that would be a decision point for us that we'd be looking to for

Tourett is a new word for me. I love it. Um I mean I'm super excited about everything I've seen here and I really appreciate the responsiveness to the feedback and input that's come and some of it in the you know public stuff and then more concerns about well that little jog to the south and all that. Um, I think what's really great about it, um, is that it really sets us up well for this, um, you know, the beginnings of something that might actually become this Drake to Juniper concept over time. And, um,

so I I just think it's fantastic. Um, I do think it's the Gley and Irving investments are going to be really important and having that conversation with CAB and I guess my hope is that we'll be able to have some ideas about how we might proceed and and what the costs might be in the in the next few months, I think, right? Or is that going to be part of that budget discussion? Talk to CB about that here soon. Yeah. I mean, hope to use some of those dollars. Yeah, that's my guess. It's not an easy job just to plop a bridge down in the middle of a city. Yeah, this is really this is really well thought through. Yeah, great.

Yeah, it's cool. It's uh you know, we're not the the you know, thinkers behind all this. It's fun to go to the meetings and see all the different people with the different interests who who've done this before and are focused on these you know, minute details. I would say that we'll bring back a lot of those in the July check-in and and talk more about like lighting and railing and treatments on walls. But um we have a team that's working on it that's just really excited about all the different aspects of it and are really thoughtful in their approach. So got the right people schedule-wise. Um the as I mentioned that concept gets delivered here in April that'll have the cost information with it. We'll start the designs in late April. We're also having the Hawthorne extension openhouse. So beyond the limits of this project connecting to the Ben bikeway around April time frame. We're tentatively planning for the May June time frame for the geobond budget discussion. Um so that's hopefully everything geobond budget-wise and how council would like us to move forward or to engage with those conversations over the next following few months. Uh finishing up the extension in June or the concept and getting understanding if there's anything you want us to move forward with. And then we'll have an update for council in July. And we're still kind of targeting that design completion in August and beginning construction late uh or August 27, construction late 27, early 28. And as Ryan mentioned, these dates are tied to our our u some of our funding that we're receiving. So we have to kind of hold those design construction dates um to make sure that we continue to secure those funds. And I'll just highlight here because I think this is the last slide that May June meeting uh we're on on schedule now with the Federal Rail Administration on the Reed Market Bridge to receive that funding obligation in April. So if we have that obligated from them, it'll make that May June discussion hopefully a good one where we can decide you know we we do have some extra money now. can you know how can we apply that to the

rest of the geo bond project list and maybe that frees up the discussion about what to do on the people street side of things and some of these other options. So um if everything positive feedback from them to date and we're last they told us is they're expecting to obligate that money to us in April. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Got it done just five minutes. Thank you. [clears throat]