City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, we are here for um the Ben City Council work session. Um let's do roll call. You can start. Councelor Mendes. Did you eat some? I picked you. Mike Riley. He him. Melanie Keebler. She her. Megan Perkins. She her. Megan R. She her. Steve Plat. He him. Ariel Mendes. see him and council is on her way to the meeting and we'll arrive later. She's Oh, she's online. Okay, so she's listening in. I am listening. Yeah, I'm actually parked right now. So, this is good. So, I'm here too. Gina Franzo says she heard. Thank you. All right. So, we are starting with um our CIP update.

Perfect. Uh thank you, mayor. So Ryan Oster, I'm the director of the engineering department and supporting me up here and partnering with me, we have Sarah Hudson from the city management office and Corey Johnson also from the engineering departments. Uh there's obviously a lot of thought and conversation that goes into this. So they're going to they're going to elbow me and remind me of things that we have talked about that I have forgotten to mention. So um it'll be kind of a joint presentation uh primarily from me, but don't be surprised if if they jump in as well. uh feel free to interrupt at any point if you have questions. Obviously, this is an interactive uh thing. The the point of this today is really to focus on both the geo bond and transportation CIP updates. This is a midbian update, so nothing really new, but we will have about an hour here. Here's the agenda. We'll talk about a midbenium update and what that means. We'll go through the process timeline. I'll share a quick calendar of kind of what we've been doing to date and how we got to this point. Then we'll take a little bit of a deeper dive into both the geo bond and the transportation fund. And then of course uh council discussion related to those. And then I do have a little bit of an update on our other important uh water services side of the house. Uh but we'll have a more in-depth discussion on those topics at a June 24th council work session meeting next month. So, that being said, the overall objectives of this meeting, uh, we add another year at the end of the five-year CIP, right? So, a year has come and gone. Uh, it was weird to talk about fiscal year 30 and now we're talking about fiscal year 31, but here we are. Overall, we just the whole point of this is to make sure we're still in alignment with council goals, community expectations, uh, financial projections, and everything so that so where they're still delivering the way both both this public and the council expects of us. And then really just to highlight some

of the things that have changed. If you'll recall, we we had a nice friendly work session meeting while we were all down here in a horseshoe back in October. So, we took that feedback uh and we've implemented that into the draft CIPs. It's it's not shown in the presentation, but you you all have or should have access to the draft CIP as as an attachment as well as a memo kind of describing the changes that we've experienced this year. Uh so, we can reference that at any point in time. And that really gets us to where we are today and and the idea of here's what we understand as staff that we're being asked to do. Uh there's a few fundamental questions that we do want to run by you. And so we're going to introduce these questions up front. Don't want to take too deep of a dive into them yet because the presentation should answer a lot of these. But what we're sitting at today is is with respect to both of these funds. We have the geo bond fund and we have the transportation fund. So on the geo bond side, questions to consider is the consolidation of the ODOT money. That's something we talked about in October and what possibilities lie ahead of us in terms of what to do with that money. We've outlined three potential options there. So we'll take a bit of a deeper dive into those after kind of going through all of the possibilities. And then on the transportation side, uh a little bit less excitement there, but there are some things that we have adjusted whether it's moving a project up or back in the schedule as well as accounting for things uh that weren't in there uh when we adopted the bienium budget and really just ensuring if you have other priorities you'd like us to consider. The transportation fund is where we maybe have a little bit more flexibility um within reason, but the the geo bond fund obviously is is more in sync and it has to, you know, we got to deliver what we said to the public on

there. And then the third question really is you're going to be at next week's council meeting. You're going to be seeing code updates for Ahack, BAB, and TBOK. A lot of acronyms there, but one of those is the reformatting of the transportation bond oversight committee into more of a general transportation oversight committee. So, what what are you asking of them moving forward? And out of this update, what would you like us to go back to them to consider and work on now that they're going to have a little bit more ability to look at both the bond and the transportation fund? So, those are the highle things to consider. We will show this slide again at the end of the presentation and we'll kind of run through each of these options in more detail. So timelinewise uh we adopted the current bienium budget we're operating under now back in July of 25. Couple months later that previously mentioned work session where we talked about the geo bond and transportation fund. Uh internally as staff we continue to deliver projects. So we make budget adjustments at the end of each calendar year. We make fiscal year projections of how much war we're going to spend, how much needs to roll over. Uh here we are in May of 26 having an update meeting. All of this is leading to the midbian budget adjustment adoption. And then even once we're done with all of this and and we approve the midbian, it's only a few short five or six months from now that we're going to be talking about the next bianium. So keep that in mind is there's never a final decision point. you always have flexibility moving forward. And and every six months or year that goes by, we have better information. We have more concrete numbers about how much something like the Reed Market overcrossing bridge is going to actually cost. And so with that certainty allows more flexibility in what to do with some of this other

money. So jumping into the geo bond at a high level where we sit today is the original resolution that was passed resolution 3218 out of that 190 million that basically called for about 180 in projects and another 10 million in just general overheads about 5% which is actually a pretty good number when it comes to this. That's to help pay for the additional staff we brought on board. That pays for overhead costs. There's a lot of management and administrative work that has to go into working with the with the bond and who else we work with here the on the financial side and then just monitoring this from an investment income side and and all of the things that go into that. So that's the original intent. Uh for reasons we've previously discussed and we can jump into more should we want to. Our current spend rate is far exceeding that original $180 million intended. The good news is is with the read market grant, which we are confident will be hitting soon, we we got confirmation from the Federal Rail administration over the last couple days uh that and that I think because we've constantly been I don't want to say pestering them, but we're we're getting them to move at lightning speed, which is not normal. We're we're confident that we're going to be coming to you on the June 3 council meeting with the actual grant language and and asking council for approval of acceptance of that $32 million. And so everything we're talking about here is under the assumption that that 32 million will hit and will be programmed into the next budget that you're going to be adopting. So the good news is overall it's with that 32 million it basically trs us up. It takes us back to the projection that Corey ran for us here is we're right back to where

we should be in terms of how much we can deliver from a project standpoint. So winning a $32 million grant did not mean, oh great, we've got an extra $32 million we can spend. It basically brought us back to where we should be. So that that could be viewed as how did we get there? But also as okay, at least we're back to where we need to be. Overall, that does give us some flexibility moving forward, and we'll talk about that in more detail. Um, and there's there's some other areas within the geo bond that we might have the potential uh to consider of what to do with with some funds that should be freed up. So, Ryan, can I ask a question? Absolutely, please.

Uh, I'm I mean, I'm so amazed at the at the grant work that our that our city did to to get that. That was fantastic. Um, and so much changed for 2020 than we get right here. So the the burn rate is where it is and it's because of a lot of what's happening in the world. What I'm trying to think about here is we're sitting up on the the dis. We're looking at five years in the in the front of where we are right now. What can we do? Yeah. To try to help with all that's going on in the world to help you get as much of a predictable outcome as possible.

I appreciate that. No, that that that that would be a really good conversation to have in terms of, you know, we've managed to true this back up, but we have to be very cautious moving forward that over the next 5 years, we don't put ourselves back into that position. So, a good example is the Butler Market project that's being built right now. So, the original scope of that from the TSP and from the geo bond is is I'll read it here. So shared use path adjacent to the roadway close sidewalk gaps and create a low stress network. That's that's a kind of a general description. In reality, what we're building is a fully protected shared use path on both sides that is much more expensive than the original project that was outlined not only in the TSP but money that was dedicated from the geo bond. So internally, we've already, you know, we we've been asked on projects that, you know, whether it's like the Bear Creek or 27th work that's going on now. You're building a shared use path on the north side of Bear Creek and on the east side of 27th or the west side of 27th. Why not both sides? Why not both sides of 27th? And our answer is we just we can't like we can't afford that. We have to stick to the original intent. So right now what we've built on 27th is a shared use path on the west side and we're just putting in missing sidewalk on on the east side which which is great. It's a dramatic improvement but it's it's not as far as we would have hoped to have gone given how our standards have evolved since 2020 and the passing of this. So just an understanding I think would be best for staff of we can't do everything we would all like to see. We just don't have enough left in the geo bond to do that moving forward. So

So from the dis not resire requirements or desirements creep is what I'm hearing. Yeah. Yeah. It's scope creep, right? And and it's not uncommon because nobody would deny that a shared use path on both sides is a better option. You've got the bikes out of the roadway. You have a 10-ft path in some cases a dedicated bike lane and a dedicated sidewalk behind the curb. That's amazing. I would love to build that everywhere. Um, but it requires right-of-way purchase purchases. It's a utility movements and all of that just adds up and adds up. So, we we can't keep doing as much as we would like to do.

I I really appreciate that, Ryan. And I think that one other thing that was thinking about is in our growth plan, part of that is transportation system update, right? That that and and so I I feel like there's going to be some friction. Yes. there as we as we hit that. What What can we do to to avoid or or smooth that out as we approach that?

Yeah. I mean, I I one thing council did not long ago or a couple years ago maybe is, you know, key we want all 12 key routes built, but we really want a bend bikeways north, south, east, west. That is the priority. So, we were willing to overspend on those specific ones. But as we're building these other key routes, you know, we're going to stick to what the original description said. So, so that's kind of where we need to come back to what is the intent. You know, we we're going to build this backbone and then over time, it's going to take a while, we will connect things to this that will, you know, and then we'll we'll market, we'll wayfind it, and eventually, but we just can't deliver everything everybody would like to see in such a short time frame. And so, yeah, as we're going into this TSP discussion, it really is a prioritization effort and saying, "Yeah, we all agree that would be a nice thing to have, but we we got to we got to price everything out appropriately. We got to factor in inflation since 2020 that, you know, the cost of oil and everything we're experiencing and be understanding that we can change scope somewhat, but if we do it here, we got to pull it back somewhere else."

Thanks for the background. Absolutely. So key I Oh yeah. Sorry. Can I just add I think I also want to because we're having this discussion. It's not we're just not coming up with things community when they come to the open houses or when they view the projects in their neighborhood or they think about how they want to get around are asking for a lot of these things. So I think we've refined I've seen us refine over the years helping our community understand

option A, B, and C. If you want both sides it's going to be shorter because we don't have money to go all the way here, right? and just really helping people understand the trade-offs. Yes. With the with the restriction of our money. I'm also going to say something here about our our grant for the Reed Market Bridge that reflects a federal administration that was um keyed in on infrastructure across this country and put historic levels of money towards infrastructure. that if that had continued and we had an administration that was continuing that right now, we'd also, I think, be seeing a lot more opportunities to enhance these projects with grant funding. Um, the current DOT priority appears to be moving away from all of that. Um, just purely the funding itself, but also the idea of any kind of transportation that's not in a car. Um, and that doesn't align with our community values, right? And that's a huge resource that we are basically fighting against. while an administration also is causing the chaos that you just mentioned around inflation, oil costs, tariffs, everything else. So, there's a lot of headwinds and I think it's a good question to ask on how we stay focused on trying to deliver these projects and that people

need to understand that there are going to be restrictions. Yeah. And we're going to have to find other sources of money if we want to make more enhancements. Yeah, that's a great point. A good good case and point is Midtown Crossings, right? We all understand Franklin, Greenwood, and Hawthorne. If you go back to the original language, it said explore all three. Try to build one of them if you can

because we won grant. We're building all three of them. Like we did not expect to be able to do that. So Hawthorne grant money, read market grant money, like we struck while the iron was hot and fortunately we were successful. I mean that's an additional $60 million worth of infrastructure that we secured to supplement the geo bond. So good news. So uh key items for the bond. Um the biggest thing right now is at ODOT or at council's guidance we took all of the ODOT contribution money which included 10 million from Murphy and then another couple million from Powers Colorado Butler Market and even some Empire money. We pulled all that together. That's a $17 million bucket of money. And so the options we displayed at that, you know, questions to consider is would council like to continue trying to find a way to partner with ODOT um or is there a different plan of attack you would like us to explore. So uh ODOT contribution money is a bucket that you know we we can do something with. But we'll we'll dive into that more in more detail when we get to the question slide. A few other things that we're exploring as staff right now is there are a couple projects on the geo bond that you know as time has passed, you know, staff has taken a closer look and it's like we understand the intent when the TSP was adopted and when the bond passed, but we're we're not sure if that's the right thing to do today. We're not sure. A good example of that is it's called the Colorado Capacity Improvement Project. There's $7 million allocated for that. And the intent was really uh Thank you, Corey. It says uh incremental approach for Colorado Avenue Whiting, rightway acquisition, uh including intersection capacity at Colorado and Simpson as well as Colorado and Industrial Way. So, what could we do

with the roundabout? Do we need to widen the bridge? What can we do with the signal? and we've done some feasibility work and it's not a $7 million investment that's going to really move the needle. So, is there something we could do there? Probably. So, we'll come back as staff and recommend for for a million or two million or whatever we can do this and that'll help a little, but an extra five to seven million is not going to really do much anything different. So, we're looking at projects like that. We're looking at I've got Chase Peril Powers listed on here. That's another one kind of connect connected to the Powers Interchange. And another one I was talking with staff about today is the Anie project. The original budget for that was 14, but the timber yards master plan development is taking a good chunk of that off of our bill. So we're are we going to have leftover money at Anie when we're done building it? So, all that to be said, there's there's the ODOT contribution bucket as well as other buckets that that I, you know, 6 months, a year from now, I think we can have a really good conversation about here's where we would actually recommend we should spend that money. Um, and what could we do that would give us a better rate of return on this investment?

Few other things to hold on. Yes, please. Yeah, sorry. um the Chase Peril Powers is is that a similar thing where there might still be some a smaller investment than what was originally envisioned because that's a five or$6 million project. Yeah, I think that total allin if we could find it it's connected to the Chase Broster House roundabout in the transportation fund. So that 90 degree turn in broster house right and private development has built right up to it. And so putting a roundabout in there would give access from Chase down to Peril. And the question then is how do you get from Chase to Powers? But I guess what I'm what I think I heard from you already was that

the original intention on that project was that it would help with the flow of traffic when during especially during the closure and so doing some of these projects before that happened. Um I think what I've been hearing is that that's maybe the modeling is not showing that it really makes much of a difference anymore. So if it's if the scope is there still a smaller scope that would be required. So if that's five million still have to spend one one and a half still but and so we're not we're not netting five million out of that or that one we just not doing well.

Yeah. Well that that would be the question is do we just let it be it what it is with these offset intersections? I think the all-in concept was maybe like a dog bone roundabout that would allow you to smoothly go from powers to chase. Um the modeling doesn't show that it's going to really make that dramatic of a change because ultimately it puts you on to the powers interchange which is still signalized and it's not an ideal setup for where we want to push people. Uh again, if if ODOT was able to work with us and and build an overpass at Powers, which we would all like to see, then a project like that would probably mean a lot more.

Uh so yeah, that that's another one where we're questioning whether that investment is really going to give us that much of a of a difference when it comes to where the traffic's going to go. So, uh a couple other things to hit on the bond side. Uh you will see that we're proposing to capture what I'm calling Butler Market phase two. Right now we're building Butler Market phase one, which is from the 8th Street roundabout east up to Brinsen. And that includes money from the transportation fund to build the Butler Wells roundabout, but it's all the bond is paying for all the shared use paths between the H Street roundabout and Brinsen. We now need to come back and and finish that gap from the Ben bikeways. And so we have a small section that we need to do between the eight street roundabout west to the Butler Boyd intersection. So we have program that money into the bond. We've also programmed the money to improve the intersection itself in the transportation fund. So the idea is we've lined these up and we can in in an ideal world we can re we bid out this other work and we basically move straight from phase one into phase two and then that will complete the the north south area of the Ben bikeways project. It build a protected intersection at Butler Boyd and then somebody could be on a shared use path all the way to Brinsen down through the Butler Boyd intersection. So that is currently reflected in the draft CIP on both the bond and transportation side. We've also plugged in money for what we're calling the Hawthorne extensions project. Right? So we've had this conversation of what's going to happen when the bridge lands. What's going to happen once we get over to Haramman and once we get to Third Street? So we've got geobond money programmed in there to at least design something. there is no money program to build it yet. So that's

another whatif um when we're talking about this flexible bucket of money whether it's ODOT or other projects. So we're going to design it. That's the money you see in the draft CIP. But if we want to fund the construction, we need to still develop a good cost estimate of that. And if that's something council wants to move forward, we would plug plug that into the bienial budget uh that we would bring back to you in in eight or nine months. And the third thing that we have put in the draft CIP is reflective of the IGA that council signed with the parks board and that is to fund the design and construction of the Gilchrist bridge. And that's a $1.4 million contribution that will take that currently city-owned asset and it will it's a it's an allocation to the parks district. They will design it. they will build it through their process and when it's all said and done they will take over ownership of that bridge. So it's one less of an asset that we as a city need to own which is it's interesting because it it connects the Dashuites River Trail to a park. So we really probably shouldn't be in the business of owning that bridge to begin with. So that is also reflected based on the IGA. Keep that in mind as we transition to the transportation fund because we could do something similar with the Drake Park bridge if you're interested. So, I'll pause there to see if there's anything further on the geobond side. If if you want to go through any of the projects shown in the draft CIP, we can we can go through any of those individually. But that's that is the summary of the draft bond CIP you have before you.

Any questions? Yeah. Yeah. So the ODOT contributions, did they are there restrictions on that? I mean, so you're saying it sounds like you're saying we could just take it and do whatever with it, but

within Yeah. No, that's a great question. Yeah, I appreciate that. So the the bond resolution obviously has bumper pads, right? We can't just say we're going to take this 17 million and put it on a completely different project that's not in not in the geo bond resolution. ODOT, they they have $5 million in their proposed STIP, which is their version of a CIP that they're trying to adopt for their 2027 through 2030 stip. That's a $5 million plug to do some signal improvements at whether you call it 20 or 3rd Street, it transitions there and Empire. that that signal has gotten worse since North Corridor phase one has opened up. So their their their intent is whether the city is going to play with the play in that sandbox with them or not, they recognize the need for some improvements at that signal. It could be a right turn lane from Empire on to 20. It could be some other modifications. So they're looking to do something there to begin with. The options we listed there is would the city want to uh would does a city want to contribute to the empire improvement at a at a limited amount of money because we see the need to do improvements across yes

the interchange at the exit and on-ramps and off-ramps. The other option we presented was the missing key in all of this that everybody has known for years is there's no southbound direct connection from 20 to 97. So, an idea that we're kicking around with ODOT that they're open to is maybe we take some of their $5 million, if not all of it, and some additional money from the city and we just build a direct connection, which would alleviate a lot of traffic off of Empire. Sure would.

So, we're we're working through some initial cost estimates with ODOT. Now, I don't have those yet. Uh but but that is a consideration of what what we could potentially do with some of that ODOT contribution money. So and that would be well within the limits of the bond resolution doing doing an improvement at Empire in my opinion. And we of course could run this by legal doing doing a direct connection is a benefit to Empire. That's an improvement on Empire. So I think we're in safe harbor there. But we we would we can vet all these in terms of the resolution language. Um, and and if Elizabeth or anybody would well, you know, they could jump in if you have a more direct question related to that. It's helpful. Thank you.

For a future conversation, too. And I just want people watching to know when it says ODOT contributions, this was in the bond that this is little pieces of money we give to ODOT, assuming ODOT is bringing their big pot of money to make all these big improvements and we're just going to help out. And that is not what's going on. Four years, we've known that's not what's going on. So I think when we had that discussion as a round table we were recognizing if we sit this pot of money and wait for ODOT to come to the table on the powers overpass it will not be within the bond period right so we're trying to figure out how to use this money in a way that's actually going to build a project right so so I have two questions one related to this project so do we not have some money in the bond measure for empire

there yeah so outside of this 17 there's still a 1.4 1.5 1.45 45 what 1.45 for Empire. So if you don't want to use any of this 17, we could take that 145 add it to Ot five and we could focus on Empire alone. And I I or we could add it or you could add more. So we're developing kind of three different tiers kind of the small, medium, and large package. Small is really the ODOT focused work. The medium is ODOT plus us. And the larger package is that direct connection southbound from from 20 to 97.

And as part of that, can you um when you do the modeling, we're looking out a little bit in a little bit of time at least, you know, let's say 10 years out, which takes us beyond the current growth plan, maybe what was done for the TSP just to because I'm assuming a fair bit of new growth is going to happen, right? Oh, yeah. Going to use all these intersections. people coming to in and out of the community. Um, are you able to do any quick and dirty like, well, if we had x amount of new houses up there and the jobs that are associated with Jun Ridge and and see how it influences these these possible solutions.

Yeah, absolutely. And and that's part of the exercise if you want to give us guidance to take a deeper dive into that with ODOT. Yeah, we would run a full model of different scenarios and say, "Yeah, if if we build this direct connection, it's going to take the level of service at Empire from an F to a B."

You know, 20 years from now, it's going to climb back up, but it would do a lot to Yeah. So, yes, the answer is we we will model that. We will come back with cost estimates for each of those options and the resulting traffic impacts for doing those. So, shifting gears to Hawthorne then the design money. Um, tell me a little bit more about the scope. I mean, are you thinking like designed all the way to uh like fourth street or fifth street or on the east side and where on the west side? Yeah. That goes to like right now we're going to Hill, right? But the current project with the bridge itself, right, the current bridge scope is taking us to Hill Street.

Yeah. So the extension work basically looks north and south up Haramman. So this takes you from Hill Street to Haramman and then it looks to connect south into crossing uh Greenwood and then ultimately Franklin and then tying into the Ben bikeways system and then north it ties into the only improvement work that we have done up there recently. So it's not looking to go into downtown or anything but it's really focusing how do we connect ways. Yes. on the bikeways uh you know low stress network that we already have identified. So it's really a north south focus on the west side but it is a eastern focus to

on the east side it's it's crossing third crossing fourth getting all the way over to larks or juniper. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it it's how do we more safely cross third? How do we integrate with CCT? We've had conversations with them about, you know, what it could look like in terms of where buses park and but then but then it transitions for a block into a highly residential area. So So yeah, the extension project is there's that full scope. I think we should talk about that a little bit. Looks like you're talking about the roads and the to me when I read that I see something that's infecting driving. So, just to make sure we're framing this right way for the public that what we're talking about is the bikeway project

and how we better connect what we've built into u moving primarily cyclists but also pedestrians rightly roads probably misleading that's probably the non bridge or Yeah. Yeah. It could just be the Hawthorne extension. Yeah. It's a bike focus to to yeah continue that connection. All right. Let's get in the transportation.

Okay. Jumping to the transportation fund. So, uh, highlights here again, if you compare the existing CIP that you've adopted versus the proposed one, it's really just a slight prioritization of some of the projects based on feedback. Uh, TBO made some recommendations. Council said, "Yep, that's fine." Uh, we we got some feedback related to an NSSP project that we were trying to do on Century. So, we adjust the timing of the Tethero Century Bachelor View Drive intersection. Uh, key takeaways though is we're we're servicing a lot of debt on the transportation side. So, uh, if you look at the draft CIP, you know, there's a decent amount of money in there. You'll see the read market grant funding show up on on top, which gets added to the total sum, but that's a that's a good portion of the of the money. So you kind of got to ignore that that line and then look below that. And the I the the idea is that you know 2 three years from now our transportation construction fund really after servicing the debt will only have enough money to maybe you know I like to say seven or eight finance tells me five or six you know we'll we'll find some common ground in there but basically you'll see there's maybe a couple intersections a year and so in years three four and five you'll see something like we're going to design two intersections while we're building two. The next year we're going to design, you know, build the ones we were designing and design two more and it's just kind of a two at a time moving forward as we go. So, we are a little bit limited outside of the next couple years. So, that being said, the key differences you'll see is we have moved Tetro and Century up. I think we all see the benefit of creating a roundabout entry. um coming back from the mountain, you're really transitioning from the rural to the

urban and we want to slow speeds down. Uh we would also integrate a safe crossing there so so people can connect to, you know, out to Phil's trail and up through Tethero. So, uh that was a priority we heard from council. Uh I mentioned it a little bit briefly earlier, but we are funding the Butler Boyd protected intersection through the transportation fund tied to Butler Market phase two. The bond and reed market roundabout is an interesting one. At at council's request, we have accelerated that. I'm about to push that RFP out on the street in in the next week or two. Uh I have shown an increase in funding. So in the current CIP, I think there was four, what did we say? four and a quarter um at that intersection which was an evolution from the 750,000 we had originally when we were going to consider something like signalizing the roundabout. So I took it from there to four and a quarter at the October work session. There was a good discussion about what are we going to ultimately build there. There's the hybrid option versus the full double lane option. So manage to squeeze a little bit more money into that project so that council isn't limited by funding. I would rather you have the discussion and decision be be made based on capacity, safety, speeds, and other things. So if you want to go a full double, we will come up with a plan that we think would be safe to do it. And so you'll see an increase in funding to a little over $7 million at that intersection because it will be a complex project either way. and I didn't want funding to be the limiting factor of whatever the decision may be. So that's important to note. Um we that that will be multiple touch points not only public outreach but ultimately back to council to say you could do path A or path B at this cost or this cost and uh

we will we will present a couple options for you on that one. Drake Park bridge. So this is piggybacking the Gilcrest bridge in the current CIP. You have even in the draft CIP in the next two years we're showing half a million and half a million. And the idea behind that has always been let's get the design moving. Let's get something you know on paper and then maybe we'll go for some grants. Maybe we'll find you know we'll use you know some other funding options uh to fund the construction of that. Uh we obviously we have some success on the Gilchrest side. So, one of the primary questions to council is if you want us to be aggressive here, we could bump that up to say a million and a million rather than a half and a half. And I think 2 million allin would probably be enough for us to sign another IGA with parks to say here you go, we'll make the contribution. H have a nice day and ultimately it's another asset off of our books that is connecting up, you know, two sides of the same park. So, that that's a good question for council. If you'd like us to do that, I'm hoping I don't break the model by asking for an extra million dollars. I don't think we will, but uh but if council would like us to do that, we will we'll rerun the model and make sure that's something we can afford.

Ryan, just on the Drake Park foot bridge question, could you remind me again why or what the cost would be if we just just resurfaced the you know the planks and make them smooth? Good question. I I couldn't give you a good good number for that off the top of my head. Okay. Uh but if if we Yeah, if you tried to maintain the existing peers and structure that's in the water and just kind of worked above that,

I mean, I would need I would want some some guarantee that the peers are going to last for another 50 years, which I'm not confident they would, but uh we could explore that option. If if you're interested in doing that, I I'm going to throw out a number of maybe, you know, few hundred,000 if we wanted to look at rehabbing the existing bridge, uh, you know, rather than the strollers just, you know, bump bump bump bump bump as you go across that thing. Um, but I'd want to do a real good structural analysis of of what's under the under the surface there. Um, it's going to cost us some money, right?

Yeah. Yeah, that would Yeah, just just doing this this rehab consideration. I mean, but behind the the feasibility side of it and the cost, I mean, it's probably at least a half a million. Um, and that would maybe we could get another 10 or 20 years. Um, but it's an interesting idea. I wouldn't want to throw that out if that's something. Bring a planer out there and Right. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. We also have an I mean, I hope we have an opportunity to um pursue some funding through the Yes. sustainability fund. Yeah. There's other pumps and buckets this once this project is shovel ready. Yeah. And I I can't promise that parks would say great, we'll take this asset that's not that's not new and guaranteed to last another

be the only bridge that's not been improved or there's been some new ones and then there's been some that have been replaced or I guess the one is being replaced at Gilchrist. Yeah. Right. So this is the last bridge that's we haven't made a full investment to sort of guarantee that we've got 50 75 more years. Yeah. So would the idea be if we were going to do new, we take whatever e the 500 over two years or the the 1 million over two years, hand it to parks and say now go forth go find some grants parks or we helping with the grant like how is when how is this working?

If we if we go from a million over the next two to two million over the next two that should fully fund the whole thing. So that yeah that that would be us saying hey parks we will build you a new bridge if you take it off our we could build a new bridge for two million. Yes, I believe we could. Okay. Ifrest is 1.4. This one's a little longer, a little more complex, but I think 2 million should be enough to to get that asset off of our books and onto theirs. And then 50 to 75 years from now, we're not worried about having to rehab it or rebuild it. This is this is built into their system.

Got it. Okay, that makes sense. Okay, last two bullets on here is uh you you'll remember you know the Galveastston project which is 15 20 years in the making. Uh just was at the River West Neighborhood District meeting last night. Thank you to the counselors who showed up to that. Uh there's some good buzz about that project now, but we are going to get going finally on building something on Galveastston. So that will start this summer with uh transportation and mobility crews doing driveway and alley uh replacements. And then phase two will be in the fall and that will be a raised crossing out at 17th to the west which when we mentioned that got a good applause from the audience which never happened so that was exciting.

It was even more than just good applause. Yeah. Yeah. I was ready to walk out of the meeting. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Right then. That was great. Someone said mic drop even.

Yeah. And then phase three, which is more the Galveastston proper area, will will happen kind of from the winter into the spring of next year with a final grind and inlay of the asphalt and a restriping. And so Galveastston basically is going to start this summer and my goal is to get it done by either by the spring or summer of next year. And we can finally cross that off of our project to-do list um that's been been hanging over there for a while. And then last thing I'll mention um and it is intentional that the word study is in all caps here is one of the few remaining projects from from our transportation system plan uh for the first 10 years which is really an amazing thing to say is we basically have every project we wanted to do after the adoption of the 2020 TSP accounted for is a southern crossing river crossing bridge feasibility ility analysis and so uh there's no money allocated for design there's no money allocated for construction this will kick off a very healthy conversation that I imagine so but but we we did program this into our TSP and I I think it's important that we do it as you probably all know parks is a little bit ahead of us with respect to developing a pedestrian bridge crossing and um and these things are going to kind of work hand in hand, but uh we do need to at least initiate a feasibility study. The initial guidance was to focus between uh between powers and Murphy. Um I'm going to put an RFP out that just says anything south of breed market we're willing to look at. So it's going to be a very highlevel study. It's going to outline all the pros and cons of considering doing a Southern River

crossing, all the legal ramifications that we know would be we'd be getting into all the environmental impacts that that would be outlined with with considering doing a southern bridge south of Reed Market. So all that is to ultimately say, you know, we talked about the bond and reed market roundabout, but at some point, no matter what we build there, you know, the the Bill Healey Bridge and the rest of Reed Market is is going to hit capacity at someday. So is another bridge south of there in a growing city like ours something we should consider? So the feasibility study may come back and say, "No, don't consider doing it." um it may come back and say, "Sure, go ahead and consider it and here's the things you need to do if that's going to become a reality." So, we're open to whatever this study may result in us doing. Questions on any of those key items.

Okay. All right. Uh let me let me kind of overview this. So, we got like 20-ish minutes. Okay. I'll try to wrap up the the last we could go a little over that so check.

Yeah. So, I know this isn't the easiest read, so the next two slides will be a little bit easier, but this is just an overview of projects that the either the geo bond or the transportation fund will be building over the next five years. This doesn't include any utilities work. This doesn't include private development work. This doesn't include things like street preservation projects uh or anything like that. So, um, as you can see, it's a it's a good amount of work on some pretty important roads in the city. So, breaking this down a little bit tighter. Uh, this is the north half of the map. So, uh, we are programmed to do a roundabout at Empire and OB Riley. We're currently building Butler Market phase 1. We would be adding Butler Market phase 2. We have two roundabouts at 20 on 27th, both at 27th in Wells and 27th and Connors. We have the Nef pedestrian improvements project you which you'll see a contract for here next week. We've got what we call the fourack of intersections then. So we're moving on that. We've got the Hawthorne Bridge that you're intimately involved with. We've got the rest of the Franklin work for Midtown Crossing. We've got the AI improvements project as well as the Galveistston stuff that I mentioned. So all of that work is going to be built on the north side of the city in the next five years. the fourack is are some of those kind of the mini roundabouts? Is that why they're drawn smaller on here? Just

you know, so yeah, good question. So I I don't have a legend on here signals, but yeah, the the curio looking things are roundabouts. The the dots are signals and and that's intentional because Fourth Street is so close to the signals at Third Street. When you put those two side by side, it it removes the the capacity that you get from a roundabout because the cars are coming out of the signal in cues and that just interrupts the whole idea of a free flowing roundabout.

So likely going to build signals at fourth and only fourth and reve. But that's far enough away from the signals that we would be looking to build roundabouts at eighth and only and eighth and revier. Okay. on the south side. It's a little bit lighter, but uh you can see here's the Toro Century roundabout. Here's the Bond Reed roundabout. Here's the Chase Broster House roundabout. Uh this isn't quite as dramatic as it looks, but the key in all this is the Reed Market Bridge crossing over the rail, right? So that's that's going to be a full closure of Reed Market for what I'm saying to be safe is probably most of all of 2028 and all of 2029. Hugely impactful to everybody. Uh we'll also be building the shared use path on the ninth on the on the west side of 9th Street. Shared use path here. We're going to be double laning 15th in Reed, shared use path down 15th, and then uh finally building that roundabout needed at 15th in Ferguson. And then we also have a couple other roundabouts on not road both at Country Club and Broster House um which are just problem intersections and have always kind of especially Country or yeah, Country Club is always high on our crash uh crash data. So uh these are all programmed to happen. So just in that area you can see there's not only new roundabouts but it's it's the the widening of two existing roundabouts.

So it'll be the highest roundabout per capita after all this almost still way behind caramel. Yeah. No caramel Indiana has got okay but that's a significant increase and it is a lot of there's a lot of them up here. Yeah. No it's it's a good number to either re build new or rehab. Yeah. Council on the top um about roundabouts. So, the eighth and only I've received some concerns from folks in the community and I'm I'm pretty concerned about it, too. Um, because I don't believe it's a very high crash intersection right now as a as a signalized intersection. It's it's a really large intersection. So, it's kind of

difficult to get through as a pedestrian um or a cyclist. Uh but um it just seems that there could be a lot more lowcost safety measures done there as well as like maybe some you know smart signal improvements there for way less than what you would pay for y a roundabout. Um so was that considered that evaluated side by side?

Yes, it has been and I'd be happy to share share that information with you and the rest of council. So at peak hour that intersection backs up it it we give it a level of service F at peak hour. Uh but it but it's only really during a limited window of time right. So the fundamental question is could we do some more minor improvements and really what this boils down to is you know as you know the the western leg of this has a retaining wall on the south side. So unless we're willing to bust into that retaining wall, we can do some signal modifications, but it's not going to buy us a lot of time. Whereas the roundabout footprint, because it is an existing intersection, uh it would buy us a lot more in terms of capacity and for a longer period of time. So yes, a more expensive option. Uh but that that's kind of where we've landed as a staff evaluation, but uh of course council can direct us to do something different if you want to see something different there. But every intersection we dive into, we run it through an intersection evaluation form. Uh we we lean towards being a roundabout for city. And so that that's where that specific evaluation landed in kind of two of our three main criteria. Um, but I will share the information and be happy to take a deeper dive if needed into that. And

well, it's coming up on our agenda in June. It is. Yeah. Yeah. It'll be'll be something coming up that Yeah. And maybe if we can go to the council touch points and kind of Yep. keep moving here.

So, I'll Yeah, real quick. Um, yeah, this is just what we're going to keep monitoring over the next next, you know, year and even the life of the rest of the bond. I'll kind of skip through that though. Council touch points. This is just to highlight how often we're going to be coming back to you with geo bond or transportation related items. So you're going to see the readmarket grant improvement contract GMP4 for Franklin which is the final it's the undercrossing work that we're negotiating right now. We've got 15th and Ferguson. We've got the fourpack to to your point mayor. Uh neighborhood street safety contracts the adoption of the proposed five-year CIP and a few other things. So, multiple touch points over the next couple months with council just on getting more things moving to build what we showed you we're going to do. So, that being said, it brings us back to this overall council considerations. So, I'll pause there and see um you know how how we would like to dive into these options or questions and if there's additional guidance you'd like to take as staff.

Sure. And I think um we can start with and and we don't have to stay there but start with this idea of the ODOT contribution money which came out of the round table we had last October of pulling that together and maybe doing something else with it. So I think it would be helpful um for staff to hear if folks have particular leanings of which way we might be um thinking about using that money. And just to be clear as well, like we're adopting a CIP plan in June. Um, and there will be further budget decisions that happen after this as Ryan mentioned. Um, so so there are also possibilities to to make changes in the future if we feel like we have to, but staff is sort of trying to figure out what direction we're heading and how to incorporate our feedback from that round table into the actual CIP for the next five years. So

there's one thing I haven't heard about yet and that is just contingencies. Do we need to be considering any kind of contingency reserves for both in particular the Hawthorne project for Reed? Yes. No. We pull this somehow out of the bond measure. I mean we have roughly a million I mean we're a million shy of Right. So we're basically equal but um so I'm asking the question that's not on the list here. Could it be on the list? Contingencies in the budget though, right? But that so that's part of it. Brian, answer the question.

What amount of contingencies in the budget? A good example is the Reed Market Bridge. We're at about a 30% design. We're about to get the the grant funding. Uh we estimate that's a $46 million project, but costs will evolve between 30% and 100%. So it wouldn't surprise me at all if that goes up to 47, 48, 49 million. So yes, the answer to your question is we've budgeted 46, but we probably do need to reserve some contingency especially for those two bridges uh to as the designs continue to be finalized knowing that when we get to the place where we know what the costs are then we can if that money's freed up you know flexibility then we need to hold that. I I think that needs to be part of what we consider. What is the contingency that you assume now?

Yeah. Right. Yeah. So for something like read market at a 30% you could still go up or down anywhere from 20 to 30% I would say uh you know by the book it might go up or down 50% but I feel pretty confident in the work we've done uh in working with the Federal Rail administration. So yeah it wouldn't surprise me. I mean I don't think we're going to go up 20 or 30% but that would be normal to account for at this point in time. And how is that how is contingency reflected in the CIP as you budgeted it now? Yeah, it's it's so 46, you know, that factors in a little bit of that contingency like 10% or

but Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's it's not a huge number today, but I mean when we get a 30% engineers estimate, which is we had to run it by the rail, we said great, you're you're providing 32, so we're going to account for our match. And so that's the other, you know, 13 you see out of the out of the geo bond. So there's there's a few million in there, but I wouldn't say it's it's the, you know, 10 to 15 million. But I I would be disappointed if we kind of went beyond that. But it would be safe to say let's let's make sure there's a little bit held in reserve just in case. Okay. Council Mendes.

Uh thank you. So it's a it's a little bit hard to make these kinds of allocation directions with without price tags on Exactly. Yeah. I I think I'm I'm not interested in option one mostly because it's I think it's an ODOT project that ODOT needs to own and I don't want to see the city get involved in funding um what really are fundamentally ODOT projects. My question is you know we have partial investment up there. Um how do we think about breaking this down into different parts? you know, is it we have to go 17 million all for option two or how do can we provide the direction in terms of 50/50 or how do you think about that?

Yeah, I mean I I have cost estimates being developed now that that my consultant is doing. I would need to hand that over to ODOT and they their team would make their own cost estimate. But I I can't even tell you now if this southbound connection is going to be a $5 million, $10 million or $15 million investment. my my guts telling me it'll be less than 17. Okay. And so you could you could if you wanted to now to say we're interested in throwing maybe seven or eight into that kitty and you know if it winds up coming back that the city needs to put 10 in there that's something we would discuss with you over the course of the next you know eight or 10 months.

Okay. So I think I would of the of the options up there, I think option three has the probably the highest merit because of the safety component to it.

You know, we had uh 362 applications for the NSSP, the neighborhood safe streets program, when it first opened. These were extensive applications and we've only built 22 to date. Not saying that we would have to build all of them, but there's no funding for that program left and it's one of the most popular programs in the city. So, I would be interested in saying, you know, let's reserve some funding to continue the NSSP, uh, study Hawthorne connections and think about what it would take to actually fund those connections and then see what we have in reserve to do something at Empire.

Okay. I just want to remind um council I've mentioned a couple times the um ODOT capital planning process that started this year and it's going to you know go forever and ever but eventually dollars will be allocated and we've had come up with a list of projects um that aren't on this uh that aren't on this list. Um, so I feel like I kind of feel like I wish this information was presented um along the lines of what councelor Mendes was saying with um some criteria that we could judge and compare them. Um so like cost data um what we looked at compare what sorry I'm confused

the different projects the different options. So, so first I and I and I believe I see two projects on the near-term transportation list that I think are not allocated and worthy of doing, but maybe I'm wrong. Um, Colorado and 97 northbound on-ramp. Mhm. Is that funded? No, it is not. It is not funded. Okay. So, that is on the near-term TSP list that I I think a lot of people in the community would agree is probably we we talked about it in our comments to ODOT. And then also Revier, the Revier and Wall Street intersection, River off-ramp. That's another one that's not funded, I don't kind of ODOT city contribution. Yeah, we we've developed a design concept with them, but there's no funding beyond that.

Right. So like, so those are the kind of things that I think would be nice for us to be able to like see them all sort of side by side and see like crash data for example related to each of these.

Um, and kind of rank a low, medium, high level of like urgency to them. Um, I know that's, you know, probably sends you back to the drawing board a little bit. You're probably hoping to get either option one, two, or three from us today. No, to be hon like like I anticipate a good eight months of discussion potentially working with the transportation committee to to do exactly what you're asking like if you want us to put rever on the whatif table we will do that like like we can absolutely whatever list you want us to investigate we will do. Yeah, this is just high level council direction like okay

do more people think we want to put all of it on empire do we want to do that today no do we want to hold it into this fund and look these different projects do we want to focus on what Ariel just said like that's the high level dis discussion we're having today we're not making final decision no final decision now okay the other I mean the other ones that come to mind are we talked about um the read interchange which ODOT did have on the list and they took it off the list so now there's nothing allocated for it but we know it's not a very safe 97. So there's a there's a kind of a couple things there. So I I think it would be nice to see sort of the landscape of projects with some comparison criteria.

That's yeah, that'd be helpful and and I and I agree with with um council rally like modeling would be really helpful for me. Um I absolutely can do that. Um, but I will and and council messes will not be surprised that I'm bringing this up, of course. But I will say again that when we did a city survey, they said congestion was the number one transportation issue that that the public would like us to deal with. So I do definitely do not want us to discount option one or two. Your thoughts? I I really like option one, three, but I say out of that three. I totally agree with Council Mendes at the NSSP. I constantly in meetings I'm always hearing about neighbors bringing up improvements that can happen in their neighborhood. And so I think it's really important that we continue to

to fund that. Um but I'm not necessarily wedded to put pulling all the money in any one option. Maybe we could spread it out a little bit, but I would like to see some more analysis. Absolutely. Financially as those models get developed further. You've Ryan the five million in the draft ship for uh at the Empire project that ODAT has it's draft right? Yeah. How confident are you feeling that that those dollars are going to materialize? Very confident. That's yeah that they've they said that's their number one issue here in the city is addressing the Empire signal. Okay.

I think that's constituents number one issue if you were to ask them about anything along ODOT ODOT's facility in Bend. So, I think I think um we should do more than we originally allocated in the bond towards Empire, whatever that is to help with that. Um but I also agree I think we need to fund NSSP and I think we need to look at at contingency. Um and it it the volatility in the market and materials inflation all of that. I really think we need to be cautious. So, I'm and I would love to see um if we could get the transportation committee involved also in helping think about um some of these things, but I I don't I don't think I need to see a total every ODOT project to know that I think I I want to increase our contribution towards Empire. Um that I do feel strongly about that. Not that I don't I don't need to see it for that, but if we're going to do more on ODOT facilities or we're going to look at other things, then maybe yes. So,

so that's where I'm at. Yeah, I mean generally I'm in agreement. I think we need to spend some of the money on the fix up there at the north end um for the highway 2097. I just don't think we should be paying for the whole thing. No.

And I think if we can at least persuade them to ideally they move the 5 million from the just the the third street Empire fix to this larger project and they give us a few more millions so that maybe we're getting closer to half C's on this project. Um, I think NSP NS SSP round three is really important that that we we do another batch of that for all the reasons people said. I mean, it's what we hear about constantly speeding, you know, and all the little things we can do and maybe some bigger projects. And then last, I would like to see the Hawthorne connections um at least the study and cost estimates get done so we have a that that we budgeted for.

Yeah. Fully budgeted. So, I'd like to have some sense of what what it might cost us to at least to see that as an option, as part of the final discussion as decisions are made. Um, because I think that is a part of the the greenways and kind of delivering on the promise of how easy it's going to how well that bridge is going to work for people who are cycling and and walking because it's not just the bridge itself, it's the their the connections that otherwise people are going to be less likely to use it. Yeah. and it's not going to deliver on the the I think the promise value for the community.

And one thing I think it should also be in this that's not listed here but that you mentioned is just look at a couple of projects that you're looking at and saying are these worth doing as described or do we need to tune these down? I think that also frees up a little bit of that money that might be going into contingency or to over NSSP. Um and I really I do see this as a conversation that our transportation committee can have. Yeah. is really take a look at these moving parts. We've sort of indicated the direction we want to go and let them dive into some of those details and help us with that is sort of how I think they should be involved. Um, next is knowing this is going to be a little bit of a process. Yeah. Right. So, other comments fund.

Yeah. And then on the con the construction fund um side, let's talk about Drake Park Bridge. Yes. How people feel about that. I mean, we had our meeting with parks. I I think they'd be receptive to to trying to get this done. Um I do I do appreciate the sort of can we resurface, but I think the the bridge just needs to be more accessible. Like even if we resurface it, I don't think it's big enough for the amount of traffic that goes through there um to be totally accessible to everyone. So I unfortunately I think it is a new bridge that's that's on order. But and

I mean I've been advocating for this for a while. I think we need to do it. I think um park and recck's going to want the new bridge as as an asset that then is off our books so we don't have to worry about the maintenance costs like that becomes their issue over the medium and long term. Um and I'm my hope I'm hopeful that we can get again some grant funding in particular um through it then but also maybe through the state. Uh maybe we'll see. Yeah, probably not. Yeah. So um but that could that could be a significant contribution once the project's shovel ready. So the proposal was to increase the amount that we're listing in the transportation fund up to $2 million over the hoping that we'll get a grant too to addition claw some of that back or in addition

the plan is still pursue but let's put in let's program in the so I guess we need to hear from council are people comfortable with that or do you want to stay with our sort of level of well we're kind of about half funding and then we would need to pull in money on top of that before we could really move forward. How do people feel about listing this at 2 million? Two two thoughts on that. one is the first just the question if it turned out for example that it was going to be $250,000 and the structure was sound would there be interest I mean from my perspective I I'm on that bridge probably six times a day um you know the extra 15 seconds it takes to walk and squeeze by people is not that big a deal is a big deal is how bumpy it is and it's not accessible from that perspective

so if it's going to be 10% of the cost of the bridge replacement I would be interested in at least learning if that's an option. And then the other point is just to say we are going to have a conversation around uh uh the transient lodging tax and and how we might think about some of that funding. And I I feel like this might be a good candidate for for some of that too. Okay. Other thoughts? Can we see show hands? How many people support pumping to a million million per year over two years? But as long as it we are definitely applying for grants, I'm okay with Yeah, I think that's I mean that's given that has Yeah.

And BPRD couldn't I can't recall. They're they're just not willing to chip in any funds. No, I mean it's our asset today. So Right. Yeah. But even if we eventually were turning it over, I don't think they interested in and then it's not programmed in their budget. Yeah. Mendes like yeah we can as a part of this design and or like we can like let's do a quick you know would parks be willing to accept an asset that we just resurface. We can ask that question. I'm okay asking that question. I think I know what the answer is, but right. Yeah. What what level of improvements would be the minimum they would like to see before they take

us another 20 years? And I I wouldn't care if we gave it to the parks district because I feel like that's a pretty good deal for 20 years of use. Okay. Okay. So, yeah. So, can is everyone okay with increasing this to the 2 million level in the CIP over those two years? Okay. Okay. Yes. Thank you. Um Brian mentioned that he is showing increased funding for the bond and read market uh roundabout. Does anyone have any issue with that showing in the CIP? Again, it's not necessarily what we're going to spend, but that's the plan in case we do need to do a double lane and we do make that decision. Well, go ahead. Yeah, I I would I mean I would take issue with the the way it was framed just to say, you know, I wanted you to

have the option to expand where money was no issue. I mean, money is an issue on every single one of these projects. So, I I have a hard time with that, right? I spent some time at uh 27th and Butler Market, the one at uh where Empire and Butler Market and 27th connect. Mhm. Just watching to get a sense of how people navigate that both driving and on foot. And um it's pretty tough. The speeds are very high. It's very hard to cross. I think people do appreciate the flashing lights, but I think what they would probably appreciate more and hearing hearing them say this in conversations is uh reducing speeds.

So, I'm I I wouldn't support going full two lanes. I think that's not a situation that we want to replicate across town automatically without consideration of budget. Sure. Um, but if we if we do, regardless of what we do, I I would like to see us consider something like raised crossings to make it easier to actually drive the 15 mph target that they're supposed to be driving, right? Roundabouts. And also that would make it easier for people to cross, including people who are visually impaired and have a really hard time with roundabouts as they are now. And just to be clear, we're not making that final decision today. We're just deciding how it's listed in the CIP. We we did make the decision to move it up, right? So,

um I guess the question Ryan is like if if there were to be raised crossings, would that still fit within the budget? Is I think seven and a quarter in there should be enough to explore every potential safety option you would like to see. And I good example, right, Trinity Lutheran, they have flaggers out there. Even though it's a push button RFB, they still have volunteers out there escorting the kids across this double A roundabout. So fully acknowledge I mean there's nothing preventing us from doing raised crossings. We we we can explore all those potential safety options and we'll look at the geometry. We'll look at other things and so we we'll go all in on our safety options in this one.

That's what the more money provides us the ability to do. And I think as we've seen in other projects when we add more safety enhancements, it does cost a little bit more. And that's we're doing what the community's asked us to do is make our transportation system safer. But there's no way to do that generally speaking without some additional cost considerations. Can we just build bridges instead of roundabouts because they sound cheaper? Bridge. Federal government. Um other final thoughts. Um and other final thoughts about the transportation committee's involvement.

Yes. Please details. What I what I would say is I I I think synthesizing what you've heard today, we might need one more touch point to frame what we want the transportation committee to to advise us on to help make sure because it's a lot. Yes. And so I think we need to narrow down what are the questions that we're asking. Yeah. Um and so maybe staff can do some work. Absolutely. And and we'll have a little more touch point before it goes to them. And also we need to revise their code, get that all figured out first, too. M but um I think they could be very helpful in helping to figure out some of these questions. So, okay, sounds like there's support for that.

Okay. Uh if we would like to skip this, it's fine. We can we can revisit this in June. That's totally fine. So, um but yeah, it was just a couple more slides highlighting touch point. So, you will see a lot of us in the next couple months even related to the water and sewer side of things. Great. All right. Thank you for your time. Appreciate Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Next is our transient lodging tax discussion. I'm going to step off real quick. I'll be right back while they get going. You guys can go ahead and get started. Good evening, council. My name is Cyrus Mooney, business development manager here at the city of Bend. I'm uh Jeff Knap. I serve as the CEO, president, CEO of Visit Bend. Thanks for having me here.

So, a little bit of intro really the intent with our conversation today. This is the first time we've had a council discussion post short session of last year where there was legislation that was passed uh in house bill 4148 that allows specific jurisdictions to make some changes to their TLT allocations and um with that want to have a broader conversation about considerations and sequencing and timing of any changes that the council might like to pursue. And I also just wanted to take a moment to recognize the collaboration that we had between the city and Visit Bend as we navigated this piece of legislation. Obviously a contentious issue, but I think um we showed some really strong partnership and how we talked about trade-offs and what was negotiable from each perspective. So I think that's something we should be prideful of.

And I'll I'll second that. Um, you know, it's a privilege to serve in a sort of quasi uh as as a partner with the city on its economic development goals and the staff uh has been uh really really great and so um we uh have shared goals with the cities. We you know our goals are in line with yours. Uh we are an economic engine uh for the city uh for the both the general fund and for businesses here locally. um this year, uh pouring over nearly $45 million in visitor spending back into local businesses, uh about $1.5 million a day, um and counting visitors accounting for about 31% of all the spending spending in the city for this past year. So, um we shared your goals in deploying grant programs and uh staff support to uh preserve infrastructure and um and work collaboratively across uh to reinvest our resources back into both supporting business and community. This is uh you've seen this a million times probably, but um as of right now, and this is what we'll be talking about as far as percentages go, uh this is a mixture of uh decisions that have been made along the way. Uh currently, the city receives 64.6% of all uh transient room tax. So, people staying in hotels, vacation rentals, bread and breakfasts, RV sites for under 30 days. And 35.4% 4% goes to uh our efforts at visit band. Uh you can see the large the blue part is uh the destination uh getting folks here keeping the engine prime to grow that pot of resources and the other two slices are the resources that we put directly back into grant programs with the community about roughly a million dollars. All righty. Just to give a little bit of background of TLT within the city of Bend, dating back to 1983 where the city

of Bend established our first lodging tax at 6%. Um, there's been various changes at the city level and at the state level over the course of time. What I really want to hone in on and emphasize is the change that happened in 2013 when ballot measure 994 was passed that increased the citywide lodging tax from 9% to 10.4%. So that 1% uh delta of increment is really what is enabled to change or have altercations based on the legislation from House Bill 4148. So that one 1.4% increments is really pivotal in the conversation we're going to have a bit later. Um also want to note that that legislation is enacted January 1st of 2027. So no changes can be made overnight, but it's something that we would like to have some time to plan for and get direction from council on. That's a great slide. Very informative.

Yeah, Nate at Visit Bend is a huge history buff and he definitely helped put that together. Yeah. And just to be clear, 4148 it was very intentional that this only applied post 2003. So it left you alone if you'd implemented anything before 2003. That just stayed frozen in time and then only looked at post 2003 increases.

Thank you for that clarification. Yeah. Um for 4148 specifically, there's two different components. Um as we noted that reallocation of tax percentages for the restricted funds, our portion, as Jeff mentioned, is 64.6% that could increase to 67.3%. um because the legislation gets enacted in the middle of the fiscal year for both Visit Bend and for the city of Bend, that number in fiscal year 26 would be roughly $200,000. In future years, it would be more upwards of 400,000 plus. Um and then the other piece of the legislation was around business resiliency grants, which I think we have consensus. There's a lot of skepticism of the vagueness. um there's not any thresholds of how many dollars can be put towards it. I think we've heard some concerns that because of that vagueness um and how it was rushed into the legislation kind of last minute that it could potentially be heavily altered or go away in the long session this next year. And then another consideration with that is just Visib's history of standing up, implementing and um evolving their existing event programs. So is it does the money for the bu business resiliency grants should we choose to do it come out of the city's portion or visit Ben's portion or 5050 split or

it would come out of visit Ben's portion separate from any changes that the council would pursue for that 1.4% 4%. Okay. So you can flexibility less if they want it. I think we would. Yeah. If our position is want to do that. Yeah. No, that's okay. We'll get to that. Okay. Yeah.

Um now more for the considerations outside of just specifically House Bill 4148 working with procurement uh for the destination management contract services that we um have with visit Ben. Currently, we're hoping that because their contract expires June 30th, we'll need to get direction finalized for any changes that council would want to have implemented into that RFP before it goes out to bid by the end of this calendar year with the hope that we would put that out on the street at the start of 2027 and have a contractor on board and finalized in the May time frame to give us some time before the contract expiration so there's no lapse in services. Um, so just to put things a bit in perspective, those because of the scope of the contract being as significant as it is, we need a fair bit of time to make sure that the administration of that is handled accordingly. Bigger picture for TLT. Um, there was another piece of legislation that was passed at the state level um that raised the statewide TLT 1.25% this past year. I think that's just something to think about in relation to the overall tax burden that our visitors are experiencing. Uh the city may consider a future room tax increase in future years. I think it's no secret that um we would need to garner industry support from Visit Bend and all of the partners um within th those that they serve uh to make sure that was a successful process and that would need to be something that goes out to the voters for um council to pursue. So, I want to make sure that that's clear. Again, visit Ben's current contract expires in about a year, June 30th of 2027. And then Jeff, you want to

Yeah, I just think in general right now as we're looking, we'll be here next month talking to you about uh projections for next year around uh budgeting and all of those things. Um it we've had a very very good year. Um and we are uh very cautious about what we have ahead of us for uh for revenue. Um, with fuel prices skyrocketing, uh, we're in the middle of of a super El Nino year, predicted high high temperatures, a lot of smoke pressure. We know when we see that, especially in July and August, it has a huge impact on businesses year, you know, maybe even being able to survive through a full year. So, um, visitor spending right now is up 10%, but we're seeing local spending down 9%. So that visitation really is kind of carrying small businesses right now. It's sort of a fragile balanced time. Um and then yeah, we're cons we're also as we're working with the data with Oregon State to look at you know with 1.5% on the state where is that elasticity of where visitors may choose to not spend that much money to make a trip. So uh we are in a better place than a lot of folks in the type of climate that we have. Well, that that this type of economy in a sense of that we are predominant drive market and people still do travel. Uh and hopefully we can cross our fingers that um we have some snow next year, but with that super Elnino as well, we're looking at potentially some another dry uh winter. Um, so, so is there recent data or you're saying that there will soon be some new data that tells us this about the relationship between the taxes paid and occupancy and kind of willingness to spend?

I think I thought Todd published it.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. For sure. There's a recent study we'd be happy to share with you that came out around that this uh looking at the kind of the sweet spot of lots of different destinations and their tax rates and the impact. there's a threshold by which you hit a certain level of tax and you start to see negative returns. We've also done some modeling in general around just you know uh and our modeling shows that if uh visitors uh visitation drops 4%. We we basically are operating flat. We start to not see any growth in the revenue for a city or for oursel and then anything below that starts to go down. So again, for us, it's just balance of of how we invest.

But I'm not hearing a punchline related to that data in terms of how it impacts Ben. So I'm just asking like what what's I don't know what I'm just saying we should consider that. I'm not um I could be happy to provide the study. I'm just saying is may have sent that to us a while back. And I think it's just basically showing a curve. It's not giving an absolute data number, but it's saying there is a point where you raise the tax enough that it starts to you start to lose revenue because people aren't coming. unless we're there or that there's not room for growth. Um it's just sensitive to Yeah. Jeff, are you suggesting that the one and a quarter hits us harder on this side because people have to drive to get here and gas prices are high or it's statewide, right? It's yet to see. This is a statewide thing. The industry.

Yeah. But it's just that it's just the out of state folks is what you're saying. No, of state, right? That's what I'm saying. So it it doesn't matter where you go in in Oregon, you're going to get that. Yeah. Correct. So that but are you suggesting it hit that one and a quarter hits us harder because people saying that No, I'm not saying that it hits us harder. I'm just saying again it's layering more right on top of it. So as we think about our decisions on how we want to potentially go out and increase and what we may do with that, those are the types of factors that we should be considering. Um, one thing about that particular uh tax increase also is that it goes to that 1.25 is going to support the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife for conservation efforts,

right?

Um, so you'll start to see that also on receipts when you do stay somewhere that that's happening. Um, so just trends right now, uh, we are hitting a record year. So visitor spending is eclipsed. This says 400 million. We're be about 45. Um interesting statistic. 65% of all spending in Ben came from people who don't live within the city limits. So that includes anyone 10 miles are out. So a lot of spending from central Oregon. We see about a third of you know the spending from you know just within our 50 miles and then another third within uh visitation. uh hospitality jobs and healthcare jobs uh were the two things that grew this year as far as um wages. Uh this is here in town. Uh 3.2% wages grow 8% in 2025. And we also have to think about our competitiveness with the growing uh investment from our our neighbors. So you know that we do have leakage about 15% of visitors uh here don't stay here and they're staying and spending resources at our neighboring city. So um we continue to see increased leakage um and benefit people basically coming you know if you're staying in redund you're staying in the pine you're staying in Sun River you're going to be here on the river or using our trails uh so there's usage there that we're not necessarily capturing um tax dollars for you to put back in for to manage. So all righty for council discussion um we have a couple different checkpoints and questions if council wants to pursue then we have some additional direction that's needed. So first question is just generally does council want staff to pursue options from house bill 4148 related to the allocation of ratio split andor business resiliency grants.

I think let's go let's break that down into the two parts. Yeah. All righty. Um, if the council wants to adjust that 1.4% increment that we discussed for tourism related services, that is currently 70% but could go down to 50%. Where does the council think that that additional revenue should be allocated? Again, that roughly 20% delta will equate to $400,000 of um anticipated revenue that the city would receive in future years beyond fiscal year 2026. Yeah. Actually, let's just go through all the questions, then we'll come back to the front so we know.

So, a couple different options in talking with other staff internally and our finance team about um things to consider for council of where that additional revenue could go listed below. Does the council want to direct staff to explore the business resiliency grants portion of the legislation under House Bill 4148? Again, to councelor Francos's point, um that money would come from visit Ben's allocation separate of any changes that would be made. And if we do go down that path, where who does council think should manage that program? What kind of criteria or characteristics would you like to be included and options that staff could bring back for you to consider in the future? I think those are things we would look for some guidance on tonight. And then in terms of timeline, couple different options. If changes are to be pursued, um when is the right time to do that? Would that be at the time that we go out for bid for the new uh destination management contract services? Would that be something more broad in working with uh Dashes County and whoever that provider is in the future to have changes occur at that point when a potential eventual ballot measure goes out? Um that could be a consideration or would council like to move as quickly as possible and look at implementing changes um for this legislation that would be enacted January 1st of 2027.

Great. Okay. So, let's go back to the adjusting the 1.4. for um so council I think just want to hear from folks today what you think about adjusting this yes or no I do want to be very very clear like we're not deciding today where this money would go that would be part of a budget process where this would money that would be coming back into our general fund and would be we could say we want it to be allocated a certain way we could say just put it in the general fund we could do a lot of different things with it and that would be decided through the budget process I think we can signal today some things we think this would be appropriate for um But also just need to know if folks want to make this move at this point or if people want to wait or other considerations. So thoughts? Yes.

Okay. And uh I mean you know additional funds for public saf I mean there's a lot of needs on there and I think there's merit to all of them. Uh the one that I wanted to put out for consideration in particular is additional funds for public safety, but in particular we continuously hear about the desire for more traffic enforcement and that is we have a very lean police department. They're stretched pretty thin. Um so that would be an area where I would be interested in exploring. Okay, what would this look like? You know, visitors also violate our traffic rules and and benefit from safe roads. Everybody benefits from safe roads. Y. Um, so that would be one area to explore. Great, Steve.

Yes. And ASAP. Uh, and the reason the ASAP is I would like to have this percentage set prior to us putting the contract out. Okay. Yep. And that's part of that timeline question. Prior to the RFP, Steve. Yeah. Or or as we could. I just like it to be baked in when the RFP goes out is what I'm for the new contract. For the new contract. For the new contract. Okay. So that's set. Is anyone opposed to taking a look at um putting this in the RFP and saying this 400k will be going back to the city? I'm a yes on the RF putting in the RFP. I'm a no for right now. Okay. For for January. Well, it doesn't go till January anyways, right? Yeah. Okay.

I I'm very nervous about the summer um and the thousands of jobs that that um depend on on tourists. Um and so I I don't want to make a move right now. Okay. Anybody with a different thought? No, I'm I'm in agreement. I mean, I' I'd be open to thinking about it in January, but I think it's valid. There's valid concerns about we're not going to be able to impact in January what's already occurred.

Uh there may be, you know, some questions about what's to come in terms of the winter experience. And so, you know, when we have a better picture of what that's looking like, if we're really going to be experiencing some trouble, it may be too early to do that. But yes, on this I I would like to see us seriously consider using some of these dollars for shelter services. I think it's a part of our budget that we really struggle with and um what we know is happening at the state level. I think if we are serious about following through on our commitment to maintaining at least the level of service that we have now in terms of how we support people that are houseless, we really need to think about some revenue that's going to support that that we have some authority and control over and we're not dependent on other levels of government.

Um so I think that one and I I would sort of look at that and public safety together Mendes proposed.

All right. All right. It sounds like there's a majority of folks that want to move forward with this, but not until basically f fiscal year 27 starts. And so this would be incorporated into the RFP for the next provider that that they would understand that this this would change down to what we're legally allowed to take back. Um any other thoughts on allocation? I um agree with councelor Mendes. My thoughts on this is potholes and police um are things that are impacted by tourism and also benefit tourists, right? Um, and I think in in the argument to the legislature, cities across the state were making the arguments especially around public safety impacts that visitors have. And um, just thinking if you could say this was allocated to an additional traffic cop and that's what it paid for to just put another person on the street that is out there enforcing. Um, and I think our community would appreciate that and I think it would also benefit visitors. Um, but again, this is not the decision we're making right now. Just sort of signaling where this might go. Um, I I am committed to trying to keep it as as much of a nexus as we can to like the parts of our services and systems that are impacted by tourism and visitors and trying to put the money back into those those areas. Okay. So, on the business resiliency grant side, um, are is there any interest in pursuing this at this point?

Can Jeff finish his statement that he was earlier response? Yeah, I'm just saying my my position is well we will deploy whatever the council feel I mean a we would love to if you decide to move forward with this we would be happy to throw our head in as the person who would um administer a grant program. Um my concern is just that we it's a very broad thing and if we were going to consider it I would ask that we maybe spend some time looking at the thresholds of what could really what impact we could make with the resources that would keep things in balance but have significant impact and that would take to me engaging the business community and what resiliency they need. Yeah.

When it comes to the expense of the other grant programs,

um I think it would I mean everything that we Yes, I think we would just everything would uh shrink in proportion um like the re that's what will happen um with the percentage that you retain. We will if we add on another program, it will we will just strict we're committed to continuing to deliver the other grant programs and we'll come to you next month and talk about this, but we're all we've been through its process this year with uh FM Civic to look at both of our grant programs and um see how we can begin to measure the impact and see what changes we may need to do to to meet the community's needs uh in this current state. So we're we're doing a lot of work around that and um that will be part of our coming to talk.

So in a way it's just sort of expanding the eligibility of grant recipients for a limited pool of money potentially. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's it's kind of an interesting idea because if we do have a terrible wildfire season then businesses are really going to face some hardship and in that case it might be better to invest in bu business resiliency instead of cultural tourism or even sustainability. Well, and I think that's the what we're we're committed to putting resources back into the community. This work we're doing with evidence. So, it might be that we may be doing it differently. we may see that okay this year we'll be focusing on an issue uh and arts and culture is this year and next year is uh or I mean it could look a lot of different reason

like some is it something we could kind of write in flexibility into your contract who that's what I was going to ask like is that something we could we could in this RFP could we say tell us how you would do this and how it would impact you know and then that would be part of the

Absolutely. Yeah. And uh something that we've discussed previously just in trying to pick our brains about the effectiveness of this legislation as it's currently written. I think an idea to consider is that we could collaboratively come up with some sort of like definition of triggering of when these funds get deployed. So it's not just set aside $200,000 in your budget that goes out to business owners every year. It's a little bit more compelling to say this event occurred that requires some support to these businesses and hopefully more directly to the workforce

specifically that's being impacted by labor shortages or operational deficiencies or closures that have to occur due to weather conditions or you know something like that. Um but having it be more of a triggering event rather than process. I think one of the things I'm learning when the discussion about grants with um via Burough we have a small pool $100,000 right for economic development outside of Burough

understand that's outside of Burough but within Burough we have these new grant programs that could they're not insignificant amounts of money however they're not able to help with cash flow issues in the first round of grants they have to be in capital projects only so I'm thinking about like my restaurant or my business couldn't work well because of the air quality and I don't have a way to filter So there might be some capital investment you could support with those grants. But if it's really just my cash flow's down so hard, I'm going to close if I don't get some support. We can't help them through Burough. So this might be a different tool to be able to to provide some support there. But I like the idea of developing some criteria and triggers. I think it makes yeah just

sorry CR to give context from the um conversation at the legislature. So, the business resiliency grant was a late amendment to the bill and what had been happening at several of the hearings um was uh there there was a call to action and there were many small businesses in the hospitality industry that all came in and said, you know, you can't pass this bill. It's going to hurt my business. And the one of the main sponsors of the bill said, why don't we put some grants in here? Why don't we allow some of this money to come to you directly to address some of those concerns that we're hearing that people are bringing up in hearings? And it also was a political move to try to help um get the bill passed because it was short session. It was all pretty quick. There is not a lot of definition in the bill. And I think there are some valid worries about

are cities going to use this as sort of a loophole to then pull a lot of money out of the the DMO side of the budget. So I think if we are going to explore this, I think it needs to be really thoughtful and it needs to be very detailed. We are going to have to report out all of our spending to the legislature as part of this bill. And there was there was statements by cities saying we have transparent budget processes. we you will know what we're doing with this money. So, I think we need to be very careful that we're doing that and and that we have very clear intention with it. Um, I'm actually really interested to hear from you how you are looking at your grant programs and restructuring those before I'm really ready to commit totally to this, but I think this could fit in with maybe how Visit Ben does grants. Um, and so maybe it feels like a good thing to maybe again putting into that RFP

is sort of tell us how you think this might work or what the it might even be you say, "Well, I need a six-month period of sort of ramping up and figuring out how to do this, but we could do it, right?" Um, but it sounds like there's enough interest from council to maybe include that as part of the RFP and explore this further. Okay.

Just one other note um for council because Sorry folks, I'll jump in for a second. Um because we have a chapter in our code on room tax, there's a section in there describing at a high level the allocation to tourism and other things. So um if the direction from council is to move to that 50/50 for the 1.4, um we'll talk about when to bring that that will there will be a minor code change to go along with that. It it could happen later this year. It could have a delayed effective date if we're looking. So that'll that'll be a part of this process, a relatively small one, but um look for that at some point, too. Yeah, it sounds like there's support to do that. Yeah.

Okay. As far as on the timeline, I think we heard consensus about moving this into the RFP. So, we're not looking at starting next year when the bill goes into effect. We're starting fiscal year 27 and through the RP process. Um I think the second question here, I I'm not ready to really start planning for a rate increase at this point. I don't know how other people feel about that. I think that's a conversation we have going forward into the future. But I also want to keep an eye on what's happening with our economy and and any other money measures that might be coming up from other districts.

Um but in when we do look at that, of course, it should be in coordination with um the county and the DMO. Any other thoughts on that? I will also state for the record like I would like to get to the point on that curve that's optimal where we're not hurting tourism but we are um asking visitors to pay a fair share as much as we can. Um and well that might be really the first question is what where what's the what's the gap between where we are now and where there is a optimal here's an optimal range you know more than this but to see what what the potential revenue might be. So, is there a way to get an answer to that question sometime over the next 6 to 12 months?

Yeah, I think we could definitely follow up and send some data and just anecdotally comparatively for our peer cities, we are at a lower rate at 10.4%. I guess I'll be a little scientist. Um, I guess I'll be a little more clear. I don't really see starting that conversation until we start fiscal year 27, honestly. Yeah. I I don't see starting that until we get this the contract with is a bend and we're in that next fiscal year and we're actually seeing how this Yes. plays out and what we're spending the money on. But yeah, any other thoughts on that? Specifics are helpful. Where where's that number? Yeah. I mean, a source of revenue that the city's going to continue to strugg struggle with revenue stuff. So,

yeah. No, it's beyond the table that um should be on the table. Yeah. And I think we already answered that question on the bottom, too, that we're not interested in that. So, anything else you need from us, Cyrus? That was it for this evening. Anything else for us, Jeff? No, just thank you. And we're really excited to explore and innovate and um be back uh next month to talk about this year's plan and then soon back around um you know looking to for the R forward to the RFP and crafting of how we can uh both improve revenue for the city and quality of life for and next month is when we'll be hearing about the grant program results of that.

Uh well we'll have our annual budget and we'll be it we'll mention it in sort of what's coming up in the next year. So, we'll get a kind of a report of what uh we'll have a recommendation from BAP hopefully uh and then we'll come to you. We'll show you our annual budget at the plan uh and then what we're looking forward and this little report on where we're moving with that grant program we've been working for the last six months. We'll have some information for you. Perfect. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks. All right. Our last item um is a wildfire season update from Riley. Yeah. And I think we're okay. I think we're okay on time. So I think we can dive into

just to introduce this topic. So we had uh initially intended to have a joint meeting with the rural district. Uh we're just working through some issues. So we're going to pump that for a little bit later. But I wanted to have Todd here with the upcoming fire season just to share high level messaging with you all to prepare the community. This is just anformational item. We're not asking for any direction here. Um, and just also be available for questions that council might has related to this upcoming season.

Good evening, Mayor Council. Uh, I'm your fire chief. I'm not your climate scientist. Um, bear with me through this. Uh, just some key points about what we're facing uh this upcoming fire season. Um, we are in a transition phase uh in our climate to an it's called an El Nino Southern Oscillation or an Enzo and neutral, which means because we're transition, a lot of this is a coin flip. We're not exactly sure which direction we're going to go, but there is no strong wet signal expected. Layman's terms, not expecting a lot of rain. Uh, as yesterday was a perfect example, we have persistent above normal temperatures um that have accelerated drying and higher than average snow levels. High meaning higher in elevation um limiting the mid-elevation snowpack. um on snowpack and moisture, the precipitation was uneven and we received less than 50% of our normal rainfall. Mid-elevation snowpack is gone and because of that reduced snow pack, less spring moisture uh recharged our uh fine fuels. Uh punchline here uh is big snow doesn't save us and low snow doesn't doom us. as as examples, we had uh big snow years in 2011, 2024, and 2002. And in those years, we burned 198,000 acres, 76,000 acres, and 622,000 acres, respectively. On low snow years, 2015 and 2005, we burned 24,000 acres in one and 2,000 in another. So again, back to that coin flip conversation. Our fuel conditions, the mid and lower elevation fuels are drying quickly due to warmth and limited moisture. Fine fuels are responding quickly to short dry periods. Our 100h hour and 1,00 hour fuels dryer are drier in central Oregon in the interior zones where we are. And our heavy fuels, they're not available quite yet, but the

drying trend is accelerating into this spring. Recent fires we've had, the Trout Creek fire just southwest of Sisters burned 43 acres and then the Pine Mountain fire that started as a controlled burn which turned into an actual event is now 100% contained at 2,600 acres. This early fire activity reflects the pre-greenup dryness and our warm conditions. Our drought status uh portions of eastern and central Oregon are in moderate to severe drought. Limited improvement is expected without a a sustained spring precipitation. The risk of our drought expanding if spring storms underperform is very real. Our early summer outlook, so June and July, there is significant fire potential increasing in June. Above normal potential, fire potential expected across central Oregon by June. Our peak fire risk is in July and fuels are expected to c cure earlier than normal. And key concerns for us here in central Oregon, uh early fuel availability due to our warm temperatures and our absent mid-elevation snowpack. The greenup period was very compressed due to temperatures and the increased likelihood of large fire conditions by early summer. and our analog comparison years of 2015 and 2018 show similar patterns with an early fire season onset. So what's the bottom line is we can describe the setup but we cannot predict the season from it. Central Oregon has less water stored. We have more grass on the ground. We have earlier than normal drying early ramp up in fire potential and a high fire risk by July without significant spring moisture. Buckle up.

How was the preparedness fair on Saturday? Yeah, it was well attended. Great. Melissa Steel also did a wonderful job. Um, she's really pulling in a lot of our partners and making sure that everybody can appreciate the risk and everybody does play a role in not only keeping us safe but the mitigation before the fire starts. Great. On zone's not just a oneandone. It's kind of a recurring thing. No, stuff grows back in the fall. Yeah. But, uh, that was very interesting about the correlation about wet years and dry years and how much is burned because I know there's a question about what the effect of that is and it sounds like it's it there's a lot of, uh, other random elements involved,

right? One doesn't determine the other. It's about the rapid mel melt off like earlier in the spring too, right? Even rain on snow events, right? Things that happened.

Yeah. With snow water equivalent, right? like how much how much water is in that snow and and what does that pertain to? It helps with the uh the green up. So when we see early season fires, it's because there there might be a lot of moisture out there, but the fuels are still they haven't absorbed the molten moisture yet. And then they green up, fire activity goes down. And now where we are today, those fuels have dried out yet again. And so they're curing and you see the cheap grass change color and they're really receptive to fire. riding my mountain bike yesterday up a little higher. It felt like we were it was at least a month ahead of where we would normally. There was not a sign of snow anywhere. Yeah. In the forest and beginning the forest where it's well shaped like not

and the dust that we experience when we're on the trails. It's like this is normally late June. Yeah. Chief, your uh your folks are on a four shift schedule now, right? Not yet. That happens in the middle of July. In the middle of July. Yeah. Will that provide some relief for folks? a little resiliency. What will provide relief is this academy that we have right now graduating and getting those firefighters on the street. They're our folks are working a lot right now due to all of our vacancies. So, all right. Yeah. That they graduate in two weeks and then we'll have a month of observation. So, really by July 1 is when we're going to feel our workforce is going to feel some relief. Okay. Yeah. Thanks.

And I see Carrie's here. I got a message from Dashoots alerts today. But so everyone look at your messages. Make sure you're signed up for issues alerts and update your information. It's all accurate. Yeah, it's good to know that's legit. I was questioned. Yes. If you didn't get it, go to dispute alerts and find out why and make sure you're signed up. Um because we get so many emails, are there any controlled burns plan that we should be aware of? Are we kind of hitting that stage where we're hitting the stage that is closing? Yeah, they can be pretty responsive to changes in our weather. Um,

you know, yesterday was record heat and then today we're 20° below normal. Um, if we get a rain event, they can their burn burn window opens up again. Um, and so anytime they burn, we often find out about the same time that you all do. So, we're working to to improve that communication. Great. Thank you for your vigilance. Yeah, Sham, thank you for your time. Yeah, we can all play a part. Yes. By reducing how we are causing risk in the community rate that we all got in our house. Our neighborhood just did our big cleanup. We did all the like five feet, you know, no branches off off the ground, tree cutting, and a lot of brushing the dumpsters. Yeah. Thanks to everyone in the community that is taking those efforts because it's really important.

All right. Thanks. Thanks, Chief. Thank you. All right. I think we're ending and um and then there is a reception. artists that are responsible for the public art that was installed at public works campus at scale house. So we'd love to have a at the reception. It starts at 6. Starts at 600. So we have a little time. Just a reminder tomorrow we have public works opening too at the actual campus. Two different locations. Got it. Thank you. All right. Well,