Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you for joining us for today's September 16th, 2026 meeting of the Chutes County Board of Commissioners. We will now call the meeting to order and begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. Please join us. At this time, are there any requests to modify, add to, subtract from the agenda?

So approve the agenda as adjusted on Monday.

I will second it.

It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? Seeing none, Commissioner Adair? Yes. Commissioner DeBone? Yes. And Chair votes yes. Okay. Next, we will go to citizen input. If there's anyone in the room who would like to provide citizen input, you can please come forward now. If not, we'll check online. Kim, is there anyone with their hand raised online? Okay, we'll move on from citizen input to commissioner announcements. Are there any commissioner announcements?

Nothing today.

I'll just mention that there is the Family Access Network fan is having their annual luncheon today at noon. And another event to be aware of is a city club forum tomorrow focused on changes to Medicaid. So those are a couple things that people might be interested in participating in.

So do you have one item? Yesterday was a Amazon last mile distribution center kind of ribbon cutting an open house. So the new facility on 9th Street in Redmond. There's quite a crowd there. Elected officials, community members, Redmond Economic Development, City of Redmond. You know, they're really celebrating the fact that that is the last mile distribution. It isn't a fulfillment center. So when you get to see it, you understand that basically the packages are already addressed, packaged, and then they come into that facility. But then they get distributed all around to about the, you know, population shed of about the 260,000 tri-county area, about a mile and a half distance from that location. So it was really good to see that facility yesterday. Great.

Congratulations to Amazon.

100 jobs.

Yep. Any other commissioner announcements?

Well, no.

Seeing none, we can move on to the consent agenda.

Move approval of the consent agenda.

I'll second.

It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion?

I want to thank Chief Eric Holsey from Lapine Fire, replacing Dan Doherty. So I want to thank them both for their service on the Ambulance Service Area Committee.

Yeah.

And I would like to thank Dr. Clausen, Tammy Pike, Ruth Vernadico for their participation on the FAB. With that... Did you make the motion? He did. Yes. Okay. With that, we'll call for the vote. Commissioner DeBone? Yes. Commissioner Adair?

Yes.

And Chair votes yes. Okay. Moving on to action items. Number six, a public hearing on ordinance number 2026-011 amending Deschutes County Code Chapter 2.04 Board of Commissioners to reflect five-member board.

Morning commissioners Dave Doyle County Council. You have before you ordinance 2026 dash 011. I know back in before voters approved five member board. So that required some revisions to county code 2.04. We've made those. I do want to point out one, Tyner. any alteration on what you have, the red line draft of the code change. If you want to look at section 2.04.053, pointed out that it didn't read appropriate there in subsection B. So it now reads a candidate for a commissioner office shall designate the commissioner position for which the candidate seeks election. It used to say designate the commissioner office. But to keep it consistent with section C below and the way that the ballots reflect positions of commissioners and not necessarily office. Thought it best to change that to commissioner position. Other than that, this draft, these proposals reflect the fact that on January 4th, you'll have a five-person board. And so we needed to change some of the language that was in there that was directed at a three-member board. I did note in the staff report that the amendments here don't obviously speak to anything associated with the district map measure. If that were to pass and survive any type of legal challenge, it really doesn't become all that relevant until the 2028 election cycle. So we would have time to make changes to county code to reflect that.

Very good.

And so I... Staff would recommend you open the public hearing, call for any testimony, and at the end, if you're inclined, close the public hearing and move first reading by title only.

Thank you, Dave. I do have a question before we go to the public hearing. And this is about Section 2.04.055B. So the number two there, we've made this change. If the vice chair of the Board of Commissioners is unable or unavailable to perform, the third, fourth, or fifth member of the Board of Commissioners could do so. How do we know who the third, fourth, or fifth member of the board is? The likelihood that chair will be gone, vice chair will be gone is fairly low, but I'm just worried that there might not be clarity about who would act as chair.

I think we'd certainly default to just seniority. And then if there's equal seniority, you know, they flip a coin or something. I'm not I'm not sure at that point. I think there probably a lot more concern going on than who gets to step to the front at that point. But, yes, I mean, if you wanted us to change that, we certainly could change it by second reading to indicate seniority.

By seniority.

That's what you folks want.

Somewhere earlier, it specified by seniority. So I mean, maybe we could add that to this.

Sure. Yeah, it speaks to selecting a chair and a vice chair. And if you can't get the three votes on that, then it goes to seniority. So we could capture that same language and bring that into there if that's what you folks want and have that available for the second reading. Move forward at that time. It's not changing substantively. It's just getting a little more clarity to figure out who is third, fourth, or fifth. Apart from, yeah, well, the assumption would be, I think the default would be it'd be by seniority. And most of the time that's probably going to be the, you know, make sense. It's just, it could be a little difficult this first time around where there's a number of people that are, came on the same time.

That's true.

A little bit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Again, to get there, yeah, you'd be a lot of stuff going on.

So specific wording would be unavailable to perform the third, fourth, fifth member by seniority of the Board of Commissioners? Just the specific words.

Does that sound like appropriate language, Dave?

Third, fourth, or fifth member.

By seniority. Right there.

Right there. It's determined by seniority.

Would give a little bit more clarity, but yeah. Might not resolve all situations, but that would be a starting point.

We could have an Al Haig moment, right? Yeah.

Well, I mean, again, this would be a pretty exceptional movement when the chair and the vice chair were both unavailable.

But a majority, yeah, could end up being available if their first two aren't. So that makes sense. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, we'll make that change, obviously, when we come back for second reading.

Great. Thank you. Okay. With that, are we ready to go to public hearing?

Yes.

Okay. At this time, we will open a public hearing for Ordinance Number 2026-011, Amending the Deschutes County Code Chapter 2.04, Board of Commissioners to Reflect the Five-Member Board. Is there anyone in the room who would like to give public testimony during this hearing? Kim, do you see any hands raised online? Seeing none, we can close the public hearing and proceed to deliberations.

I support proceeding with the amendments discussed.

And so do I.

So I'll make that a motion if we're ready to go then.

Sure.

All right.

So moved. Ordinance number 2026-011, amending Deschutes County Code, Chapter 2.04, Board of Commissioners to elect five, to reflect five-member board.

If I could. First reading by title only with the changes that were just.

First reading by title only with changes as discussed. There we go.

Okay. And I'll second that.

It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussions? Seeing none, we can proceed to a vote. Mr. DeBone? Yes. Mr. Adair? Yes. And chair votes yes. Okay.

We'll be back in two weeks for second reading and adoption.

So we should do the first reading, right?

Do the first reading.

You can sit or you can leave.

I'll sit. Here we go. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Before the Board of County Commissioners of Deschutes County, Oregon, an ordinance amending Chapter 2.04 Board of County Commissioners of the Deschutes County Code to provide for transition to a five-member board, ordinance number 2026-011. Thank you. Thank you, Dave. All right.

All right.

On to item number seven, consideration to modify the Greater Redmond Area Enterprise Zone to increase the extended abatement period to 10 years.

Good morning, Commissioners. Eric Kropp, Deputy County Administrator. Joining me from Ready is Steve Curley, who is the Director of Ready. This item is a resolution to extend the payment period for the Greater Redmond Area Enterprise Zone. The Enterprise Zone encompasses the cities of Redmond and Sisters. There are three zone sponsors, including both cities and the county. Recently, there was a state law that allows the enterprise zone abatement period to be extended to 10 years. And that's what's before the board this morning. This resolution was passed by both the cities of Redmond and Sisters recently. And I'll turn it over to Steve to give more background.

Sure.

Good morning, commissioners.

Again, Steve Curley, director of Redmond Economic Development. This opportunity to extend the enterprise zone was allowed by the legislature with Bill HB 4084 in the previous session. And so we are, because we have to do this by resolution, we have been approaching each of the municipalities and now the county for what might be, what is different in the 10-year extended abatement for a company to to be able to achieve that, some of the qualifications are different. They've made them a little more flexible. So there's three qualifications, and I'll read them for you. A project would need to involve substantial capital investment. regional economic impact or alignment with local development goals. So it gives more flexibility when a project comes before the public body for approval for what those criteria are within those three categories and allows the public bodies to weigh in on that. That's what's different in the, if you remember, we have an outright three-year that we can do. If a company qualifies, we can extend that to five years with wage qualifications for the four or five year. And then now we have a six to 10 year with these three new criteria that the legislature has provided. So we look for your approval. We don't, I don't have any particular projects that, that I have ready to bring before you at this time. We're just preparing for, you know, these would be a significant project. This wouldn't be, you know, an employer, or excuse me, a business, you know, purchasing, you know, a new piece of machinery, for example. That's not going to meet the criteria of significant capital investment. So this would be more for the opportunity for a larger project.

City of Sisters and City of Redmond have both approved this already?

They have, yes.

So I'll be supportive in support of those cities' decisions already.

Steve, do you have a sense of how many other jurisdictions around the state are adopting this pathway to extended abatement?

I don't statewide. I do know that the city of Bend with the Bend Enterprise Zone has adopted it recently. The rural Deschutes County Zone has not applied. I believe they will apply before the end of the year. You'll probably see a request on that one as well. So I think as... agencies like EDCO and Ready are able to bring these forward. They are being passed. I don't have a number. I could research that, Commissioner Chang, and get back to you.

Yeah, I would love to get a sense of that. I mean, it's... with tax abatement opportunities like this, you know, it can turn into a race, right? And there's the, you know, the jurisdictions that adopt and then there's jurisdictions that don't and the jurisdictions that don't may feel like they're, you know, they're falling behind in terms of attractiveness and, you know, We are talking about the tax revenue here. So there is a risk of it becoming a race to the bottom among local governments. And so it's just helpful to get a sense of kind of rate of adoption and kind of um how it's working across the board because you know there's just two there's there's two competing tensions you know being you know keeping up with the joneses but also um being mindful of tax revenue opportunities and um yeah yeah absolutely and when you know as a tool we haven't had um

We haven't had one that would work for larger companies like this. You know, the five-year is the shorter. We do the SIP, which is a 15-year exception. But we haven't had a tool like this. There is a project in Bend that I believe is utilizing it that broke ground just the other day, a couple days ago, in the biotech space. uh, industry. And so, um, this gives us a tool we haven't had for those larger projects like that. And, and hopefully others that would come, you know, to Redmond and potentially sisters in the, in the future. Hopefully it's, it's not a race to the bottom as you, as you said, but I understand the context.

The concern. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

And the abatement would be for the capital investment, not for the overall. I mean, if you had Alonzo or Saran that already has a bunch of stuff on a campus, it's for the specific additional piece that they're adding.

Correct. It's for the real property, which would be the building and anything attached. And it also allows abatement on personal property, which is equipment that is being brought in. The land is still taxed. That's something that, you know, it's just the assessment of the building and the assessment of the equipment that would receive abatement. So there is still taxation happening on the property itself and on anything that's already there, to your point. Right. Yes. Okay.

So Steve, what about Nosler, where they moved from Bend to their bigger facility? Were they able to utilize anything like this? Or they didn't fit the parameters?

Well, this wasn't available then. They did qualify for a five-year extended abatement. for that project. So that was the maximum that was available at the time. Actually, yeah, I've been with that over a half year before I was with them. So that, you know, some of these projects take a long time to get done. And that's a very exciting one, actually.

Right. Yes. The community seemed very happy to have them there.

Yes. They had a record turnout when they opened their retail store here a few weeks ago.

So what is your definition then of a larger project? Like is there a dollar amount or an employee amount? What is, you know, when you say larger projects would be what would be, this would be applicable to?

It's not defined. It's left to be flexible. So that's a very good question. So like I said, it would probably be at least a $5 to $10 million, if not $10 million and up type of a project.

Okay. But maybe $5 if it's the right project. Maybe.

Yeah, maybe. That doesn't feel quite right. enough for this but i'm just giving you my personal uh opinion on this um but it feels like it's going to be at least a 10 million and up and even higher okay thank you you're welcome

So if a 10-year abatement is granted to a business and they pull up and move out of town on year seven, then are they responsible to pay back the prior taxes? Yes.

OK. There is a clawback provision. And that's also in the current enterprise zone statute, three-year, five-year. And where we run into that is they'll buy a piece of equipment and then they may sell that piece of equipment before the abatement period ends. And then there is a clawback on that. We try and be very clear with them, work closely with the county assessor's office and pre-op meetings to make sure they understand that they need to keep this piece of equipment or to your point, they need to stay in their building for the time of the abatement or there will be a clawback of all taxes.

Right.

That's great to know. Yes.

Yeah, I was just trying to, you know, kind of the, you know, the wanting to grant, you know, tax relief to, you know, our long-term businesses is always a, you know, central concern here. So it's helpful to hear how, what kind of mechanisms we have to try to ensure that. Thank you. Absolutely. Good clarification.

Okay. I'll just acknowledge the resolution set up for chair signature, and that's fine. It's just the way the attachment works here. So with that, I'll move chair signature of resolution 2026-043, modifying the greater Redmond area enterprise zone to increase the extended abatement period to 10 years.

And I'll second the motion.

It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? All right. Seeing none, we'll call for the vote. Commissioner DeBone? Yes. Commissioner Adair? Yes. And Chair votes yes. Thank you. Thank you, Steve.

So, Steve, now we have to figure out how we quit losing businesses in Oregon.

Already working on that.

Well, yes. The numbers are bad. Yeah. I mean, when you lose Dutch Brothers, yes, that was a big one.

It's front and center in not only locally, but statewide. So working on that. Thank you.

Yeah. Like perhaps a cat tax could go away? Perhaps.

Yes, possibly.

Next on our agenda, we have a second reading of Ordinance Number 2026-016, Revisions to Deschutes County Code Chapter 8.30, Deschutes County Ambulance Service Area and 8.30.100, Appendix A, the Ambulance Service Area Plan.

Hello, Commissioners. For the record, Tom Coon, Deschutes County Public Health, and here in my role as the Ambulance Service Area Administrator for Deschutes County. You will recall the Commissioners held a public hearing on August 26th, and thereafter approved the first reading of Ordinance No. 2016-016. This is now the time set for the second reading of ordinance number 2026016 by title only. Following the second reading by title only, staff requests motion to adopt the ordinance. Upon adoption, ordinance number 2026-016 will become effective in 90 days. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Are there any questions? We had a pretty thorough review of this document in an earlier session. I want to thank you, Tom, and County Legal and all the members of the ASA committee for their work to deliver us this revision and an updated ASA plan.

Thank you.

It's great to know. Perhaps Deschutes will be the first county that gets this in. Are you saying that the state finally realized that they weren't paying attention?

There are a few other counties that have got it in before us, but there's still many counties that have not updated their plan. There's a list online I can look at and see who's there.

Great. Thank you so much, Tom. Thanks for being here.

Yeah, at this time of dwindling Medicaid reimbursement funds in the system, of so many fire districts struggling with their tax base not being set up correctly to really support ambulance services, I'm glad that we can create a good framework for people to think about operating within. With that, are we ready to proceed to a motion?

Yes. So move approval of second reading of ordinance number 2026-016 by title only.

I will second it.

It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? Seeing none, we'll call for the vote. Commissioner Adair? Yes. Commissioner Gabon? Yes. And chair votes yes. Thank you very much. Well, do we want to do an additional one?

Title only.

Got it. We got to do the title and then we need to adopt it. Before the Board of County Commissioners of Deschutes County, Oregon, an ordinance amending Chapter 8.30 Ambulance Service Area of the Deschutes County Code and amending Appendix A to Chapter 8.30 the Ambulance Service Area Plan for Deschutes County, Ordinance Number 2026-016. All right.

Move adoption of Ordinance 2026-016.

I'll second the motion.

It's been moved and seconded. Any additional discussion?

There's the kind of the history of fire district. I know that, you know, Lapine Rural Fire is the district that I know well and live in. You know, ambulance service was supposed to be reimbursed service. And now it's kind of transitioning to a tax funded or tax supplemented service. So, yeah, there are moving parts in here. For many years, I remember the fire chief saying, you know, the tax rate. supports fire response and ambulance service is assumed to cover its own costs. So it's just transitioning. You know, let's acknowledge that, you know, it's nice to be able to ask for more taxes and implement more taxes. Commissioner Chang, you mentioned, you know, the structure of the districts or whatever your terminology was. You know, this is a transition. You know, the expectation that it's a reoccurring tax base for ambulance services is different than it had been in the past.

Yeah, and we wouldn't need to look to taxpayers to ensure that adequate ambulance service is available if our insurance system was taking care of the need, which it has in the past. So, yeah, it's a very problematic moment right now. Okay. Okay.

Yeah, the problem is our debt is $40 trillion, and we've got to probably go back to pre-COVID levels and look at things.

Any further discussion? Seeing none, we can proceed to a vote. Commissioner DeBone? Yes. Commissioner Adair? Yes. And Chair votes yes.

Thank you very much.

All right. Thank you all very much. Appreciate it.

Thank you, Tom.

Thank you, Tom.

OK. Now on to our additional item or our added item number nine, board consideration to hear a potential appeal of administrative decisions relating to one, the Thornburg Destination Resort site plan review application and two, the application for modification of phase A1 tentative plan for the Thornburg Destination Resort.

Good morning. Thank you, Chair. For the record, Hallie King, Senior Planner with Community Development. So yeah, as the Chair mentioned, this item today is a discussion and potential action from the Board related to a request to call up on potential appeal to staff decisions related to the Thornburg Destination Resort. This item was briefly discussed with the commissioners at the board meeting Monday, and staff has returned today per board direction to give additional context and ask for board direction on the matter. And so in your packet today, there's a draft order that I'll talk a little bit more about, the request by the applicant to call up the application on appeal, and then the two staff decisions for both the applications. And so before we get into kind of where we are procedurally and the question before the board, I do want to give a brief background on the two applications. These land use applications, so they're two separate entitlements, were submitted in late June by the Thornburg Destination Resort. The first is a site plan review to establish two golf course comfort stations, an irrigation pump station, and golf course practice facilities, including a driving range, and a short course practice facility. The second application was a modification to the Phase A-1 tentative plan to introduce sub-phasing into the subdivision, so to kind of piecemeal the platting process, realign some roadways to better fit grade changed some tract boundaries, utility tract and amenity tract boundaries, and then a slight reduction in open space. I have a question.

What does slight mean?

So the open space went from 66% to 64%, so a 2% reduction, but still meeting the required 50% open space per the destination resort standards.

All right. Thank you.

So, again, those decisions are in your packet. During the proceedings or the review, staff received one general comment in opposition, but the comment was not very specific. Again, it was a very general comment, and so it didn't raise matters that would constitute a denial or it didn't raise specific interpretive matters, but was a general just oppositional comment. And so otherwise, you know, staff believed the applicant met the code criteria and approvals were issued on September 11th, last Friday, again, for both of those files. And so moving to where we are at today procedurally, so there is a 12-day appeal period following the issuance of staff decisions. And if one wishes to appeal in an application, a staff decision, they would submit a $250 fee in an appeal application. And then that would, per our procedures ordinance, go to a hearings officer for that appeal hearing. And then there's a, you know, provided after hearings officer decision. If a party disagrees with that outcome, then there's the opportunity to appeal that to the board. So, however, we are here today because the board has received a written request to essentially, you know, if there is an appeal received here, that appeal as opposed to the county hearings officer. And these requests are rare. I think, as we mentioned, in my five years with the county, I haven't seen one come through before. But procedurally, there is an allowance for this in Title 22 that the board can initiate this if they want. And the kind of key caveat with that is that that action has to occur by order, and it has to occur within 12 days of the date of mailing of the decision. So essentially, it needs to occur within that 12-day appeal window. And so we are in that 12 days now. As of today, staff has not received an appeal in this matter, but the appeal period ends next Wednesday, September 23rd at 4 p.m. So there's obviously still that opportunity. If an appeal is not received, then staff decisions would be final. So that approval would be the final decision. Okay. And so we're here today again that the board is faced with a choice on whether they would like to call this up if there is an appeal received. And so I've included in your packet a draft order if the board decides they would like to call this item up. One couple of just clarification points I wanted to mention that maybe weren't clear Monday. We did include language in Section 1, and this is consistent with past orders on similar matters that we've seen in the past that the board would only call up the review if an appeal is received. Okay. assuming based on the applicant's request letter, if there's no appeal on the file, I imagine they would want those approvals to stand. And so, again, we've included language that should a timely appeal, you know, come into community development, that's when the board would.

By next Wednesday.

Correct. Okay. Yep.

Yeah. That's a bit different, I think.

So I just wanted to clarify that. Certainly, if the board wants to go a different direction, that option is on the table. But I think this is consistent with what we've seen in the past. And then one other point in the order I wanted to clarify is the Section 2 about the review being heard de novo. And we included that for a couple reasons. So if there is an appeal to the hearings officer, that is a de novo hearing before hearings officer, that appeal hearing, meaning the decision maker could come to a different conclusion, new evidence is allowed, as opposed to limiting review on a set of certain issues. And another reason we included that is, you know, we don't know at this time if an appeal will come in, and if so, what issues may be raised. So we don't, you know, it would be tough to limit issues not knowing the issues, if that kind of makes sense. Yeah. So those were kind of two points I wanted to note. One more, in fact, though, I want to note that the Section 1, so these two land use decisions, again, are independent of each other. One could be appealed. One may not be appealed. They both could be appealed. Again, we don't know that at this point. But under Section 1, and again, depending how the board wants to go, I would maybe edit and include the word or if one or the other were appealed. Again, we don't know if both might be appealed, but again, deferring to the board, if either one were to be appealed, would you want to call up the appeal hearing?

Well, thanks for thinking this through.

Monday we had a request and we just talked about it a little bit, but this has really matured the request and how we could respond professionally, possibly. So I support that or statement and should a timely appeal, this would be the response is the scenario here. But it might not happen.

Yeah, and so I guess I would say, you know, if the board chose not to call up the appeal, as I noted, there would be no action today and the appeal period would run. And if an appeal were received, it would go to a hearings officer and we would look to schedule that as soon as possible. Same result, if the board chose to call this up, we would need, because this is subject to the 150-day clock, we would look to schedule this as soon as possible for appeal. whatever hearings body this may end up at, if appealed. So with that, I'll kind of stop there and they're available for questions from the board and looking would put it back to you for any discussion as well.

Ali, I'd like to get a better sense of the workload for the board under these two different scenarios. So with many land use applications, I really appreciate the review of the hearings officer, who is actually a legal expert, which none of us are in these matters, the review, and then the the analysis that they provide us. My impression is that if we don't get that condensed analysis from a hearings officer, then it's basically on us to comb through the record and come to a conclusion on whether this is consistent with code or not consistent with code. Is that correct?

Essentially, yeah. Commissioner, that's exactly right. I mean, yeah, the hearings officer, obviously an expert lane use attorney would, the benefits of that can be they can vet the issues, maybe settle issues, you know, and if, again, if an appellant would like to continue the appeals process, that would then, they would appeal that to the board, and we would be back in front of you after the hearings officer process is complete. asking, would you like to hear this appeal or not hear it? There's that choice at that time. If the board says we would like to hear it, again, then we would move forward with the scheduling of a hearing. If they would not like to hear it, then the appellant would continue any appeals process through LUBA. But yeah, this essentially, if the board would call this up on appeal, it would skip that hearings officer opportunity.

Can you give me a sense of what does the record look like for these two applications?

Yeah, it's not. I would say compared to probably other Thornburg applications, it's fairly small. Again, because we did not receive significant public opposition to this. Just one comment. So it's a fairly small record. It's a lot of the applicant and staff coordinating on incomplete items and requesting completeness items. But it's not a large record as far as public comments go.

The base application itself, is that a 50-page document? Is it a 10-page document?

Yeah, I think their original burden of proof is maybe in the 20-page range. The staff decision was obviously fairly long. I think both decisions were about 70 to 75 just because there's a lot of criteria to cover. But yeah, and then obviously typical agency comments are in the record as well. But yeah, not a significant public comment as we've seen in the past.

So it wouldn't be that much bigger than the staff report.

Correct. Yeah. Yeah, I would say.

Which is not small.

The plan set is somewhat large just because there's some there's, you know, large site plans and then sort of zoomed in plan sets for the different phasing. But the written portion is not too significant.

Chair, if I may just interject for just a moment, this is the record as we know it today.

Correct.

We don't know what a public hearing may or may not bring. I just want to make sure that that's clear because when the record's open, if it's not, for example, on the record, we can't control how much information may be submitted at a public hearing that then the board and staff and the applicant and everybody would digest. And I'm not suggesting that it would be. I have no idea. Just to clarify, this is the record as we know it today.

Exactly. Yeah. We don't know, again, if an appeal were to be received, what that appeal, you know, request or package might look like. Yeah. That's a great clarification. Thank you, Nick. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, just zooming out to the 90,000 foot level. Yeah. We spend a lot more time on land use decisions that aren't helping our cities or our community developers. produce workforce or affordable housing, which, you know, to me should be what a lot of our focus is in terms of land use issues at the Board of Commissioners. And we know we have a flood of applications that we're going to be reviewing this in the next few months. And so it's While this is not the hugest record to review, it is adding to that stack of land use issues that we potentially have to do all the homework on instead of asking a hearings officer to preprocess it for us. So that is a concern for me. I did also want to ask about how you've shared with us today that this has only happened once in the last five years under pretty unusual circumstances. I want to get a better sense of what kind of precedent this might set. What other kinds of land use decisions present this opportunity to kind of preemptively set up this streamlined appeal process? Because if the range of eligible land use decisions for this kind of process is broad, then this could introduce all kinds of leapfrogging and jumping in front of each other in line of land use applications in the coming years if we set up a precedent for that.

Yeah. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Peter Gitowski, Community Development Director. It's an excellent question. Let me respond in a couple of ways. I believe the 150-day clock for these two applications concludes like January 3rd.

January 1st and January 3rd.

So just acknowledging that there's a timeline for this quasi-judicial application. I think this request does reflect a sense of urgency on behalf of the applicant. Obviously, the history of Thornburg's active application status, the number of appeals and whatnot. So you're getting that respectful request. The issue, I think, is stemming from you can't discount the fact that starting in 2027, there's going to be a new board that's going to be seated. And so to the question that the chairman is asking, there are a number of applications that are active. Later today, I will be sending an email to Nick blind copying the board about the number of applications. Most of them are plan amendment zone changes, commissioners, that are not on a 150-day clock. But I certainly – I'm not trying to speak for the applicants, but I think that there's a certain – intent from the applicants that some of these plan amendment zone changes will be able to be heard in 2026. That's not a decision that CDD controls. That's a decision for the Board of County Commissioners. So I want to follow up. Most of these applications are plan amendment zone changes that are active today, Commissioner Chang. And as Hallie noted, these types of requests to skip initial hearings officer proceedings are rare. I think they will continue to be rare. Once we have a new board that's seated in 2027, there's a certain recognition of the type of applications that are coming and the type of interest and value set that commissioners have as it pertains to some of these applications. Every decision-making body has to rely on the criteria. But the criteria is discretionary. I mean, that's why there's a land use proceeding. So different commissions will clearly... Commissioners can come to different conclusions because there's discretionary criteria. I know I'm long-winded. There are a handful of – there are a few applications that are not plan amendment zone changes. Could they potentially respectfully request the board – in a similar fashion call an issue up it's possible i can't we have not received that information um or or request yet but um later today commissioners you will see a list of those applications that are active that fall in several categories quasi-judicial at which applicant initiated are they subject to the 150-day clock um There's some other applications that staff is initiating legislatively that I don't think are necessarily time-sensitive for 2026, but we want to put the administration and the Board of County Commissioners in a position to articulate what kind of calendar you want to have explicitly in November and December. It's going to pinch. And even in this application, for example, as Hallie noted, or I'm just providing additional context, to the extent that the board wishes to hear this, if any one of the two applications, if appealed, there's procedures that have to be followed. So the board wouldn't be in a position to even hear this matter until October, probably mid to late October. And this is... one of many items, given its 150-day timeline, that will require commission attention one way or the other in November and December. So let me pause there. Commissioner Chang, did I – I'm not sure I really answered your question.

That was all helpful information, but I also was trying to understand what's eligible for this kind of an expedited appeal process and what's not. So you mentioned that there are – just this fall, there's a number of plan amendments, zone change applications, and then there's some other things. Are – basically any of those eligible for this, you know, 12-day window for the board to decide that they want to pull this up and skip the hearings officer?

It's a very important question. I'm sorry I didn't touch on it initially. The plan amendment zone changes that are requesting zoning out of the exclusive farm use zone, the code requires a hearings officer. process and recommendation. We have some plan amendment zone changes that are not resource zoned that will go to a hearings officer where under our procedures code the board unless the board wants to call it up, really is not obligated to hear it. So we have some plan amendment zone change requests that are requesting coming out of MUA 10 or the floodplain zone and wanting to go to either multiple-use agricultural 10 or... um multiple use agricultural 10 or rural industrial so there's the answer is the there's only a handful of there's only one or two applications um that are not plan amendment zone changes that could presume could hypothetically, request this level of, request this type of expedited process. I will say that those applications, the one or two that we have, are still kind of incomplete status. So, you know, Hallie noted the procedures. They may not, even if the board wanted to consider that, the board needs to i want the board in coordination with administration to be able to assess the types of applications that are active today and that will invariably be in a position to be discussed by the board in certain capacities So that it allows the commission to make informed decisions about how you want to manage the November and December schedule. So that's forthcoming, but the plan amendment zone changes are essentially on a separate track. So to the extent that you get a request, I don't foresee hypothetically more than one or two. Okay.

That's helpful. Thank you. So it's, you know, in terms of this setting up a precedent that that opens up a flood of, you know, requests to to have expedited appeal to kind of when we start to see applications leapfrogging each other in terms of consideration and stuff like that. It's limited. This would be limited precedent. Correct. Thank you. uh i i don't have any additional questions is there anything from my fellow commissioners no

So I would be supportive of proceeding, you know, and the concept is a long history of this specific applicant for this specific property, putting it in focus, you know, just laying it out, you know, referring to the November-December timeframe. I'd be also supportive of doing something on a Thursday, you know, just publishing a date that we need to have a specific public hearing for any matter. So I think, you know, we have a little bit of conversation capacity, and I'm speaking for me as a board member, not the staff, but capacity to be able to schedule this up in the next couple months.

So is that a motion?

Well, it sure can be. I guess one other note, marijuana hearings was the other time that this happened where it was really just kind of a pressured situation coming from all angles, a lot of passion on the subject, and everybody wanted clarity. So I have been involved with calling up Lanny's decisions at that point in time. Yeah. But, yeah, with that question, I'll move approval of order number 2026-035, providing that if a timely appeal is filed, the board will hear the appeal de novo on file number 24726442SP and or 24726424MC. So the order could have and or also.

And I'll second that motion. And then if there is no timely appeal filed, then we will not be doing anything, right? Correct.

OK.

It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? I'll just say that I appreciate the desire for an expedited process for a long-running project, but I don't feel like I have the... the space in my schedule to do that additional legal review work that would otherwise be done for us by a hearings officer. And we also have not seen an appeal yet. So we're talking about hypothetical here. So I just want to explain why I will be voting no. Anything else? OK. With that, we'll call for the vote. Commissioner DeBone? Yes. Commissioner Adair? Yes. And chair votes no. Thank you.

Thank you.

Holly, thank you so much for your decision-making and being so prepared.

Okay. At this time, are there any other items?

Following up from, we did have that Amazon tour with the Redmond Economic Development Group, REDI. There's a kind of a board meeting this afternoon, kind of an annual strategy session board meeting. Looking forward to that.

For REDI?

For REDI, REDI board, yep.

Commissioner Deere, any other items? No. One other event I'll mention is Sisters Habitat for Humanity is having a 35th anniversary and Larch Commons ribbon-cutting celebration today. Sorry, on Friday at the midday. I guess I'll also just kind of remind people that next week I will be on the road all week making my way towards the. the NACO Energy Symposium in Amarillo, Texas. So I will not be available for a Wednesday board meeting. If there's items, if we can avoid items that I would really want to participate in at that meeting, I would appreciate it. But otherwise, I will be available virtually for the Monday board meeting time.

You want to run that meeting remotely or? Would you want me to chair it?

No, I'm happy to let you chair it. I'll consult with the team on the agenda. Oh, actually, one other thing about that Monday meeting, kind of following the precedent of this week, I asked if it was possible to do the Monday meeting at 2 p.m. instead of 1 p.m. So assuming the agenda isn't too massive. Do that again.

Next week you want the meeting started too.

Okay. Maybe not even. Okay. That's fine.

Okay. Thank you.

Friday morning, Chamber of Commerce in Lapine will be a discussion about kind of a panel discussion about the districting measure. Are you going to be at that breakfast, Commissioner? I am not. Okay. I was wondering if a couple of us would be there. I will be. I just thought maybe you were going to be there.

Friday morning, I'll still be in Amarillo.

This Friday. 18th.

This Friday. I thought it was. Oh, that's right. No, I have a prior commitment.

I was just acknowledging if we were both going to be there, that's all.

Nope. Okay. If there are no additional other items, we can we can proceed to executive session, we have one at least one item on our agenda. Kim, do you want to read the notice?

The Chutes County Board of Commissioners will now convene an executive session going to ORS 192.660. The specific authorization for this executive session is ORS 192.660 subsection 2E, which allows the board to meet in order to discuss real property negotiations. Designated staff and the media are allowed to remain during the executive session. However, the media may only report that the board met in executive session and the identified basis for meeting in executive session. Recording devices are not permitted. No final decisions will be made. And at the conclusion, we will open the doors and invite the audience back to the meeting.

Okay. We are returning from executive session and requesting for staff to proceed as discussed during executive session. Meeting adjourned.