Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to today's June 10th, 2026 meeting of the Deschutes County Board of Commissioners. We'll now call the meeting to order. And it looks like, okay, it looks like all three of us are present. Commissioner DeBone and Commissioner Adair are joining us online today. The first order of business for our agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance. Please join us. of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. uh we'll now review the agenda and uh make any additions or deletions or changes uh and then approve the agenda um commissioner de bone commissioner adair do you have any uh requested changes to the agenda and some of the agenda second it's been moved and seconded any further discussion

I'll just have a couple updates at the end of the meeting, other items.

Okay. Sounds good. Commissioner Adair?

No, I have no updates. Are you asking for the vote?

Yeah.

Yes.

Commissioner DeBone?

Yes.

And chair votes yes. Okay, now it is time for citizen input. If there is anyone in the room who would like to provide citizen input, you can do so now and provide us with a blue form. If not, we'll also look online to see if anyone has their hand raised. Anyone in the room? Anyone online? seeing none we can move on to uh commissioner announcements and we will also have other items at the end of the at the end of the uh meeting are there any commissioner announcements oh i just go ahead commissioner dare here uh yes i just like to announce that this is the week of the sisters rodeo so um uh just start today with the bull riding Okay. And I'll just note that yesterday, Housing Oregon held an affordable housing summit at Eagle Crest, and I was able to attend for most of the day. A lot of good discussions about how to advance workforce and affordable housing in our region. All right. If there's no additional announcements, we can move on to the consent agenda. Any comments or questions?

So move the consent agenda.

It's been moved. Commissioner DeBone, would you like to second? Second.

Second. Okay.

Great. Moved and seconded. I'll just note that it's really exciting to have Alyssa Strand moving into ownership management of the Munchkin Manor daycare and preschool downstairs in the Mike Meyer building across the street. There's been a lot of concern from county staff who have Their kids enrolled in Munchkin Manor in the last six months, and we have managed to pull off a close to seamless transition between the prior ownership and the new owner. So with that, is there any other further discussion or comments before we vote on the consent agenda? seeing none uh we'll call for the vote commissioner adair yes commissioner de bon yes and chair votes yes thank you very much okay moving on to our regular action items we have a series of fee schedule approvals just in support of the FY26-27 budgets. So first, we'll continue to serve here as the Deschutes County Board of Commissioners for a public hearing on the fiscal year 2027 Deschutes County fee schedule. Item number three. Hi, Laura.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Laura Skundrick, Management Analyst. So this is an annual process for the Deschutes County Commissioners to hold a public hearing and consider adoption of the Deschutes County fee schedule. Once adopted, the new fee schedule will become effective at the start of the new fiscal year on July 1st, 2026. At the May 4th meeting, you reviewed the FY27 proposed changes and departments were available for any questions. And today we're returning for the public hearings in consideration of adoption. As noted in the memo, there were some revisions to the fee schedule that took place after that May 4th meeting. These include the Bend Parks and Rec SDC fees adopted on May 5th. Those are reflected in the updated CDD fees numbers 15 through 23. The unit measurement language in the Deschutes Expo Center RV park fees, 1 through 6, to reflect the change from transient room tax to transient lodging tax. And environmental health fees, 69 to 72, were originally proposed as increasing but should instead stay flat to FY2026. After this memo was submitted, there are just a few other small revisions I want to note today. The first is that the first column, which shows the fees amount, should read as FY 2027. And two items that were originally included in the proposed fee schedule but did not transfer over correctly to today's materials. The first is on page 7 of the packet that I just handed out, which I can email over to Commissioners DeBone and Adair. Okay. It is under line CDBSPL69. The medical gas line had dropped off from today's materials, so we did add that back in. And the second is on page 12 of that same packet. I just handed out fees CDES numbers 40, 41, and 42 should read as fees in the amount of $100 and then $295 and then $500. These were just out of order on today's materials, but that is how they were shown in the proposed schedule. So they've been corrected in the new packet. So with that, we can begin the public hearing when the board is ready. Thank you.

Okay.

So, Laura, this handout that you just provided is the completely revised version of what was in our packet?

Yes.

Okay.

It includes all of the updates I just went over.

And that's been emailed to Commissioner DeBone and Commissioner Adair?

I can do that right now.

Yeah, let's do that right now.

Okay.

I mean, they could track the changes as you were going through them, but always good to have the documents in hand.

Yes, I did follow where she was referring to on the pages, but I'll have it in my email now.

That's great. And then with that, I think we can open the public hearing.

You can.

Are there other things we should do before we open the public hearing?

If there's any concern as far as the notice to the public regarding these changes to the fee, we can certainly continue this to another meeting. Or you can move forward today.

Do you have a recommendation?

I mean, obviously the fee schedule that was posted has been changed. I honestly don't have the fee schedule in front of me to follow along, but I think that to give proper notice to the public, it may be best to reschedule it to the following meeting.

How does that sound to the other commissioners?

Sounds appropriate.

And that's fine.

Okay. Well, thanks for reviewing all of those modifications for us, Laura. And I guess we can put this on the agenda for next week. Okay. We'll see you next week. Thank you. All right. Item number four, convening as the governing body of the Deschutes County 911 Service District. We will now have a public hearing. More items? A couple more items. We will now have a public hearing for the FY2027 Deschutes County 911 service district fee schedule.

Yes. So my apologies. The corrections were only for that. Right.

Sorry. When I said we'll see you next week, I didn't realize you were the next item.

Yes. So again, this is an annual process for the Deschutes County commissioners to hold a public hearing and adoption of the Deschutes County 911 service district fee schedule.

And do we need any any background information before we open the public hearing?

As long as there's been no changes or anything, if everything that's in the memo is accurate and still current, then we can just open the public hearing. Okay.

Well, we can now open a public hearing for the FY27 Deschutes County 911 service district fee schedule. Is there anyone in the room who would like to provide input? And Eric, are there any hands raised online? Seeing none, we can go to a motion if there's a motion.

Okay, so you close the public hearing?

Sorry, yes, I should close the public hearing and then we can proceed to a motion.

Okay. Thank you. I didn't think you had. Yes. Move approval of resolution number 2026-021, adopting the FY2027 Deschutes County 911 service district fee schedule.

And I will second.

Okay. It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? Seeing none, we'll move to the vote. Commissioner Adair?

Yes.

Commissioner DeBone?

Yes.

And the chair votes yes. Thank you. Okay. Now we will switch to convening as the governing body of the Deschutes County Extension and 4-H Service District. Have there been any modifications to these materials? Okay. So the fee schedule remains as presented in the board packet. Let's go ahead and open the public hearing on the FY27 Deschutes County Extension and 4-H Service District fee schedule. Is there anyone in the room who would like to provide comment? Eric, do you see any hands raised online? Seeing none, we can close the public hearing and move to a motion.

Move on approval of resolution number 2026-022 to adopt the FY2027 Deschutes County Extension and 4-H Service District Fee Schedule.

And I will second it.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? Seeing none, we can move to a vote. Commissioner Adair?

Yes.

Commissioner Dubon? No.

Yes.

And chair votes yes. Thank you very much. Okay. Now we will pivot to convening as the governing body of the Sun River Service District. Kim, when I'm making these switches, should we unconvene as a body first, or I can just say we're moving to convene? Okay. So we're convening as the governing body of the Sun River Service District. for item number six, a public hearing on the FY27 Sun River Service District fee schedule. We will now open the public hearing. There have been no changes to the fee schedule as presented in the board packet. Is there anyone in the room who would like to provide public input on this fee schedule? Eric, do you see anyone online? No hands online. So with that, we can close the public hearing and move to a motion.

I will move approval of Resolution 2026-023 to adopt the FY27 Sun River Service District fee schedule. Second the motion.

Moved and seconded. Any further discussion? Seeing none, we'll call for the votes. Commissioner DeBone?

Yes.

Commissioner Adair?

Yes.

And Chair votes yes. Thank you. Okay. We will now convene as the governing body of the Black Butte Ranch Service District. Item number seven. For a public hearing on the FY27 Black Butte Ranch Service District fee schedule. No changes to this fee schedule as presented. Okay. Well, we can now open the public hearing. Is there anyone in the room who would like to provide public input on this fee schedule? And Eric, do you see any hands raised online? Seeing none, we can proceed to a motion. Or sorry, we can close the public hearing and proceed to a motion. Harder to coordinate.

Yeah. I'm going to move approval of resolution 2026-024 to adopt the FY27 Black Butte Ranch service district fee schedule.

I'll second the motion.

Moved and seconded. Any further discussion? Seeing none, we can move to a vote. Commissioner DeBone?

Yes.

Commissioner Adair?

Yes.

And chair votes yes. Thank you. Okay. I believe that is all of the fee schedules. So we will now reconvene as the governing body for Deschutes County for item number eight. Thanks, Laura. Hi, Holly.

Morning.

Good morning.

Morning, Commissioners. Holly Harris, Health Services Director for Deschutes County. Thanks for having me today. I've got Cheryl Smallman joining, and she is just walking in right now. We're running ahead of schedule, so.

Yeah, sorry. We are.

That's great.

Almost.

Complaining.

We're 20 minutes ahead of schedule. Those fee schedules went pretty fast.

They did, they did. So we are here today to move approval of chair signature of document number 20260414, the Pacific Source Community Solutions Amendment. So as you know, Pacific Source Community Solutions is contracted with the state of Oregon to implement and administer services under the Oregon Health Plan. We entered into our contract with them this last one, April 1st of 2021. So this is an amendment to that contract. And it is a six-month amendment beginning July 1 through December 31, 2026. So essentially, it's about a $10.4 million contract from July 1 to December 31, which is a reduction of about $1.25 million. A couple of things to note, that amounts to about a 10% reduction for us. So this, as you know, was a lengthy negotiation, lots of back and forth. I think we definitely ended up better than where we started, though certainly not where we would like to be, which hence the six-month break. timeframe. A couple of things that we're really monitoring that led to us really requesting only a six-month agreement was there are still ongoing claims issues that we are struggling with Pacific Source that we are actively working with them on. So really want to see those resolved and improved prior to signing an additional agreement with them. Also, a 10% reduction is not a sustainable option for us long term. So we really hope when we re-began negotiations in October that we are able to get to a better number. We were able to sustain this 10% reduction because of a decision the Central Oregon Health Council made to help offset some of the losses many providers in our community were taking seriously. as a result of these reductions in CCO contracts. And so ultimately it's about a net, we ended up at about a 2% reduction with those additional funds from COHC, which we felt was sustainable for the six month timeframe. So I'll pause there. I know there's kind of probably a lot of questions, but I'm happy to, yeah, happy to field some questions. And also I think there'll be lots more to come starting in October.

Holly, you are trying to read a very complex federal, state, local landscape based on your read of the lay of the land. Do you think there are opportunities to get a better deal in six months? And if so, what would be the things that changed between now and then that might result in a better outcome?

Right. Well, so the state will release their rates to the CCOs in September. So depending on what those rates are for the CCOs, that could position the CCOs to be in a better spot to increase their contracts with providers. So that's an unknown. Also, Pacific Source, as you know, as you've seen in the news, has done a lot of work internally to try and shore up some of their expenses and costs. There's been an enormous amount of layoffs in Pacific Source. They've also done other things within Pacific Source to improve the efficiencies and just improve the way they operate so that they're generating revenue. They've reduced contracts in other areas with local providers. They've You know, done a number of a number of things. And so I think we're waiting. I think they're waiting and we're waiting to see how that plays out for them financially. And they have a sense that they'll know more about how that played out for them in October as well. So October will be a really pivotal time to understand if the decisions they've made over the last six months help set them up for success to be able to move forward in the CCO realm. And but we also need to see some things continue to be improved. I think utilization management is an area that they need to improve upon in terms of the private practice providers that receive Medicaid dollars. They also just the claims issues are just not sustainable. We have claims that go back years. And so we that's just not if we're going to take any type of reductions or continue to work with Pacific Source, we need to be paid timely.

Thank you for kind of giving us a sense of what we need to be watching moving forward.

I think there's still a lot of concern. Yeah. You know, whether or not, you know, none of us really know the impacts of HR1, which really won't hit until January. And so that's kind of an unknown that I think everybody's sort of bracing for. There's, you know, there's just a lot of factors at play. So, but again, we'll, in good faith, renegotiate starting in October, kind of see where things are and then go from there.

And when you say we're kind of waiting to see in January what the kind of full or complete impacts of HR1 are, is that basically, you know, how many less people will be enrolled in Medicaid? And that translates directly to what Pacific Source has to work with, which translates directly to what they can share with us. Okay. Yeah.

And like I've mentioned before, we've had estimates anywhere from 10 to 40% reduction in Medicaid enrollment, which is a pretty big difference. So if it's 10%, again, we can probably work with that and do some things to help offset those costs. If it's 40%, that's pretty catastrophic.

Okay. Questions from my fellow commissioners or thoughts or comments? Yes.

Yes, Holly, I believe you said that Deschutes County was, what, 25% enrolled in Medicaid? Was that the number you gave us the other day? Because I know the state is, what, 34% enrolled in Medicaid?

I'm going to look to Cheryl here, who can pull up our exact numbers and answer that question for you. Yeah, it is about 25%. Okay.

So that's 25% of the population of the county. Okay.

And it's an important thing to remember that even if people fall off their Medicaid starting in January, it doesn't necessarily mean their needs aren't still there. So what it means for the community mental health program is that we continue to need to serve this population because we are the safety net. They are our people that we serve, and we just won't be getting reimbursed for that. So that's the real challenge that publicly funded systems face.

And I would guess that would translate to us not being able to maintain as large of a clinical staff and trying to serve the same amount of people with less licensed clinicians and peer support specialists and everyone else.

Certainly could be what we end up facing. But as you know, through our budget process, we've done a lot this year, last year to help plan for that. And so Bill really made some hard decisions this year to set us up to be able to navigate that maybe in a better way. And thankfully, we're a CCBHC, so there's some opportunities there. We have some reserves to lean on. There's a lot of factors at play, so it's not necessarily a, you know, we get this hit, this many staff get laid off. It's more of a, it's nuanced, more nuanced than that.

Yeah. You mentioned how the Central Oregon Health Council is helping to kind of buffer or cushion for these next six months. How much capacity do they have to continue to do something like that?

As far as I know, not much at all. This was really a one time. They saw what was happening in the landscape. They heard from providers like Mosaic and St. Charles and all the key players in our community that we were all facing reductions in what it's going to do to the system locally. So COHC board really stepped up and made a decision to allocate their – I think it was – It was out of their reserves to allocate that out to offset the impacts they knew providers were going to be taking, but it is a one-time thing. So that's part, again, of what led to us with the six-month contract, because if we don't have the COHC dollars, a 10% reduction isn't something that we can manage long-term. But with the COHC dollars, it ended up being about a 2% reduction overall for us, which we can navigate that.

Right, right. COHC can only do that once.

Yeah, exactly.

Good to understand that. Any further questions or comments?

I'll just acknowledge that I did attend that Central Oregon Health Council meeting where it was discussed about these one-time dollars. So I was able to attend that one time about six weeks ago or so. And that is the discussion. This won't happen a second time, but it was good that it was there for us. Oh, I was off. I had a great statement just now. Sorry.

We heard it all.

It's OK. Yeah.

About about you were recounting that the meeting of the Central Oregon Health Council and how they were able to do this one time.

So, yeah, I'm trying to use my computer here. OK, good, good.

And thank you for attending that meeting. Okay. Well, are there any other questions or concerns, or does one of my fellow commissioners want to proceed to a motion?

I'll move approval of document number 2026-0414 to amend the Behavioral Health Provider Services Agreement with Pacific Source Community Solutions.

And I will second it.

Been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? Seeing none, we can move to a vote. Commissioner Dare?

Yes.

Commissioner DeBone?

Yes.

And Chair votes yes. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for trying to hold the ship together through these very complicated and stormy seas.

Sure. Appreciate your support.

Thanks. Okay item number nine decision concerning the record of the last branch plan amendment and zone change application in advance of the remand hearing.

Good morning, for the record, my name is Caroline house and i'm a senior planner with the deschutes county planning division. And I am here to get board direction on how the record should be handled for a remand application, the county received about a week ago. Excuse me. And this is associated with the plan amendment and zone change request that the board approved in 2025. And the property has been approved to be changed from agricultural to rural industrial. And so the applicant has initiated a remand in response to LUBA, an appeal, I should say, that LUBA received from Central Oregon Land Watch. And they have requested that the board reopen the record to address the remand issues. So in the memo and my packet, I provided an order. So the board kind of has two choices. If you want to keep the record closed, no further action is needed other than providing that direction today. But if you do want to reopen the record per the applicant's request, an order needs to be executed. um to acknowledge that and um we're our our department's targeting having a public hearing on july 8th so um if the board can make a decision and if the order is executed i requested that be signed today although i saw that commissioner is a remote so i don't know how that will work i will need to coordinate with brenda but um on how to get the required signatures to execute the order but um that that i guess covers the high level issues and i'm available for questions

Caroline, I'm curious how, okay, so there's been an appeal. LUVA remanded on a couple of specific items. The applicant is requesting to reopen the record. And I would assume that that is, that they see reopening the record as necessary to addressing the issues that have been remanded. If the record is not reopened, and we decided to approve this again and just send it to Lupa, I mean, is... The likelihood that the remanded, reapproved application could be challenged again, I'm guessing, is pretty high. And I guess what I'm asking is, without reopening the record to make changes, is there any chance that this application could proceed past LUBA? Or is their pathway basically a pathway to approval, basically, you know, kind of being able to move forward with their with their rezone? Does it does it necessitate reopening the record and introducing new evidence?

So, you know, the applicant bears the burden. And so they have requested to reopen the record because they have evidence that they want to, new evidence they want to submit that's not currently in the record. So if the board doesn't reopen the record, it would be what's considered the Land Use Board of Appeals record for the previous review. So everything else that's already in the record. So then parties could just submit arguments based on that evidence. But again, the applicant bears the burden, and as part of their initiating this remand application, they specifically ask for new evidence to be accepted on the remand issues, presumably because they need that additional information to support getting to an approval if it's challenged at LUBA or beyond.

Okay. Questions or input from my fellow commissioners?

So supportive of the applicant's request. So I guess the other choice is to accept information limited to one issue. Can you clarify that? I mean, if we open it up, is it kind of de novo for anything?

So our procedures ordinance limits the board's review on this application to the remand issues. So anything that's been settled as part of the previous review can't be relitigated as part of the remand review process. And the board has the discretion entirely on how it handles the record. So if you only wanted to accept evidence on one issue, that could be your choice. um no party to date has requested it to be limited to one issue um and the only participant that has asked for um the record to be open has asked for it to be reopened on the two issues they've for the remand great thank you

So with that, I will move approval of Order 126-021, reopening the record to accept new evidence on the last ranch plan amendment zone change application.

And I will second the motion. And Carolyn, we can give approval for Brenda using our digital signatures. So it can be done today. Perfect. Thank you.

Okay. It's been moved and seconded. It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? I still have a question or two. So just for clarification, in terms of new evidence that will be submitted, would that be kind of stuff that's added to the EC analysis? Is that what we anticipate would be submitted or we just don't know?

At this time, we don't know. The applicant has just submitted a letter into the record officially, kind of saying they want to initiate this process. But they haven't provided any specifics on what they want to introduce as part of, you know, what they've submitted into the record.

Okay. Well, since the two issues that this application has been remanded on are EC issues, expect they have something to do with the EC analysis. And then the other question I have is just a little bit more broad about the rural industrial zone. There has been a lot of interest in our community recently about data centers. So I wanted to ask whether data centers are an eligible use, conditionally or otherwise, within rural industrial zones.

It's a great question. I was watching the public hearing on the work plan for the community development department. I saw that issue came up. I talked to Peter Gutalski a little bit about that, the community development director. I think this is a question we haven't been asked before, so I don't know if we know clearly if there's a use category that could fit under. But as you know, there's prohibitions on extending sewer and water services So it may be difficult to have the utilities in a rural industrial zone versus a city's industrial zone areas where those services are available. Presumably data centers need those types of urban scale utility facilities that can't be provided on a county property.

Got it. Got it. Okay. So it's not necessarily about an acreage scale issue. This particular property is not very big. you know, my concern would be that it is, you know, there's, there's rural industrial just to the South of it and, and on the, on the West side of the highway as well. And you could almost, you could imagine, you know, assembling all of those pieces together for some kind of some really substantial rural industrial use in the future. But yeah, The utilities are, yeah, that makes sense that that would probably be the key constraint. Thank you for walking me through that. Okay. Any further discussion before we move to a vote? Okay. So calling for the vote, Commissioner Adair.

Actually, Commissioner DeBone made the motion.

Sorry about that. Commissioner DeBone?

Yes.

Commissioner Adair?

Yes.

And Chair votes no. Thank you.

Thank you.

Item number 10, Rural Health Transformation Program Immediate Impact Funding from the Oregon Health Authority. Yeah, thanks for joining us to talk about one of the other sides of HR1.

Thank you. Good morning, Chair. Good morning, Commissioners. For the record, Heather Kaisner, Deschutes County Public Health Director, and I'll let my colleagues introduce themselves.

Good morning. For the record, Ann Kilty, Nurse Practitioner and Clinical and Family Services Manager in Public Health.

Good morning, Rachel Benson, Business Manager for Health Services.

Good morning. Jessica Jacks, Prevention and Health Promotion Program Manager.

Okay, so we are here today to seek approval for chair signature on Document 20260395, which is an Oregon Health Authority's amendment awarding Rural Health Transformation Program immediate impact funding. As I know we've talked about here before, the Oregon is receiving roughly $197 million for this RHTP from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services in 2026. OHA has decided to first distribute funding through immediate impact awards and then through a competitive grant process. These immediate impact awards are going to be given to strategic projects that can begin within two months to receive funding. So it's very kind of fast and looking at programs that we already have to expand upon. And then OHA has decided to provide direct funding to all local public health authorities through our Oregon Health Authority Intergovernmental Agreement for Financing of Public Health. So it's within our current IGA. And it's going to be under Program Element 82. And OHA has awarded Deschutes County Services $582,863 to implement projects that align with Program Element 82, which is the Rural Health Transformation Program Healthy Communities and Prevention Initiative. So it's specific around kind of that area of work. And so we have submitted a project proposal to OHA, and it includes multiple projects, one of them being focused on social supports and substance use prevention within our Lapine and Redmond schools. and as well as expanding our perinatal care coordination team. That team, we recently lost some funding through Oregon Mothers Care, so this funding will be able to make that team whole as well as expand more into Sisters Redmond and Lapine. And then also our The last one is our Cocoon Nurse Home Visiting Program, which is for really medically fragile children to be able to expand access to that program. So I have my experts here. If you have questions on the specific programs and what we're doing as far as expansion, I will say this funding, it was pretty fast. We had about a month to kind of determine what we were going to do and still kind of rolling things out. But we're now at the point where we're seeking approval for to receive this funding through our IGA.

Great.

Any questions? Thanks.

Questions.

Heather? Oh, go ahead, Commissioner Devon.

Pardon me. Cocoon program. Can you explain that a little bit? Who's so medically fragile?

Sorry, I think I got the gist of that. You want to know more about the Cocoon Program? So this is a nursing visiting case management program for individuals from birth until they turn 21 years old. There's a fairly lengthy list of medical diagnoses and conditions that qualify individuals for this. They can be ongoing chronic conditions such as if someone has a genetic abnormality like Down syndrome or they have autism or they're born with a congenital heart defect, something that is going to be kind of a lifelong health challenge. Or sometimes these are babies that are born extremely premature and they have initial challenges after discharge from the NICU. And those challenges may not go on until they're age 21, but they're significant for some period of time. Right now, we are only able to offer this program to those individuals and their families through Medicaid. But these diagnoses have nothing to do with people's socioeconomic status. And so we have had to turn away some individuals and families because they are Medicaid ineligible and we are not able to receive payment for those services if it's not through Medicaid. So what we would like to do is a small pilot project with some of these funds to determine what the need is and what might be a sustainable model for us. So that might look like people who are Medicaid ineligible, we could see them for like an initial intake and we could decide what their services needs are and then refer them out to community resources. Or maybe we see them for a limited, you know, one to three visits, or perhaps we limit the number of individuals that we take who do not have Medicaid and we serve them, you know, whatever their long-term needs are. We're not quite sure what the model would be. We don't quite know what the demand is, but this would be, give us an opportunity to kind of determine that and figure out how we might do it in a sustainable way for us.

Thank you. Sorry, I would just add that one of the goals of this funding is to really look at sustainability. So it's looking at projects expansion, but then the goal, you know, this is not going to be ongoing funding. So it's then are there projects that can hopefully sustain themselves over the longer period?

I'm sure, Dara, you had a question.

Yes, I did. I don't know if this is appropriate now, but Jessica, you're there. What are we doing about women that are still using marijuana while they're pregnant? Because I noticed you said something about substance use prevention. But what are we doing as far as educating those people that there are dangers involved?

So our specific programs related to this grant are focused in the schools and we hope that women aren't getting pregnant at that stage. So I can't speak to we don't we don't have clinical programs in our schools. in my realm. So I'd actually ask Anne if you might have any expertise to add to that.

Sure. This is a significant problem. You're right, Commissioner Adair. There is extensive counseling that goes on at the OB clinics. I know that for certain. And then people who are meeting with our perinatal care coordinators and our home visiting nurses This is a discussion that goes on. We actively refer people into the MOMS program, which is a program for pregnant and postpartum individuals who are struggling with substance abuse. It's a significant problem. In the same way that alcohol can be, they're both legal and people have a variety of reasons why they want to use them. We do see increases sometimes in pregnancy because there's a perception that it will help with nausea related to pregnancy. So it's being tackled from a lot of different directions. We don't have one good way or we would just have that one way.

Okay. Thank you, Anne. Thank you.

I did have a question about the two school-based programs. I'm just curious what the collaborative planning or negotiations with the school districts, what that looked like. As Heather said, the timeline to get these projects teed up was pretty quick.

Yeah, I'm actually really proud of our team because we have such relationships with all three school districts that we were able to connect and collaborate fairly quickly. I would also add that there are funds going to four sisters school district, not directly to the school district, but to Mosaic Community Health through the same fund. grant funding stream and it is connected to one of our prevention programs. So we are active in all three school districts. There was very quick turnaround. I would add that all three really are focused on improving linkages to care. How do we get students and families connected to the care that they need through the school setting? But each setting has a different flavor based on what the needs and gaps are for that particular area. So there's a really very similar intent, but nuanced to serve the students and families of that particular area.

Right. And we are able to respond quickly and kind of co-plan these programs with the school districts because we have ongoing relationships with school-based health centers or the Healthy Schools Partnership or other things. Is that?

Correct. Yes. Yeah.

Great.

All of the above.

Yeah, because I mean, I was curious about the choices that were made. Because what was described for Lapine is something that I have heard the superintendent of Redmond schools say that he wanted something like that in the past. But for the Redmond school district, we're doing this substance use prevention thing.

Yeah, we with the conversation with Redmond School District really seemed very focused on. I was hearing multiple times that, yes, there are things that they want and they first need a solid plan in place. So there is a strong desire to have more, but. they really wanted to ensure that they were thinking through all of the pieces. So we're working on that plan and as we develop. So my hope is, um, that we have sustainability in Lapine through finding the school social worker as a billable service and that if we have these funds continued that we can kind of negotiate at that time. Maybe there's some additional dollars that could go to Redmond to bolster what we are ready, when they're ready to implement.

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, each time we build something like this, you know, build a new model of service delivery, there's a lot of opportunity to transfer it across the region, you know, transfer it to the other districts, you know, if they think it's a, if they appreciate that, you know, the model and they think it's successful and something that'll work for them. So it's really great to be doing all these different things in different places.

I do have another question. I noticed that I know because it is the definition of rural is under 50,000 sisters wasn't included and nothing for the sisters school district.

Uh, sisters school district is not in this, in our application. However, we are working with them through a different application. Um, and, and that's with our upshift program, the school-based health center, uh, medical sponsor, which is mosaic community health and the school district. So the funds will go directly to mosaic community health to support, um, uh, bringing substance use treatment services directly to students and families in Sisters School District. So it's not in our application, but we are working on a different application with them. It's just the funds aren't coming through us.

So there'll be an RHTP application from Mosaic that has Deschutes County as a partner.

They've actually already been awarded, or it was announced by the Oregon Health Authority several weeks ago.

Yeah, I thought they were an immediate impact award. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, good to know. So these immediate impact awards, they're not, like, all coming out at once. It's... Yeah.

Okay.

That is a telling chuckle out there. One other specific question I had about Redmond. Through our lottery dollar small grants program, we have made a number of contributions and investments in the CLEAR Alliance doing that prevention effort working through the Redmond School District. Are they showing up in any way in this process? Or are these prevention efforts building on any of that? Or... Is that just kind of like a completely separate track?

I don't know the answer to that. I think part of the work that we will be doing with Redmond will look at all substance use prevention, intervention, and treatment components to build that plan. So I would imagine it would fold in anything that is already existing, such as Clear Alliance, but the specifics of that I'm not aware of.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not even sure if they're still functioning. There was some substantial strife within the board and staff in the last couple years, but thanks just for checking on that. Are there any further questions or concerns? Seeing none, we can entertain a motion at this point.

So moving approval of document number 2026-0395, amending an agreement with the Oregon Health Authority for Rural Health Transformation Program immediate impacts funding.

And I will second it.

It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? Seeing none, we can proceed to a vote. Commissioner Adair?

Yes.

Mr. DeBone?

Yes.

Okay. And chair votes yes. And yeah, no, thank you. And I would just say these sound like great projects. So really glad that we can proceed with these projects. You know, it's hard for me because I feel like where this RHDP program came from. It's like, well, we need to gut Medicaid in order to have a couple of crumbs over here. So I'm very concerned and troubled about the bigger impacts of HR1 across the landscape. But if there's a couple of crumbs to be had through this program, I'm glad we're lining up to get them.

I do believe to speak of the crumbs, it should be almost, what is it? This is another 200 million for the next four years through that bill.

197 million when the state of Oregon will lose billions of dollars in Medicaid funding.

Well, this is actually for the rural communities, though, and rural health care is Truly, indeed. So I appreciate the programs that you're funding. Thank you.

When you noted that 25% of Deschutes County is on Medicaid, that is concentrated much higher in the rural portions of the county. So those are the people who will be suffering from being cast off of Medicaid enrollment in the coming months. Thank you. Okay, item number 11, an agreement for collaboration with the Wildfire Research Center for Wildfire Preparedness Activities.

Good morning, Chair. Good morning, Commissioners. For the record, my name is Lauren Street, the Community Wildfire Protection Supervisor for the Natural Resources Program here at the county. And joining online today, we also have Kristen McBride, a project manager for the Deschutes National Forest. Today we are seeking approval of Document 20260437, an agreement for collaboration with the Wildfire Research Center, also known as WIREE, in support of wildfire preparedness activities in the greater Lapine area. The Deschutes County Natural Resources Program, in representation of the Lapine Basin All Lands Partnership, has been approached by WIREE to enter into an agreement for collaboration. This collaborative agreement would allow WIRI to survey 2,000 residents in the greater Lapine community on wildfire preparedness activities and education and outreach. This aligns with the work that will be executed through the recently funded Community Wildfire Defense Grant, our Lapine Wildfire Mitigation Project. So I will pause there for any questions.

I do have a question. Lauren, where actually is the Wildfire Research Center located? The address is not on any of these documents. I was just curious. It's a 501c3.

Yeah, thank you for that, Commissioner. They're located in Colorado, but they've worked all over the United States and mostly focused their projects on the West. And several of the projects that they've supported and come to with funding have been in Jackson County, Oregon, Shillane County, Washington, Douglas County, Washington, and Okanogan County, Washington.

Is this center connected to CSU in Fort Collins?

Not that I'm aware of, but I can check. They receive their funding through the BLM and the US Forest Service.

Go ahead. question about does this cost money from the grant that the county has received and what's the scope of that?

No, great question. This will not, there will be no funds exchanged between WIRI and the county. This is purely a collaborative agreement. So WIRI comes to the table with $28,000 worth of funding to push those surveys forward into the community and then the County, if we're able to sign this agreement, we will provide capacity as well as the Lapine Basin All Lands Partnership will provide support for this project. So there will be no funds exchanged.

And then is this, this is a survey, but it's kind of like an education, I assume, too. It's like, you know, wildfire, this and that. By the way, did you know, you know, I can see it's kind of a two-way street for education and information.

yeah um so wiry in past studies um the outcomes have been very different um and that's crafted with whoever they're partnering with um so in our case because we're gearing up to do the uh and we're already starting the work of the community welfare defense grant um They will, this will be kind of the social guidance that we'll use to then implement a lot of the work that we were already geared up to do through that community wildfire defense grant. So in those surveys, they will pull residents on What is your experience with wildfire? Are you prepared for evacuation? What are your perceptions about wildfire? What are your perceptions around mitigation actions? What are barriers that you experience to accessing resources or completing wildfire mitigation actions on your own property? So we will then receive all of that data from WIREE and the county will own that data and the report that YRE produces from these findings and we will use that to guide our work. Then to be able to reach out to the broader community as well as the folks that are surveyed through this. So there are kind of a few points where we would consider that a win. If they reach out to 2,000 folks, there are 2,000 folks that we can then have a line of communication with to help accomplish our CWDG work, as well as using those responses to guide what's the best way to reach out to folks? And what are their concerns? What are the gaps?

So setting the tone on this, just my one concept, and I see it a lot, is a group of people will get together, talk about wildfire, defensible space, fuel reduction, and then they're like, well, where do we get resources? And I'm just setting, you know, from resident of the area, and Lauren, you might have heard me say this before, but please just go cut a branch down that's close to your house and pull some needles out of the gutters instead of talking about it. So... I just want to lean into action is my message there.

Yeah, and I think that's our hope here is, you know, we have over $3.4 million to put that into action. And this will open up a line of communication for folks to either provide whatever resources they're needing. If they're just looking for best practices, which branches to cut down, we can provide that. Or if they need more technical assistance, we can also provide that. So again, just kind of collecting that social data to help drive the work and the action that we're planning to do in that area.

Thank you.

I'll just say that if we want people to improve their wildfire preparedness, I think it's great that we are doing work to both understand what they already know and what their perceptions are on these issues and gathering data that will help us understand how to support and help move them to action in the future. And it seems like a very nice compliment for the Community Wildfire Defense Grant. We've got the resources to implement a lot of work on the ground on the one side, and we're going to learn some things about the people who we're hoping will take action on the other side. And that kind of leads me to, you know, specifically, I would like to know, you know, I took a look through the scope of work, but I'd like to understand a little bit better what we are going to learn about residents through this survey.

Yeah, that's a great question. And I think that a lot of that will be crafted. So we haven't begun our meetings with WIRA yet. First up is the agreement. if approved, we'll begin that process. And I think a lot of that will be led by, you know, what are the funds that we're bringing to the table with the community wildfire defense grant, and what would be helpful for that and the implementation of that. And so I have a presentation here from Wiry, which I'm happy to send over. And the different outcomes from projects that they've done in different areas are wildly different. So They implemented one of these studies on the Kenai Peninsula and they actually incorporated the WIRE information into the CWPP plans that they were updating. So that is something that, you know, we're getting ready to go through that process and I think our main goal would be to use this to guide the CWDG work. But that is something that we could use this information for in the future is to implement that into our action items in the community wildfire protection plans. Other outcomes through another assessment done by WIREE. in another community in Alaska, they were looking for gaps in resources and gaps for emergency services to be able to respond in the case of a disaster. And they actually found that 96% of the folks that responded to their surveys did not have properly addressed homes. So emergency services would not be able to find them in case of an emergency. So it looks really different for the different projects that they've done. But I think the scope of our community wildfire defense grant will really guide the scope and the outcome of what we'll be working with WIREE on.

Got it. And there'll be some kind of meeting between the researchers and natural resources and the Pine All Lands Partnership and other key stakeholders.

Correct, yes.

To kind of hash all that out. Okay, great.

Good to know.

Any further questions or concerns? Um, since, since, uh, sorry, go ahead, commissioner.

No, just asking if Kristen wanted to share any thoughts.

That was just what I was going to ask.

Thanks for that offer. Yeah, I would just offer that we, in the Lapine Basin All Lands Partnership, we've been working really hard on landscape scale strategic planning that integrates risk analytics, that looks at transmission risk and wildfire risk to community values. And we've paired that across boundaries with what we know of past, current, and future treatment plans. And the big outlier is how to mobilize, and as you put it, Phil, get folks to take action and what that would take to do that, right? So to really enhance the treatment footprints on the ground and make sure that we can do that as holistically as possible in a cross boundary capacity, we really need to know how to better outreach to folks and to integrate what they know with what we know and get people mobilized on action and pairing them with funding opportunities. So we're hoping to use the underpinnings of the strategic planning resource team's work to help identify where these homeowners might be and help inform the WIREE study and then in turn We hope to get some really solid information about considerations for outreach strategies and public education. So all the partners and members in the All Ends Partnership are really excited about this opportunity. It brings in that social piece that we've been missing.

Great. Okay. Any further questions or comments or are we ready for a motion?

Motion. I'll move approval of document number 2026-437, an agreement for collaboration with the Wildfire Research Center in support of wildfire preparedness activities, an authorized county administrator signature.

Second the motion.

It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? I'll just say that I hope that this risk assessment and survey process really helps to improve the success and impact of our community welfare defense grant project. And with that, we'll call for the vote. Commissioner DeBone?

Yes.

Commissioner Adair?

Yes.

And Chair votes yes. Thank you very much. It is.

I did want to make a comment. It is the last weekend of fire free for the outlying transfer stations. So I believe it goes to this Saturday.

Very good. Thank you for that reminder. Okay, so at this, this time, other items, Commissioner Devone, you said you had a couple things you wanted to review with us.

Sure. Monday was an annual meeting of the East Cascade Works and the WorkSource Consortium Board. So that's the members of the community that are on the board, the commissioners that represent the consortium of about 10 counties up and down the middle of the state. We did pass the budget, the WorkSource budget, is flat and going down just a little bit, but being flat sure feels like it's really going backwards because of the world we live in. So administrative overhead and some choices have been made to keep the level of service, but it's getting a really narrow path. And we've seen that in other public budgets recently also. Yesterday, I was able to attend a Lapine water and sewer kind of ribbon-cutting finalization certificate of completion. So City of Lapine water and sewer project. So that was real exciting. It was in the news this morning also. Sun River Lapine Economic Development Board met yesterday, middle of the day. Obviously a discussion about a land sale for a data center got really raucous and the city council said, well, let's not do this right now. But there's a land available, power available, dual redundant paths for the internet available. So, I mean, somebody may come again someday. So we'll just have to talk about what does it mean to have a data center and investment in jobs in a small town like that. Also, we were able to tour the new facility, Western Metrology, which is one of our recipients of a economic development grant slash loan for their new jobs. Beautiful facility. They're doing some custom high-end machining on site plus precision measurement for aerospace parts in manufacturing in partnership with other companies around the state. So it was wonderful to see what they're really doing in Lapine. Thank you.

Thank you. Great.

Yes, I do want to report that I had let Brenda know the fair is doing something different this year. We're actually going to have the opening ceremony at 6 p.m. on Wednesday evening instead of in the morning at 11. Because the comment was made, it was so hot at 11. Yeah. Anyway, so that is going to be at 6 p.m. on Wednesday evening, the first day of the fair. And if you have a red vest and a white shirt, that's what you should wear. Anyway, that was that part of the messages for the association that will be there. But yes, it is Wednesday night at 6 p.m. So please check your calendars accordingly.

So... So that means historically we've held off on having a board meeting that day so that we could all go to the fair opening ceremony. Does that mean that there won't be anything during the day till 6 p.m.?

Well, no, the fair will be going on. It opens that morning. So, yeah, there will be lots of activity at the fair, just that the actual event with the doves being released will be that evening when it's a bit cooler. Okay.

But I guess what I'm asking is, does that mean that we could have a regular board meeting during the day and then everyone could attend the opening ceremony that evening?

I don't know. Some of us like to spend the day at the fair.

Okay. We can talk about that a little bit at a time and see what we have. We'll see what our needs are in terms of agenda items.

Yep.

Okay. Any other items? Hearing none, we can now move on to an executive session. So we're going to, Kim is going to read us the notice and we're going to transition off of this public Zoom meeting to something kind of more executive session.

The Deschutes County Board of Commissioners will now convene an executive session pursuant to ORS 192.660. The specific authorization for this executive session is ORS 192.660 subsection 2D which allows the board to meet in order to discuss labor 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 they 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.