Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

all right good morning everyone uh thank you for joining us for today's july 8th 2026 board of jesuits county commissioners meeting uh we will now call the meeting to order and uh we will start by um doing the pledge of allegiance please join us of the united states of america

Okay. All right.

next door of business is approving the agenda or making any modifications, additions or subtractions. I want to note for anyone who saw the agenda Thursday after it was just freshly posted that there are now two additional items that have been noticed in the last few days. Item number eight A community development department work plan update in the context of thinking about doing a text amendment for duplexes and item number nine, contract with Romeo Entertainment Group for the 2026 fair. So we have we've already added those items and they've been publicly noticed. But are there any other requests for additions, subtractions or changes?

I'll move approval of the agenda.

I'll second.

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

Just acknowledge that during the process on Monday, that's when we discussed this duplex definition text amendment, so we got it added to this meeting.

Yes. All right. Calling for the vote. Commissioner DeBellum? Yes. Commissioner Adair? Yes. Chair votes yes.

Okay.

Right. We will now move to citizen input. If there's anyone in the room who would like to provide citizen input, you can let us know right now and then fill out a blue form afterwards. If not, we'll also check online. Is there anyone with their hand raised online, Karen? No.

Okay.

So seeing no citizen input, we can move on to commissioner announcements. Commissioner Arradere, Commissioner Dubon, do you have any commissioner announcements?

I was at the Redmond Airport beam hanging process yesterday morning, and amazing. It looks like it should be done in three months. They're saying it's going to be another year, November of 2027. But yeah, a lot of timbers going in. Great to see. And yeah. It's amazing how fast that I was just there and now it's like at the two stories. So if you're flying out of Redmond, watch out. Lots of things are happening.

Just to acknowledge, yesterday I was able to do the tour at the biomass facility going in at Mount Batchelor that we were able to invest in with ARPA dollars a couple years ago. Representative for Wisewood and Mount Batchelor staff was there showing us around, and they're getting close. It's pretty exciting seeing the boilers, the hydronics going across the parking lot, interconnecting with the buildings, all kinds of great stuff.

Great. I'll just mention that. Yesterday, the Criminal Justice Commission for the state of Oregon was here in Deschutes County, and I got to spend a little bit of time with them with a number of staff members presenting on a whole range of county programs that the CJC has invested in over time. Five programs ranging from the Stabilization Center to... You know, gender appropriate parole and probation programming to, you know, organized retail theft program at the DA's office and the early adult program and also the deflection program. So it's a great opportunity to showcase for the CJC what we have been able to do with their funds to reduce recidivism. and even better, to prevent people from ending up in court or in jail in the first place. One other announcement I'll make is that Captain Michael Schultz is departing for retirement this week. And Captain Schultz served as our corrections commander for many years, in my opinion, has done a great job. over at the jail, really trying to ensure that when people leave the jail, they are on a path not to have to come back, and also trying to make sure that they are as set up as they can be to be successful in their life after incarceration. Many congratulations and thanks to Captain Schultz. And, yeah, I will miss having a chance to work with him. Are there any other commissioner announcements? Okay. Seeing none, we can move on to our consent agenda.

So move the consent agenda. There's actually a correction to item number three. The term should end June 30th of 2030, but I already sent that to Brenda. And then I do want to thank the Central Oregon Guardian Assistance Program. Remember, it started a couple of years ago, and they're really doing some wonderful work in the community. So I thank them for their vision.

Yeah, I'll second it.

Moved and seconded. And any further discussion?

For the Guardian Assistance Program, that is a separate nonprofit supporting health-related crisis for veterans, elderly, or indigent persons in the civil commitment population. So it's exciting we're able to provide these dollars. I asked, where are these dollars coming from? And this is Central Oregon Health Council dollars, kind of one-time money. So each year, if it's going to pop up, I'm sure the ask will always be there. We'll see if we can keep investing. Great.

With that, we can call for the votes. Commissioner Adair?

Yes.

Commissioner DeBone? Yes. And Chair votes yes. Thanks, everyone. Okay. Moving on to the action items on our agenda. We will now convene as the governing body of the Deschutes County 911 Service District for item number four, a ratified successor collective bargaining agreement with Deschutes 911 Employees Association. Good morning, everyone.

Good morning.

With brief staff introduction Whitney Hale, Deputy County Administrator. Sarah Crosswhite, Deschutes County 9-1-1 Director.

Harry Deschutes, County 9-1-1 Operation Manager.

Chris Fell from the Legal Department.

Commissioners, we're before you this morning for your consideration of the ratified successor collective bargaining agreement with the Schutz County 911 Employees Association, the dispatcher unit. We're recommending that the board move approval of document number 20260545, which is the CBA between the 911 service district and the Schutz County Employees Association dispatchers. For a 4 year term, the agreement that's before you has been ratified by the association and the management team was able to reach tentative agreement on all of the articles that are presented in the contract before you. We want to thank the employees association for their engagement throughout this process. We had a lot of really robust and collaborative discussion throughout the bargaining process. and really feel like this four-year agreement makes a lot of progress in administrative areas that we were seeking to advance some of our past practices while also really looking at some of the priorities for the association This agreement has a COLA range that includes 1 to 4% COLA per year dependent on CPI consistent with other contracts. And it also includes wage modifications for the call taker classification at the service district as well as both dispatcher classifications. The agreement includes a number of administrative changes that the board is familiar with, including sunsetting the retiree health insurance premium contributions for new hires. making modifications to the long-term shift trade process that's been in place at the district, transitioning dispatchers from guaranteed to actual hours, and some other modifications that relate to time management leave conversion and eligibility. And we're happy to answer any questions that the board has about the agreement that's before you, but believe that we have been able to achieve many of the administrative changes that we are attempting to achieve across the organization and would recommend board approval on this.

Well, congratulations. Yep. Four-year contract. It's really good. Special thank you to all the employees that are part of this and being able to ratify this. I know it's an effort. Got multiple contracts we're discussing, so this is just getting another one off. Also, it's backdating for a few days ago, but at least we're getting there. So it's an exciting moment.

Commend you over the four years. Yes. Great. Great job.

Our 911 employees are such an important link in our public safety system, often the first link in our public safety system. And I'm glad that we could reach an agreement with them that provides fair wages, benefits, working conditions, and also benefits. manages the fiscal responsibility of the county so thank you so much for your work and thanks to the thanks to the bargaining unit on the other side for their work to get us to this place

With that, I'll move approval of Document 2026-545, a collective bargaining agreement between the Deschutes County 911 Service District and the Deschutes County 911 Employees Association for dispatchers for the term of July 1st, 2026 through June 30th, 2030 as ratified by the association.

Second the motion.

It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussions? Seeing none, we'll call for the vote. Commissioner DeBone? Yes. Commissioner Adair? Yes. And Chair votes yes. Great. Thank you. Congratulations. And thank you again.

Great job, guys.

Okay. We will now reconvene as the governing body for Deschutes County for item number five, secure rural schools allocation elections between titles one, two, and three.

Good morning, Board. Chris Doty, Road Department Director. As you're aware, SRS has been extended for an additional year, federal fiscal year 27. The program allows counties some limited flexibility in how we allocate that funding between three different categories of funding that are described as titles in the Act. First is Title I. That's roads and schools. The second is Title II. That's federal projects on federal lands. And then there's Title III. That's county projects like Firewise and other projects administered through the Natural Resources Group. Before we use Resolution 2026-035, it's a resolution which declares our SRS funding allocation for federal fiscal year 27. In this resolution, we're basically extending the board's prior direction and allocation that was done, I believe, about three years ago, last time SRS was extended, such that 84% goes to Title I, 9% to Title II. and 7% to Title III. And basically what this all boils down to is there's an additional 1% that's sliding over from Title I to Title II, which is the federal projects. And the board, if you recall last time, the goal was to really provide a little bit extra for federal forest investment on things like cleaning up some of the issues that encampments and things of that nature. Attached to this is a list of projects that were built, I think, through federal fiscal year 25, just as a sample of the type of work that's done. Your allocation into Title II for Deschutes dollars will stay on the Deschutes project, is my understanding. So, whereas this is a list of projects in multiple counties, Deschutes money stays in our county. So with that, again, just extending the board's prior direction and conversation. And we have a deadline in a week to get this posted. If you have any questions, happy to take them.

Chris, one question that I have is, as we know, our SRS allocation is deducted from our PILT before we receive our PILT payment. Does it matter at all how we allocate between titles 1, 2, and 3 for that? Because, I mean, I would think that... Title II money is not coming to Deschutes County, and so it would be nice if they let us keep that amount from our PILT payment.

Yeah, so what is debited from PILT would be funds that are received from the county. So to the extent that we're accepting less in Title I, we're probably getting that dollar back in PILT.

So Title II is not deducted from our PILT amount. Correct. That's my understanding. Well, that's actually a good reason. That's actually a good reason to, uh, um, you know, to, to feel good about putting a little bit more in title title to then, um, because, you know, in so doing, we're keeping, we're bringing more money to Deschutes County, um, just invested in federal land projects instead of, um, kind of coming to us. But then that money is made up in, in PILT.

Correct. Yeah. The flip side of that would be, um, to the degree that it's split between roads and schools, you know, so it will not be probably getting its share because PILT comes just to the county.

Good to know.

Well, I'm supportive of this allocation. It's, you know, resources that are, you know, authorized at the federal level that we're able to utilize, especially with our road department. I mean, I know our maintenance first is always a priority, so we're keeping our roads in good order.

We must keep our road director engaged, right? Happy and smiling.

I'd like to think so. There you go.

Well, yes.

Well, I wish this was for more money. But for now, until we figure out, you know, in the grand scheme, big picture, what our relationship to the federal lands are supposed to be, then it's great to have these Secure Rural Schools payments.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I'll move approval of resolution number 2026-035 to authorize the secure rural schools allocation for fiscal year 27.

And I will second it. Moved and seconded. Any further discussion? Seeing none, we'll call for the vote. Commissioner Adair? Yes. Commissioner DeBone? Yes. And Chair votes yes. Thank you, Board. Thanks so much, Chris.

Now, I don't think I saw your daughter this morning, but tomorrow. Okay.

Okay. Item number six, second reading of ordinance 2026-012, clear and objective housing text amendments, site plan, conditional uses, and additional sections.

Good morning chair, commissioners, your planning manager will grow. So the record I'm here filling in for Kyle Collins, who is out on vacation. The item before you here today is 2nd reading ordinance. 2,012 as mentioned. This is a clear and objective housing text amendment that focuses on site plan standards, conditional use standards and additional related code sections and titles. 1819 and 22. And the requested board action here today is staff is asking you to take two actions, which is approve the second reading by title only, as well as adopting the ordinance. And I'm available if you have any questions.

No questions. Good to be able to get this package completed.

We had a thorough overview from Kyle, you know, deliberated and did our first, you know, our first reading. I think this is pretty smooth sailing. You know, in connection to item number one, eight that we're going to cover today. I do want to point out that the clear and objective housing standards are... No, in relation to number eight. I want to point out that the clear and objective housing standards were created to facilitate the production of housing. And so far, we've done a whole lot of work on our clear and objective standards, and I haven't seen any evidence that this is going to help us with housing at all. And, you know, item number eight, to the contrary, indicates that this clear and objective housing process may actually be impacting our ability to produce housing in the county. So, you know, just... I think that the clear and objective process within incorporated cities may be a valuable addition to state policy, but I would love to see if there's actually evidence that this is going to help in any way at the county level.

Move approval of second reading of ordinance number 2026-012 by title only. Second. Second.

It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? Seeing none, Commissioner DeBone? Yes. Commissioner Adair?

Yes.

Chair votes yes. Okay. Are you sticking with us for?

You have to read it by time.

Oh, I'm sorry.

It's okay. I knew she was going to say it.

Action item. Second reading. Yes. That means we have to read it. Okay. Okay. Before the Board of County Commissioners of Deschutes County, Oregon, an ordinance amending Deschutes County Code Title 18 Zoning Ordinance, Title 19 Bend Urban Growth Boundary Zoning Ordinance, and Title 22 Development Procedures Ordinance to incorporate clear and objective housing standards in compliance with state law. Ordinance number 2026-012. May I move adoption then, if Yes.

Okay. So I will move adoption of Ordinance Number 2026-012.

And I will second it. Moved and seconded. Any further discussion? Calling for the vote. Commissioner Aguirre?

Yes.

Commissioner Dubon? Yes. And Chair votes yes.

And Will, thank you for that water issue that you so kindly handled or engaged in. Glad to help out. Yeah. Thank you.

Okay, item number seven, the last ranch remand hearing involving an application to change the comprehensive plan designation of 20.36 acres at 65110 North Highway 97. 64994 Deschutes Market Road and 64975 Deschutes Pleasant Road and rezone the properties from exclusive farm use to rural industrial.

And we'll turn to the script.

Yes. So this is the time and place set for a hearing regarding file number 247-26-000362A. This is a remand hearing on a Deschutes County Comprehensive Plan amendment and zone change request. Staff will outline the hearing procedures that will be followed.

Thank you. For the record, my name is Caroline House, and I'm a senior planner with the Deschutes County Planning Division. Today, the Board of County Commissioners will take testimony concerning a land use Board of Appeals remand of a previously approved comprehensive plan amendment and zone change request. The scope of this review is limited to the specific issues identified in LUBO's final opinion in order number 2025-03-4. And I do have a PowerPoint slide presentation. Perfect. So today's hearing will be conducted as follows. Staff will begin by explaining the format of the hearing and how to testify. I'll then provide a brief staff report. We will then move on to the testimony portion of the hearing. The applicant will present first and will have 30 minutes. The appellant will testify second and will have 10 minutes. And any other parties will have three minutes. Afterwards, the applicant will have 10 minutes for rebuttal. And lastly, staff can make closing comments if desired. And I will note that Chair Chang can eliminate or modify these time limits at any time. So today's hearing is a hybrid hearing with both in-person remote participation allowed. Because this is a remand review, participation is limited to the parties that previously participated in the original review. This means Chair Chang and staff will need to confirm your eligibility before you begin your testimony. Once verified, please provide your first and last name as well as your mailing address. For our in-person participants, if you wish to testify, please fill out a blue sign-up sheet and submit it to the board's executive assistant, Brenda, to the left of the dais. Chair Chang will announce your name and staff will verify that you previously participated. Please wait to come to the front of the room until Chair Chang confirms you are eligible to testify. For our remote participants, if you want to testify, you must be logged in using Zoom. When Chair Chang asks if anyone would like to testify, you'll need to use the raise hand feature to notify staff. To do this, you'll press the raise hand button on your computer, or if you've called in, you'll need to dial star nine. And like our in-person participants, staff will need to verify you're eligible to testify. To do this, please unmute and state your full name. Once staff verifies you've previously participated, Chair Chang will ask you to begin your testimony. In addition to oral testimony, any party can submit written testimony. All written submittals must comply with Board Order Number 2026-021. If you're in person, please submit your written testimony after you testify. And if you're participating remotely, please email me your written testimony. My email is caroline.house at deschutes.org. The chair and staff are responsible for conducting an orderly hearing. Any testimony or behavior which is inappropriate will be addressed and may result in that member of the public being removed from the hearing. So Chair Ching, I will now return to the script and note that commissioners must disclose any ex parte contacts, prior hearing observations, biases, or conflicts of interest.

Does any commissioner have anything to disclose? And if so, please state the nature of same and whether you can proceed.

So I've been involved with this whole process in front of the board and the hearings and the previous decision, but there's nothing to disclose and no bias.

And I would disclose the same.

I have nothing to disclose and I can proceed. Okay. Does any party wish to challenge any commissioner based on ex-party contacts, biases, or conflicts? Yes. Seeing none, as no challenges are presented prior to opening the hearing, does anyone have any procedural objections to this public hearing? Seeing none, the hearing is now open. Staff will proceed with a brief staff report.

Thank you. So I just have a few slides today providing an overview of this proposal. So once that gets pulled up, I'll start my presentation. But as it gets pulled up, just the property has three different assigned addresses as noted at the opening of this item. And if I could get my perfect. So it's located between the city of Bend and Redmond on Highway 97. It's about halfway between the two cities. And the property in total is about 20.36 acres in size. And that's really small, so I can't read that from here. So bear with me. I have to pull my slides up. So for a little background, this application was first initiated in July of 2022. The applicant filed a request to change the comprehensive plan designation of this property from agricultural to rural industrial and a corresponding zone change from exclusive farm use to rural industrial. The hearings officer was the first hearings body, and they actually recommended the Board deny the application unless the applicant demonstrated compliance with Goal 5 as part of the Board's review process. So fast forward in 2024 and 2025, the Board was reviewing the applicant's request. They did supplement their application to address Goal 5, and the Board voted 2-1 to approve the request. after that land watch appealed that decision to the land use board of appeals who found that compliance with goal 5 was not addressed in full and it remanded it back to the county to address two issues that the applicant has identified in their submittal the court of appeals affirmed luba's decision and again this application was just initiated in june which brings us to the today's hearing And as I mentioned just previously, there are two issues that the applicants asked for the board to review as part of this proceeding. Both issues are related to compliance with statewide planning goal five. In this case, Highway 97 is a designated scenic resource. And with the zone change, there's new uses allowed in the rural industrial zone that weren't previously permitted in the EFU zone. So the board is being asked to determine if those new uses conflict, in this case, with the Highway 97 roadway scenic corridor that was designated in 1992. So as part of their submittal for the remand review, the applicant has submitted a new economic, social, environmental, and energy analysis for the board's consideration. They did have a previous EC, but the board did not adopt that as part of the board's decision. So there was one in the record previously, but it ultimately wasn't part of the board's decision. All materials for this review are published at the website on the screen. Everything is current. And Commissioner Adair, I believe everything has been printed in your binder by Brenda. Yes, it is. Okay, perfect. Thank you so much. Exhibit 8, it's right at the back. Perfect. So just a review for next steps. So at the conclusion of today's hearing, the board will be asked to do one of the following. So continue the hearing to a date and time certain. Close the oral portion of the hearing and leave the written record open to a date and time certain. Close the hearing and schedule deliberations for a date to be determined in coordination with Brenda. Or close the hearing and go ahead and start deliberations. So that's everything I have prepared for my staff report, but I'm available for any questions.

Are there any questions for staff?

Not at this time.

If not, we can begin taking testimony. So the testimony, as Caroline outlined, will proceed this way. Applicant will have 30 minutes. Appellant will have 10 minutes. And other parties who are eligible will have three minutes. The applicant will then have 10 minutes of rebuttal time, and the staff will make closing comments. I remember Is the applicant ready to provide testimony?

I am. Thank you. Board Chair, Commissioners, good morning. My name is Carrie Richter. I'm an attorney at the law firm Bateman Seidel. My office address is 1000 Southwest Broadway, Suite 1910, Portland, Oregon, 97205. I'm assuming you can hear me.

Yes.

Thank you. I'm here to testify on behalf of the applicant, Last Ranch LLC. When we came before you in 2024 on this initial review, you will remember my colleague, Pat Klewer, handled most of this case up until we went to LUBA, in which case I took over and have been the lead advocate party ever since. And so for that reason, I am going to handle the presentation this morning. I believe Ms. Kliwer is in the audience and she has been my right arm the whole time. And so I may call on her to add some things, but my expectation is that I'll handle things this morning. So before I get into the substance of the remand, I'd like to quickly respond to the procedural objections that have been raised by Central Oregon Land Watch. You've received two June 8th email disagreement about the description of the issues on remand. I drafted that scope that is before you with the two primary issues related to Goal 5. Those are set forth directly in page 16 of its opinion. So that is the limited issues we're talking about today. We're not talking about Goal 3. We're not talking about Goal 14. We're not talking about other Goal 5 resources. We're talking about a fairly narrow issue. which has to do with the scenic highway overlay. The second issue raised by the Central Oregon Land Watch is a June 22nd letter objecting to the way in which the county noticed this hearing. The claim is that the county had to have all of the materials 20 days in advance of the hearing. And that is a requirement when you have the initial hearing. When you have the very first hearing on an application, the application has to be in the record 20 days before that hearing happens. But what Luba has said is that rebands are a continuation of the first proceeding. So because it's a continuation, you don't have that same 20 day notice requirement. And so there is no excuse me, there is no flaw with the way in which the notice happened. I did submit a packet of materials dealing with the issues on remand dated June 29th that I believe is in the record and discusses the issues in depth. And so that any party who is present has had an opportunity nine days in fact to review those materials, which is sufficient time. I want to point out that LUBA, in fact, has ruled on this 20-day notice issue and says that we agree with the county that state law does not guarantee participants in such hearings that they will always have at least 20 days between when a notice of the hearing is mailed and when the evidence is received to be submitted to the local government. And that is from Thousand Friends of Oregon versus Lane County. 18 Orluba 858 from 1990. So this resolves the procedural objections Moving to the substantial issues on remand, Ms. House did a good job of presenting the basic facts about this property. As you well know, this property is very near the Deschutes Junction overpass. The property is long and narrow. The long side, about 2,200 linear feet above the highway. The other long side is bounded by the Pilot Butte Canal, so it's sort of an isolated property. The property was once known as the Funny Farm, a roadside attraction. The property now contains two vacant residences, a two-story barn, and a number of outbuildings. The board approved the request to rezone the property to rural industrial and the only opponent, Central Oregon Land Watch, appealed the decision to LUBA. LUBA upheld the county's decision with respect to its conclusions that the land was not suitable for protection under Goal 3 as farmland and that the rural industrial zone did not violate rural use rules with respect to Goal 14. Central Oregon Land Watch appealed this decision, LUBA's decision to the Court of Appeals, which affirmed. What LUBA did not agree with the counting on was its failure to consider whether allowing new uses in the rural industrial zone would affect the scenic highway overlay, which is protected under statewide land use goal five. There are administrative rules that explain what a local government must do whenever it adopts a post-acknowledgement plan amendment, a PAPA, that's what we're doing, that are set forth in OAR 660-023-0253. And they require evaluating whether the amendment will, quote, allow new uses that could be conflicting uses with the, and I'm inserting, visual and aesthetic objectives identified for the areas adjacent to County Road. I mean, that in 1992 was what the county was intent on preserving. And in order to do that, you have to understand the nature and desired preservation objectives for the resource. So that was as the county viewed it in 1992, what are we trying to preserve exactly? Second issue is what is the condition of the existing resource? What is out there in this particular area? And then three, an evaluation of the conflicting uses. And that's where this EC discussion comes in. So I'm going to take each of these in order. First, the nature and objective of the Goal 5 resource to be preserved was established in 1992 through a landscape management corridor. that includes one quarter mile on each side of the center line of a list of county roadways. In total, this is 465 miles. Of this total, 54.5 miles of US-97 are designated, including the nine-mile corridor between Bend and Redmond. As Ms. House said, this property is about halfway in between Without quoting entirely, the purpose for designating this quarter-mile area adjacent to roadways was to maintain the, quote, scenic and natural appearance of the land to provide good visual quality in order to attract more visitors, inducing new businesses and residents, increase recreationists, and enhance tourism. And that's from the Ordinance 92-052. In order to achieve these objectives, instead of prohibiting certain uses, the county implemented a design overlay zone that imposed development and design restrictions on all uses in all zones. So at the time, there were industrial designated properties within these areas. And so whether it's rural industrial or EFU or any zone, these landscape management overlay design and development standards apply. And they require 100 foot step back from the edge of the road. They require existing screening be retained. They require that buildings use that existing screening to make the buildings not visually visible a prominent, they require muted colors, they require structures less than 30 feet high. And in rural industrial uses, unlike in the existing zone, buildings have to be less than 7,500 square feet in footprint. So in an EFU zone, a barn can be any size, but in a rural industrial zone, they can only have a 7,500 square foot footprint. So in 1992, the county determined that these design standards would strike the appropriate balance between development rights and the public interest in the aesthetic scenery as seen from the highway. So that is the objective. The objective is we're trying to evaluate whether or not rural industrial uses on this property when viewed within the resource area will detour visitors, recreationalists, the siting of new businesses, attracting residents because of the attractive nature of the scenery. So the second step is that we have to determine what is the resource that could be affected by the new development here. A visitor cannot view all nine miles between Redmond and Bend at one time. And you also don't see the property in isolation. So the other thing that is important to add to this is that the... the way in which one views this property. This property is viewable as a highway with travelers going 55 to 65 miles an hour. So we've taken that into account and we've identified essentially a visual corridor of approximately a quarter mile. But it gets much smaller if you're the driver, right? Because you're paying attention to all the other things around. So we estimate it's about 500 feet. But In any respect, the area surrounding this property within a quarter mile is largely industrial, commercial, residential development. There are 27 businesses abutting Highway 97 between Bend and Redmond. Not one of these uses has been reviewed or deemed in compliance with the LM zone standards. So when you visualize what's out there, none of it has been reviewed pursuant to the LM standards. So if it seems visually prominent, it might because it hasn't been reviewed. But the important point is that there are a number of industrial and residential uses out there. There is essentially a hodgepodge of visual development right at this property. In fact, all four corners surrounding this property right at the highway are industrial uses. You have the RV storage structure directly south of the property. You have the Asseti property across Highway 97. There is imposing disused market road overpass, including off ramps and on ramps. Looking east, there are no views of mountains, buttes or vistas. When the county has considered this view in the past, it has called it diminished. There is nothing remarkable or memorable about the natural scene in this area. So we're starting from a place of marginal scenic quality. It's also important to know that this property already contains a number of structures. It has two residences, a two-story barn, and these properties are buffered by a long row of established juniper trees. And I put some Google Earth photos in the record that show that these buffering trees exist. And although they probably aren't sufficient to meet the LM standards right now, they do provide an indication that buffering is feasible. and that these structures are largely not visible because of these existing trees. It is anticipated that when rural industrial uses are developed, they will locate behind those existing trees. Additional trees will be planted and provide additional screening. That two-story barn is very difficult to see. um in any of the photos that we have and a new rural industrial use is likely to be not any taller than that barn so i think that's an indication of feasibility so then the third task the big task is to analyze how would rural industrial uses authorized by this zone impact the visual quality intended to be protected under the LM zone. In order to accomplish this task, the goal five administrative rule calls for an evaluation of the, what we call EC consequences. EC is an acronym for economic, social, environmental, and energy consequences that must be considered should the county decide to allow, limit, or prohibit the new use. So included in my June 29th submittal, there is a 61-page EC analysis that explores the positive and negative consequences of allowing, limiting, or permitting each and every one of the permitted and conditional uses that could be allowed on this property if it's zoned for rural industrial. For efficiency, I'm not going to go through each and every one of these uses. Everyone would be asleep for sure, but I'm going to group them together and talk about them collectively in categories, but I'm happy to discuss any one that the board may have concerns about. So first, there are a bunch of uses. that represent no change. These are uses that are already allowed in EFUTBR zone, like farming and forest uses, processing, packaging, treatment of agricultural products, residential related uses like night watchmen, roads and irrigation systems. There is no change in the EC impacts of allowing these same uses. So that category is fairly easily dealt with. Then there are new non-farm uses that are inside structure-specific uses. And my take is that these are probably the most likely uses to go on this property, just because there are two elevations in this property. It has a rock spine that runs parallel to the highway, which makes the eastern side higher and it is likely that that eastern side will be the easiest to develop and essentially where the development is now and it will be developed with a structure that will include some warehousing, contractor or construction related business, wholesale distribution, welding or sheet metal machining, kennel or veterinary clinic. These are largely service or construction related industries. They will have a small footprint, 7,500 square feet. and be visually subordinate to the natural resources. As for the EC impacts, allowing this long vacant property to be put to a useful industrial use will have positive economic impacts in that it will bring jobs and additional tax revenue to the county. With respect to social impacts, these RI uses will provide places for congregation, a greater variety of job opportunities throughout the county, and a greater access to services and supplies that are closer than going to Bend and Redmond. Providing more proximate access will reduce the environment and energy impacts. Because a barn could be built today with a much bigger footprint, it is my contention that these 7,500 square foot limited structures for a veterinary clinic or a plumbing supply store would be less visually impactful. And so these non-farm uses that are sort of structure specific are will have no greater visual impact and will be able to be buffered by additional planting and the existing landscaping. Then there is a category of heavy industrial uses that would include some large outdoor storage, like sand and gravel processing, lumber manufacturing, and wood processing. These are all natural products that would not necessarily have any greater visual impact other than outdoor storage and would be similar to outdoor storage demands for an agricultural processing plant. It's not unusual to see, in fact, Greystone makes pavers and those stack outside in this area. There is a gravel processor in this area. It's not unusual to see that type of outdoor storage in this area. As for the EC impacts, these uses would provide additional jobs and greater access to rural residents and businesses. And then there's the final category of uses that require conditional use. And in the code, these are the heavy industrial uses that are traditionally associated with some negative externalities like air pollution. noise, like concrete plants, petroleum product storage and distribution, mineral crushing and processing, stockyards, slaughterhouse, pulp and paper manufacturing, and other sort of negative externality uses. A conditional use to review demands a compatibility evaluation and a mitigation of any adverse impacts with respect to odor, dust, fumes, glare, flashing lights, or noise perceptible from nearby property lines. All of these uses would demand large facility square footage, which seems unlikely given the 7,500 square foot footprint requirement. When you look at this property, we've got in our EC a picture that shows how much of this property is actually developable when you take away the 100 foot setback from the highway and the setback from the canal. This property gets to about 13 acres of developable area, not taking into account the rock spine that also would have to be addressed. This property is probably not big enough to do any of these heavy manufacturing, accommodate any of these heavy manufacturing types of uses. There is already a stockyard in Redmond in close proximity to this property and this coupled with a lack of suitable soils for animal husbandry makes it highly unlikely that this property could be put to any animal processing use. So for that reason, it is our position. You may recall in our 2024 EC, we had identified a couple of these uses, the stockyard slaughterhouse uses as being ones that were so offensive that they should be prohibited. having looked at this more closely we have revised our position just because we don't believe that these uses are not not just likely they're just not possible given the uh the limitations of this of this property being able to contain animal byproducts out of the Pilot Butte Canal would be well near impossible. So we have left these uses as we have concluded that these uses could be allowed theoretically, but acknowledging the conditional use review requirements and the mitigation requirements would make it unlikely that this use would ever occur. So those are the categories. In balancing these easy factors, it's important to point out that we are not, as part of this review, revisiting the objectives that the county identified in 1992. We're not deciding that we need a higher level of scenic protection. We're not deciding that the setback should be 400 feet or vice versa, 50 feet. We are sticking with the view of preservation, the significance determination that the county identified in 1992 and deciding whether development on this property would impact that. And so given that, given that that is the objective, will these new uses deter visitors? The conclusion that the EEC comes to is that development consistent with the LM corridor standards, 100 foot setback, retention of existing landscaping, natural colors will be sufficient to protect the existing scenic qualities. As for other impacts such as utility demand, traffic and uses related impacts, the existing conditional use review will be sufficient to minimize any other consequences. It may interest the board to know that the code requires conditional use review for any use, any use, the permitted uses and the conditional uses where they are within 600 feet of a house. This property is within 600 feet of two houses. So as a matter of fact, A conditional use permit will be required for any development to occur on this property. For these reasons, I respectfully request that the county reaffirm its approval of this application, including adopting the 2026 EC conclusions that by limiting the rural industrial uses for the existing landscape management overlay zone, the highway attractiveness will remain. I'm happy to answer any questions with the five or so minutes I have left.

Thanks very much. This is Commissioner DeBone here. So you mentioned conditional use, heavy industrial with external impacts. And then I was going to ask, I think everything would be a conditional review because of the setbacks, muted tones, and screening requirements. So I think you got to that, but that was going to be my first question.

So there's two things. There's the conditional use permit that is required because of the proximity of residences to this property. And that requires an evaluation of any adverse externalities. And then on top of that, there is the landscape management overlay design standard review, which will look at requiring planting and locating the buildings so that they don't impact the highway.

So we agree any development will have that review level. Agreed. And then are you proposing an EC is included with the decision because I think that was the sticking point because EC was provided to us. We made a decision that says an individual EC for this application may not be appropriate because we support the EC that was put in in 1992. Are you proposing that an EC is included in this decision?

I am proposing that as part of the ordinance, you would adopt this EZ, but it would be specific to this property. It wouldn't replace the 1992 EZ because it covers all 537 miles. Okay, yeah.

So that would be substantially different by including it. And then also existing houses that are on the property, is there any residential opportunity there still? I hadn't really thought about that before. Yeah.

I don't think those structures are habitable for housing. I think they've been taken over by goats and critters and all things, but I'm not sure.

Just for everybody. I mean, so rural industrial does not allow residential, I guess. I'm asking that question. Is that possible?

It allows a night watch person, but it doesn't allow like you're talking about.

Yep. Thank you.

Commissioner Adair, questions?

Yes, I do have questions. Commissioner Adair here. Exhibit 8, I'm looking at exhibit 8 in our binder. And the property actually, I believe, is included in this exhibit, the 20.36 acres, unless there's another property with exactly the same amount of acreage. And on that, you said that three of the properties were zoned R.I. after landscape management took effect, which was in 1992. And yet I show that there actually were four properties that were approved afterwards. If you include this property in 2014, which says it's Deschutes RV Storage and So if you include that one with the Pumice, excuse me, with Jack Robinson's, and then there's a SETI and the LBNW. So there's actually four properties approved after 1992, but the one property I don't believe should be included in this example. So I don't know. I just was trying to cross-reference your attachment to what's real. And you said there's eight properties, but it looks like yours is included in that eight.

It shouldn't be.

I know. That's what I was thinking. So there's seven properties, and three of them look like they were applicable before we did the LM zone, and then the four were after.

Okay. Okay.

if the one property in 2014 actually was approved per your attachment?

You are correct.

OK, so there's, yes. So just a little clarification there.

Thank you.

I do have a couple of questions. A few weeks ago, I was driving by the property. I believe I was driving by the property in question and noticed the pasture being irrigated. In my mind, that is probably the... most significant part of the scenic value being provided by this property at this point. So one of the things I'm curious about is what is going to happen to that first 100 feet from the, you know, from the highway if this rezone is approved. So, I mean, much of what I saw, I believe, was within 100 feet of the highway. So, you know, not the primary target area for rural industrial development in the first place, but do you know if the intention of the property owner is to continue farming that, retain their water rights, or to do something else?

Thank you, Chair Chang. You know, I don't know the answer to that question. I don't know. I don't know that those water rights are being used to water that pasture. That really would be a question for Ms. Cleaver, who's much more familiar with the property than I am. I know that that setback area cannot be built in. And so my expectation is that it would be planted with something. Whether or not it is pasture or lawn or trees, it is likely to be planted probably as buffer in summers.

Yeah, I mean, you know, thinking back to 1992 when the scenic requirements were, you know, the scenic overlay was created. At this point, when you drive down Highway 97... there are many portions of that scenic corridor where you're basically driving through two walls of juniper. And those two walls of juniper you know, 35 or so years ago were actually not nearly as substantial as they are now. You know, to me, you know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but to me, driving between two walls of juniper is not, you know, especially scenically inspiring. So... Your arguments about the screening of the property, the trees that are currently present, I don't. I think it would greatly diminish the scenic value of that corridor if those agricultural fields were replaced with a wall of juniper, which is certainly an allowable outcome or an allowable use. of those lands under current zoning if you took the water rights away or under this rural industrial rezone. So I'm just trying to grapple with the real changes to scenic value that would be associated with this rezone application. I have a couple of other questions. The cap on buildings within this rural industrial zone of 7,500 square feet, you are not limited to just one building of 7,500 square feet. Is that correct?

That is correct. There are three properties, so there theoretically could be three buildings.

Okay. Yeah, because I followed your argument about some of the heaviest industrial uses not being something you could fit inside a one 7,500 square foot building, but there are a number of those uses that I think actually might be possible to fit inside three 7,500 square foot buildings in close proximity to each other. And I follow your argument about the screening, even though the east side of the property is higher in elevation than the west side of the property. But that is a significant amount of square footage of buildings. So just trying to kind of think about what the visual impact of that would be as well. Another question is, so we talked about the 100-foot setback. What is the total width of the property? So how much of the total width of the property is 100 feet?

There is a map. The best answer I can give you is there is a map at my Exhibit 2 page.

Right in here has got on the map with what you're talking about, the debt.

Exhibit 2, which page?

Page 15 in Exhibit 2.

You know, I think if you look at that, that shows the 100-foot setback in an illustration.

Okay. Yeah, so maybe a sixth of the total width of the property, fifth or sixth, a fifth or sixth.

Maybe, yeah.

That's helpful. Thank you.

Well, she said it's going down to 13.62 usable acres, and it's over 20 acres to begin with. So it's pretty significant when you get the setbacks.

Well, the property is the longest, you know, in right next to the highway. So that exclusive significant amount of area. Yeah, I was just getting trying to get a sense of, you know, beyond this 100 foot setback, how far would you be? How far could development extend? Yeah. And I wanted you mentioned because of the presence of houses, the conditional use permit will be required for any industrial use proposed. What What kind of predictions or forecasts of the permanence of that housing can you provide us? Because what I'm seeing in that Deschutes Junction area is basically one rural industrial rezone after another. And I suspect that each one is inspiring others to pile on. So if this property is rezoned, then what is to keep the immediately adjacent properties from being rezoned? which is to keep the next properties from being rezoned to rural industrial. And when you start to have a mass of rural industrial land like that, then putting all those pieces of property, rural industrial zone property together, you can start to imagine some substantially larger rural industrial uses. So it's kind of... I'm trying to predict out what the cumulative impacts of this rezone application might be in that area.

Miss Cleaver could give you the entire history of these two houses, but when I talked to her about them yesterday, what she told me was there are two houses. One is the Fagans, which is on the other side of the railroad tracks. That's a two-story house. And then the other one is on the other side of 97, is part of a very newly, recently planted apple orchard. I think that Taking a realistic look at these houses, they have been lived in. These houses have been lived in for a long time and the uses surrounding them indicate they will continue to be. Place in residential use, but I completely hear what you're saying church and that's why we looked at the easy consequences of every single 1 of these uses. even the permitted uses as though they are permitted uses. We looked at a veterinary clinic in terms of its impacts and not as though it was a conditional use because I appreciate what you're saying. And so we did it both ways. And so we've got two things to achieve here. First, we've got to deal with the nuisance impacts, which the conditional use permit is intended to deal with. And then the aesthetic impacts. And it's the aesthetic impacts that really are the focus here. Can these... one or two or three 7,500 square foot buildings be constructed in a way that is appropriately buffered and subordinate in order to protect the visual quality of this area consistent with the idea of attracting visitors and recreationalists. And I think that the answer is yes, regardless of the existence of these two residences.

OK. If the Vagan house is the house I'm thinking of, this is a house that was painted hot pink a couple of years back with the intent to make it into an adult entertainment venue. So I'm not persuaded that that is a permanent residence. I don't have any further questions for you, Ms. Fisher. Ms. Cleaver, would you like to talk at all about the future agricultural use of the property, the water rights, or any of the residences in the area? And you don't have to, but just wanted to give you that.

Pat Cleaver, 60465 Sunridge Drive in Bend, 02. I wasn't expecting to talk, but I'm glad to be able to talk to you and to answer some questions. On the question you asked, Commissioner Chang, on the size of the property, I think I've got these memorized here. It's an interesting property when you look at, oh, it's 20 acres. That's a reasonable sized property. But it's not really that. It is on drawing, and it's on the assessor's data. But it's only got 13 acres that's developable. part of it is because it's underwater it's got the pilot butte canal which is built in 1904 before this property was was really even purchased the first time by by white people and that canal goes entirely along the east side and the north side it starts at deschutes Pleasant Ridge Road and goes all the way to the Highway 97 at the north end, goes under 97. Well, this, you cannot see the canal except for right at the north end when you're driving on either direction because it's got a berm. Because of the slope, the 19-foot drop, and the slope from the top eastern part and the southern part, which is actually four feet below the road, at that point you can you can't see the canal because it's behind the berm which of course is higher than the water so as far as actual dimensions um as um carrie richter said earlier it's 2200 feet from north to south at the longest part which is at the 97 but it's only 10 feet width at the northern end. I mean, this really goes down. So there's over two and a half acres that's under the canal. So right away you subtract that from the acreage. You have a 50-foot easement that allowed COID to get in, maintain, and take care of the canal. And you can't do anything with that. And then you've got 50-foot easement at the southern end along the Chutes-Pleasant Ridge Road, which is a typical road setback. And then you would typically have that along Highway 97 as well. But here in the landscape management zone, you have an additional 50 feet, so it's actually 100 feet. And that's kind of where your questions were, Commissioner Chang. So going a little bit back into agriculture, the soil scientists, and was upheld by Luba, that the southwest corner, there's six acres in there that does have soil on it. The rest of the property does not really have soil. It has mostly rocks. you have to remember this property is part of the shield volcano that we call long butte today it's actually geologically when you look at the map of the shield volcano up to the railroad tracks on the east side which is the end of the landscape management zone that is still the shield volcano highway 87 cuts through part of it So this particular property is part of the Shield Volcano, so it's not surprising. It's not just rocks on the top, it's like rocks all the way down. So part of this topsoil flowed down to that six acres, and there is about a foot to 18 inches of soil down there. And it has not been actually, there hasn't been a crop grown there since 1991. And in fact, I think you'd have a really hard time finding an irrigation pipe there because they have a weird setup that goes back many decades where the water flows is coming under Deschutes Market Road in a little pipe, goes into about a six-inch wide by six-inch tall hand-dug ditch behind the house on the west side of the house there and goes into some little probably 10 feet by six feet little ponds that are less than a foot deep And then it goes running down the hill. It just runs down the hill. And illegally, it runs down the hill 24-7 whenever the water's flowing. That's just how it is. And that's why you see some irrigation, meaning that it got watered. There's some green stuff there. The house has had a renter in it periodically, the house that is right beside the parking area. And so we talk about the 13 developable acres. Well, actually that goes down to 11 acres when you take out the driveway, which is the only access point into this property, which is a constraint. It's on Deschutes Market Road. ODOT will not allow any access off of its facility. So you don't have to ever think about how you're going to get down the four feet and where it's lower and have a driveway there because it will never happen. There's only one place that you can get in and out of this property. And then it goes into a hundred foot parking area and Well, if you take out that land, you've got even lower acres. So it's not a really large parcel. As far as actual numbers, I know you like them. I think it's about 480 feet from west to east at the very largest part there, which would be... It's about a third of the way through the curve there. Yeah. So you've got $2,200 on one side. You've got about that. So I'm trying to think. As far as agriculture use, I don't see a lot of... agricultural use on the six six acres that's there uh it's it's something that's very hard to make you know profitable and we went through this when we did the application it's very very important to me and i hope you know this that I would never take an application or take on a client where some of our good Oregon resources are going to be lost. I just don't do it. I do quite a bit of research before I decide whether to take a case or not. And in this case, it's part of a shield volcano. I actually walked it. There's over 100 pictures in the record showing thousands of rocks above ground. There's an interesting rock wall that you can see from the highway, which I find fascinating. Kind of reminds me of Ireland. And it's where people threw rocks into that to get rid of them and to have some kind of use. Interestingly, probably it's been so many years since we've been doing this, I'm sure you've forgotten it, but The lot that there's actually three lots involved. One is super tiny, right? It's a road kind of thing right at the intersection of all the roads. So we're not really going to count that. But then you have 800, which is the main one. It's where the six acres are. And then you have the acreage to the north. Up until 1991, that belonged to the neighbor for decades, and they could never do anything with it because they couldn't access from 97. You've got the canal on the other two sides. So it was literally never developed, never made into anything. So the owners actually gave for free that parcel to the owners of lot 800. And so that's the parcel north of that wall. And so between the wall and the canal, that is that. So that has never had any irrigation. It's never been even plowed. It's just got very sparse weeds. It doesn't grow much at all. So hopefully that'll help.

Yeah, I appreciate that context. And I also appreciate your commitment to preserving agriculture in the region. We do need to think about dramatic changes in agriculture in the region based on... what are becoming chronic patterns of droughts. So first off, the canal that runs through this property that is kind of seen as an impediment to, you know, to development is currently under proposal for piping. So that will dramatically change the whole dynamic of the developability of that property. And so that's one thing I'm trying to keep in mind as we review this application. Beyond that, I will say that we are essentially seeing the loss of agricultural land with good soils in the Deschutes Basin because of junior water rights. And so if people who have really good soil are incapable of farming their land because they have very junior water rights and can't acquire anything else beyond that, I think in this region we need to start thinking about about shallow soil areas not as a place to write off, but as a place to build new agricultural lands. Because if you can't bring the water to the good soil, then you might have to bring good soil to where the water is. And there are... I mean, this site sounds exceptionally challenging, but there are a lot of areas of... Deschutes County where that people have written off because of shallow soils where amendment of the soil could dramatically improve fertility, water retention, and other factors. And again, If it's easier to bring good soil to areas with water rights than it is to bring water to areas with good soil in the basin, then that is going to have to be part of our long-term planning for the region if we want agriculture to persist here. The amount of acres that we're talking about for this property is not huge. This is not necessarily the property to fall on my sword about in terms of this issue. Basically, in our land use planning, I think we really need to start considering the presence of senior water rights, abundant senior water rights, as an extremely important factor in agricultural viability of a property in the future. Thanks for the discussion about that.

Just one clarity point. So Commissioner Chang you started off with pasture being irrigated. Is that what's happening? I mean because you were talking about the canal system and the small pools that capture the water. So it sounds like there was just some incidental greening but not farming.

I was quite perplexed with that discussion also. I'm like, what? Because I can get my own feed up in Redmond at the feed store opposite Safeway up there. So I go up there every week or so. And I don't remember any farming ever going on. As far as I know, I think I know, there's no tenant for farming. There has been nothing happen like that. I mean, I...

You know, I could be mistaken, but I mean, you know, I drive through that Deschutes Market intersection on a fairly regular basis. you know, kind of try and note what's happening, you know, on all four corners of the intersection, because, you know, again, it's this hotbed for rural industrial rezone applications. And, you know, I was under the impression that what I was seeing on the you know, northeast quadrant of that intersection was, you know, a sprinkler application of water on land. It may be that it was the next property.

There's a boat for sale right there. So if we're in the right place, it would probably be that irrigation water, the small amount of irrigation water that's flowing down that hill for decades. We'll take a look at that and maybe get that stopped. Yeah.

Well, as I say, I've got to annex just to acknowledge what I'm looking at here. So I think it's maybe way north of what we're talking about for irrigated. Because we're talking about below this irrigation here is the...

We do have a letter in the record from a Jack Holt neighbor who said that it's basically a piece of dry ground. In the 49 years I have observed it as a close neighbor.

That's a quote from Jack. So what is being done with the water rights for the property at this point?

Is your question about the irrigation? I'm sorry, Commissioner Adair, is your question?

No, my question, according to Jack's letter, it hasn't been arrogated. He's next door.

Yeah, I think so. Commissioner Chang understands this application has been going on for several years, as you know. And the Land Use Board of Appeals and then Appeals Court above that actually both affirm that this is not agricultural land. Agricultural land is a complicated thing because you can't just do any kind of agricultural activity on every parcel of land. You have to look at the location. In this case, you have... A big state and actually some federal money too on 97-4 lanes with on and off ramps right there. You've got almost 50,000 ADT on many days now. It's very, very busy. And we've had testimony in the application what that does to all livestock, all of that noise and the vibrations of that. Anyway, going back in time on that. And then you have to look at all of the effects of Of agriculture, of course, there's things that people have to sign that they can't remonstrate because of being next to agricultural land, but it kind of goes both ways. In this case, you have over a thousand residential uses on the west side of the highway that goes all the way to the top of the butte there. You've got all this land that goes back to 1942 was when Cascade Pumice, I don't know if all of you were here before it left, but when Cascade Pumice was there, it was loading and unloading onto the railroad tracks there. And it was very visible from the highway side. And that activity was on both sides of the highway with all the buildings that are still there on Fagan's property on Tumalo Place. Those were part of Cascade Pumice. But that was there very, very early. And then you, of course, have all of the activities that are in Carrie Richter's letter. She lists a lot of the activities that were there early, all of these things were happening on both sides of the road as early as 1937 was the first time we started seeing that road built there. And that's when all the activities started happening. so it wasn't surprising at all. Plus, we already had the community which was Plata del Centro, but it became the town of Deschutes, you know, was there. So I just, of course, love the history. Some of you guys like the history, but we were able to bring the history of that area to light in this application, so I took the opportunity But when you're talking about agriculture, is this where you want to make an effort? And it's an effort to farm. And you've got the location. You've got the size. We've had testimony about the size of the parcel and getting down that hill. How are you going to get there from all the roads?

I heard all that. Can you explain that? What is happening with the water rights for this property right now?

I'm sorry, what?

Can you explain what is happening with the water rights for this property right now?

The owner from Last Ranch, Mark Rupert, has had the irrigation rights for sale since he took over this property. And So anyone who wants to buy them, yes, can buy them. The irrigation rights are interesting because they've always had 14 acres of water, but they've never used 14 acres of water. This is an odd thing I've talked to Craig Carell about because This parcel and the parcels on the west side of the highway almost never have been used, and yet they've not lost their rights. And Mr. Harrell told me that it's by – someone has to report – the fact that somebody has not used a beneficial use in five years, which is the state law, and that they should lose their irrigation rights. Craig says that they send out 700 letters every year, We're warning people about that. So they're trying to be proactive about it. But in this case, at Deschutes National, they have not done that. No one's ever complained about it. So that's just the way it is. There's a lot of irrigation rights that are not being used right there. You can't really irrigate rock, and also water doesn't go uphill, and so there's a lot of properties that's in that boat.

I think I'm following you. So you're saying that the water rights are not being used, but they have not been reclaimed by the irrigation districts, and that the owner is trying to sell those rights. Yeah. Is this property is not receiving EFU tax deferral at this point?

I know there's something about that in the actual original application. We did check on that. I'm reluctant to say because I might be confusing it with another property. I can't tell you the answer. We can look that up and get that back to you.

OK. Thank you. I don't have any further questions right now.

Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Anything else before we move on to the appellant testimony? So appellant testimony, 10 minutes. Ms. Macbeth, are you here to provide appellant testimony?

Morning, Commissioners. Chair Chang, thank you for the opportunity to comment on behalf of Central Oregon Land Watch. I have a few comments. The first is that I'd like to clarify the role of the 1992 legislation that LUBA referred to in its remand order. That 1992 legislation is a series of ordinances Section 5.11 of your comprehensive plan explains that they are part of the comprehensive plan. So the words of those ordinances are the words of the comprehensive plan. And that gives them significance that I don't think that the applicant has taken into account, but is taken into account in our written comments, which we submitted today. To respond to some of your remarks, Chair Chang, I wanted to note that pasture and hay are the most common and highly profitable farm uses in the county that pasture supports livestock grazing, which is our most profitable use. And those occur on shallow soils. I agree with you that emendation is necessary if there's only one choice, because there is not going to be any more water. Water will not be extended outward. I wanted to point out that agricultural land is a legal term and what the court has found is that it was reasonable for this county to say that it didn't meet that legal definition. That doesn't mean it's not farmland in the common parlance. It has been used for 104 years as farmland in the common parlance if it is not legally classified as agricultural land anymore. with 15 acres of irrigation water rights. It produced pigs, goats, sheep, cows, mules, burros, and horses, and has had water rights since 1904. None of this is possible unless it's being used as farmland. If these animals weren't grazed on the property, which seems highly unlikely, the food was brought in from elsewhere. So I just want to clarify that not being agricultural land is a legal term, not being farmland or in farm use is something that historically has happened here. I would also like to follow up on your comment about the juniper. The juniper may not be scenic, especially as you say, if it forms a large wall, but it is natural. And when the county protected the scenic areas as part of their comprehensive plan, they protected the native landscape as well as scenery. So they're scenic vistas and natural landscapes, and the junipers are natural. And it's for that reason that they are part of it. It's your predecessors in interest saying, I mean, your predecessors as the board of commissioners saying, this is what we want to protect. And probably at the time, the junipers had not encroached up to the road. It may have been slightly more scenic, but it's open space and it's a natural landscape. And that is part of what's protected in this quarter mile area. And with respect to cumulative impacts, it's interesting that just yesterday afternoon I was made aware, if I'm not misunderstanding, that the Fagans, as you mentioned, as nearby neighbors, they are nearby neighbors in addition to the neighboring ranch and the apple orchard, is that they just submitted spot zoning applications for 15 different properties. The applications are 24726. 000431 and 432. So there is a snowball effect and these cumulative impacts are not even as big as they're going to be in the future. The county is the cause of these cumulative impacts. It is up to the county to allow spot zoning. It's the Board of Commissioners that makes that decision and the planning staff will follow your lead. Once the county decides not to have spot zoning, but to have a comprehensive plan that everyone in the county agrees to and then abide by it, the cumulative impacts would stop. Any impacts that occurred would be in compliance with the comprehensive plan that everyone had agreed on. So it's really a matter of policy that these start to happen as a snowball and certainly will be happening if the Fagan's applications are granted. And the county is protecting its scenic views and natural landscapes because they're so important to the economy. So as the Board of Commissioners is concerned about the economy of the county and its jobs, there's a report from Oregon Business that says that tourism in Central Oregon is a $1.3 billion industry across the three counties. employing 10,000 people. And that is why in the comprehensive plan repeatedly the board of commissioners that adopted these protections in 1992 kept saying over and over again that they wanted to protect scenery because it was good for the economy and that over time it would continue to bring tourists and people who want to move here. When one thinks about the economy of Jesus County, we aren't generating our own money. We're not making widgets and selling them. What we're doing is people bring their money from somewhere else. They make it in Nebraska and they bring it here and spend it here. So we're dependent on people who want to come here. And if it's not scenic and it doesn't have native landscapes, they're not going to want to come here. So this is the source of the economy. Tourism is the source. People also come here to retire for the same reason. They've got a high quality of life and they appreciate the beauty of the area. They come here as tourists and want to return as retirees. And even I think we could say that about remote workers, because many of them have offices that they are from San Francisco. So the money is sort of being generated by a corporation that's not here. But the money is spent here in our economy. And everything, all of these things are happening because people are attracted to the area because of its natural amenities. So that was repeatedly emphasized by the comprehensive plans adopted in 1992. This is not like when there was, perhaps some of you will remember the Harper Airport application where there was a golden eagle's nest. Golden eagle's nest appears on the property. It wasn't necessarily there in the past. That's the kind of resource that could sort of just pop up. The category is protected. Then there's a golden eagle's nest. And now someone wants to put in an airport by that nest. That's when an EC analysis is required. No EC analysis is required here. This is a fixed resource. The entire... the entire scenic road is the resource, and so it's fixed. And the EC analysis was already done, and the county already decided what its protections are going to be. They said the conflicting use is development within the one-quarter mile overlay that excessively interferes with the scenic or natural appearance of the landscape as seen from the road, or the alteration of the existing landscape by removal of vegetative cover. Because industrial zoning would do both of those things, it is a conflicting use. So Luba's first questions, it says it might be a conflicting use. The first question is answered, yes, it is a conflicting use, but it has already been examined with an EC analysis that's part of your comprehensive plan at Ordinance 92.033 and Ordinance 92.052. And then there's the zone protection. So the program to achieve Goal 5 are the protections. And the protections are both in your comprehensive plan and in your zone, not just in the zone, as the applicant has said in its comments. The resource has been specifically limited. The county classified it as 3C and said these one-quarter mile corridors are specifically limited already. And one of those specific limits is called Policy 4 of Ordinance 92.033, and I'd just like to read it for you in closing. Approval of any such development in the landscape management zone will be dependent on site screening by existing natural cover or compatibility with the landscape as seen from the river stream or road. So there's two ways that development in this corridor can happen. Either it's screened by existing natural cover, which doesn't occur here, or it's compatible with the landscape as seen from the road. Does that mean... that we have to have an attractive landscape when we're all done, like an urban landscape or a residential landscape. No, it means compatible with the protected landscape, which is either natural land or scenery. The landscape to be protected is the landscape as it was in 1992, which is native landscape or scenery. And then the use has to be compatible with that. So the type of use that might be compatible with that is like a barn or a riding ring or a goat shed, that is something that is compatible with the scenery. And we're talking about very strict limitations that the comprehensive plan has. But on the other hand, you're in charge of a 2 million acre county. And there's 1,999,000 acres that aren't affected by this at all. It's only these little few acres, hundreds of acres along the road. And the decision point is at buying. It's up to the buyer to look at your comprehensive plan, which says there's basically not going to be any development that's not consistent with the native existing vegetation or the landscape as it is. And so they shouldn't buy it. And if they do buy it, I mean, they're going to be extremely limited. Again, that's the decision point. There isn't much of a decision to make afterwards. Rural industrial land simply isn't compatible with the landscape. This particular property is not screened and therefore it can't be approved. We were participants in a case on the lower Deschutes River, which is also protected by the scenic waterway and not the scenic roadway. And in that case, there's a whole bunch of willows and the willows were sufficient to screen the property with native vegetation. So that would be the type of screening that is possible or There might be a large property, say 100 acres, and the first foreground of it is a forest, a ponderosa or some other forest. In that case, natural screening would keep anyone from seeing it, and it would be a different situation. But this property is so small, it can't be subdivided further in the if-you zone, and the foreground does not have any screening against industrial use. So those are our comments, and they're explained more in detail in our written comments. I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have. Commissioner Devone does not look like he has a question.

Well, so you don't support muted earth tones and screening in development as a conditional review?

I support it. I think that the landscape map...

So you do support it? I mean, if somebody put a building out there and it was muted earth tones, and if there was a parking lot and it had a fence with privacy on it, and it was a rural industrial zone, that's a scenario that's out in the future.

I believe the landscape management zone does provide that type of screening, that type of amelioration of the effects. However, what we're talking about here is one step before that, because the landscape management zone is applied to an underlying zone and the underlying zone right now is EFU. And the question is, can it become RI? So the question is, does changing it to RI become, is that compliant with Goal 5? And then we start talking about if it is, then we have to ameliorate the industrial uses. But that hasn't happened yet because there's not an industrial zone there. And we don't believe that it can be put there because to do so would conflict with Goal 5. But once a zone is there, like the EFU zones that are there now, the open space uses that are there for the most part are there now, The uses that are allowed in the agricultural zone are allowed and will be ameliorated. So because the zone has already been approved, the underlying zone is already there. Here the question is, will we change it to that?

You spoke about the necessity for screening before putting forward or kind of the propriety of creating screening before putting in an application like this. What would that screening look like? I mean, what kind of screening process? Should an applicant like this think about creating before they seek a reason like this?

Thank you, Chair Chang. I'd just like to specify that I'm reading from the comprehensive plan and what my examples were of lands that have existing natural vegetation already. I don't believe that people can do that. I mean, they... I guess if they plan a native forest that over time would start to qualify, yeah. But there are lands that that's already happening, and if there's already existing natural cover, then those are permitted. If there's a big stand of willows that keeps you from seeing it, then those are permitted under your plan. So yeah, if someone lives on the lower Deschutes River and wants to put in a big screen of willows, I suppose they could. That also would have to be taken through the LM zone process.

Okay, thank you. Additional questions?

Well, you've mentioned a goat shed. And the sad thing is my neighbors had goats, and they just sold them because they weren't profitable. So, I mean, yeah, they weren't. And if you've seen the sheep prices, well, prices are horrible. They're like back in the 1970s. you know, you with, because it's, you know, it's natural material and everything. But when you read about profitability, it is quite, I was really surprised. Let's see, sheep aren't one of the top 25 agricultural crops of our state. They're not in the top.

I think that's happening worldwide. I know the Cotswolds in England used to be a really big sheep

Yeah, and so we have a lot of sheep out where I live, but our neighbors that had the goats, all of a sudden they were gone one day, and we went, what happened? And they go, oh, these little critters were costing us a lot.

I think there are some profitable goat farms, like Glimp Feather Farms. It's doing pretty well. There's other ones that they're making goat milk and stuff, and it must just take a special, maybe people just have to be like goat farmer type of people and live in a really, you know, I don't know, like a goat farmer kind of existence. I don't know what that means. It might not be fit into the rest of the farming uses that your neighbor is pursuing, though.

And then on any given year, just about any crop may or may not be profitable. So, I mean, there's farming expertise, there's market conditions, and there's a whole bunch of other things that go into considerations of whether a given crop is going to be profitable.

I think that's one of the things that farmers talk about is being so challenging about farming.

Right. It is incredibly challenging and how to raise a good product and to market it. So, I mean, you saw where, yeah.

There wasn't any fleece before.

Right. But then again, you were talking about junipers. And if you see pictures from Sister Sherrodman 80 years ago, there were no junipers.

That's what people say, yeah.

Yeah. If you look at pictures, you know, not that long ago and, you know, how much water they're consuming. Right.

I think it's strange to have the ecosystem change so much visibly to one generation as we have seen.

Now, there's a whole lot of climatic and human landscape management factors that went into that. Yeah, just one other thought on the profitability of farming. I mean, if... If farming had to be profitable for people to do it, then we would have a whole lot less farms in Schutz County. I mean, just about every farming family that I know in the community has one member of the family who works in town and earns a non-agricultural income, and then they have somebody who does the farming.

And I believe the pioneers did the same thing like homesteaders. They had to have someone go into town and be a housekeeper or do whatever to get the farm started or to keep it going. I think that's a really important point that Oregon has the highest number of family farms. The types of protections that we're talking about protect family farms and keep the families on the farm. It's not about like industrial necessarily farming. We want to protect a way of life. And as you say, that may not be a profitable way of life, but it is a way of life that many people choose. I have a friend who has a very, very large property as a rancher in the central part of Oregon. And one year he made $12,000. He told me, Claire, $12,000. I mean, it's not much, but that's something that the family's been doing since the 60s. So We're not just, it's not hyperbolic to say that it may not be a very profitable industry, but it is something, it's a way of life that people choose to pursue and is extremely valuable to the state of Oregon and its economy.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay. Are there any other eligible parties who would like to provide testimony during this hearing? No. Kim, do you see any hands raised online? I don't see anyone in the room. At this point, we can proceed to the applicant's rebuttal. 10 minutes.

Thank you, Chair Chang. Commissioners, again, Carrie Richter. The primary topic of conversation during Ms. McBeth's testimony was about the value of farming. And that is an interesting topic, but not germane to what the question that is asked in this case. It's much more narrow. The question is whether or not rural industrial uses on this property will have the effect of detouring visitors. And this idea of tourism and tourism being good for the economy, I don't disagree with Ms. Macbeth about that being the central drive of what designated the landscape management overlay in 1992. I fully agree. What I think that this comes down to though is will development on this particular property when viewed in the quarter mile area, when people are driving down the highway, will that deter tourists? Will it make them not want to go do all of the amazing recreational and scenic opportunities that Deschutes County provides? And I think the answer is no. And you could say, and I think Ms. Macbeth would say, well, this is a slippery slope. We are seeing this cumulative effect of change. And theoretically, there's a point where the balance will tip and people won't want to drive down US 97 because it is not aesthetically pleasing. And I think I agree with Ms. Macbeth, too, that there probably is that point. Probably that point probably exists, but that we are not there. And the county does not have to solve, does not have to identify where there is. We don't have to know when that point will be. We know that that point could happen and it might be a reason to revisit this question on a policy level to identify where that point is. What I can tell you is that in 1992, that balance was struck and that this particular development on this particular 20 acres will not alter that balance. What I can also tell you is that the most recently adopted comprehensive plan from 2024 does talk about industrial development at Deschutes Junction. Policy 9.1.9 says explore the need for master planning for rural economic development lands, including Deschutes Junction. So the thing to do would be a master plan for this area to make some comprehensive decisions about what the county would like to see. That would be the approach to address Ms. McBath's concerns. We know about this particular property is that it is not suitable for farm use. That is what was determined. And keeping it in its EFU zone will not result in it being developed for a farm. It hasn't for years. And the comprehensive plan also calls for properties for which the owner has demonstrated that goals to be informed do not apply, may be considered for rural industrial designation as allowed by state statute administrative rules and comprehensive plans. That's policy 9.3.15. I want to talk quickly about policy four from the 1992 ordinance that Ms. Macbeth talked about about development will be a lot dependent on on-site screening by existing natural cover or compatibility of the landscape as seen from the river stream or road. I don't believe this policy applies. There are ORS 227416 sub 8A says that only standards and criteria that are applicable to an application apply. And this policy was replaced in the comprehensive plan by the 2011 comprehensive plan, which is the one we dealt with in the application. So I don't believe this policy applies. But if it does apply, what we've provided in the record is evidence that there is an established buffer of juniper trees. And what this policy also doesn't say is what exactly the level of buffering you need. I think Chair Chang asked the question, what level of visual subordination do you need? And that is not dictated by this standard. The standard says you have to achieve compatibility. Well, that will be a determination if the standard applies at the time that development occurs. And it will come before a hearings officer and that determination will be made and The fact that these existing trees are providing some level of screening such that they are providing some buffer indicates that it is possible to do similar types of things for new developments. And I hope that the board will keep that in mind if it should conclude that policy four would be applicable to any future development. The 1992 EC is what the county saw at the time. What we are asking the county to do is add this EC for this particular property as part of this ordinance, and so it will become an amendment, as I think Commissioner DeBone and I talked about early on. With that, I hope you will affirm this application. I understand that Ms. McBeth did provide some written materials. I have not seen them and I would like to have an opportunity to review them. So if it would be, if the board would be amenable, I would like an opportunity for an open record period of seven, seven, seven, or whatever works with your meeting schedule to allow me an opportunity to provide some written testimony in response. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Staff, do you have any closing comments?

I just want to add that staff is supportive of a 777 open record period as well. There were some probably some what I'll call factual corrections that will need to be made to the EC. There's some figures that don't identify the subject property but are referenced or a figure I should say that references a different property. So just some little corrections like that. So staff would like an open record period so those corrections can be made by the applicant.

Okay. Those are the staff closing comments. And now we can decide whether we want to continue the hearing to a date and time certain, close the oral portion of the hearing, and leave the written record open to a date and time certain, close the hearing and schedule deliberations for a date and time to be determined, or close the hearing and commence deliberations now.

I support a written record open in the seven and seven and seven.

And I do too. That makes perfect sense. Thank you.

Okay. Is that, I'm fine with that as well. Does that, does that work for staff direction?

Yeah. So I'm just, I was working on a tentative schedule. I just want to go on the record as noted in the board's memo, the counties are planning divisions perspective is the 120 day clock doesn't apply to this remand because it involves a comprehensive plan amendment. But the applicant hasn't gone on the record saying they agree. So we are still processing this to try to meet that 120-day clock. So what that might mean for the applicant, depending on the board's availability, they may have less time, assuming they do get their application affirmed. to work on their decision. So we don't need to get into the details of that now, but just when we get to scheduling deliberations with agenda deadlines and meeting again, and then to leave time for first and second reading of the ordinance, time gets really short on the end. So I can coordinate with Brenda on that, but just acknowledging that this will be on a tight timeline moving forward, but the 777 will work. Just we'll have to be very efficient in each of the tasks.

Okay. And I know that there was some discussion about August 12th as a potential date for deliberations. You know, I just, you know, clarify for my fellow commissioners that that was a date that I had specified earlier that I will be, I will need to be in Klamath Falls for the Oregon Transportation Commission. So, yeah. That day I could conceivably join virtually for a short meeting, ideally with minor items, but I would prefer that we do not schedule deliberations for this item on August 12th.

Were we going that far out? Because 7 is the 15th, the 22nd, and the 29th. And the 29th is the first day of the fair, but then the grand opening ceremony isn't until at 6 o'clock that night.

So I have to have time to develop a deliberation matrix, review all the materials so that the board has a condensed version of everything to review and support deliberation. So that's why it was timed that way. Pushing it to the next week after the 12th would, again, this assumes the applicants, the prevailing party, that would give them one week to get their draft decision back to county staff for review before it's presented to the board for final approval. If it was on the 12th, they would afford the applicant two weeks to work on their draft decision.

But they could also agree that the 128 o'clock doesn't apply and that constraint would be relieved. And can they do that after an August 19th meeting or do they need to make that determination sooner than that?

We could have that discussion now with parties in the room.

I would be ideal, but they may not be prepared. But I think at a minimum, it'd probably be at the close of the record. And so applicants finally argument would probably be the last otherwise the record would have to be reopened to accept additional argumentation on on that issue, probably. So also have Stephanie come up and maybe provide her legal opinion as well.

I concur with how you've presented the open record period and if there's new evidence that the record would have to be reopened. And again, without that confirmation that the 120-day clock does not apply, we're going to have to keep our eye on that date.

And do you also concur that the applicant could give us their decision on that at the close of the court?

Yes, absolutely.

Okay. So, applicant, I hope that's noted.

I hear what you're saying.

It's a proposed decision.

Sorry, did you want to say something, Ms. Fisher? No.

Excuse me. I just wanted to confirm I understand the schedule, if I could read it back to you just to make sure I understand. So all parties will have until July 15th at 5 p.m. to submit anything else they want to submit, evidence or testimony or argument. Then it's 5 o'clock, correct, Ms. House?

We actually all have a slide, but yes, the tentatively it would be 4 p.m. So for new evidence specific to the board order record, of course, new evidence and testimony could be submitted up until 4 p.m. on July 15th, assuming we move forward with 777. Rebuttal evidence would be Wednesday, July 22nd at 4 p.m. And the applicant final argument deadline would be July 29th at 4 p.m.

Okay. And then the board is proposing reconvening for a tentative decision on the 19th of August and returning for where there will be a tentative decision and the prevailing party will be asked to draft findings. And then those findings will be prepared and presented to the board for a decision on the 22nd. Or 26th, excuse me, Wednesday, the 26th of August. Is that right?

So the deliberations tentatively, at least what we've discussed today, would be pushed to August 19th. And then staff would have scheduled on a September 2nd first reading of the ordinance, including the board's decision at that point. And if changes need to be made, we would have to keep pushing things out.

And the but you would need the findings from the prevailing party by the 26th of August. Correct. In order to meet the September 2nd day.

I'm sorry, I'm going to shift gears. I don't think I have the right schedule pulled up. So give me just a second.

And while you're looking for that, Miss Macbeth had some input as well.

Hi, this is Carol McBeth again. I just wanted to comment briefly that the conversation is being conducted as though the prevailing party is already known. I would appreciate being asked to come up and ask whether Land Watch's counsel also is available to draft comments in case we prevail. I think it sort of would indicate a prejudgment bias if the discussion were conducted as though that was the only alternative. Thank you. And I have no objection to what you guys have all just said.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, so just backing up again. So I have that. Assuming deliberations are pushed to the 26th, I would have to have that agenda. That's going to make it really tight because I have a week to get the agenda submittal to the board. We have to review the draft decision. So it would be very tight to make it on deliberations to occur on the 26th.

We can't do them on the 19th?

Is that a Monday?

No, it's a Wednesday.

I'm sorry, I thought we were talking about a tentative decision on the 19. And a board review of findings on the 27th on the 2nd of September. I understand that the prevailing party, whether that's the applicant or the opponents. would need to have draft findings to the county before that second date. And the question is what date would you need those findings?

So the county needs at least a week to review whatever you provide, and we have to submit all materials to the board a week prior to whatever meeting we're scheduling for that to actually be held. So we end up pushing everything forward a week, and essentially we would have no more wiggle room in the schedule if we push the board deliberations to the 19th.

And there's always the chance that deliberations will extend beyond the date that they are originally scheduled for.

So that's why originally the 12th was the preferred date because it will be tight pushing it out further.

When is the 120 day deadline?

September 29th, 2026. Assuming that applies.

Okay. So is that enough clarity for all parties to think about that timeline and preferences and decisions?

So do we go back to the 12th then?

Like I said, I'm going to be in Klamath Falls on the 12th, and I notified you all about that a long time ago. So I don't see that as an acceptable date for this deliberation.

So the 19th works incredibly tightly for you.

yeah so essentially the 120th day will fall on the date that second reading will have to occur so it would have to be this item would have to be in assuming again the applicant prevails it would have to be at the beginning of your agenda you'd have to sign the ordinance at the meeting and we would mail it the same morning um our mailing cut off is generally 10 a.m we can push it back a little bit but um you know if anyone was sick or some unexpected emergency came up we would miss that line um if we didn't have enough commissioners present for first and second reading

Okay, well.

I have, well, she said in the 2nd of September, but then wouldn't that.

So I'm just going to plug in my calculator because there's too many dates moving around. Okay, so we're going to do deliberations on the 19th. So I would need the draft decision from the applicant within one week from the 19th. So that's the 26th. Which is the 26th. And then my agenda deadline would be the second for first reading to occur on the 9th. And then second reading would be on the 23rd. So I guess it gives us one week of wiggle room, assuming my calculator is all populating things correctly. So it will work if everything goes as planned.

And I can do this on Zoom, right, if I'm not here on the 9th? Yeah. Okay.

And both applicant and appellant are tracking those timelines and are comfortable with however it shakes out for the prevailing party.

Okay, Stephanie and Carolyn, you both shook your hand. Yes, it's okay, right? Zoom? Okay, thank you. You wrote it down in pen. Thank you, guys. For the ninth. Yeah, just in case. First reading, yes. Okay.

Well, thank you very much, and we'll see you back shortly on this.

And I could just plug a few open record points just for all the parties in case there were any questions. So all submittals should be directed to me. They will be added to the record for the board's consideration. Any electronic submittals should be emailed to caroline.house at deschutes.org. Everything must be received by 4 p.m. on the deadlines established. It will be posted on the website as well. And don't wait until the last minute. I've had lots of applicants recently, or not lots, but several applicants wait until recently, and it was very stressful trying to make sure all their submittals were received by that deadline. because of the kind of server difference. And then make sure you actually put the information to the record. So no cloud storage links or websites. Make sure you put the actual article on the website that you want in the record.

Thank you.

Thank you, Caroline.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you.

Hearing closed. Item number eight. Sticking with the theme of staff capacity to get lots of things done within limited time frames at the community development department, we have a potential addition to the community development department work plan, duplex definition text amendment. Okay. Will, thanks for joining us.

Good morning, Chair, Commissioners. Again, Will Groves, your Planning Manager. This item before you today is a work session on whether to initiate a board-directed text amendment to the definition of duplex. Immediate issue comes from a Terrebonne property owner who had planned a duplex under the former interpretation of attached, where units could be connected by a breezeway. to what would be otherwise individual residential units connected by a breezeway were viewed as a duplex under the former code and following recent clear and objective code updates that configuration no longer qualifies as a duplex under the current code a duplex is defined as two attached dwelling units on an individual lots or parcel and attached for dwelling unit now requires a shared wall ceiling or floor enclosing an interior space of at least of the one of the units And so the breezeway no longer qualify. The Terrebonne context. So duplexes are allowed in Terrebonne in the Terrebonne residential and Terrebonne residential five acre minimum zone. And so there's a question of the definition. There's also other zones that allow duplexes. So rural service center, mixed use districts, Tumalo residential. Deschutes Junction, Deschutes River Woods zones, Sun River RM. And that matters because this is a countywide issue. It affects more than just Terrebonne if we make this definition change. The inspiration for this in some ways is House Bill 2138. And this House Bill 2138 does not affect rural Deschutes County or Terrebonne. But it was a statewide effort to change the definition of duplex to include moving from two attached structures to attached or detached dwellings in any configuration on a parcel. So an effort by the state to try and open up new housing opportunities. And by changing that definitional effect at the statewide level, areas within urban growth boundaries that allow duplexes now allow duplexes. or as of January 1st, would allow two detached structures to be on a single parcel to be viewed as a duplex for local code purposes. Again, this doesn't affect TerraBond directly, but it was inspiration of thinking about how that change in definition opens up new housing configuration opportunities. There was a question if we could stuff this into housekeeping or kind of our existing clear and objective project that we completed today. And in coordination with legal, we concluded it was not that this is a policy choice. And there's some code approaches to this. There could be a countywide definitional approach, which affects all the zones that I've mentioned, or a Terrebonne-specific approach. At minimum, you would be looking at the definition of duplex, single unit dwelling, the relationship to the definition of attached, multi-unit dwelling definitions, and some of the tables and development standards that pertain to duplexes. Of course, you know, this happens at a time where staff resources are constrained. The board adopted the work plan for fiscal year 26-27 on June 15th. The work plan already recognizes that project demand exceeds available resources. As we've talked about, we have some major work underway with wildfire and natural hazards, the Terrebonne Community Plan update, 2040 comp plan remand hearings, Sisters UGB coordination, farm stores, and Goal 5 cultural area amendments. As also I've communicated to you by email, there's a minimum of 12 hearings by the end of the year and we have some staff out on FMLA leave. So a board initiate amendment would require reprioritizing already programmed work to take advantage of this. Alternatives to the board going in this direction, certainly an applicant-initiated text amendment is an opportunity. Those are $14,000, and historically we've moved those relatively to the front of the line in concurrence with board direction. Again, this still requires the full effort that a legislative matter requires, so going through the planning commission onto the board, the notice. And these legislative reviews take about six months to complete.

Six to eight, Will.

Six to eight, yes.

That's what your memo said.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Under promise, over deliver?

Well, yes, when people call up and it says it takes four days for them to get a call back, that's… Yeah.

So the… Yes, thank you. So one of the… I guess we're in a space where saying yes to this means saying no to something else. Right now, you know, if this was the board said, yes, this is a priority, we want to see it move. We are out of capacity and long range, and we would likely be looking to our current planning division for resources. The effect of tapping them for that is that current applications, so people are trying to build things currently, would see some degradation in turnaround times. You know, this is This is not the straw that breaks the camel's back, but it's a straw on a camel that's loaded pretty heavily. So just acknowledging it's a policy choice. It's not a required compliance item. You know, another alternative is that the board could direct this to, you know, the 27-28 work plan and prioritize it as part of that schedule. Staff is open to all of these opportunities. We serve at the pleasure of the board and are happy to implement your priorities.

So have we actually started the Terrebonne Community Plan?

Yes. So the Terrebonne community plan is in public engagement. We've had our first public engagement meeting, which went unusually well, very pleased with the turnout and the community engagement. We'll be going back to them in early August, early mid-August for a second meeting to confirm that we've understood what their priorities are and moving through that engagement process in the late fall and early next year towards legislative amendment proposals for changes to the Terrebonne community plan, ultimately zoning changes. And you'll recall the impetus for that and the priority for that is the possibility that seems very likely that Terrebonne will be receiving sewer at some point and the existing zoning code really isn't built to think about that in a comprehensive way. Although it does allow units, multifamily dwelling units and things like that, Terrebonne's always been constrained by septic limitations. And so that project is trying to get ahead of a real significant change in development opportunity in the community and making sure that the development that comes is aligned with the community values.

Will, I was quite surprised by the number of plan amendment zone change applications that are in progress and kind of just filed. Can you give us a sense of what an average load of those types of applications has been in the last few years?

I would need to look back, but this is definitely a significant surge. You know, of course, we've just entered in a new fiscal year, and that tends to incentivize people to submit applications. I think there's also that, you know, when people submit plan amendment zone changes that they're hoping to complete those under kind of under a consistent board, it can be difficult to work through a plan amendment zone change through changes in a board schedule. board uh representatives and so you know this six to eight month window is where we're in if somebody's hoping to uh process this under that under that so this is a very significant load and i think it's the most that we've ever had simultaneously going and significantly more than our long-term average one of the things i'm wondering is if people were entering into this process with eyes wide open whether some of them might uh um

might reconsider whether they want to pursue this right now. Uh, you know, and by eyes wide open, what I mean is, um, a, uh, you know, I, it's not clear to me that all of these applications are going to be heard by this, this board of commissioners on the front end, uh, and B, um, Even if it is heard by this board of Commissioners on the front end, if then, as it seems like the vast majority of plan amendments own change applications experience if those go to appeal. go to LUBA and then come back to us, I think it's very unlikely that those applications will be heard by this board. And I am wondering whether people, if they understood that, that that was kind of the likely, what the pathway looks like for their application that they're submitting right now, whether they would still be interested in pursuing it and If they're not, whether it's too late to refund people their application fees and just scratch it off the list. So, you know, that would be one thing I would ask is whether kind of giving people a real clear sense of what the pathway ahead looks like might actually affect the load that the community development department is experiencing right now.

Commissioner, that could be received as a threat by a sitting commissioner saying that it's not going to go your way. I mean, that's private property rights. That's people applying to an existing code. It's the legislative history. It's the previous applications. and appeal process and approvals that have happened. I'm just acknowledging that's pretty bold for you to say what you just said. That's all I'm saying.

The reason we're seeing a flood of these applications. We know it's all political. In the last few months is because people have been assured that if they get it in on time, it will go their way. So giving them a realistic understanding of what the pathway ahead is.

I'm just acknowledging that was pretty bold for you to say that. And it's very political. That's all I'm acknowledging.

Yeah. And and the politics of these rezone applications have not defined every election for the past 10 years. Are you going to tell me that? So I'm not making this political. This is political. But what I want people to understand, I want people to have a realistic understanding of what is going to happen to their application if they submit it now. not a distorted perspective based on past political expectations. Let's just be real clear about that.

Will, is there any way, because it is a Tarabon person that brought this unintended consequence to us, is there any way that we could fit it in with that? When does Nicole come back to work? I know, I know. I'm so happy she has a baby. That's fabulous. But, you know, because... It just seems like it's something that we in the county, we need more housing. It's always been way up there top on our agenda. And if there was any way we could mold it into the Terrebonne work. So you're saying they're going to do something in August. But, you know, I would really appreciate if we could fit it in somewhere.

Yes, certainly. If you wanted to sidecar this to the Terrebonne project, it would be a logical extension of that. But we're anticipating that that code would be in effect in January 1st, 2028, because we have to get through the public engagement process, the legislative process. So this is for the gentleman in Terrebonne and the handful of people who experience this, who try to do this type of development every year, they would be a ways out.

They'd be waiting until 20. That would, if you put it in there. Okay. So what about farm stores? Are they going to be done fast? I mean, we've got the legislation, right?

Farm stores are interesting because they are in effect in the new year, regardless of what we do.

In the new year, you're talking calendar or fiscal?

Sorry, new year, January 1st, 2027, farm stores are in effect. As we talked about during the work plan, the state provided a provision that said counties can put sideboards on those farm stores with regard to health and safety items, parking, neighborhood compatibility. There's some real limitations on what the counties can put on there. But there were no defaults put on there. And at least from community development, there were concerns that, you know, some basic sideboards about how the bathrooms work might be things like that might be reasonable consideration. So that the reason why that's a prioritized project is that without board action, the farm stores open up without additional sideboards on January 1st, 2027. And that may be an appropriate outcome, but it was identified as something for a conversation and a legislative investigation. through a process to see what sideboards, if any, were appropriate. Commissioner Chang, very briefly to your point, all applicants for these PAZCs are represented by attorneys. Those attorneys are aware of the universe in which they live and have asked savvy questions about that. And what community development has been, you know, since the beginning of the year has been honest about is that, you know, that when, you know, this storm of application comes in, you know, with the staff we have, We're going to make our best faith effort to keep everything moving in an orderly way. And at the same time, these applications are not subject to 150-day clocks. So to the extent that, for example, we ran up against other things with 150-day clocks, we'd be working to try to prioritize these things to maximize county compliance with state and local regulation. And certainly coming back to you with ongoing reporting, the extent there were any difficulties in that space.

So these – well, let's stay focused on the duplex definition because I could go down that path a little bit. Duplex definition was changed in the first package of the clear and objective code package, correct?

Specifically what happened is that duplex – a duplex had to be an attached unit, and it was – attached wasn't defined clearly.

And so we went – It was in that first package.

Exactly.

So it happened right away. And then this property owner said, hey, I heard a breezeway is the way to go. And then the answer is, oh, no, no, we defined it better, more narrow. And a shared wall is the only way you can do it now.

Yeah, he had been going through a multi-year process of trying to figure out which sort of structure he could build, given his HOA financing, other concerns. And so he asked the question, would a breezeway work? Or actually, I think we told him a breezeway would work prior to this package going through. And this has been a multi-year process.

So as I say, the whole package, the idea was not to have unintended consequences knowing that something might have come. Do we need to stick to this definition or could this definition change?

This definition could definitely.

The state law doesn't require us to do this.

So what we were trying to provide is clarity, and clarity, you know, it's a two-edged sword. You know, it makes it very clear what's allowed and what's not allowed, but it removes local jurisdiction's interpretive ability to think, oh, you know, the definition doesn't specifically prohibit or allow this. Is this thing plausible? Is it sane?

And we've had breezeway approvals like this in the past. And it's not a lot of opportunities like this, but it has been implemented in Deschutes County.

Yes, and because I think the banks guard those as if it's a differently financed option when you're doing an attached structure versus a detached. So that breezeway can be relatively attractive.

So then if we start a legislative process, we're leaning into the fact that we would propose that the, I'm just thinking the outcome of this effort is proposing that the definition reverts or gets clear that both options are available in Deschutes County.

And potentially following the inspiration from House Bill 2138 to say that if you're allowed to have multiple units on a property, we don't care if they're attached or not. You're allowed to have X units on a property. If it's one, two, or three, we don't care how they're attached or not.

That House Bill 2138 policy direction I think is a really valuable addition. I – In a recent visit out to the Parkside Place development in East Bend, speaking with Hayden Holmes, they were explaining how they had done some attached units at Parkside Place. And because the expectations around fire, you know, kind of basically fire transmissibility and noise and other things were so great, it actually cost them more to build two units with an attached wall than it would to build two units that are in very close proximity to each other on the same parcel um and that is you know a perverse that's a perverse outcome i mean i think that the push for the push for duplexes has been you know can we produce housing a little bit cheaper because you know a little bit less building materials but um If you're – essentially in this case, if you're accomplishing more efficient land use through an unattached duplex versus an attached duplex, I think that having that option on the table for applicants is – makes life even better. You can do that. detached the attached or the breezeway, you know, any way you want to do it. So I'm very much in support of moving this, you know, moving this text, this duplex text amendment forward, you know, looking at the places where this would be allowed. I mean, this is we're talking far beyond just one opportunity in Terrebonne. Right now, we're talking about a significant policy change that kind of synergizes with community planning that we've just recently done in Tumalo. This could actually mean a significant amount of housing. And as we look at the workload for CDD in the next six months to a year, I want us to focus on real opportunities to produce housing and specifically on the housing that our community needs. So things like this duplex text amendment, things like the urban growth boundary expansions for the City of Sisters and City of Bend I think should be actually top priorities for us. and that's why i'm trying to figure out what else gives uh and you know those those you know late arrival rezone applications i think are one place to look i also would mention that uh I would mention again, this came up before, but the minor adjustment comp plan remand changes I think could be postponed because it is – I'm at this point fairly certain that the board that is seated in January 2027 is going to want to do a major overhaul. of the comp plan. So it's inefficient to use our staff resources right now to do this little remand change when the whole thing is going to get opened up again in a year or less. Are you done?

Sure. Commissioner Adair, are you interested in leaning into some of this with me between now and the end of the year? Commissioner Chang is going to slow down, resist, and try to deflect and change what we're doing.

No, I will do. No, no, you don't need to interrupt me. You don't need to interrupt me. We'll do whatever is on our agenda.

I'm sitting here patiently waiting for you to finish speaking. I'm trying to say something.

You are twisting. I wasn't talking to you. Trying to present me in a way that is unfactually correct.

OK.

This is the height of a moment here.

This is interesting.

I think it's really important because the unintended consequence really didn't work. And if we can do something for our community, well, we've got to find a spot. I mean, I don't sleep nights. Did you come up with anything when you weren't sleeping that where we could actually get this accomplished? Because you're saying it applies all over our county. It's not just Terrebonne. But when the state thinks they're helping and it actually is limiting. I think we need to go back and help more housing.

And, you know, Commissioner DeVos said very helpfully over the years of clear and objective updates that, you know, these are all, we made a lot of big changes and we knew that we'd have to come back to tweak some of them to make sure that they all work the right way on the ground. So this is foreseeable. You know, in practice, this, you know, to my understanding, this affects, you know, a handful of people a year, but it's not an individual person. And, you know, under a less significantly loaded time, this would be a relatively minor, minor lift or could be stacked with something else. It's just acknowledging that it's going to it's going to get close by the end of the year. We currently right now, if you said, well, can you take this on? The answer is yes. Is it you know, is it going to get crowded by the end of the year? Yes, also.

And we also heard that if the long range planning staff is maxed out, that this could result in slowing down processing of current planning applications.

That that's correct, but also you know that we're you know it's likely and you know i'm speculating here, but you know it would be across multiple applications individually that we receive you know huge. You know that we would see days, you know potentially that you know cumulatively. you know, days to weeks, you know, as opposed to months or missing important deadlines. Right now, our processing times are good. It's the beginning of summer. You know, we don't know what's going to come in forward. But right now, it doesn't seem like it's impossible for us to catch this one.

Right. You said it wasn't impossible.

Thank you, Will. But we need to be aware of how that affects our reputation with the building community.

But we already have a reputation. I have people that have called that drive in here and they come in here. And anyway, we already have a reputation issue that we're trying to improve.

So let's say with organizations like COBA and the realtors that we have a pretty good reputation compared to some of our fellow jurisdictions in the region and that – slowing or delaying review processes for real development proposals is impacting that reputation. So something has to give. whether we as a board are willing to sit through all these hearings and all of these items in the next six months is one question. Whether staff is capable of doing, of teeing all that up, because don't forget, they're the ones who do 98% of the work. We just hear a little slice of it. Whether staff's capable of doing that without us impacting morale, exhausting and burning people out, impacting other work, affecting our reputation is the question at hand. And we cannot pretend that nothing has to give.

So it gets back to just a definition. So duplex equals and then a couple sentences after it. So I'm just saying, I think the package kind of makes itself up front. Is that correct? I mean, it's I don't know how much more analysis needs to go into it.

Hopefully it'll be a legislative process that would, you know, in some ways touch the planning commission and come back to you.

But it starts with just a few sentences.

It seems like at the outset that the solution, at least version one of a potential solution is obvious at this point. You know, there may be... And it may evolve. But this does not, again, you know, you remember in our work plan historically we've said if things are minor, you know, moderate or significant undertakings, this one is a... This is a minor undertaking. And I also want to be careful. There may be a time where I need to not be the boy who cried wolf. Like the building is not on fire across the city. It may be by the end of the year, but we are not there. And I can definitely...

It may be by the end of the year.

Yeah, we can keep you posted on how that's going. Right now, it's, you know, I need to be able later to say it's bad and for you to recognize that that's different than it is now. Understood.

If it's bad, maybe you should say, hey, we need two more employees.

And we can talk about loading. Resources, yeah.

Resources. I mean, honestly, yes. I'm hearing about, yes.

I just want to be honest that we're not at break glass yet. Just look out in the future. There's a lot out there compared to at this point in a calendar year.

Yeah. But we also need to- We need a vote. We need to recognize that the way that you would build that capacity- The sequencing and timing of it just doesn't work, right? Because what we would need is two more high-level senior staff who are ready to crank on plan amendment zone change applications. And what it takes is probably years to produce said employee. So unless there's capacity like that for contract in the community that we could just flip the switch on, it doesn't address the surge in those applications that we are experiencing in the very near future.

That is generally correct. Again, we have been – I've been here for 21 years now and we have been in dire straits where if I could have immediately taken on two, four staff, we would have done it if we could have, if we had the resources, if the board was – and the board has been supportive of our staffing over time, very grateful for that. You know, this is still, I want to be careful that under kind of normative median kind of best guess processing, we're still on the rails here. You know, again, I'm not breaking the glass. I'm not pulling the fire alarm. It's just, it's getting crowded and we're, you know, we're adding, we're adding to that in this space. And I just wanted to acknowledge that. So if I come back to you in the future and say, well, and we're going to have to make choices and some of the, you know, with the board, with the board's direction, again, we serve at your pleasure and, you know, undertake your work plan. We can come back to you and say, yeah, we're going to have to, we're going to have to slow something down in order to meet all our obligations, but that would be a future conversation. And at this point. That's not on the horizon yet.

So for the duplex definition, I'm supportive of proceeding, acknowledging everything that's said here, and figuring out how we can fit it in. So, I mean, I don't know. That's where I'm at. We'll confirm what you're getting from the board proper here.

I'm supportive of proceeding. I just think something else has to give.

And of course, I'm supportive. Thank you very much, Will. And if it really does look like we're going to have more building in the future, it's always to get people trained sooner rather than later.

I appreciate it very much, and just so we will prioritize this item with the resources that we have. Again, this is not a mandatory item, so in the event that we're back to you in the future with a real significant degradation of processing times or resources, this is something that could be slowed down potentially in the future. Right now, it can be added to the work plan, and we definitely will be back to let you know how things are going as the year goes forward.

Well, so I guess I would reemphasize, this is a, I mean, I think that what you heard from the board here is that this is a priority that, you know, if, if something has to give later on, it's not this necessarily that's going to give, I would like you to come back to us with a menu of other things that are going to need to slow down.

Certainly we would at such point, if that occurred, we'd bring you back a full menu of what we were doing and what the relative risks and opportunities were about prioritizing those

I see it as following up on unintended consequences like we knew something might happen. So it's just – that's the category I put it in.

Yeah. No, I mean that's – the housing opportunity is one thing. But providing this property owner with kind of a vision of how they could proceed and then – unfortunately, they didn't get their application in by – to hit that goal post. But – you know, giving them an expectation and then kind of changing the rules on them. That is a really important reason to prioritize this project.

Thank you very much. And thank you for all the, we've spent a lot of time with CDD today and we appreciate it.

So following up with our other discussion that was overlaying this, I was reaching out to Commissioner Adair, asking if there's support to proceed with all these land use items as a quorum of the board, because as I say, we may be at odds with Commissioner Chang as the chair on some of these choices. So I was just trying to acknowledge that I'm ready to lean into this and just having the meetings as we need to have them and not resisting knowing that next year there'll be a different mix of commissioners.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you, commissioners.

OK. On to item number nine, contract with Romeo Entertainment Group for 2026 fair. Jeff, thanks for joining us, and thanks for sitting through some substantial land use discussions.

Learn a little bit as I learn the job. So thank you. And Commissioner Chan, Commissioners, thanks for your time this morning. And I want to acknowledge the timelines and the change to get this on your agenda today. So I appreciate your time on this. The context for this agreement is it's not a new arrangement with Romeo Entertainment. We've had it for years. um the scope has changed given uh per vice of county legal that's been going on even before i arrived specifically the nature of the individual contracts that come from artists so the old model was romeo romeo entertainment was a contact underneath the threshold of your your authority in other words county administrator and or the director could make that decision just for booking entertainment and just for the production on site. Then individual artist agreements, national artists coming from agents, the county would get those agreements up until almost the day of the fair and forced to sign rather uncomfortable documents. In other words, not necessarily in legal compliance with county policies and things of that nature. So every year was a buying to get these artists done. So per the advice of the legal counsel, my leadership and direction inheriting this project We now have one large comprehensive agreement with Romy Entertainment that encompasses all of our total expenditure that they manage for us. I'm thankful for Romeo to agreeing to this model. It's rather unusual. Large municipalities and private entities still do this arrangement where they sign with individual artists. We're going this model, and I'm thankful that this ultimately got accomplished. We are under the timeline because they have not been able to sign agreements with artists until we get our mastery signed. I'm happy to answer any questions.

$450,000 max is kind of the line that we're working with right now, with also a clause that says if it's more than that, we've got to talk. And so was it like $100,000 at a time in the past, something like that? I mean, I'm sure the numbers are all over, but it was always below signing authority. Absolutely.

Yeah. Jeff, how long have we worked with Romeo in just the one capacity?

At least a decade, to my knowledge.

Yeah.

Yeah, and we do plan on going out to an RFP with Romeo in future years, for sure. We've been reviewing them, and under Eric's leadership, we signed up. We're doing a one-year extension for that while I was gone.

And how long does that agreement typically last? So we're talking a one-year extension. Yeah, we're just doing a one-year extension right now. But onto a one-year contract? Could be. Or what was the prior one?

I believe, and legal and maybe some assistance on that, I'm not entirely sure the duration of those prior agreements. They might've been year to year under the prior leadership. I'm not entirely sure. the duration of the romeo green the smaller romeo agreement right certainly the artist agreements come fluidity every year but the smaller one we work with them consistently for a number of years um underneath and well underneath that threshold of your um procedure right okay yeah i'm just trying to think about um you know if we're if we're putting this out to bid in the future

You know, it is a unique kind of arrangement. Maybe nobody else wants to compete for that. But I mean, if... I guess what I'm wondering is whether making it a multi-year agreement, it makes it more or less attractive to bidders.

We won't know that until we put out to bid under this structure. Certainly, an RFP for representing the county fair for – sign up to look and procure artists and to do production will be attractive to a variety of entertainment companies i believe that in my experience it's this model where they had accept more risk and and do this large conference we don't know until we put it out for bid what the interest level will be under this new model but i'm thankful that romeo went went ultimately as a great because they they like our business they want our business and showing great good faith in this in this process great

And so we are. I mean, you described an extension, but I mean, we're talking about a much more expansive contract. So how does the extension and the kind of new contract for more expanded services, how does that all work together?

Well, extension is not on the table. This contract is very specific to this fair for the specific services of representing us in procuring the entertainment, which they've already done. Because the fair is the kind of entertainment is booked and ready to go. And ultimately, this contract is specific to represent us and actually signing agreements with the artists to come play at our fair. So it's very, very specific. The extension conversation needs to happen through an RFP process that will take place post-fair. Understood.

Thank you. Yeah. Any other questions?

I just have one comment. I just want to thank Jeff for his work and leadership on this. You know, when he started, we said both there's a lot of input from admin, legal, and risk about how these processes can improve. And he's taken the bull by the horns and is greatly improving these. I kind of told him, you know, clean up what you can, improve what you can. This year might be just a you know may not be a full step it might be a half step but he's been been making a lot of improvements on the contracting process um so i just wanted to acknowledge the work of jeff and his staff and also the support from legal legal and risk management hey thank you jeff uh any additional comments or questions or is there a motion

Move approval of a contract with Romeo Entertainment Group for Deschutes County Fair Mainstage Entertainment Management Package.

And I will second it.

There's no number. Under contract 2026-0463.

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

It's just, yeah, Exhibit 1 under Item 5, it talks about not to exceed 450 unless negotiated.

So I guess we don't get Old Dominion.

All right. Seeing none, Commissioner here.

Yes.

Commissioner DeBone? Yes. And Chair votes yes. Thanks very much, Jeff.

So one more thing I'd like to thank Brenda for adapting and putting this on the agenda at the last minute. It's a request to the Fair and Expo staff. So thank you, Brenda.

Second addendum.

Okay. At this time, are there any other items? Seeing none, we do not have executive sessions today.

No executive session.

Okay, meeting adjourned.