(Photo | courtesy of the Bend Economic Development Advisory Board)
BEDAB Helps Guide Bend’s Economy
The Bend Economic Development Advisory Board (BEDAB) is a City Council chartered board that exists to provide input and policy advice to the City Council. BEDAB aims to represent major industries in town when it comes to policy decisions. While BEDAB members are not voting on the actual City Council decisions, their input is respected by the City Council and it often has an effect on the citizens of Bend.
According to founding member Bill Kuhn, “In late 2008 through 2012, the Bend economy was still dominated by lumber and secondary wood products, tourism, and real estate construction/development activity. We had little economic diversification so were challenged with trying to stabilize a volatile local economy experiencing huge job losses. There was a consensus that concerned leaders needed to do something to counteract the significant economic erosion and combat the growing job losses.”
Continuing, Bill said, “These issues were exacerbated by the closure of regional financial institutions by the FDIC, very limited lending activity by the remaining banks in the area, and concerns regarding what efforts we could take to stabilize the situation.”
EDCO leadership, and particularly Eric Strobel, who was the Bend market manager for EDCO at the time, got a group of key individuals from affected industries to brainstorm ideas; Bill was the group’s “token banker.”
At first the group planned to report to EDCO, but they eventually opted for a more direct route in directly advising the City Council on policy, “Against the backdrop of a tanking local economy, we had to determine what efforts could be taken to slow the job losses, so we chose to initially focus on job retention, not job growth,” said Bill.
These roots of BEDAB helped create the group as it is today: nine board members and five ex-officio (non-voting) members who help guide the City Council and make sure that business interests are not being overlooked.
According to Ben Hemson, the economic development manager for the City of Bend, BEDAB is a group that provides the perspective of the Bend business community with the City Council.
“They are a group who’s stakeholder is the business community, while their audience is the City Council,” Hemson said.
During the pandemic, the group was instrumental in communicating the concerns and issues business owners had with lockdowns and certain restrictions. BEDAB was responsible for making sure these concerns were heard and eventually discussed at the state level.
Aside from pandemic concerns, BEDAB, in general, helps economic groups like EDCO, the Bend Chamber and Visit Bend maintain their missions of economic growth, but in ways that don’t bump each other or disrupt other industries in our economy.
BEDAB board members serve for stagger terms of three years. According to Hemson, the qualifications are broad because they want to open up the opportunity for anyone who might be an asset.
A BEDAB board member must live within the Bend City limits, and represent an industry. Over time, those preferences change; BEDAB always tries to have a land developer on the board to provide that perspective, while it has been a recent goal to get more representatives from the tech industry.
“A good board member can speak up and provide the input of the people and industry they represent,” said Hemson. “We don’t want anyone to get left behind, which means it helps when our board members know how to communicate and advocate for their industry.”
A major goal for the modern BEDAB is the Strategic Plan, which aims to map the coming years of economic development in Bend.
“Like any plan of this size, we have highlighted high level areas to focus on for the coming future,” said Hemson. “The Strategic Plan is a living document that aims to tackle economic issues in the long term.”
The Strategic Plan has four main goals; to promote city policy and activities that align with key business needs and address business community concerns; to monitor and provide input on other relevant City policies relating to economic development; to lead the development of an Economic Development Strategy as a critical component of a citywide Economic Opportunities Analysis and future Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) expansion efforts; and to maintain oversight roles for the City of Bend’s contracts and grants relating to economic development and business assistance.
Aside from this plan, the main projects on the BEDAB plate include setting up an incentive program for future economic development, as well as ushering in phase two of the new transportation utility fees. In addition, BEDAB will be meeting with the local folks who want to purchase Mt. Bachelor Ski Resort for the community.
So how do BEDAB board members keep up with their respective industries? According to Hemson, it takes time, effort and commitment. The ideal board member is someone who is active in their industry, and someone who other industry leaders can talk to and trust. In addition, BEDAB maintains a business newsletter to update the community (and for the community to update BEDAB) as well as open public hearings where anyone can have their voice heard. Regardless of newsletters or hearings, anyone is allowed to go to the BEDAB website (on the City of Bend website) and get in contact with the group.
