(Photo courtesy of Bend Chamber of Commerce)
The most recent summer session of the Bend Chamber’s special event and talk series called, “What’s Brewing” was held at Tetherow Resort in the Event Pavilion on August 8. The topic of this session was the impacts of Deschutes County policies on local businesses. In this session, county commissioners Patti Adair, Phil Chang and Tony DeBone, along with county administrator Nick Lelack, all shared their own viewpoints on how their policies affect Bend and the surrounding communities in the rest of Deschutes County.
The session was kicked off by a quick introduction and sponsor shout-out from Katie Anderson, CEO of Aperion Management Group. After giving attention to the event sponsors, the mic was passed to moderator Sarah Odendahl, director of government affairs and strategic initiatives at the Bend Chamber. Odendahl briefly explained the day’s topic, and introduced the guests of the evening.
The first topic of discussion was headed by DeBone, and primarily focused on sharing with the audience what the actual job of a county commissioner is. In short, they adopt policies, create and implement County ordinances, hold hearings and approve the County’s budget.
DeBone spoke about how the County reinvests tax dollars into worthwhile services, including community services like waste management, transportation, health services, veteran’s benefits and public safety funding.
This was followed up by a quick point from Chang, clarifying that tax collection and allocation can be more complicated than meets the eye; local tax dollars only make up a small portion of overall funding, and they are not always allocated as simply as it seems.
A main part of the discussion focused on the need for workforce housing. The need for housing was addressed with a slide that outlined how $7.8 million was spent on workforce housing development. The projects listed include; $1 million for the Hayden Homes Affordable Housing Project, which is projected to include a mix of 347 rental and for-sale units; $1 million to support the development of 20 duplexes/triplexes and repairs in 200 units in Sunriver and La Pine; $500,000 for the development of up to 40 affordable housing units in Sisters; and $1 million across two years to establish the HOME Fund and provide $30,000 grants to affordable housing home builders, and more.
In addition, workforce housing needs will be met in the future with new laws surrounding rural ADUs, or Accessory Dwelling Units. In short, steps are being taken to increase the viability of this living option, and to support the construction of more in the future to address the needs of an ever growing urban workforce.
Next, the panel moved on to child care. Adair led the discussion about recent investments into child care services in the County, including $3.55 million to support more child care spots for local families by expanding on existing facilities and services. According to the panel, “County investments will help create more than 500 new child care spots and train more than 275 new workers in the child care and early education fields.”
Adair emphasized why that last part is important by explaining the many levels of laws and regulations that child care businesses and workers must abide by, noting that these new investments will help alleviate the lack of access to child care parents in our community face.
Aside from these main conversations, the panel discussed the following topics: siting a new landfill, addressing the houseless issue and wildfire mitigation.
At the end of the slideshow, a large chunk of time was reserved for audience questions, which mostly focused around how to properly deal with the issue of homelessness in the County.
The next Bend Chamber event called Biz & Bevs, will focus more on networking with fellow community members. This will be held on August 18 at N The Zone Ink & Threads at 4:30pm.
