Bend -- A City in Tatters

A short little placeholder again, and I thought I'd post a story from The Bulletin that has a couple of breathtaking stats in it. It essentially confirms what has been said on this blog for YEARS: That Bend is essentially already broke, and cannot afford to upkeep or build STATUTORILY REQUIRED infrastructure. We're required to build it by law, and we can't.

Economic troubles push Bend plans back

By Erin Golden / The Bulletin
Published: November 17. 2008 4:00AM PST

From new roundabouts to sewer treatment upgrades and accessibility improvements, the ongoing economic slowdown is forcing the city of Bend to revise or hold off on plans for many large infrastructure projects.

Over the past year, as revenues from development-related permits plummeted, the city went through three rounds of budget cuts, laying off 44 workers and leaving another 55 positions unfilled. Officials have slashed costs across the board by reducing employee overtime and using more energy-efficient computer systems and vehicles, among other changes. The city has even dipped heavily into reserve funds to keep services running.

But for some projects, especially those with multimillion-dollar price tags, the cuts haven’t been enough.

The city is required by law to keep up with some work, including accessibility improvements and sewer system expansions, but it says other plans for wider roads, updated intersections and even a new City Hall are simply going to have to wait.

“As a result of revenue from the state going down, and on top of that, what our general fund is going through, we’re having to go through some reprioritization exercises,” said City Manager Eric King.

Water and sewer

After years of rapid growth across the city, many systems, from sewer to water to roads, are in need of upgrades and expansions. In some cases, the work is required so the city can stay in compliance with a variety of state and federal regulations.

Public Works Director Paul Rheault said his department recently completed work on one major mandated improvement — an $8 million headworks facility, where sewage is filtered before it reaches the city’s wastewater treatment plant. The city is required to increase the system’s capacity as the population grows.

Construction of the headworks project was supported in part by increased sewer rates, which went up by 14.5 percent in July.

Though Rheault said the new facility will help reduce the stress on the wastewater system, it’s not the only upgrade the city will need over the next few decades. Officials are currently working on a sewer master plan that calls for about $100 million in major pipeline projects that would allow more areas of the city to connect to the existing system. Rheault said the city will probably have to spend another $52 million to update and expand the treatment plant between now and 2030.

Though officials never planned to complete the work in the next few years, they say the budget cuts have pushed the time line even further. Now, City Engineer Michael Magee said the city will probably have to do the work in small sections. He said a project in southeast Bend to build an interceptor, or trunk line, will focus on the most problematic areas, one at a time.

“Typically, if you had the money, you would start at one end of the project to the other and work in phases, start at one end and work your way south to hook people up with the sewer interceptor as you go,” Magee said. “But with limited resources, we have to go at it differently, and look at the bottlenecks.”

The city is also working on a water master plan that would include about $100 million in upgrades to piping and treatment systems. Magee said plans for that work haven’t been narrowed down yet, but like the sewer projects, officials are looking at how to complete the upgrades in phases, rather than all at once.

Rheault said some smaller stormwater system upgrades are still on track, including a plan that would reroute water from flood-prone underpasses to a state-owned drainage area near the Colorado Avenue interchange with U.S. Highway 97. That project is still in the planning phase, and officials have estimated that it could cost around $500,000, money that will come from stormwater fees charged to residents.

Street upgrades and repairs

The building slowdown has created a dramatic drop in revenues generated by transportation system development charges — money that is used to fund a variety of large street projects. Transportation Engineering Manager Nick Arnis said the city expected to bring in between $4 million and $5 million in transportation SDCs this year, but has only received about $550,000 since the fiscal year started in July.

As a result, it might be awhile before a handful of major SDC-funded street improvements can get under way. Among the projects: a $20 million expansion and upgrade of Reed Market Road, which would include a roundabout at Reed Market and Southeast 15th Street, and $14 million in work along Empire Avenue, including a roundabout at Empire and Northeast 18th Street.

Arnis said the city is looking to start with small parts of the projects, some with the help of developers who agreed to chip in as part of their development agreements with the city. He said some of those partnerships have already been formalized for the Reed Market work, which was supposed to have been finished last year but was delayed because of the tight budget.

“I think taking the projects (and) phasing them is going to be really important; finding the partnerships with the state or private developers is going to be really important,” he said.

Arnis said engineers are currently working to get the plans for the Reed Market and Empire projects and others, including a fix for the congested intersection of Cooley Road and U.S. Highway 97 in north Bend, ready so they won’t have to wait to start building when the money becomes available. Arnis said the city is working hard to look for additional grants and private funding options, but it isn’t yet clear how long it will take to find enough funds to complete the majority of the work.

The tight budget situation also means smaller street projects will be tougher to finance.

Street Division Manager Hardy Hanson said his office lost about $50,000 for paving operations in the last round of budget cuts. After three cycles of budget adjustments over the last year, he said the city has about $1 million in its fund for patching and paving roads, down from about $1.5 million before the local economy started to slow down.

The division is funded with money from the city’s general fund, along with state grants and gas taxes. With fewer dollars coming in from all three sources, officials have dipped into the street operations reserve fund, which has dropped from about $1.6 million at the end of the 2006-07 fiscal year to a projected $613,000 at the end of the current fiscal year.

Hanson said those numbers mean the city will only be able to repave most streets once every 36 years. He said the industry standard is to do the work every seven to 10 years — a level the city was working toward before the economic downturn hit and created a hole in the Street Division’s budget. Now, Hanson said the city is spending its limited resources sealing individual cracks and holes in the roads, rather than repaving them altogether for a more lasting fix.

“A lot of what we’re doing is Band-Aids, where before maybe we could do surgical improvements,” Hanson said.

Other projects

Over the next few years, the city must also complete a variety of accessibility improvements.

As a requirement of a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice, Bend needs to make all sidewalks, curb ramps, parking spaces and government buildings compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act by 2014. In addition, the city must bring all of its Bend Area Transit bus stops into compliance with federal regulations by 2012 because of a separate settlement with Disability Rights Oregon, formerly called the Oregon Advocacy Center.

The city has made progress on some of the improvements, installing new handicapped parking spaces downtown and updating some bus stops. But there’s still more work to be done; officials have said there could be more than 1,000 ramps around the city that need to be fixed.

The city set aside $1 million for the work, but King said it won’t be enough. He said officials haven’t narrowed down exactly how they’ll pay for the upgrades but said debt financing is one of the options on the table.

“We’re under those settlement requirements, so we have to do our best to comply with those — we can’t not do them,” King said. “That’s something we’re going to have to figure out how to finance.”

Officials said a variety of other large projects up for consideration over the past couple of years — a new City Hall, a permit center, the Heritage Square downtown concept — probably won’t see the light of day for a while. But King said he wants to keep the plans for those projects up to date for a time when finances aren’t so tight.

“We definitely just aren’t able to move forward as quickly as we’d like. ... But that doesn’t mean that we’re completely abandoning those things,” he said. “We’re still trying to put ourselves in a good position so we’re ready when funding becomes available.”

What's amazing is that these people look at a 80-90% drop in SDC's to $550K.... but, by God, they still got their eyes on a $20 MILLION roundabout on Reed Market. And luckily they had the FORESIGHT to "defer" (ie cancel) all builder SDC charges to fight this housing glut.

Then there are the $250+ MILLION infrastructure required fixes. That's around $3,500 for ever person in Bend. And that's just to get sewer & water upgrades & improvements that we MUST HAVE right now!

And of course NO ONE at City Hall will even acknowledge that we're in the Worst Slowdown in a Generation. No, it'll all be alright. We'll return to the Hyper-Growth Bend of the Past 25 Years, cuz that's all I can remember.

Think again dumbshits. Businesses closing (Cessna, etc) and people LEAVING is going to be the DOMINANT THEME for the next decade, and almost certainly longer. These required fixes will probably go to $5,000 per capita at a time when incomes & profits are imploding.

Again, not to rub salt in the wound, but THIS IS WHAT YOU GET FOR BLOWING THE LARGEST SURPLUS WE WILL EVER RECEIVE AS A TOWN, AND DOUBLING DOWN ON REd OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER...!

It should NOT SURPRISE ANYONE that this has happened. This city's infrastructure is IN TATTERS because we spent every fucking cent we got on PR & MARKETING and RE WELFARE, and NOTHING on infrastructure.

"How could anyone have predicted...?"

Right. That's like asking a slot-jockey if they think they'll lose everything. There's a difference between PREDICTION & MYOPIC OPINION OF THE DELUDED. Of course a gambler THINKS they'll win, that's why they're there. And of course, overall, they NEVER DO. THIS is why no one at City Hall could have predicted this slowdown: THEY'RE STUCK IN A GAMBLER MENTALITY. Always THE NEXT HAND is going to BRING ME BACK. The End Game of this mentality is ALWAYS THE SAME: 100% CRACKER ASS CRACKER BROKE.

This is why almost everyone in City Hall is 100% unqualified to hold their position. "Cut SDC Charges" = DOUBLE DOWN on 12. Whn you're flat ass broke sitting at the blackjack tables, PR & MARKETING ain't going to do SHIT.

But that is what we will do. See, they aren't betting THEIR MONEY. They are betting OUR MONEY. They are betting OUR TOWN. They have NOTHING TO LOSE. They'll just lose their jobs. WE WILL LOSE OUR TOWN.

We're going broke. And it's because NO ONE CARES. COAR & COBA bought City Hall.

Don't think they'll push us RIGHT INTO THE ABYSS?

Where's marge? Why is she GONE? Yeah. Free Speech is the sworn ENEMY of the characters who have BOUGHT & PAID FOR our City Councilor WHORES. RE has tapped into a multi-hundred-million dollar kitty... for LESS THAN PENNIES ON THE DOLLAR. They bought their City Councilor WHORES for next to nothing.

They have zero incentive to save this place, and 100% incentive to enrich themselves as much as possible, before BK-ing this place. And when it goes BK, YOU & I will pay. For DECADES. They are lining their pockets, getting dollars for less than a penny, and you & I are supplying the dollars & taking the pennies.

So I apologize to Buster & BEM regarding their optimism that Bend "can be saved". I don't think it can be saved. We've elected THIEVES to office, and their puppeteers DO NOT CARE about anything but lining their pockets. No COCC expansion. No road improvements. No statutorily required sewage improvements.

We're already in hock for 10-20 years. And with our recent elections and the economic implosion, it's going to get worse. We're down to our last $100 (started with $100 million) at the blackjack tables, and we're going to go into PR & MARKETING OVERDRIVE (asking the dealer for money), and we're claiming that "we couldn't have possibly known THIS was going to happen".

Really? Didn't think you were going to lose? Didn't think the dealer would tell you to FUCK OFF? You're surprised?

Yes, this is exactly what we are being told. And most people are swallowing it whole. No questions asked. Kool-Aid mania still running strong.

WE'LL BE BK WITHIN A YEAR, 80-90% REVENUE REDUCTION, AND NO ONE AT CITY HALL ACKNOWLEDGES ANYTHING BUT A TEMPORARY SLOWDOWN.

THIS is why we are doomed. This town is being 100% DESTROYED BY our elected officials. Why? They are WHORES for local development interests who BOUGHT them for pennies on the dollar. WE ARE DOOMED.