In 2011, 16-year-old Forrest Cepeda was hit by a vehicle and killed as he was riding his bike along Reed Market Road. The driver of the vehicle had been texting.

Last week, the City of Bend installed a memorial sign on Reed Market Road near Pettigrew Road to honor Cepeda’s memory and to discourage distracted driving.

“People need to know how serious this issue is. Distracted driving is a known leading cause of crashes,” said Bend Police Sergeant Eric Hagan. “It’s also a really widespread problem. The Police Department averages more than 500 cell phone tickets and warnings a year now.”

Distracted driving traffic crashes can result in property damage, personal injuries and death. Distracted driving has a direct impact on reaction time, which leads to the increase in traffic crashes. Studies have suggested using cell phones while driving can be as dangerous as driving under the influence of intoxicants.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reported in 2015:

• 3,477 people were killed by distracted driving
• 391,000 were injured in crashes involving distracted driving
• 660,000 drivers are using cell phones while driving

Oregon’s new distracted driving cell phone law, which went into effect last October, brings tougher rules and fines and potential jail time for repeat offenders. Generally, it says it’s illegal to drive while holding or using an electronic device.

As a Councilor, I want to focus my efforts in 2018 toward making life easier for our community and maintaining the quality of life that Bend is known for. A basic part of this is making sure everyone has a place to live.

One of the Council’s priorities is to increase the availability of affordable housing, workforce housing and middle-income housing. We have made notable progress on this issue, but we have more good work coming in the year ahead.

Since 2006, when the City adopted its innovative Affordable Housing Fee program, the City has invested more than $14 million from the Affordable Housing Fund to leverage an additional $77 million in state and federal funds and $40 million of private funds. This has resulted in the construction of about 770 housing units – 631 multi-family units and 139 single family homes.

But there are still unmet needs.

The price of a house is linked to so many things. City Councilors can only change some of them. We can’t control the market which is driven by supply and demand. We can, however, make it easier to get more types of housing built.

Council has made several policy decisions in recent years to help more homes get built. Subsequently, we’ve seen 2,580 new housing units built in the last two years!

The City is streamlining the planning and building process with a permitting software update that creates a more responsive and time-saving (in other words, cost-saving) process for builders. When builders save money, it should result in more of the housing that our community needs at a lower cost.

Reducing costs for multi-family and affordable housing projects will also help. So, we have changed when System Development Charges (SDCs) are paid for multi-family projects, which lowers the finance expense for developers building those units, and exempted qualified affordable housing projects from paying SDCs. These moves will lower the cost of construction and result in a wider array of housing types available to meet the various incomes in our community.

The City is also aligning its Comprehensive Plan and Zoning Map to help reduce some confusion and unnecessary process and costs faced by some developers.

Finally, I am encouraging our partners at the Bend Park and Recreation District and Bend-LaPine Schools to work with the City so that each new house built is a half-mile from a park and from a school. Families can save money on transportation costs and save valuable time in their commutes.

There’s a lot more on our plates but this is one of my top issues for 2018 – working for all members of our community to move the dial in a positive direction.

Following a Charter Review Committee analysis and recommendation, City Councilors agreed to ask voters on the May 2018 ballot whether the City’s mayor should be directly elected by the community instead of being chosen by fellow Councilors every two years.

This week, Councilors further clarified that the question on the ballot will ask if voters would like to select their mayor for a four-year term. Councilors also clarified that the first mayoral election would occur in November of 2018 and every four years after.

The May ballot will also ask voters if they want to take Councilor and Mayor compensation out of charter and have compensation set by ordinance. Councilors currently get $200 a month, which is currently established in the charter.

Prior to the May election, an independent committee will provide a recommendation on compensation amounts, which could be set by ordinance.