Bend may put up $3 million for Mirror Pond’s future

On a complex issue that has split the community for many years, Bend city councilors made some headway Wednesday evening on consensus about its stand on the future of Mirror Pond, expressing willingness to commit up to $3 million over the next decade to whatever is done, including the long-discussed dredging of a buildup of silt.

Councilors debated and tweaked a four-page resolution drafted by councilors Bill Moseley and Genna Goodman-Campbell that tries to bridge past policy stances with a new position: that the Bend Metro Park and Recreation District should take the lead on efforts to improve (and then maintain) the pond, formed over a century ago by the hydroelectric dam that Pacific Power now says it will keep operating.

After long listening sessions and earlier debate, councilors at their last meeting got some stern words from Todd Taylor of Mirror Pond Solutions, a private partnership that is trying to pull together an estimated $6.7 million to pay for the first dredging in 35 years. He said the city can’t back away from its role, when stormwater runoff flowing into the pond is a key factor in the silt buildup.

But one part of the draft resolution not discussed or changed Wednesday evening indicates that the city plans to spend some $11.5 million in coming years to replace or fix more than a dozen stormwater outfalls and prevent future stormwater runoff “to the maximum extent practicable.”

Councilor Bruce Abernethy said the draft resolution was flawed, in his view, by holding the city to just 16 percent of the total cost – the same percentage as in 1984 – or at most about $1 million, when nearly half of the funding at that time came from a source that has since largely dried up: federal grants.

Moseley said he’d support moving to $3 million, if the city doesn’t fund more than half the cost of whatever pond projects are coming, and doesn’t dedicate it specifically to dredging. Colleague Justin Livingston proposed, to others’ agreement, that it be over 10 years, at $300,000 a year.

Councilor Barb Campbell wanted to hold to 25 percent: “We just went through the budget (process) and I just don’t see that we have the money for a landscaping project in the middle of a park.”

But Mayor Sally Russell said, “I see this as a heritage project for Bend,” much as the Tower Theatre restoration was a couple of decades ago. She said the pond is a tourist amenity and that as such, one could argue that general fund money — which comes in large part from room taxes — is an appropriate use.

Councilor Chris Piper, who took part in part of the meeting by phone, also supported a $3 million cap and 50 percent of the total cost.

The proposed resolution also would direct the park district to commit to a public, independently facilitated process that comes up with at least two alternatives for the pond’s future, with “no ongoing or future commitment by the city for the operation or maintenance” of it.

There’s little doubt more give and take will happen with the park district before any intergovernmental agreement or memorandum of understanding. City Manager Eric King said the park board will have a chance to weigh in on its own before councilors take a formal vote in coming weeks.

Goodman-Campbell brought up toward the end of the discussion another “elephant in the room” that must be addressed: the potential that environmental groups (wishing a free-flowing river, restored fish passage or the like) could petition the Division of State Lands to rule on the navigability of the river through the city.

She suggested the city seek that ruling first, because if “the state says, ‘Yes, this is navigable,’ then the state owns the land under Mirror Pond and it blows up the whole process.”

Moseley said that’s something the park district should be encouraged to take up, not the city. “It’s their project – I want out,” he said.

On another issue, there was good news waiting for several people who showed up to urge city action about the long-term street “campers” (in cars, RVs and one notorious former school bus) near the Bend Whitewater Park and Shevlin-Hixon Drive.

King said he’d talked with the park district and they are interested in putting a 4-hour parking limit on streets in the area. It’s not a done deal, and “there is a cost to that,” he said, but the two entities “hope to have something implemented in the coming weeks,” as the summer tourist season heats up.