City of Bend to hold listening session Saturday on policing policies
Third-party moderator and no responses planned by city council, staff
BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- The city of Bend invites Bend residents to join a community conversation at a listening session related to the City Council’s goal to: “Be responsive and accountable to the changing needs and expectations of the community and increase Council awareness and public participation in law enforcement policy.”
The listening session is from 9 a.m. – noon on Saturday, Oct. 17. Those who intend to speak can join the Webinar via Zoom. This can accommodate 500 participants at a time. Simultaneous Spanish interpretation will be provided. Watch live (or a recorded version later) here via YouTube. There’s no participant limit for watching.
The session will be for collecting input only. City Council and staff are invited to listen but will not be responding to questions or comments, nor will they be speaking at the event, which will be run by a third-party moderator.
The listening session is the second community input opportunity conducted on the topic. More than 930 people provided feedback to several online questions in September. At the listening session, the city would like to hear more from the community on any of these themes that arose from the feedback gathered in September:
- We’ve heard that people want accountability and/or transparency from Police: What does that mean? How should that happen?
- People want to see a police presence in the community. What does that mean and look like?
- We heard that transient/homeless issues and mental health issues are big concerns in Bend. What is the role of local police in addressing these issues?
- What are your expectations of City Council involvement in policing policies?
Speakers will be given three minutes of speaking time to best accommodate the most amount of people. Community input will compiled and presented in a report to the council at a work session, tentatively scheduled for the end of December.
