Bend council sends 5-cent gas tax to March ballot

After much debate, the Bend City Council voted 5-2 Wednesday night to send a 5-cent a gallon fuel tax to the March ballot, as a majority said getting more revenue to fix failing streets means no time to waste – and a special election on one topic is worth the estimated $70,000 cost.

The marathon meeting ended just before 1 a.m., after a unanimous council vote– again, after testimony, debate and wordsmithing — to adopt rules for recreational and medical marijuana facilities.

On the gas tax vote, Mayor Jim Clinton joined councilors Doug Knight, Sally Russell, Nathan Boddie and Barb Campbell in favor of the proposal, while colleagues Victor Chudowsky and Casey Roats voted no.

Two days after a public hearing on the matter, Campbell supported Clinton’s point that a special election would have full attention from voters and not be on a crowded May primary ballot.

“The sooner the better, where we can really talk to the voters where not a single (bit) of air time is occupied by who knows who at that point,” Councilor Campbell said.

The city will pay about $70,000 to hold the special election in March, but would not face any cost of being on the May ballot..

Clinton, Knight and Russell said getting a March vote would allow the tax to start July 1, not two months later, capturing more tourist dollars and also allowing a quicker start to some of the many road projects in an estimated $80 million backlog.

Another major decision was to decide the amount of the proposed tax.

After about 90 minutes of testimony and discussion, Campbell, saying the city has a lot of ground to catch up, first proposed a 10-cent a gallon tax, but didn’t garner enough support. Trying to strike a middle ground, she then proposed seven cents, but that motion died for lack of a second.

The city estimates the nickel a gallon would fill about half of a $5.2 million annual figure city staff has said would help stop the slide in the city’s “pavement condition index,” which can require much more costly road rebuilding. The other half was filled, for now at least, by mostly one-time revenues due to a recovering economy that has lifted room tax revenues, for example.

Along with a requirement to put the money to street maintenance and repair, the measure also will have a 10-year “sunset clause,” meaning voters would have to reauthorize continuing the gas tax in 2026.

There also was much debate about whether the city should say from the outset it would consider reducing the gas tax should the state or federal gas tax be raised, thus boosting city road revenues. But some councilors expressed concern about putting something complex before voters — and others noted that the city always has the option of not assessing the full amount of a voter-approved tax.

When Roats expressed concern about the message of spending $70,000 to ask voters for money, Russell noted that the city’s road infrastructure is declining about $2 million a year “because we keep taking time and putting it off.”

Marijuana business rules set – in wet cement

The discussion of the other big issue of the night – rules for marijuana businesses — didn’t get started until after 10 p.m. and went well past midnight. The rules were adopted, but with the still-evolving nature of state oversight, the odds are high of revising the issue in the coming year.

The biggest issues included buffers – how much space between medical and/or recreational marijuana facilities — how close to parks and whether existing medical marijuana dispensaries should be “grandfathered” from having to meet the new spacing requirements.

Some speakers urged strong protections for children, noting rising issues with poisoning and the like.

Others involved in the issue told councilors that there likely will be more changes coming for the land use rules from the state out of the February special legislative session, such as possibly allowing medical and recreational facilities to co-locate.

The state already has mandated a 1,000-foot separation between medical marijuana facilities, but people in the business and on state or local advisory committees told the council that most, if not all, medical marijuana facilities likely will convert to recreational ones, depending on how the final rules shake out.

Bend now has 18 medical marijuana dispensaries, and city officials said 15 of them have local land-use approvals (permits) in place that could grandfather them from whatever spacing rules are set.

Knight proposed 1,000-foot buffers between recreational facilities or between medical facilities — but no such spacing limits if a recreational and medical facility want to be close to or co-locate with each other.

Campbell said fewer or small buffers won’t mean “1,000 marijuana stores,” due to the high hurdles such businesses face in finding a willing landlord. Aviv Hadar, co-owner of OreGrown, echoed that view.

Assistant City Manager Jon Skidmore said while the OLCC will start accepting retail pot license applications in early January, there’s still the legislative session in February, and the state won’t be issuing retail licenses until at least late next summer or early fall.

As the clock moved to nearly 1 a.m., consensus emerged, and a unanimous vote to adopt the rules as recommended by the city’s planning commission and marijuana advisory committee — with three additions: a 1,000-foot buffer between recreational facilities, a 150-foot buffer between recreational facilities and parks, and allowing grandfathering of existing facilities for 12 months, if they have land use approvals by Dec. 15