Tony DeBone - Managing Growth in a Season of Change

Our guest for this episode is Deschutes County Commissioner Tony DeBone. Commissioner DeBone will discuss the challenges, opportunities and strategies for managing a multitude of county-wide issues in this season of great change. In this far-ranging discussion, you’ll hear Tony’s ideas on housing, apprenticeship programs, homelessness, and regional growth. You’ll also get a sense for the magnitude of the County Commission responsibilities and the budget it administers. The Commissioner’s job is HUGE. Tune in to understand better how our county works. 

Transcript

Unknown: 0:07

The urban growth boundary of the City of Bend is going to be exciting watching that build out. City of Redmond is growing. It's got just these kind of comfortable steps. They did an urban reserve plan and different than the city of Ben, they just did one urban urban growth, boundary change in Redmond does smaller steps city of lupine and southern issues County, they've got huge land inside the incorporated boundaries. And they're going to be able to build houses for a long time to come. It was mentioned that they're put about 180 houses per year on the ground in lupine. So that's the pace that's going to happen. And that's you know, if it's 200 houses with two and a half people in each one, that's 500 people, they've been less than 2000 for you know, forever, all of a sudden, it's going to go 500 at a time and it's going to start to grow. So we're going to see a new growth area. City assisters has got the same opportunity with the public lands was the Forest Service and that's going to be just a big land holding that opens up for development in their town which they're working through right now. So we're going to be managing growth and all all sides of disputes County.

Narrator: 1:12

Welcome to cascade views a discussion with Central Oregon leaders. Your host is Michael SIPE, local business and community leader Best Selling Author of the Avada principle in candidate for Oregon State Representative for House District 53, which encompasses southern Redmon sisters tombolo in northern bend. The purpose of these discussions is to share the views and insights of local leaders from a variety of community sectors on a range of timely and important regional and state issues. With that, now here is your host, Michael SIPE.

Michael Sipe: 1:46

My name is Michael SIPE, and I'm here with the shoots County Commissioner Tony debone. To learn about our accounting Commission, the role of a county commissioner. And here's some of Tony's thoughts on the State of the County, and the issues facing us here in Central Oregon. Tony, welcome to the show. Oh, thank

Unknown: 2:03

you very much for having me. Honored to be here.

Michael Sipe: 2:05

Well, let's get started with just a little backstory on Tony debone. Tell us a little bit about you.

Unknown: 2:10

Well, the theme is big town, a small town. So I born and raised in a suburb of Detroit, Michigan, and went to college in Upper Peninsula, Michigan. And when I figured that, you know, small town rural place right next to Lake Superior, I was in heaven. My parents moved to Hawaii when I was in college, and they were on Oahu when I got to Hawaii. And this is the very short version obviously. Got to Oahu. And one day I flew to the Island of Maui, this is back in 1990. And I was like, Oh, this is heaven. You know, small town, small, small island, population wise relative to Oahu. I met my wife there, Kathy, who's raised here in Central Oregon. So she was in Hawaii at the same time. So we're both working adults in on Maui back in the day. And for career advancement. I took a job from a great military contract working with Boeing and Rockwell power systems, to a biotech research company up in Seattle. I lived in Seattle for a few years. And we kept driving back down to Central Oregon, where my wife grew up. So three times my way, my life, I went from the big town to the small town, and I finally figured out I need to be in this smaller place. And what are we doing is to shoot county commissioners, we're managing growth. You know, I ran for office 10 years ago now. And there was 150,000 people in the population of Deschutes. County. And now we're just getting to 200,000. That's a lot of growth. We're known as one of the areas that really are growing fast right now as a percentage.

Michael Sipe: 3:32

Well, so you know, one of the things are short version. That's good. Because I want to get to some of this stuff. One of the things that I've discovered as I talk to people around Central Oregon, is that, unfortunately, a lot of people don't really know very much about about county government. So we know a little bit about city government. We know there's something in County, and then there's the state government. So it seems like people know more about city and state government, maybe then county government. So could you just give us a little education about the how the city the county and the state kind of go together and what the what the key roles of county government are

Unknown: 4:11

sure there are 36 counties in the state of Oregon. Deschutes County is the youngest county in the state we incorporated in 1916. Two years after Jefferson County and we aren't we both split off of Cook County back in the day. So this used to be Cook County here in the middle of the state. But yeah, the state government sets the laws, you know, the legislature, the governor, the leadership, they're the big departments at the state level, in a county is an incorporated level of government of the state. So we were an actor of the state. A lot of times we you know, as commissioners, we don't change laws, like a city council, you can put an ordinance or resolution in place, but the laws are defined by the state of Oregon. We live in the state with our state constitution. As a commissioner, there's the three of us The Board of County Commissioners, we have the budget and the policy authority kind of the front end of the county government. The media writes up a lot and what the commissioners decided, but there's the other elected officials, also the sheriff and the district attorney, the assessor, the Treasurer, the clerk, the justice of the peace, you know, those are all elected positions. We also represent the solid waste landfill, not landfill and the whole solid waste franchise system. The fairgrounds, the road department, the health department. So there's a lot of different big common services for everybody inside outside of the city at the county level. Deschutes County, we have our four cities, but the destination resorts also, you know, Sun River and Black Butte ranch and pronghorn, tetherpro, Eagle Crest. So those are all those destination resort areas. So to shoot counties unique around the state, because of that balance inside and outside the cities. A lot of the rural lands were partitioned before land use 50 years ago, Senate Bill 100. So you're all the way up and down day road and some of the places out in alfalfa. Some of the, you know, we want to see farming in the rural, but some of the smaller parcels that was all done before there was statewide land use. So a lot of interesting things, you know, unique aspects of Deschutes County relative to anyplace else in the state.

Michael Sipe: 6:19

So this is a pretty big job. How many people work for the county anyway, because they all like directly or indirectly work for the county commissioners, right?

Unknown: 6:28

We have, like 1100 people working into shoots County. So that remember that different departments like a couple 100 in the sheriff's office, a couple 100 in the health department, and then a whole bunch of groups of you know, 20 to 30. So the juvenile justice road department, the assessor's office, you know, there's 20 something there. So a whole bunch of groups that make up that big number there. The the total budget rolls up to about $500 million annually. That's kind of, you know, double accounting, some some, like the state contracts that go from one department to another. So really, it's about half of that it's kind of like true money flowing in. So it's in and out of the county wide, it becomes comes that number, but it's a big number. And you know, a lot of staff, a lot of contracts a lot of services. You know, sometimes we buy a million dollars with asphalt oil for this year's paving, you know? Yeah, there's a road department to work in the summer. But I mean, that's just the oil. So then there's the rock, and then there's the different supplies and buying a new truck once in a while. So it adds up.

Michael Sipe: 7:41

Wow. So where does the money come from? You mentioned the state provide some funding. And I presume that sometimes there's federal funding, maybe? I don't know. But where does the bulk of the county money come from?

Unknown: 7:54

So the cash that really runs the county is our tax bill. So we've got we represent about five of the different line items on the tax bill, there's the permanent rate for Deschutes. County at $1.28, which we have six cents less than that maximum. And I'm so proud to say we were able to lower that rate by those six pennies in 2017. Five years ago. Now, we've never had to raise it back up. Each Penny is worth about $250,000 to our budget. So that's serious business when we say six cents and your tax bill could be 2040 or $50 in your tax bill, but it rolls up to be a number each penny rolls up to be a number. But then also the sheriff's office has a county wide rate for jail operations and search and rescue. Also a rural rate for patrol on 911 is a county wide district which is about 42 cents maximum. And it's only 36 cents assessed right now. And then also for each. And then there's some other districts little sub districts like that Black Butte ranch Police Department sign wherever police and fire so that's only for that that smaller area. But we represent those because the the governing authority is at the Board of Commissioners level. So yeah, there's a whole bunch of line items on the tax bill that add up to these big numbers.

Michael Sipe: 9:08

Right. And one of the things that you mentioned a little bit earlier that I don't think people know, and I actually didn't know until recently is that, that you have primary oversight over over health and in the county. Right. How did that work out over the last couple of years? I mean, that had to have been a real, real challenge.

Unknown: 9:26

Well, I know what are the local public authority what we say goes unless the governor takes that authority away from us. So that's the emergency orders. We you know, COVID took us all by surprise a couple years ago and they got to be serious business. But yeah, they ended up becoming blanket rules for the state during COVID. Because there was a moment where, you know, the governor was basically asking each county to put a, you know, a mask mandate and you know, figure out your vaccination plan, but then they just ended up taking the whole thing away from us, but normal times, we truly are the Public Health Authority and the behavioral health authority and that's That's where a lot of the big contracts come down from the feds and the state, because that's the whole population. That's anybody in everybody. Any person that lives in the county is going to have those services offered to them. Not everybody needs them. But yeah, behavioral health. And when you think about it, behavioral health is Mental Health Plus addictions, that's behavioral health. That's that whole world. And then public health is restaurant inspections, and vaccinations, you know, youth vaccinations, but also obviously, COVID vaccinations, it's a brand new and on top of us. And, you know, what are those trending things that we need to watch out for sexually transmitted diseases, or addictions? Or, you know, opioid management, you know, just outreach for people that are struggling, getting sucked into addictions? You know, it starts with public health and could behavior end up in a behavioral health world. So a lot of big things in the health department.

Michael Sipe: 10:51

So there's this behavioral health thing puts you right smack dab in the middle of a lot of the debate around the homeless community and some of those issues. Right?

Unknown: 11:00

Well, so let's talk about homeless Yeah, well, you know, this is society, this is community, this is Austin, Central Oregon, we're in the high desert, people are setting up on the side of the road and intense and out in the woods, in, you know, some pretty rough situations. And we need to help, we need to figure out what we're going to do here, during COVID, we're just kind of had, we had to have a hands off approach a little bit. But now it's time now, especially when the weather's getting nice now, what is going to be the culture of Central Oregon for for this outreach, management and expectations, cultural norms of, you know, the homeless issue, because there's a whole spectrum of issues out there. You know, as I say, mental health issues, behavioral health, addiction cycles, abuse, childhood, Aces, the childhood experiences, adverse childhood experiences. So yeah, that's all that but there's also, there's this culture of, I'm fine, I'm just gonna hang out. There's, you know, there's, there's a subset of perfectly ready functioning young adults that are just hanging out, and I want to welcome them into the economy is my point. Yeah, it's all about man, I'm figured out. You can live in public lands for two weeks at a time, but please put your boy scout or boys girls, Boy Scout, or Girl Scout hat on, clean up after yourself. You know, we're having some problems out there, where there's some camps, and they're really turning into a mess. Some of them burn up, and then people just walk away, and we just got environmental disaster out there. So there's a whole spectrum of issues right there. Sure for asking.

Michael Sipe: 12:31

Yeah, we could probably go on for a long time. But so I the role of a county commissioner, first of all, how does how does someone learn to become a county commissioner? I mean, this is, this is a lie. Do you have budget people, you know, over 1000 people, you know, all these different areas? You know, so you, so what's the county commissioner do? And how do you? How do you learn it?

Unknown: 12:52

Well, just like state representative, obviously, I'm just joking. So a little bit of life experience, and I'm serious, you know, graduate from school, or do whatever you do have a career, you know, get married, if that's your choice, buy a house, sell a house, run a business and be employed by somebody live life a little bit, then you have some life experience to be able to offer your fellow citizens, you know, you can go to college and get a, you know, government, some, you know, political science degree. But I mean, you need to live life and understand, and we're all in this together at all levels, you know, any background experience, what's the land use? What's the how are we going to pave the roads, who's going to pay for, you know, the services that we expect, keeping the sheriff on the road, the deputies, it's just life experience, you know, well rounded is going to be better there. And then it gets political, obviously, different people come from different points of view. I'm a registered Republican, just honored to be doing it. But when you think of it, it's the platform of the party, the pay the words on the page, like, Yeah, I kind of resonate with this, because there's another platform that's like, well, that's not quite me. So that's, that's where I'm at. But we represent everybody. And I'm honored to be doing.

Michael Sipe: 14:02

The county commission had a lot to do in the last couple of years. And I'd be interested in hearing just a little bit about some of the things that you think were big accomplishments over the course of what were really turbulent years, but But you got some big stuff done. Yeah.

Unknown: 14:19

So as I say, we're managing growth Deschutes County, county, it's all about population growth, keeping our community development department functioning and flowing. One of the things that comes to mind is we have our County Administrator retirement. So Tom Anderson was the County Administrator. We've got a strong administrator form of government where there's a board of three commissioners and we hire the administrator and we set the policy. We have a professional administrator with credentials that runs the county so that when you're an employee of the county, you work for the administrator. We don't break up into departments like if I'm going to represent the road department Commissioner there represents the solid waste you know, we're not we don't do that we Do all policy as a group. So as I say, Tom Anderson, retired, Nick lelaki has been selected as the County Administrator. We've kept Community Development Department just flowing, we're seeing the same thing, just like other people are. In industry, the, the great resignation or the greatest reset whatever's happening here, we're seeing some employee turnover, people coming and going, we want to get those folks on, on staff and you know, providing the services for everybody. So community development, keeping it going. As we're in the middle of a, we well, we're at the end of a pandemic, what we got to change my mindset here,

Michael Sipe: 15:37

we're at the end, we are definitely a panda. I've been

Unknown: 15:41

saved in the middle of a pandemic for a long time. But yeah, end of a pandemic. And we're still managing growth come to find out people want to live in rural Central Oregon is a prime place for people to be housing costs have gone way up. So just managing all the cultural expectations and the service expectations is pretty big. In one of the big picture items, for the last 10 years, we've been kind of working our way out of a recession, you know, the Great Recession, you think of it, so it's always been kind of a slow, uphill, kind of easy walk for a while now. And then all of a sudden, COVID has really hit and the inflation, the cost of housing, the lack of housing, I mean, some of these things are coming to a head. And it's nobody's specific fault, except, well, I won't get too political but yeah, okay. I'm joking around here. We've got to figure this out together, you know, finding places for workers, people that want to be in Central Oregon, how they can buy in and be here and provide those services. We're also dealing with a, the, you know, the silver tsunami, the the, the baby boomer retirement wave, which is great, I'm so happy for people that can retire, we need to fill in services, people gonna expect services, and there's gonna be less people in the economy. So we need to find housing for those folks. I always advocate for a little bit more flexibility and land use, you know, so as I say, if you're in Salem, let's partner with how can we open up just X amount of land for that low cost? Workforce Housing, it seems like a dream, but we probably need to control it somehow. We've got urban growth boundary coming on in the city of Bend, and there's going to be 1000s of houses built. They're going to be market rate. And I don't know if it's going to turn it down a little bit. So I'm jumping topic topic here. But yeah, I'm just honored that I've been able to be a commissioner and have the honor to be serving again in the future. So this is the election process this year. You know, 2022 is going to set up for the elections in November this year. Yeah, let's go full speed ahead.

Michael Sipe: 17:47

So just tell us what a day in the life is like for a county commissioner, specifically for you. But what's the day in the life of Tony Demone look like?

Unknown: 17:55

Well, you know, one of the interesting things is, you know, we are full time commissioners, it's a salaried position. Our job is to be a disused county commissioner, we set up for a Monday work session in the afternoon, and Tuesday board meeting all day, basically. So that's when the three of us are in session. The board meeting and the work session really don't look any different, because we're down in our diocese in the front of the room on video. So we're on Wednesday we do. It's a little bit more contracts, signing or final business. On Monday. It's more, you know, sharing information or talking amongst ourselves, but they're all agenda items. One of the interesting things like if I on Tuesday mornings after Monday, I'll like Pretty soon I'll be I'll cut my lawn on Tuesday morning. And I find out that on the weekend, I'm usually doing something you know, like as a commissioner, I'll be somewhere and it took me a while to figure this out. I need to stop and cut the lawn and get my haircut. So but show up at BioMart or something and lupine. on a Tuesday morning, somebody says, aren't you supposed to be at work and I said, I am always working. But it's like that, you know, being out in the community is the most valuable thing being seen being available talking to people, because that's where you bring the the facts, the knowledge and just the feel of the community back to the board meeting. So it's kind of the joke, you know, yes, I'm always working. But sometimes you take a half a day off and you cut the lawn and do whatever you need to do. And I'll answer my phone on a Tuesday morning too, so not a problem. And then we have our committee work, just anything and everything. I've always really enjoyed EDCO economic development for Central Oregon. I was on the neighbor impact board for many years. And yeah, just all kinds of stuff project wildfires and effort from our community for just neighborhood outreach, defensible space education for everyone. So we got a whole list of things we do on a statewide committee for statewide interoperability of emergency communications, but ever since this is from 911 from 2001 the world you know we all kind of get shocked by it. And the towers go down in New York City. But the public safety world took on the commitment to get interoperability in radio systems. Because when you have multiple agencies show up, and they all have the different frequencies and nobody knows how to talk to the guy in the car next door to you, that's an issue. So that's one of those efforts that we're doing called interoperability. So I can't go down all kinds of avenues here as I'm talking to you.

Michael Sipe: 20:22

Well, it's really interesting, because the the more that I learned about the role of the County Commission and the role of a county commissioner, the more I'm amazed at how much you have to know. I mean, this is not a walk in the park, there are so many different moving targets and different opinions and different viewpoints and different things that have to be reconciled. It's really quite a quite a huge job. And, and you and Kathy are everywhere.

Unknown: 20:45

Yeah, my wife and I, yeah, Kathy is by my side, we just have a good time doing this. He really, you know, kind of, she's motivated, not motivated, you know, to connect and make sure we're grounded in what we're doing and why we're doing it. And so yeah, it really puts a smile on my face. When I think of even running for office. It's just like that, for whatever reason it and I've met people are like, I'm gonna run for office, it's gonna be terrible. I'm like, you may not be stepping into the right thing, then.

Michael Sipe: 21:11

McDonald's is hiring pays better.

Unknown: 21:13

And if you're looking, if it doesn't look like it's calling, that's could be a bad thing.

Michael Sipe: 21:17

For sure. Well, a couple final questions, as we wrap up here, as you look at where we're headed over the course of the next year, you know, maybe we call it a recovery year, rebound year, whatever it is, you know, coming out here, whatever it is, what are one or two big issues that you think are going to be facing us as a county as a region that people need to really get tuned up on?

Unknown: 21:45

So I think of a couple things, the balance of our community and society, it's a time of change, it's a time of transition, you know, we are all seeing it. inflation's happening, you know, fuel prices through the roof. A lot of efforts for renewable energy systems, I'm kind of thinking through that path. But high speed internet, Amazon Home delivery, we just saw, you know, inflationary pressure on payroll, which may not have caught up with inflation. But this is a moment in time isn't all these things are moving at the same time. So we are going to manage that. As I say, it's just the kind of the catch all manage that into shoots County, land use getting some houses built, getting apprentices into the building trades. I think we did we keep our eye off the ball there, we get our eye off the ball on that. My son graduated from lupine High School about five years ago now. And I said just go to college, or only kid wanted to go to college. He's like, why would I do that Dad, there's money to be made. But that was his mindset. And now he's got his career going. And he's going to be valuable for probably the rest of his life, knowing how to work hard and how to produce, you know, product, they're doing excavation work. So they're moving dirt. But that's so important right now, getting that next generation of employees educated up to speed. You know, when you do these apprenticeship programs, you get to learn about a trade work while you're doing it and not even incurred that. So there's a whole different mindset that's come in for the long I was, you know, for the longest time it was, well, if you don't go to college, you know, what else would you do? We have totally stopped that just now. And college is good. I mean, education, obviously, knowledge is good, but we have some needs. So as I say I keep jumping tracks here a little bit. In the in the next couple years. Getting as I say the urban growth boundary of the City of Bend is going to be exciting watching it build out city of Redmond is growing. It's got just these kind of comfortable steps. They did an urban reserve plan and different than the city of Ben, they just looked at one urban urban growth, boundary change and Redmond does the smaller steps city of lupine in the southern districts County, they've got huge land inside the incorporated boundaries. And they're going to be able to build houses for a long time to come. It was mentioned that they're put about 180 houses per year on the ground in lupine. So that's the pace that's going to happen. And that's you know, if it's 200 houses with two and a half people in each one, that's 500 people, they've been less than 2000 for you know, forever, all of a sudden, it's going to go 500 at a time and it's going to start to grow. So we're going to see a new growth area. City assisters has got the same opportunity with the public lands was the Forest Service. And that's going to be just a big land holding that opens up for development in their town, which they're working through right now. So we're going to be managing growth and all all sides of disputes County. Let's figure out what the next employment opportunities are to just like we say people are working from home and I saw years ago when I was running for office, I was knocking on doors. And people are like, Yeah, I'm, you know, on a corporate meeting and this is four and five years ago. I'm like, Oh, that's interesting. People are really doing that. And now people really doing that? I mean, a lot more people are doing that. So yeah, we're an exciting place to be people from around the country, the West Coast want to be here. So all I can say is managing growth is the big, big step here.

Michael Sipe: 25:12

So as we wrap up here, give us some final thoughts as, as the shoots county residents. So, you know, we are all in this together, as you mentioned, so what's our role in this as citizens as Deschutes? County residents? How can we help you make this a better place?

Unknown: 25:30

Well, there's a mindset for myself, let's keep it simple, you know, because sometimes we're playing chess, and sometimes we're playing checkers. And I'm referring to politics, I feel like it's my job is to keep it simple for everybody. So because not everybody wants to have a whole lot of mindspace around the politics around them. But if we understand that, okay, you know, we pay this amount, we get this service, and we hire these people to do it, and, you know, everybody's happy. But all of a sudden, there just seems to be a big chess game going on sometimes, which is really makes your mind bend when you try to figure it out. So keep it simple. This is a government for everybody. It shouldn't be a government that only few people understand if you under them, that's where I'm coming from right now. And, at that point, provide those services with pride, you know, so that we do have 1100 employees of the sheets County. You know, I never want to be in a spot where somebody is mad at us for you know, doing whatever service, there's reason why we're doing what we're doing. You know, it comes to like road maintenance always comes to mind. We have unmaintained rural roads, which are unmaintained, they're not the county's responsibility. So I get that call. A lot of times I said, you know, that beautiful like, collector or, you know, paved road that got to your neighborhood, that's us. But when you go off a side road, that's not us, and nobody's coming, sorry. But you know, just for that clarity, so people understand what's going on here. And then keeping it cost effective relative to the economy to you know, these are big public budgets that we represent. And but we need to have a vibrant economy going at the same time also. So yeah, honored to be serving as the chief County Commissioner honored to be putting my name and again, puts a smile on my face now and it let's go do this. It's going to be like that all year.

Michael Sipe: 27:13

Well, I appreciate your friendship, and I admire what you do. It's a tremendously complex and complicated role with both a lot of administrative challenges, budgetary challenges, personnel challenges, I mean, you run a business, and everybody gets to weigh in on it, which must make it awfully complicated when everybody has an opinion grounded or ungrounded. I think one of the takeaways that I have out of our time together really is just the the sheer magnitude of the the responsibilities that the county commission has, and the individual Commissioners have to be able to juggle all this stuff, and, and particularly in the midst of a real contentious environment. So thank you for your service. Thank you for what you do. And thanks for being on the show today.

Unknown: 28:03

Yeah. Honored to be doing it. Michael SIPE, thank you so much for taking time to call people in and sit down and do this, this is valuable. One of the thoughts that comes to mind is, you know, please reach out if anybody's listening and has questions. I mean, give me a call my mobile number of 541-728-3012, I put it in the voters pamphlet, it's available. Cuz sometimes we get these, these emails are just kind of thrown over the fence, and they want us to respond to something and the only one is to say yes to their issue. It's like, it's just not that simple. So give us a call. If you really have a question. And I do that a lot, too. I'll respond to people say please call let's discuss, because you just get stuck in this back and forth. If you try to write it down and write paragraphs and try to explain and then somebody takes a word the wrong way and everybody's upset. But audio is good, too, because we're hearing people's voice and the enthusiasm that's going on here.

Michael Sipe: 28:52

You bet. Well, again, thanks for being with us today. My guest today is county commissioner to chutes County Commissioner Tony debone. And thank you very much for tuning in.

Narrator: 29:03

Thank you. Thanks for listening to cascade views with Michael SIPE. To find out more about Mike the upcoming election. The key issues he's focused on in his campaign to represent Central Oregon and Salem as a state representative. Visit www dot a voice for Central oregon.com that's www dot a voice for Central oregon.com You can get your own copy of Michael sites best selling book the Avada principle@amazon.com. And finally, please vote in the upcoming election. Your Voice Matters