Eric King - Community Partnership

Eric King began his career in local government working for the City of Portland. In his 10 years there, he worked on a variety of projects and programs focusing on economic development and program management. He began working for the City of Bend as Assistant City Manager in April, 2007 and accepted the position of City Manager in May, 2008.

Eric was born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin. He has a Master’s Degree in Urban and Regional Planning and a Graduate Certificate in Real Estate Development from Portland State University. Eric currently services on the KIDS Center Board and has served on the Visit Bend and Oregon City/County Managers' Association Boards as well as volunteered with SMART- promoting early childhood literacy.

Transcript

Unknown Speaker  0:05  
I want us to create partnerships with our community. It's not we really impress this upon our new employees, it's not in us in them. This is government working with our community that's embedded into how we do our business. And so we want, we want that engagement. And we want we want your help to preserve that then culture. It's a welcoming community. We it has a history of being a welcoming community. Let's not let's not stop that into evolve into our factions. Let's create a place that everybody feels connected

Narrator  0:36  
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 Redman, sisters, tremolo, and 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's your host, Michael SIPE.

Michael Sipe  1:10  
Thanks for joining us on cascade views. This is Michael SIPE, and I'm excited to welcome Eric King, the city manager of bend to the show today, Eric began his career in local government working for the city of Portland. In his 10 years there, he worked on a variety of projects and programs focusing on economic development, and program management. He began working for the city of Bend as assistant city manager in April 2007 and accepted the position of city manager in May 2008. Eric was born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin. He has a master's degree in urban and regional planning and a graduate certificate in real estate development from Portland State University, or currently serves on the kids center board and has served on the visit bend and Oregon City County Managers Association boards, as well as volunteered with start making a reader today smart promoting early childhood literacy. Eric's joining us today to talk about the city of Bend and all the multifaceted parts and manage managing a city. So it's my pleasure to welcome him to the show. Hi, Eric.

Unknown Speaker  2:13  
Hi, thank you so much for having me really appreciate the opportunity.

Michael Sipe  2:16  
You bet. Let's dive right in. We've got good ground to cover today. In the introduction, I mentioned that you are the city manager of bend. So give us a brief education on the various ways that cities can choose to govern themselves.

Unknown Speaker  2:30  
Yeah, happy to. And I think it's a really great to have to some basic civic lessons right now. And it gets complicated in all levels of government, federal state, and at the local level, cities really have a lot of discretion there. There's what's called Home Rule, meaning that cities charter themselves to define their services, their responsibilities. So Ben has a city charter that was adopted in 2000. And I'm sorry, in 1911. And it's been changed five times. It really is our governing document like our constitution at the local level, that defines our core services and our roles, the city council and city manager, happy to go into more detail, we do have something that's unique here in Bend, in that we have a decentralized local government where we have separate taxing districts for parks and library and 911. And but in general, the cities in Oregon and really across the country have a lot of discretion for the services they provide and how they're governed. So what do you see

Michael Sipe  3:33  
is some pros and cons in terms of different ways of governing? Because so you worked in Portland Portland's different than bend and its methodology? And what do you see as some of the pros and cons of different forms of city government?

Unknown Speaker  3:47  
Yeah, sure. I mean, basically, there's there's three types of local government. There's what's called the strong mayor. So a lot of large cities, predominant form of government, government, if you're over 250,000, and population. And I think a lot of folks when think of cities, they think of strong mayor mayor, maybe hires and fires the department heads and really has a strong hand and running the city almost as an executive. Seattle, San Francisco, New York City, those are all strong mayor forms of government. The Commission form, as you mentioned, Portland is one of the only cities that has that form of government, where it's a hybrid array of elected officials that play both a role in directing the operations of the city, maybe they're hiring and firing department heads, and then they also set policy they're doing both. It's more common to see that a version of that and county government where you might have County in our case and county Deschutes County have kind of County Commissioners that are really almost like full time employees. And they're creating legislation. They don't necessarily have a hand in running the city, but they're more involved. And then what Ben has and what is the predominant form of local government for cities under 250,000 in population is what's called Council manager form and that was developed in the 1920s really in an era of a lot of corruption, and so that the council manager form is really meant to professionalize local government really clear separation between the legislative policymaking role and the administrative that running the day to day functions of the city in the city is our core services really don't have a lot of, of politics associated with them, making sure that we have water and sewer and that we're delivering public safety services, etc, that that there is kind of a clear line to delineation between the professional management of the city and then the policymaking. So that's, that's the policy that we have here that the form of government we have here in bed.

Michael Sipe  5:42  
So help me understand this just a little bit more in terms of the city manager form of government and and what we haven't been so can you just kind of break down simply for me how it works and kind of what's the role of the city manager versus, say, the mayor or the city council. And let's, let's just stick with how it is in Ben.

Unknown Speaker  6:01  
Sure. Yeah, so in Bend, my role as a city manager, much like a CEO would be of a private company, my job is to really create the the team, we have Senator 150 employees whom I start with our leadership or their department heads. So hiring and firing of the department heads making sure that they are executing our strategic or operational plan to run the day to day activities of the city's core services, calls for service for public safety, water, and sewer are our plans for growth, and all the administrative support needed to run the city, I also helped to really to manage the board of directors or the city council in this case to make sure that they are creating good policy and it's informed by rules, regulations, that things the context that we have to work with. But they they're also given the freedom to reflect community values. And so we do that through active goal setting, so but my job is to make sure that there's that structure for them to operate within. And then my job is to present a budget and implementation plan for those Council goals. So that, you know, the resources are aligned to community priorities. And then also, I engage with our community partners, so School District, Park, district, county, etc. To solve problems, we have a group that is called Teen Ben that that we participate in, and there's many other partners at the state level as well. And then I would say lastly, my role is to act as an ombudsman. So a lot of times there will be problems that occur interaction that somebody might have with the city department that doesn't get resolved, my job is to sort of help facilitate resolution, and make sure that our city services are again aligned to community values. And then for the council, their job really is to set policies to to think longer term about where the community is going, and how to reflect those values into the city operations. They're also the ultimate decision maker on how resources are allocated. So my job is I present a budget. But their job as the as the body is to make sure that you know that that budget actually accurately reflects where the city needs to go. They also oversee our governance structure. So we have about a half dozen boards, committees, commissions that help Council do their work. And they make those appointments to those to those bodies, they also act as a liaison to make sure that that work is getting done. And I say lastly, they represent the city in public settings. So they often are the face, ribbon cuttings, community events, they really helped to promote the city and its its services.

Michael Sipe  8:44  
Well, that's kind of a lot and your job is a huge one. I think the the way you distinguish it as the CEO of the city is really helpful.

Unknown Speaker  8:52  
What's the city budget these days. So it's over, we do two year budgets, and it's about a $900 million budget over those two years, that can be a little deceiving the way that government budget works, so we have to, we issue debt for large infrastructure projects that gets recorded as debt proceeds. So the budget looks a lot bigger than it really is. So I like to simplify things and to say on that when you just look at the revenue, we get about 200 million in revenue per year, that makes it maybe a little more digestible in terms of comparing it to a more of a private business is what that revenue stream looks like.

Michael Sipe  9:29  
Well, as a business guy, you know, a $200 million enterprise being the CEO of that is, is no small job. So thank you for for doing that. You mentioned some of the services of the city. But one of the things I was wondering, the city has a lot of things going on. And I was just wondering if there was was a something that the city government does, you know, maybe sort of quietly and behind the scenes that maybe most people wouldn't know about, but that actually really makes a huge difference in livability?

Unknown Speaker  9:58  
Yeah, I mean, just go back to our core server And I think water and sewer people take a lot for granted turn on the tap and flushes down the toilet. And it will work seamlessly. And one of the things that we're really proud of is, you know, as a fast growing city, we've added 30,000 People in my backseat, we're like 40,000, over the last 15 years, and I've been here, and our water consumption actually has remained about flat, because we've been really efficient with how we use water, how we develop land, etc. So that's something that people I think, would be surprised to hear about, I think our for good fortune of being in band, we actually have a really high cardiac survivability rate. What that means is if you suffer if you are in a heart attack, our police and fire response times, our training, our collaboration with between police and fire really helped to create a safe environment. So we're really proud of that. I also think that Ben is a fast growing city. And I think we always hear well, where's all the all this growth? Right? Where's what what are we doing to plan for all this growth, there is a lot of work to plan for Ben's population growth and the connection to sewer and water and transportation, infrastructure plans and land use needs, that are all part of are happening behind the scenes, and are all synced up. So we can tell you exactly where our intention is to accommodate all those new folks moving to Ben,

Michael Sipe  11:24  
it really does work remarkably smoothly. When you think about all those different pieces. There really are, you know, knock on wood or whatever there there really are very, very few kind of glitches that as citizens we observe, it's remarkable. And the city staff does an excellent job. My experience with the city has been fantastic. So the fact that there aren't more things breaking down is just really remarkable. I moved to bend about 20 years ago, just a few years before you started as assistant city manager. And there have been a lot of changes in bend over that time. You mentioned population growth, but maybe what are some of the other key changes that you've seen in your tenure as city manager?

Unknown Speaker  12:09  
Yeah, and I think a good reflection of that, as Ben was named the number one best performing small city for three years in a row in 2016 17, and 18, in my tenure, and that is as attributes is attributed to job growth and wage growth, as well as our diversity of employment, we are really becoming much more economically diverse. And I think a lot of that is attributable to you know, we have a four year university, we have great support networks for the tech sector bioscience healthcare. So I'm really proud of that. I think our housing mix is really changing, also reflecting the demographic change that's happening and Ben. So within that, we want to continue to be an accessible community to everyone. And so having not just single family homes available, but homes for folks that are kind of aging out that are retiring Tibet, aging that are retiring to ban as well as new folks coming to bend. And so our housing mix is changing quite a bit our neighborhood composition, we really embrace a concept called complete neighborhoods where you were highly amenitized, you have parks and schools and access to those neighborhood amenities, restaurants, coffee shops, etc. And you're seeing a lot more of that a lot more parity across bend, it's not just something that's not happening on the west side, we're seeing neighborhoods really become more built out, particularly on the east side of Ben, I would say our alignment, if of really looking at the backbone of the city, or water, sewer and transportation infrastructure and aligning those infrastructure plans with our growth plans, or we ended up big urban growth, Boundary Expansion in 2016, we'll be doing we've just added some land to our UGB. Recently, we'll be talking more about some foundational work that we're doing to look at our urban growth boundary in the future. And then, you know, this, this, this idea of looking at how we are just efficient with it and adopting smart growth policies. I mean, Old Mill is kind of a great example of that taking a What was our, we were a timber town and taking that land and really making good use of it. And we've got examples of that happening in the core of of bend with the old mill. It's happening also just near Third Street and other pockets of bend. And I really proud of the fact that we're growing and progressing in a modern way we're becoming a city of the future. And not necessarily just trying to hang on to some sort of institutional way of doing things we have innovation is really part of our bloodstream as a community and as an organization.

Michael Sipe  14:48  
You're right, Ben is an awesome place and we could probably spend hours just bragging on it, but there are some challenges. So you know, give us your perspective on maybe the top three challenges that you see facing our town. Over the next year or two, and then in the next question, I'll ask you to kind of summarize some of the strategies to overcome them. But But first, maybe you could just kind of tick off the top two or three challenges, issues that you see that need solving.

Unknown Speaker  15:12  
Yeah, for sure. You know, really top of the list is housing. Yes, we've done a lot. But there's a lot more to do housing and homelessness as a part of that, I would say, number one, right behind that transportation, and then growth and just, I would say, managing expectations as part of that growth, where people come to bend. And I think they what they thought Ben was going to be what it grows or evolves into changes over time. And I think just having keeping the community together around that is a major challenge.

Michael Sipe  15:42  
So as the following question, then you talk a little bit about the current strategies that the city has to address those issues.

Unknown Speaker  15:49  
Yeah, so let's just talk about housing and homelessness first, and I'd say housing. In general, we are just under Bill we need to catch up. And I know that might be hard for some people to hear, because I think people move to bed thinking at this point, we just sort of slow down this growth. Well, one we don't have going back to our form of government, and we're a city in the state of Oregon that we don't have the authority or ability to say he's stopped moving here, we're only going to issue X number of permits, that's not what happens. And when you do constrain, or sort of put a cap and say, you know, we're going to not meet the market where it's at, you'll actually make things worse in terms of affordability. So we have a lot of catch up to do in terms of getting more housing built and all forms. So that's that's something that we need to continue to we have been doing, we need to continue to do. So what's on the list. And what's our plan moving forward is we're looking we're actually going to be starting this next week with council is looking at our development impact fees, where are called SDCs. And really coming up with a more tiered system to incentivize the housing product that we are short on. We had some recent legislation thanks to Representative Zika to create more a pilot project to expand urban growth boundary for more affordable housing. That's House Bill 4079. So we'll be implementing that plan. It's a big master plan. Hayden Holmes is going to be developing that that's a mix of both market rate and affordable housing. On the east side of Ben, as part of our urban growth, Boundary Expansion efforts, we've done an expansion in the southeast area that Stevens Ranch, some of it was already in in 2016. And that we've got expanded. So we're completing master plans and more affordable housing there. We're conducting an economic opportunity analysis as well as a housing production analysis. Those are fancy words for really understanding how we better align our housing policies to the need. And that will lead to our question about where the urban growth boundary will be expanded Next, we just recently passed local codes to expand what are called what's called middle housing. So duplexes triplexes, as well as make changes to our code for micro housing for, you know, for more transitional types of housing for folks. And I would say more flexibility in our core area for that mix of housing where there's a lot of I think support for for that. I'd say speaking of the Corps really looking for public private partnerships. And so how do we put in big infrastructure investments in a strategic way to then be able to incentivize the private market to build that product. So as a result of all of that what we've done on the organizational side is create we've we've created a housing department, housing was part of our economic development efforts. And we've said it's just become such a focus. And we've expanded housing starting with a pleading middle income housing programs that are that again, speak to those public private partnerships. And so our staff is more aligned to helping the market around middle income housing, we have our traditional affordable housing program, we were the first city in the state to create an affordable housing program that has housing to be guaranteed affordable for typically about a 50 year period, and are trying to help our development community create up to about 1000 affordable housing units over the next two years. Those are deed restricted both rental and homeownership opportunities. And then homelessness. We have gotten into the business of just creating the space we're not running homeless. We are really respectful of our core services of not providing direct services, or you know, mental health behavioral health services but creating facilities and zoning and setting the table for more really emergency or temporary housing. So we've bought a hotel and other sort of

Unknown Speaker  19:50  
carb, low barrier shelter. We have contracts with nonprofits to run to run those facilities. And so speaking of homelessness, and more specifically more specificity, we've expanded our shelter capacity through those things that I just mentioned repurposing hotels, we have a contract with an outdoor shelter with a central Oregon villages. And they're proceeding with a site right now to about tiny homes sort of village we have Veterans Village that recently opened and will have we have some more in the way of another nonprofits and supporting their work. We're also regulating our public property, including our rights of ways we're creating a unsanctioned camping code so that we have, we don't I think nobody wants to see camping on the streets, and then rights of way and underpasses and overpasses and things. So creating more of a regulatory environment there. And then lastly, partnerships, we've recently propped up a collaborative office to city county office, all four cities and shoots County, and and the and the county to staff a homelessness office. This is this is not just a city issue, it's city and county working together to solve it. So those are those are some of the plans around housing and homelessness, transportation, of course, the transportation bond that voters approved, but we have to go beyond just the capital projects and actually help to improve our pavement, the pavement condition and look for some additional funding sources at the local level. And I also think we've got some opportunities with federal dollars on transportation to make some investments in the parkway, and how that our local systems system interacts with the parkway and get better east west connectivity. There's the popcorn crossing or Midtown crossing project that's underway, that we have some funding needs for. And then lastly, as I've mentioned, growth and managing expectations of just continuing to keep a sense of civic that civic lesson of what we're talking about today, understanding how local government works, what the roles are, so that people can engage and their values can be reflected and how we grow and change. But just making sure that you know, you sign up to be part of Bend bend as you were living growing city, and we want people to grow alongside with us as partners, not just be in a reactive mode.

Michael Sipe  22:14  
Well, that's a great segue to my last question. As we wrap up here, this has been super interesting. We could go for for hours, I'm sure but but we need to kind of wrap this up. So my last question is kind of keying off of what you just said, you and the city staff work really hard to serve all of us, which is obvious from what you just recounted all of the projects that you're involved in, and all the initiatives that the city's engaged in. I mean, this is a lot. So what's the best way we can help you? In other words, what are a couple ways that we could be the kind of citizens that make your job easier?

Unknown Speaker  22:49  
Well, I think it's just it's engage with us really partner understand the system, this system is not perfect, I'm not trying to say just just, you know, understand it and work with me, it needs to be changed and evolve over time. And I want us to create partnerships with our community, it's not we really impress this upon our new employees, it's not an us and them this is government working with our community that's embedded into how we do our business. And so we want, we want that engagement, and we want to we want your help to preserve that Ben culture, you know, it's a welcoming community, we it has a history of being a welcoming community, let's not, let's not stop that into evolve into our factions, let's create a place that everybody feels connected. And it means that let's avoid the temptation to just react, right we it's really easy to see a problem and just want to form an opinion and react to it. And I think I would just encourage everybody to pause, think ask questions, get information, be part of it, partner and that's, that's, that's playing the long game. And that's what's I think in a fast growing city, I think and, and things are changing rapidly. I think people are more apt to be in the reactive mode and, and really resist that I guess it'd be my my ask of everybody to so that my job can be easier is because we want we want to the US to preserve that culture, think of the long game and really make sure that that Ben remains a viable community for the future.

Michael Sipe  24:19  
Eric, it's been great having you on the show. Thanks for the work you do to serve the community. My I got a couple of takeaways from our conversation today though your last point about taking a long view perspective and partnering on on the challenging issues. I think that's really well made. The other one is actually I've I've just been reflecting as you go through all of this it really is easy to throw rocks at at at government any level of government it's really easy for people to say well you know if I were king, here's what I do are not Eric king, but like King of the universe, like that. The your king How about that? Just completely fumbled that Oh, thing there, but basically is that things are working really well in so many areas of our city, which is attributed to you. And it's attributed to the amazing staff that keeps the wheels on this bus. And you know, as you recounted all the things that you're working on, it's, it's really quite remarkable and, and a great takeaway for me that, you know, while there's things that need to be worked on, there are so many things that are working well. And I just want to thank you for that.

Unknown Speaker  25:29  
Oh, no, appreciate it. And thank you for taking an interest. That's that's, that's really part of the battle is is getting information out. And I appreciate this platform.

Michael Sipe  25:38  
Awesome. Well, my guest for this show has been Eric King, the city manager of Ben, you can find out more about him at bend oregon.gov. So thanks for tuning in.

Narrator  25:47  
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 SIPE best selling book the Avada principle@amazon.com. And finally, please vote in the upcoming election. Your Voice Matters