2002-108-Minutes for Meeting February 06,2002 Recorded 2/14/20021130 N.W. Harriman St., Bend, Oregon 97701-1947
(541) 388-6570 • Fax (541) 388-4752
www.deschutes.org
Tom De Wolf
Dennis R. Luke
MINUTES OF MEETING Mike Daly
DESCHUTES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2002
Homestead Building, Sunriver
Present were Commissioners Tom De Wolf, Dennis R. Luke and Michael M. Daly.
Also present were Mike Maier, County Administrator; Rick Isham and Laurie
Craghead, Legal Counsel; Paul Blikstad, Community Development; Jenny
Scanlon, Commissioners' Office; Les Stiles and Larry Blanton, Sheriff's Office;
Media Representatives Libby Beauvien of Z-21 TV Mike Cronin of the Bulletin;
Brooke Snavely, Sunriver Scene; Barney Lerten of bendnet. com; and
approximately 150 citizens.
The meeting was held in Sunriver at the Homestead Building in order to
accommodate citizens who wished to attend the meeting, as two issues of interest
to citizens in the greater Sunriver area were on the agenda.
Chair Tom De Wolf opened the meeting at 10: 00 a. m.
1. Before the Board was Citizen Input.
None was offered.
2. Before the Board was a Decision and Consideration of Signature of Order
No. 2002-026, Regarding Whether to Hear an Appeal of the Hearings
Officer's Denial of File No. CU -01-93 (Well Drilling Business -Home
Occupation in an RR -10 Zone).
Paul Blikstad gave a brief overview of this issue for the benefit of the audience
members who were not familiar with the appeal and hearing process.
Minutes of Board of Commissioners' Meeting Page 1 of 6 Pages
Wednesday, February 6, 206'2
uality Services Performed with Pride
LUKE: Move signature of Order No. 2002-026.
DALY: Second.
VOTE: LUKE: Yes.
DALY: Yes.
DEWOLF: Chair votes no.
3. Before the Board was a Decision and Consideration of Signature of Order
No. 2002-027, Regarding_Whether to Hear an Appeal of the County
Hearings Officer's Decision of CU-01-83/SP-01-52 (Regarding Commercial
Activity in Conjunction with a Farm Use - Applicant. Gary Brian).
Paul Blikstad explained that this issue is similar to the previous one, and gave a
brief overview of the appeal.
DEWOLF: Move approval of Order No. 2002-027.
DALY: Second.
VOTE: LUKE: No.
DALY: Yes.
DEWOLF: Chair votes yes.
4. Before the Board was a Final Public Hearing and Consideration of
Signature of Order No. 2002-025, Regarding the Formation of the Spring
River Special Road District.
This item was moved toward the end of the agenda.
5. Before the Board was a Public Forum on the Formation of the Sunriver
Service District.
This item was moved to be the last item on the agenda.
Before the Board was Consideration of Approval of the Consent Agenda.
LUKE: Move approval of the Consent Agenda.
DALY: Second.
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Wednesday, February 6, 2002
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VOTE: LUKE: Yes.
DALY: Yes.
DEWOLF: Chair votes yes.
Consent Agenda Items:
6. Approval of the Four Rivers Vector Control Annual Work Program for 2002;
7. Chair Signature of an Oregon Liquor Control License Application for the
Tumalo Store, Bend;
8. Signature of a Letter Reappointing Kendal Shaber to the Deschutes County
Commission on Children and Families through December 31, 2005; and
9. Chair Signature of Oregon Health Division Grant Revision #5, Adding Revenue
to Various Health Programs.
CONVENED AS THE GOVERNING BODY OF THE 9-1-1 COUNTY
SERVICE DISTRICT
10. Before the Board was Consideration of Approval of Weekly Accounts
Payable Vouchers for the 9-1-1 County Service District in the Amount of
$246.51.
LUKE: Move approval, subject to review.
DALY: Second.
VOTE: LUKE: Yes.
DALY: Yes.
DEWOLF: Chair votes yes.
CONVENED AS THE GOVERNING BODY OF THE EXTENSION/4-11
COUNTY SERVICE DISTRICT
11. Before the Board was Consideration of Approval of Weekly Accounts
Payable Vouchers for the Extension/4-11 County Service District in the
Amount of $1,713.49.
LUKE: So move, subject to review.
DALY: Second.
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Wednesday, February 6, 2002
Page 3 of 6 Pages
VOTE: LUKE: Yes.
DALY: Yes.
DEWOLF: Chair votes yes.
RECONVENED AS THE DESCHUTES COUNTY BOARD OF
COMMISSIONERS
12. Before the Board was Consideration of Approval of Weekly Accounts
Payable Vouchers for Deschutes County in the Amount of $858,883.90.
LUKE: Move approval, subject to review.
DALY: Second.
VOTE: LUKE: Yes.
DALY: Yes.
DEWOLF: Chair votes yes.
13. ADDITION TO THE AGENDA
None were offered.
4. Before the Board was a Final Public Hearing and Consideration of
Signature of Order No. 2002-025, Regarding the Formation of the Spring
River Special Road District.
Laurie Craghead gave an overview of the issue, which originated in November;
this is the final hearing. The Board of County Commissioners must decide
whether to allow this to go onto the May ballot, using land use criteria for their
decision. She explained a letter has been submitted questioning if this does fit
land use criteria, and the letter has been made a part of the record.
The Oregon Department of Revenue has given their approval of the legal
description and map. If the district is formed, it will put into place a tax rate of
$.94 per thousand to be used for road purposes.
Chair Tom De Wolf then opened the public hearing.
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Wednesday, February 6, 2002
Page 4 of 6 Pages
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Carol Jansen, Bob Anderson, Dave Wilkins, Ray Hamidde and Jens Jorgensen
then testified. Their testimony, which was taken by a court recorder, is
attached as Exhibit A.
Being no further testimony offered, Chair Tom DeWolf closed the public hearing.
Commissioner Luke explained to the audience that a positive vote by the Board
does not put the district into place; it merely allows this to go forward to a vote
of the people who would be affected by it.
Chair DeWolf added that it would allow the folks in the district to discuss and
learn more about the issue over the next few months, prior to the election on
May 21.
LUKE: I move approval of Order No. 2002-025.
DALY: Second.
VOTE: LUKE: Yes.
DALY: Yes.
DEWOLF: Chair votes yes.
5. Before the Board was a Public Forum on the Formation of the Sunriver
Service District.
Laurie Craghead gave an overview of the proposed formation and its purpose.
The Commissioners also explained the nature of a county service district. Chair
DeWolf then opened the public forum to receive testimony.
Mike Brannan, Gary Fiebick, Shirley Mildes, Jim Henshaw, Randy Ebertson,
York Richardson, Hans Abrams, Don Edwards, Jim Kreiss, Dave Ghormley,
Peter Martin, Tom Gunn, Penny Bennington, Bob Foster and Tom Luersen then
testified.
Chair DeWolf had to leave the meeting just prior to the testimony of Penny
Bennington. He indicated he planned to read the minutes of the remainder of
the meeting so that he would be familiar with the testimony he was not able to
hear first-hand.
Minutes of Board of Commissioners' Meeting
Wednesday, February 6, 2002
Page 5 of 6 Pages
After the conclusion of citizen testimony, at the request of Tom Luersen (a
partner in Sunriver Limited Partnership), Sheriff Les Stiles provided a brief
history of the reasons behind this proposed formation.
Gary Fiebick, General Manager of Sunriver, then provided the audience with
some details regarding current and proposed tax rates, current and proposed
homeowners' dues, and other information regarding the financial aspects of the
proposed service district.
The testimony that was given, which was taken by a court recorder, is attached
as Exhibit B.
Being no further items brought before the Board, Acting Chair Mike Daly
adjourned the meeting at 12:10 a.m.
DATED this 6th Day of February 2002 for the Deschutes County Board of
Commissioners.
ATTEST:
,
Recording Secretary
Tom DSNYolf, Chair
is R. Luke,
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ZXX'O'" r14 0 (
Mich el M. 15ali,C missioner
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DESCHUTES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
10:00 A.M.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2002
THE HOMESTEAD BUILDING, 57085 MEADOW ROAD
SUNRIVER, OREGON
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SUNRIVER, BEND; WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2002;
MS. CRAGHEAD: For the record I am Laurie Craghead,
Assistant Legal Counsel. Just some background on this. As
the Chair said, this is the final hearing for this Spring
River Special Road District. The petition was filed in
November, and the initial hearing was on January 3 for this
hearing for this district. At that time under the statute
the Board needs to either approve or disapprove of the
petition based on land use criteria, and we had a letter
that was submitted in the record from the CDE department
regarding whether or not this application complied with the
county's comp plan and the statewide planning goals. And
the Board adopted that document as well and they voted to
approve the petition.
The state statutes requires then a final
hearing on the matter, and then that's what this is. And
there are maps if anyone hasn't gotten one that's here for
this. There are maps in the back on the back table. The
maps have been submitted to the Department of Revenue, and
we have got a preliminary approval of these maps in the
legal description. They are slightly different than the
maps in the legal description that were approved at the
initial hearing because the Department of Revenue wanted a
little bit different map and wording and so we have gotten
those.
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COMMISSIONER LUKE: And this is the Spring
River Road District which is out Spring River Road out on
the right-hand side after you cross the Deschutes, and they
are going to go to a public election to see if they want to
tax themselves'to maintain the roads
MS. CRAGHEAD: Right. And the assessment would
be $0.94 per thousand assessed value and with an estimate
of the first year possibly raising $13,270.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: What I would like to
explain is sort of the way that we operate in public
hearings, and this will apply to both this and the public
hearing that will follow immediately after this one.
Anyone who wishes to testify needs to come up to the
microphone. This is being taped as well as a court
reporter recording this information as well. You need to
state your name clearly at the beginning of your testimony,
and you need to spell your name. Unless it's Smith.or
Jones, you need to spell your name for the record.
We require that everyone remain civil to
towards each other even when we disagree with each other on
these issues. And anyone in my opinion who is not
remaining civil I will stop your testimony. We would ask
that you stick to the point, keep it as brief as you can
while making your point, and that there is no need to
repeat what other people have said so that we can all get
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COMMISSIONER LUKE: And this is the Spring
River Road District which is out Spring River Road out on
the right-hand side after you cross the Deschutes, and they
are going to go to a public election to see if they want to
tax themselves'to maintain the roads
MS. CRAGHEAD: Right. And the assessment would
be $0.94 per thousand assessed value and with an estimate
of the first year possibly raising $13,270.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: What I would like to
explain is sort of the way that we operate in public
hearings, and this will apply to both this and the public
hearing that will follow immediately after this one.
Anyone who wishes to testify needs to come up to the
microphone. This is being taped as well as a court
reporter recording this information as well. You need to
state your name clearly at the beginning of your testimony,
and you need to spell your name. Unless it's Smith.or
Jones, you need to spell your name for the record.
We require that everyone remain civil to
towards each other even when we disagree with each other on
these issues. And anyone in my opinion who is not
remaining civil I will stop your testimony. We would ask
that you stick to the point, keep it as brief as you can
while making your point, and that there is no need to
repeat what other people have said so that we can all get
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1 through this.
There are a lot of people here today. I don't
3 know how many will end up testifying between these two
! hearings. But if we all stick to that and stay to the
point and remain civil to each other which I know everyone
will in this room, we are going to be in great shape.
Dennis.
COMMISSIONER LUKE: Questions are appropriate
too. If you come up and you just have a question you want
to ask, you still need to get on the record and we will do
our best to get an answer for you.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: It's real important that
we get everyone on the tape so we have an accurate record
of what was said here today. And so I will now open the
public hearing regarding Order 2002-025 regarding the
formation of the Spring River Special Road District. And I
have got three people's names who want to testify. And if
there are others at the end of that, we will certainly give
you the opportunity. Carl Jansen, you are first.
MR. JANSEN: Good morning. My name is Carl
Jansen, C -a -r-1 J -a -n -s -e -n. I'm a resident on Bessen
Road, I am part of the Spring River Road Association which
is a voluntary group at the present time. I am basically
the road coordinator for the road maintenance activities,
and I thought I would at least provide some input to you as
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to one of the reasons for the urgency of having this
special road district adopted by the voters.
We have 87 owners, lot owners, in the Spring
River Road Association area which is Cooper and Bessen and
the adjoining roads. We sent out invoices to everyone to
contribute towards the road maintenance activities in
October of last year. We have 87 owners. 19 of these
owners at the present time have not paid. We sent out two
invoices over the last two months, and basically we're
looking at nonpayment of about $2,500 which is rather
critical to maintain these roads.
So what we are doing as far as the special road
district and having a levy against the properties is to
increase our income. We have had this problem on an
ongoing basis for years. This is strictly a voluntary
group, and right now a lot of these people that haven't
paid are basically nonresidents in the area. They own
property here, use our roads, but they are not paying for
the maintenance of the roads. So it kind of gives you an
idea that we need this road district adopted on the May
election.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Thank you, Carl. Bob
Anderson.
MR. ANDERSON: Good morning. I'm Bob Anderson.
That's with an o -n, please. I am opposed to the road
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district that you are trying to form. Mainly because in
the last 25 years we have gotten along with plowing the
road on the dirt road, and now all of a sudden we want to
pave the road.
Now, the reason they want to form the district
is to borrow the money, $50,000 or more, from the bank
which we don't have that kind of money in our district. We
have only got about 30 full-time residents that live at the
area. Now, some of the people that don't pay only come up
in the summer or whatever, and we have gotten along paying
$60 a year. Now this is going to jump all our taxes. It's
going to jump mine about 500 percent. I'm going to go from
$50 to $60 a month to over $300 a month just so --
COMMISSIONER LUKE: Is that a month or a
year?
MR. ANDERSON: A year. Excuse me. And I think
it's just -- it's way out of line for the amount of people
that are there, for the 30 people. The few people that
want the road paved are trying to influence the other 60
people who don't get to vote and they don't get a say in
it. I don't think it's right. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Thank you.
MR. WILKINS: Good morning. For the record I
am Dave Wilkins, last name spelled W -i -1 -k -i -n -s. I am a
full-time resident at 17061 Cooper Drive and my house just
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happens to be in the Spring River Association area. As
Carl eloquently pointed out, we are experiencing some
difficulty trying to collect the fair share of the other
people who own property in the Spring River area. That was
our primary purpose of establishing this association.
It's also gotten to the point now,
Commissioners, that there is a safety issue if the roads
aren't plowed properly that there could be some problems
getting some vehicles down to the end of these areas that
we are trying to plow adequately, but it's difficult to do
so with the current money that we have available. So I
look at it as a good thing for the community and a good
safe responsible thing to do as well so I support it.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Great. That's all I
have on my list. Are there any others that would like to
testify on this matter? Yes. Come on up.
MR. HAMMITT: I am Ray Hammitt. That is
spelled H -a -m -m -i -t -t. I am a resident of the Spring River
Road District and I'd like to dispute Bob Anderson's
testimony. He stated that he pays $50 a year or assessment
is $150 a year this last year. And right now we are
running out of money because some people have not paid.
And because of the high volume of snow we have had this
year, we are running out of money to plow the roads there,
and it's mainly because of people that don't pay there.
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x
And I know a large part of those people come in during the
wintertime and use those roads during the wintertime there,
and they should be responsible for paying their share. And
that's all I have to say. I am in favor of the formation
of the road district. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Thank you. Anyone else?
MR. JORGENSEN: I put my name on the list back
there.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: This is the Spring
River.
COMMISSIONER LUKE: You may have put your name
on the other one. You are welcome to testify.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Come on up.
MR. JORGENSEN: My name is Jens Jorgensen. The
first name is spelled J -e -n -s, J -o -r -g -e -n -s -e -n.
I live on 17090 Cooper Drive. We have had a residence
there for the last 15 years. And the road maintenance have
been sort of spotty, and the previous speaker I think
pointed out that not everybody is paying. And my neighbor
James Vadheim, they are also in favor of setting up a
special road district so that we can in fact have a
continual income and that we can do some serious planning
about how to upgrade the roads and how to take care of them
and how to plow them. So I hope that the Commissioners
will act very favorably upon this request. Thank you.
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COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Thank you. Anyone else?
Okay. I will close the public hearing.
COMMISSIONER LUKE: Again this motion will be
to approve Order No. 2002-025. This is not an endorsement
of the road district or a nonendorsement of the road
district. It just allows us to go to a vote and let the
district people decide.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: And I agree with Dennis
that what we are doing is allowing the folks on both sides
of this issue to discuss this over the next -- when is the
election? May 21. Over the next three months or so and
determine for yourselves what's the best way to proceed and
do that in an election which is what we do in this country.
COMMISSIONER DALY: I second.
COMMISSIONER LUKE: I made a motion.
COMMISSIONER DALY: I second.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Commissioner Luke?
COMMISSIONER LUKE: Yes.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Commissioner Daly?
COMMISSIONER DALY: Yes.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Chair vote is yes. The
next item on o agenda is a public forum rather t a
public hearing on the ormation of the S Iver Service
District. Laurie.
MS. DRAG Again the record, Laurie
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DESCHUTES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
10:00 A.M.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2002
THE HOMESTEAD BUILDING, 57085 MEADOW ROAD
SUNRIVER, OREGON
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1 COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Thank you. Anyone else.
Okay. I will close the public hearing.
3 COMMISSIONER LUKE: Again this motion w' 1 be
4 to approve Order No. 2002-025. This is not an e orsement
5 of th road district or a nonendorsement of t e road
6 district It just allows us to go to a vo e and let the
7 district pe ple decide.
8 C ISSIONER DE WOLF: d I agree with Dennis
9 that what we are oing is allowi the folks on both sides
10 of this issue to di uss this ver the next -- when is the
11 election? May 21. Ov t e next three months or so and
12 determine for yourselve at's the best way to proceed and
13 do that in an electi n which is what we do in this country.
14 COMMI SIGNER DALY: I second.
15 C ISSIONER LUKE: I ade a motion.
16 COMMISSIONER DALY: I se nd.
17 COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Comma sioner Luke?
18 COMMISSIONER LUKE: Yes.
19 COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Commission Daly?
20 COMMISSIONER DALY: Yes.
21 COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Chair vote is ye The
22 next item on our agenda is a public forum rather than a
23 public hearing on the formation of the Sunriver Service
24 District. Laurie.
25 MS. GRAGHEAD: Again for the record, Laurie
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1 Craghead, Assistant Legal Counsel. This would be a
2 proposed formation of county service district --
3 COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Could we ask that you
I take the conversations outside, Gentlemen. Thanks.
MS. CRAGHEAD: -- that would be established
covering the Sunriver resort area. The name of the
district would be the Sunriver Service District, and the
purpose would be provide services of fire prevention and
protection, security services by contract, law enforcement
services, and emergency medical services, and there are all
statutory references to that.
If approved, this measure would authorize
this district would also have a permanent tax limit of -=
right now it's proposed at 3.95 per thousand assessed
value. And so that would be starting with the tax year of
2002, 2003. The governing board of this service district
will be the Board of County Commissioners which is the
county service district.
Some history behind this. This was a district
that the homeowners association board brought to the County
Board of Commissioners asking them to initiate this and
they did so. And we had an initial hearing on January 9,
and then we originally had a hearing scheduled for today.
But there was some paperwork things that needed to be done
so we had to postpone it to the 13th. But the Chair said
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because of the court reporter we will be entering the
transcript into the record at the hearing next week for
anybody who testifies today so that it will be a part of
the official record and so that you will be considered to
be participating in that hearing.
And one thing I did mention at the last hearing
is the criteria for the Board's considerations are will the
area be benefited by a district, and then also did it
comply with the land use regulations. And we again had at
the initial hearing the submittal into the record of the
SSD assessment and facts regarding the compliance with
both the county and state land use regulations, and you
adopted that at the initial hearing and again at the
initial.hearing approved the formation of the district
which is under statute -- it's odd. You approve the
formation at the initial hearing and then have a final
hearing in case there's any changes.
COMMISSIONER LUKE: I have a question of staff.
We received a letter that will be put into the record from
Philip Rastle. One of the things he mentioned with some
other things I think will be answered in today's hearing --
but one of them says residents in adjacent communities of
Sunriver would have a vote. And the people who vote are
just within the Sunriver community. Is that not true?
MS. GRAGHEAD: Yes.
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COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Within the district
boundaries?
12
COMMISSIONER LUKE: Within the district
boundaries which will be Sunriver.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Prior to that this same
gentleman said that we ought to poll the nonresident owners
as to their feelings on the proposed SSD, and I just wanted
to respond to.that. That's something that we would not do.
That's one of the deals about the way that elections
work in this area and across this nation is that registered
voters within the prescribed area in which a decision is
being made are the ones making the choice. And people who
chose to own a home here and not live here, that's one of
the disadvantages that they accept in so doing is that they
don't get to vote on elections within this district unless
they have registered to vote in this district. So I wanted
to clear that up.
And one additional question, Laurie, is that
this is proposed at $3.95 for a tax rate. Does this board
have the authority to change that tax rate?
MS. CRAGHEAD: Yes.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Before putting this out
for a vote?
MS. CRAGHEAD: You would change that at the
final hearing on the final order. This is just the
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proposal at the initial hearing, and that's one of the
' reasons I think we're having a final hearing and things
change between the initial. For example, like on the last
one we had to change the maps and legal, change the tax
rate on this.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: And I will just tell you
what I am really interested in hearing about personally --
I have not talked with my colleagues about this -- is this
represents in my opinion quite a large increase in the
annual amount of money that people pay for these services.
And so what I am going to want to hear that if somebody is
going to be paying -- I don't know what it ends up being,
150, $200 more in an annual basis. What are people getting
for that extra money? And if not, would it make sense for
their rate to be different?
So as people testify, those that have knowledge
of this particular aspect of it, that's something that I am
interested in. That hasn't become clear to me how all that
extra money, the justification for that. Anyone have
anything else to add?
COMMISSIONER LUKE: No.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: We will now open the
public hearing on order -- excuse me -- the public forum on
this formation of the Sunriver Service District.
COMMISSIONER LUKE: I think I speak for all
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the Commissioners. We want to thank Sunriver for providing
this room. This is a beautiful room and for the sound
system and everything else that's here. This makes a very
nice place to have a public hearing.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: In fact, Rick Isham,
our county counsel, and I were talking at the beginning of
the meeting and we have decided to remodel our board room
to match this. And when The Bulletin complains that we are
being too fancy, we expect real strong support from
Sunriver following your lead on this.
COMMISSIONER LUKE: I believe this is private
funds that did this and not public.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: So now I know what we
can do with the extra money from this road district. The
first person that I have on the list is Mike Brannan.
MR. BRANNAN: Thank you. Good morning. My
name is Mike Brannan, B -r -a -n -n -a -n, and I am a permanent
resident of Sunriver. I am speaking on behalf of the
Sunriver board of directors. I am vice president of the
board, and this board spent a lot of time since last summer
when we had an advisory vote with regard to the setting up
of a district. That advisory vote was for different
reasons than why we are now asking the Board of County
Commissioners to consider this district.
At the time we had -- in the years past we had
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L an ad hoc committee developing our long range plan to look
at the future of Sunriver, where we were
going, where did
3 we want to be, and the consensus of that study was that the
E vast majority of Sunriver residents and property owners
wanted to stay the same as we are and maintain property
values and try to maintain the atmosphere, the ambiance,
that exists in Sunriver.
So it was logical for owners at that time when
the option was should we form a district which the reason
for that was to enhance the retention of our fire and
Police personnel through their ability to be eligible for
PERS membership, et cetera, or should we stay the same, and
that's exactly the way it was written on that ballot. Only
1,800 of the 4,100 property owners in Sunriver -- and those
are not all residents of Deschutes County obviously --
voted on that and that particular election failed at
54 percent of those who did send in their ballots.
Since that time or about the same time that
those ballots were out, our board took some position on
that issue. We learned from Sheriff Stiles that he was
concerned about the commissioning of our police department,
and ensuing meetings with the Sheriff's office we learned
the reasons for his discomfort with that'and could
understand.
And after a lot of soul searching on our part,
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L as a board of directors we basically came to the conclusion
that the only way we could stay the same was to form a
district because that way our police department could
remain as it is now, that is, a fully functioning
authorized police department. Because if the Sheriff chose
to pull the commissions of our police, they would have no
authority as police. And since our homeowners did want to
maintain our police as we were, that was our way of doing
it. And since then the Sheriff has stated that, yes, this
is a logical and viable way to accomplish that. Thus we
unanimously as a board came to your commission to ask that
this be put on the May ballot.
Now, as far as the tax rates are concerned --
and I would say this only for the benefit of our
homeowners here. And if I am stating it wrong, I hope
someone will correct me. But the currently stated tax rate
of 3.95 is the upper limit. You can not exceed that once
you are there. It's not what's going to be taxed on a
first year basis.
Our board and our finance committee have been
looking at those expenses, and frankly we see the first
year's rates probably in the neighborhood of $3.00 and
probably a little bit over that. And we want to go over
these numbers with the Board of County Commissioners and
with your treasurer and make sure we are on the right
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track. But we see the rate being no where near 3.95, and
we projected our numbers out for quite a long ways.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: I guess that's what
troubles me is all districts operate with a maximum tax
rate. To my knowledge this board is the only municipality
or district of any kind in the State of Oregon that for a
couple of years levied less than the full amount of it's
tax rate. And once you have a tax rate, there is nothing
that prevents the governing board from levying that full
tax rate. And that's -- I mean my sense is if I am a voter
down here, that would be my biggest concern. Okay. We are
going to only levy $3.00, but we have the authority to levy
3.95. So if you only need 75 percent of that, then why not
establish the $3.00 as your permanent tax rate?
MR. BRANNAN: Thank you very much. That is
exactly what our thinking is.
COMMISSIONER LUKE: There is a problem. From
a government standpoint is that if you go out for a
permanent rate and that permanent rate is only going to
last you for three, four, five years or even 10 years, it's
extremely difficult to get around that. You are going to
have to go out for a levy, and you are going to have to do
exactly what the Sheriff is doing now. Every three or four
years you are going to have to go out there and not know
whether you are going to have the funds to operate.
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1 And I take a little different position than
Tom. I think you need to set a rate you can live with for
3 a lot of years, that you may not levy the whole amount
which we didn't. We didn't levy the full amount, and even
this last time when we did that money went into a reserve
account so hopefully we don't have to go out for levy.
So from my standpoint this is your call down
here. This is not our call. You guys have to set your
rate. But I would surely look at a rate that's going to
last you 10, 15 or 20 years and be able to live within
that. Because new growth is the only thing that increases
your income. And without -- one of these days Sunriver is
going to build out and you are not going to have the new
growth to help offset your costs. And costs keep going up.
And I think personally you need that flexibility. But
that's your call down here.
MR. BRANNAN: That's exactly what the board is
currently wrestling with and will be in contact with your
offices as well.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Next is Gary Fiebick.
Before you start, Gary, one thing that Mike Meyers pointed
out to me the governing body that would set the amount
that's levied is actually the county budget committee made
up of the three County Commissioners and three citizen
members one of whom is Lee Smith who lives down here in
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Sunriver. So thank you for that clarification. So each
year if this was approved at 3.95, whatever the amount was
levied has to be approved by the budget committee of
Deschutes County. Gary.
MR. FIEBICK: Thank you. Gary Fiebick,
F -i -e -b -i -c -k, general manager for the owners association
at Sunriver working on this project. Just wanted to
address we will have some final numbers and proposals to
the Commissioners before the final hearing next week. It's
good that you ask the questions about looking at the cost,
total cost, of the district and operation of Sunriver
association being a little higher than they are combined
today.
I might just review for everybody. You
remember most of what's going on today in the corporate
world or even in cities and sometimes in districts is there
are mergers and acquisitions, and what they are doing is
consolidating the operating costs of two organizations into
one, and that's where they save a lot of money. In this
case what we're proposing is a vote whereby there would be
splitting of one organization into two, and therefore there
are some increased costs just basically because each
organization has certain fixed costs they have to cover in
order to operate as a separate entity. And so that is part
of the difference there.
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Secondly another benefit for the district, for
the community, would be some reduction of the tort
liability particularly in terms of having these public
safety operations in the district.
Third we think that the benefits to employees
are improved particularly with regard to disabilities and
other insurance through PERS. But what we expect there
then is a reduction of turnover from the two departments
from what we have had in the past.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: You are losing some of
your staff to other local agencies?
MR. FIEBICK: Particularly the police
department becomes a great training agency. We have people
that are hired by Deschutes County Sheriff, recently by
Crook County Sheriff, and by other cities. We have a
gentleman going to Corvallis in a couple of weeks.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: We all appreciate the
fine training that you are giving.
COMMISSIONER LUKE: By the same token the
Sheriff losses people to the City of Bend and other
agencies too.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: So we need you.
MR. FIEBICK: We hope to slow that down. The
fourth point is that we are in the process of doing a
reconciliation of the changes in the total costs and that's
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under development. We will be able to share that with
owners and with the board next week. I would think we
could get there by then.
And then finally the board of directors at a
work session last week does recommend that a new tax rate,
maximum tax rate, be set so that the district can operate
at least eight years without having to look for a special
levy. And we all can do forecasts and estimates of budgets
for the first year and first couple years, but beyond that
unless somebody has a better forecasting ball than I do,
all bets are off a little bit. So there has to be some
ability to operate and have some contingency money and
surplus moneys available for the unknowns that can happen a
few years out. So that's all I have to state this morning.
And we will respond to any questions appropriate.
COMMISSIONER LUKE: Tom mentioned that there is
a six -person budget committee, three County Commissioners
and three citizens members. When we do Black Butte's
budget, their people come and do a presentation to us as a
public hearing, and you are welcome to come in and testify
on that budget. And the rate that they set for that year
if it's -- most of the time it's not the maximum rate.
Sometimes it is. So those are all public hearings. But
the board members from Black Butte also have their own
public hearing in the community and talk about it with
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their homeowners and those kind of things before they come
to the budget committee. It's a very public process when
you do set the rate each year, not the permanent rate each
year.
MR. FIEBICK: Right. And that's my
understanding that maybe some of the people in the audience
don't understand that we are working with your legal
counsel to set up a district managing board who would be
responsible for that. And if that's a five member board,
then two of those members would be from the current or then
sitting SROA board so they would go through development of
the budget and present it to the budget committee.
COMMISSIONER LUKE: When we met with the Black
Butte board just recently, they served us a very nice
dinner in their lodge.
MR. FIEBICK: We were going to invite you to
lunch today, but since Tom is leaving early we didn't think
it would be fair.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Third is Shirley -- and
I am sorry. I can't read the handwriting. M -i -1 -d -e -s.
MS. MILDES: I am Shirley Mildes, M -i -1 -d -e -s,
and I am president of the board of directors here in
Sunriver. Mike and Gary have presented the facts very well
and I just wanted to add a note about nonresidents. That
is a big concern here in Sunriver. We only have about
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1 1,500 full-time residents. We are trying to set -- this is
2 going to be a managing board which is made up of -- we are
3 proposing five people, and of those five people two will be
4 SROA board members, three will be residents or owners is
5 what I want to say. They can be either resident or
6 nonresident.
7 So in that way we are hoping that the
8 nonresident will have representation through that board and
9 also by the election of the SROA board -- the SROA board
10 will be looking at the managing board and the managing
11 board will be under the Commissioners. But in those ways
12 we hope to involve the nonresidents and give them an
13 opportunity to participate. Thank you
14 COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Thank you, Shirley.
15 Next is Jim Henshaw.
16 COMMISSIONER LUKE: While Jim is coming up, I
17 would like to point out when we did have our yearly meeting
18 with the Black Butte board they did have one nonresident
19 that was on their board.
20 MR. HENSHAW: I am Jim Henshaw, H -e -n -s -h -a -w.
21 I am a permanent 12 -year resident of Sunriver, and I have
22 been on the citizen patrol. That's the group I am speaking
23 for. The Sunriver citizen patrol is a volunteer public
24 service group and actually we have a federal tax exempt
25 status. We provide essentially backup to the police
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department. We do traffic control, we do parking control,
take animals to the pound and act as the eyes and ears for
the police department.
We are also actively involved in the planning
for any emergency evacuation. We go through drills, and we
are prepared to go out and direct traffic to get you out of
here if we have a fire or a problem on the railroad. We
also put new maps in the boxes.
Quite frankly we would hate to lose any more of
our highly qualified police officers, and we wanted to take
this opportunity to announce that last night at our monthly
meeting we passed a resolution that reads as follows:
Should the Sunriver Service District not be formed, the
citizen patrol will disband. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Can I ask a question
because I'm not sure I understand that. If the district
does not form --
MR. HENSHAW: If a district is not formed, the
citizen patrol will disband. We are very uneasy about
being out there without radio contact with immediate police
backup.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: So in other words, and
if the district does pass --
MR. HENSHAW: We will remain just as we are.
We will continue to provide the services.
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COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: So is that then -- I
just want to be clear. That's an indication of your
support for the formation?
MR. HENSHAW: 100 percent support.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Thank you. Randy
Egertson.
MR. EGERTSON: My name is Randy Egertson and
that's spelled E -g -e -r -t -s -o -n. I am a resident of
Sunriver and immediate past present of the board of
directors. And I find myself under the circumstances that
we face today to be in support of forming a district, and
I would like to speak just specifically to the maximum tax
rate issue. I think that there are two reasons why the
3.95 which was initially set kind of like a strongman is
way too high and we must lower that maximum tax rate
substantially. I think the board is talking about down
to 350, and I am suggesting even as low as between 330 or
335 for two reasons.
Number one, we probably have 100 or 150 owners
here which is about 10 percent, and unfortunately many,
many people don't pay a lot of attention to these things
until they have to vote. And the 3.95 is going to scare
the daylights out of a lot of them and I think will be a
real negative to getting the district passed. A lot of
people will see that as what they are going to be taxed
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tomorrow the first year and not really understand -- in
spite of all the education we try to do, there still will
be a lot of people that won't understand that.
Secondly, I think Sunriver is a very stable
community, we have fixed borders, we are built out to about
90 percent. Our permanent residency rate has stayed
stable. Our police and fire departments are staffed and
equiped now to meet all the needs that we have. Thus the
opportunity for unexpected or unknown things to arise in
the future that would cause the governing board to have to
ask for more taxes is very, very small.
And I don't think that we should go into this
with a tax rate -- the maximum tax rate that would allow
the board to continue to raise the levy for a long period
of time without coming back to the owners and explaining
why the tax levy needs to be increased dramatically. I am
also currently on the finance committee, and I know the
board will be coming to you with detailed information
between now and next week.
But I think that the projections that we are
looking at now for what the levies will need to be over the
next eight to 10 years don't even approach $3.30. So I
would encourage you to get that maximum tax rate as low as
You possibly feel is appropriate.
COMMISSIONER LUKE: I would like to point out I
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am not here to say 3.95 is the number. That has to be a
determination by the residents down here and what you guys
want to submit. But as you look at this over the next
week, understand that police and fire are under
mandatory -- what's the word? -- binding arbitration, and
the wages that are set for them are not determined by you.
They are determined by somebody from outside the area.
And they will look at the City of Bend, they
will look at the Sheriff's office and the City of Redmond
and they will make a determination. And you don't have a
some people off to stay within your budget.
My only suggestion is as you take that into
account if you set a rate that you are not going to have to
change for maybe 10 years hopefully and you never get
there, but I am not here to tell you what rate that is.
That is a determination for your budget committee.
MR. EGERTSON: I think that the budget planning
projections try to take that into consideration. And
frankly I don't have a problem with the thought that the
district might have to come back to the voters in four
years to ask for a levy because I think the increase --
because I think if we do, that just keeps them honest and
keeps them having to provide the right justification for
what they are doing and what the costs are going up. To me
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a 10 -year span is not that big a deal. I will be more than
happy to vote in four years, if necessary.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: I want to be clear.
The people who are proposing this, the tax rate that they
settle on, by the time of the public hearing I am not going
to set a different rate, have this fail and then it's my
fault or have it pass and the other half of the people say
it's my fault or our fault. When these things come
before me just speaking for myself, I will either approve
or disapprove based on the proposal that's brought next
week. And if that's 3.95, so be it. If it's 3.30, so be
it.
What I am trying to explain is that from what I
have been hearing, these are the kinds of questions that
need to be answered. And if 3.95 is the rate, those
questions get answered on election day in May. And so.I am
not here saying that if 3.95 is the number that people
settle on, that I am going to say we are going to go 3.30
or nothing. And I just wanted to clarify that.
MR. EGERTSON: And it sounds to me like you as
the Commissioners will be within reason willing to accept
whatever our board comes to you with and suggest as what
they want the tax rate to be.
COMMISSIONER LUKE: The district is the one
that has to live with it. You have to provide the
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services with the rate that you choose. And we will
provide as much information as possible from our county
administrator and our finance people to help you get to
that decision, but that decision is yours.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: And Dennis is exactly
right. We do want to be as helpful as we can be, but I
think that all of three us would agree clearly that this is
a local decision when these things come to an election.
And the questions I am raising are questions I would raise
if I lived here, and they are questions that have been
raised to me by people who do live here.
And if in fact you come to the conclusion that
at 3.95 this is going to fail, then it wouldn't be very
wise to move forward with this election. If you can find a
different number that works and you feel more confident,
great. If 3.95 feels right -- but those are the kind of
questions that I need answered that will help voters to
make a decision over the next three months, and then people
on both sides will have their own sales job to do with the
voters.
MR. EGERTSON: Then I would say that the
remarks I made generally for you I would redirect then to
our current board and tell them to sharpen their pencil
before they come back to you.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Thank you.
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MR. MEYERS: This is in regards to some
comments on PERS and making some projection in the future.
But some of the speakers have been commenting that they are
making the projections in their budgets,that they see some
stability over the long haul here on this budget. Three
weeks ago the county thought that we had a two and a half
million dollar surplus in our PERS account, and two weeks
ago we found out we had a $6 million deficit. And next
year we even projected to have a $12 million deficit.
The state agencies went from a $39 million
surplus to $1.1 billion deficit. And so you can't make
these budget projections thinking that there is going to be
some certainty in these figures. These are real expensive
costs that we don't know how we are going to handle these.
I don't think the state has even come to grips on how they
are going to handle it. The entire PERS account is
$3.3 billion in the hole right now.
COMMISSIONER LUKE: For one year.
MR. MEYERS: For one year.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: I can't believe nobody
is talking about this when we have got 700 million at the
state legislature and PERS alone is --
MR. MEYERS: $3.3 billion. I want to get those
on the record that everything isn't predictable. You can
be hit by some of these things, and you should take that
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into account with your rate so you can be prepared to deal
with it.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Okay. York Richardson.
MR. RICHARDSON: There has been plenty of
spellings of the word York in the last few months, but it
is Y -o -r -k. Richardson, R -i -c -h -a -r -d -s -o -n. Some of my
questions have been answered. However, the numbers that
are presented to the homeowners have every effect on the
passing or failure of this issue. And I think that as we
are coming up with and everybody is considering what the
costs are, I want to be sure that whoever is coming up with
a number is taking all of the figures into consideration
including the effect of our own police department on our
county taxes.
We are currently enjoying a relief with respect
to rural areas because we do have a police department.
That, of course, is going to be maintained, that
differential will be maintained if we maintain our own
police department. If we rely on the county sheriff for
all of our police protection, our rate will go up on our
county taxes eliminating that relief that we have for
having our own police department.
And so that figure needs to come into
consideration when people are comparing what the difference
is in what they are paying now and what they will be paying
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after the establishment of a public service district.
Also of course -- and I think that this has
been taken into consideration -- the annual assessment by
ourselves through our Sunriver Owners Association board
will be decreased by the amount that the board is not going
to have to budget and pay from our maintenance dues.
And lastly, I have great questions in my mind
as to what is going to happen to our fire station which is
not yet paid off. If the county decides not to have a fire
station here in Sunriver, then what are we going to do with
that building, number one? If they do decide to have the
station as it is now, there will be some moneys, I presume,
paid by the county to the Sunriver Owners Association for
the utilization of that building.
The same thing has to do with our police
department location and the new administration building.
And also consideration points of what is going to happen
not only to our very capable police and fire personnel,
what's going to happen to your police cars? What is going
to happen to our police uniforms that we own? What is
going to happen to our existing moneys which reside in our
retirement fund for those personnel?
All of these are factors which must be taken
into consideration and all of which have great latitude in
how they are handled. And until those facts are known, our
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after the establishment of a public service district.
Also of course -- and I think that this has
been taken into consideration -- the annual assessment by
ourselves through our Sunriver Owners Association board
will be decreased by the amount that the board is not going
to have to budget and pay from our maintenance dues.
And lastly, I have great questions in my mind
as to what is going to happen to our fire station which is
not yet paid off. If the county decides not to have a fire
station here in Sunriver, then what are we going to do with
that building, number one? If they do decide to have the
station as it is now, there will be some moneys, I presume,
paid by the county to the Sunriver Owners Association for
the utilization of that building.
The same thing has to do with our police
department location and the new administration building.
And also consideration points of what is going to happen
not only to our very capable police and fire personnel,
what's going to happen to your police cars? What is going
to happen to our police uniforms that we own? What is
going to happen to our existing moneys which reside in our
retirement fund for those personnel?
All of these are factors which must be taken
into consideration and all of which have great latitude in
how they are handled. And until those facts are known, our
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board and our general manager have an additional very much
more difficult program in setting up what the tax rate will
be. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER LUKE: I would just like to point
out Deschutes County does not do fire. You have rural fire
protection districts that do that outside your urban areas.
You have your own fire department here. This district if
formed will have the ability to do fire, ambulance and
police services, but we don't do fire.
MR. RICHARDSON: Well, someone does. Excuse me
for --
COMMISSIONER LUKE: I just wanted to point out
rural fire protection districts are the ones that have the
stations just down the road. Those are taxing districts on
their own.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: And if this doesn't
pass, it would remain the way it is now. It wouldn't be
anything that the county would step into. The other thing
is if I remember correctly, Sheriff, there's a difference
of about $3.35 roughly?
SHERIFF STILES: They are paying 78 right now.
Unincorporated is $1.12.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: And so that's the
difference that you are looking at is $0.34 difference
between --
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MR. RICHARDSON: That's true as far the tax is
concerned. But we have also paid for all of the
appurtenances that go with creating a police department.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: I understand that. What
I am trying to point out -- if I could finish, please. The
thing I am trying to point out is you are talking about
$0.34 difference and that does have an impact. But when we
are talking $3.95, $0.34 isn't a huge amount there. That
is taken into account in the information that I have
received. The difference, though, so far on what I have
seen is that the homeowners dues being lowered would not be
lowered to a point where people are not paying more money.
Homeowners would actually be paying, from I have seen,
somewhere in the $125 a year average more than they are
paying currently, and that's where my concern was raised
here.
You are absolutely right. All these things
need to be taken into account and need to be answered, and
I would assume that most of these questions will have some
form of answer by next week's hearing. And beyond that if
this is finalized and approved, we will go to a May ballot,
and you will all be hearing the arguments on both sides for
the next 90 days.
MR. RICHARDSON: Yes. And one factor which
also comes greatly into play is that we have a fixed rate
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per property assessment across the board the same
regardless of whether you are living in $100,000 house or
$1 million house. What's going to happen when this occurs
is that it's going to be taxed on the basis of the assessed
valuation of the house, and that's going to make a great
deal more difference than any other single factor.
And as long as I brought up this factor of
assessed valuation, I think that the county assessor is way
off base assessing my house at what my neighbor sold his
house for. I can take any of you and the assessor too into
different houses and the difference in cost of construction
between a minimal figure which has been expressed on TV
and advertising for some homes of about 35, 38 dollars a
square foot and the cost of building that same house with
the most deluxe features of tiles and wall hangings and
coverings and window area and tile and bathroom fixtures
and all of those other factors that go in it. It can be a
difference of between this 35, 38 dollar level and $150
a square foot at the minimum difference.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: What I would point out
to you is that the assessor is a separately elected
official and we have virtually no authority. And you do
have an
appeal
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of
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be an appointed position and would report to the Board of
County Commissioners. That was trounced about 75 percent
to 25 percent. And so that the people living in this
county apparently like this system as it exists regarding
the --
COMMISSIONER LUKE: Some people are bitter.
I need to ask you a question. Does the current -- does the
commercial property in Sunriver pay into the homeowners
dues or anything? How do they pay into --
MR. RICHARDSON: That would really be a better
question addressed to Mr. Fiebick. But my understanding is
that, yes, that there is a formula --
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: We have an affirmative
nod that they do.
MR. RICHARDSON: -- for addressing that and
they do pay more than a single property assessment
naturally. And if they have a bunch of condominiums or
houses that they rent out and lodging and the building you
are in and so forth, there are factors that go into that,
but I am not privy to the total formula.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER LUKE: I notice Tom is in the back
of the room. Earlier we thanked Sunriver for their
hospitality. You guys, this is very nice.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Next I believe is Harvey
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Abrams.
MR. ABRAMS: I am Harvey Abrams, M.D. I have
lived in Sunriver for 10 years hidden behind the screens.
I don't get active in anything. So standing up here is
unusual for me. I am a founding partner, senior partner
and managing partner of Roseburg Anesthesiologists. We
have owned property in Central Oregon around Sunriver since
1976. I do not object to the district as such. I am in
full support of our police and fire departments and I think
they need more help.
Past presidents of the board of Sunriver have
spoken to me at length with regard to the problems of
employee turnover, and their positions have flip-flopped
back and forth between a taxing district and remaining as
we are. In addition their positions flip-flop between
forming a city government and remaining as we are over the
years. In addition their positions have flip-flopped
between buying the old school and converting it to a
meeting place for permanent residents of Sunriver and
abandoning that concept. So you see, as the winds of time
blow, the whims and directions of the board also blow.
Fortunately as I like to say in spite of and
because of Sunriver's governments and the way it's put
together like the Deschutes, it just keeps rolling along.
I think progress is a good thing. It's unfortunate when
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people want to obstruct progress. But I do not think that
progress comes from arbitrary position that the voters are
placed in. Future of raising the levy, because -- future
possibility of raising a levy because of increased costs
that can be not predicted at that time would mean holding a
shotgun to the head of the voter. Either you vote for
increasing your own levy or you lose your police and you
lose your fire. That's a no-win situation. That's not a
choice.
Now, as far as the cost of the present levy, if
it does not provide us with more services, it's insane.
Because the present levy will raise the average taxes in
Sunriver by 50 percent, and the spread of taxation in
Sunriver will go from somewhere around $1,800 a year for
the lowest to $15,000 for the highest appraisal of property
in Sunriver.
Now, right now we pay between eight and nine
dollars a thousand, and for that we get schools, we get
roads, we get other county maintenance services. The only
thing we don't get is police and fire which according to
the figures and the very few figures that have been
promulgated by the board state that that essentially costs
us about 50 bucks a month because that's about what this
fire district and police district will save us.
Now, if the median cost of taxes in Sunriver
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goes to somewhere around $6,000 as a result of this levy,
we have to ask what are we getting for $6,000 when the
median cost right now of taxes in Sunriver is only about
$3,500 plus our $800 a year annual assessment. I am not
against increased taxes for better government, and I am not
against the police and fire department getting the benefits
of PERS. I think they need it. But I am against our
voting on something that we do not have all the figures,
and in spite of what the board has said, there has been a
lack of communication from the board and a real rush and a
push. We have not gotten the dollar data information, what
kind of services we are going to get and how far in the
future these costs are going to take us. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: I have a question for
You. You tossed out a number of figures here that conflict
with some of what I have heard. You said that taxes will
go up 50 percent and that the highest rated person will pay
an additional $15,000 a year, that the median cost --
MR. ABRAMS: No, will pay 15,000 total.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Including -- so not
15,000 additional, 15,000 total?
MR. ABRAMS: If you can $100,000 at $4.00 a
thousand, that's $400. If you take a million dollar house
at $4.00 a thousand, that's $4,000. If you take the median
home at 450 to $500,000 valuation in Sunriver, figure it
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out. It's 2,500, $3,000 more. And that same median home
is only paying $3,500 in taxes right now.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: What my request of you
is that by the time we meet next week, if you could provide
some documentation of what you have stated here today
because what I have --
MR. ABRAMS: With all due respect --
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: May I finish, please?
MR. ABRAMS: You can finish.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: The most recent
information I received is that the increase on the average
value would go up a little over 20 percent. And if in fact
it's 50 percent, that's information I need to know.
MR. ABRAMS: Well, your own -- of course, it's
not your own but the county board of assessors can give you
the average valuations for Sunriver. I am not privy to
walk into the county board of assessors and say spend a
half hour getting me this information.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Actually you are, and
what I want to point out to you is what I base my decision
on is information in the record. I don't create the
information for the record.
MR. ABRAMS: I will seek out the average
valuation or median valuation for Sunriver.
COMMISSIONER LUKE: The total rate for Sunriver
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including schools and the county levies and then the bonds
for the schools and the county are $10.18 a thousand.
That's the total rate right now. Which is compared to
almost any place else -- of course, you have the homeowners
dues. You have homeowners dues and you pay for a lot of
these things outside your taxes.
MR. ABRAMS: You just made my argument.
Because $4.00 a thousand plus $10.00 a thousand you are at
40 percent increase right there.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: What I want you to
understand I am not disagreeing with your position. I just
want to know that the position that you have is clear to
me. If you can put that down on a page so that I have
something to compare to, it would help me to understand
your position.
MR. ABRAMS: I understand. I will do my best
to prepare whatever you need. But the argument is made.
And once again government for government sake is not the
direction we should be taking. It's for better services.
And until our board can demonstrate that we are going to
get $4.00 worth of extra benefit from better services -- I
have one more point to make.
And the police departments are not going to be
happy with what I have to say here. But the police
departments have done a fine job in Sunriver over the
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years, and I don't know that any of them has ever withdrawn
a side arm. It's possible they have. Nonetheless, I
wonder do we need armed police guards in Sunriver?
Certainly we need reporting personnel. But do we need
police guards in Sunriver anymore than we need armed police
guards in the major malls? Thank you.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Thank you very much.
And the last name I have on here is Jens Jorgensen who
testified earlier, and I am assuming that Jens either left
or -- and that's the last name I have on the list. Are
there any others who would like to testify? Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER LUKE: We have two hands. Anyone
else? There's quite a few.
MR. EDWARDS: My name is Don Edwards. I am a
13 -year permanent resident here in Sunriver. And I am not
speaking on either for or against it, but I think we ought
to bring the figures to mind a little more. I have been
told that our monthly dues to the SROA will be reduced by
about $39 a month if we go ahead with this service
district. $39 a month times 12 months is $468 we don't
spend. On the other hand if we spend 3.95 per thousand
assessed, for a $200,000 times 35 that's $790. $790 less
468 you are paying $332 for a $200,000 assessed house. For
a $300,000 assessed house you will be paying $1,185 less
468 you will be paying 717 more. And for a $400,000 house
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you would be paying $1,580 less 468 for 1,112 more. My
question is where does this money go? Why are we paying
extra? What are we getting for our money?
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Thank you.
MR. KREISS: My name is Jim Kreiss,
K -r -e -i -s -s. I formerly served on the Sunriver board of
directors and was chair of the ad hoc committee that was
studying the services delivered by police and fire. First
I want to thank the County Commissioners for coming here.
I know you enjoy the building, but we are happy that you
came here so we didn't have to come into town again to meet
with you. We appreciate that.
And second I want to thank Sheriff Stiles
for being here today and for being clear about the kind of
services not only that we have in Sunriver but that we
could expect under a contract with the Sheriff. He's been
very up front about that. And he wants to also make us
understand what happens to our police department if we
don't have local control under our board of directors with
an assistant board working with the County Commissioners in
the formation of this service district.
I think after studying this thing since 1998
with the public safety committee, coming to the board,
going through the processes, looking at the possible
inclusion of the fire department with the La Pine district,
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looking at what we want to do with our police department,
it's imperative that at this time that we form the district
regardless of the impact that it's going to have on some of
US.
I am a homeowner. I have a house that's worth
more than the average amount. I expect to pay about $300
more per year, maybe 400, for the formation of the services
district. If I want to keep my police department under my
local control giving me the services in Sunriver that I
expect, then I think that somewhere down the line I am
going to have to pay more money.' That means the guy next
door who has the empty lot is going to pay less for once.
Sunriver's taxing policy has been out of whack.
We know that. The million dollar house pays the same
amount as the empty lot. Somewhere along the line if we
are going to keep the services and provide the kind of
effect that we need to have, we are going to have to
balance that out. I think we need the service district
now. Thank you very much.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Thank you. What was your
name again?
MR. KREISS: Jim Kreiss.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Yes, sir.
MR. GHORMLEY: Good morning. My name is Dave
Ghormley, G -h -o -r -m -l -e -y. I am not here to say yes or no.
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I personally don't know exactly where I want to come down
on this vote, and we have got 90 days to make that decision
once we set the tax rate. I am interested in seeina that
all the facts that we need to make an intelligent vote are
spread out in front of us, and my own feeling is that there
is some that aren't yet dealt with properly.
And incidentally I don't mind -- if we settle
on a tax rate, I don't mind going back to the voters down
here for more. We do this all the time. And this is a
good responsive intelligent community and it isn't
something that takes a lot of hoopla. We just need the
facts and we will go ahead and vote. If the need is
justified, we will vote for it. And if the need isn't
justified, we won't vote for it. So I don't think the
issue of going back for a levy four years from now, five
years, six years is really pertinent because this community
will turn out and give you a fast answer if you need more
money, and I think everybody who has served on the board
would understand that.
I want to talk about two issues. One is equity
and the other is the costs that are being presented.
There's a difference of opinion that could amount to about
in very rough figures up to around $0.30 on the tax rate of
whether we should give certain assets and certain services
to the new district or whether we should charge --
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COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: We meaning the owners
association?
W.
MR. GHORMLEY: SROA. Right. For instance, the
fire house. I think I am right, Gary. I think we got
200,000 bucks left still to pay on the fire house. Is that
about right? $300,000 Pete is saying. That's three more
payments and then we own it or something like that. Maybe
four more payments. Why are we going to charge the new
district rent and buy it back all over again? It sounds to
me like what we are doing is we are shifting the cost of
the fire house to those who have more expensive properties.
So we are going to go out here now and pay a million
dollars over a period of time in rent to buy something that
the community already owns. And this isn't the district
versus SROA. This is us because the district is us and
SROA is us.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Is it the same
boundaries?
MR. GHORMLEY: Same boundaries. Exactly. So
why are we shifting a million dollars worth of cost in the
form of a rent from the district to the homeowners
association?
And secondly, the same thing with the fire
trucks and the police cars and the uniforms and all this
other stuff that York was talking about. Why are we
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selling that to the district? What are we going to do with
this cash? Why do we need it?
Same thing with the administrative services we
are proposing to provide. We have one general manager, we
have one accounting department, and now we are proposing to
sell part of that to the district. If it will help bring
the tax rate down, to me it would be greater equality
by donating those services to the district. What happens
if we do? If we donate those services, if we donate the
facilities, if we donate the reserve funds, if we donate
nature the equipment, then what have you done? You have
reduced tax rate and increased slightly the homeowners'
rate.
Now think about equality. Isn't that a fairer
deal? Does the guy who has a $100,000 house or a pole
house over here with a $50,000 house, does he have any less
need of fire and police than somebody in an $800,000 house?
I don't think so. Does the fellow who lives in Corvallis
or Salem who wants to be sure that somebody doesn't come in
and break into his house, does he have any less need of
police protection than the person who is living here all
the time? I don't think he does.
So I think if you want to talk your way through
this, I think what the board has not done yet is said what
is fair, and I see no reason to shift these costs to those
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people and those facilities that have higher values.
I am going to bring the resort into this too
even though they haven't asked me to do this. The resort
is going to take a big time hit on this deal. If there is
one thing I want to have around this community is a healthy
resort. I want to be sure it's profitable and first class.
And here we're talking about something that will load them
up with a bunch of costs which is in violation of what we
originally agreed to do in our consolidated plan.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Can you explain why that
is.
MR. GHORMLEY: Because there's a sweetheart
deal that the resort wrote when it turned all these assets
over to the homeowners association. They get a
preferential break on homeowner fees.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: So then they would be
responsible for --
MR. GHORMLEY: Now all of a sudden they are
going to get taxed on the basis of their assessed
valuation and they are going to take a load. And before we
go loading them up with this, I think we better think about
the impact on the homeowners' values.
The other point I want to talk about is cost.
To me the figures that are being presented are hopeful
costs. I think Marty brought it out exactly right over
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M •,
here, and that is if you take this same budget and say
let's pretend we're in Bend, what would these costs look
like, I think you are going to get a far different picture
of what it's going to cost to pay for the labor to perform
these functions. And when you hear horror stories on PERS
like we just heard, I get very, very nervous.
Now, the homeowners association and all the
people on the public safety committee and you heard a
little bit about the pressure they are putting on down here
for the citizens patrol now threatening to go out of
business if this doesn't pass, this is the kind of hoopla
that we are getting. But on the other hand what we are
really talking about is what I need as an old fogey is I
need a good ambulance service. And the biggest risk we got
around here is fire, and I need'a fire protection service
and all we are focusing on is the police.
And frankly I haven't seen too many murders
down here in the last 15 years. So Sheriff Stiles has a
legitimate point I.think in saying I want to have control
over people that are commissioned by me. I don't have any
problem with that speech. As to the details of how that
works, I'm not so sure.
But I do know that when we start talking about
having two full-time policemen patrolling the streets down
here 24 hours a day, then if we want that kind of service,
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we are going to pay for it. And if that's what we decide
to do is go ahead and pay for it, then I am perfectly
satisfied with that. But I think we better start thinking
just a little bit about do we in fact need that level of
police protection? And let's concentrate instead on how
we are going to be sure that we have good fire protection
and how are we going to be sure we have got good ambulance
services.
I think these are issues that the board in it's
effort to try to get this problem off the agenda and get on
with something else has not spent enough time clearly
telling us exactly what the reality is, and as a result
there's a lot of rumors going around saying there's no way
this thing is going to fly for $3.00 or there is no way
it's going to fly for 3.30. And we are saying as somebody
previously said what do we get for our extra money?
In my case it's probably $150 a month. And
what do I get for the $150 a month? I am not saying I am
not going to vote for it. I would love to have this issue
go away. But I'm not going to vote for it unless I am
convinced that I am going to get value received. Thank
you.
the red.
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Anyone else? Back in
MR. MARTIN: I am Peter Martin, M -a -r -t -i -n.
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I am a nonresident owner 14 years, and I want you to know
that I support the formation of the district. I think
there have been a number of questions that have been
raised at the 11th hour. It's too bad they didn't come in
earlier. I think the board has made every effort they can
to inform us all as clearly and through as many meetings
and they could come up with to let us know what's going on.
I want to see this happen. We have only two
choices here. We have the Sheriff's services which will be
less than what we have now, and we have what we enjoy
today. I want two officers patrolling 24 hours a day.
It's not so bad this time of the year, but what about July
and August? We need them. There is a lot of vandalism
that can go on here without police presence. We take it
away, the word gets out, the burglars come in.
We have got a wonderful police department and a
wonderful fire department, and I think the reason we're
looking at the formation of a district and talking about
3.95 a thousand is because we haven't paid the people
enough to start with. We have been getting the free ride
on our public services. So it's time to pay the piper and
bring our folks up to par with the industry. I can't vote
so all I can do is encourage you to review this and please
look upon this favorably because we need to have the level
of services that have been provided. Thank you.
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COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Thank you. Next.
MR. QUINN: Tom Quinn, Q -u -i -n -n. I just want
to raise a question. Mike Meyers raised the issue of the
PERS cost and that sudden increase in liability. I wanted
to ask is that not mostly or maybe all due to your exposure
to Tier 1 PERS?
MR. MEYERS: It's part of that and it's also
part of the stock market.
MR. QUINN: Isn't that to Tier 1 PERS --
MR. MEYERS: It guarantees an eight percent.
MR. QUINN: I think everybody here doesn't
understand PERS has Tier 1 and Tier 2, and employees that
were in the program prior to what year?
MR. MEYERS: 195.
MR. QUINN: The main point is Tier 1 PERS
does have major financial problems. Everybody has read
about those in the paper, and this is what I believe you
are talking about. And I believe almost all if not all of
your current liability surprise isn't due to Tier 1.
MR. MEYERS: We have -- 60 percent of our
people are Tier 1 which is one of the lower percentages.
MR. QUINN: But our employees if we form a
district are only eligible for the Tier 2 program which
does not include --
MR. MEYERS: They would be in the state pool,
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and so I don't know how you can predict what the state pool
rate will be when this district is formed.
MR. QUINN: But the state pool again will not
include in Tier 1 or any of the Tier 1 liabilities.
MR. MEYERS: It does now.
COMMISSIONER LUKE: State pool is all Tier 1
and Tier 2.
MR. QUINN: Is that correct?
COMMISSIONER LUKE: Yes.
MR. QUINN: That's what I wanted to clarify
because I really don't understand.
MR. MEYERS: The county is part of the state
pool effective January 1 of this year. These liabilities
we are having now are not -- these are past liabilities. I
can't tell you what the future ones will be, and I can't
tell you what the pool rate will be next year or the year
after. The point I was trying to make is you cannot
predict some of these costs on a long term basis.
MR. QUINN: I understand and I agree with that.
But I mean I am trying to clarify that Tier 1 and Tier 2 --
frankly it's very confusing to everyone and I am sure even
to you who works with it.
MR. MEYERS: I think solving this problem you
are probably going to end up with Tier 3 and Tier 4.
COMMISSIONER LUKE: If the legislature ever
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acts.
MR. QUINN: They didn't the last time. Thank
you.
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COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Mike is going to take
over as Vice Chair of the Commission. I need to run and
sorry that I have to leave. Thanks of all your input. And
I will read the rest of it when we get the printed copy and
we will see you next week.
COMMISSIONER LUKE: Those of you who want to
testify, why don't you come up here in the front so we know
how many we got.
MS. BENNINGTON: I am Penny Bennington. I
just happen to be the treasurer of the -- Penny
Bennington, B -e -n -n -i -n -g -t -o -n. I do happen to be the
treasurer of the owners association board right now, and I
do know the numbers. But I do want to talk as a homeowner.
I own three homes in Sunriver and I think the important
point you keep saying -- Dave Ghormley asked what am I
getting for my money. I calculated -- based on $3.25 I
calculated that I would be paying $27 more a month for all
three houses. And one of the things we --
COMMISSIONER DE WOLF: Is that each month
accumulative?
MS. BENNINGTON: Accumulative. And one needs
to remember I think right now I just quickly calculated
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where we're projected I think the mean level is about
156,000 assessed value. We will have that for you next
week. But again I own -- two of those properties are taxes
assessed less than that mean. So I am.going to be paying
less. There are a whole number of homeowners that will be
paying less for these services.
We just need to remember that unfortunately
what Dave -- what you will be getting for your money is to
be able to keep the services that we currently have. There
is a tax shift, there is a cost shift, that's what the
reality is with tax assessed over the owners association
which is an even across the board. And unfortunately we
are not going to be able to justify what that higher cost
is. But again as a homeowner with three houses, two of
them are below the mean, and there is a whole number of
homeowners that haven't stepped up to the plate,
condominium owners, the vacant lots and everything else
that will be paying less for those services. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER DALY: Thank you. Anyone else?
MR. FOSTER: I have a very quick question.
COMMISSIONER DALY: Come on up and state your
name, please.
MR. FOSTER: My name is Bob Foster, F -o -s -t -e -r.
I am not a homeowner in Sunriver. I have been here many,
many years. I have a business and operate in Sunriver.
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Certainly trying to pay attention to this there is a lot of
mathematics that I certainly can't follow. There seems to
be various groups, various positions, that I'm not real
certain how it all plays together. My only purpose in
trying to find out is I do deal with a large number of
homeowners in Sunriver that ask my opinion from time to
time.
My only question is this: If this were to be
voted on and it's done, I believe Mr. Abrams stated very
soundly that things change a lot in Sunriver. Things will
continue to change. I personally believe that over years
the government if you would of Sunriver is going to change
from one group of people to a decidedly different group of
people. If this were to come to pass and that group of
people decided that perhaps the level of services was not
what they thought they needed anymore or they thought they
needed more, they thought the taxing was improper,
inappropriate or whatever, if this thing -- if we wanted it
to go away, how would that come to be done?
COMMISSIONER LUKE: You don't have to levy any
taxes, and Laurie or Rick can answer this, I think. But if
you do not levy taxes for three or four years, something
like that, three years, if you do not levy taxes for three
years the county could shut the district down.
MR. FOSTER: And that would be a County
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Commission decision?
COMMISSIONER LUKE: The question is is that a
County Commissioner decision? Rich Isham, Chief Counsel
for Deschutes County.
MR. ISHAM: Rick Isham, County Legal Counsel.
There are two ways that the district can be dissolved. One
is.through failure over a three-year period to levy a tax
and that's a board initiated dissolution. That's the Board
of County Commissioners. The other is a decision by the
district board which because it's a county service
district, there is also the Board of County Commissioners.
They can initiate this dissolution. Dissolution in either
case takes into consideration any outstanding obligations,
basically acts as a trustee and winds down the affairs of
the district.
COMMISSIONER LUKE: And the service district
could choose to levy, say, a dollar a thousand and contract
with somebody too. There's all kinds of options. Nobody
says because you formed a district you have to provide all
the services for that matter.
MR. ISHAM: Well, that's correct on an annual
basis. The decision on what services to provide and what
tax rate to impose would be determined through the budget
committee as was pointed out and then ultimately by the
district governing bodies. And then the proposed operating
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model is the same model that is being used in Black Butte
Ranch which there's basically an operating board that
operates on site, makes the day-to-day decisions regarding
the operation of the district.
COMMISSIONER LUKE: Does that answer your
question?
MR. FOSTER: If I could just so that I can
clarify it. So what we are saying is we would form a
district by a vote of a group of people that is currently
in place in Sunriver due to their permanent residency. We
would create an entity then that is of some financial
benefit to the county I must assume for administrative
whatever --
COMMISSIONER LUKE: No.
MR. FOSTER: None whatsoever?
COMMISSIONER LUKE: No.
MR. FOSTER: No money flows to the county in
any way?
COMMISSIONER LUKE: No.
MR. FOSTER: We definitely would create a
situation from what I am gathering where money would be
able to go up in two directions on the people that are
impacted by this, one through SROA fees which can continue
to go up if need be, one by increasing the tax rate that we
have been speaking of. It can go up.
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COMMISSIONER LUKE: It can't go past the
maximum tax rate, though.
MR. FOSTER: I understand. Unless we go back
to the voters and the voters voted against it. So what I
am gathering is voters can vote to have it and to increase
it, but the voters would not be the people that would be
allowed to vote to eliminate it?
COMMISSIONER LUKE: If I was a County
Commissioner, I would probably put it to a vote to see if
they wanted to dissolve it. Rick just told you a lot of
times what he was talking about sometimes you get road
districts that don't levy taxes and they just choose not to
maintain the roads anymore. And so you have something in
place so that you shut these down so they can do something
else if they want to. But I have never seen it done -- it
hasn't been since I have been a Commissioner. How long
have you been here? 20 years? Rick, have you ever seen
one shut down?
COMMISSIONER DALY: Inn of the Seventh Mountain.
MR. ISHAM: Actually Mike is correct. The
county service district provided the sewer services for the
Inn of the Seventh Mountain and condominium units and the
hotel functions that were performed there. Ultimately for
a number of reasons, some of them environmental, the
contract was negotiated to hook to the City of Bend. And
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so the purpose of the district -- the district was no
longer needed and so the Board of County Commissioners as
that was a county service district also initiated the
dissolution, paid off the debts and liabilities, and
developed a closure plan for the sewer plan and closed it.
So it does happen. But I think in a situation
like that, you had a substitute service provider which was
the City of Bend which it extended the services to the
district and then entered into an independent contract to
provide service to the owners.
MR. FOSTER: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER LUKE: Thank you. Anybody else
besides Gary?
MR. LUERSEN: I am Tom Luersen, L -u -e -r -s -e -n.
I am an ex -property owner. I was kicked out by my
neighbors last week so I am no longer living in Sunriver.
However, I do represent Sunriver Limited Partnership and
that's the largest property owner within Sunriver. I have
been asked several times over the last four or five months
my position which really represents not my position but our
company's position on the service district. And I have
surprisingly stayed below the radar which is where I wanted
to go on this particular issue. It's complicated, the math
is a little bit confusing at times because we have not
landed on a specific yet.
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I think the board has done a wonderful job in
attempting to communicate and to make information
available. But like anything else, you only get those that
are interested to hear the information. And as you know,
we're at the lowest occupancy if you will right now, the
last three or four months, than we are in the entire
season. People are beginning to come into town as the
skiing picked up, they will begin to arrive more often as
spring comes into fruition.
As those people come in, so do the questions
get re -raised all over again. And to me the .most
fundamental question that I don't understand and yet have
heard a whole lot of answers to is, Sheriff Stiles, if you
would, your position and how we got here. I have heard,
met with Gary and representatives of the board. I have not
missed a public hearing meeting where I usually sat in the
back and taken notes. If it would be appropriate, I would
love to ask Les to come up forward and just summarize -- I
am not looking for a debate, I'm not looking for Q and A
even from the Sheriff, but for a simple position on how we
got here if it's appropriate.
Lastly the resort will take a position on it.
As Dave pointed out, whatever happens here to property
owners here, it effects us. We are running a business. We
are for profit obviously. There is a -- at the 3.95 tax
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G.
rate, it's a six digit figure that impacts our company on
the gross side. That's without the reduction of monthly
dues. So at the 3.95 level it's up over $110,000. It's a
pretty substantial hit for us. Yet we are also a pretty
large company.
I don't want to sound political in my comments,
but this is really a homeowner's position. It's why we
have stayed below the radar. We clearly will take a
position, and I will let that position be known when it's
appropriate. My role in all of this and we have John
Fettig, Dale Garnick, some of the people from our company,
here to learn. I know that you are doing the same and that
you haven't taken a position yet that's not well-informed
and well-educated.
That's what these forums are for. This isn't
to come and listen to ourselves talk or get it in the
record or to stand in front of the County Commissioners.
It's an opportunity to learn. I can speak for myself only.
I am not very well-educated. I'm not educated to the point
that I am comfortable in making decisions. I ultimately
will be. Sheriff, if you would take the time to summarize
or, Commissioners, if it's appropriate, but it would
certainly be helpful to me. Thank you.
SHERIFF STILES: I want to thank you very
much. I was kind of hoping to stay below the radar screen
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also. Tom, I can answer part of your question, and for
those who are here today, I will be happy to go into as
much detail as you would like either now or after the
meeting.
I don't know how we got here. I know that a
year ago approximately in March of 2001 about two or three
months after I was sworn in as Sheriff I was contacted by
some people in Sunriver who asked me the following
question. It appears as though there's going to be an
advisory vote relating to the formation of a public safety
service district, and what we have been told -- we meaning
residents that were asking the question -- have been told
is this: There are two options. Form a public safety
district or everything remains as it is. Is that true?
My response to more than one person was no.
That may not be true. There are a number of other issues
out there that need to be explored. I have been in office
90 days. I need to explore those issues, but I would not
guarantee that the options for voters to go on was a public
safety district or everything remains as it is. Some
change may be coming down the road. I think, Tom, that
that's a partial answer to your question of how did we get
here.
In the intervening nine months from that time
to now, there have been a number of other questions
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C:A!
relating to the issue of why does the Sheriff stand where
he does. And Dave, I really appreciated your comment about
what is fair because on my desk I have got a little plaque
that has what's fair and what's right. Those are the two
guiding principles that I try to live by daily in making
decisions as Sheriff of Deschutes County for all of the
people of Deschutes County.
In the course of looking into what the options
were for us with respect to Sunriver and the public safety
district -- I am going to get back to this fair and right
here in a minute. But I think it's important to
understand, Dave, do you remember the exact date -- I was a
candidate. There was a forum of public safety people at
your house. At that time I was asked the question if you
are elected Sheriff, where would you stand on a public
safety district or what do you think is in the best
interest for Sunriver police officers because we have a
high turnover rate. As a candidate I made it clear that I
thought the formation of a public safety district would
solve a whole host of those problems and address them in a
much better manner.
The last time I was in this beautiful room I
was sitting next to Larry Kimmel. Mike, you were here. It
was a candidate debate for the campaign, and some of you
who are here today I recognize were here then. Even though
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I was running a fever and Larry Kimmel was also that night,
I think I remained pretty consistent in why the public
safety district would answer your needs better.
In the end the question that I have to ask
myself is this: What's fair and what's right for all of
the people that I represent in Deschutes County which
roughly numbers 118,000 right now. And the issue is the
civil liability by commissioning others. Dave Ghormley hit
on it, a couple of other people have hit on it this
morning. Every time somebody raises their hand and I swear
them in as a deputy sheriff, I as the Sheriff am
representing all of you because you are my boss and I
become liable for the actions of that individual. In the
end that's what this issue really boils down to.
But there is another very critical, critical
issue in my opinion because it's not just about civil
liability. I wrote an article, an In My View piece, for
The Bulletin that was published last Sunday. I would urge
if you haven't read it take a look at it because it's more
succinct than I have been so far. But there is another
issue. You need to have local control. You need to have
the local control over your law enforcement and your fire
services.
There is going to be inherent conflict between
the Sheriff and the Sheriff's office providing the
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necessary and needed oversight that must be done to protect
all of the residents of Deschutes County from potential
civil liability and what you via the Sunriver Owners
Association and management may want to see your police
officers doing.
And I am here to tell you right now that you
can't put your police chief in that kind of a vice. There
will be inevitable conflict, some of them small, some of
them potentially small in.the beginning but by the time
they are magnified through misconception and
misunderstanding they might become large. But you can't do
that. And this option is one way to resolve that issue as
well as me maintaining the stance that I have had for over
two years which is the Sunriver police department should be
it's own entity and should answer to you. Not to me. Tom,
does that answer your question?
MR. LUERSEN: Yes, sir. My question is about
the insurability of the liability imposed on you, Sheriff,
if in fact we are a deputizing people and our officers
here. We have as an owners association insurance to cover
some of that is my understanding. Can we -- is there the
other alternative that says you are willing to protect the
liability of the residents of Deschutes County if in fact
we can increase our insurance if you will for that service?
That's a question I have yet to really understand the
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answer to.
SHERIFF STILES: I will be happy to address
that. Gary, am I correct two million right now per
incident, 10 million cap?
MR. FIEBICK: I think it's one to ten --
SHERIFF STILES: It's one to 10. One million
per incident, 10 is the cap. 10 is the aggregate
cap.
MR. FIEBICK: That's the umbrella.
SHERIFF STILES: Tom, to answer your question,
one million isn't enough. I can't go into it, but I think
Gary would be happy to share some information with you. I
know of at least one incident in the last 12 months that
one million wouldn't even start to go there. How high is
enough? And would that also provide the due diligence
that comes from the Sheriff because it's not just a matter
of simply dollars and cents.
The real issues that are being tested right now
in the federal court system if you move outside of the
state system where you have got your tort liability or at
least we do and you move in to the federal venue, you have
now moved into an area where concepts of negligent
retention, negligent training, negligent supervision,
negligent hiring, all of those negligence issues are pretty
big dollar issues. And I think our legal counsel will
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support that.
I don't know if that's enough. But even if you
had one hundred million, the incident itself that occurs I
still must be able to show that I have provided all of that
oversight for hiring, training, supervising. And the
minute I am doing that which I am doing right now. Quite
frankly in the last six months I have given Chief Kennedy
a number of very specific directives, I have sent my under
sheriff down, I have sent my patrol captain, my detective
captain and my training sergeant to evaluate your files.
I have every bit of confidence in Sunriver
officers. I cannot continue on the backs of all the other
taxpayers in Deschutes County to support that kind of
oversight because they didn't pay for that quite frankly.
They didn't. And so every time I am sending staff down to
do that to make sure that we are providing that kind of
oversight, it's costing other taxpayers their money. Does
this answer your question?
MR. LUERSEN: I understand.
COMMISSIONER DALY: Anyone else want to ask a
question of the Sheriff?
SHERIFF STILES: Before I leave can I make one
comment, Commissioner?
COMMISSIONER DALY: Yes.
SHERIFF STILES: The last comment I want to
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make is this: In the last nine months I have heard a
number of allegations relating to what I have said or
haven't said. Could I please make this invitation. If you
have any questions, Tom, or anyone else regarding where I
stand or why I stand there, please call me at my office. I
will leave some business cards here today.
And the other one of the areas that I am most
concerned about is the fact that the Sheriff is not and
will not contract. That's not true. There are a host of
other options. This is not the only option. That said,
this is the best option. This being the public safety
district is absolutely clearly the best option for your
control. And if that is important, I would certainly take
that into account.
I will not get involved and I cannot make
recommendations as to staffing levels or any of those
things. The level of service you want is your decision.
But there are other options that are open and I have not
shut any doors. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER LUKE: What phone number do they
call?
SHERIFF STILES: 383-4393.
COMMISSIONER LUKE: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER DALY: Does anybody else want to
ask a question of the Sheriff or come up and testify?
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COMMISSIONER LUKE: Gary wanted to finish off
if there is no one else.
MR. FIEBICK: Gary Fiebick, general manager of
Sunriver. Just on behalf of the board I would like just
to respond to some of the comments and questions that have
come up during this time. Some of the facts. First of all
I think the Sunriver tax rate is above $10 per thousand
currently. Secondly, the numbers and things that we are
working on have nothing to do with Arthur Anderson or Enron
or any other subsidiary.
But actually as far as the police service
level, Sheriff Stiles is correct and Dave Ghormley who was
president when I came on as general manager in 1996. The
policy has been since before 1996 that Sunriver would
endeavor to have two police patrol officers on duty 24
hours seven days a week. Now, one of the things that we
don't do if somebody is at court or ill or on vacation, we
don't always back fill. But you can always be assured that
we will have at least one person on when required when it's
necessary.
Secondly, the board had a work session and they
revised some of their thoughts on the few issues so I
would like to share that with you now. As regards personal
property, that is the furniture, fixtures, equipment
including vehicles, et cetera, the board is proposing that
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all of that equipment and furniture and fixtures be sold to
the district for one dollar. Essentially giving it.
Therefore that will reduce the district's budget and we
have a new iteration with that in consideration.
Secondly, real property. That's been discussed
off and on by the board for some time and debated. At last
meeting it was decided that at least for now we would leave
the rents there for a couple reasons. We had debt service
both on the fire department and we have debt service both
as well as on the administrative area. But I think
underlying all of that they want to be careful that if in
the future this district might merge or annex property or
area to it, that the owners of Sunriver would be able to
obtain a fair value for that property if it were
transferred to a larger district.
Next I would like to turn to tax values. We
receive from the assessor specific values regarding
Sunriver itself, the area that will be within this
district. According to the true cash value, that means
your local realtor when he comes to look at your property
he is going to tell you what the value of your property is
based on all kinds of comparable sales, but true cash
values for all of Sunriver is $1,232,108.802 according to
the county assessor. A portion of that is resort, a
portion is golf, a portion is commercial, and the major
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share is residential.
Now, if you look at what we're dealing with in
this calculation set of numbers, we're talking about the
tax assessed values. Was it 195 when the law changed that
said the tax assessed values of properties in the state
could only go up a maximum three percent a year unless you
made an addition or something like that. The tax assessed
value for the same area is $853,977,211. If you do the
math, the tax assessed value on average is only 69 percent
of the true cash value of the properties here. So all the
calculations that we work with in trying to estimate what
it would cost you as an owner whether it's commercial,
resort, golf or residential is based on the tax assessed
values, not the true cash value.
COMMISSIONER LUKE: That number is pretty
consistent across the county. Most property is 30 percent
under true cash value.
MR. FIEBICK: Thank you. Next item there is
discussion or question about resort and commercial
assessments. Yes, the resort and commercial properties and
L golf properties are assessed on a formula that is set out
in the consolidated plan for Sunriver, and that assessment
3 can be calculated by anyone really if you have the right
4 set of numbers.
5 For the purposes of taxes, the resort value is
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$13,589,660. Now, that includes more than just what the
Sunriver resort has in terms of assets. That includes the
hangars because they are developed on what was resort
property, and it includes the trout house because it was on
resort property when it was developed. So it it's just the
SLRP property, There's a couple of differences there.
The golf courses are assessed separately, and
by agreement with the assessor I think all the golf courses
in Central Oregon are assessed more on a business basis
rather than a value of land basis.
Commercial properties and that's the
accumulation of all the commercial properties, that's the
mall, it's mall two, it's Dr. Skotte, it's the old service
station, it's the marketplace store out north and it's
probably a couple of other properties. Those commercial
properties are $15,347,701. And the balance is the
residential.
Now, as concerns the resort, SLRP -- John or
Tom you can correct me -- the resort owns I believe 65
lodge condominiums and 30, 35 river lodges. So that's
about 100 residential units that they own. The resort will
pay on those residential units just like any other
condominium owner or homeowner in Sunriver. So they have
those changes. In addition they have this resort value to
the remainer of their assets as well as the commercial
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value. And so they pay on that on an adjusted basis also.
Now, the last iteration of budgets that we did
we assumed that the first year tax rate might be $3.15
per thousand and that the SROA assessment would be revised
downward to I believe $35. It may go a little lower. But
that's what the board is comfortable with at this point in
number. Based on that, the increase in combined annual tax
on assessments for the commercial properties is about
$33,500 increase annually. The resort properties in
aggregate, the total increase with the new tax district and
revised SROA assessments based on their formulas for those,
their increase for all those resort properties would be
approximately $23,600 a year.
Residential properties. I did some
calculations. There are 4,124 residential properties.
Some are vacant lots, some are condominiums and some are
homes. The mean value, that is the average based on tax
assessed values is $198,814. That's pretty straightforward
math. The true cash values based on true cash assessment,
the average or mean value is $289,107. So it's almost
$100,000 more true cash value on average for the average
property.
We looked at what the break even value might be
on tax assessed values, and with a $3.15 per thousand
assessment for the first year and assumption that the SROA
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assessment would drop from $71.91 a month to $35 a month,
then the break even value where if you have a higher value
you will pay more in total or lower value you will pay less
than total is about $140,600. Now, if you take the example
with the mean value of property, that is the average
property on tax assessed values that is $198,814, the new
assessment, the new district tax, the combined increase for
that property would be about $183 a year or monthly
increase of about $15.25.
Now, again there are a couple other choices and
decisions that the board is reviewing with counsel of the
financial advisors from the county and others and so these
can change and will change a lit bit before we get to the
final hearing a week from today. Hopefully we will have
those decisions by the board and be able to incorporate
those recommendations by next Monday so we can get the
information to the Commissioners' office and make it
available to owners.
COMMISSIONER LUKE: Are you done?
MR. FIEBICK: Yes.
COMMISSIONER LUKE: The county and a lot of
different governments and I imagine individuals, there's --
you can put a right of reversion into a deed. If the
homeowners so chose to make the fire hall or different
things available or give them to the district, you could
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have a right of reversion there. If something changes,
they would get it back. So there are some options that
would protect the homeowners association.
MR. FIEBICK: Right. And we have discussed
that in our group.
COMMISSIONER LUKE: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER DALY: Are there any questions?
COMMISSIONER LUKE: Do we know where we are
meeting a week from today? We are meeting in this same
room a week from today at 10:00.
COMMISSIONER DALY: If there are no other
questions, I guess we are adjourned. Thank you.
(Time noted 12:05 P.M.)
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STATE OF OREGON )
ss
COUNTY OF DESCHUTES )
I, DEBORAH FLEISCHER, Court Reporter and
Notary Public, do hereby certify;
That the foregoing transcript is a true
record of the proceedings.
I hereby certify that I am not interested
in the event of the action.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have subscribed my
name this 11th day of February, 2002.
DEBORAH FLEISCHER
Court Reporter & Notary Public
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