Previously, at Bend City Council, hi, I'm, mayor Pro, tem, Megan Perkins, and this is your city council recap. Last week, Council hosted a Roundtable discussion about a transportation fee. We talked about the city's budget and funding Street Maintenance and continue to engage the Roundtable participants, we're talking about a transportation fee. For two reasons. The city of Bend has less money to spend on our roads and sidewalks, and we want our transportation system to be safe and efficient. You can find more information, including a frequently asked questions section at Bend, oregon.gov Transportation Dash fee.

If you have questions or input after checking out that page, you can always contact us at council at bendoregon.gov at a different type of event. On September 8th, the city council and City staff hosted a state of the city event at Alpenglow park on the east side of Bend. Instead of delivering a PowerPoint presentation, we got to be outside, enjoy some food trucks and live music and, most importantly, connect with members of our community.

Thanks so much to those of you who joined us if you missed it, watch our city, YouTube channel, we'll post, Spanish and English versions of the state of the city address by the end of the month. Council typically has two regular business meetings. Each month at our first one in September, we heard a presentation about bias incidents in our community from the city's Equity director Andres Portola, an accessibility manager, Cassandra Kehoe.

They made recommendations about how the city could address hate speech and discrimination, including developing a regional Coalition, a response plan and resources at our second business meeting on September 20th Council voted to bring the Stevens Road Track into the bend Urban growth boundary. This brings us one step closer to making the 261 Acres on Ben's East Side available for Housing Development.

One of the most exciting features of Stevens Road is that it will include affordable housing exclusively available to Educators here in Bend. Also on September 20th, a committee called the tree regulation update advisory committee checked in with us. During our work session, we are discussing how trees should be regulated with new development. The committee is working to come up with recommendations for the Council on ways to preserve more trees during the construction of new development, while also not creating significant barriers to building needed housing.

We gave the committee feedback that we're also prioritizing the need for housing, so we'll be open to providing some flexibility in the tree. Preservation updates it's a delicate balance. Keeping bigger trees is important to us, but we're open to discussing options that preserve more smaller trees. Instead, when that helps, facilitate Housing Development and a step toward improving the stock of child care in Bend, Council approved allocating one hundred thousand dollars to support much needed child care services in partnership with the Small Business Development Center at cocc.

The money will support child care expansion by helping providers with startup costs or permit fees getting registered or certified. Helping pay for upgrades such as renovation or safety features and more council did two proclamations this month, declaring September 8th through 17th welcoming week, I hope some of you were able to attend one of our awesome events and learn more about the rich cultures and diversity here in Bend. If you didn't look out for next year, city council also proclaimed September 17th through 23rd Constitution week, thanks for watching.

If you would like to learn more or get involved with city council ahead to bend, oregon.gov Council we'll see you next month.