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Bend Public Works Campus Call for Artists

The City of Bend and Art in Public Places is looking to commission a large-scale art project for the new Headquarters Building on the Public Works Campus in Bend. The request is for a large work of art on three prominent walls in the public lobbies and outdoor terrace of the main building. The art will be featured in the two-story vaulted lobby space, continuing up to the third-floor lobby and outside to a third-floor terrace.

The new campus in Juniper Ridge will hold five departments including Utilities, Transportation and Mobility, Fleet Maintenance, Facilities and Engineering and Infrastructure Planning. The Headquarters Building will act as the main intersection for collaboration and interaction between the various City of Bend departments on the campus. The 25.5-acre site will include offices, meeting spaces, storage facilities and more.

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La Pine Community Health Center Receives Grant

The La Pine Community Health Center announced on Feb. 1 it received $500,000, from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, to go toward construction of its new three-story, 27,000 square-foot Wellness Center. La Pine Community Health Center’s Capital Campaign, which launched in August 2023, has exceeded 40% of its $5 million goal with help from the recent grant, a previously announced $1.6 million donation from billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott’s Yield Giving and other individual contributions.

The Wellness Center, adjacent to the current La Pine Community Health Center building, will offer extra space for dental and diagnostic imaging services, increase capacity for behavioral and mental health services, expand primary care services by 45% and include daycare for employees’ young children. The Center is due to open early 2025.

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“I’m going to show up to work on Monday, I’m going to work as hard as I can for 35 days. We have a ton of work to be done. I’m glad there was a ruling. We needed some clarity from the Supreme Court about Measure 113.”

— Rep. Jason Kropf on the start of the February legislative session and the ruling that disqualified Sen. Tim Knopp, who represents Bend, and four others, from running for office in the next election. From this week’s News story, “Rep. Jason Kropf on the Current Legislative Session, Priorities and Measure 110 .”

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72-75%

— The percent of respondents who said traffic safety was a top priority for them in the Bend Police Department’s biannual survey. From this week’s News story, “Bend Considers Traffic Cameras to Improve Public Safety.”

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Homelessness State of Emergency Exceeds Goals

Oregon Housing and Community Services said Tuesday that the state exceeded all three goals set by Gov. Tina Kotek through her homelessness state of emergency, signed on her first full day in office.

Over the last year, OHCS tracked the following progress:

1,047 low-barrier shelter beds were created, surpassing the original goal by 447 beds

1,833 households experiencing unsheltered homelessness were rehoused, exceeding the goal by 633 households

8,993 households were prevented from experiencing homelessness, exceeding the goal by 243 households

“It’s more evidence that when we set targeted, ambitious goals and then work together to achieve them, we get results,” Kotek stated in a press release. “But while it is good news, we have more work to do. Through the creation of regional multi-agency coordination groups that worked with OHCS to implement this emergency funding, we now have the infrastructure in place to keep up the pace on fixing this crisis.”

On Jan. 9, Kotek signed EO 24-02 to “maintain the added capacity to the state’s shelter system, rehouse people experiencing homelessness, and prevent homelessness.” Her office will set new goals and release them by the end of February.

This article appears in Source Weekly February 8, 2024.