Author: Scott Hammers

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Mirror Pond dredging debated

Momentum is swinging toward putting a bond before voters in November to fund the dredging of Bend’s Mirror Pond.

Friday, members of the Mirror Pond Management Board met to consider options for cleaning the pond, which has been filling with sediment since it was last dredged 28 years ago. Until recently, the board had been leaning toward commissioning a study to determine how to address the sedimentation problem, and possibly creating a special taxing district that could provide a long-term funding stream for upkeep of the pond.

After Friday’s meeting, the board is now moving in the direction of a dredge-first, ask-questions-later approach.

Dredging will inevitably be part of cleaning up Mirror Pond, members indicated, and the public is unlikely to be willing to foot the bill for further study.

“I don’t see the public supporting a study — just a study alone,” said board member and Bend City Councilor Tom Greene. “They want results.”

A steering committee assembled by the board concluded that dredging should come before an extensive study. A comprehensive study would cost about $500,000, and none of the organizations represented on the board — including the city, Bend Park & Recreation District, Pacific Power and Bill Smith Properties — are willing to provide the funding.

Parks District director Don Horton said it’s not clear how much public support there is for a bond or a taxing district. To find out, the park district will include questions about the project on a soon-to-be-conducted survey of residents.

In the meantime, Bend community development director Mel Oberst will be directing his staff to develop better estimates of the cost of dredging, and to research the extent of federal and state permitting that would be required.

Current cost estimates for dredging the pond are between $2 million and $5 million. The last dredging in 1984 was performed for $312,000.

Not all members of the board are committed to the new direction. Ryan Houston, executive director of the Upper Deschutes Watershed Council, cautioned that board members could be “shooting ourselves in the foot” by proceeding with dredging ahead of a thorough study. A dredging that fails to take into account how water moves through the area could result in the pond silting up soon after the work is completed, he said, requiring additional costly measures.

Unless measures are taken to remove the silt from the pond, it is believed the river will eventually recede to a narrow channel lined by swampy shallows on either side. Horton said the area just upstream of the Colorado Avenue bridge, an area that was once routinely dredged when it served as a log storage pond, is a good model of what an unaltered Mirror Pond might look like in 50 years.

Source: The Bulletin

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New concepts for Miller’s Landing

Dozens of Bend residents turned out at an open house Thursday, taking an opportunity to weigh in on plans for the city’s next riverfront park.

The Bend Park & Recreation District is on an aggressive schedule to begin construction on the park at Miller’s Landing, across the Deschutes River from McKay Park, by next spring or summer.

Thursday, the district invited the public to view three concept drawings of what the nearly five-acre park could include and to offer their feedback.

Robin Laughlin, project manager for the district, said the public has expressed a preference for a lower-intensity park than McKay Park, the grassy expanse just downstream from the Colorado Avenue spillway popular with summer river floaters. All three plans call for much more limited river access than at McKay Park, with native plants covering the majority of the area along the water’s edge.

Laughlin said three concepts — plans A, B and C — reflect diminishing degrees of development. While plan A features community gardens, a picnic shelter and three river access points, including an off-leash dog beach, plan C has only two small river access points and is dominated by native plants and grassy areas.

All three concepts include public restrooms, the feature most requested by participants at prior public input sessions.

No plans for skatepark

Despite extensive lobbying by skateboarders earlier this year, none of the concepts include a skate park. Bruce Ronning, the district’s director of planning and development, said the district is actively looking for a place to locate a new skate park on the west side, but doesn’t believe it would be a good use of limited riverfront park space.

Laughlin said the district is likely to mix and match different elements from all three concepts in developing its official master plan this winter.

Two design elements captured much of the attention from participants in the open house, who left their comments on sticky notes tacked up next to images of the three concepts: the off-leash beach included in Plan A, and parking in the alley behind Gilchrist Avenue, included in plans A and C.

Both plans were unpopular.

Bob Almquist, who lives on Gilchrist Avenue, said while he has no problem with dogs, they don’t mix well with the park’s focus on boating and floating. A frequent kayaker, Almquist said he’s vulnerable to being tipped over by swimming dogs when he’s in his boat. Off-leash dogs are unlikely to remain on the designated beach, he said, and are likely to cut through the proposed stands of native plants, damaging the plants and creating erosion of the banks.

Almquist said he’s mixed on parking along the Gilchrist Avenue alley. While a parking lot off the alley could slow traffic, he said, it could also create conflicts with the walkers and cyclists who use the alley.

Dagmar Eriksson, who lives on the bluff overlooking the park site, said she leans toward plan B as the best way to both provide river access and preserve riparian areas. She said she often sees boaters who launch or land from the site damaging the banks by pulling their boats through the bushes along the banks, and would like to see designated launch sites at the future park.

Eriksson said she thinks an off-leash area would create conflicts with other users of the park. Across the river at McKay Park, too many dog owners already let their dogs run free and fail to pick up their waste, she said.

One participant left a note suggesting the development of an off-leash beach doesn’t go far enough.

“This should be a dog sanctuary,” the note read. “The anti-dog people are giving Bend a bad name.”

Eriksson and Almquist both said they expect the park district will do a good job, and that any park is a more welcome addition to the neighborhood than the residential development that had been proposed for the site just a few years ago.

In 2006, Brooks Resources and the Miller Lumber family were given approval to build 37 townhomes on the site. Economic conditions stalled the project, and late last year, the Trust for Public Lands purchased the property in order to transfer it to the park district.

“This is just frosting on the cake, the fact this is a park and not condominiums,” Almquist said.

The park district is continuing to accept public input on the Miller’s Landing project.

Source: The Bulletin