Dozens of people; most opposed to the Storm Water Improvement Project (SWIP) spoke to the Bend City Council Wednesday night.

The Council had approved most of the project in their last meeting, and was going to vote on two clauses that they had re-worded.

But citizens had other plans for the Council.

Doug Worma spoke for many when he urged the Council to put the decision before the voters.  “You've made up your mind that the current SWIP is the right way to go. But I say, put it up to the voters; let them decide that, if what they want. If they decide that they don't want it; well, you make think they're wrong, but you have to respect that."

Frank Tureck supports the SWIP project, and applauded their action at the last meeting.  "I know its a hard decision, that's why we elected you to make the hard decision instead of saying ‘It's a difficult decision; lets have the people vote on it.’  We need you to be leaders and do that."

City Manager Eric King asked Mr. Willis from the engineering company who prepared the pipeline report to explain the condition of the current pipeline:  "Since this report was built, another 4 years have gone by and those pipelines have continues to fail during that period of time. They are now showing signs of imminent failure, imminent catastrophic failure. Those are things you simply cannot continue with. Those pipelines need to be replaced, and they need to be replaced as soon as you can reasonably do that."

The council voted to approve the re-worded resolution; but will conduct a series of meetings with a report and recommendation on treatment options.