BEND, OR -- The 2025 Legislative session is months away, but Deschutes County Commissioners are planning now for what they hope to get out of lawmakers. County lobbyist Doug Riggs told Commissioners Monday work is already underway to achieve the county's goals, "I really view the interim as the foundation for success for the session."

In the last few months, state lawmakers visited Central Oregon to tour the future site of an emergency coordination center in Redmond known as CORE3, they held a transportation hearing and met with insurance experts to discuss wildfire coverage. Riggs says, "All in all, really an exciting summer of legislators coming here, meeting with local officials and hearing firsthand about the important issues we have facing us." He says that kind of work in between sessions is critical, "Once the session starts, they have five minutes in their office and their bell's ringing and they've got to go meet. So really getting legislators into your region, into Deschutes County and talking to them at length is really important."

Riggs says Deschutes County 911 and fire agencies hope for an EMS modernization bill in the upcoming session, "EMS and fire districts and fire departments are all struggling with the same thing, which is the number of calls, the percentage of calls, that relate to behavioral health and homelessness have skyrocketed. And in many cases, that has put the budgets of these entities in a crisis situation."

Commissioners also hope to secure more funding for CORE3. Riggs says a strategy is already underway, "The plan with CORE3 is to submit a bill, which will be introduced by our local legislators, which would obviously allocate the second tranche of funding. The first tranche was back in 2021." He added Monday, "Legislators who came out to the site and have been getting briefings seem to have been impressed by the planning, the coordination, the effort to get all the state agencies on board. So that's a bill that looks like it'll move forward. A lot of this is dependent on the revenue forecast." The September forecast was up, which bodes well for the county's requests. But Riggs says it needs to hold. 

Commissioners also hope the legislature will change the rules for managed  homeless camps, to allow one to be developed outside of Bend's urban growth boundary.

file photo