Infrastructure insanity

The executive director of the economic development agency in Central Oregon told a Bend Chamber audience Friday that Bend needs better infrastructure to lure potential companies to the High Desert.

Well, he's a little late to the issue. A group called Infrastructure First started calling for better roads, water, sewer and storm drains in the mid-Aughties, when it mattered, when something could've been done about it. The group gathered more than 5,000 signatures, the most ever for a local initiative in Bend. The city, though, kept increasing the number of signatures needed, which meant the initiative would never qualify for the ballot.

EDCO's Roger Lee doesn't just think infrastructure should be first, but second and third as well, as quoted in the daily paper.

To draw more companies to Bend, Lee said, "It's infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure."

Hello? It's one thing to state the obvious, it's quite another to have any meaningful ideas on how to build the infrastructure necessary to keep pace with growth.

Infrastructure First wants the city of Bend to do what the city of Wilsonville does near Portland. It requires "concurrency," or that public facilities keep pace with development. Wilsonville does this by requiring developers pay their fare share in helping that city maintain its livability as it grows.

Due to unrelenting pressure from the development community, Bend never adopted a "public facilities strategy" to deal with the ridiculous growth during the Aughties. Consequently, Bend's infrastructure is inadequate and now the city can't attract the companies it wants.

This is killing the goose that laid the golden egg. The city adopted the developers credo of maximizing profits now and to hell with the future. So, our future doesn't look so swell.

Yes, infrastructure is vital to Bend's economic growth. Too bad, the players that had influence in our community failed to look out for the best interests of our city. They, like bankers on Wall Street, just looked out for their own greedy, self-interests.