The City of Bend is hosting a “State of the City” event at Alpenglow Park on Friday evening. Mayor Melanie Kebler says it’s a new approach to engage with the community while also providing an update on the city.
“We want to throw a really family-friendly event that also allows me to get the message out about what the city’s doing and how we’re addressing growth. And also letting people interact with city staff and talk to people and ask questions about what the city does and learn,” Kebler said.
Kebler says the main topics being discussed include housing and homelessness, public safety, transportation and water, all under the theme of growth.
“The past couple of years we’ve been able to get 1,000 units of affordable housing in the pipeline to be built in Bend. We’re really pushing forward on solutions to homelessness as well. We’ll be talking about a little of the statistics of what we’ve been able to accomplish and some of the philosophy of where we want to go on those issues,” Kebler said.
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Kebler says lawn games, interactive displays, a firetruck and police vehicles, food trucks and live entertainment will be at the event.
Kebler is scheduled to speak at 5:30 pm. The entire event lasts until 7:30 p.m.
