The City Club of Central Oregon announced last week, at an evening reception for its members and guests, that the \u201cWestside Transect\u201d is the winner of its first ever \u201cConversation of the Year Award\u201d.\u00a0 The Award is given to the community conversation that best reflects City Club\u2019s mission and values.\u00a0 The winning conversation featured many individuals and organizations.\u00a0 It is credited, at least in part, for accomplishing three things:\u00a0 (1) it helped bring finality to Bend\u2019s decade-long Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) dispute; (2) it created a de facto permanent boundary for Bend\u2019s westward expansion toward the forest and Tumalo Creek; and (3) it re-directed the community\u2019s focus toward revitalization of its neglected urban core between the Bend Parkway and Fourth Street.\u00a0 That area has become known as the Bend Central District (BCD).<\/p>\n
Unlike most awards, which recognize individual achievement, the Conversation Award celebrates the quality of the conversation, itself, and recognizes the community as the true winner.\u00a0 City Club prides itself for being tough on issues but easy on people.\u00a0 It fosters a culture where members may disagree without being disagreeable.\u00a0 The participants in the winning conversation exemplified those principals.<\/p>\n
Paul Dewey and Kirk Schueler, who started this important conversation, accepted the award on behalf of the community.\u00a0 Dewey is the founder and executive director of Central Oregon LandWatch, while Schueler is the president and CEO of developer Brooks Resources Corporation.\u00a0 Dewey and Schueler each provided their insights before being toasted for their efforts by the audience.<\/p>\n
Dewey noted that, although the conversation had its roots in land use litigation, the mutual respect, and professionalism, between he and Schueler enabled them to continue, and then expand, their conversations.\u00a0 What started as an effort to settle a narrow lawsuit quickly grew into a much broader conversation about managing density, avoiding sprawl, and stewarding the region\u2019s urban and rural resources.\u00a0 Schueler commented that good conversations, once started, are contagious.\u00a0 The seed that sprouted in conflict has developed into a series of conversations that will impact the look and feel of Central Oregon, and the quality of life for its residents, for generations.\u00a0 For example, just earlier this month, Brooks Resources and LandWatch jointly threw a packed-house reception at a BCD distillery to launch the transformation of Bend\u2019s urban core into a healthy and vibrant mixed-use neighborhood.<\/p>\n
Another key participant in the winning conversation was the City\u2019s long-range planner, Brian Rankin, who worked tirelessly to involve the public and to obtain broad community consensus regarding the plan.\u00a0 Other important participants included Mike Tennant, Ron White, Charley Miller, Jim Clinton, Victor Chudowsky, and numerous volunteers who served on the City\u2019s various technical advisory groups.<\/p>\n
The revolving trophy for the Conversation Award is an antique lectern, equipped with a chrome microphone, which symbolizes City Club\u2019s role in providing a voice for community perspectives.\u00a0 Those perspectives are represented by four interwoven \u201cconversation bubbles\u201d that make up City Club\u2019s logo, which adorns the front of the lectern in wood from four species of Oregon trees.\u00a0 The trophy also features various historically significant artifacts, including a spike from the Shevlin-Hixon Railroad, a piece of the original fish gate for the Pilot Butte Canal diversion, and a 1912 photo of sign-bearing suffragists gathered on the porch of the Drake Lodge.<\/p>\n
The winner was selected, from dozens of nominations, by a committee of City Club\u2019s former presidents.\u00a0 Other finalists for the award include the 35-year effort to protect and restore Wychus Creek , the regional transportation funding coalition, and the conversation to shift from a quantitative, to a qualitative, emphasis for tourism.<\/p>\n
The winner, and each finalist, demonstrates the efficacy of City Club\u2019s tagline:\u00a0 \u201cConversation Creates Community.\u201d\u00a0 According to Dewey and Schueler, that conversation is contagious.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The City Club of Central Oregon announced last week, at an evening reception for its members and guests, that the \u201cWestside Transect\u201d is the winner of its first ever \u201cConversation of the Year Award\u201d.\u00a0 The Award is given to the community conversation that best reflects City Club\u2019s mission and values.\u00a0 The winning conversation featured many […]\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":990,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"xn-wppe-expiration":[],"xn-wppe-expiration-action":[],"xn-wppe-expiration-prefix":[]},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brooksresources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/989"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brooksresources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brooksresources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brooksresources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brooksresources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brooksresources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brooksresources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brooksresources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brooksresources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brooksresources.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}