Deschutes County departments report progress on sidewalks, health access, inspections, wildfire mitigation and waste diversion

County staff presented quarterly performance measures to the Deschutes County Board of Commissioners on Nov. 3, reporting a mix of operational achievements and personnel transitions across facilities, health services, environmental health, natural resources and solid waste programs.

Facilities: Lee Randall, facilities director, and Shannon Osendorf, facilities operations manager, told the board the department inspects sidewalks and parking lots to identify trip hazards and prioritize repairs and capital projects. The department’s target is to inspect 80% of its sidewalk and parking‑lot inventory annually; inspections inform a mix of maintenance work and larger capital projects such as the planned sidewalk and parking‑lot replacement at the Unger Building in Redmond.

Health services: Jillian Weiser, compliance and quality assurance officer for Deschutes County Health Services, described the department’s Language Access Program. She said behavioral‑health programs logged roughly 200 hours of interpreting from January to June 2025 and that about 1.2% of behavioral‑health clients are recorded in the system as needing an interpreter. The department uses internal bilingual staff (about 1.5 FTE in dedicated roles plus 24 bilingual staff across programs) and outside vendors for on‑demand video or phone interpreting. Weiser said translated materials are prepped in English and Spanish where practicable and additional languages are provided as requests arise.

Youth services: Christina de Benedetti, program supervisor for intensive youth services, reported that 9 youth graduated from the county’s wraparound planning this quarter and that all nine were enrolled in school at discharge (the program’s target is 90%). The wraparound caseload was about 81 youth as of October.

Prevention and public health: Prevention staff reported 7,754 social media views across three campaigns in the quarter — an opioid‑overdose prevention campaign, a suicide‑prevention campaign that accounted for the largest share of views, and a ‘‘ReThink the Drink’’ alcohol‑harm awareness campaign.

Environmental health: Adria Albin, environmental health supervisor, said the division completed 996 field inspections this quarter (102% of required field inspections). Staff cited recheck inspections and a new performance metric system for inspectors. The division is managing retirements and training new generalist inspectors in pools, lodging and food facilities in response.

Natural resources: Deschutes County Forester Kevin Moriarty reported 79 active Firewise USA communities with 17 pending (96 total sites in the county) and that the county awarded 54 fuel‑reduction grants in the fall — the largest number awarded through the county program to date. Moriarty said the county is working with Project Wildfire coalition meetings and local leads to increase participation and to gather data on participation rates within Firewise communities.

Solid waste: Jeff Merwin, clients and infrastructure manager, said diversion for the quarter exceeded the three‑year average target (15,000 tons per quarter) and reported a rise to about 23 (thousand) tons driven by large increases in compacted yard‑debris collection, uncompacted yard debris and wood/lumber. Merwin also explained a standard industry compaction metric (~1,200 pounds per cubic yard) and said construction of final cover, stockpiles of soil and seasonal factors can affect measured compaction figures.

Sponsorships and other business: The board discussed two FY26 fundraising sponsorship requests and settled on allocations from the $10,000 sponsorship pool: $1,000 to Family Access Network and $1,500 to Hospice of Redmond, with commissioners noting past awards and limited funds for the fiscal year. The meeting closed with an announced executive session under ORS 192.660(2)(h) to discuss litigation or anticipated litigation.

Ending: commissioners praised staff work and asked departments to continue outreach for public education (Firewise, composting and language access) and to track metrics as programs and budgets evolve.