Editor’s note: One of the references to Central Electric Cooperative in this editorial used the incorrect name. That has been corrected. 

The Bend City Council has put the city on track to rethink its reliance on natural gas.

The city could go with voluntary policies. It might look for ways to decarbonize natural gas. It could go with incentives for electrification in buildings new and old. It might make some changes mandatory.

Bend residents could see some draft policies in October. The Bend City Council may review them in December.

What Bend residents won’t see are the interviews with stakeholder groups in which the city will develop and shape those policies.

The meeting with “environmental community” representatives will be closed to the public.

The meeting with the “business community” will be closed to the public.

The meeting with Pacific Power will be closed to the public.

The meeting with Central Electric Cooperative will be closed to the public.

The meeting with Cascade Natural Gas will be closed to the public.

“The meetings are not open to the public; they are an opportunity for the City to gather information from key stakeholders (Cascade Natural Gas, Pacific Power, and Central Electric Cooperative – plus an additional stakeholder interview each for environmental interests and one for business interests) about opportunities and challenges related to the draft policy options,” Renee Mitchell, director of communications for the city of Bend, told us in an email.

Even if its not great practice, stakeholder meetings behind closed doors is standard procedure in Oregon government. And according to Oregon public meetings law, it appears the key issue for whether or not these meetings would be required to be public is if the people holding the meetings are “vested with the authority to decide the direction in which the government will move on an issue of policy or administration.”

So, it seems the city’s plan is aboveboard.

But it is the intent of Oregon’s public meetings law that decisions of government bodies be arrived at openly. It would certainly be valuable to know how members of the environmental community, business community, Pacific Power, Central Electric Cooperative and Cascade Natural Gas attempt to influence this policy. And it is a policy that will have a clear impact on the public. Shouldn’t the public be able to see what these groups do and say and how the city reacts? Or is behind closed doors good enough?

You can tell the Bend City Council what you think at council@bendoregon.gov.