Four of Bend’s city councilors and a number of other city officials got an earful Friday morning of what the Bend Chamber of Commerce and its members think of Juniper Ridge, and most of what was said wasn’t positive.

Many of the 50 people who came to the breakfast meeting lambasted the city for eroding the public’s trust, keeping businesses and residents in the dark and taking the wrong approach to developing the 1,500 acres of city-owned land.

Bend City Councilor Jim Clinton, who has helped lead the city’s side of negotiations over a formal development contract, defended the city’s choices as some of those in the audience took him to task over the city’s process in those closed-door negotiations.

The meeting came more than a week after a group of residents presented the council with a petition with hundreds of signatures of people urging the city to take a few steps back on the Juniper Ridge project.

At Friday’s meeting, several people questioned the shift from several years ago, when the city talked of developing just 500 acres of the land for industrial use, to the current vision that includes a university and thousands of homes, among other features.

“I think what I’m hearing from the community is, let’s prove ourselves on the 500 acres,” said Mike Schmidt, the executive director of the Chamber of Commerce. “Let’s show that we can get it done.”

Clinton replied that the 500 acres already inside Bend’s city limits would be developed first and that the rest would be built up later, with adjustments along the way.

But that wasn’t enough to assuage the concerns of many in the room.

“The city hasn’t inspired a lot of trust,” Deschutes County Commissioner Dennis Luke said. “You’re talking about an agreement that has been negotiated in private and most of the City Council doesn’t know about it.”

Luke said later that he was not speaking for the full commission.

Bend City Councilor Mark Capell, who was at the meeting, said later Friday that the rest of the council has been kept updated, most recently in a closed-door meeting Sept. 5.

“There have been regular updates on the negotiation of the (development agreement) to the council,” Capell said. “The council hasn’t seen the entire document because it hasn’t been completed yet.”

During the breakfast meeting, Capell and Mayor Bruce Abernethy acknowledged that the city has done a poor job communicating its plans for Juniper Ridge.

“I welcome all comments,” Clinton said. “I would love to ask you to — in fact I am asking you — to get a group of people together who you think are most interested in Juniper Ridge and the direction it’s taking, the features you’d like to see in the contract.”