The final Deschutes Mapping Advisory Committee meeting was supposed to take place in Bend on Wednesday. At 1 p.m., when the meeting was scheduled to start, county resident Pete Shepherd called the group to attention.

“Folks, we’ve reached the witching hour,” he said. As he leaned outside the closed door, he sent the public comment he would have made to the county from his smartphone. He’s critical of the districting process and the map that the mapping committee approved on Nov. 12.

The committee, tasked with creating representational districts for county commission seats, passed the map at its penultimate meeting and canceled the public’s last chance to weigh in on Wednesday. Creating five new county districts could shape the future of the county board, which has been a majority Republican body since at least 2015.

Currently, three commissioners represent Deschutes County at-large. But after voters in 2024 overwhelmingly approved expanding the number of county board members, Commissioners Tony DeBone and Patti Adair quickly started talking about creating districts.

Now, some residents, including Shepherd, are worried the map approved this week was rushed, potentially gerrymandered and possibly in violation of state public meetings law.

Adair and DeBone, both Republicans, appointed two members each for the mapping committee. Commissioner Phil Chang, a Democrat, appointed three members to the mapping committee.

His three appointees, Bend Mayor Melanie Kebler, Carol Loesche and Andrew Kaza, ended up voting against the map on Nov. 12. They cited concerns about the process and took issue with the final mapping committee meeting being canceled.

Sparks flew after the committee voted 4-3 to approve the map. Afterward, Kebler said she voted no because it’s an “incredible disservice to the people of the county” to vote on the map and not hold the final planned meeting.

She motioned to meet for a final time on Wednesday, but fellow committee member, Matt Cryus, objected because “we’ve already made our decision.” Future comments would go to the board of commissioners, not the committee, he added.

Some committee members were also concerned about not being able to review the political affiliations of voters in each district to make sure the maps didn’t favor any political party. During the map-making process, county legal counsel David Doyle advised that “the safest route is to not consider” political affiliation data when making the maps. He said not considering it might head off potential legal challengers.

Deschutes County has steadily been moving from red to blue. After voting for Republican presidential candidates in 2012 and 2016, the county voted for Democrats in increasing margins in the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections.

Even though the committee didn’t consider political affiliation, residents like Shepherd are concerned the approved map favors Republicans because of the way Bend is carved up.

The potential Deschutes County commissioner districts aren’t a done deal. The approved map will go before the county board of commissioners in the coming weeks for approval. After that approval, Deschutes County voters will decide in 2026 whether to embrace the district model and the proposed map. Voters will also decide on four commissioner races in May.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/11/20/deschutes-county-district-mapping-project-politics-sisters-bend/