Eric Flowers

I was very disappointed in the Veteran's Day Parade this past Saturday in Bend. It may be one of the biggest in Oregon, but it was lacking in the music department! Just three bands for the entire parade? Where are the local high school bands? Where are the Armed Forces bands? Where are some local bands (drum and bugle corps, for instance)? It was nice to see how many people participated in the parade, but musically it was too quiet.

This is a shout out to all the businesses and business owners in Bend. As many of you are now aware, the Bend Boys and Girls Club will be suspending operation due to lack of funding.

(A recent) edition of The Bulletin noted a comment from CEO Marvin Lein, "BMC goes to great care to ensure that access to care is available to everyone in our community regardless of ability to pay."

This week's letter of the week comes from Mac Simon who takes aim at the recent city council shake-up. Thanks for the pointed letter, Mac. Stop by the Source headquarters to claim your winner's spoils, a $20 gift certificate to Parrilla Grill. Tasty!
While you were sleeping - or celebrating, a ground-breaking, earth-shaking, life-changing election - or dancing as fast as you can to avoid foreclosure, the Bend City Council was seized by special interests. The kind that are probably not compatible with your interests in Bend's livability. Steel yourself for the consequences.
Unbelievably, we lost two intelligent voices of reason - Peter Gramlich and Linda Johnson. Gramlich lost by a handful of votes to Tom Greene (really? pronounced green?), the frontman for the industry that intends to plunder and pillage what's left of our natural landscape.

This morning, my one desire was a simple thing; a quiet walk through a beautiful setting without the need to fend off an attack. So today I took my dog for a morning walk in the park. My dog was on leash and we delighted in the crisp air and newly fallen leaves. Suddenly two large dogs appear out of nowhere and rush towards us like freight trains. As the two unleashed dogs jump at and bare teeth at my dog I look around for an "owner" while trying to untangle a growing brawl. Off in the distance I hear, "Come on (dog's names)…". Her dogs do not readily respond. I ask her if she could put her dogs on a leash and she responds, "Oh, they're good dogs." She finally manages to disengage her (good) dogs and continues to allow them to rampage far from her side. Now although the ordinance is clearly posted, and widely known by all dog owners, (good or otherwise), I see this woman every day – I literally see her every day from my backyard – letting her dogs run as though she owns the entire park.

In Thursday, October 23rd Bulletin I was surprised to read "Suterra likely to relocate to Juniper Ridge". Suterra is a pesticide/biochemical company who plans to build a new factory in Bend. Their most well known product, Checkmate, is a genetically modified product they refer to as a pheromone. This is the chemical that was aerially sprayed over Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties in 2007. The ingredients include "tricaprylyl, methyl ammonium chloride and polymethylene polyphenyl isocyanate.

The October 29 article "Wanted: Good Buns…as in the bread that holds your burger," may mislead consumers about high fructose corn syrup.
High fructose corn syrup, sugar, and several fruit juices are all nutritionally the same. High fructose corn syrup has the same number of calories as sugar and is handled similarly by the body. In 1983, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration formally listed high fructose corn syrup as safe for use in food and reaffirmed that decision in 1996.

I read the article "Beware Parking Ticket Racket" from the September 25th issue. I decided to do some research of my own because I did not believe everything the gentlemen had stated. From the information and facts I had found it seems that he is just a pissed off person with a valid ticket and does not want to pay a measly $25. I went to the "permit only lot" to see the signs. The signs are bigger than what was stated in the article and the signs clearly read "Parking by Permit Only Violators Will Be Ticketed." Yes, this is a private lot and the owners had decided to contract Municipal Parking Services to monitor their lot. MPS has several agents watching lots around Bend.
People have been taking advantage of parking in the lot behind Midtown for several years. MPS put four signs on the lot requested by the owner. I had talked with one of the agents from MPS and he stated that he told this gentleman that he could call the owner of the lot to try to have the ticket voided. If the owner did not void the ticket then MPS could not do anything about it. The agent at MPS never said "there was nothing I could do about it". The gentleman was not telling the whole truth about what had been said. The owners of the private lots have sole jurisdiction on voiding the tickets. MPS is not responsible in any way for voiding tickets.