Laurel Brauns
Posted inNews

Pay Your Bail or Rot in Jail ▶ [with video]

While Oregon has made some progress in reforming the cash bail system, there’s still a long way to go, public defenders say
Laurel Brauns

In Oregon, if someone gets charged with a crime, they have two choices. One, they could pay their bail, which usually costs anywhere from a few hundred to many thousands of dollars. Or two, if they can’t pay, they are forced to go to jail for up to 60 days while they await their trial. […]

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Mental Health Crisis Intervention 🎧 [with podcast]

Holly Harris is the crisis services manager for Deschutes County. She talks about the new stabilization center, decriminalizing mental illness and police officers in schools
Avatar photo Laurel Brauns and Aaron Switzer

For this week’s “Bend Don’t Break” podcast our guest is Holly Harris, the crisis services manager for Deschutes County. She’s worked in the behavioral health field for 17 years with a primary focus on the intersection of criminal justice and mental health. Right now, she’s working to get the Deschutes County Stabilization Center up and […]

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Closing the Book on Juniper Ridge

After months of stops and starts, the City of Bend removed all the people living at Juniper Ridge
Laurel Brauns

Not a single tent remained at Juniper Ridge Monday morning, the first day the land was officially off limits to campers and hikers. The city-owned land in northeast Bend was where dozens of people lived in tents and cars, at least a mile from the nearest store. For years, the City of Bend left the […]

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You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

Public defenders demand more transparency from local law enforcement
Laurel Brauns

As Black Lives Matter protests continue around the world and here in Central Oregon, local public defenders have their own axe to grind when it comes to criminal justice reform and police brutality. They fight on the front lines in courtroom battles every day to protect the very people these systems tend to harm the […]

Posted inNews

Paralytic Economy: A State Economist’s Predictions for Recovery 🎧 [with podcast]

Josh Lehner takes a deep dive into the economic impacts of declining tourism revenues, Oregon’s “kicker” tax and remote workers
Laurel Brauns

For this week’s “Bend Don’t Break” podcast, our guest is Josh Lehner, an Oregon state economist whose work has been published in the New York Times, NPR and the Washington Post. With a particular focus on the outlook for Central Oregon, Josh talks about the region’s strong professional services sector and how these types of […]

Posted inNews

Deschutes County Stabilization Center Opens

People experiencing a mental health crisis finally have a place to go that’s not jail or the emergency room
Laurel Brauns

Central Oregon has gained a national reputation for trying out progressive mental health approaches that cost less and help people more. Some of these innovative programs—such as the new Deschutes County Stabilization Center—demonstrate cooperation between local law enforcement, behavioral health agencies and emergency response teams. City and county governments across the U.S. are currently discussing […]

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Cultural Conundrum

Music and arts events round out Bend’s outdoor tourism economy, but pandemic precautions forced most beloved events off the books this year.
Laurel Brauns

Visit Bend announced in early April that it was putting future Bend Cultural Tourism Fund grants on hold. With transient room tax collections at an all-time low, and state orders forbidding large gatherings, the news came as just one more foreboding loss caused by the COVID-19 worldwide pandemic. In 2019, the fund awarded a total […]

Posted inNews

Pandemic School Year

The state just issued a long list of guidelines for Oregon schools. 2020-2021 may be the weirdest school year in Bend since 1918.
Laurel Brauns

This fall, local students may go back to their brick-and-mortar schools, but COVID prevention protocols will begin the minute they step on the school bus. Some students may not come to campus at all. To start, teachers will wear masks, students will stay 6 feet apart and no more sharing crayons or geometry tools. Some […]

Posted inNews

Zero COVID-positive cases found in OSU Study

Researchers conclude one in 1,000 people in Bend had an active case of COVID-19 during study
Laurel Brauns

Last month, a group of field teams working with Oregon State University fanned out across Bend to test households for COVID-19. They tested 615 people in Bend, and no one tested positive. The Team-based Rapid Assessment of Community-Level Coronavirus Epidemics, or TRACE study, is led by a group of researchers at OSU who want to […]

Posted inNews

Bend’s Small Business Survival 🎧 [with podcast]

Featuring Ben Hemson, City of Bend Business Advocate
Laurel Brauns

Check out the latest episode of the Source’s Weekly’s “Bend Don’t Break” podcast hosted by our publisher Aaron Switzer. This week our guest is Ben Hemson, the City of Bend’s business advocate. Listen now or download wherever you get your podcasts. We’ve also started creating videos of our interviews which you can watch below or […]

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