Local News

In what may be one of its last official actions, the lame duck city
council named a fellow "progressive" to fill a vacancy created when
councilor and former Mayor Bill Friedman died earlier this month after
complications from back surgery.

On a "party line" vote councilors
took Jodie Barram over Don Leonard and Robin Vora. The three candidates
had been culled from a list of more than a dozen applicants for the
open spot. It's one of five positions that has been or will have to be
filled between November and January through election or appointment as
part of an unprecedented turnover on the city council.

Chase Hovan is the kind of bus rider who drives Annis Henson crazy.
An 18-year old COCC student who is learning to play piano and studying music production, Hovan uses the bus to get to and from his classes almost everyday. Standing at a bus stop outside the local Ace Hardware store on Third Street, Hovan has a snowboarder-style hoodie pulled up against the morning chill. A shock of red hair sticks out from underneath his ball cap; he could probably pass for boarding star Shaun White - or at least as his brother.
Asked what he thought of the fledgling bus system, Hovan was quick to speak for its necessity.
"It's awesome," he said. "I don't know what I would do if I didn't have it."
But when asked if he voted to preserve the bus with a local property tax increase just a few weeks ago, Hovan conceded that he had not.

If money, as the Supreme Court tells us, is the equivalent of free speech in politics, then some of the local special interests were doing a lot of talking this past election.
According to the Secretary of State's Office, the Central Oregon Builder's Association (COBA) and the Central Oregon Association of Realtors (COAR) poured more than $100,000 into local elections in Deschutes and Crook County.