Local News

Pat Kliewer had been called the historic preservation "sheriff" for her dogged efforts to protect Deschutes County's historic and cultural resources. And she's been called other things too - not all of them flattering - for her unwavering enforcement of the county's sometimes strict historic codes.
But come March she's being called something else - unemployed.

In a unanimous vote last week, the City Council authorized adjustments that cut back on funding for fire and police service, as well as road maintenance, while backfilling a shortfall in planning revenues that will temporarily stave off additional layoffs.
The council has previously discussed how the slumping housing market is the reason behind a downturn in revenue from the city's engineering, planning, and building departments. These revenue shortfalls were also cited as the reason for the city dismissing 10 employees by March of this year.

Hoby Herron's neighborhood consists of tightly clustered homes and single car garages nestled up to narrow asphalt streets that evoke some of the intimacy of Bend's older Mill-era neighborhoods.
Cascade Village, as the neighborhood is identified by the sign outside the entrance, is one the surviving manufactured home parks in Bend following a wave of redevelopment projects that have, so far, eliminated half a dozen parks totaling 380 spaces in the past five years.

It's early afternoon on a recent October day and it feels like January in the foothills of the eastern Cascades southwest of Sunriver. An early onset of winter-like weather has left the slopes of nearby Odell Butte blanketed in snow and a few pockets of sunshine aren't enough to move the mercury out of the 40s.

I'm walking down an old logging road with Asante Riverwind, the local organizer for the Sierra Club. We're stalking the perimeter of a recent timber sale that his organization is challenging in federal court.

By Wednesday, the city of Bend hopes a construction crew will begin the heavy work needed to lay a 30-inch pipe across two channels of Tumalo Creek and down Skyliners Road. It will be the first step in completing the city’s controversial surface water improvement project, and one that opponents and many city council candidates […]