Even if you don’t pay close attention to public dollars like we do, you may have a general sense of how things are going in terms of funding for state and local governments. Due to a combination of federal cuts and the end of some pandemic-era funding sources, the budgets for area governments are going […]
We are in the middle of a raging fire season. Let’s hope you’re already subscribed to Deschutes Alerts or the notifications on the Watch Duty app to help you stay abreast of fires that may crop up near you. Most alerts come because you subscribed to that system. As fires get bigger and hotter and […]
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) was in Bend this week, holding a press conference with local elected officials to express dismay over the federal government’s handling of fire management and public forests. Considering that the smoke map of the greater Northwest is currently glowing bright red due to all of the fires in the region, it’s […]
When the pandemic worsened our housing crisis, national and local governments, and nonprofits, began to address the tent cities that were popping up. At that time, a term began to be thrown about: “the homeless industrial complex.” Using words borrowed from a critique of American military spending, it was meant to indicate that people were […]
Government officials and service providers were thrilled to announce this year that the number of unhoused individuals in the community went way down compared to the previous year’s count. According to the annual Point in Time Count, the numbers were reduced by a staggering 19.1% — a figure that felt almost too good to be […]
We knew it was coming, but as fire season begins its annual destruction, people are once again left wondering what we can do and if we could have done more. The benefit of hindsight already gives us much to ponder when it comes to what each of us — and our local governments — can […]
A recent review of Oregon’s psilocybin therapy program brings up some of the most obvious points about the initiative, approved by voters just a handful of years ago: High-earning individuals are often the ones accessing the program. Many of them come from out of state to do so. People are accessing the program not just […]
If we weren’t previously convinced that parking is one of the thorniest issues in America, we are now. As a June 17 story in the Source detailed, parking has been a divisive issue in Bend for decades — probably going back to when Bend became one of the first cities, in the 1940s or ‘50s, […]
Take a look at what you were paying for electricity, water or other bills just a handful of years ago and you’re sure to get a shock. Costs for all of these services have skyrocketed since the pandemic years, and for low- and middle-income people, that’s meant making choices between everyday indulgences and paying the […]
A recent article in The Hollywood Reporter offers a chronicle of how journalists may soon be adjudicated in the court of AI justice. As disturbing as that piece may be, it did contain an intriguing muse about the future of journalism, and the future of work. In it, entrepreneur Aron D’Souza — the founder of […]
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