Editorial

Several years ago, Rep. Jason Kropf (D-Bend) and other community leaders had the good idea to unify the various governments and supporting nonprofits, creating a pilot Coordinated Houseless Response Office. The aim was to prevent duplication of resources and to see the various resources at the city and county level working in cohesion to address […]

Many people in Oregon breathed a sigh of relief when, after an excruciating, record-breaking six weeks, Republicans in the state Senate returned to the floor, establishing a needed quorum and allowing votes on the floor to continue once again. After saying for weeks that Republicans would only return on the final day of the legislative […]

A crisis was averted this month when the local members of the Oregon Nurses Association reached an agreement with St. Charles Health System, giving nurses a big raise over the life of their contracts and ensuring they’re compensated when they miss meal and rest breaks. St. Charles remained Bend’s largest employer in Economic Development for Central […]

Two racially charged incidents inside the same week show us that while Central Oregon is changing demographically and culturally in the direction of more diversity and inclusion, not everyone is happy about it and not everyone is on board. Oregon’s long history of Black exclusion laws and its quest for a “white utopia” might seem […]

Ask the average person in Central Oregon what the most pressing issues we face here are, and chances are that they’ll include housing and homelessness in their answers. With staggering rent increases and plenty of inflation, the number of people who don’t have a proper place to live is skyrocketing. It’s a problem so great […]

May elections are always an interesting ride. Candidates, voting advocacy groups and newspaper editorial boards like ours spend plenty of energy on candidates and measures, and then, when voting time comes around, so few vote. Even in years when there’s no presidential election, voter turnout in a November election is far higher than in May. […]

As of Monday, 127 bills were sitting in the Oregon state Senate awaiting a vote. It seems the majority of them will die where they sit due to the continued absence of a group of Republican (and one former Republican, now independent) senators. With Bend’s own state senator, Sen. Tim Knopp, part of the cadre […]

Last week’s Source food column, “Little Bites,” outlined how a bill is moving through the state legislature that would allow restaurants and food service establishments to serve customers food in their own containers. SB 545 is part of an overall “zero waste” effort, this one aimed at reducing how much plastic Oregonians consume. Stopping the […]