Editorial
Posted inOpinion

Thought Tree Codes are Tough? Wait Till Home Hardening Codes Happen.

When and where that happens, it might just make simple tree codes look like a day in the shade
by The Source Editorial Board

Take a quick glance at Bend’s new tree code and you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a bit confusing. You can cut this number of trees at this diameter – or cut a certain percentage at a certain breast height… or just pay to cut down what you want. The ifs, ands or buts that […]

Posted inOpinion

Town Halls Offer a Chance at Humanity, Common Ground

Making a go of a place as divergent as Oregon’s 5th Congressional District was never going to be easy
by The Source Editorial Board

Here we go again: Another round of “empty chair town halls” that highlight our lack of representation by the person who represents us in Congress. Just like they did last year — and also reminiscent of the complaints of her predecessor Greg Walden — activists from the Indivisible network are calling for Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, […]

Posted inOpinion

Fire and Water are the Troubles of Our Time. Local Governments are Seeing the Clock Tick.

Local entities are beginning to see that there’s a role for them in righting the ship
by The Source Staff

Several years ago, the Source Weekly began an effort to uncover and publish the largest users of water in our communities. Our effort was focused on individual users, and ultimately, a local judge ruled that some users in the city did not have to disclose their usage to the public. We lost that fight, but […]

Posted inOpinion

A Land Swap 20 Years in the Making Could Result in Another Managed Camp. It’s a Good Plan — If It Can Be Done

It would be a shame to see the holdup here be a lack of someone to actually do the work on the ground
by The Source Editorial Board

Right now, a land swap deal between the Oregon Department of State Lands and Deschutes County, underway for 20 years, is nearing completion. The deal will swap some 137 acres of county land near East Antler Avenue in Redmond for 140 acres of state lands south of the Deschutes County Fair & Expo Center, which […]

Posted inOpinion

The Ongoing Circus of the Traveling Library

Try to keep up as we outline what users of the Deschutes Public Library are going to experience in the coming years
by The Source Editorial Board

Try to keep up as we outline what users of the Deschutes Public Library are going to experience in the coming years. As we outlined in a news story last week, DPL is in the midst of building its big new “Central Library” on the far-east side of Bend – a location selected secondarily, after […]

Posted inOpinion

Limits on Tech Use in Schools Have a Clear Benefit

As we’ve seen with things like tobacco, sometimes the only thing to do to solve a problem as large as the one we are currently seeing among our youth is to regulate it.
by The Source Editorial Board

Just before the end of the school year, a group called Well Wired began a campaign that aims to get local schools to reconsider how they use technology in classrooms. During the last school board meeting of the year, Bend-La Pine Schools parents expressed concerns about the amount of time their young children were spending […]

Posted inOpinion

On E-Bikes in the Forest, Data Brings Clarity

Who are we to say who belongs and who doesn’t, when the data shows little extra trail maintenance and minimal user conflicts?
by The Source Editorial Board

In recent years, e-bikes have exploded onto the cycling scene. Parents use them to commute with their kids. People with more limited mobility embrace them as a way to get outside on two wheels. And around the country, an increasing number of trail-network managers have begun to allow limited types of them, even on singletrack […]

Posted inOpinion

Oregon Enacted Laws Around Homeless Camp Removals in 2023. After the Grants Pass Decision, Will They Be Enough?

Are we destined to listen to endless diatribes about criminalization versus compassion during this election season?
by The Source Editorial Board

There’s plenty to be concerned about with the recent Supreme Court decision that upholds a ban on camping in Grants Pass, Oregon. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 6-3 decision, saying that laws criminalizing sleeping in public places are not in violation of the Eighth Amendment’s cruel and unusual punishment protections. The case […]

Posted inOpinion

Oregon Water Use Is Moving In the Right Direction

We’d love to see Oregon’s historical water-rights laws to be more closely examined altogether, and the “use it or lose it” approach be swapped for a more conservationist one.
by The Source Editorial Board

There’s a reason we devote an issue each year to water. Not only is it the most basic of human needs, but the issues around it only continue to grow. In recent years, the farmers who actually grow crops in the region have suffered from shortages of irrigation water. A longstanding drought — which has […]

Posted inOpinion

Public Lands Rule: A New Era for American Land Management

We may not see the effects of this change for quite some time, but we’re betting our grandchildren will thank us
by The Source Editorial Board

You may not have heard much about it, but a massive change just happened on public lands — one that might begin to reverse a trend of over-extraction and land degradation in the United States. Our grandchildren may one day thank us. On June 10, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management put its Public Lands […]

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