Elections

It's a favorite shell game played by politicians all over the country and Central Oregon is no exception; it's called Hide the Tax Increase. And it works like this: A city or other taxing entity sees the sunset of a temporary tax coming over the horizon and, being government, it finds a way to reallocate that money to another unfunded need at no “new” cost to taxpayers. It's happening right now in Bend as city leaders attempt to convince voters to replace the soon-to-expire downtown urban renewal tax – that's right, you've been paying it for years without even knowing it – with a new $30 million road improvement bond designed to address Bend's growing backlog of road improvement work, which today stands at roughly $100 million. The impact on individual homeowners – like most funding measures, it's a property tax assessment – varies, depending on how much your home, or homes, are valued at. But it comes to about $81 per house for the owner of a home valued at $300,000.

The choice in this race is an easy one. Peggy Kinkade has dedicated countless hours of service to the local schools both as a board member and a volunteer for the Bend-La Pine Education Foundation. Before that, Ms. Kinkade worked diligently to pass the school construction bond that helped alleviate the serious overcrowding in the district. Most recently, she has served as the board's chairwoman, which has put her in the high-profile position of acting as the head of the board and the liaison between the elected officers, the administration and the public. By all accounts, she has served admirably in that position.

Usually, when a newspaper offers no endorsement it means that there simply isn't a candidate worth supporting in a given race, but that's not the case here. Instead, we have to two very worthy candidates in incumbent Beth Bagley and challenger Susanne Flynn.

There are two words that really stand out in the race for the parks board between incumbent Scott Wallace and newcomer Justin Gottlieb: goose poop. The fecal matter paving the paths and covering the lawns of our public parks is near the top (or perhaps at the top) of Gottlieb's agenda. He wants to hire a special “Goose Poop/Goose Population Manager” and cites the fact that Wallace sat on the parks board while more than 100 geese were euthanized last summer as a reason for the public to make a change on the board.
Wallace didn't spend much time discussing goose droppings during our meeting with him earlier this month, opting rather to hit on some of his key interests. One of his focuses is indoor recreation opportunities in the district, an area in which he feels the community is underserved. A youth baseball coach and an avid ice hockey player who organizes the local Steelheaders club team, Wallace recognizes that the current budgetary situation in the district doesn't provide many expansion opportunities. However, he would like to see the community get more mileage out of its existing facilities.

We love our parks here in Bend – like really love our parks. In fact, the only thing that we love more than our parks is probably our pets, or our Subarus. So it's probably no great surprise that our parks district isn't without its politics. However for the last few years, the politics of parks has been thankfully devoid of partisanship. We'd like to keep it that way with board members focused on maintaining the Bend Metro Park and Recreation District's (BMPRD) award-winning programs and responsible management of the park district's coffers. To date, that approach has allowed the district to largely meet the growing needs of the Bend community through land acquisition and park development while focusing on improving indoor and outdoor recreation opportunities for residents.

Did Chris Dudley try to evade Oregon income taxes? Did John Kitzhaber's girlfriend get a sweetheart deal on a state contract? Such have been the “issues” in what has turned out to be, by Oregon standards, an unusually rough-and-tumble battle for the governorship.
We don't know the answers to those questions, and frankly we don't give a damn. For us, the one overriding question is whether Kitzhaber or Dudley is better equipped to guide the state through what is likely to be a tough four years.

Former President Richard Nixon once famously announced that “you won't have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore” after losing the California governor's race. Well Gene Whisnant could easily have uttered almost those same words about his relationship with this paper. Whisnant has served four terms in the state Legislature and has yet to earn the Source's endorsement. But to his credit, Gene shows up every two years and makes his case. Well this year, we're breaking tradition and offering our endorsement of Mr. Whisnant for state representative.