Opinion

This week's Letter of the Week comes from regular writer Matt Orr who urges fellow citizens to hold Obama accountable even as he stacks his administration with Clinton-era appointees, including his former opponent Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. Thanks for the letter Matt, you can pick up your top secret prize at the Source headquarters, 704 NW Georgia.
No doubt if you were stranded beside the road with four flat tires and the vultures circling you would be grateful to the man who came by and offered you a tow and tire change. You might even shed a tear of renewed hope as the kind man tightened down the last lug nut and pocketed your payment. It would be hard, however, not to harbor a certain disappointment-the kind that could easily turn to anger or resentment-when, at the first rest stop, you noticed a suspicious seam encircling the new tires. Retreads!

As a regular reader of The Weekly Source, (sic) I was disappointed with the editor's suggestion (November 20, 2008) that Central Oregon Builder's Association (COBA) and Central Oregon Association of Realtors (COAR) essentially bought the election of the Bend City Council and are therefore expecting payback. While the true reasons voters voted as they did may never be factually known, the major reason may have been the incumbent councilors were incredibly poor stewards of public money.
During the past eight years our city population increased by 55%. During this time the city council increased general fund expenditures 110%, and increased the general fund debt 280%! The city council also authorized borrowing by their newly created urban renewal districts, which would have AGAIN more than doubled the general fund debt, without the vote of the people. Just last spring Mayor Abernethy noted that the council had added or beefed up 23 different programs and Councilor Friedman said he'd known about some of the underlying problems with the city's budget for at least a year. While it seems reasonable, he shared his concern with other councilors, corrective action was not taken.
The most highly visible financial failures of the pre-election city council are:

Hi Mr. Anderson,
Recently during the ideal weather period of mid October I had a visit from long time friends who were actually college buddies and later biology teachers like myself. As we took advantage of the beautiful waterfalls and scenery of the area, we talked about how much of today's teaching of the subject seems to emphasize the microscopic, even the molecular nature of the plant/animal world much to the neglect of the total organisms.
With that comment in mind I shared some of your recent articles from The Source, and a thought occurred to all of us.

As I have already told Jodie Barram, I am happy for her and I think she will do a good job in filling Bill Friedman's council position. I have worked on the Bend Planning Commission with Jodie for many years, and have found that she takes a cautious and reasoned approach to her decisions. I look forward to working with her in some capacity with the City in the future.

However, I want to address some "misrepresentations" of my positions in Eric Flowers' article "One Way or Another: After losing election, Barram wins council appointment." First, while I do disagree with the current vision of Juniper Ridge, I have never said that I want to dismantle the City's Juniper Ridge Economic Development Plan. I believe there should be more industrial land and less research park. It will be the industrial land that will help create family wage jobs for all segments of the population. I have stated publicly that it is time to let the Juniper Ridge Management Committee do its task of guiding the future of Juniper Ridge. I wouldn't stand in the way of that process.

This week's letter comes from former city councilor John Schubert who
asks a question that's been on a lot of people's minds lately: "What's
with the massive urban growth boundary expansion proposal?"
An
advocate of smart growth and alternative transportation planning,
Schubert questions whether the city's past subsidies to the building
community have led to the current fiscal crisis in Bend. Thanks for the
letter, John. You can claim your prize for this week's winning letter
at the Source headquarters, 704 NW Georgia.
I recently I flew from Frankfurt, Germany to Moscow and marveled at how
clearly the land use patterns unfolded below me. Compact town led to
open agricultural land led to forest land, and then the pattern
repeated, over and over, mile after mile. No rural sprawl as in
Deschutes County; no fuzzy boundary between city and farmland as in
Bend; no homes in the forest. Later in the trip I remarked on my flight
observations to a German acquaintance I met. I asked why he thought
this was so. Without a second hesitation, he said, "It is most
certainly because to do anything else is incredibly wasteful of
government money and natural resources."

Thank you for sending a reporter to our recent Town Hall event. We would like to add some clarity that would give your readers a more detailed picture of the purpose of Bend 2030 and of the highlights of the evening event.
The Bend 2030 Board is designed to be a public/private partnership that will foster support for and oversee implementation of the Bend 2030 Action Plans. Bend 2030 is a legal 501(c) 3 non-profit organization. We work with the City of Bend, a Lead Partner, but Bend 2030 is independent from the City of Bend.