Bend-La Pine Schools accepts $1.9 million offer on Troy Field
The Bend-La Pine School Board has accepted a $1.9 million offer on its Troy Field property in downtown Bend. The 0.8 acre patch of grass on NW Bond’s sale to Portland-based Brownstone Development is contingent on the removal of the public facilities designation, according to Brian Fratzke of Fratzke Commercial, who brokered the sale. The school…
Spreading its Wings
Last August, fans of Crow’s Feet Commons were up in arms when the City declined to renew the bike/ski shop and café’s lease on a portion of the Mirror Pond Plaza in front of its building. But this summer, the City is singing a different tune. A new lease, effective June 5, grants an extension…
Side Notes 6/25-7/2
Cascades East Transit announced a $3.4 million partnership to fund improvements to Bend’s bus system Friday in a press conference including elected officials, City staff, and local business and education leaders. The three-year partnership will facilitate the first meaningful expansion of the chronically underfunded transit system, which has not added hours or routes in the…
What Are You, Stoned?
In anticipation of the July 1 legalization of recreational marijuana, public and private entities have spent the past year preparing for what could be a financial windfall. Unfortunately, the City of Bend has not been one of those, even though a number of business owners in town already are positioning themselves to tap into the…
Letters 6/16-6/23
OSU-CASCADES A MISNOMER You have probably heard of the new university planned on the east side of the Cascades. Its official name will be OSU-Cascades, but this looks like a misnomer. Among other problems with its planned location on Bend’s west side, attending will be problematic for students who don’t live in Bend. A more…
West of Eden
In the final frames of Slow West, the camera pauses over the bodies of all the characters that have died. In quick, static shots, the audience is reminded of every corpse—those of major characters and incidental figures alike—that contributed to the movie’s body count. That tally is substantial: Slow West is a story of guns…
Someone’s in the Kitchen with an iPhone
A couple years ago, Lisa Sipe and her husband Jim were looking for a way to entertain family visiting for Christmas. “Everyone loves cooking,” she explains. “So we played something similar to ‘Chopped.'” In the popular Food Network show, contestants are presented with a basket of seemingly incompatible ingredients and tasked with transforming them. A…
Film Events 6/24-7/1
Unreal With cinematography as expansive as the boldness of these mountain bike riders, Unreal matches the Warren Miller gold standard for adventure films, and hits a high water (altitude?) mark for mountain biking movies. 6:30 pm and 9 pm, Thursday, June 25. Tower Theatre, 835 NW Wall St. $12 adv, $15 door, $7 for 16…
A Trip Down Beer History
If you want to complain about Central Oregon’s beer scene (and yes, that’s a very petulant thing to do), you could note that despite a few very high-quality beer stores, Bend can’t compete against the I-5 corridor when it comes to distribution from other breweries. We prefer to roll out our own, you could say,…
Pickett’s Charge Storms On
Twenty-one years ago, Bill Clinton was midway into his first term, the first blog was launched, the global temperature was a few degrees cooler, and mountain biking was still a relatively new sport. The equipment was crude, little better than big boy dirt bikes. A few prototypes had shocks, and disc brakes were only for…
Art Watch 6/25-7/2
Georgia O’Keeffe came from lush and wide-open landscapes of Wisconsin, but famously translated desert landscapes into vibrant and intensely personal visions. And, it is that interplay between scarcity and abundance that seems to lay at the heart of much of the blossoming genre of “desert writing.” This Thursday, the High Desert Museum will host the…
Go Here 6/25-7/2
Who knew the Seven Wonders of the World were right here in Central Oregon; the seven volcanic wonders that is. In Bend’s backyard sits Newberry National Volcanic Monument, home to Lava Butte and the Newberry Caldera. Designated a National Monument in 1990, this year Newberry celebrates its 25th anniversary with a year’s worth of activities…
Turn Up The Volume
The building set back from a parking lot adjacent to Bond Street, behind a chain link fence, is unassuming. A door painted brick red opens into a basement level ciderblock building painted white. What had been a maintenance building for the school district has since been converted into a labyrinth of office cubicles and recording…
Picks 6/24-7/1
wednesday 24 – sunday 28 Subaru Outside Games QUINTESSENTIAL—For no reason besides IT’S SUMMERTIME, Subaru (Bend’s quintessential vehicle) is hosting their annual Outside Games, and by games they mean quintessential events like a cruiser crawl from pub to pub, ending with a concert at Century Center (4 – 6 pm, Thursday) and kayak races. Various…
Source Suggests 6/24-7/1
This Frontier Needs Heroes and Paula Boggs Band Singer-songwriter Paula Boggs of the Paula Boggs Band had an interesting career trajectory. Before deciding to pursue music, she scaled the heights of the military and then corporate world. In the Army, Boggs was an Airborne Officer, served on the White House Iran Contra task force and,…
Out of Town 6/25-7/2
hood river thursday 25 – sunday 28 CGWA Beach Bash Experience the awesome sport of windsurfing up close. The Columbia Gorge Windsurfing Association is throwing a Beach Bash and everyone is invited. High wind demonstrations and races, including the Never Windsurfed Before Race, are enticing enough to bring out the windsurfer in nearly anyone. But…
From Favorite Sweaters to Texas Shit-Kicker Accents
Bend can put another feather in her cap: Award-winning singer-songwriter Robert Earl Keen digs the Bend fashion scene. “I love Bend,” Keen says. “I bought my favorite sweater in Bend. It is a really good sweater.” No more description is offered, but who knows, perhaps said sweater just may be the subject of the hit…
What’s Legal?
Green light (legal July 1) Smoking or otherwise consuming marijuana at home or in other private places Starting a small (four plants maximum per residence) pot garden (out of public view) on your own property Possessing up to eight ounces of usable marijuana at home Carrying up to one ounce of usable marijuana on your…
Regulating the Testers
In order for medical cannabis products to make it to the shelves in dispensaries, they must first be tested. Cannabis dispensaries are required to meet certain standards, which include screening products for harmful molds and pesticides and testing for levels of potency, all of which are analyzed by a lab. Rick Ezrine, co-owner and co-founder…
Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em
The long-awaited time has arrived. Starting July 1, the recreational use of marijuana is legal in Oregon, converting the reported 15 percent of Oregonians who currently smoke into law-abiding citizens. And opening the door for many who either smoked back in the day, or are curious but dissuaded by things like illegality. “Oregon has a…
Don’t Take My Man to Oregon
“I collect vinyl, my fiancé does, my dad does. I took after my dad for the collecting vinyl thing. I grew up with it and I thought it was a pretty crucial thing to have,” says sultry rock and roll singer Jessica Hernandez. “I’m always trying to stay in the vinyl game.” Last fall, Jessica…
