A Letter to Bend City Council and Deschutes County Commissioners
I am again writing to demand the immediate removal of the Confederate flag currently displayed on the east side of Highway 97, between the access road to Dirt World (where the dumpsters are currently located) and the highway’s southbound-to-northbound turnaround point. This flag is especially visible when traveling southbound, as it is intentionally positioned on a prominent hill in full view of passersby.
Your comment that you “don’t know where the flag is located” demonstrates a concerning level of detachment. Everyone in this community knows where Dirt World is. If you took a short drive through your own jurisdiction, you would see this symbol of hatred flying high. This isn’t hidden. It’s blatant and it’s public.
I live just off the Tumalo exit, and I regularly drive the extra distance to Redmond to conduct my business, just so I don’t have to pass by this flag. That’s how much pain and anger it brings me.
But my son doesn’t have that option. He has to drive that route to work several times a week. He no longer asks me each day whether the flag might finally come down. Instead, he now asks, “Why is Bend so racist?” Growing up as a brown-skinned child in Central Oregon, he experienced regular racism, both in school and in the broader community, which left him feeling that Bend was a racist town. This flag, prominently and publicly displayed, now confirms that belief in adulthood. Full stop.
You’ve said, “It’s complicated.” It’s not. This is shared City and County land, and you have the authority to determine what happens there. If the flag were flying on private property, this conversation wouldn’t be necessary. But it’s not—it’s front and center on our public land as you enter our community. And it reflects on all of us. It tells my son, and everyone who visits this community, that Bend condones racism and that he and other people of color are neither welcome nor safe here.
This is your opportunity to choose accountability over complicity. Remove the flag.
—Kattaryna Stiles
Re: Candidate List for Five-Seat Deschutes County Commission Growing (July 30)
If commissioner districts have not yet been established, where are the Position seats located? It would appear the people interested in running are from either Bend or Redmond. This concentration will leave the outlying areas like Sisters, La Pine, Terrebonne and Tumalo without representation and a voice in county governance. Although the commissioner elections are “supposedly” non-partisan, both Republican and Democratic parties will be heavily involved. We need people that listen to and represent all parties and ideologies.
—Monte Dammarell
Taking Care of All Our Community Members
I am appalled to read that LiveNation is now charging people who are alter abled for a place to sit down. Are they expected to carry the chair and put it away as well?? When they first started managing the venue back in 2020, they quickly got rid of the alter abled entrance at the bottom of the stage where people with disabilities did not have to contend with the slope. They also removed the alter abled restrooms stage right and moved them up top. So now, people who are using crutches, walkers, wheelchairs etc have to move up and down the slope.
At this current location, there are now lines for the ADA port-a-potties because people want more room in the bathroom and us ladies do not have to have their faces right next to a urinal. I get it and yet, what is super important for all able-bodied individuals to know is that these ADA restrooms have smaller pots and thus less capacity. So what happens when able bodied people fill the pots in the ADA restrooms because we want more room and someone who does not have a choice to use a smaller size bathroom needs to go to the bathroom and they are full? This wasn’t an issue for years when the port-a-potties were in the alter abled section near the stage.
I wrote several times to LiveNation about the above-mentioned changes and never got a response. So now I reach out to our community. We need to hold LiveNation accountable for taking care of our community members. Please reach out to LiveNation and ask them to change their policies. Ask them to stop charging people with disabilities for a chair. Contact the owners of our beautiful amphitheater – The Bend Company (a partnership group within the Old Mill District) and River Bend Limited Partnership.
—Laura Pea
Letter of
the Week
Laura, as Letter of the Week, you can stop by our office at NW Georgia & Bond to pick up a gift card to Palate coffee.
—Managing Editor, Nic Moye
This article appears in Source Weekly August 7, 2025.
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