Letters to the Editor, Week of June 11

Rodeo season in Central Oregon

We’re coming up on my least favorite season in Central Oregon: rodeo season. What I find so disturbing is the contradiction. Local news outlets like KTVZ and Central Oregon Daily regularly promote animal welfare — helping pets find homes, celebrating kindness toward animals — then turn around and promote or even sponsor rodeos, where violence toward animals is normalized as entertainment.

We are a community that prides itself on loving animals. And yet, we collectively look away when the animals being harmed are prey animals: cows, calves, bulls, steers and horses. Their suffering is built into rodeo itself.

If you consider yourself an animal lover, I urge you to look — really look. Watch footage of calf roping, where baby calves are chased, clotheslined, slammed to the ground and restrained. Watch a calf scramble, where terrified young animals are pursued by screaming children in a loud, chaotic arena. Or simply search “rodeo animal abuse.” What you’ll find is not tradition or sport — it’s fear, distress, and injury.

It’s heartbreaking and deeply confounding that these public displays of animal abuse are still happening in 2026. We need to stop buying into Wild West mythology, rodeo propaganda, and the excuse of “tradition” to justify cruelty.

And yes, this includes institutions like St. Charles Health System and our local news outlets, Central Oregon Daily and KTVZ, which sponsor these events. If we truly believe in health, compassion and community well-being, we cannot continue to support industries built on animal suffering. It’s time we align our values with our actions.

—Ruby Cummings

A Challenge to Bend’s Collective Two-Wheeled Consciousness

Ah, yes! The sweet, intoxicating scent of pristine spring soil crunching under my knobby tires as I bask in the earliest, most unhinged mountain bike season in Bend’s history. Perfect weather, hero dirt and hordes of slavering bike heathens fleeing reality to flock toward our frosted high-desert trails. Bliss. Pure, chemical-free, two-wheeled nirvana.

But hark! What is this I hear? The impossible-to-ignore mechanical whine whirring up my backside? It’s the digital scream of an e-MTB motor, buzzing like a rabid robotic hornet just moments after I passed a massive, screamingly obvious NO E-BIKES sign.

Now, look — I am no holy man, nor am I anti-electricity. I have ridden the lightning; those motorized steeds are a goddamn riot. But we as a community — nay, as a wild, civilized society — must hold ourselves to a higher standard than absolute, self-indulgent anarchy. When local enforcement is toothless and the bureaucratic regime is hopelessly out of touch, the burden of sanity falls entirely upon our own sweaty, beer-soaked shoulders.

That nagging voice in the back of your skull needling you? The one your elaborate mental gymnastics try to drown out? It’s there because you are, in fact, guilty. The rules exist so we don’t collectively torpedo the golden goose into the pavement.

So, I issue a challenge to the collective, chaotic consciousness of Bend: rise to the occasion. Ride your electric spaceships where they are legally sanctioned and check your blatant, middle-finger defiance at the trailhead. If the authorities won’t police us, we must police our own damn selves. Respect each other, respect the sacred dirt and respect the rules. We are all in this freak show together, so do your part, keep Bend weird and let’s keep this town from careening into the abyss of self-indulgence and chaos.

—Barry Wicks

In response to oiling goose eggs

Public, we have way too many geese in our community. They are disrupting natural wildlife here, along with aggressive behavior towards humans and animals. There simply isn’t enough food or room to keep our river and shores healthy. Removing their eggs is the way to mitigate overpopulation and protect our environment. Plain and simple.

I fully support Bend Parks and Rec in oiling eggs. Thank you Bend Parks and Rec team for keeping our parks safe and clean! You’re the best!

—Julia Gonser

In response to recent letters regarding the oiling of goose eggs as a means of population control

Please remember that the option was the lesser evil. In 2010 our community euthanized 109 geese via carbon dioxide and fed the remains to the local homeless population. Just because an action is permitted by government beuracracy does not necessarily make an act ethical or moral only legal.

The resulting public backlash in 2011 prompted BPRD to exclusively use non-lethal population control methods to manage flocks at local spaces like Drake and Discovery Park. This included relocation and oiling eggs.

The gosling may be cute but they produce a lot of crap!

—Justin Gottlieb

The BCD

As inferred in a Source editorial on May 14, 2026, the Bend core area urban renewal district today is a disorganized failure. One factor is there seems to be an overemphasis on the small Bend Central District area between Greenwood and Franklin, and 3rd Street and the railroad. Consider for example, the amount of money the city has spent there on 2nd Street and on buying property.

Significantly many of the businesses in this area are opposed to changing its character or selling their land for redevelopment. (Most redevelopment districts are based on very low property values and depressed neighborhoods, not the case here). Still, they seem to want five-story buildings with apartments on top and commercial below, a total conflict with the light industrial character of the area. And, definitely too costly to construct due to high land values and small lot sizes.

Plus, the city has purchased the most developable lots along Franklin Avenue and toys with foolishly moving the City Hall to First Street with its very poor accessibility. Removing this land from the tax rolls is contradictory to the objective of a tax increment district.

Bizarrely the city continues to overemphasize a Hawthorne bridge as a potential impact. Bike riders on nearby Greenwood and Franklin approximate 100 daily each. If the Hawthorne bridge crossing is able to attract that many, it will translate into as many riders in a month as cars that will be displaced in one day, by closing the parkway exit to allow the bridge. Additionally, the impact of redirecting that traffic has not been addressed. Nor has the cost of connecting either end to established safe bike routes.

In this small (BCD) area two of the three east-west streets are unimproved and impassable. The third, Hawthorne, will become ineffective, and undesirable for development, because the massive 20-foot-wide concrete bridge ramp will be down the middle of the street. This will negate any potential economic development from the bridge. Just one of many unaddressed problems created, to go with no clear benefit of a bridge at this location. Apparently in their zest to create an icon they blinded themselves to the many negatives, like relocating City Hall.

Obviously too, a Hawthorne bridge will create an unaddressed significant safety issue when it reaches 3rd Street. Clearly the money would be better spent moving the bridge to Franklin, thereby eliminating the serious safety issue at the tunnel. Better zero safety issues than two!

Lots to wonder about city planning and decision making.

—Allan Bruckner

Dismantling Democracy

A recent report from the V-Dem Institute of Sweden’s University of Gothenburg says in his second term so far, Trump has dismantled the US democracy at a speed unprecedented in modern history. “Trump has achieved in one year what budding autocracies take a decade to accomplish, at a speed comparable to a coup’d etat,” the report says.

In “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” Hannah Arendt writes, racism is the foundation upon which totalitarianism (read fascism, autocracy, etc), is built, from which entirely new political institutions develop, destroying all former social, legal and political institutions and traditions.

Spending 11/2 trillion for weapons of death and destruction to commit genocide abroad while perpetrating genocide here by cutting all funding necessary to keep the needy alive. Billions for bombs, billionaires and ballrooms. Enabled by his cowardly lemmings, the biggest criminal traitor liar in history says “Who ya gonna believe, me or your lyin’ eyes,” while assaulting us 24/7 with verbal diarrhea and mindless feckless actions.

The Supreme Court sent Trump a clear message regarding his bozo tariffs: “Our system is not meant to work this way, that one man has so much power.” And what’s changed? Trump and his fascist goons have transformed America from a nation of Justice to a nation of “just ICE.” Let’s extend to fossil in Chief #47 the MAGA nicety previously extended to President Joe Biden, “Let’s Go Brandon,” in appreciation of his continued fornication of truth, justice, liberty, humanity and the planet.

—Mike Epstein

Bravo to La Pine

I want to express my gratitude to the citizens of La Pine for their bold action to deny a proposed data center. In impassioned testimony to their council, residents made it clear that the development did not comport with the vision for the future of their community.

La Pine, and the surrounding forests, streams and mountains, reflects all that is special about Central Oregon. Loggers, fishermen, merchants, musicians, artists and beer makers all share in the small-town vibe and relative quiet of this magic place. Deer and elk still roam the woods just outside (and sometimes inside!) of town.

A data center would have changed all of this, as they have in thousands of communities across the United States. These locales now face questions about future water quality and quantity, energy capacity and effects on local and regional environmental quality. Who is responsible for all of this? We all are. We are overdue in considering our personal AI needs and consumption. Small steps can make a difference. On a recent trip, I had the privilege of sitting next to a science writer who has been immersed in the study of the impacts of data centers. One small step she suggested was to type a space then “-ai” at the end of string in your web searches. Voila! No AI result (or consumption) and still plenty of information to work with. I encourage you to try it.

Small steps. Sometimes small steps in a small community can yield some big results!

—Kevin Tanski

Letter of the Week
Thanks to everyone for submitting letters. Keep them coming! Kevin, as letter of the week, you can stop by the Source at the corner of NW Georgia and Bond to pick up a gift card to Palate coffee. —Managing Editor Nic Moye

This article appears in the Source June 11, 2026.