Year in Review: 12 Must-Read Stories

We’re a quarter-way into the 21^st Century and 2025 may have been the gnarliest year yet. Here in Central Oregon, our reporting reflected that whiplash, with reports on local houselessness, Immigration and Customs Enforcement sweeps and potential deregulation of the “American Dream.” Yet, along the way, we had some fun — gallows humor? — with investigations and first-person narratives about those dang fun Veo e-bikes and sketchy “magic mushroom” products at gas stations.

Read on for a roller-coaster account of life in Central Oregon in 2025.

Statewide wildfire hazard map controversy

Anyone who owns a home in Oregon — or pays attention to localized controversy — knows that the statewide wildfire hazard map got a lotta people cheesed. Reporter Julianna LaFollette tracked the mapping from the get-go, when the Oregon Department of Forestry released its final map version on Jan. 7. Property tax lots were designated as low-, moderate- or high-hazard zones. Homeowners disputed the categories — how would they affect home values? While insurance companies are legally barred from citing the map for raising premiums or coverage, statewide premiums have been trending upward. Folks spoke up. In June, Gov. Tina Kotek signed a bill repealing the map.

Targeted and Living in Fear: Central Oregon in the second Trump era

Since its second-term inauguration in January, the Trump Administration has launched an aggressive and vastly unconstitutional campaign against immigrants, mostly of color and with no criminal record, throughout the country. Reporter Jennifer Baires localized the impact of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement roundups, chronicling the plight of Ariel Antoliani Sandigo Manzanarez, the first Bend immigrant arrested, and subsequently deported, to Nicaragua. Baires spent time with Manzanarez’s family and also checked in with area school districts and higher-education institutions about their policies regarding campus ICE arrests. Collectively, these school officials, empowered by Oregon’s sanctuary laws, will deny entry to warrantless ICE agents. With the help of advocacy groups, Baires lays out our rights if stopped by ICE agents (visit ilrc.org/redcards for a rights card in 56 languages). To date, ICE has arrested more than 640 people in Oregon.

DOGE cuts to the U.S. Forest Service hit Central Oregon

Localizing the impacts of the Trump Administration continued with the Source’s work in March. Reporter Jennifer Baires profiled two U.S. Forest Service employees who were among more than three dozen Central Oregon employees fired during the “Valentine’s Day Massacre” on Feb. 14, which illegally terminated, without cause, thousands of USFS employees throughout the country. Irked, Liz Crandall and Isabella Isaksen traveled with Rep. Janelle Bynum (OR-5) and U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon), respectively, to Washington, D.C. There, they stood in for thousands of fired Forest Service employees while attending Trump’s State of the Union address. Baires reported on Merkley’s subsequent townhall and contextualized the Forest Service cuts within the broad playbook of Project 2025.

Prineville residents defeat proposed UGB expansion for biomass facility

Power to the people. For Prineville residents, that power came from public input — not a new biomass facility. Reporter Julianna LaFollette began tracking grassroots opposition to the expansion of the Prineville Urban Growth Boundary to accommodate a new facility intent on making wood-based biomass, a renewable organic material that can be burned for electricity and heat. Energy sourcing is a hot-button topic in Crook County, where Apple and Meta have several data centers. LaFollette spoke with Prineville Mayor Jason Beebe, who explained that the UGB expansion was meant as an enticement for private industry, which would, in theory, have built the biomass facility. Ultimately, as LaFollette and the Source Editorial Board reported in subsequent stories, city councilors listened to vocal constituents, voting 4-2 against the UGB expansion.

Central Oregon’s growing homeless crisis

Since the Covid-19 pandemic and the corresponding economic downturn, Oregon’s housing crisis has been acutely felt by a growing houseless population. Unlike in the state’s urban centers, this desperation has localized in Central Oregon’s public forests and deserts. On May 1, the U.S. Forest Service, citing a planned forest restoration project, swept a homeless camp along China Hat Road, which required about 150 to 200 people to go — somewhere else. Reporter Julianna LaFollette was at the scene, speaking with the recently bounced China Hat community and houseless advocates who say the Forest Service botched its coordination with resource providers. In subsequent stories, the Source reported on the newly erected Temporary Safe Stay Area at Juniper Ridge — another unhoused camp — toward which city and county officials ushered the houseless on shared public land north of Bend along Highway 97.

Hope & Complications for Bend’s Central District

Build it and they will come. So follows not just the logic of “Field of Dreams” but also city officials and developers of Bend’s Central District, located along Second Street, east of the Bend Parkway. Long known for its Bottle Drop facility, the nearby low-barrier Franklin House shelter and petty crime, the BCD was first identified by the City as an opportunity area in 2016. Since then, city officials rezoned it for mixed-use developments and taller buildings. In recent years, businesses have moved in, including destination cocktail bar Dogwood, upstart brewery Funky Fauna and Campfire Hotel. And while those developments signal a new dawn for the BCD, the current sitch is a long way off from the bustling, live/work artist-neighborhood it’s promised to become, Julianna LaFollette reported.

Freedom Cities: Deregulating “the American Dream”

Affordable housing, manufacturing, energy, technology — all sans regulations, oh, my! Reporter Julianna LaFollette investigated the “Freedom Cities” some right-wing groups have proposed to be built on federal land. These advocates say their vision can be achieved by eschewing National Environmental Policy Act reviews, expediting permits and lobbying for pro-growth building codes. Not surprisingly, President Donald Trump signaled in a 2023 speech that he’s keen to carve up public lands in service of 10 such developments. One group, the American Enterprise Institute, has grease-penciled lands outside of Bend and Redmond as potential sites for these new metros, due to nearby infrastructure, employment and a chronic housing crisis. LaFollette walked us through the political, environmental and, ahem, practical implications of such a Brave New West.

A (Near) Crash Course in Responsible E-bike Ridesharing

One of the joys of putting together an alternative news weekly is the fun we can have with first-person storytelling. That means voice. And DATA. As many people have complained about on Nextdoor.com, Veo, a new e-bike rideshare, has propelled Bendites across town on Class-2 e-bikes since July 10. A conventional cyclist, I was skeptical, if intrigued. After several rides, however, I was hooked, taking Veos around town to socialize and run errands. Wanting to write a data story, I hit up Veo’s HQ in Santa Monica for ridership data and go’ dang, they delivered. In our first 30 days with Veo, 3,700 folks in Bend logged 35,000 cumulative miles — more than enough to circle the world. Yet as I learn the hard way, the immediacy of a motorized two-wheeler comes with serious responsibility.

Trouble on the Road

Road rage violence is too common in Central Oregon, particularly between drivers and cyclists. But what happens when someone under 18 is the target of alleged road violence? This question, sadly, isn’t rhetorical — its answer will likely play out in court in the coming months, stemming from an incident between a driver and a cyclist on Bend’s west side last May.

Falling through the Cracks at Cleveland Commons

In what may be our most controversial enterprise story of the year, I chronicled the down-and-out journey of two residents of Cleveland Commons, a permanent supportive housing complex in southeast Bend. The first of its kind east of the Cascades, the new building is home to 33 apartments, reserved for the chronically ill and/or unhoused. While a U.S. Public Health Service complex like Cleveland Commons is by nature low-barrier, several residents showed evidence of intimation, a psychedelic-proffering counselor, restraining orders and an eviction. Police and medical records showed arrests and a murky onsite death. Operating a PSH is no doubt very difficult, but what’s going on? Shepherd’s House Ministries, the nonprofit responsible for operating Cleveland Commons, declined to speak about anything at all. This opacity begs questions of qualifications and accountability of a nonprofit that receives its operating dollars from the public. If the whistleblowing residents I profiled aren’t entirely reliable, as some readers pointed out, that’s even more reason for the entities in charge to weigh in on exactly what is happening among its vulnerable and otherwise voiceless residents.

Not-so Magical Mushrooms

Ever notice those “magic mushrooms” products — vapes, gummies, chocolates — that have proliferated across gas stations, head shops and vape stores? So did Dan Huson, the owner of Rose City Laboratories. Helming the only lab licensed by the state to test psilocybin products for Oregon’s approved growers and service centers, Huson and his team ran tests on these dubious “magic mushroom” wares. The result? They’re mostly bunk. With the help of Huson and others, I dug down to the molecular level on this shady cottage industry that’s piggybacking on Oregon’s legal, and heavily regulated, psilocybin industry.

The Deschutes County Fairgrounds’ financial rollercoaster

Reporter Julianna LaFollette dove deep into the troubled financials of the Deschutes County Fairgrounds. With about 1 million annual visitors attending 400 annual events on its 320-acre campus, fairgrounds revenue has continued to march upward since Covid-19. Yet, mo’ money, mo’ problems: bigger events, along with inflation and rising operating and repair costs, mean ledgers will soon sink into the red. LaFollette sifts through the fairgrounds’ five-year fiscal forecast with the former and interim fairground directors to learn what it will take to keep one of Central Oregon’s cultural and agricultural gems afloat.