Q&A with Co-Director of Neighbors 4 Redmond

Neighbors 4 Redmond is a group of individuals who help inform residents about city-wide and county-wide issues. The group hosts an event once a month at High Desert Music Hall featuring different speakers who help inform residents about what’s happening in their city and county. The next event will be held on Feb. 25 from 3-5pm and will host a discussion on climate change in Central Oregon. We spoke with co-director Mike Toibin to learn about the group and his involvement in it.

*The interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Source Weekly: What is Neighbors 4 Redmond?

Mike Toibin: The group started about four years ago, pre-COVID-19. One of the two gentlemen that started it passed away last year. The idea, until COVID hit, was to get as many people to join up, to represent the middle-of-the-road to progressive people here in Redmond.

“10 to 20 years from now, Redmond could become bigger than Bend. We want to make Redmond, Bend and our community a safe place to live but embrace change.”

This town is growing, just like Bend has, whether we like it or not. If we’re going to grow and become a larger community, let’s do it the right way. We help with elections; we promoted candidates that ran last year. We were heavily into promoting the Redmond Recreation Center. It’s a really nice group of people and everybody’s trying to head in the same direction. The bottom line is we want to educate our town.

SW: What inspired you to inform people about city issues and local politics?

MT: A year and a half ago, I went to Deschutes County College. It’s a free 10-week program. It’s two and a half hours, once a week and you get to learn about every department within the county. Everything from the commissioners to the people that run the election, to the health department — so many different things. There are lots of things I learned that people don’t know about. I thought, let’s start bringing some guests in to speak, who are part of the county.

SW: What are the Neighbors 4 Redmond events like?

MT: We have a lot of different people coming in to speak and we open it up to questions.

We’ve had Commissioner [Phil] Chang speak a number of times. We had Janice Garceau with the Deschutes County Health Department. We had Rick Russell, who heads up safe parking here in Redmond, and the guys from Oasis Village.

During the election we had Liz Goodrich, Amanda Page, Lena Barry, all the candidates speak so people can learn a little bit more about them face-to-face.

Kathryn Osborne comes all the time, [Mayor] Ed Fitch has shown up a few times, even [Commissioner] Tony DeBone came one time. We need them to make the decisions that the people want. We have about 150 members, and we partner up with a couple other organizations here in town.

SW: What do you hope to accomplish with Neighbors 4 Redmond?

MT: 10 to 20 years from now, Redmond could become bigger than Bend. We want to make Redmond, Bend and our community a safe place to live but embrace change.

We’re learning as we go along. We have a more progressive City Council now, which is really great, because a lot of things are happening here in Redmond. The bottom line is to inform people, let people know what’s really going on, make them aware. Knowledge is power, if you get the truth.