A City Tax Exemption Program Indefinitely Pauses
In early January, the Bend City Council approved a nearly $10.6 million, 10-year tax exemption for Jackstraw, a large mixed-use development near the Box Factory with over 300 apartment units and 16,000 square feet of retail planned. The exemption was requested by developers Killian Pacific via the Cityโs Multiple Unit Property Tax Exemption program โ but the request came after construction was underway, and Killian Pacific claimed it couldnโt complete the project without the hefty tax break. Since February, the Cityโs MUPTE program has been on hold while the Council reevaluates.
The largest dam removal project in U.S. history took place this year, and Nicole Vulcan, Source Weeklyโs Editor in Chief, dipped in throughout the year to watch the progression and restoration of the Klamath River along the Oregon-California border. The three-part series included reporting during winter, spring and summer, from the historic removal of the dam to the young Indigenous paddlers training for a historic run from the riverโs source to the Pacific Ocean.
In March, the Source Weekly reported on concerns regarding a high concentration of transitional housing and shelter facilities in east Bend. These concerns led to a petition to sell, relocate or repurpose a Deschutes County housing program on Wilson Avenueย for male convicts and sex offenders, aimed at creating stability and increasing public safety. After months of complaints from neighbors, County Commissioners voted to relocate the program. Days later, the board voted to discontinue it altogether.
In October, the Source Weekly reported on the former housing managerโs experience. Once the program failed, housing manager Kyle Virdetech was left homeless, without the funds he was promised. He blames the closure on a lack of communication and support.
Reporter Julianna LaFollette sat down with several teachers within BLPS to hear about their ongoing struggles with resources, time and compensation. Then, in May, voters in Deschutes County struck down a levy that would have raised $22 million annually over the next five years through a property tax of $1 per $1,000 assessed value. The influx, BLPS said, would have staved off layoffs and ensured average class sizes and enhancement programs stayed the same. Now, the district faces possible cuts of over 180 positions and an increased student-teacher ratio, by four students per class, over the next biennium.
This year saw the end of Oregonโs drug decriminalization experiment, which voters approved in 2020, with the passage of bills to recriminalize drug possession. The new legislation offered counties funds and support to launch deflection programs, so that those arrested can receive treatment for drug use rather than a citation or jail time. We followed this story from the rollback of Measure 110 in March, to the early days of Deschutes Countyโs development and implementation of a drug addiction and behavioral health treatment program, the official launch of the program in September and a look at the small successes the County reported one month in.
From May through August, our new investigative and features reporter, Jennifer Baires, undertook a three-part series looking at how prepared our region is for the next big fire.
Starting with the forests surrounding Central Oregon communities, the series looked at a first-in-the-nation pilot program to aggressively treat forests with larger prescribed burns, closer to town than before. The second part focused on the scant policies in place to curb the ever-growing threat of building and living along the border of urban and wild โ and it came on the heels of the Darlene 3 Fire that led to evacuations for many in La Pine.
The series โ but not our fire coverage โ wrapped with a trip to a fire basecamp in Ochoco National Forest where Complex Incident Command teams were deployed for weeks on end, leading hundreds of wildland firefighters in fighting an 87,000-acre fire.
Contributing writer Tiffany Neptune profiled Bend-based drag queen Pattie Gonia in June, highlighting Pattieโs work within the queer rights movement and environmental activism. Over the last few years, Pattieโs profile has skyrocketed on the national stage. In 2022, she was named the โOutside Magazineโ Person of the Year; the next year โTimeโ magazine named her as a Next Gen Leader for her efforts to increase outdoor access for BIPOC and Queer people. This year she was named as one of nine National Geographic Travelers of the Year.
In June, the Bend City Council swiftly moved to take advantage of Senate Bill 1537รขยยฏand pursue a one-time urban growth boundary expansion. By December, the Council chose the Caldera Ranch site โ 91.4 acres south of Knott Road and west of 15th Street/Tekampe Road. The proposal by AKS Engineering is to build 700 total housing units, with 238 reserved for affordable housing.
Kah-Nee-Ta Resort in Warm Springs Reservation Reopens
Following a six-year-long closure, Kah-Nee-Ta Resort opened in August, renewed and revitalized thanks to a $13.1 million influx from the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs ($6 million from the American Rescue Plan Act) and Kirk Hanna, owner of Mt. Hood Skibowl. Our reporter went behind the scenes the hour before the beloved resort reopened to talk with the people behind the revival.
Central Oregon’s own Ellen Waterston was named the stateโs official poet. Waterson is a regular contributor to the Source Weekly with a column on ageism and aging, “The Third Act,” published the fourth week of each month. The Source profiled Waterson after the announcement of her appointment as top wordsmith.
In August, POWDR Corporation announced that after 23 years of ownership it was ready to sell Mt. Bachelor, along with three other ski resorts in its holding. Some in the community saw this as opportune news and quickly formed a local group to attempt to buy the resort. In the months following the POWDR Corp announcement we delved into the local effort, along with looking at potential industry titans positioned to buy the mountain and explored the question: What does Mt. Bachelor โ or its ownership โ mean for Bend?
Encampments at Juniper Ridge
The end of summer saw a large wildfire break out in northeast Bend, near Juniper Ridge, where dozens of people live in makeshift shelters and encampments. The public outcry following the fire led to a renewed political effort to address the homeless encampments spread throughout Juniper Ridge. Our reporters went to JR to see what living conditions are like for those who โlive on the outskirtsโ and followed the back-and-forth between the Bend City Council and the Deschutes County Board of Commissioners to decide the best way forward.
After Deschutes County Sheriff Shane Nelson announced his plan to retire at the end of this year, two contenders for office โ Capt. William Bailey and Sgt. Kent Vander Kamp โ entered the race, coming out in two clear camps. Bailey, with Nelsonโs support, aligned himself with the current administration while Vander Kamp positioned himself as a change-maker who would bring a new, transparent and unifying approach to the office.
As election day neared, the race heated up with Nelson uncovering decades-old personnel records of Vander Kampโs and a flurry of litigation by Vander Kamp to keep the records sealed.
The files were (inadvertently) made public weeks before the election, but Vander Kamp won the election handily. Supporters pointed to Vander Kamp winning the union vote as a sign of his positive position within the department and said that Bailey did not do enough to distance himself from Nelsonโs negative public perception after years of lawsuits and accusations of favoritism and retaliation.
As we wrote in our up-to-the-minute election results coverage, it was a tense election. Aside from the contentious race for Deschutes County Sheriff, we had a tight race between three candidates for Bend City Council’s Position 4, a flip for the Oregon Senate 27 seat, which was long held by Republicans, and a historic win by Janelle Bynum in the stateโs 5th Congressional District as Oregonโs first Black representative in Congress.
City Engineer Resigns Following Internal Investigation into Partnership with Developers
At the close of the year, our reporters broke a story about the resignation of a leader within Bendโs development department. The investigation followed months of complaints by neighbors in a southeast Bend neighborhood about the head of Bendโs Private Development Engineering Division, Deedee Fraley and her alleged effort in the neighborhood to change its covenants, conditions and restrictions so that she could purchase and further develop a property in the neighborhood through a LLC she formed with major developers in the region. The piece was picked up by local television stations and remained a top story for weeks on the Sourceโs website, bendsource.com.
This article appears in Source Weekly December 26, 2024.
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