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Right now, county residents are up in arms about a district mapping proposal that would divide Deschutes County into five districts. If you have been following the labyrinthine path that got us to this political point, then you know none of this had to be this way. Voters said yes to a referendum in the […]
Dismayed by the District Mapping Process As an Independent voter, I’m dismayed at the direction taken by commissioners Patti Adair and Tony DeBone on expanding the Deschutes County Commission from three to five members. Republicans Adair and DeBone “control” the county commission, with Democrat Phil Chang in the minority. A committee was appointed mostly by […]
If you’ve been paying attention to state politics in recent months, then you know that the state’s economy has been a big topic. Perhaps most eye-popping for some state leaders was Oregon’s ranking in a 2025 CNBC poll, which placed the state 39th among its Top States for Business. Oregon ranked 28th in the poll in 2024, and 21st in […]
Immorality Rules Our Nation. Flouting the constitution, international and American law and long-standing norms, President Trump declared to the New York Times recently that his power as commander in chief is constrained only by his “own morality.” Let’s review his track record on morality. He raped a woman in a dressing room He said on camera that to control women he “just grabs them […]
First it was the invitation to the public to add their personal surveillance cameras to the network of cameras that can be automatically (or manually) accessed by law enforcement. Then it was red light cameras. And this summer, police in Bend added yet another tool ostensibly meant to monitor criminal behavior: Flock cameras installed along the highway. At […]
People are a long-term investment After reading the Source’s article on “Budget Cuts Threaten Oregon Program for Helping People Get Jobs After Prison” by Danielle Dawson and Wesley Vaughan on Dec. 23, 2025, I found out that ultimately, this is a problem of prioritization, not spending. When we treat reentry support as a “cost to be cut” rather […]
On the last day of 2025, the Oregon Public Utilities Commission sent out a press release announcing a welcome event: Customers of Pacific Power would see their power bills reduced in the new year. With recent rate increases making our power bills 50% more now than they were in 2020, hearing about a rate decrease […]
Re: Habitat for Humanity Purchases Surplus School District Land (12/24/25) Kudos to Bend-Redmond Habitat for Humanity for planning 18 townhomes for teachers (maybe). Not sure how much their mortgage payments will be, but sorry to say that it’s not going to move the needle much for affordability for most of the district’s employees. I have another […]
Re: “Implausible, Inconsistent and Unsubstantiated by Evidence” (Dec. 16, 2025) This Source news article provides Andres Portela the opportunity he wasn’t given by consultant Amy Ahrendt in her $18,685 investigation. Source reporter Peter Madsen and editors provided the balance and gave Mr. Portela the ink to personally address some of the accusations lodged against him […]
In 2020, Oregon voters put a lot of stock in Measure 110 — the groundbreaking citizen initiative that made the state the first in the nation to decriminalize user amounts of drugs. The decriminalization portion of Measure 110 was rolled back by the legislature in 2024 — but the part of Measure 110 that took […]
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