RE: Water at Home Feature, 8/25
All these residential and commercial water users rely on groundwater (wells). As the surface water dries up, water companies will increasingly rely on groundwater mitigation credits to turn their surface water rights into ground water rights. They have trashed the river and now they will trash the aquifer. Please take a look at Roats and Avion water, to name a couple, and their connections to the irrigation districts.
—Geoff Reynolds via bendsource.com
Thanks for doing the research to explain where our City water goes. I bet by next year your listed residential users will change. You will have a positive impact. People are more likely to do unethical actions under the cover of anonymity.
In Response to "Hayden Homes," Letters 8/25
In the August 25th, 2022 issue of the Source Weekly, Nancy Tyler complained that the music volume blasting from the Hayden Homes Amphitheater was keeping nearby residents from being able to enjoy many summer evenings outdoors. She wrote that "it is impossible to escape the music (especially the bass)."
Let me state that as a lifelong concert-goer, I agree with the saying "if it ain't loud, it ain't rock-&-roll." Let me also state that I live near the new high school, three miles in a direct line from the amphitheater. But Thursday, August 18th, at 8:01 p.m., as Atmosphere & Iration were performing rap rhythm (rap isn't music because there is no melody, just rhythm and hyper-spewed poetry), I e-mailed this to friends: "Tonight it sounds like someone is parked in front of my house with a sound system including sub-woofers turned up loud. The drums and bass are loud enough to be annoying from three miles away! TURN IT DOWN!"
Even had it been rock music, it would have been disturbing—and I was indoors with the windows shut! I suggest that volume monitors be installed in neighborhoods, with maximum limits (no 11's on the amp knobs) enforced by stiff fines because that is the only way the Old Mill money-grubbers will do anything about it. There are air quality monitors installed around Bend, so why not install volume quality monitors? People don't just spend money here; some actually live here!
—Eddie Kinnamon
Heroes Among Us
My name is Lester Simonson, and I moved to Bend in 1992.
In the aftermath of the horrific events that unfolded Sunday evening. I have tried to limit my news intake. I care not to know the identity of the coward who perpetrated these acts, nor his reasons or struggles that supposedly drove him to do what he did. I feel that the media can play a role in providing the notoriety that these people strive for. That being said, I understand that the business of news requires these events be covered, as the majority of the public strives for knowledge, and you would be called negligent if you failed to report on these types of stories.
My reason for reaching out is regarding another matter. The story of the two gentlemen who lost their lives, specifically the one who gave his life directly in trying to disarm the subject, affected me greatly. I can't fathom the courage these men summoned, and I feel that they should be revered as they both deserve. This is what the focus should be. I'd like to ask you to air a story calling for the burials of these two men to be treated with the highest of honors. A silent parade downtown, flags flown at half staff statewide, the day of their burials being hereby known as holidays of courage. This is what should be remembered about this time. Let the perpetrator's name be swiftly forgotten, and these heroes' names remembered in perpetuity. Let our small town be the catalyst that changes how these events are reported upon. Sadly as they become more and more common, we can be the change that we want to see. Two regular guys, who in a time of severe trial, chose to act in a way to protect strangers they did not know. This deserves our utmost respect and reverence.
Lester Simonson
Letter of the Week:
Lester: Hearing that Donald Surrett, Jr., the man who tried to step in and stop the shooter, was an Army combat engineer did not surprise me—though it tugged at my heart since my own dad was also a combat engineer during the same time period. Average citizens—even those trained in the military—should not have to be called upon to stop a tragedy, and yet here they were. The story of how we will remember Donald Surrett and Glenn Bennett is only now unfolding, but you can be sure the people behind this newspaper will attempt to do our part. Come on by for your gift card to Palate.
