Protect Bend’s Parks, Schools and Historic Open Spaces
Bend needs affordable housing. However, adding “Income Qualified Housing Allowed Outright” to the Public Facilities Zone, as proposed by the Planning Commission, is neither mandated by Oregon law nor in our best interest. Nothing in the Oregon Affordable Housing legislation states that cities must alter their zoning laws; they simply need to approve applications if specific criteria are met. Portland has not amended its land-use laws, allowing state legislation to speak for itself.
The PF Zone protects our undeveloped parks, schools and open spaces, fulfilling State Planning Goal 5. Opening these areas to development risks paving them over and losing Bend’s iconic appeal.
Public Facilities land is also not needed to meet housing needs. Of the city’s 24,073 acres, only 7% are designated as Public Facilities, down 50% in total acres since 1995. Meanwhile, Bend is on track to meet its housing goals well before the 2028 deadline without developing its limited PF land.
Moreover, the proposed changes replace the state-defined term “Affordable” with “Income Qualified” and restrict the public right to appeal future changes, inviting misapplications and corruption.
Preserve the Public Facilities Zone by returning to its original definition, with the words “publicly owned natural areas and other types of open space,” as the PF Zone also protects some privately owned land. For other Zones, use “Affordable Housing” to align with the state legislation. Additionally, the Type III amendment process must be retained to ensure citizen involvement, which aligns with Oregon’s Statewide Goal 1.
Thank you for preserving Bend’s livability.
—Suzie Newcome
American Exceptionalism
On November 5th, close to 75 million eligible voters selected a man to be the nation’s 47th president who is a convicted felon, sexual predator, and undeniable insurrectionist, and who unapologetically engages in xenophobia, misogyny and racism, over a woman who has served honorably, with distinction, and without scandal as attorney general and senator of the nation’s largest state as well as vice president of the United States.
Welcome to the new era of “American exceptionalism.”
— James Evans
ICE
In addition to homelessness, affordable housing and other issues on their plate, the new Bend City Council need to come up with a plan and provide some guidance for when Trump’s ICE comes to town.
Bend’s growing Latino population—citizens and undocumented—needs to know that the city has their back when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents roll into town to make arrests, disrupt families and deport residents.
Trump has made it clear that he wants to rid the nation of immigrants—even legal immigrants—and there’s no reason to believe it can’t happen here.
Will the City Council work with the Bend Police, its own Human Rights and Equity Commission and Deschutes County officials to protect Latinos? Or will they submit to Trump?
—Michael Funke
Letter on Immigration
In 1967 at age two, I immigrated from Japan to Queens, NYC. The Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 brought skilled labor into the U.S. My father, a chemical engineer, accepted a job with an American firm.
Strong joyful and painful childhood impressions stay with me. Starting Kindergarten at Queens P.S. 206, I had “zero” English skills. Thanks to kind and skilled teachers, by 3rd grade I thrived and had a circle of close friends: Nina from Ethiopia, Milagros from Mexico, Dennis from Hungary, Yuki from Japan, and a boy from Brazil that I had a crush on. Diversity of backgrounds was a given.
After my 3rd grade, we moved to Verona, NJ.
As I entered my 4th grade class on the first day of school, a girl pointed her finger at me, and yelled, “Hey! Look at that one!” Students stared and laughed. Mortified, frozen in my tracks, self-conscious, different, and insufficient—I can still viscerally feel that moment from long ago.
In 5th grade, I arrived for my first summer break clarinet lesson at our high school. The music teacher, a grown man, hissed into my face, “I HATE people with dark eyes and dark hair.” During those years, I developed a habit of shutting my eyes tight in front of a mirror, hoping that when I opened them, I’d see me with blue eyes and blond hair.
I share these stories, not to be angry, but to remind us that immigrants, women, LGBTQ+, men, and children of all races—We are all people first!
With a President-elect who models and encourages bigotry, we must keep this thought—we are all people first—in the forefront of our minds.
We must support and celebrate, not shun, the diversity of Our Nation’s people. It is this diversity that is our richness and the foundation of our creativity and innovations, skilled and unskilled labor.
— Tomoko Ferguson
Letter of the Week:
Hear, hear, Tomoko! Thanks for your letter. To respond to both that and the previous letter from Michael, Oregon is a Sanctuary State, and Bend participates in Welcoming Week.
From the Oregon Department of Justice: “As a sanctuary state since 1987, Oregon stands for the safety, dignity and human rights of all Oregonians. Oregon was the first state in the nation to pass a statewide law stopping state and local police and government from helping federal authorities with immigration enforcement.”
And from the City of Bend’s Welcoming Week page: “On June 21, 2017, in large part due to the advocacy of the Latino Community Association, the Bend City Council unanimously supported a resolution for the City of Bend to be recognized as a Welcoming City during Immigrant Heritage Month (observed June).”
Let these be some guideposts as we encounter the next four years.
Come on by for your gift card to Palate, Tomoko.
—Nicole Vulcan
This article appears in Source Weekly November 14, 2024.
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I appreciate that Oregon is a sanctuary state and that Bend has adopted the Welcoming Week language referred to in the editor’s note. When ICE came to Bend in 2020 and took away two residents of our community, Oregon was a sanctuary state and the Welcoming Week language had been adopted. That didn’t matter then and it won’t matter next time unless city officials are willing to stand strong and protect our community. Trump, btw, will likely threaten to withhold federal funds from sanctuary states, like money to fight wildfires. Will city, county and state officials resist or will they submit to Trump? Lives area at stake. –Michael Funke
Can we get an answer to Michael Funke’s urgent inquiry regarding the lives of immigrant families living and working in our city? Trump 45 permanently separated 1000 children from their families; we do need assurances from local city and county officials that Central Oregon will not be a party to resumption of these policies.