Kids Need Quality Education
As a longtime classroom teacher and former union leader for educators, I want to unpack the Source’s Feb. 5 piece, “Oregon’s Education Workforce Climbed While Student Enrollment Slid.”
Unfortunately, the headline is misleading, implying that schools are overstaffed. They are not. The numbers presented don’t account for the decades of prior cuts schools faced as a result of property tax reforms. Recent school investments were funneled to fill a desperate need for behavioral and mental health support at the school level, which is also critical and allows teachers to teach. But the heavy load of teachers wasn’t fixed. Now schools are facing layoffs mid-year! Our kids need both health support and quality education.
I’m running for County Commission to improve public health and safety in our region. Deschutes County has higher rates of teen suicide than Oregon or the U.S. overall. Our kids need more support, but schools can’t do it all on their own, especially with staffing cuts. As your Commissioner, I will make sure we’re investing locally in our kids, and our teachers, by providing and truly investing in our public health division so we can bring down those unacceptable rates of teen suicide. The next generation only gets one childhood. Let’s make sure we adults do right by them.
—Amy Sabbadini
Gerrymandering: The Old Guard’s Last Stand
Let’s get this straight. The Republican party in Deschutes County runs third in voter registration behind unaffiliated and Democrat voters. It lost the 2024 presidential election in the county by more than 10% — a landslide in political terms. Yet, with two party members controlling the Board of County Commissioners, it has engineered a districting map that would turn the new 5-member board into one controlled by Republicans starting in the 2028 election cycle.
How did this happen? Simple. Tony DeBone and Patti Adair strong-armed a process that put Bend, with more than half of the county’s population, into two of the five districts, leaving the other three to be manipulated into Republican-voting strongholds. They directed their hand-picked mapping committee, featuring party stalwarts Phil Henderson and Matt Cyrus, to base districts on voter registrations. From there it was easy to maneuver precincts to counterbalance blue voting areas.
Illegal? Presumably, since well-established legal precedent requires that population, not voter registration, be the basis for creating districts. Sleazy, corrupt, and undemocratic? Certainly. What we are seeing is the last attempt of a fading party to retain iron-clad control over important decisions on land use, public services, human rights – and $658 million of your tax dollars every year.
DeBone and Adair changed course and pushed the district map off until the November general election to sideline it as an election issue for them. We should not forget, though, when we see them on our May ballots.
—Mark Kelley
The Importance of Voting
Please be sure you vote as it is the Voice of Democracy. It is a privilege and a Right. In Oregon we have mail-in ballots. Please use a ballot drop box. One is at Sisters City Hall. To find all ballot drop box sites go to the Deschutes County site and there is a list of ballot box sites.
To make sure you are registered to vote currently, you can go to Oregon Secretary of State site for voter registration and look under “my vote.” If you do not have internet, you can get help at any library and/or Deschutes County offices in Bend.
The U.S. Constitution begins with a 52-word introduction known as the Preamble. It starts with the words, “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
There was a reason our founders started it with those words. “We the People” signifies that the power of the government comes from its citizens, establishing the principle of self-government.
VOTE : IT IS THE VOICE OF DEMOCRACY
—Vikki Hickmann
The Nightshift… Bend has something special on the airwaves
There’s something special going on over the airwaves in Bend lately. 88.9 KPOV— Bend’s High Desert Community Radio has a special pair of DJs bringing the latest underground music right here to our community. The Sandman and DJ Nimbex host The Nightshift every Monday night from 10pm to Midnight, and the tunes they’re playing have an immediacy and relevancy that really speaks to me. If music ever had the power to enact change, well… this is definitely that music. I highly suggest giving them a listen. I stream their shows on the KPOV app on the regular.
—Adam Gillespie
Letter of the Week:
Thanks for the tip Adam! As letter of the week, you can stop by our office at NW Georgia & Bond in Bend for a gift card to Palate coffee. —Managing Editor Nic Moye
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