Election 2008: Our County and State Endorsements

Posted inOpinion

Election 2008: Our County and State Endorsements

The Source Staff

For Deschutes County Commission: Alan Unger

Alan UngerThere's a running joke about Deschutes County Commissioner Mike Daly and the punch line is essentially: Mike Daly.
Anyone who has followed his career to any degree can't help but marvel at the two-term commissioner's resiliency. He somehow manages to survive despite his gaffes and extreme provincialism. Daly is famous for viewing every county issue, no matter how nuanced, from his own life experience as a state trooper and Redmond excavation contractor.
He practices his homespun approach to governance at a time when our community, in this case the county, is growing larger, more complex and more diverse. To the best of our reckoning, Daly has survived on a mix of personal connections and political affiliations. He's survived some legitimate challenges, but perhaps none as serious as this year's campaign by fellow Redmond area politician Alan Unger, who is finishing out his term as Redmond mayor while he campaigns against Daly.

Posted inOpinion

Destination Resort Laws

The Source Staff

Back in the dying days of the Central Oregon timber economy, mills were closing, unemployment was in double digits and downtown storefronts were sitting vacant. Things weren't a whole lot better at the national level in the early 80s with the country mired in a deep recession.
Out of this economic morass came a proposal to pump up Oregon's tourism economy by easing the state's land use laws for resorts that would draw tourists from around the country to our state where they would spend money, creating jobs and injecting cash into our local economies. With its proximity to the mountains and disproportionate amount of sunshine, Central Oregon was a natural choice for developers. Fueled by a national real estate boom and easy credit, real estate and resort developers converged on Deschutes and Crook counties over the past few years floating one proposal after another for increasingly massive resorts.

Posted inOpinion

Taxing Our Patience: Palin on SNL and Joe the Plumber

Mike Bookey

Upfront along with about 17 million other Americans suffered through Gov. Sarah Palin's guest appearance on Saturday Night Live this past week. Like the rest of the country we had tuned in to see if SNL alum Tina Fey would reprise her Palin bit. She did, but we also got a solid dose of the real Sarah Palin, whose appearance on the show was, we presume, supposed to showcase how she can handle a good natured ribbing. The guest spot, which included appearances with Lorne Michaels and Alec Baldwin at the top of the show and another cameo on Weekend Update, registered an "11" on Upfront's Weird-O-meter. To say it was awkward really doesn't sum up the difficulty of watching Palin throw her arms in the air while Amy Poehler executee a mocking, self-referential rap on the same stage.
It didn't help that the material just wasn't funny.
Pundits have cited the appearance as evidence that McCain and Palin are lacking in some fundamental judgment skills (her for appearing, and him for letting her go on), but Upfront wonders what SNL was thinking. Honestly, did they really think we wanted to see Sarah Palin?
Because if the show does, they've got bigger problems than keeping the Tina Fey cameos coming after Nov. 4.

Posted inNews

And…Cut.: BendFilm’s executive director resigns, board decides to restructure

The Source Staff

The latest news on the BendFilm Festival plays almost like a rerun of
last year. The local film festival that's earning an increasingly
strong buzz within the film industry is again saddled with a vacancy at
the top of the non-profit organization. But this time around, there's
more changes written into the BendFilm script, with slumping ticket
sales and a board of directors saying they are looking at an
organizational restructuring.

In fall of 2007, Erik Jambor stepped
down as executive director after less than a year at the helm of
BendFilm and within days the organization's board had named former film
industry powerhouse Sandy Henderson to the vacated spot. But now,
Henderson has announced her resignation from a position she once called
her "dream job" just a little more than a week after the 2008 edition
of BendFilm wrapped up.
Jim Bailey, the president of BendFilm's board of directors says that Sandy's resignation wasn't necessarily a surprise.

Posted inNews

A Long Day for Destination Resorts

Eric Flowers

It was a long day for destination resorts Wednesday.
People who picked up their morning paper might have read today over a cup of coffee that Tetherow resort, which is located just outside Bend's city limits on Century Drive, had scrapped plans for its "luxury" hotel because of financing problems.

Posted inNews

Bachelor has fixed lifts, prices, image and they’re letting you know about it

The Source Staff

Behind mountain biking and pushing babies around in thousand-dollar
jogging strollers, bitching about Mt. Bachelor is one of Bend's most
beloved pastimes. Bendites complain about ticket prices, parking,
grooming or staffing issues just like people in larger, more urban
cities bitch about the coaching decisions of their local sports teams.

While
this is certainly a storied pastime, last season the bitching went from
nit-picking static to fever pitched shouting as winter began with hiked
lift ticket prices and ended with reports of potentially dangerous
chair lift maintenance practices and an earlier than usual closing date.

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