Glass Slipper

Picking the top administrator for a big public agency can involve a delicate balancing act. The candidates you're screening have the right to a certain amount of privacy. But the community has a right to know something about the people being considered for a vital job and the process for considering them.

It starts with a pins-and-needles sensation in the fingers or toes. As the cold bites deeper, numbness sets in. Then hands or feet turn white and lose all sensation as skin freezes.

Back in mid-November the Bend City Council decided to spend $200,000 on an "interim fix" for the Mirror Pond problem that would have involved some dredging. We said that was a bad idea. Now it looks like the council has come up with a better one.
It's talking about contracting with the Upper Deschutes Watershed Council, a nonprofit conservation and restoration group, to explore alternatives to dredging. The group has done some nice-looking restoration work along the banks of the Deschutes just downstream from the Bill Healy Bridge, and the city had been talking with it about possible Mirror Pond solutions a couple of years ago, until the dredge-it-at-any-cost faction in town put the skids to that approach.