Two weeks ago, in a somewhat muddy 4-3 vote, Bend’s City Council approved a $30 million water treatment facility, an important puzzle piece of a larger project, a $69 million modernization of Bend’s water delivery and treatment infrastructure. At its core was a debate about whether to use membrane filtration technology—essentially, a high-tech sieve—to keep […]
The Boot
Posted inOpinion
Letters 10/9 – 10/17
In reply to “When the Dam Breaks,” (News, 10/10) Watching The Deschutes rise from its watery grave below Galveston Bridge permits one to consider its future not just in the head, but with the heart. We’ve heard scientific and financial perspectives on the matter: both favor river restoration over dredging. Some also seem to feel […]
Posted inOpinion
A Year Later, and Only More Guns
Almost a year ago, a 20-year-old man walked into an elementary school in Connecticut and shot 20 school children and six adult staff members. Since then, nearly 40,000 Oregonians—a number about half the population of Bend—have taken the time to apply for, and receive, a concealed weapon permit. During that same period of time—and for […]
Posted inOpinion
Will The Federal Government Pay For Dirty Diapers?
One of our favorite legal concepts is the so-called “asked and answered” stipulation. By that agreement, a judge can simply declare “asked and answered,” and whatever fact or opinion being argued is final and decided—and both sides must move forward from there. It is a concept much easier to accept in one’s mind than in […]
Posted inOpinion
One Day at a Time
MONDAY 9 Ready for another week of terrible people doing terrible things? Welcome to One Day at a Time! In our shocking, shocking, SHOCKING first story, it seems acquitted murderer George Zimmerman (he of Trayvon Martin fame) is not exactly going to win the “Hubby of the Year Award.” His wife, Shellie Zimmerman, called 9-1-1 […]
Posted inOpinion
Giving Shelter to All
Imagine the following scenario: A woman is looking for a new place to live. Her partner has been physically and verbally abusing her for months and knows her current home isn’t safe. She’s scared how her partner might react to her departure, and embarrassed by the situation she’s found herself in—a sadly common scenario when […]
Posted inOpinion
It’s How You Said It
Yes, we understand the ticket sales are necessary to support concert costs and pay bands like Michael Franti and upcoming MGMT (Aug. 31). But no, we don’t think the closure of the open lawn space at the Old Mill to freeloaders, who for the past decade have picnicked and lounged on the lawns there while […]
Posted inCulture
Nothing But the Art
Art in the High Desert’s outdoor gallery
Art in the High Desert, an annual festival in the Old Mill District, doesn’t have a beer garden. There will be no bounce houses, no music stages, no scent of kettle corn wafting through the booths and definitely no tie-dye shirts for sale. The experience that Art in the High Desert has provided in its […]
Posted inOpinion
Waste No More
In a famous Supreme Court decision, Justice Louis Brandeis posited that states and cities should be the laboratories for innovative civic ideas; that is, that creative civic policies should first be taken for test spins before being rolled out nationwide. At times, Oregon has been a prime example of such experimentation, like pioneering the Bottle […]
Posted inOpinion
Go Green or Go Home
It’s time for Bend to stop acting so provincial and step into a leadership role. Our city of 80,000 could do so by implementing the Oregon Department of Transportation’s lauded data analysis tool, GreenSTEP, a relatively new software that sets up various transportation and lifestyle scenarios and estimates greenhouse gas emissions. GreenSTEP came about as […]