Over the past several months, we’ve noticed a change in the air. No, it’s not the arrival of autumn, but the growing number of Confederate flags billowing in the breeze. From an impromptu summertime demonstration of cars and trucks decked out in the “rebel” flag, to now, local high school students flying it on school […]
The Boot
Posted inOpinion
Legal Threat is a Wake Up Call
As a society, Americans have a reputation for being litigious. This tendency to sue over every too-hot coffee or too-tall neighbor’s fence is tedious, time consuming, and expensive. But sometimes, lawsuits are the clearest and quickest path to justice. When attempts to work things out informally fail, the mere threat of legal action can be […]
Posted inOpinion
Post-Haste Makes Waste
A good idea is not necessarily inevitable; especially an idea—like the gas tax—which needs finesse to gather support. How that idea comes about matters immensely. That is Politics 101. But it is also apparently a basic tenet that the majority of Bend City Council decided to hopscotch past and, in the process, may have poisoned […]
Posted inOpinion
Groundhog Day
In the 1993 comedy Groundhog Day, Bill Murray plays a TV weatherman forced to relive the same day. Although perhaps remembered as a belly-laugh concept and romantic comedy, in fact, the film is a nihilist exploration about a stubborn inability to change, adopt, and move forward as Murray’s character struggles to extract himself from the […]
Posted inNews
Prohibiting Pot Shops
All legalization is not equal, as folks living in rural parts of Oregon are discovering. Before the end of the last session, the Oregon Legislature passed a bill granting significant local control over marijuana-related businesses, which means that some parts of the state may be off-limits to the budding industry. The bill allows city and […]
Posted inOpinion
A Lackluster Legislature
It was a legislative session that began with a bang—the quick and disgraceful departure of Gov. John Kitzhaber—and ended with a whisper. Last week, the Oregon legislature wrapped up a session that was intended to make bold moves to improve primary and secondary education in Oregon, and to manage the legalization of recreational marijuana. Yet, […]
Posted inOpinion
What Are You, Stoned?
In anticipation of the July 1 legalization of recreational marijuana, public and private entities have spent the past year preparing for what could be a financial windfall. Unfortunately, the City of Bend has not been one of those, even though a number of business owners in town already are positioning themselves to tap into the […]
Posted inOpinion
Public Spaces
Since last year, the Bend-La Pine School District has tried to find someone to purchase Troy Field, a one-acre spread of lawn downtown. Adjacent to McMenamin’s Old St. Francis and caddy-corner from City Hall, the space has long been an ad hoc public space, with pickup soccer and baseball games, and serving as an informal […]
Posted inOpinion
Robbing the Prince to Pay the Pauper
In our recent endorsement interview for Bend Park & Recreation District (BPRD) Board Position 1, we spent a good amount of time discussing “system development charges” (SDCs), a fee that housing developers pay toward Park District (and City) projects. Why so much attention to this topic? Because the City wants BPRD to join in offering […]
Posted inOpinion
Numbers Don’t Lie
For last week’s Earth Day, we received a press release regarding titled, “America’s 10 most polluting mountain towns.” It is not a list that Bend wants to see itself on, but there it is: seventh worst polluting “mountain town” in America. The report is troubling, and hopefully one that Bendites will fully consider. It came […]