No brainer on Mirror Pond dam responsibilities

The Newport Dam has been in the news a lot the last few years. This is a no brainer. Pacific Power owns the dam and it is their responsibility to remove or maintain it. When the time comes to remove it, let them do it. They then have to restore the riverbanks. At that time, the proper thing to do is put it up to all of the voters within the whole Bend Park & Recreation District. That way the whole district can pay for a new dam and not just the city. I love Mirror Pond, but why does the city think it has all this money to throw away? If the voters vote it down, so be it. We will have a free-flowing river.

Larry Ulrich

Bend

Climate change educated guesses, not certainties

The Aug. 27 Bulletin contains yet another gloom-and-doom story about “the very high risk of severe, widespread and irreversible impacts” of climate change based on information from a leaked U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change document.

It is not until you get to the last two paragraphs that you get the rest of the story: They acknowledge that the estimated impacts are “incomplete, and that the calculation has limitations.” In other words these are just educated guesses even though they state with certainty that “temperatures have already warmed by 0.85 of a degree since 1880.” That’s less than 1 degree in more than 200 years. Just how that could have been determined or how they know “that’s quicker than the warming that brought about the end of the last Ice Age that ended 10,000 years ago” is not disclosed. Nor is there an explanation of just what it was that led to that warming and if those factors were included in the current calculations.

Jeff Keller

Bend

An electronic assaulton truth in politics

You can’t have missed those countlessly repeated TV ads castigating Sen. Jeff Merkley for failing to do his job. They have been endlessly funded by a group named the Freedom Partners and its billionaire sugar daddies, the Koch brothers.

The ad twists one fact and invents misleading claims ad nauseam. This is such a blatant example of false and negative attacks that I am confident both Republicans, as well as Democrats, are deeply disturbed by it.

Sadly, this irresponsible bullying by big money interests will not cease until recent Supreme Court decisions are reversed. These are the decisions, such as that in the Citizens United case, that permit practically unlimited donations to political campaigns and causes. So who has the biggest influence on political outcomes? The big money interests like the Koch brothers.

Supreme Court decisions can’t be changed without a constitutional amendment. It is a long, arduous process and the pressure for achieving it must come from concerned citizens, with help from organizations like Move to Amend and Public Citizen. Get concerned! Get active, folks. Otherwise our democracy will continue to be eroded.

Dave Goodwin

Bend

Bend needs sensible economic growth

Ruth Williamson is Bend’s most visible and vocal cheerleader. Her article in this paper on Saturday urges the readers to join in the community dialogue regarding the Urban Growth Boundary expansion and siting of the OSU-Cascades campus. One can’t argue with Williamson’s cheering for citizen engagement, civility in arriving at consensus, and public agencies’ commitment to openness and acceptance of the public (and taxpayers’) conclusions.

The age-old community process she describes is also applicable to our economic health currently. Bend is booming in new private-sector development. Are we at the brink of another B-B-B cycle? Bend Boom and Bust cycle is the historical story. Over five years ago this paper printed my letter that stated: “However, if we are to hold and attract an educated work force, all leaders … must coalesce to acknowledge we can’t go back to the future. They must face economic reality … and commit to measurable plans to diversify the job base.”

Bend’s citizenry must engage with government, education and business leaders to realize a coordinated regional economic development plan which carries the city beyond the current building boom.

I’m sure Williamson joins me in cheerleading for sensible, balanced economic growth that maintains the “Bend way.”

Tim Conlon

Bend