Oregon quarterback Ty Thompson winds up to throw during the Ducks' 2023 spring football game April 29, at Autzen Stadium in Eugene.

Our Bend City Councilors should be well-compensated!

They should get $10,000 every month. Well-paid positions attract better candidates. Better decision makers.

How can the city pay for this? Shrink the size of the board to five. Seven-to-five can be the best answer to affordability, and effectiveness.

— Ron “Rondo” Boozell, Bend

I’m trying to discern the difference between college football and professional football. As in the pros, college players will now be paid. That is only fair. They deserve to be paid to bash their heads into one another for public entertainment while otherwise enrolled in institutions whose primary selling point is to elevate the mind. As in the pros, college teams will now criss-cross the country for conference matchups, like from Los Angeles (USC) to New Jersey (Rutgers).

Apart from wondering how “student-athletes” will balance that sort of travel with academics, and apart from wondering why intellectual institutions are intent on increasing their climate footprint at this juncture in human history, I can’t see why I should watch lower-quality football played under the same terms as professional.

After all, I don’t watch minor league baseball or lower-tier English soccer. And by further eroding any semblance of a “student-athlete,” college football has falsified the university branding it relies on to sell its inferior product. At this point in its inevitable evolution, I say “No thanks” to college football.

— Matt Orr, Bend

Many people are wondering if there is a solution to the increasing economic, social, and global woes that our nation is facing.

Fortunately, there is a solution. The framers of the Constitution foresaw a day when our federal government would become excessive and even corrupt and tyrannical. In their wisdom, they included Article V in our Constitution.

Article V provides the legal means for, we the people, working through the States, to propose constitutional amendments to restrain our federal government when it exceeds its constitutional role.

The movement for a convention has gained momentum during the past few years. Nineteen of the required 34 states have passed a resolution to call an Article V convention of states, and another seven states have passed a resolution in one chamber.

The proposed amendments are to limit the terms of elected and appointed federal officials, place fiscal restraints on Washington, D.C., and to limit the scope and authority of the federal government.

The amendments once proposed must be ratified by 38 states at which time they become part of our Constitution. It is worth noting that the amendments, to a large degree, simply clarify the original intent of the Constitution.

Article V is the legal, constitutional recourse that we were given, and it was included in the Constitution to be used when needed. It is certainly needed now, and history will record whether we step up and do our constitutional duty to restore our Republic.

— Andrew Shooks, Bend

I have been wondering how much water we would save annually if food establishments in Central Oregon stopped serving water automatically unless customers requested it? It would save not only countless glasses of water that are often untouched, but would also save the water and power needed to wash the glasses and produce ice that usually goes in them. It could also reduce the workload for restaurant staff. What’s not to like?

Perhaps a collaborative team of food establishments, Visit Bend, and city/county partners could come up with a clever campaign that would explain why water isn’t being served automatically and make our many visitors conscious about helping us with water conservation in general during their time in Central Oregon? It’s a small step in an effort to preserve our aquifers, but every step counts.

— Cris A. Craig, Bend

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