We went to downtown Bend recently for dinner with friends and noticed the new digital parking signs that are supposed to guide drivers to open parking spaces. They were fine but didn’t help much because they are small, and it wasn’t quickly clear which direction to go for the open spaces. It was distracting trying to read the parking indicators while also navigating traffic and pedestrians. We ended up finding a spot on our own without the assistance of the digital signs.

What we did notice, though, was that the streets were danker and darker without the soft white lights that used to sparkle in the street trees. I read that the tree lights had to be removed so the sensors that run the digital parking signs could work. A sad tradeoff, in my mind: digital signs that aren’t really necessary at the expense of a magical downtown streetscape. Downtown’s character and charm short circuited so algorithms can do their work.

— Brant Himes, Bend

Chavez-DeRemer’s voting record

Congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer voted to install Mike Johnson as speaker of the House to replace Kevin McCarthy. So what did her reckless vote give us?

Johnson, who is two heartbeats away from the presidency, played a leading role in the effort to overturn the 2020 election. Now he is releasing video footage of the insurrectionists who stormed the capital in an obstruction of justice move by blurring their faces so the Justice Department can’t identify them and bring more charges.

Chavez-DeRemer’s TV political ads suggest she is a strong supporter of health care, however, she only supports a woman’s right to choose or a woman’s body autonomy in extremely limited circumstances. Chavez-DeRemer has been defeated twice by Oregon representative, Janelle Bynum, who is running in the primary to take back the seat lost by Kurt Schrader. With this threat, is she trying to appear less reckless? I’m not fooled.

— Dianne Crampton, Bend

Equity in the transportation fee?

While I appreciated seeing the editorial on the need to find a way to implement a fair and equitable transportation fee for city businesses, the same need exists for all city tax/fee payer groups (homeowners, apartment owners, businesses, to name a few)! Granted, that won’t be easy, but it’s doable (I’ve done it), and, like Wilford Brimley would say in the oatmeal cereal ads: “it’s the right thing to do.”

Let’s look at private subdivisions. They pay the same taxes and fees as other groups but don’t get equal return for what they pay. So each private subdivision must come up with extra money to maintain its streets and sidewalks. Thus when a TUF is put in place, my subdivision of 456 homes will give to the city $82K more a year, besides the $300-400K we already spend every 6-8 years on street/sidewalk maintenance! The subdivision will never see one penny of that additional $82K spent in our subdivision.

The fair and equitable thing to do is to make an adjustment for private subdivisions, that is, a reduction of the proposed $15/month per home to take into account the cost savings the city now sees for not having to maintain those private roads.

As a final note, residents should be charged for services rendered. In Washington state, the laws made it clear that a nexus was required between taxes/fees and services rendered — and the association wasn’t to be a gray area or a blurry one.

— Larry Waters, Bend

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