Greenwood Cemetery and adjacent land in the background in Bend on Dec. 6, 2023. The cemetery currently sits in a public facilities zone, which is frequently used for public parks, schools and other public buildings — not cemeteries. Greenwood Cemetery's owner wants to change the zone to residential.

No redevelopment of cemetery

To allow a portion of Greenwood Cemetery to be used for a housing development would be a betrayal to hundreds of Bend ancestors who lie buried there, and citizens who made plans years ago to use the cemetery as their final resting place so they could be with their relatives or loved ones.

I personally have numerous relatives who are buried in the cemetery including the Finleys, Sholes, Halls, Boyds, Brinsons and good friend Denny Douglass. Some have been there since 1907. It would be a travesty to commercialize the area.

If the city approves this new zone change, is Drake Park next? No one would have seriously considered this change 25 years ago. Bend has changed.

— Bill Boyd, Bend

Let’s keep our homelessness approach

Thomas Triplett asked the question in his Feb. 2 letter entitled “Rethink approach to homelessness”: “Are there any among us who believe the problem has improved?”

Mr. Triplett the answer is yes. There are many among us who know and believe the problem has improved. We don’t engage in noisy negative rhetoric. We’re just out there quietly working to make the homeless situation even more improved.

Our providently spent dollars have created hundreds of new shelter beds. We’re getting more and more unhoused persons into shelter beds, and from there, into permanent or supportive housing.

There is a myth, fomented by those such as homeless “expert” Kevin Dahlgren (who came here from someplace else by the way) that the dollars spent are a magnet to attract more homeless from other areas who come here for drugs and free services.

It’s a myth. The January 2023 Homeless Leadership Point in Time Count verified that only 13% of the homeless were here less than a year. The PIT Count established that 82% had been here 3 or more years and 45% have been here more than 20 years.

So yes Mr. Triplett, the dollars are well spent and the homeless problem has improved thanks to hard work and commitment by government officials.

— Charles Hemingway, Bend

Bulletin should editorialize about Trump

The November 2024 presidential election is more than just a horserace between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. It is an election pitting an incumbent who wants to preserve democracy against a former president who seeks to destroy democracy.

Donald Trump clearly has strong authoritarian tendencies. He admits he wants to be a dictator, parrots hateful language used by the likes of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, says he will use government to go after his political rivals, and urges his followers to violence.

As Jeff Sharlet, author of The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War, points out, “The serious scholars of fascism are now saying that the ‘F-word’ is merited.”

It is not enough for The Bulletin to simply report the latest outrageous comment by Trump. The Bulletin needs to use its editorial power to directly address the dangers of another Trump presidency.

“Empowering our community,” as the Bulletin masthead states, must include educating the community about how a second Trump term will directly impact our lives. How our friends and neighbors — people of color, LGBTIQA+, immigrants, women, and others — will be hurt by another Trump presidency.

We can’t just rely on the national media outlets to do this. We need our local daily newspaper to step up.

Keeping our community informed and engaged must include telling the truth about Trump. Especially in dangerous times like these.

— Michael Funke, Bend

Mandatory voting

Your editorial asks, “Should Oregon make voting a requirement?”

We might better ask, “How would you feel if your own carefully considered vote were sure to be rivaled by that of someone who ‘just punched something on the ballot’ to avoid being fined?”

Do we really want to coerce many such disinterested persons to vote (in reluctantly random ways perhaps), solely because they’re required to?Voting is a right and a privilege, and should be respected as such. Some (let’s hope most) of us take our thinking and voting seriously, and hope others will, too. Compelling anyone to vote is hardly the way to nurture that responsibility.

— Patricia O’Day, Bend

Do you have a point you’d like to make or an issue you feel strongly about? Submit a letter to the editor.