Thursday, July 5, 2007

Our new wrap around trex deck, which we spent way too much money on, gave us a magnificent view of the fireworks.

When it first got dark, I started thinking about the tens of thousands of dollars being blown up (not counting the professionals on the butte.) Then the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Then the millions of dollars. Just in this little town.

Why do we need musical accompaniment to the fireworks? Can't we be patriotic without the soundtrack? I like Jimmy Hendrix's Banner as much as the next guy, but let the fireworks be.....

The Mountain Gate developers are telling us that, unless we approve what they want, they just might build what we don't want. Which is a bit like saying, if you don't let us fart all we want, we'll poop on your floor. Charmed, I'm sure.

If there was any justice, they'd be bitch slapped out of town.

It's also interesting to me how the same names come up whenever this kind of stuff happens. I first knew this town was in big trouble when the Riverhouse basically paved over the river by building on both sides of what used to be my favorite fishing hole. If I remember correctly, they also paid some fines for cutting down trees next to the river. (Opps! here's some money. Fuggit about it...)

The Riverhouse was also in litigation with the city over the convention center. If I remember rightly, Evert pretty much pulled the same trick; "let us build what we want, or we might build what you don't want."

Same guy. Same trick.
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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

. I first knew this town was in big trouble when the Riverhouse basically paved over the river by building on both sides of what used to be my favorite fishing hole.

***

Thanks Duncan, its NOT just your swimming hole the entire river from Tumalo to the Inn@7th is being paved on both sides, and lined up the canyon sides with CONDOS.

They say this is ECO-BIZ, a mixture of kind ecology and green-business.

I call it the condo-canyon, and paving the entire river-bank on both sides of the river has and will destroy the entire eco-system. There is NOT much of the river left, and YET not a peep from anyone.

I suspect the momentum is the fact that everybody is/was making a nickel, including the investors of the condo's.

I call the marketers the condo-whores, sort of like the hondo-whores in the movie "wild bunch".

We have met the enemy and he/she is us, everyone is trying to destroy the Deschutes river as quickly as possible, and they call eco-productive-biz,

July 5, 2007 at 7:50:00 AM PDT
Anonymous said...


Evert pretty much pulled the same trick; "let us build what we want, or we might build what you don't want."

Same guy. Same trick.


I think your missing the point, if is wasn't Evert it would be some other developer/builder. Its the City-Council that enables them. They're trying to grow there way towards federal elected offices. There is an expedited gold-rush attitude in City Hall to make Bend into a world-class city, and those that run it into world-class politicians.

Folks like Evert are enable by City-Hall.

There will always be people who will cut the last tree to make a buck. This is WHY we have government, to make sure the last tree doesn't get cut.

This is why we have environment laws to make sure the river doesn't get paved. The law is supposed to be NO paving, building, not even a stick in the ground within 1,000ft of the river, but the City-Hall gives variances to anyone that gives them a nickel.

Money is the blood of politics.

Sadly, the problem here is dis-engagement. Most people that have come to Bend in recent years to make a fast buck on housing, or retire. They'll just assume this is how its always been in Bend. They don't realize that which originally made Bend special was we left the river alone.

Long ago the political power group of Bend was the environmental folk, the hikers, the fishermen. Generally what happens is this class of folk spend their youth playing, then one day middle age wake up poor. Then they look at guys like Evert who is rich, and think if I do what he does I'll get rich. This is how the process is always played.

People with good intentions come to office, and hold office and after twenty years they realize that they're not rich, that they're making others rich, so they start playing the game.

Winston Churchill said it ... "If your not liberal when young, you don't have a heart; If your not a kleptocrat when old, you dont' have a nickel".

So now here we are 2007 City-Hall is ran by old hippy's trying to get rich, the only people who feed the campaigns is developers, and builders, and construction firms. The people of Bend are dis-engaged obsessed with Oprah&Paris.

Fewer people like your self even bother to fish in town. Soon people will not even remember why they came to Bend.
Soon it will be so expensive to live here the folks that came to retire will have to leave. This is what happens when the ability to pass Muni-Bonds is out of control, and developers,builders,... control the purse.

July 5, 2007 at 8:03:00 AM PDT
Anonymous said...

The dis-engaged of Bend believe the reason they're not rich is that there are still a few fish in the Deschutes River.

With ALL These God-DAMN FUCKING golf courses, on both sides of the paved fucking river its surprising there is one fucking fish still alive in the river full of lawn care product.

Paving the river up to the bank, and then condos, and then golf-course's ... is great eco-biz. The cycle will be to suck the river dry to water the golf-course, and then return high salt content material to the river. Soon the Deschutes through town will look like the Crooked-River in the summer running through Smith-Rocks. Just a puddle of green glue.

Almost everyone in Bend is dis-engaged, some blame the cali's, ... We have met the enemy and he is us.

There needs to be strong environment laws, and they need to be enforced, and there MUST be NO variance. The selective nature of Bend law enforcement is to expend ALL the effort towards the collection of dog-poop and leash laws. But NO over-sight on builders.

The good news with the impending RE depression is that stop will stop, but often in bad times even MORE stupid eco-biz will be allowed.

This whole notion of eco-biz, that in the name of green-environmental its OK, to destroy nature is ALL a condo-whore wet dream.

July 5, 2007 at 8:19:00 AM PDT
Anonymous said...


When it's a huge, stinky, throbbing bad deal being shoved down their throats by Les Schwab's lawyers, they tremble, approve it within the arbitrary bluffy one-hour deadline, and then it takes weeks to get the full story out and all the city councilors are afraid to go on record with anything negative about the deal. This is because, hey, the Bend City Council knows zero about business. Or government.

But when Les Schwab's architects show up with their plans for the building and it's got too much west-facing glass and its compost pile isn't big enough, well, now the city councilors feel like they can comment on that intelligently and confidently.


1.) I think it took the main-stream media six months to get the story out.

2.) Show me some compost, and I'll have an opinion.

3.) Windows, everyone loves windows.

The simple fact here is that its clear that the City Council doesn't know how to read. That the only thing they understand is pretty pictures.

Now that there are pictures, can we even imagine how bad that Les Schwab will fleece the City of Bend???

The Big Problem now is that nobody is going to put up the investment in Juniper-Ridge, and thus given that somebody spent at least 1/2 a Million bucks on ALL these plans. The project MUST continue. I personally would like to see that everyone's nickel invested so far be lost, and they eat their own shit.

Sadly, what will happen is that given the urgency and critical requirement that we must build the compost pile so they will come, ... That they City of Bend will issue a MUNI-BOND-CDO that will front the $50M so that nobody has to use their own money. Banks, investors, and WALL-STREET are very tight right now, nobody wants to put money into the MOST over-valued town in the USA.

At this point the ONLY way this project can go forward is for the City-of-Bend to provide the financing. As I have written in the last few months, CDO-BOND's are dead, the big houses that were providing condo money to Bend have said NO-MORE, and same for projects like Juniper-Ridge.

That said right now MUNI-CDO-BONDS are very easy to write, because while there are too many unsaleable homes, the citys still have credit.

Thus the good credit of Bend will be used to finance the Juniper-Ridge and project.

At best there are only a few million dollars invested so far in this project by the developers who probably took out collateral loans for the architectural drawings, and application permit study fee's, ... Thus these people have a critical desire to continue.

There really is NO reason for the city people of Bend to want this project, and certainly NO reason for the City to go Bankrupt trying to make it happen.

Les Schwab should ante their OWN MONEY, and so should the Juniper-Ridge developers. If the banks will NOT loan them money, then they should take the loss.

We the People of Bend should NOT let this kind of shit continue, free-land and/or nickel on the dollar prices, and incentives that just put the city in debt. Ten-Fold water bill increases so that Juniper-Ridge developers don't have to pay for infrastructure in their own project.

Then there is the fact that everything is still secret, that everything signed to date has always been secret and done in executive session.

This shit must stop.

Everyone on the City-Council should be recalled, that said there really aren't any business minded people in Bend that would take the job.

Which is why the REAL fucking problem here is that OREGON OPEN MEETING LAW MUST be enforced. There MUST be a class-action lawsuit against the city for violation open-meeting laws, and signing secret doc's, then and only then can common two bit political amateurs be controlled, and then perhaps the press can work, if the doc's and meetings are public.

July 6, 2007 at 8:50:00 AM PDT
Anonymous said...

So how about it Duncan, you are the ONLY one in the entire bend blogosphere that I have gotten to talk about the LesSchwab secret deal.

This week it finally comes public, and IHTBYB puts a spin that this has only been news for two weeks.

The fact is the secret deals with LS was done back in December 2006, and its been ALL posted on your site.

Now that even the MEDIA is saying that the LS secret deal is the most expensive BEND boondoggle of all time, what is your comment now? Now that is it completely safe to say what one thinks?

Like I say, I don't blame individuals here, I blame the entire system of Bend government that doesn't follow open meeting laws. It's like the City Attorney who is supposed to be present is asleep at the switch and letting all public matters become private business.

July 6, 2007 at 9:56:00 PM PDT
Duncan McGeary said...

Dude, what do I know about such things. Off the top of my head, and without the kind of research (which I don't have to time and interest to do) that would be required to make an informed decision, I'd say:

The city council is a bit over their head; but any small town council dealing with issues this big probably would be. We pay them, what 100.00 a month?

I'd be interested to know what the management had to say.

Behind closed doors? That was probably stupid.

Signing with Les Scwab at less than favorable terms? What choice did they really have?

Personally, I would have made them wait; personally, I think the council could've accepted the deal 'in princible' and then nicely put them off; and then the rejection would have to come from LS.

But think about where Lava Ridge would be without a first major tenant?

So their choice seems to be to let Lava Ridge go, or accept that first client.

Letting it go? Governments don't let go of power. And they are trying to plan ahead for future growth. What choice do they have?
To say; Bend's housing bubble has popped, we're all dooomed, no since planning for the future.

One of the slams I've always had about Bend is the lack of planning for the future. Saying yes to every developer. But at least Lava Ridge is designed to bring in more diversity to our economy. If it worked -- a big if -- it would be a great thing for Bend.

I don't think it's politically feasible for the city council not to try, and if they are going to try, they pretty much had to take the reaming the LS gave them.

July 7, 2007 at 9:33:00 AM PDT

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