After drawing the ire of neighbors in northeast Bend, the county has scheduled a pair of open houses for the community and neighbors to learn more about a pair of mental health transition homes that are slated to open in the area around Pilot Butte.

The drama at the Deschutes District Attorney’s Office continued this past week as D.A. elect Patrick Flaherty informed Chief Deputy Prosecutor Darryl Nakahira that Flaherty would be terminating his employment when he takes office in January.
Flaherty who has kept a low profile since defeating long time D.A. and his former boss, Mike Dugan, in a bitterly contested primary, sent a tersely worded letter to Nakahira last week informing him of the decision.
“I have not heard from you since the election,” Flaherty wrote in a letter dated Aug. 17 on his law firm’s letterhead.

Given our checkered history of only outsiders being arrested for prostitution and government officials being recalled for being too cozy with the sin-dustry, our only and erroneous image of this era is “Klondike Kate” – lovingly called “our destitute prostitute” (a misnomer by most accounts) or “Aunt Kate” during her 30 years in Bend, where she retired after a life of adventure in Yukon.

“She was an entertainer of heart and generosity, she supported the fire department and the hospital.” explains Joan Massey in defense of Kate, convincingly because Joan is dressed in exquisite all-white 1920s garb, a flapper with feathered hat and silken overcoat despite 90 degree high desert heat.

When 1000 Friends of Oregon opened an office downtown in April, it doubled the land-use watchdog establishment in Bend. The well-funded Portland-based group has for years had a nominal presence in Central Oregon, but its office represents a renewed push in Central Oregon.

The organization brought on two paid staff members, including an attorney, and has already waded into several of the region’s more high profile conservation issues, including the city’s proposed urban growth boundary expansion and destination resort remapping.

It’s a truism that nobody likes paying taxes. So last year when the city of Bend staff proposed to eliminate a loophole in the city’s room tax rules that allowed hotels to take a meal credit deduction, several Bend hotels predictably objected.

Leading the charge was local hotelier Wayne Purcell, an influential businessman whose family has been operating The Riverhouse hotel off Third Street at Mt. Washington Drive for two generations.