THE SPOKESMAN • TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2022 A5
CENTRAL OREGON
Director hired for office on homeless solutions
Spokesman staff report
A new regional office to address home-
lessness in Central Oregon named its first
director, Cheyenne Purrington, on Thurs-
day. The Coordinated Houseless Response
Office is a joint effort from local city gov-
ernments and Deschutes County to col-
laborate in responding to homelessness in
Central Oregon.
“We have a unique opportunity to
move our response efforts in the right
direction and end the trauma of house-
lessness for our most vulnerable neigh-
bors,” Purrington said in a news release.
“Houselessness is a complex topic, but its
solutions are quite simple. We know what
works, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
Purrington was formerly the execu-
tive director at the Tahoe Coalition for
the Homeless and a consultant in the San
Francisco Bay Area. She has over two de-
cades of experience addressing solutions
to homelessness.
“I look forward to having someone with
Cheyenne’s experience provide important
leadership as we work to find solutions
on homelessness,” said Redmond Mayor
George Endicott, a governing board
member of the collaborative office.
The collaborative office includes a gov-
erning board of directors with a represen-
tative from the Deschutes County Com-
mission, Patti Adair, and from the city
councils of Bend, Redmond, Sisters and
La Pine.
Funding to create the collaborative of-
fice came from House Bill 4123, which
allocated $1 million over two years
to Deschutes County and the cities of
Bend, Redmond, Sisters and La Pine to
strengthen their responses to homeless-
ness.
Ryan Brennecke/Bulletin file
People live along Hunnell Road on the north side of Bend in November.
Residents oppose development on Crooked River Ranch
BY PAT KRUIS
Madras Pioneer
A standing room only crowd
packed into the Ranch Chapel
on Crooked River Ranch Thurs-
day evening, Sept. 8. Those who
chose to testify told the Jefferson
County Planning Commission
why they didn’t want a new 54-
lot development on the Ranch.
Ken Bush lives on Pony Tail
Road, adjacent to the property
for the proposed development.
“Having seen what happened
to Idanha and Detroit, Oregon
I know there’s no way to escape
the ranch if fire comes from the
south or southwest,” said Bush.
The proposed development is
beside Quail Road, one of the
two routes to exit the Ranch.
“We don’t have enough of an
exit program.”
Kent Inman lives on South-
west Shad. “It would be a shame
to turn this whole ranch into
a development. We don’t have
enough open space as it is.”
Kyle Koopman said, “If you
change the rules you’re setting
a precedent for others to want
to change zoning on their prop-
erty.”
Testimony from a lawyer for
Central Oregon Landwatch
drew applause. “It is unlikely
this will be approved,” said
Carol Macbeth. “There are
thousands of acres already avail-
able for rural residential hous-
ing. That has to happen before
you make an exception.” Land-
watch believes the property
should remain rangeland and be
used for agricultural uses such
grazing, or cultivating crops
such as lavender.
The seven-member planning
commission listened quietly
to responses. The commission
must decide whether to change
zoning of 142 acres from range-
land to rural residential. In
the 1970s, Bill and Murdoch
MacPherson began turning the
Crooked River Ranch into rural
residential property. The 10,000
acres now has 2,646 privately
owned lots.
At that time the MacPherson
family reserved 142 acres and
now, five decades later, the fam-
ily wants to develop the prop-
erty into 54 lots each a mini-
mum of two-acres in size.
Attorney Adam Smith rep-
resented the developer about
the impracticality of turning
the land into agricultural uses.
“You won’t find a similarly situ-
ated parcel in Jefferson County
or in the state of Oregon with
140 acres surrounded by a large,
rural residential area,” argued
Smith.
Family members Eric
Myhre and Murdock “Murry”
MacPherson Jr. did not speak at
the meeting. “We have the in-
terest of Crooked River Ranch
at heart,” said Myhre after the
meeting, “where I don’t think
Central Oregon Landwatch
does. They would rather have a
chicken ranch on there rather
than nice new homes. Which
would neighbors rather have?”
Oregon Landwatch has entered
its opinions into the record with
the Jefferson County Planning
Commission, but has not filed a
lawsuit. Macbeth says the orga-
nization’s trustees would make
that decision.
Technical issues prevented
people online from attending
the hearing, so the commission
voted to extend the hearing to
5:30 p.m. Thursday, October 27
again at the Ranch Chapel so
people who live on the Ranch
can attend.
LOCAL BRIEFING
Redmond, Culver teachers win awards
Two Central Oregon teachers have been named
by the state as regional teachers of the year.
The teachers who received the awards are Ben
Lawson, of Redmond High School, and Derek
Burbank, of Culver High School.
They will each receive a $1,000 award from
the Oregon Lottery and will be submitted for the
state’s teacher of the year award, which will be an-
nounced in the fall, according to a press release
from the Oregon Department of Education.
“Through countless challenges in the past sev-
eral years, Oregon educators have continued to
consistently come through for Oregon’s students,”
said Colt Gill, director of the Oregon Department
of Education.
Bend man dies in U.S. Highway 97 crash
RPA students nab academic honors
A 64-year-old Bend man, Ted Anderson, died
Sept. 11 after his car ran off of U.S. Highway 97
north of Terrebonne and rolled over.
Anderson was driving a white Ford Expedition
on Highway 97 between Redmond and Madras
when his car “left the roadway and rolled” around
2:18 a.m. Sunday, a press release from the Oregon
State Police said.
Highway 97 was closed for around three hours
following the accident, the release said.
Oregon State Police responded to the scene
along with personnel from sheriffs offices in De-
schutes and Jefferson counties and the Oregon
Department of Transportation.
Seven Redmond Proficiency Academy stu-
dents earned academic honors from the College
Board National Recognition Programs.
These programs grant underrepresented stu-
dents with academic honors that can be included
on college and scholarship applications and con-
nect students with universities across the country,
helping them meaningfully connect to colleges
and stand out during the admissions process.
The following RPA students earned honors
in the rural/small town award category: senior
Benjamin Barrie, senior Vanya Crumrine, se-
nior Jarren Dewhitt, senior Sarah Eng-Kryston,
senior Richard Louvar, senior Jackson Patron,
and Kinsey Newell, who graduated in 2022.
“We are excited that our students have earned
this important recognition and are proud of
their achievements in the classroom and on Col-
lege Board Assessments,” said RPA executive di-
rector Jon Bullock in a release. “We are looking
forward to seeing how they use these honors to
their advantage as they plan for their post-high
school futures.”
Eligible students will be invited to apply during
their sophomore or junior year and will be awarded
at the beginning of the next school year. Students
will receive their awards in time to include them on
their college and scholarship applications.
Redmond Proficiency Academy (RPA) is a tu-
ition-free public charter school located in Red-
mond. Now in its 14th year, RPA serves over 900
students from grades 6th-12th throughout Cen-
tral Oregon.
Redmond-area House districts a key battleground for Legislature
BY GARY A. WARNER
Oregon Capital Bureau
Two Bend area state House
seats are the latest battleground
in Democrats’ push to create a
larger toehold in the tradition-
ally Republican areas east of the
Cascades.
After winning House District
54 in 2020, Democrats are aim-
ing for House District 53.
Republicans want to hold
House District 53 and try to flip
House District 54 back to the
GOP side.
The 2020 US Census required
redistricting legislative and con-
gressional districts to balance
population sizes, a process com-
pleted by the Oregon legislature
in September 2021. The new
districts go into effect with the
2022 election.
Democrats currently hold
a 37-23 majority in the House
and 18-11-1 majority in the
Senate (One senator elected as a
Republican has changed to the
Independent Party).
All 60 House seats are up for
election in November. Sixteen
Senate seats are on the ballot.
Senate District 27, which in-
cludes the combined area of
House District 53 and 54 won’t
be up for election until 2024.
Sen. Tim Knopp, R-Bend, won
re-election in 2020.
The legislature does not have
a scheduled session until Jan-
uary 2023, with lawmakers
elected in November taking
their seats.
BOOMING BEND LIFTS
DEMOCRATS
Deschutes County and subur-
ban Portland recorded booming
population growth in the 2010s.
The demographic shifts ensured
the Bend area would have more
compact legislative districts.
Higher percentages of new
residents in the Bend area have
tended to vote Democratic, a
departure from the long history
of Republicans winning all or
most of seats east of the Cas-
cades.
The trend toward Democrats
that began in Bend has shown
up more recently in the election
of Democrat Phil Chang to the
Deschutes County Commission
and the county voting for Joe
Biden over Donald Trump in
the 2020 presidential election.
Biden was the first Democrat
since Lyndon Johnson in 1964
to win a majority of the county
vote (Bill Clinton won a plural-
ity in 1992 in a three-way race
with President George H.W.
Bush and independent H. Ross
Perot).
House District 54 in Bend
was represented by Republicans
for 18 of the first 20 years of
the 21st century. Moderate Re-
publicans Jason Conger, Knute
Buehler and Cheri Helt won the
seat despite increasingly larger
Democratic voter registration
margins. Incumbent Rep. Jason
Kropf, D-Bend, defeated Helt in
2020 and is seeking re-election
against Republican Judy Trego.
The district has a strong Demo-
cratic voter tilt.
House District 53 has been
represented by Republicans for
all of the 21st Century. It was
significantly realigned by redis-
tricting.
Nicknamed “the dough-
nut district” to describe how it
wrapped around Bend, it took
in Redmond, part of north
Bend, and swung around to pull
in Sunriver and La Pine.
The solidly Republican seat
was long held by Rep. Gene
Whisnant, R-Sunriver, who re-
tired in 2018. Rep. Jack Zika,
R-Redmond, won the last two
elections. While often work-
ing with their Republican col-
leagues in House District 54,
both Whisnant and Zika com-
piled more conservative voting
records than the Bend moder-
ates.
Redistricting cleaved the bot-
tom of House District 53, with
Sunriver and other areas now
mostly in House District 55,
centered around Klamath Falls.
The more compact House
District 53 is centered on Red-
mond and northern Bend and
has a Democratic voter registra-
tion tilt. Zika has opted not to
seek another term.
The November election is
between two northern Bend
residents, Democratic attorney
Emerson Levy and Republican
businessman Michael Sipe.
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gwarner@eomediagroup.com