A6 The BulleTin • Friday, March 12, 2021
Homeless
Continued from A1
Ryan Brennecke/The Bulletin file
Filmmakers Zeke Kamm, left, and Taylor Morden photographed ahead
of the world premiere of their documentary “The Last Blockbuster,”
which debuted at BendFilm’s pop-up drive-in theater on Deschutes
Brewing property in Bend in July 2020. Starting March 15 the film will
be available on Netflix.
Blockbuster
Continued from A1
“The irony is not lost on
us,” Morden said. “Netflix and
Blockbuster had a fascinating
relationship and that’s a big
part of the story we are telling
with the documentary.”
Morden and Kamm pitched
their film to Netflix through
their distributor, 1091 Pic-
tures. The film frames Netflix
as the antagonist that domi-
nated the home video market-
place so it was a strange pitch,
Morden said.
“We knew it was weird to
say, ‘Hey Netflix we made a
movie. You are kind of the bad
guys in the movie, but we still
think your audience would get
a kick out of it’,” Morden said.
The documentary high-
lights how Netflix did not act
maliciously. The company
simply made better busi-
ness decisions and changed
the way people enjoy home
movies by allowing them
to choose films from home
rather than travel to a video
rental store.
In fact, the film details how
Blockbuster had a chance to
buy Netflix.
“Through some amount of
hubris and arrogance, Block-
buster decides it doesn’t need
it,” Morden said. “Netflix rises
to become the dominant force
in home video entertainment.
Then fast forward to 2021,
and our little documentary
about how all that happened
is on Netflix.”
Beyond the business side of
Blockbuster, the film explores
the nostalgia around video
stores and how the Bend lo-
cation outlasted all the other
Blockbusters.
The film follows Bend
Blockbuster manager Sandi
Harding as she learns her
store became the last on
Earth. The only other Block-
buster in Perth, Australia,
closed in March 2019.
Morden, a director, cine-
matographer and editor who
has mostly made independent
documentaries in his career,
said it is a thrill for him and
Kamm to have their docu-
mentary end up on a world-
wide platform such as Netflix.
“Getting anything on Net-
flix or any major streaming
platform is a huge deal,” Mor-
den said. “This is the Holly-
wood ending for Zeke and I.”
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Ryan Brennecke/The Bulletin
Construction crews work at the new Petrosa housing development
near the intersection of Butler Market Road and Eagle Road in Bend on
Wednesday.
Petrosa
Continued from A1
Carrie Douglass, chair of the
Bend-La Pine School Board,
said this purchase was a smart
financial decision at Tuesday
night’s board meeting.
“Our community may not
have the context to understand
how strong our district has
been at managing land acquisi-
tions ... and looking far out into
the future,” she said Tuesday.
“There are many, many other
districts that act in a really re-
sponsive, rather than proactive,
way.”
The Petrosa development is
projected to be massive, with
an estimated 1,260 homes, ac-
cording to Bend-La Pine docu-
ments. Buckingham and Pon-
derosa elementary schools are
nearby, but the new elemen-
tary should ease overcrowd-
ing of those two schools when
it’s built, according to Mike
Tiller, director of facilities for
Bend-La Pine Schools.
Purchasing this land from
Pahlisch Homes was a shrewd
financial decision, Tiller told
the school board Tuesday. The
surrounding area will have all
its infrastructure complete.
“We’ve got electric, water,
sewer, cable, gas ... it’s devel-
opment ready,” Tiller told the
board. “That is a very cost-ef-
fective way to do this.”
In comparison, Bend-La
Pine only spent about $1.2 mil-
lion in 2018 for the land that
would become North Star El-
ementary. But, the school dis-
trict spent an extra $3 million
on infrastructure in the area,
including rebuilding O.B. Ri-
ley Road near the school, Tiller
told The Bulletin in an email
Thursday.
The $2.8 million used to
purchase the 10 acres in Pe-
trosa was funded by Bend-La
Pine’s $268 million bond from
2017. This will be the third
new school partly funded by
that bond, as it completely paid
for North Star Elementary,
which opened in 2019, and
Caldera High School, which
will open in September 2021.
The building for the new el-
ementary in Petrosa will need
to be funded by another bond,
Tiller told The Bulletin. Be-
cause of that, he said it was still
too early to estimate when the
new school would be built, or
how expensive it would be.
Seidel, from Pahlisch, wrote
in an email to The Bulletin on
Thursday that the developer is
thrilled to work with Bend-La
Pine on this land deal.
“We’re strong supporters of
complete neighborhoods and
selling this land to the school
district supports that vision,”
she wrote. “This is an incred-
ible asset for NE Bend, and
we’re excited to be a part of
that.”
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jhogan@bendbulletin.com
When asked what changed
ODOT’s position, Murphy
said he doesn’t know ex-
actly what was said, but that
ODOT is “a cooperative
agency trying to find way to
say yes, generally.”
Murphy said ODOT work-
ers were working with the
homeless campers to separate
out what is trash and what is
personal property. Personal
property, according to state
statute, must be kept in stor-
age for at 30 days to give peo-
ple the ability to retrieve it.
But a small group of activ-
ists with the Central Oregon
Peacekeepers, who were lives-
treaming the cleanup, felt that
homeless campers were not
being treated fairly, and hav-
ing more than just trash being
thrown away by the agency.
Luke Richter, the leader of
the peacekeepers, said he was
concerned about whether the
campers were getting enough
resources about where to find
their personal property.
The organization has reg-
ularly been livestreaming
homeless camp cleanups or
evictions around the city, ar-
St. Charles
Continued from A1
“Life on the (picket) line is
good,” said Frank DeWolf, a
St. Charles cardiac catheter-
ization lab technologist. “Ev-
eryone is in good spirits and
the community support is
amazing. We wish the hospital
would let us, the experts, in to
do what we do best by giving
us a fair contract.”
In terms of salary, the hos-
pital has not negotiated a sal-
ary beyond the first year of the
contract. The hospital offered
a base salary of $87,000 a year
for a full-time workers, not
including overtime, premium
Dean Guernsey/Bulletin
An ODOT crew removes materials from a homeless camp near Revere Avenue and the Bend Parkway on
Thursday.
guing it is inhumane to do so
when the public health guide-
lines say camps should not be
moved amid a pandemic.
Mike Eaton, who lives on
ODOT property on the other
side of the highway on Re-
vere Avenue, watched from
pay, shift differentials and
other benefits, the hospital
said in a prepared statement.
“The bargaining teams en-
gaged in some joint sessions
throughout the day and the
presence of the mediator was
very helpful,” said Aaron Ad-
ams, president of St. Charles
Bend, in a prepared statement.
“We are hopeful we can get
back to the table soon for fur-
ther discussion.”
Both sides have met 29
times over the past year to
resolve a labor dispute with
medical technicians. The hos-
pital tried to stop the strike by
filing lawsuits in state and fed-
eral courts.
the sidewalk as ODOT equip-
ment went through the camp
where many of his friends
live.
Eaton personally spent all
day cleaning up his campsite
in preparation for ODOT to
come through, he said. But
tearing down a home and re-
building it constantly can be
hard.
”It’s like building with
straw,” he said. “There’s not a
lot of alternatives.”
The walk out began March
October 2019, has attempted
to negotiate on behalf of the
members with St. Charles.
During previous negotiation
sessions, 85% of the contract
had been hammered out,
what was left on the table were
cost items, Potter said.
St. Charles has filed two
unfair labor practice charges
with the National Labor Re-
lations Board, which oversees
disputes like these. St. Charles
Bend maintains the strike
notice was unlawful and the
union isn’t bargaining in good
faith, according to a prepared
statement.
4.
“We have done everything
we can to settle this contract
and end this strike, but St.
Charles leadership is dan-
gerously out of touch with
the people taking care of our
community,” said Sam Pot-
ter, external organizer for the
union. “Every day that they
prolong this strike, they are
making a conscious deci-
sion to put our families, our
community, in danger rather
than pay their employees fair
wages.”
This is the first contract
that the union, which began
representing the members in
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Reporter: 541-633-2117,
sroig@bendbulletin.com