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About The Bulletin. (Bend, OR) 1963-current | View Entire Issue (June 15, 2021)
Serving Central Oregon since 1903 • $1.50 TUESDAY • June 15, 2021 Will the Tokyo Olympics happen? NBC is banking on it ALSO IN SPORTS, A5-7 • MOUNTAIN BIKING: Bend youths fare well at North American Enduro Cup • NBA PLAYOFFS: Chris Paul is no longer an underdog » OREGON LEGISLATURE | SESSION NEARS ITS END Rent, fires, taxes and energy vie for votes BY GARY A. WARNER Oregon Capital Bureau PRIDE IN A PANDEMIC ‘It’s a very strong community, and we need each other’ See Legislature / A4 Lockdowns hit the close-knit LGBTQ community especially hard. This month, Pride events are being held again, with the area’s largest festival in Prineville. Drop-in swim sessions return to Juniper, Larkspur pools BY KYLE SPURR The Bulletin S TODAY’S WEATHER Mostly cloudy High 66, Low 41 Page A13 BY MICHAEL KOHN The Bulletin Cait Boyce, president of PFLAG Central Oregon for the past seven years, has seen firsthand how the pandemic affected those in the LGBTQ community. Boyce’s group hosts monthly meetings in Bend and Prineville for LGBTQ people and their friends and family. Those meetings were canceled for the past year due to the pandemic but restarted in May in Prineville and will restart in Bend in Sep- tember. After 15 months of programming re- strictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Bend Park & Recreation District has announced a number of changes to facility hours and programs, effective Monday . Chief among the changes is that reser- vations and advanced registration will no longer be necessary for most swim ses- sions and in-person classes. A small num- ber of online classes will continue to re- quire registration. The district also announced that Juni- per Swim & Fitness Center’s south lobby, fitness center cycling and group exercise rooms will be open starting Monday , as well as locker rooms and family changing rooms. A project to renovate the indoor pool is ongoing and expected to be complete later this summer. See Pride / A4 See Pools / A4 PHOTOS: Performers dance as the crowd cheers during Drag Brunch at 10 Barrel Brewing’s east-side location in Bend on Sunday. Pride Month’s largest event in Central Oregon will be held in Prineville on June 27. Ryan Brennecke/Bulletin photos 1969 Stonewall uprising in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, which sparked a liberation movement in the gay community. OUT Central Oregon is working with PFLAG Central Oregon to host a Pride fes- tival in Prineville on June 27. Smaller events will be held in Bend, Redmond and Prineville in the days before the festival. Details can be found on the OUT Central Oregon and PFLAG websites. INDEX Business Classifieds Comics A11,13 A14 A9-10 Dear Abby Editorial Horoscope A7 A8 A7 Kid Scoop Local/State Lottery A12 A2-3 A6 Obituaries Puzzles Sports A4 A10 A5-7 The Bulletin An Independent Newspaper We use recycled newsprint Vol. 117, No. 329, 14 pages, 1 section DAILY hortly after moving to Bend in 2017, RJ Quiris came out as gay. The then 25-year-old banker from Portland wanted to explore his new identity in his new town. He made friends at LGBTQ nights at The Dogwood Cocktail Cabin in downtown Bend and met members of OUT Central Oregon, where he now serves as a board member. Quiris also started performing in drag. Quiris blossomed in Bend — until the pan- demic arrived. Those experiences and friendships started to fade after the COVID-19 pandemic led to canceled events and social distancing. For the past 15 months, Quiris and many others in the LGBTQ community felt especially isolated and unable to gather with others to help cel- ebrate and discover their gender and sexuality. “If you don’t have somewhere to go to see people similar to you, it really can bring you down and make you feel like you are alone,” Quiris said. “It made me feel re-isolated.” This month — as the nation recognizes Pride Month — local leaders in the LGBTQ community are thrilled to have events planned. The annual Pride Month honors the The Legislature issued an eviction order to itself on Monday, saying it had to wrap up its work and get out of the Capitol in under two weeks. The official session calendar given to lawmakers says Friday is the target date to go home. With fatigued lawmakers and staff eye- ing the exits, the buzz that the House and Senate were close to calling it a year proved no more than very wishful thinking. “Bizarre rumors,” said House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland, said during a Monday press call. She listed the to-do list: • Plans on how to spend billions of dol- lars are being cobbled together by the top budget committee, which will then need an up or down vote from the House and Senate. • A suddenly yawning gap between the end of the state’s current rental eviction moratorium and the earliest a plan can get in place to get money for landlords to hold off from kicking tenants to the curb if they can’t pay their latest rent bills. • Key constituencies who have helped Democrats build big majorities in the House and Senate expect promised action. • Environmentalists want a clean elec- tricity bill. U|xaIICGHy02329lz[