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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.
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