Well, I guess I've seen it all. The editorial in the Cascade Business News this week, "City of Bend at a Crossroads", actually has some mild criticism for the Bend City Councilors. Now mind you, anyone who can fog a mirror knows that the City Counsilors of Bend have blown millions on idiotic escapades like paying 1,000% markup for lemon City buses, passing patently illegal laws for penalizing mobile home park owners, and The Biggie, the $12MM (or so) Mtn High water system boondoggle. I've written about this stuff ad nauseum. I have also cheered the resignation of lawyer John Hummel from his seat, as he is a lawyer, and should have known more than anyone else that what the City was doing was outrageous, in so far as the Mtn High & mobile home legislation. I don't have an axe to grind with these people (as has been stated frequently in the comments), I am just tired of having City Councilors blow taxpayer money like it grows on trees.
Getting back to CBN and Pamela Hulse Andrews (the editor & owner), anyone whose read these posts knows I think her rag is a laughing stock. It is a RE ra-ra rag, with little that could be called news. But Hulse-Andrews actually goes after Bend City Coucilors (one of whom is her husband, Andy Andrews) this week as possibly doing a bad job. As I said, even dullards like me saw this 100 years ago. But Hulse Andrews has ignored this and other blatant problems with this town, with the attitude that if we all cheerlead loudly & furiously enough, it'll all work out. But she doesn't this time, and actually has what could be construed as "unkind words" about the performance of City Councilors.
So this week, I salute you Pamela Hulse Andrews. You actually wrote a piece with some semblance of truth, that does not relentlessly cheerlead and insult our collective intelligence, and perhaps most of all, you directly quote your own husband as being part of a flawed organization:
In fact, City Manager Andy Anderson has admitted they may not have done a good job of due diligence.
Good job PHA. Now KEEP IT UP.
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CBN actually uses the "S" word with respect to Bend RE:
Housing Slump Shows Signs of Rebounding in 2007
by TOM HAMILTON, CBN Senior Editor
While many in the sold-out audience at the Riverhouse Convention Center did not get the resounding news that the six-month housing slump in Central Oregon was over, there were plenty of encouraging signs at the 2007 Real Estate Forecast Breakfast sponsored by Columbia River Bank.
I mean they say that we've been in a slump. Pretty amazing.
There are some strange contradictions:
"Becky Breeze...predicted that the current correction would continue on course through the year."
Then the next sentence:
"The sky is not falling and there is still a phenomenal market here with relatively low interest rates," said Breeze
So, what is it? Correction or phenomenal market?
Bratton feels the industry is on "the bounce back" with current median home prices in Bend at $350,000 and stabilizing in 2007, perhaps peaking at $380,000 before the year concludes.
This Bratton guy is an appraiser. Who's more optimistic, Realtors or Appraisers? If we hit medians of $380,000 this year, I'll eat my own head.
Yeah, there finally seems to be a wake-up call happening with media in Bend, that flogging the same old "We're All All Right" theme with respect to RE is really losing them credibility. I think they got enough RE "insiders" who have admitted publicly that the market sucks, so they feel safe in writing articles about it, w/o threatening their advertising base. I'd expect to see more of this sort of thing come out in the future.
One correction, and I'm staying the hell out of this stuff otherwise - Andy Andrews, Pamela Hulse Andrews' husband, is not and has never been a Bend city councilor, or sought to be one. He did run for county commissioner a few years back. (And there were, um, some folks who confused him with Andy Anderson, the city manager. Similar names and all that.)
Paul,
Bring back the focus, mabrutha. You were coming into your own. I've been really enjoying your blog but one big part about being a bubble-blogger is BEING RIGHT. It's the "broken windows theory" as applied to blogging. You gotta be right about the little stuff to have credibility on the big stuff, on which, by the way, I think you have it dialed.
Don't forget the Les Schwab / Juniper Ridge giveaway. Don Corleone would have been proud of the Schwabbies' tactics -- and the city rolled over for them.
Scuttlebutt I've been hearing is that Andy Anderson won't be around much longer. Anybody else hear that?
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